He particularly admired the series she’d done just before coming to Australia—one that had focused on the infants and small children struggling to survive in a refugee camp on the border of two war-torn countries. And here he was, still fuming about the loss of a tank of wine. He had been such a fool. Guilt riddled his conscience. Had he bothered, even just once, to try and truly understand what mattered to Isobel? He knew she loved her work, but he’d never made even a fraction of the effort to understand her commitment to photography that she’d made to understand his passion for wine. He only hoped that he could have another chance to put things right between them.
After he finished work that day, Ethan checked her blog again, rereading some of the entries Isobel had made before she’d come to The Masters. In them he noticed an undercurrent of concern that she might not be able to complete the task she’d set herself. One entry finished with a brief comment stating she’d been cordially invited to leave the country and to avoid any further confrontations. She’d done exactly that. The way she’d worded it, he could almost hear her breezy tone downplaying the seriousness of the event. Reading between the lines, however, it sounded as if she’d narrowly avoided imprisonment for her activities.
Ethan scrolled through the blog until he reached her most recent entry. In it she talked about the hiatus she’d enjoyed in South Australia and she’d used a picture she’d obviously taken while exploring the ruins up on the hill. She’d then expanded a little on returning to the refugee camps to complete what she’d started earlier. Her commentary sent him on a web search and what he found made his blood run cold. No matter how lightly she worded it, Isobel was investigating illegal border crossings and the people who facilitated them. What she was doing was a clear breach of media regulations.
A sick feeling of dread swept through him as he considered the circumstances surrounding her departure from the warring nation the last time she’d visited, and the likelihood of her coming to harm if she ever returned. He checked the date of her most recent blog entry. Just over two weeks ago. Nothing since. It wasn’t like her. Given the example of her many previous trips away, she usually posted at least once, sometimes twice a week. Maybe he’d missed something. He refreshed the page. Nothing.
He opened another window on his computer, his fingers rapping against the keys until he found what he was searching for. Bile rose in his throat as he read the news report stating a female international photographer had been detained by military forces on behalf of the government on a charge of media infringement. The dates matched. The location matched. It had to be Isobel.
* * *
Isobel squatted on her haunches, her back against the filthy wall behind her. She was equally filthy, her skin crawling, her hair matted and dull, her stomach an aching pit alternately craving food then griping painfully over the weevil-filled slop she and the other prisoners were sporadically given. She’d begun to lose track of time and she knew that was a bad thing. Without the progression of days and nights, weeks, this entire nightmare would fade into a blur and she was afraid she’d disappear into the overcrowded numbers of people being detained on a variety of charges—some valid, many not so valid.
A commotion at the entrance to the cell she shared with twenty-seven other women failed to even attract her attention until she felt hands pulling at her, dragging her forward.
“They want you, miss,” one of her cell mates hissed at her under her breath. “Go, now, before they come in and get you.”
Isobel staggered to her feet, her breath catching as her circulation restored and painful pins and needles flooded her lower limbs.
“Isobel Fyfe?” a uniformed guard barked at her with narrowed eyes.
She nodded. “Yes, that’s me.”
“This way.”
The cell door clanged closed behind her as she followed the guard down the narrow cell-lined corridor. Shouts and cries from other prisoners followed her.
“What’s happening? Why have you called me?” she asked, but the guard continued to walk ahead, eventually slowing to open a door.
When she didn’t enter immediately, he grabbed her shoulder and pushed her through, shutting and locking the door behind her—exchanging one form of imprisonment for another. She wheeled around, banging her hands on the solid wood, shouting for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. It could have been ten minutes later, it could have been an hour, but eventually the door reopened to reveal an older man in a suit, his skin so pale it was obvious he was not a resident here.
“Miss Fyfe, I’m glad we found you. Let me introduce myself. Colin James. I’m with the New Zealand Embassy. We’ve secured your release.”
“My release?” She barely believed her ears. “But how did you know I was here?”
“Let’s just say you have friends with influence. Besides, the important thing is you’re being discharged, so let’s not go into the legalities, shall we? I think we’d be best advised to make haste before they change their minds.”
She didn’t argue, but one thing still worried her. “The man who was with me, is he—”
The look on Mr. James’s face told her everything. “I’m sorry m’dear.”
A swell of grief threatened to overwhelm her, but she fought it back. There’d be time to give in to her sorrow when she was away from here. Away and safe. She was so lucky that she had someone, somewhere, who could advocate for her. Her guide had not been so fortunate and he’d paid the ultimate price. She’d find some way to get money to his family and she’d try, somehow, to get them away from here. It was the very least she could do. She swallowed against the lump in her throat before getting her thoughts back in order.
“My things, my cameras?”
“Forfeit, I’m afraid.”
“Everything? Even my clothing?”
“I understand your pack was confiscated along with everything inside and whatever you had in your possession at the time of your arrest. We have negotiated the return of your passport on condition you understand that should you ever set foot here again, you will be arrested on sight. You have been classified an enemy of the current regime and I cannot advise you strongly enough that it is in your best interests that once you’re out of here, you stay away.”
