With a buzz so loud she jumped, the steel door sprang open.
The spacious office housed a mahogany desk, a tall director’s chair, a leather four-seater couch. A bar fridge hummed softly in the corner. A kettle stood on the dining table with a giant tin of Robbie’s chosen brand of coffee, a revolting chicory blend.
The tin was almost completely full. Jade guessed that not many visitors asked for coffee. She’d certainly told Robbie numerous times he was useless at making it and had poor taste in brews. He’d refused to listen to her constructive criticism or buy a halfway decent bean. Their disagreement on the subject had become a standing joke. Almost a point of pride for him, a reason not to change.
Men.
At any rate, she owed him now, bad coffee or not. Once the metal gate was locked and bolted from the inside, this was the safest possible place she could be.
Botha stood in the doorway, taking in the surprisingly luxurious ambience.
“We have to check your laptop bag,” she told him. “And your clothes.”
“Let’s do it.” He pulled off his shirt, unbuttoned his jeans. Stripped down to his boxers.
His body was matte beige, his muscles taut. Six-pack on the stomach and strong, lean definition in his arms and legs.
Forcing herself to look away, she picked up his jacket, which was still warm to the touch. She checked the pockets carefully for anything that might have been stuck on or inserted into a cuff or a seam.
There was nothing.
“I can’t find anything in my jeans or shoes,” he said.
She checked his laptop bag carefully while he dressed again.
Within minutes, Jade was convinced that Botha was not carrying a tracking device on him. This was good news and bad. How, then, had their hunters had caught up with them so easily? Jade needed to find that gun.
There was only one place to hide a safe in this room—behind the wooden cupboard that stood against the wall opposite the entrance.
Botha helped her wrestle it aside. Behind it was a small, square metal door. The safe was here, as Robbie had promised.
Just one problem. The safe door was firmly locked, and she had no idea where the key might be.
Botha had filled the kettle from the small sink in the corner of the room. “Coffee?” he offered.
He prized the plastic lid off the jar, and Jade wrinkled her nose as the harsh, unpleasant aroma filtered out. Yuck—unpalatable even before adding boiling water.
“You know what? I think I’ll pass,” she told him.
Where would Robbie have hidden the safe key? Long and narrow, it could be concealed just about anywhere with a piece of double-sided tape. “Anywhere” including in one of the hundreds of dusty boxes of spare parts in the warehouse. But Robbie liked to keep his secrets close. Something this important would be hidden in his office.
Botha helped her search. They went about the job methodically, tackling the couch first. She looked underneath it, felt around all the legs, then removed the cushions one by one and stuck her fingers down the back gaps. She unzipped the cushions’ leather covers and pulled them out. Felt them carefully all over. They were soft, with nothing hidden in their padded innards.
She checked the sparsely lined shelves. A few books on mechanics, a couple on guns, one or two paperback thrillers with eighties-themed covers featuring grim men with oversized jaws and bulging muscles and wide-eyed, gormless-looking women with huge, frizzy hair. Plots as anachronistic as their cover art.
She flipped carefully through each book in turn, checking the spines of the hardcovers in case a key was slotted in there. A book was always a good hiding place. People’s eyes passed over them—they became part of the décor and were seldom stolen.
Her efforts were unrewarded. No key in the books or concealed behind them on the shelves. Or in the spare roll of toilet tissue in the bathroom or in the empty mirrored cabinet.
Botha moved to the fridge, and Jade set about searching the desk and the chair with the same careful methodology. Nothing was taped onto these objects or hidden in the cushions or drawers.
Now what? Was there a hiding place she hadn’t yet thought of? Or, more likely, had Robbie taken the key with him? Perhaps he’d had second thoughts, or there were other items of value in the safe.
Discouraged, she walked over to the couch. Botha sat down on its left. He took a sip of his coffee and put the cup down—quite decisively, she noticed.
She sat down on the right, slipped her shoes off, put her feet up. It had been a stressful day, and she was starving. Robbie’s hospitality hadn’t extended as far as a packet of crackers or instant noodles. She shuddered at the thought that she might end up drinking that vile brew simply because there was nothing else available.
“How’s your police detective?” Botha asked her suddenly.
Jade shrugged.
“Managed to speak to him?” Botha asked. Perhaps he was testing her story.
“I saw him yesterday,” she said. “In passing, at the Randfontein police station.”
“And how was it?”
“Acrimonious.”
Botha laughed, then stifled it when Jade made a face. “Sorry,” he said.
“That’s okay.”
“I wasn’t laughing at you. I was more laughing because I know the feeling. A few years back, with a married woman who ended up breaking my heart. Or so I thought she had at the time.”
“David’s wife is pregnant,” Jade responded, and Botha’s smile vanished.
“Well, that’s a complication,” he admitted.
“The baby’s due any day.”
“Congratulations to him?”
“It probably isn’t his.”
Botha frowned slightly and said nothing.
