by Greta Boris
"You mean besides your father? Who, as it turns out, she needn't have been worried about." Abby pressed her lips together, and stayed silent. "So, you're telling me Tarik and his son brought this sick girl to the Mission and left her there, and Leena Basara was in on the whole thing?"
"Yes," Abby said.
"Wouldn't it have been better to come forward, then, at the time and let us know about it?"
"Of course. You have no idea how much I regret not doing that." Abby paused. "I saw Leena Basara one other time. At the market last night, before the fire. She crashed into a cracker display. I helped her clean them up. She must have been trying to stall me. Keep me in the store as long as possible, so her husband could start the fire."
"Did anyone else see her?"
Abby's eyes darted to Sylla. Her face was unreadable, but her shoulders had lifted a little. She'd straightened her spine just a millimeter. Was she beginning to believe Abby's story? "Yes. Yes, there was a store employee. I don't remember his name, but he was tall, had thinning hair, fortyish. I'm sure the store could tell you who was on duty."
Sylla made a note on the pad in front of her, then switched gears. "What did you and Carlos hope to accomplish at the Basara house today?"
"We were looking for evidence. Something we could bring to you to show you that these were the people you should be investigating, not my father."
Sylla glanced at the ceiling, then returned her gaze to Abby's. "You seem frantic to absolve him from crimes you're not certain he's accused of."
"You insinuated. . ." The acrid smell of the coffee made Abby feel sick. She pushed the cup away.
"Insinuated what?"
"That he's some weirdo lunatic who likes to lock up girls."
"Is he?"
Abby stared at her without reacting for several long seconds. "No," she said. "I've already told you, I was the one who came up with the idea for the anchorhold. I talked him into helping me cloister myself so I could write my—"
"Right," Sylla interrupted. "Your book."
"Don't you think it's a bit odd that Tarik Basara was shot today?" Abby raised her voice in frustration. "Doesn't that make you suspicious at all?"
"It is. But it isn't nearly as odd as building a cell at the Mission and imprisoning someone in it." They stared at each other for a long moment. When Sylla spoke again, her voice was devoid of emotion. "It's very possible you were at the Basara house for another purpose, happened upon a robbery in progress, and decided to take advantage of the circumstances to spin a story. It's also possible your father and the Basaras both had culpability in the girl's death."
"That's crazy," Abby said.
"I don't know, the M.E. seems to think the dead girl was most likely imprisoned somewhere for a time. She was unnaturally pale, malnourished, dehydrated, and ill with tuberculosis, a treatable disease. Then I find a cell where someone was imprisoned. I also know the man who built the cell, and he admits he tended someone who was locked inside it."
Abby rose from her seat. "But I was the one in the cell."
Sylla relaxed her shoulders. "No proof. Not even a fingerprint." She paused to let her words sink in.
Abby lowered her eyes and her voice. "I wiped the cell clean."
Silence filled the interview room. Sylla sighed. "Your efforts to protect yourself from us continually backfire, don't they?"
It was pointless arguing. She was right. "Can I go now?"
"Please," Sylla said.
Carlos was sitting by the window when Abby entered the lobby. He looked up, a question in his brown eyes. But she didn’t say a word as she sank down next to him.
"How'd it go?"
"It's a mess." Abby spun toward him. "She doesn't believe me. Not that I can blame her. She still thinks it's possible my father locked that girl up in the anchorhold. That's why he built it."
"But what about the Basaras? What about the fact Tarik was shot?"
"She said it could have been a robbery, like Leena said. That we're trying to capitalize on their trouble for our own benefit. Or, maybe the Basaras were in on the whole thing with Dad. Who knows.” Abby took a deep breath before continuing.
“When she came by the Mission this morning, she seemed sympathetic for the first time. I think she was beginning to believe us. But going to the Basara house, being there when the husband was shot, it made her more suspicious of us, not less."
