Chapter Twenty-Two
Kira
They gave her a burner phone, Kira thought in astonishment.
This was Lula’s world, not hers.
If Gator and Lynx thought someone could track her phone, how else might they find her?
Kira had inherited enough wealth from her father to live comfortably, if not luxuriously, for the rest of her life.
Her family, though, led by Uncle Nadir at its helm, was of the billionaire class.
He didn’t believe that laws applied to him.
If her Uncle Nadir was trying to track her down, couldn’t he make a quick call to the president of her bank and ask a little favor?
Would he even know what bank she used? Surely yes. She used the same bank as her parents had used. Her mom could have told what bank was in play. And who knew, Uncle Nadir might have been following her accounts for years.
Kira would have to figure out what to do with her money. Maybe she could go to a different bank the next day, open a new account, and have the funds transferred over. Maybe something local that didn’t have branches that her uncle could breach.
Lynx broke into Kira’s thoughts. “Is that the ring that Lula brought you?”
“Are you coming to my room with me?” Kira asked. “I’ll show you the note.”
“Let’s do that,” Lynx said, lifting her chin toward Gator, who was making his way over to them.
“Ready?” Gator rolled her bags to the hallway. “Elevator’s this way.”
Fatigue dragged on Kira, and she was grateful that they were silent in the elevator, in the hall, and as they moved into her suite. Gator took her bags into the bedroom and laid them on the bed.
Kira handed the ring to Lynx and showed her the catch.
“You were familiar with this ring?” Lynx asked as she gently pulled the note free.
“I was there when London originally got it.”
From her purse, Lynx took what looked like a lock-picking tool, but what did Kira know of such things? Lynx worked on unfolding the paper, then read it aloud to Gator.
“You got this from Lula?” Gator asked.
“Lula was visiting when London asked her to get it to me.”
“When?” Gator asked.
“Good question, “ Kira said. “I don’t know.”
Gator nodded and left the room. A moment later, she heard him talking on his phone.
“Lula came to Durham to give you this?” Lynx asked.
“Yes, and to say hi. Lula spent some time helping calm me down because the shop Ty and I were in to buy his mom a birthday gift was robbed while we were there. Ty was glad to have someone with me. He had to get back to the base for a training mission. Then it switched to a mission-mission.”
Lynx’s demeanor changed. It was subtle, but there was a bubble of extra interest that Kira couldn’t quite place.
No one had told Kira the whole story, but there had been a danger to the men in Delta Force, and the wives sometimes mentioned an incident in cryptic speak. She knew that Strike Force had been involved with saving them—that’s how Ty knew everyone when he went to Gator’s wedding.
“When I was asking you about your security, I got the sense that you thought you were being watched even before you got this note. This note was a confirmation rather than news.”
Kira frowned.
“How long have you felt that way?” Lynx asked gently.
Kira pinched the end of her nose while she tried to decide. “Two weeks, I’d say.”
“What did Lula say when she saw the note from London?”
“I hadn’t opened London’s note until after Lula left.” Lynx looked up when Gator came back into the room.
“Black said White was in Qatar for three days. On the way back to the States, she stopped to refuel, then flew to a small airport outside of Fort Bragg yesterday morning to start the next stage of a mission.”
“I thought she had probably tapped Echo,” Kira said, “because Ty didn’t come home from his training evolution.”
“Kira, what would a private investigator have seen if they’ve been tracking you for, let’s say, several weeks?” Lynx asked as Gator took a seat on the sofa.
“Ty,” Kira said flatly. “Ty stays with me as much as he can. I occasionally stay on the base at his house, but the investigator would know I was inviting a man into my home overnight, which would be seen as a dishonor to the family.”
“We can speculate that whoever was following you knew about Ty because about an hour before you reached the fort, a bomb scare was called in. The timing seems too coincidental to discount that they wouldn’t be able to guess where you were going, and they didn’t want you out of their reach.”
“Why?” Gator asked. “Christen said you ain’t heard nothing from your uncle since our wedding. What happened a few weeks ago?”
“In Qatar?” Kira slid off her chair to sit cross-legged next to Houston.
“Nothing, well, no, that isn’t true, two things.
At the beginning of the month, the family was afraid that Uncle Nadir had been killed in a boating accident when he was in Singapore, and it took about a day to find that he was fine and that he’d flown to Tanzania with William.
Then, just after that, the war started.”
“After you hung up with the police,” Lynx said, softening her voice and leaning in, “you said you didn’t think that you’d be going home ever again. Do you think it would be okay if I look through what you decided to bring with you?”
“I …” Kira blinked. “Yes, of course. Why?”
“Oh, you know, when you were under stress and throwing things into your bag, you might have grabbed the thing that would be a clue.”
“I would have to know something for it to be a clue. I don’t know anything.”
“Brains are magical things,” Lynx said and stood to walk toward the bedroom, and Kira came to her feet to follow behind.
“They take in millions of data points way more than we could process. Over the years, you might have seen or heard something that didn’t stand out enough to your brain to call your attention to it in the moment.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t paying attention.
Your brain might have been storing something away for a moment when you needed it to survive. ”
Kira opened her suitcase and spread the sides wide.
On top was the picture of her and Ty wrapped in the pink silk ribbon. Lynx smiled at it and set it carefully on Kira’s pillow.
Gator leaned into the wall with Houston sitting at his side.
As Lynx took out each item and looked it over, Kira moved to the slipper chair by the window.
Why now?
Lynx thought that was an important question, too.
That was the thought that kept running through her mind, and she kept going back to a dinner party. It was a beautiful June night in Qatar before London got married; the moon was full the garden was heady with the scent of roses.
The women had made the courtyard festive with strings of tiny lights, and Aunt Fatima had hired musicians to sit under the olive tree and play lively music for dancing.
The tables were laden with food. Sambuusa and shawarma platters, machboos—a platter of spiced rice and meat, that night it had been lamb.
Fruits. Nuts. Oh, and the desserts, cheese-filled pastries, dripping with syrup, rich custards scented with rose water, saffron, and pistachio.
And the ubiquitous dates. The women flitted about like a kaleidoscope of butterflies in their rich satins, heavy with beading and sequins.
And Kira had been ill at ease.
It all seemed decadent and ill-placed, and she hated the conversations that floated through the air as the men sat around, talking about what they wanted to conquer in the world of commerce, no matter how they screwed over the regular families who were just trying to get by.
Lynx had turned to sit on the bed. Her hand painted over the nineteen-thirties-style wedding album.
It was padded white satin aged to yellow, and held the four novels from the 1800s, written in secret by a woman with a poetic heart, and hidden under the pictures.
After all, what man would go look through a wedding album?
Houston moved over to the album and was sniffing it over, and Kira wanted to stop him, lest he get any doggy drool on the antique cover.
But she kept quiet. There was something strange about Houston’s concentration.
He sat and lifted a paw with a whine.
Lynx looked up to catch Gator's gaze. They’d both focused on Houston.
Lynx laid the album on the bed and walked over to stand next to Gator, calling Houston to stand in front of her. Then, she commanded, “Houston, find electronics.”