Jade found she couldn’t stop talking. It was a relief to be sharing the burden of knowledge that had been weighing heavy on her heart for months. “He made a mistake. They were about to split up, but he slept with his wife while they were officially separated. He doesn’t know she went to a fertility clinic afterward. She used a sperm donor to impregnate herself. To trap him in the marriage. I found out about it from a reliable source: Naisha’s best friend’s daughter overheard them planning it.”
Botha made a sympathetic sound.
“So now David’s back with her. And I don’t know what to do. She hasn’t told him, I know that. And she never will, so he’s about to go through the rest of his life believing that child is his. It’s like she cheated on him to get him back. I hate her for it. I hate her so much that . . . that I’m not sure what to do anymore.”
Jade blinked fast, her vision blurring again. She realized her fingernails were cutting painfully into her palms. With effort, she unclenched her hands.
Botha got up and stood behind her. “Breathe, Jade,” he told her. “Just breathe.”
She took a deep breath. It was shaky going in, better on the way out. Then it caught again as he touched her.
His hands cupped her upper arms, his fingers warm and strong. His thumbs sank into her shoulder muscles, forcing the tightness out of them. His fingertips pushed into the muscles on either side of her spine. She hadn’t known how tense she was, how many knots he was releasing in her back. He was expert at this, with a healing touch.
It was what she needed.
“To be honest,” he said after a minute, pinpointing a knot deep in her back and loosening it so skillfully that she nearly groaned with relief, “I’ve never been in a situation that screams, ‘Get out’ quite as loudly as yours is doing.”
She laughed softly. “Thanks,” she said sarcastically, then focused on her breathing again. Took the air in and out, slow and steady, and with every exhalation she felt a little of the resentment, the bitterness, the hatred leaving her.
“You can’t fix this,” he said. “You won’t get him back, not
from that situation. So you just have to walk away.”
It felt cathartic to have somebody else tell her the truth she’d fought so desperately and for so long not to face. But now that she was confronting it, it didn’t seem as ugly as she had feared. It was sad, it was inevitable, it was still unfair and hateful, but it was bearable. She found she had the strength to think about leaving David Patel forever, and to accept that reality.
“You’re right,” she conceded.
“You know what they say—some people come into your life for a reason, others for a season, and only a few for a lifetime.”
“I suppose so,” she said after a while.
His hands moved to her head. His fingers teased their way through her hair, and she let herself relax into them as he massaged her scalp, pressing gently into her temples and her forehead.
It was shocking that Carlos Botha was touching her in a way that showed more intuition of her body than David ever had. David had never done this to her. She thought there had always been an invisible barrier between them that he was too fearful to break through. Sure, they had made love in the past. Sometimes it had been good, other times great, but she’d never felt that David had attempted to know her completely. It was as if being with her was breaking one of his own rules, which forced him right back into a self-made prison of guilt.
She closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the blissful ministrations of this near-stranger while the comfort of his words washed over her, soothing away the jagged edges of loneliness that had wounded her for far too long.
She knew what she was doing was dangerous. Allowing Botha to touch her was heading down a road she shouldn’t go. But right then, she couldn’t find the willpower to tell him to stop.
It was only when his hands slipped under the collar of her top, warm fingertips stroking her skin, that she knew she couldn’t let this continue.
“Thanks,” she said. Her voice sounded husky, and she had to clear her throat.
His fingers trailed over her bare shoulders before he removed his hands and arranged her shirt back in place. “No problem,” he said.
He sounded the same as he always did. He took the seat opposite hers on the couch and stared at her with a half-smile. “Going to be a long night,” he added, and she nodded in agreement before realizing what he really meant. When she did, she felt her face grow warm.
She wrapped her jacket around herself, lay down and pretended to sleep. She hadn’t thought she’d manage to relax in the circumstances, but before she knew it, she was blinking in the harsh overhead light, thinking that only an hour had passed when, in fact, morning had arrived.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Back at the police station that evening, David saw that a small pile of reports from various passport control centers in South Africa had been placed on his desk while he was out. Everyone was working hard to try to locate Rashid Hamdan. What would really help David were fingerprints. Hamdan had been fingerprinted in the past, but though every person entering the country had to stand in front of a scanner that measured body temperature, South African passport control didn’t take prints. The threat of Ebola coming into the country was taken far more seriously than that of terrorism.
Even so, in the past twelve hours, three individuals on flights arriving from Middle Eastern countries whose features vaguely resembled those of the man in the outdated photo had been detained and questioned. All were subsequently released and sent on their way. Passport control was trying their best, but they couldn’t manufacture a Rashid Hamdan out of an entirely innocent Mufasa, a Persian carpet salesman; or Dangor, who imported hairdressing supplies; or Motan, who was visiting South Africa for the first time as the drummer of a rock band.
Hamdan could be traveling under any name, any nationality. His hair could be brown or blond or shaved completely. David needed more information. If the FBI’s reliable source could find out why Hamdan was here, it would help him. Was he looking to buy or sell commodities? To launder money? A profit scheme?