Carlos massaged his forehead. "She doesn't have any proof your dad ever set eyes on that girl. All she has is suspicion." Abby wasn't encouraged.
"Carlos." Sylla stood near the lobby desk. "Can you come back?"
"Suspicion ruined our lives once." Abby felt heavy with misery.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 6:35 AM
The Wife
A NURSE PUT a hand on my shoulder. "We need to take him." Tarik was dead. I would mourn him later. Right now I was angry. Angry he'd left me alone to deal with the aftermath of his poor decisions.
I don't know how long I'd been sitting there by his body. The nurses believed I was in shock, grieving. But my mind had been racing. It was up to me now to protect my son.
I stood. "Yes, of course."
I stumbled into the cold hallway. The lights were brighter there, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. While they did, I steeled my resolve. I had no time to be a weak widow, an emotional wreck. Since I'd had Michael, my oldest, I had been a mother first, a wife second.
I strode to the elevators fueled by primal, protective instincts. I descended to the ground floor and exited the building through the emergency room. The brisk walk up the sidewalk and through the parking lot to the main lobby cleared my mind. Fear and rage are powerful motivators.
"Seb Skandalis's room, please," I said. The gray-haired woman at the information desk typed the name into her computer and gave me a room number. So he had been brought to the same hospital as Tarik. The ambulances had looked the same, but I hadn't been sure.
There was a uniformed officer in the hallway outside his room. He was young. He didn't look any older than Michael, but of course he must have been. I picked up my pace. "How is he?" I said breathlessly, as if I'd been rushing.
The officer shrugged. "I'm not a doctor."
"Can I see him?"
"No visitors. Sorry."
"I'm his lawyer," I lied.
The officer turned a bland face toward me, and cocked his head to one side as if to say, so what?
"You can't keep his lawyer out." I spoke softly, but used the maternal tone of authority my children obeyed. I hoped he wouldn't ask me for I.D.
His eyes slid right, then left, and he gave me a short nod. "A few minutes."
I entered the room. Sun warmed the pale walls and Skandalis's pale skin. His bed was partially inclined. A white bandage adorned his head like a cap. His eyes were open. They widened when he saw me.
"I don't have much time," I said. "So listen to me. Tarik is dead. I told the police it was a home invasion. That you shot him when you were trying to rob us." He watched me through bloodshot eyes as I approached his bed. "I assume you haven't spoken to them yet."
"My lawyer is on his way," Skandalis said. Just as I thought. A man with a side business as lucrative and as illegal as his would know his way through the legal system.
"Tarik's death means you'll be charged with felony murder."
"So it would seem."
"That's a life sentence or a death sentence."
His eyes moved to the ceiling. He inhaled loudly. "Why are you here? To gloat?" The words came in a torrent of breath.
"I need your help."
He laughed, a sound like the rattle of dead leaves, then winced as if it had pained him. "Mine? How can I help you from a prison cell?"
"Maybe I can help you avoid that cell." He stared at me. "We have a mutual problem—Abby Travers. She's the only one who can identify my son as one of the people involved with Hannah's death. The police will have no problem tracing Hannah to you through hi
m thanks to your idiotic decision to shoot Tarik."
"The daughter, eh? How do you know?"
"I had my suspicions. Detective Sylla confirmed them. She asked me why I was snooping around the Mission the day after Hannah was found, although I'm sure no one I knew saw me that day. She also asked if I was at a certain market the night of the fire. The only one who knew I was there was Abby. And, I heard the way Abby spoke to the police after Tarik was shot. She's our problem. Trust me."
"A shame I bent my fender on her father."
The simmering rage in my stomach boiled over and threatened my calculated calm. I crossed to the window, looked out on the parking lot, and swallowed the bile rising in my throat. Skandalis was an odious man.
Michael. I must focus on Michael. I couldn't let my hatred of the man destroy the only hope I saw for my son. I willed my pulse to slow and turned. "Abby can not be allowed to testify in court," I said.
