Chapter Twenty-Five
Kira
Kira was glad that the sun was going down.
She’d watched what there was on TV, which was nothing that she could remember beyond color and movement. With twitchy fingers, Kira tried to scroll through a book on her reading app. But her mind kept wandering.
She didn’t even have her novels to pull her focus into something other than her present circumstances.
Kira knew those novels were safe in Iniquus's hands, but she felt odd that they weren’t with her.
They were such an important part of her life, and she’d treated them with such reverence and care.
Perhaps this was how London felt when her dog, Princess Beatrice, stayed with Kira.
Her feelings mirrored the longing quality in London’s voice when she made her daily check-in calls.
Those novels held a woman’s voice and soul.
And Kira was responsible for keeping it alive.
Houston had made two indications that there were electronics.
Kira knew a little bit about scent training from Ty’s work with Rory. One of the very first games they played was “Where’s Kira?” as she hid in the woods.
She knew, for example, that dogs could smell a drop of gasoline in a pool of water, which meant that if the wedding album had been stored under the television or behind an ancient VCR, perhaps beside a computer, it might have picked up ambient odors.
That made more sense to Kira than anything else that her imagination wanted her to consider.
Electronics?
Was she being listened to?
What would anyone possibly have heard?
Kira moved into the little bathroom, pulled back the white shower curtain, and started to fill the tub. She picked up one of the complimentary shampoos and breathed deeply of the fresh herbaceous scent.
Undressing, Kira lowered herself into the cold water from the faucet as it began to mix with the scalding hot water she loved, water hot enough to turn her flesh pink and make Ty declare her flesh was asbestos.
At her little house, her brass standalone tub with its rounded neck let her sink into the water, imagining Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters doing needlepoint in the salon while the servants walked in with a jug of hot water from the stove to re-warm up the cooling bath.
If Kira lived at the family compound in Qatar, she would have servants to assist her in bathing and styling her hair. They’d rub her skin with rose-scented oils.
Kira didn’t mind a little pampering on a special occasion, but she found it intrusive as a way of life now that modern conveniences like water heaters made the distracting, cat-footed movements pattering in and out of the room unnecessary.
Kira preferred daydreaming in peace.
Back when she’d decorated her house, Kira had designed her master bath after a scene from the film version of Pride and Prejudice with the bathing Mr. Darcy.
Kira had been attracted to his character arc.
Many people thought that Jane Austen’s real-world several-hours-long engagement to Bigg-Wither was the template for Darcy, since he, too, was socially awkward.
Sometimes life imitates art: Pride and Prejudice was penned years before Austen’s own proposal came . .. and went.
One of Kira’s professors maintained that Darcy was a high-masking autistic character, citing impaired social communication, sensory and social overload, literalism, and moral rigidity.
But if that were true—and there was no way to tell—then the youngest Bennet daughter, Mary, certainly had similar characteristics.
As for Darcy, Kira preferred this rather than Jane’s interpretation of arrogance and pride.
Kira’s own love story with Ty was not a similar arc.
When she met Ty, he was a character that stepped from a favorite film; all she needed to do was squint her eyes a bit as he moved through the scene, breaking from the script only to save the life of London’s Princess Bea, who had bolted into the road.
There were butterflies in her stomach from the first.
And grief at the impossibility of them ever exploring a future.
Followed by the realization that Ty was a mirage, an illusion, a lie.
And yet, she didn’t throw him out.
She didn’t.
She felt too connected to him, and his lies led to her survival.
Still, Kira hoped for something that would take away the sense that all was not as it seemed.
She wondered if a pawn could ever transform into the queen or if she’d just be moved around the game board by the people in her life who were willing to sacrifice her to clear a route for some preferred position.
Lying there in the tub, staring at the shiny white tiles, Kira thought she’d be better if she could hear Ty’s voice. She wanted to use him, too, Kira realized. She thought that with him and Rory in the picture, she would be safe.
Kira desperately wanted to feel safe.
This was certainly not the time to think about the possibility of her own personal happily ever after.
Uncle Nadir had sent someone to bring her home.
She knew something. Innocently or not, Kira knew something.
The thought burrowed down into her intestines, where it immediately began to ferment.
