“Dad, that’s different—”
“What’s different? Giving an order and pulling a trigger? I’m not asking you to shoot anyone, Justin, not unless you have to. But it’s not different, you hypocritical cocksucker. It’s about time you owned up to it. You’ve got the gift, Justin—you can sleep at night. You boys up in Clarion Legal steal treatments out of old ladies’ hands on their deathbeds, then you go out and celebrate how cleverly you fucked them over this time, slapping each other on the ass. I know, because I did it, too. So don’t bullshit me. I know what you are, and so do you. But you want to feel good about something? Don’t want to feel like a prick? Try this: Once we get this blood on the market, at the same time we’re getting so rich they’ll have to redefine the word, we finally get to make people well for a change. How’s that for some fucking irony? Huh?” Patrick laughed.
Riding with a hanging head and a queasy stomach as the limousine sped through Miami’s streets, Justin contemplated the gun held limply between his fingers. Maybe the best thing he could do was to shoot his father first and then himself. Bam, bam.
Then he’d sleep, all right. He’d sleep just fine.
The wave of nausea passed, and so did his fantasy. Justin had felt tears pricking his eyes for an instant, but they were gone. Now, he felt as brittle and used up as the talking corpse in the wheelchair.
“I’ll be the good cop,” Justin said, nearly a whisper.
If he’d already damned himself to hell, he thought, he might as well have a good, long life.
36
Botswana
To his credit, the hotel was David’s idea.
Fana had grown more and more restless and despondent as they drew closer to Serowe, insisting that something bad had happened at their house, so David decided they should be careful. Shortly after nine o’clock, they arrived at the tiny Serowe Inn at the edge of the sprawling village of tens of thousands that bordered her own outlying hamlet, and they got a room for the night. It was just a small room with two twin beds and drab, striped curtains, nearly as spare as the one they’d had in Lalibela. But, for now, it was their safe house.
Jessica wanted to go with David to the clinic, but he said no. He’d take Teferi, he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Alex is my sister, and you don’t even know where the house is, David,” Jessica argued. Now that they were this close, tension had wound up tight in Jessica’s body, making her movements stilted and anxious. Her amorous session with David at the colony felt like a long-ago dream. She was praying Fana was wrong—maybe her daughter was just having a nervous reaction to her awful experiences at the Life Colony, she thought—but that seemed less and less likely. Something was wrong, and she needed to know what. Was Alex in jail? Had one of the patients gone berserk? Jessica had never felt premonitions, but she was almost sure she was having one now.
Then Jessica glanced at Fana, who was nervously rocking on the edge of the bed, staring straight ahead in that vacuous way, and she knew it was best to stay with her. If something was wrong, Fana would need special handling. She couldn’t keep subjecting her daughter to heartache after heartache. Fana had to come even before her sister. She would stay here, where the normalcy of the room could give them both refuge from the memory of that grueling climb through the colony’s tunnels, walking past the parted wall of bees on either side of them. Bees Fana had kept at bay, thank goodness.
“David . . . ,” Jessica said, clinging to his arm before he and Teferi set out. Her heart was beating wildly, and she blinked back tears. “Please don’t leave me waiting in suspense.”
“We’ll be back within two hours, I promise. I hope I’ll have good news,” David said, kissing her forehead. But even David’s gentle lips couldn’t loosen Jessica’s stomach muscles, which were pulled so taut that they ached.
• • •
Keep Out—By Order of Police.
Dawit had parked their rented car at the edge of the tiny cluster of huts Jessica had told him bordered the area leading to her house, deciding it was best to walk the last part of their journey in darkness, anonymity. The precaution hardly seemed necessary, since all of the huts were dark. A patchy dog barked at them from behind a huge tin water drum as they passed within a few feet of the hut closest to the large concrete house, but the dog seemed to be the only one awake. Even some distance away, with Jessica’s house blanketed in shadows beyond its cheerful country fence, he could make out the glowing red letters of the sign on the front door.
Dawit sighed heavily. He would have to report bad news to Jessica after all.
“And Fana knew it, even so far removed,” Teferi said, nearly disbelieving. “She is more like Khaldun each passing day, Dawit.”
Dawit grunted, but he didn’t have long to reflect on that. Another matter was at hand.
The house key Jessica had given them was of no use because the door had been padlocked by local authorities, so Dawit and Teferi wrestled with one of the living-room windows, opening it just wide enough so they could squeeze inside. Dawit was surprised at Teferi’s precision and strength, given that he appeared so clumsy at times. Teferi, so far, had been a competent ally who did as he was told.
Inside the stale house, Dawit recognized the smell immediately. He pinched his nose shut.
“Alexis?” he called into the darkness, knowing it was a wasted effort. His pose was alert, anticipating hostility. Even with only the moonlight to see by, he could tell that furniture in the living room had been knocked over. The sofa was on its back. “It’s David, Alexis! Are you hurt?”
Only silence in response, of course. This house was empty, stilled.
“I pray none of our brothers has reached here first,” Teferi said in a hush. “If so, your wife will never see her sister again.”
“I know it,” Dawit said solemnly. He’d had the same thought. He’d been fairly certain when they left the tunnels that Mahmoud would not follow them, and that he would encourage the others to keep a distance from them, if only out of fear. But how could Dawit be sure? Now that Kaleb was dead, Mahmoud was the most likely culprit for the carnage at this house. Perhaps he had wanted to make his message clear.