"How do you propose we avoid that?"
I took two long strides and brought my face close to his. His jaw tensed, but that was the only indication my proximity alarmed him. "She needs to disappear."
"You want me to kill her?" Humor lit his face.
"I don't care what happens to her, but I want it to appear that she's run. Left town. The police already suspect her and her father; let them think she's disappeared because she's guilty and afraid."
"I don't see how this helps me if I'm charged with murdering your husband. Forgive me, but avoiding a second life sentence is an empty threat."
"If you shot Tarik in self-defense, or in defense of another, you could get off with a good lawyer."
"Who is it I was supposed to be defending? Just so I know."
"Me."
"Did I hear a domestic battle raging as I walked by on the street then rush to your rescue?"
I thought about that for a long moment. "No. I think you and I are lovers."
He snorted.
"I don't find the idea any more palatable than you do, but I think it's the best explanation."
"So Tarik discovers our affair and decides if he can't have you no one can?"
"Yes. I told him I was leaving. I was going away with you. He flew into a rage." I paced the small room as I thought through the scenario. "I locked myself in the bedroom, fearful of what he would do and called you.
"The story has legs." He looked thoughtful. "Most Americans think Middle Eastern men are wife abusers." I stopped pacing and stared at him. I wanted to tell him what I thought of him. To slap the superiority off his face. But I couldn't allow myself the luxury of being offended, so I kept my mouth shut. "I show up with my gun," he went on. "Because I know how dangerous he can be."
"Yes," I said between tight lips. "But you didn't intend to use it. Only to scare him. Control him."
"Of course. I'm a wonderful man. But unfortunately, he attacked me."
"In the fight, the gun went off. It was an accident." I finished the story, and we locked eyes. "Can your lawyer get you out on bail with that?"
"If he can't, I'll find a new lawyer."
I sank into the chair by his bed. The energy I'd felt earlier was beginning to wane. Working with this man, aiding him, allowing people to think he was my lover made my stomach rebel. But it had to be done.
"There is one problem," he said. "You already told the police you didn't know me, that I was a robber."
I waved a hand. "Abused wives say what their husbands want them to say. I'll tell the police I was afraid to tell the truth. But now that Tarik is dead, I have nothing more to fear."
The young officer stuck his head in the door. "I thought you said you were his lawyer?" A bald man in a black suit pushed past him.
"I'm amassing a team," Skandalis said.
He was evil, but he was smart. He instantly realized the ploy I must have used to enter his room and played along. I found some small comfort in that. "I'm leaving anyway," I said, and did.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 11:45 AM
ABBY STOOD IN the front yard of her childhood home and surveyed the destruction. Everything to the right of the central hallway was intact. It smelled like smoke, but it stood. The left side of the house, which had included the kitchen and her father's office, was a charred skeleton.
She pushed open the front door and took a tentative step inside. The floor held her weight. Her father was being released from the hospital later today. He'd need some things to tide him over until he could move home again.
She entered his bedroom, pulled a suitcase from the shelf in his closet, sniffed it and put it back. She planned to take his clothes to the laundromat. But if she put them into that suitcase after washing them, she might as well save her quarters.
They kept garbage bags in the broom closet near the kitchen. She wondered if they were a melted mess. They weren't. They weren't there at all. The rear wall of the closet had burned. When she opened its door, instead of seeing brooms, mops, and cleaning supplies, she saw the burned out hull of the kitchen.
A black refrigerator sat across from a black dishwasher. The sink lay on its side in a pile of rubble. But the sight that wrenched a sob from her was the old pine table. The table where her family had eaten countless meals, where they'd celebrated birthdays and holidays, where she'd played Monopoly with Scottie on rainy days. It was now a rectangle of ash.
And buried in the ash was a bit of soot-covered metal. Her laptop.
