Blue Voyage

by Diana Renn

  “That’s what we were planning, too, at the hotel party, only with the real one!” I said.

  “Those kinds of reveals can work,” said Inspector Lale. “And the reveal that Berk and I planned was a good idea, in theory. But the problem was that Lazar was smarter than we’d given him credit for. And he didn’t fall for the fake, even though we got the best artisan we could find to create it. He fled the meeting place before the Istanbul police could get him and contacted Berk later. He was furious with Berk for trying to trick him. He said that if Berk didn’t bring him the real urn, his wife would be killed.”

  Aunt Jackie! Tears burned my eyes. Aunt Jackie—and my unborn cousin—could have been two more casualties of this mess, had it played out differently. “So how did Lazar lure my uncle to Cappadocia?” I managed to ask.

  “Lazar told him to drive out to his headquarters, and to bring the urn. Berk felt he had to do it. He told your aunt he had a tour guide interview because he wanted to protect her. He didn’t want her to be questioned and have to lie. I strongly advised him not to travel. I insisted on sending backup for him. He refused the offer—he was sure Lazar would be suspicious if he showed up with an entourage. So he went, alone, and I assumed he’d given Lazar the real urn. But when I heard he died on a hike, I suspected he’d veered from the plan.” She paused, then said, “And you know the ending.”

  Mom raised an eyebrow. “You suspected foul play and you didn’t immediately arrest Lazar?”

  “I needed evidence,” said Inspector Lale. “And more importantly, I needed Lazar. He’s slippery, and has many disguises and accomplices. I’ve worked on little else since Berk died. Now, thanks to the work of Zan, Sage, and Nazif these past few days, I believe I can do one last favor for my old friend, and make sure that justice is served. Berk left our mission intact. He protected me, and our secret project, until the very end. I owe him so much for that. It’s a debt I might never fully repay.”

  I managed a smile. It was so good to hear my uncle was not a bad person after all. Even though he must have taken some money from Lazar, an advance, to pay for the IVF treatments. But however this baby had come into being, our family was going to grow. That would be my uncle’s real legacy in this world.

  45

  Aunt Jackie’s friends, a nice middle-aged couple named Can and Fatma Ozden, insisted we stay in their cave hotel for free for the next several days. Sage and I would be required to answer questions for the local police starting the following day, questions about the underground cave and what had happened out on the mesa with Lazar and Vasil. Then we could return to Istanbul and expect to answer even more questions. What was left of our vacation, if you could call it that, was shaping up to be a grand tour of police stations.

  Pretty much the last place I wanted to be was in a cave hotel. I was so over caves. But I was pleasantly surprised when Inspector Lale pulled off the highway and threaded through a tiny village that seemed to have been sculpted out of white sand and rock. Pink and red rosebushes dotted the roadside. Women in floral shirts, wide trousers, and white headscarves worked in a field. Several men sat in a shaded plaza playing backgammon. We passed goats and chickens and children playing, finally pulling up to a bluff with outcroppings and ledges, and dotted with windows and doors. Once again, we were in another Turkey.

  We came through a gate and into a garden cooled off by lush trees. An oasis. Happy tourists were lounging in chairs, reading books, or chatting quietly. And the room that Sage and I got to share was beautiful. The windows offered a sweeping view of the hills and mesas, which the setting sun was casting in gold. The beds were comfortable, and a tiny rounded door led into a bathroom with a spa-like shower and two fluffy white bathrobes.

  I was still wearing Aunt Jackie’s now-shredded evening gown, and Sage was still in her friend’s outfit, which hadn’t held up any better. “They might not be quite your size, but I hope these will do,” said Mom, gesturing to two outfits laid out on the beds. Cargo pants, flip-flops, and T-shirts that read Cappadocia ROCKS! “I got them at a gift shop near the hospital,” Mom explained. “Inspector Lale and I flew out here so fast when we got Sage’s phone call, I had no time to pack a bag.”

  Sage sank onto one of the beds and let out a long breath. “Inspector Lale is amazing,” she said. “I can’t believe they’re not making me stay in prison during all my questioning. I was sure I’d be arrested on the spot.”

  “I felt the same way when she got us out of the police station in Dalaman,” I said. “I think she understands that some situations are complicated.”

  “I could still end up in prison, though,” Sage said, biting her nail. “They’re questioning Riza. I know he got arrested. I didn’t do that much smuggling for Lazar, and I really just dealt with the smaller items, but Riza might say anything to try to save himself.”

  “You’re out for now, though,” I said. “Enjoy your freedom. What do you want to do?”

  She thought a moment. “Dinner,” she said. “Under the stars. Because if I do end up in a jail cell, that’s one of the things I’ll miss most.” She smiled a sad smile at me. “That and my friends. Like you.”

  By early evening, Sage and I were freshly showered and changed, wearing our identical cargo pants and Cappadocia ROCKS! T-shirts. Inspector Lale was staying in Ürgüp, close to the police station, and would be having dinner with her colleagues there. Fatma and Can led us and Mom to specially set-up tables on an outdoor terrace atop the cave, apart from the other guests, sensing we needed some quiet time to talk among ourselves and process all that had happened.

