I look at him, curious despite myself.
“But little by little, every time I went back, the place seemed more and more strange. It was too cold, too sterile. The stores were full of things that you could only buy in absurd quantities. People didn’t understand why I didn’t want to come home. I didn’t really understand it myself. I made my trips there shorter and shorter. That was twenty years ago. Now I only go if I must, for work, and I stay no longer than I have to.”
He takes a sip of tea. “Sangui City is rough around the edges. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. It’s a little like I imagine the American Wild West was once. There’s crime and corruption, but there are also fortunes to be made if you are smart. It’s old and new all at the same time—shopping malls next to centuries-old mosques. Masai herding cattle down the median on the highway. People everywhere. There’s so much energy. So much life. I’m not sure my children understand it.” He frowns, looks down at his knuckles. “It’s funny. We hardly ever get to choose where our souls find their homes.”
We lapse into silence. I am so confused. Who is this man, who could speak so coldly on the phone last night about taking out his competition, and now so lovingly about his adopted city?
Mr. Greyhill turns to me. “You know, Christina, what happened here, to your mother . . .”
I tense. Out of the corner of my eye I can see his face, twisted ever so slightly in a grimace. But after a long silence, he just places a hand on my shoulder. “It was horrible. I’m so very sorry.”
It takes every ounce of my will not to fling him off. His hand is heavy and warm where it sits, and my skin crawls under it. “Yes,” I whisper, my eyes fixed on my old cottage. “I know.”
“If there’s anything I can do . . .”
He pulls his hand away, like maybe he can feel my loathing through his fingers, and when I look at him, his face is smooth again, his emotion hidden. Michael gets that from his father, I realize, the ability to put everything behind a mask.
“. . . you just have to ask,” Mr. Greyhill finishes.
It takes me a second, but I manage to lift the corners of my mouth into something that passes for a smile. “Thank you, sir, I will.”
He turns and leaves me. Soon the mist will evaporate, and the edges of the world will become clear. But for now they fade and merge, and as hard as I try, I can’t see where one thing ends and another begins.
TWENTY-TWO
I’m so sick of Michael’s room I could scream. If I have to stay in this house much longer, I’ll start breaking things just so it’s not all so perfect. I’m desperate for word from Boyboy, but after five unanswered texts he only writes back,
LEAVE ME ALONE WOMAN ALL OK NOT DONE.
And Michael is getting tired of watching me pace a hole in his carpet, but of course he’s too well mannered to say anything. Instead he taps his pen against his cheek in time with my steps, looking over his notes.
I hear him flip pages. “So according to Donatien, he and your mom were supposed to meet on April twenty-fourth, to take these photos, right? But then she doesn’t show.” He shuffles through the UN file. “Then you and your mom entered Kenya on May tenth.” He puts the papers down. “What happened in between? What do you remember about the time right before you left?”
“Not much.”
“But did something happen that would have prevented her from meeting Donatien? Something that would have made her want to leave Congo and come find my dad?”
I pause with my back to Michael. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
I can practically feel him sit up at attention. “Talk about what? What happened, Tina?”
“It’s . . . It doesn’t have anything to do with her murder.”
“How do you know? Come on, we’ve got nothing to work with here. Anything might help. Look at me.”
I turn to face him reluctantly. His face is eager. “We got separated,” I say. “Right before we left.”
Michael is all ears, hunched forward, waiting for me to go on.
I pleat the edge of the borrowed shirt I’m wearing with my fingertips. “It’s like the file says: Militia and soldiers used to come and attack our home, and we’d have to run and hide in the forest. Right before we left, that happened, and she sent me ahead.” I can feel my throat closing up, and I take a steadying breath. “And I was there in the jungle by myself for a while.”
“A while?” Michael prods.
I shrug. “I was five; I don’t really remember. A few days?”
Michael’s eyes go wide. “You never told me about that.”
The ache in my throat turns to anger. “She didn’t abandon me. She came for me eventually.”
“But . . . a few days? Where was she?”
I turn my back to him again. “I don’t know,” I say over my shoulder. “She didn’t tell me. I think she told Donatien, but he won’t tell me either. And like I said, I really don’t remember much about it, okay? After a while she found me in the forest and we left. End of story.”
“But she never said where she had been?”
I shake my head no.
Michael is quiet while he thinks. Finally, he lets out a deep sigh. “Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. What if something happened and she came to my dad looking for help? Maybe he was protecting her.”
“Protecting her? Why would he do that?”
“Maybe she had something he wanted.” He looks at me and makes a face. “No, not that. Something else. Gold?”
“He had plenty of gold,” I say. “What would Mama have brought with her from Kasisi that he couldn’t get himself? He had gold; he had power. She had nothing but me.”
“Information, maybe?” Michael muses, making a note.
I tap my teeth with my fingernail. It’s true that in a dirty line of work you need to know everything you can about everything. “Maybe something about the militias?” I ask. “Or someone who worked for him? You know, Donatien said your dad didn’t buy the gold from the militias himself. He said there was a Kenyan guy who did it. That’s who Mama had seen out there making the deals. Any idea who he would have been?”
