Two From Isaac's House

by Normandie Fischer

  She turned left, then left again. Her breathing grew labored as her sandals slapped the concrete. She didn’t dare slow her pace. Not yet.

  The buildings suddenly seemed squatter, older, not at all like those off the boulevard fronting the hotel. She was lost.

  The tail of his jacket and one loafered foot disappeared through a doorway. Was he using ineptitude to frighten her? Pretending to be an amateur and not a very good one so she’d lower her guard?

  But an amateur might be even more dangerous than someone who knew what he was doing, because a pro wouldn’t confuse her with the bad guys, would he? She scurried to the next block. Surely, if she kept going, she’d find her way to something recognizable.

  That idea of amateur versus professional almost brought her up short as another light bulb flipped on: what exactly was she imagining here? An amateur at what? Detection? Murder?

  She released a little cry and hoofed it. Then she saw a familiar restaurant, which meant she only had to zip through that alley and she’d be at the back of the hotel and the garage. She still had a key card. She could do it, but she’d need time to shut the gate again.

  Traffic had thinned. She didn’t pause to glance back, just dashed up, slipped the key in, and pretended she was invisible as the gate lifted. It seemed to take an eternity to create a gap big enough for her to duck under. When she did check, the sidewalk was empty.

  She pressed the button to close the gate and dodged past cars and down a couple of rows toward the back door and the elevator. Before she’d had time to feel relief, footfalls echoed on the concrete behind her. Someone else had slipped through.

  She crouched behind a car two rows back from the gate, barely breathing. He was here, inside this closed space, with her. How could she have been so stupid? She’d never make it up the stairs before he grabbed her.

  His breath rasped as his footsteps stilled. He moved again, this time slowly, cautiously. She couldn’t tell his direction, because all sounds echoed in the cavernous space, but he didn’t seem to be coming closer. Perhaps his position paralleled hers, in another aisle. She crept around the back of the car as his footfalls slowly diminished. A match struck.

  What? He was smoking?

  She squinted at the mental image. Was this another ploy?

  And then his shoes were on the metal stairs. A door banged open, hitting the railing. Voices spoke in Hebrew. She peeked around the hood of the car. He paused, answered, also in Hebrew, and climbed the last step to the door. The light illuminated a pair of blue jeans and a white tee shirt. No gray jacket.

  She dusted herself off, took a few deep breaths, and followed whoever had just entered the hotel.

  Acie’s deep breathing greeted her as she closed the door to the room. She tiptoed to the window and pulled the curtain back. Below was a small outdoor car park and the entrance to a large office building across the street. Few shops occupied that block, nothing to attract a casual lounger. But there he was, her personal stalker, one shoulder leaning against a concrete column as he puffed on a cigarette. She recoiled.

  “Enjoy your walk?” Acie’s voice sounded lazy, half asleep.

  “No.” She turned from the window but kept the curtain slightly parted.

  Acie raised herself on one elbow and reached for her glasses. “Why? What happened?”

  She recounted the walk, the man, and his presence below. Acie jumped from bed.

  “Let me see.” After satisfying herself that there really was someone staking out the hotel, Acie flopped back against the bed pillows, grinning.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “No, I know it’s not.” Acie composed her features, but her eyes still danced. “What do you think it means, all of this?”

  “I wish I knew. It could be innocent, I suppose. I could be imagining everything. It just doesn’t feel like that, especially not after hearing about that man in Perugia, the one looking for me. You said he might have followed you here.”

  “No, I said he might know I’d come to Jerusalem. How could he have followed me?”

  She raked her hair back from her face. “I don’t know.”

  “Look,” Acie said, “that guy could just be an Israeli pappagallo who fell madly in love with you in the shop that day when he tried to give you his handkerchief, and he’s waiting for the courage to introduce himself.”

  “Sure. That’s why he ducked out of sight or play-acted whenever I looked back.” She paced between the window and the door, rubbing her hands down her thighs, trying to loosen tense muscles.