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” Mom said with a sigh, as Fatma brought out our salads. “There’s so much to talk about still. I have a lot of questions for you girls. I’m just exhausted from the day.”

  “I’ll ask you a question, then,” I said. “When did you realize I was gone?”

  “Not long after I checked in on you in your room. Orhan told me he thought he saw you and another girl hanging out.”

  “That’d be me,” said Sage, waving her hand.

  “Naturally I was curious,” said Mom. “And yes, Sage, the thought occurred to me that you might have come looking for Zan. As soon as Nazif’s puppet show ended, I went to check on you, Zanny, since you didn’t look well. I just couldn’t shake the thought you’d been drinking, and maybe your friend Sage had resurfaced.”

  “But I wasn’t partying,” I said. “I’d been poisoned.”

  “I know that now,” Mom said, her eyes glistening. “I can’t even comprehend what would make a person poison a child. I’m angrier about that than anything else. But I need to know how you got dragged into all this in the first place. There’s a lot you’ve been keeping from me on this trip, isn’t there?”

  I hesitated, then nodded and looked down.

  “I know I haven’t been very available to listen,” Mom said, more softly. “I’ve focused too much on my own problems. But I’m ready to hear you now.”

  So with Sage’s help, over a five-course meal, I told Mom everything. Starting from day one of the Blue Voyage and including one detail I’d held back from Mom and Inspector Lale this entire time: our midnight swim to the Anilar, where we’d met the Clarksons, and where I’d first encountered Lazar and Vasil. Even after Fatma brought us dessert—Turkish coffee and rice pudding—we were still talking, pausing only briefly when the call to prayer was chanted from the village mosque. It didn’t feel right to me to talk over it. I wasn’t sure what I believed in, but I felt a faith in something that I hadn’t felt before I came to Turkey. Maybe it was faith in myself.

  And for the first time, Mom actually listened, without interrupting, or questioning, or challenging. She just took it all in.

  When we were done, with our story and our food, she let out a long sigh.

  “We were all frantic, of course, when I came to our room and there was no sign of you,” said Mom. “The par
ty broke up immediately. It turned into a search-and-rescue event. Everyone started combing the place. Even Aunt Jackie—I couldn’t restrain her.”

  “What about Milton and Maeve?” I asked, thinking with a pang of the Lobsters, my fake grandparents on this trip. I felt so confused about them, now that I knew they’d held on to the artifact. “Did they ever explain why the urn was in their luggage?”

  “Maeve was hysterical,” said Mom. “Seriously. We had to give her two glasses of wine to calm her down. She insisted she wasn’t a thief. She said she glimpsed the urn in the bushes during the search efforts, and convinced Milton to go and get it. Then she didn’t know how to return it to Jackie. The longer she kept it in her cabin on the boat, admiring it, the more awkward she felt about giving it back. Milton kept trying to convince her to do it, so she said she planned to leave it for Aunt Jackie with an apology note before they left the hotel.”

  “Does she know we did her a big favor by stealing it back?” I asked. “If she’d tried to take it back to Australia, they would have found it at customs.”

  “She knows now,” said Mom. “And she’s happy to have it off her hands. She’s horribly embarrassed about the whole thing, and she just wants you back safe and sound, Zan. Maybe you’ll even get to see her while we’re out here. They’re flying to Cappadocia this evening. Guess who won the Voyager Balloons raffle!”

  I laughed. “Milton must be furious. He had to buy an airplane ticket out here! Are the others coming too?”

  “No, they’re moving on for different tours. But you should have seen everyone’s faces when I told them that you were alive—and with Sage, and that you’d led investigators to the hive of the biggest smuggling network in Turkey. They all went crazy, cheering and clapping.”

  I smiled. “And Nazif?”

  “Oh, he cheered louder than any of them,” she said, with a knowing look. “He looked pretty shaken up while you were missing.”

  I smiled to myself, thinking of how great it would be to talk to Nazif again, to sit close to him on the rooftop. I squeezed my hands together beneath the table, remembering the press of his palms against mine. I could almost conjure up the tingling sensation I’d felt in the stairwell before he gave me the room keys.

  “Now, can we all get some rest?” said Mom, pushing her chair back from the table. “We have an appointment tomorrow at the police station in Ürgüp, and I’m sure it won’t be a short one.”

  We walked back to our rooms. Sage and I were sharing a room right next to Mom’s. Outside her door, Mom and I hugged.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have told you what was going on from the beginning.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I probably didn’t seem like a very good listener, did I?”

  I shrugged.

  “I was so busy trying to repair my relationship with my sister, and stewing over the past, I didn’t pause to see what was right in front of me.” Mom squeezed my shoulders. “We’re still family, you know. You. Me. Aunt Jackie. Your cousin on the way.”

  “I know that now,” I said, smiling. A cousin on the way. I couldn’t wait.

  When we got inside the room, I changed and lay down on the comfortable bed, under the soft white sheets. I had more space and safety than I’d had in over a week, but I still couldn’t sleep. The Clarksons were probably on the run. The urn was still missing.