Michael stops writing. “Wait, so you’re saying she never even saw my dad in Congo?”
“I . . . I thought she had.”
“You thought she had?” Michael says.
“Donatien never really, um, clarified that until yesterday. But it doesn’t change what your dad did,” I add quickly. “The Kenyan guy was there on his orders. And she knew your dad was the mastermind behind everything. Donatien told her.”
“But she never actually saw him doing anything bad?”
“Don’t act like he’s all innocent,” I snap. Suddenly I sit up straight. “Wait. Mwika! It could have been David Mwika who was doing the buys! He’s Kenyan, right?”
Michael looks dubious. “Lots of people are Kenyan, Tina. And I don’t know . . . He would have needed to be away a lot, right? Doing stuff in Congo? Mwika was always around, with Dad or with us.”
But Mwika sounds the most likely to me. A loyal servant, doing his master’s bidding. “Hey!” I say brightly. “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s ask him!”
Michael scribbles something angrily in his notes. “I’m working on it.”
My glibness evaporates. “Are you even trying?”
“Of course I am! He’s not easy to get in touch with.”
“Are you sure you know where he is?”
“I know, okay? I overheard Dad talking to someone on the phone about the company where he’s working now.”
My pulse quickens. “Which is where?”
Michael stares at me for a long time. Finally he says, “It’s called First Solutions. It’s a security firm working in Congo.”
“First Solutions. That’s great. We can find him easy!”
Michael frowns.
“Did you hear me? I’ve been trying to get in touch, but I can’t get anyone at the company to return my calls.” Michael looks frustrated, but he doesn’t know what magic Boyboy can do with just a smidgen of information. If anyone can find someone, it’s him.
I hear my phone buzz with a text. “Finally,” I say, seeing it’s from Boyboy. “I’ve got to go.” I stand up.
“What? No.” Michael stands up too. “I can’t leave the house. Mom basically grounded me until I’m eighty.”
For a moment I just look at him, and I want to say, How strange—a mother around to ground you. It sounds like something out of a movie.
“I’m not asking your permission. I have to meet Boyboy.” I put my phone in my pocket. “I’m coming back,” I add, seeing the furrow between his eyebrows.
“At least let one of the drivers take you.”
“So he can make sure I don’t run away?”
Michael doesn’t respond.
“Fine, but he’s dropping me off at Saint Raphael’s and I’ll meet him back there. And if he follows me, I’ll know and I’ll slash his tires.”
“Jeez, Tina. Don’t be such a Goonda.”
I think he means it as a halfhearted joke, but it leaves me cold.
“It’s what I am, rich boy. Get used to it.”
• • •
When I get to the roof, Boyboy is already there, enthroned in the safari chair again. His outfit is more demure today—a studded leather jacket and pants in a color he would probably call something like sea foam. His nails are painted lavender.
“You better not have forgotten anything there,” Boyboy says, “because I know you are not going back. Bug Eye’s orders. You stay here with me. We are done. This is it. This is everything.”
“Yeah?” I say, walking over. “We got it all?”
“Yep. A few more days of decrypting, you get your muck-raking dude up and mucking, and we proceed to my personal favorite phase of Tiny Girl’s Ultimate Plan for Revenge.” He cracks his knuckles ostentatiously. “Liquidating bank accounts! I’ve already picked out the bag I’m going to buy with my cut: a Louboutin clutch in vermilion patent leather. It’s the gayest thing I’ve ever seen, and my mother is going to have a fit and beg me not to wear it out of the house, but I will. I will wear it every day because I love it so, so, so much.”
“Uh-huh.”
He finally looks up at me. “Okay, what? Say something, Tina. You’re making me nervous.”
“Everything’s fine,” I say, and suddenly become very interested in a mosquito bite on the back of my arm. “Hey, have you ever heard of a security company called First Solutions? Michael thinks Mwika’s working for them in Congo. Can you see what you can dig up?”
“You know where he is?”
“Just that. But if we can find him, maybe I don’t need to wait on Michael to do it.”
Boyboy gives me a long look, then sighs. “Fine. I’ll add it to your tab. Come here, ingrate. I want to show you some things I found.”
“Good dirt on our bad man?” I ask, perking up.
“Oh yeah. Real good bad stuff. You know that other payment I showed you yesterday and how it didn’t actually incriminate him?”
“The one to the South African place for security advice?”
“Right, well, I found the key code.” Boyboy points at the screen, running a lavender nail along a line. “Here’s what he actually paid for: Security advice equals two tons light munitions. All of this below is the exact invoice list—a bunch of guns and stuff. Dude is one organized arms smuggler. He’s going down. No question.”
“Nice,” I say. “Can we link it to the militias yet?”
“Working on it. I still haven’t decrypted most of this stuff. I’m sure there’s something here, though, if everything else is this detailed.” Boyboy looks up at me. “Now is when you start doing happy backflips. Go on, let’s see them.”
“Sorry. Yay!” I make dazzle fingers.
Boyboy watches me for a second. “What’s up with you?”
I let my smile slide. “If you see any additional payments to Mwika, will you let me know?”
“Payments?”