  “Maybe he’s Israeli secret police. They do have them over here, don’t they?”

  That brought her to a stop at the foot of the bed. “But why would they follow me?”

  “Well, why not? It would fit. All anyone would have to do is report to someone in the know that a suspicious American has arrived from Italy via Jordan, ostensibly to see her uncle. Instead of seeing said uncle, she travels the countryside. Oh, yeah, I can see Mossad—or whoever takes care of the odd American tourist—thinking they need to keep an eye out.”

  “And they’d know what happened in Italy? Wouldn’t they be too busy with the real terrorists to worry about me?”

  Acie shrugged. “Who knows? You’d think so, but all of Giorgio’s family is aware of your connection to Tony and some shady dealings. This means Roberto could have heard, which means that anyone keeping an eye on old Roberto might also consider you a person of interest.”

  “Really?” Rina paced and then stopped to peek out the window. The Man in Gray had collected a few cigarette butts at his feet. “What does Roberto have to do with me or my stalker?”

  “His connection to Ibrahim, his hatred of Israel, and money changing hands.”

  “Oh, my.” She slid down onto a chair. “This feels like a very bad movie. I never wanted to star in an action film, you know? Romance, fine. Bad guys roaming the screen, no.”

  “Poor Rina.” But Acie’s lips again turned up at the corners.

  Hers didn’t. “Poor Rina is right. But remember, poor Acie is hanging out in the same hotel room, so you’re not getting a free pass.”

  Acie pulled an extra pillow against her stomach, suddenly sober.

  “Supposing it’s related to the bodies in Italy,” Rina said, then shook her head. That didn’t compute. “No, forget that. If the police or Israel’s version of the FBI/CIA wanted to know something, they’d contact me, not follow me around town. I’m not some illegal alien, and I’m obviously not Palestinian.” She threw out her hands. “It’s too much. I mean, maybe we’re making more of this than we should. Do we really know that Ibrahim was driving the car that hit Nicco’s grandfather? And do we have proof that he was a gunman or that he abducted Tony?”

  “All we know,” Acie said, “is that he disappeared right after the hit and run, and they found papers linking him to Roberto.”

  “Okay, but all these coincidences, all this melodrama—bodies, Tony, now people following me—just doesn’t make sense. It certainly doesn’t seem tied to any reality I know about.”

  “I agree.”

  “I feel like the heroine of one of Aunt Luze’s novels, as if I might wake up any moment back in North Carolina, still engaged to Jason, still wishing something exciting would happen to me.”

  Acie tossed the pillow aside. “Frankly, if I picked up a book with all this craziness in it, I wouldn’t read past the first chapter. But then, I’m not much of a reader. Maybe a movie, but still I might laugh instead of taking it all seriously.”

  “Yes. Exactly. It can’t be real.”

  “But…”

  She waved Acie silent. “Look at it this way. If you take all this stuff, all the people we’ve run into, all the disappearing acts and the bodies, and you look at them, I mean, really pick them apart, what do you have? If you ask yourself, calmly, dispassionately, whether things like this actually happen to women like us—well, where are you? Ready for an asylum or dreaming. One or the other.”

  “Exce
pt, when you put them all together, they do sort of tie into one another.”

  “Like Ibrahim and Tony and the car, and me and Tony and being followed?”

  “Right, and Tony and Ibrahim disappearing, then someone asking about you.”

  “But if it’s all related to Tony, how could this guy know enough to follow me if he hasn’t seen Tony since Italy? How would he even know I had anything to do with Tony? Tony and I didn’t know each other long enough for him to have written to anyone in Jordan, and he wouldn’t have written here. Except, there were those torn photos.”

  “Exactly. So where does that leave us?” Acie took off her glasses and rubbed between her eyes.

  “Back in la-la land.”

  “In which Ibrahim smuggles Tony somewhere, and something happens there.”