  Eventually a song reached my ears, some kind of music coming from the village. It sounded both festive and mournful, and made me think of gypsies. I could hear what sounded like a clarinet against the wail of strings and the steady tap of drums. A woman’s voice slowly rose up in song, riding on those instruments, curling and drifting like smoke. I let the song carry me away, too, into a restless sleep.

  I woke with a start before dawn. I’d barely slept. I checked my watch in the dim light of the room. It was five in the morning.

  Dawn was coming. And a new realization. I reached over to the other bed and shook Sage’s arm.

  “Hey!” I said. “Wake up.”

  “I am awake,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Remember the Clarksons were going to do that balloon tour? With Voyager Balloons?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s today. It launches in an hour.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know their brochure by heart. I had to make a sign for our raffle prize, remember? And this is the day the Clarksons planned to go. Ron was griping about the early launch time.”

  “But Inspector Lale said she called Voyager Balloons and was told the Clarksons cancelled,” said Sage.

  “Maybe they officially cancelled,” I said. “But they must have known Lazar got caught. They probably had to wipe their name off any reservation. It doesn’t mean they won’t actually go on the ride, though. It seemed really important to Judy. All that stuff about a ‘once-in-a-lifetime trip.’”

  “Zan, the Clarksons are on the run. They’re not going to do a balloon excursion.”

  I sighed impatiently. “I don’t think the balloon ride is really a romantic adventure. I think it’s a business venture. And I think it’s a one-way trip.”

  Sage stared at me.

  Seeing I had her, I continued. “I think it’s a way to get the illegal stuff they bought out of the country. Where they won’t get searched at passport control or stopped at a border. They’re no strangers to paying for private services. What if they quietly paid a pilot to go off course, into Bulgaria or some other country?”

  “Maybe,” said Sage, sitting up. “Maybe they’re even selling these things to some other buyer. They’re art dealers, after all. Zan, I think you should call Inspector Lale.”

  I picked up the phone by my bedside and dialed Inspector Lale’s mobile number, which I had managed to memorize after having called it so often.

  She answered on the fifth ring, just as I was about to hang up.

  “Sorry to wake you,” I apologized. “But I have an idea about the Clarksons.”

  “You didn’t wake me up, Zan, don’t worry,” said Inspector Lale. I heard cars in the background. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I think the Clarksons might be doing the Voyager Balloons ride after all. Maybe even under a fake name, or maybe paying someone to keep their names off the passenger lists.” I quickly explained the rest of my theory. “Can you drive to Voyager Balloons right now and see if they’re there? I think the launch site isn’t too far from where you’re staying.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “You see, the Clarksons won’t be there. I’m almost at the Kayseri Airport. We got a phone tip last night that they bought two airplane tickets to California. We’re planning to intercept them at the gate.”

  “That’s great. But—”

  “So you can go back to sleep and not worry now. We’re closing in on them. I’ll call you a little later and let you know everything that happened. I promise.”

  I hung up the phone and stared at the wall, thinking hard. Something seemed off.

  “What’s up?” Sage asked.

  “She said she got a phone tip that the Clarksons are heading to the Kayseri Airport, so she’s on her way there now.”

  “Excellent!” said Sage. “Isn’t it? You don’t look so thrilled.”

  “It just seems too easy,” I said. “I don’t trust that tip. Messages aren’t always right. Remember, I got two from you that somebody else had written.”

  I yanked off my pajamas and put on yesterday’s clothes.

  “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

  “Voyager Balloons,” I said. “I bet this whole airplane ticket thing is one enormous diversion. I still think my theory holds.”

  “Wait. What are you going to do there? Stop a balloon from taking off?”

  “That’s exactly what I plan to do,” I said. “At least stall them,
until the police can come. And I think we can catch Ron and Judy by surprise. After all, they believe we’re dead, right? Last they heard we were brought to Lazar’s cave and sealed up somewhere inside it. We’re not in the news yet. I think we should just go to Voyager Balloons and rock their world.”

  Sage got up and dressed quickly too. “But how?” she asked. “We don’t even know what town it’s in.”

  “Didn’t I tell you I know that brochure by heart?” I said. “I had to reproduce the map by hand for the raffle sign. The launch site is just a couple of miles away on the main road. If we hurry, we can get there just in time.”

  Sage flinched as she put on her shoes. “I’ll try. But I’m pretty banged up from the rock climbing yesterday.”

  I knew what she meant. My muscles ached. My skin was raw in places, and my feet were blistered. But I had to put all of that out of my mind. We had to get to the launch site, and with no car, and no driver, we had only our feet to carry us there.

  As we slipped out of our room and tiptoed past Mom’s room next door, I felt a stab of guilt. I’d snuck back into my house at this hour many times in the past; I just hoped Mom would understand, when this was all over, that I’d done it for a good reason now. I paused by her door, considering waking her up to join us. I hesitated, then tapped on it softly. Then louder. But she didn’t answer.

  “Zan, there’s no time. We have to go without her,” said Sage. I cast one last glance at Mom’s door, hoping she would forgive me for this one last deception.

  46

  As the sky turned from pink to gold, we walked down the main highway, as quickly as was possible in the flip-flops Mom had bought us. My feet were soon coated in white dust.