“Like, beyond his salary. I think Mwika might have been more than just Greyhill’s head of security.”
“Sure, I’ll look.” He pauses. “Wait. What was the name of the company he works for?”
“First Solutions. Why?”
Boyboy goes rapid fire at the keyboard. “It’s in here. I know I’ve seen that name.”
I wait, tensed on the edge of my concrete block, while he searches.
“There,” he finally says. “I knew it sounded familiar. Two payments of thirty-five thousand US dollars.”
I hunch in, trying to see what he’s showing me. “To First Solutions?”
“Uh-huh, I think so. That’s what it looks like. Both within days of each other, two years ago.”
My mind races. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I mean, according to this.”
“Does it say where the payment went? Any way to find Mwika?”
Boyboy runs his finger along the lines on the screen. “Western Union. In Walikale Town.”
“That’s near Kasisi,” I say, my heart starting to thump.
“There’s a contact phone number. Maybe it’s Mwika’s.” Boyboy scribbles it off and hands it to me.
I stand up, staring at the little piece of paper. Mwika’s phone number. He’s in Walikale. Finally! Some answers! But . . . I pace toward the window. Mr. G sent him payments. Does that mean Mwika was working for him? Or was it hush money? I stop in my tracks, my stomach dropping. Maybe Mwika sold the video back to Mr. Greyhill again. In which case, I’m screwed. I’ve got nothing. If it showed Mr. G killing my mother, then the video is gone, obliterated.
“Did you find any video files in all that?” I ask Boyboy.
“Tina, come on. Don’t you think if I found your mom’s murder video I’d tell you?”
So it could be gone, or maybe Mr. G never bought it. I keep pacing.
“Hey, before you go back to being all pensive and uncommunicative, do you want to see the last thing I found?” Boyboy calls.
I circle back to look over his shoulder at the screen, my thoughts still a jumble. “The photo of my mom?”
“I checked it, after Mr. Greyhill was mooning over it last night. Just so I could mark it off the list, really. I wasn’t expecting to find anything. But look.” He clicks something and Mama and the girl fade, their faces replaced by what looks like a scanned sheet of notebook paper. It’s covered in hand-drawn tables and figures.
I lean closer. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I mean, the photo is a stego file, obviously.”
I roll my eyes. “Obviously. Meaning?”
“It has data concealed in the noisy bits.”
“Noisy?”
Boyboy sighs his special sigh that means I am hopeless. “Don’t hurt your fragile little brain thinking on it. It’s just a way of hiding something. You’d never figure it out unless you’re me.”
I lean closer to study the minuscule writing. The image isn’t very good; it’s pixelated and hard to read. With a little electric thrill I read the heading on the paper: Kasisi. I trace my finger over the columns. “It looks like some sort of accounting thing. It’s not another record of his secret deals?”
“I don’t think so. All of Mr. Greyhill’s are electronic. I can’t see a guy like him using pencil and paper like this, can you?” Boyboy hands me the computer, gets up, and stretches. “Did you bring me takeaway like I asked? Tikka masala? Extra pili-pili?”
“I’ll go out and get it in a minute. Promise,” I mutter, taking his seat.
The page looks like it’s been ripped out of a notebook, folded up, and smoothed back out. There are six columns. The first has words
in it, odd ones: Terminator, Ugly Twin, Slimmy, Earwax. Maybe they’re names? They sound like Goondas. Militia members? The columns next to them are filled with figures. One column of numbers is labeled MOBILE INTERESTS.
I scroll down. There’s another ripped-out page just like it. And another. The last one has a dark streak across it. The pages are scanned in black and white, but the streak looks suspiciously like old blood. “Why would he hide this? What is it?”
“Two words, Tiny: tikka masala.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, but instead I just sit there, a million thoughts pinging around in my brain. What is Mobile Interests? I click open a new window on Boyboy’s computer and search for it. I get nothing but a bunch of cell-phone ads. I stare at the blinking cursor on the search box, then type in Kasisi, Congo.
It shows up as a tiny dot on the map, red dirt at a crossroads surrounded by green. So small. I zoom in. There can’t be more than twenty buildings in what would be called town. I wonder which little spot was my old home; I remember our house but couldn’t tell you where it was. Roads stretch from town up mountains to little bare patches that must be farms. But they don’t go far. Beyond, there is nothing. Just treetops for miles and miles. The Congo rain forest. Terra incognita. There be monsters.
I stare at the green until my vision blurs. I remember looking up at the tree canopy, as tall as the roof Boyboy and I sit on today. Streams gushing cold and rocky. Flowers. Monkeys, hornbills, and shrews. Nimble-toed little antelope and bushpigs with twitchy noses. Centipedes and butterflies as big as my hand. If I concentrate, I can smell the musk of rotting leaves.
Somewhere in all that, there are militiamen who weave narrow trails, guns slung over their shoulders, grass necklaces and amulets swinging across their chests.
I rub my eyes and look back at the hidden notebook papers. These pages don’t necessarily have anything to do with my mother, I tell myself.
But I know they do. I feel it in my guts. He hid them in her photo. They’re labeled with the town we lived in and fled from. There is some connection. I just can’t see it yet.
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