  “But first, Tony would have to mention my name and my connection to Israel for the connection to show up.”

  “Not if we keep Ibrahim in the picture. Once he gets rid of Tony, he’d be just the sort to do something cruel, and he’d have known about your connection. Ibrahim could have initiated all this.” Acie headed to the bathroom, leaving the door open. “Did Tony give you any clue about what he did, besides being an engineer?”

  She raised her voice so Acie’d hear over the noise of running water. “No, but that bit about his company sending him to Perugia was bogus.”

  “Very cloak and dagger.”

  “Very.”

  “I vote we call the airlines and get out of here,” Acie said. “You can visit your uncle in a few years.”

  “But Tony’s dead, so what could happen now?”

  Acie came out, drying her hands and face on a towel. “If you think nothing more can happen, then why is Mr. Creepy down there? Someone must think you know something. If Tony was a spy, and it sounds as if he was a whole lot more than just an oil company engineer learning Italian, then maybe he was receiving some kind of information in Italy and didn’t have it on him when he got back. They could think you have it, whatever it is.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “Good, then just explain that to the nice terrorists, and they’ll go away. Problem solved.”

  “Now who’s being imaginative?”

  “But what if I’m right?”

  “Then it’s the next plane to Italy for you,” Rina said, falling back on her bed. “And to North Carolina for me.”

  Acie reached for the room phone. “As we don’t know who that guy is, I vote we order dinner. Salads and dessert?”

  “The perfect meal.”

  They managed to keep the conversation centered on less stressful topics during dinner and had just begun to contemplate sleep when the phone jangled. Rina reached over to answer it.

  “Miss Roberts, this is the front desk. There’s a gentleman down here asking for you. Do you want me to send him to your room, or will you come down?”

  “He’s not wearing a gray jacket, is he?”

  “No. A light linen one, miss.”

  “Thank you. I’ll come down.”

  She felt the grin widen. “Do you think? Finally?” She slipped into her sandals. “It must be him this time, don’t you think? It must be Uncle Adam.”

  Acie just grinned.

  Rina’s heart thudded as she punched the button for the elevator. It had been so long since she’d seen him. Years. What would he be like? Would he be glad she’d come? Why did elevators always take hours?

  She almost ran to the front desk. The clerk pointed to a man facing the windows. She registered how much thinner he now seemed, and younger. And blond. He turned.

  “Hello, Rina.”

  “Jason.”

  Jason clasped her hands in his. She pulled them away. “What are you doing here?”

  “Rina, Rina. Surely you can greet me with more enthusiasm than that. I’ve come all this way, tracked you from Italy, just to have you speak to me like that?”

  She shook her head to clear it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just, I thought you were Uncle Adam. I’ve been waiting so long for him to get back in town, then you weren’t him at all.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “That was rude, too, I suppose.”

  “Yes, my dear, it was.”

  She glanced over at the night clerk, wishing there were some way to erase the last five minutes and make Jason disappear. She didn’t dislike him, didn’t wish him ill, but she felt herself being pulled back into his kindness.

  “I understand your friend from Italy is here with you.”

  “Acie.”

  “I took Mae and Giorgio out to dinner, at his restaurant.” He chuckled, as if amused at his own cleverness.

  So, he’d been to Italy. Why? Getting the ring back didn’t do the trick? “How’s your mother?”

  “She’s fine. She sends her regards but told me to get you out of here on the first plane. This is no place for you to be.”

  “I’m waiting to see my uncle.”

  “I know you are, and I appreciate your sense of family, but you must realize Israel is a very dangerous place these days. If I hadn’t been determined to get you out, I never would have come when this country’s on the brink of war.” He caressed her arm. She shivered. “I told your aunt I’d bring you straight back to her, where she can help you get ready for the wedding.”