She nodded. Three weeks in prison had been an eye-opening experience. She’d always imagined that, should the situation arise, she’d be prepared for anything. But she couldn’t have been more wrong. She was as committed to her work as ever, but now that she was intimately acquainted with the consequences, she could never be as blasé about the risks as she’d been in the past. Maybe the time had come to learn to be more careful, more meticulous in her planning, more cautious in choosing her targets. If she’d been less reckless, she might have been able to avoid imprisonment altogether. It was an experience she never wanted to repeat.
The only thing that had kept her sane had been thinking about The Masters. About the long, rolling lines of grapevines, about the silhouetted ruin on the hill reminding everyone that even in adversity, life could begin anew. About Ethan. Again, tears burned in the back of her throat and she fought to control the trembling that shook her body.
“I understand. We should go then. Thank you.”
Her things she could replace and although the memory cards and her recent photos were a loss, they were nothing compared to the forfeit of a human life. She had been so lucky to be travelling on a New Zealand passport. She was so relieved that, even though she hadn’t set foot in the country of her birth since she and her father had left ten years ago, she still had the benefit of a government division that had fought for her release.
It wasn’t until she was in Johannesburg, awaiting her flight to Singapore, that she finally began to feel safe again—although even once she was airborne, she couldn’t relax enough to sleep. She was foggy with exhaustion as she transited in Singapore, checking into an airport ho
tel for one night before catching a flight to Auckland, New Zealand. It was time to go home. Time to reassess her life, her priorities.
She still felt sick to her soul that she’d been responsible for the death of her guide. Logically, she knew that it hadn’t been her who had pulled the trigger on the man, but he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time because of her. She’d have to institute some new precautions during her assignments going forward—not just for her sake, but for the sake of those with her.
Isobel took out a short-term lease on a furnished inner-city apartment on her arrival in Auckland, and spent the next month recovering her strength. She still woke screaming in the night, clawing at the monsters that weren’t there and filled with the terror of her arrest and subsequent incarceration. Some days she was fine, ready to pick up her new cameras and to start all over again. Other days, she did nothing more than ride back and forth on the ferry between Devonport and Auckland city center, lost in her thoughts and the changing faces and accents that surrounded her.
She was grieving, she rationalized on her better days. For her guide, for the people whose lives she’d failed to make a positive difference in, for herself and the life she’d so guilelessly accepted as her right, for the love she’d borne for a man who couldn’t possibly ever love her in return, and for the mother she’d never had a proper chance to say goodbye to.
She’d spent so much of her life running, avoiding attachment by staying on the go. It wasn’t until she’d been literally unable to move, locked up in a jail cell that she was forced to truly examine her life. She wasn’t happy with all that she’d found. It was time to stop running from herself—to accept her past, and come to terms with what she wanted for her future.
She’d been home about six weeks before she finally discovered exactly where her mother had been buried. She rode a series of buses out to the graveyard on the outskirts of the sprawling city. The weathered, small, wooden cross was little reminder of all that her mother had been and all they’d left behind when Isobel and her father had left New Zealand. She sank to her knees beside the marker. Her mother had deserved more than this. Her memory deserved more than this. Running away from the reality of his wife’s death might have been her father’s way of dealing with things, but it hadn’t been fair to the woman who’d loved him to leave her behind without a suitable memorial to mark her passing.
Isobel lost track of time there, kneeling in the grass alone with her thoughts and memories. She was stiff and cold when she finally rose and left the graveyard. But even though she’d grown uncomfortable physically, she felt more at peace than she had in a very long time. Later, back at her apartment, she opened her new laptop and searched for monumental masons. Now she was home it was time to do right by her mother and really put her to rest. That started with a suitably inscribed headstone. One with her mother’s favorite line of poetry forever linked with her name.
While on her laptop, Isobel checked the online storage cache of her work. Despite patchy internet connections, she’d managed to upload most of her pictures except the shots she’d taken on the day she was arrested. Her hand trembled as it hovered over the mouse pad and she had to dig deep for the courage to open the album, to look again into the eyes of the man who’d given his life in her service and in the service of his people.
She scrolled through the album, tears running unchecked down her cheeks, her stomach tied in knots. When she was done, she signed in to her blog and wrote and wrote and wrote some more, until her heart ached a little less and her eyes burned, dry now and scratchy and sore.
Then, finally, she slept.
Isobel was pushing breakfast around her plate at a small café the next day when she checked her blog. A small cry of amazement passed her lips when she saw the outpouring of support for her post, support with offers both financial and physical to help wherever and however people could. And there, buried amongst them all, was a comment from Tamsyn, together with a request for Isobel to message her privately.
She leaned back in her chair, and debated whether she should just let that part of her life go, put it behind her. Never look back, she reminded herself. It had been her modus operandi for so long, it went against everything she’d schooled herself to be to get in touch with Tamsyn now. After all she’d been through, the life her friend led seemed ever more distant than it had before. Maybe it was time to make a clean break after all.