At least their efforts had been recorded, and he could send these reports on to the commander and reassure him that he had been seen to be trying his best.
Putting the reports aside, he picked up the phone and called Naisha, gritting his teeth as he waited for her to answer.
Their relationship was uneasy at the moment, “uneasy” being a euphemism for “gone to shit.” Not that Naisha would ever describe it in those terms. In fact, she’d had a discussion with him the other day about swearing within earshot of ten-year-old Kevin.
“I really don’t think it’s necessary to use profanity in front of our child,” she’d snapped when he’d let out a heartfelt oath in front of the television after seeing that information from a sensitive case had been leaked to the media.
“I’m not using it in front of him. He’s in his room,” David had argued, already knowing he was on the losing side of this one. Hands laced over her swollen belly, feet up on a stool, Naisha was glaring at him.
“His room is just down the hall, and the door is open. This is a small house, David. You’re supposed to be a role model, not somebody who curses like a sailor in the presence of their son.”
“Naisha, I’m a police detective who’s just seen a leak on television that has ruined a major corruption case. I think I’m justified in venting some frustration. If you knew the work stress I was under right now . . .” David attempted weakly, but she held up a manicured finger.
“I work for Home Affairs. In security, no less. You think I don’t know about job stress? Do you have any idea what the pressure is like in my department? But I don’t use that as an excuse to come home and use vile language around my child. Now please go to the kitchen and make me a cup of tea.”
His temporary banishment had ended the discussion, if you could call it that.
Naisha. He knew she was expecting a baby and all, but he still found her behavior utterly unreasonable most of the time. She clearly wanted him in her life. She’d said as much when she’d broken the devastating news that she was pregnant. David had struggled to conceal not only shock but also bitter disappointment. Having tried his best to forget their one unwise night together during their separation, he’d been about to officially propose a divorce. Now, with a second child on the way, Naisha made it clear that was out of the question.
He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave her, knowing that he would be neglecting his fatherly duties. And he did love Naisha in his way. The problem was that he loved Jade in a totally different way. Was that why Naisha was so controlling, so peevish, so moody, so nasty toward him? Was it jealousy?
He was trying his best to be a good husband. He made dinner every Sunday night, even if it was only boiled eggs or peanut butter sandwiches. There was nothing wrong with peanut butter sandwiches, was there? They were very nice with apricot jelly, and surely healthier than his traditional staple as a single man had been: greasy chicken pies from the kiosk at the nearby gas station.
As part of his newly minted resolution to be a better partner, and so that she wouldn’t start getting paranoid about where he was and what he was doing, he called Naisha daily to tell her what time he was going to be home.
Now he steeled himself for the moment his wife would pick up.
“Hello?”
“Naisha.” Glancing at his watch, he realized with a start it was already after seven p.m. Where had the time gone? “Sorry I’m only calling you now. I’ve been held up at work, and I’ll probably be another hour or so.”
“Again?” The accusation in her voice came through clearly. “Another late night?”
“A couple of new cases have come in, grown wings and flown straight to the top of the urgent pile.”
Flown straight to the top of the urgent pile. He’d thought that was quite witty. He hadn’t exactly anticipated a belly laugh, but he’d hoped the banter would lighten things up, break some o
f the tension that seemed to crackle down the line every time he and his wife spoke.
It didn’t, of course.
Naisha sighed. “Whatever, David. Come home when you come home.”
Maybe it hadn’t been so funny after all.
“I’m tired, so I’ll be in bed. Or at the hospital,” she added.
David nearly dropped the phone.
“At the hospital?” he squawked, causing a passing detective to glance curiously into his office. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m pregnant, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Is the baby on its way?” Suddenly his caseload didn’t matter so much. Even Jade’s predicament could wait.
“Not yet. But I’ve been having slight pains. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“Of course I do! Do you need to go to the hospital now? Naisha, listen, I’ll be back in half an hour to drive you there.”
“I know how busy you are.” Her words speared him like shards of ice. “So I’ve made an alternate plan. My mother flew up from Durban this morning. I’ve set up a spare bed in Kevin’s room for her. She’ll stay for the next few weeks and help with the baby when it arrives.”
“I . . .” David stopped himself. He had only one thing in common with his mother-in-law, Ada—they each loathed the other. And she was in his home for an indefinite period, without so much as a by-your-leave? The last time she’d stayed, her disapproving gaze had constantly followed him around, seemingly powered by its own gimlet-fueled force. And she loved hot curries, which meant vindaloo was on the menu for the foreseeable future, annihilating David’s digestive system.
He reflexively glanced at his top drawer, remembering the packet of antacids he kept there, but he’d already used them all. He’d need to stop at a gas station shop on the way home and stock up. Hell, maybe while he was there, he could save his stomach and buy a couple of goddamn pies.
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