With the water in the tub turned cold, the tinnitus in her ears ringing and ringing, and the buzz at the tip of her nose about to drive her mad, Kira opened the drain and stood.
After drying herself off, she wrapped herself in a towel and padded into the bedroom to rummage through her suitcase for a change of clothes. Choosing a pair of yoga pants and one of Ty’s oversized T-shirts, Kira realized that she still hadn’t eaten.
She wasn’t hungry, but she didn’t want to wake up with a growling stomach after the kitchen was closed.
So she picked up the room service menu. Chewing seemed like a lot.
Kira went for comfort food, choosing a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
After placing the call to the kitchen, Kira’s burner phone rang.
She had to laugh at herself, the way her heart jumped into her throat.
Tapping the phone, before Kira had time to say hello, she heard. “It’s Lynx. Gator and I are swinging by to check on you. We’re bringing your album back to you.”
“All done? Did they find anything?” Kira picked up her normal phone from the table and slid it in the side pocket of her yoga pants, so she’d have it handy to pull up Lula’s number, then text her on the burner once she had information about the album.
“We’ll talk about it in person. We’re bringing a friend with us, Steve Finley.”
“Is he with Iniquus?”
“No, he’s a special agent with the FBI. I’m just giving you a heads up that we replaced Houston with a friend of ours,” Lynx said.
“Not pettable, then,” Kira said, aiming for levity. “I’ve just ordered dinner. Should I order something for you three?”
Lynx says, “You go ahead and eat. We already grabbed sandwiches at work. It’ll take a little time to get over there. We’ve got to deal with traffic.”
Kira stood without a thought in her head as she looked out the window at the hotel pool, not yet warm enough for the hotel guests. A few more months, and it would be filled with kids making cannonballs.
And there she stood as if rooted until there was a knock at her door.
Kira looked through the peephole to find one of the hotel staff pushing a trolley.
She focused on the food, the thick slices of sourdough bread fried to a golden brown, the edges dripping with cheese. This was definitely her order.
When Kira pulled the door open, the man identified himself and rolled the trolley in, positioning it in front of the armchair.
Kira handed him a five-dollar bill as he bowed and moved out the door.
He was pulling it to, when she heard other voices in the hall.
Kira plunged forward to shut the door and twist the locks, but before she could get there, two men walked in, dressed in dark suits. A gun was in the first man’s hand, and his finger came to his lips.
The second man moved the do-not-disturb sign into place, then shut and locked the door.
The second man looked at the table where Kira had put her burner phone. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.
“You’ll excuse me,” Kira said, moving to the chair and sitting down, “but my dinner just arrived, and I prefer to eat it hot.” She looked over her shoulder at the room phone and said, “You’re welcome to call for something. The kitchen is pretty fast.”
The second man walked to the landline and ripped it from the wall.
Kira pulled the trolley up to cover her knees, then unfolded her napkin and put it on her lap, using the gesture to hide her moves as she pulled her cell phone from her pocket.
As the men wandered around her little suite, looking behind curtains and in the closet, Kira turned off the airplane mode and tapped the CIA panic button, then she slid the phone between her legs, letting it fall to the ground, and tapped it with her foot until it moved under the skirt of the chair.
She had no idea what the panic button did, but it might mean help.
Gator, with Lynx and their FBI friend, was winding through traffic to check on her.
Stalling the next steps felt like the right choice.
Kira picked up her sandwich and took a bite.
The man with the gun came in, pulled a chair from under the table, and moved it in front of Kira. He let the pistol dangle between his knees, lowering the threat level. “I'm here at the behest of your Uncle Nadir. He would like to know why you are in Washington, D.C.”
Kira took another bite of her sandwich to give herself a moment to think.
She swallowed and said, “My uncle should know why I'd be in D.C. My friend Christen Davidson is traveling here, in hopes of getting a flight to Tanzania. She’s very upset about her dad’s health and needs my support.
If you’ve talked to my uncle, maybe you have an update on William Davidson's condition?”
The man with the gun pulled a phone out of his pocket, pressed a button, and said, “She’s here.”
“Kira.” Her uncle’s voice was a snarl.
“Hello.”
“I can’t find her computer,” said the second man.