  That got her attention. She shifted out of his reach, clutching one hand in the other so they wouldn’t be up for grabs. “Jason—”

  “Now, I’ve been very patient. You know I have. I let you have your fling in Italy. I even encouraged you to get it out of your system. I was patient when you sent my ring back—that was not necessary, my dear, it is yours—and I was patient when you didn’t answer my letters. But when Luze said she hadn’t heard from you after you left Perugia to travel, I decided to see if I could find you. I was certain you’d be in contact with that friend of yours from Wilson. You did tell us both how much fun you were having with her and her Italian family. It wasn’t hard to track them down.”

  Oh, what a busy boy he’d been. But she didn’t say that.

  He continued with that same condescending tone that made her want to retch—or slug him. “I was able to call the brother-in-law, who told me, after a little prodding, that you’d gone off to get over this man you thought you were in love with, who disappeared and was probably dead. I knew then it was time to step in and save you from your own dear, foolish self.”

  She rubbed a hand across her forehead. This was too much. It was all too much. “But Jason—”

  “I know. He vanished so romantically. He is dead, isn’t he? Isn’t that what you came to find out?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

  “Well, he did it all so romantically, darn him, that you think you’re still in love. Look at me, Rina.”

  She did. It must have been his tone. Was he exerting mind control, or had she just become so used to listening to him, to doing what he wanted, that she complied? When he shifted to put an arm around her shoulders, she opened her hands in protest, and he grabbed them. She stared at their joined hands and forgot to protest, forgot anything other than the fact that she seemed to have lost control of the conversation and herself.

  His hands were so small and soft compared to… O God, please.

  “We’ve been planning to marry for years, remember? We’ve just been waiting for me to get on my feet financially and settle that business of the house. I have more than enough money now. Mother has moved into her own rooms and won’t be in our way at all, and there’s nothing holding us back. Let’s just get on the plane and go home.”

  She squinted, trying to bring her world back into focus. “I haven’t seen Adam yet.” Her voice sounded dull even to her ears.

  Jason spoke as if trying to rally her. “We’ll come back to visit him after we’re married, when things have quieted down again over here. Doesn’t that sound sensible? You’ve been here long enough. I’ve got tickets for a flight out tomorrow morning, direc
t to London. We’ll stop there for a few days, sort of a pre-wedding vacation, because I know this trip of yours hasn’t turned out to be what you expected.”

  She added feeble to flat. “This isn’t what I want.”

  He smiled, squeezing her hands. “We’ll have a lovely time.”

  Extracting her hands from his clutches, she worked on anger. She needed anger, because he never listened. Why couldn’t she rouse any?

  “Mother suggested the stopover in London. She thought you might like to see the sights.”

  “Ah, wise mother,” she mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Look, I’m sorry. I can’t take off and leave Acie here in the lurch when she came out to be with me.”

  “No, of course not, how stupid of me.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out three tickets. “I forgot to mention that I bought her a ticket, too, leaving tomorrow for Rome. Giorgio’s sending someone to meet her, a fiancé, I think.”

  “Nicco.”

  “Yes, well, you see, don’t you? It’s all taken care of.”

  “You are good, Jason.” She rubbed one hand across her eyes. Good and respectable and in love with her. But did that give him the right to run her life?

  She walked to the darkened window. A few people milled around in the lobby, but no one disturbed her, not even Jason.

  The night felt oppressive. Tony had been a bright light, blown out and gone. Maybe it was time to go back and fit herself into the life she’d expected to live, instead of longing for some nebulous something that might not even be real.

  “Shall we go tell Acie the good news?” Jason asked, coming up behind her. “I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

  “I don’t want to leave yet, Jason. I want to see Adam. I told you that.”

  “Yes, yes, I know you did.”

  Acie blinked behind her glasses. “Ah. Really?”

  “He’s been to Italy.” Rina’s voice was as flat as she could make it. “He’s seen Mae. Now he has tickets for you to fly back to Italy tomorrow and for us to go back to the States via London.”

  “Really.” Acie repeated the word but not the inflection.