Coward, her conscience chided her. Self-preservation, she silently argued back. She had no desire to hear about Ethan’s marriage plans with Shanal, and if she contacted Tamsyn she had no doubt her friend would feel obliged to bring her up-to-date. It plagued her the rest of the day, until she caught sight of a society column in an online paper. Tamsyn’s name was mentioned. Apparently, she was visiting with her cousin and his wife in Auckland.
Before Isobel could overthink things, she fired an email off to her friend and, to her surprise, a reply lobbed straight back in, suggesting they meet for lunch the next day. Isobel was shocked to realize that this would be her first social interaction with another human being since she’d left Africa. She’d become so introspective, so reclusive, since her imprisonment and release. It was time to rectify that.
* * *
Seeing Tamsyn in the hotel lobby where they’d agreed to meet, Isobel was hard-pressed not to fly across the polished tile floors and launch herself into her friend’s arms. She hadn’t allowed herself to realize just how much she’d missed Tamsyn until now, when they stood here face-to-face.
“Oh, my God, Isobel, you’ve lost so much weight. Are you okay?” The words tumbled from Tamsyn’s lips as she reached for Isobel and hugged her tight. “You’re all skin and bone. C’mon, let’s hit the restaurant. You definitely need feeding up. My treat.”
Once they were seated, Tamsyn leaned forward and reached for Isobel’s hand.
“Tell me,” she urged. “Are you okay? Really okay? I read your blog post. It must have been wretched.”
Isobel gave her a weak smile. “That’s one word for it, yeah.”
“I’m so relieved you’re safely home. So, tell me what you’ve been doing since you’ve been back.”
Isobel shrugged. “Nothing. I’ve sorted out a headstone for my mother’s grave and that’s about it. I can’t seem to get motivated to work or to do anything about showing any of my work. I just feel so directionless.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Tamsyn sympathized. “You’ll come right with time.”
“But will I? Most days I don’t even feel like picking up a camera again. Photography has been my life for so long, I’m terrified at the thought that I’m never going to be able to do it again. I really believed coming back to New Zealand would help, that it would make me feel as if I’d come full circle, ready to start the next stage of my life. But it’s all I can do to even get out of bed each day.”
Tamsyn picked up a teaspoon and absently stirred her coffee, the look of concern on her face almost Isobel’s undoing. She’d managed to stay strong for a couple of days now but faced with her friend’s worry on her behalf, she felt the all-too-familiar tears rise near the surface again.
“Listen to me. I haven’t even asked how you’re doing,” Isobel said, struggling to pull herself together.
“I’m fine, but I’m worried about you, Isobel. You don’t look or sound like yourself. I know you’ve been through a harrowing experience, and that it takes time to recover from something like that, if you even can fully recover from what you went through. But the Isobel I know wouldn’t let anything or anyone strip the light out of her life.”
“You’re right. I’ve let them win,” Isobel said bleakly. “I need to fight back.”
“Or maybe you need to take a few steps back. Regroup, regain your strength. Have you thought about why you’re having so much trouble?”
“Not really,” she admitted helplessly.
/> “Maybe you should. And maybe you should think about whether part of this languor you’re suffering from isn’t because you’re missing Ethan.”
That really made her sit up straight. “Ethan? Why would I be fretting over him? He was the one who told me to leave. I was too much of a distraction, apparently. And I was keeping him from his work.”
Tamsyn laughed. “Is that what he told you? Seriously? Did you never stop to consider that maybe he was scared? Scared to love you? You’re so different yet so perfect for one another. The perfect complement.”
“Not as perfect as Shanal, apparently. How are their wedding plans coming along?” Try as she might, Isobel couldn’t quite keep a touch of snark out of her tone.
“They’re not. He isn’t marrying Shanal. They’re great friends but totally unsuited for anything else, and they know it. You know, you should think really hard about where you go next, Isobel. Look deep inside and follow your heart.”
“I’ve always followed my heart. It’s what I’ve made my reputation doing.”
Tamsyn waved aside her words as if they were of no consequence. “I’m not talking about causes. There’s a difference between following a cause that’s close to your heart and true love. Think about it, Isobel. True love can move mountains...and governments.”
Isobel jolted at Tamsyn’s last words. Governments? Was Tamsyn suggesting what she thought she was suggesting? The New Zealand embassy representative had mentioned she had friends with influence, and she’d struggled to think who they could have been. The only way to find out was to ask outright, but her mouth struggled to form the words. Eventually, though, she managed to speak.
“Was Ethan behind my release?”
“Look, he made me swear not to tell a soul what he did but since you’ve put two and two together, I’m not going to lie to you.”
Tamsyn went on to give Isobel the full story about how Ethan had pulled every last favor he’d been owed, contacted every friend in high places in Australia and New Zealand, as well as every government contact he’d ever made, and hounded them to pull the necessary strings to see to it that Isobel was released.
One Secret Night Page 15