She'd never done what writers are told to do. She'd never backed up her work in the cloud or on a hard drive. She'd planned to, but things hadn't gone the way she'd expected. She'd been distracted. Never got around to it. Her research notes, her journal, everything she'd done was gone. All that was left of her work were the printed pages in Sylla's possession.
She'd entered the anchorhold to be alone, to experience the solitary life of the anchorite. She'd never lived by herself. She'd moved from her parent's home to the apartment with Sharona. Even though she'd dragged her feet, she'd assumed she'd move from there into a place with Carlos one day. The idea of cloistering herself for forty days had seemed so adventurous, so exciting. She'd thought herself so independent.
What a laugh.
Independence had been a complete illusion. Or, maybe delusion was a better word. Except for in infancy, she'd never been more reliant on another person.
She bristled when her father or Carlos tried to influence her. But it was obvious now all her years of waffling, hesitation, procrastination, and indecision had only been possible because of them. Her one original idea, to hide in the anchorhold, had been a hypothetical until her father made it reality.
She'd never become an anchorite. She'd never actually separated herself from society. The conversations of staff and visitors rang around her during the day, but she hadn't been of service to them. Her father had come every night. Why? To take care of her. She'd been like a little girl playing at being an adult.
Tallulah's words came ringing back, Life is a messy business. Abby had been scared of the mess as long as she could remember. She'd retreated and watched others instead of taking part. Why? She didn't want to make a mistake. It wasn't hard to keep your hands clean when you weren't participating, weren't taking any risks.
At least that's what she'd thought. But here she was, the ashes of everything that had meant anything scattered around her. She may not have lit the match, but she hadn't doused the fire either. Sins of omission could wreak as much havoc as those of commission. Here was the evidence.
Abby heard a car pull up the long drive and wandered to the doorway. Maybe Carlos had decided to stop by and see how she was doing. But no, it was the newspaper delivery man. She fought off a feeling of disappointment. It was good it wasn't Carlos. She was glad. She wouldn't let herself cling to him anymore.
The car window opened, a hand shot out, and a paper fell onto the lawn. Abby laughed out loud. Her father had The Orange County Register delivered to the house every day as far back as she could remember. The mun
dane circumstances of day to day life went on despite their personal devastation. Ironic, wasn't it?
She walked out into the warm sunshine, picked up the paper, and took it to the outside trash cans at the rear of the house. They were still there, unchanged except for a layer of soot on the lids.
She returned to the front yard and stood for a long time allowing the sun to warm her. She was about to go in again when another car turned up the drive.
She shaded her eyes with a hand. It wasn't Carlos's truck, nor did it belong to the Jacksons. It was an unfamiliar white SUV. She watched it pull up to the house and stop.
A dark-haired woman emerged from the driver’s side. She was dressed simply in gray trousers and a blouse, but Abby could tell the clothes were expensive. It was a moment before she could see the woman's face clearly because of the sun's glare. When she did, her pulse quickened. It was the Basara woman. What was she doing here? Hadn’t her husband just died?
She walked toward Abby with a tentative smile on her face. "Abby Travers?" Her accent, a cross between British and something unfamiliar, was cultured.
"What do you want?" The harshness of Abby's tone rang in stark contrast to the woman's smooth one.
Leena Basara stopped. "We are not enemies." Abby didn't respond. Of course, they were. This woman had tried to kill her father. "I think we can help each other."
"Really?" Abby said. "The only way I see that you could help me is if you went to the police and confessed everything you and your husband did. Including this." She gestured to the house behind her.
"I had nothing to do with the fire," Leena said.
Abby laughed. This day was turning out to be a humorous one. "You assaulted me with cracker boxes for fun?"
Leena's lips became a thin line. "My husband did tell me to distract you, to keep you away from home as long as I could." Her voice broke. "But, I swear to you, I had no idea what he had planned. He told me he was only going to talk to your father. To find out what he'd seen the night the girl died at the Mission."