Long before Teferi flipped on the light switch, the lingering smell alone had told Dawit that the living room carpet was drenched in blood.
• • •
“Five men, I think. White men. One was darker, like . . . an Indian.”
Moses spoke haltingly, gazing straight ahead with his head slightly bowed. His voice was soft and practiced, stripped of emotion; clearly, he’d told the story many times before. To his family. To neighbors. To the police. By now, he seemed resigned. No, that wasn’t it, Jessica realized, gazing tenderly at the tightly wound locks of black curls on Moses’s head. He’d withdrawn from it, that was all. In that way, the two of them were no different tonight. Apparently, though, Moses’s family had given him some kind of sedative, and no such kindness had been done for her. To her, the pain was raw, blistering.
It was nearly midnight, and Moses’s family was only half-dressed, blinking sleepily into the lamplight in the one-room rondavel hut. The kerosene lamp sat atop a small table, which was the only real furniture inside except for the pallets they slept on and crates that served as chairs. Moses was wearing a tattered sweater and a graying pair of loosely fitting white shorts. His brother Luck stood behind him, with one hand protectively on Moses’s head. Moses’s mother, father, grandfather, and white-haired great-grandmother stood far across the room, in resentful silence.
Jessica didn’t know how David had coerced Moses’s family into talking to them this late—or into talking to them at all, considering what Moses had been through—but she was glad he’d done it. When David had brought her to see the shambles left of her home, a neighbor woman with a name Jessica had never been able to pronounce had been waiting by the fence with her dog, saying Moses could tell her what had happened.
But when she’d practically staggered to Moses’s doorstep, her face afire wit
h frightened tears, his family had refused to see her. Moses’s father, who had carried his comatose son from Jessica’s yard only weeks before, peeked out to see who was calling so late and withdrew as soon as he’d seen Jessica’s face. David, speaking Setswana through the hut’s doorway, had somehow found the words to change his mind. Had he threatened him? Assured him? She honestly didn’t know or care. It might matter to her later, but it didn’t now. Now, she only had to know what had happened.
Moses had been a man-child before Jessica’s departure; confident, playful, boastful. But now he was changed, more child than man. His right arm was in a tightly bound sling, and he sat on a mat on the floor in a ball, with his good arm wrapped around his knees. He did not meet Jessica’s eyes. He’d been shot through the shoulder, Luck had explained, and the doctors were not sure he would ever have full use of his arm again.
“And what did the men say?” Jessica prompted Moses gently after he had not spoken in a long time, and he shrugged his good shoulder. Jessica didn’t know if she should be relieved or disappointed that the attackers had not been black. It couldn’t be the Life Brothers, then. But who was it? Jessica wanted to be patient with Moses’s long silences, but she felt like screaming her questions. She wanted to shake him.
“They said . . . ‘Give us the drug,’ ” Moses repeated dully. “ ‘Where is the drug?’ ”
The drug. She’d suspected all along that her blood was responsible for the horror at her home, but she hadn’t been sure until now. Jessica had been squatting before Moses, but now her knees trembled so badly that she had to sit on the bare packed floor, her legs folding beneath her.
“Why is there so much blood everywhere?” Jessica said, her throat constricting.
Moses blinked, and his eyes were glassy in the light. Moses bit his lip for a long time, which made him look nearly infantile, then he spoke: “From . . . Sarah . . . and her brother. One of the men, he shot them. He shot them both dead. And I ran. He shot me, too, but I ran. I had no gun like the men, and I could not help them. I could not help Dr. Alex.” Moses’s words were filled with shame. His crusty bottom lip trembled.
Jessica made a faint whimpering sound, feeling herself swooning slightly. She reached out as if to grab at something, but her hands clawed uselessly at the air, then fell to her sides. For an instant, the room melted into dizzy, indefinable shapes, then she snapped back to alertness. Sharply, she smelled cinders, and the smell seemed to anchor her even though part of her wanted to faint. Maybe if she fainted, she would wake up and discover she’d only dreamed all of this. She still did not believe it was possible that she had just fled from one nightmare world to awaken in this one.
Moses went on, “They asked for the drug, the healing drug. But one man . . . did not give Dr. Alex a chance. He began shooting his gun, pow-pow-pow. He did not wait.”
They’re not all going to come and say please.
Her sister’s prophetic words came to her mind so clearly that Jessica nearly whipped her head around to see if Alex was somehow standing behind her. But she knew Alex was gone, and her mind was only trying to protect her from the inevitable hole that had just been torn in her life.
“Moses . . . did the man shoot Alex?” Somehow, Jessica’s words were measured, calm.
“I do not know,” Moses said, still not meeting her eyes. “I ran away and hid under the house. When I came out, Alex and the other doctor, they were gone. Everyone was gone . . . even the dead. The men had a camper van, and maybe they took them all away. I did not see. The doctor, they took his car as well. Nothing was left behind. Only me.”
“Wh-what doctor?” Jessica said, feeling the room spinning again. “There was someone else at the house?”
“Yes, there was a sad man,” Moses said, nodding. “He stayed in his car many days, outside. His son in America was sick, and he wanted to heal him. I heard Dr. Alex talking about him. She said she had pity for him, but she wished he would go away.”
“And . . . he was a doctor? A medical doctor?”
Moses nodded. “She called him doctor. He was an American. He told me his name, but . . . I do not remember.”
“Moses,” Jessica said, beseeching him. “Please try. Please try to remember his name.”
Moses shrugged again, his expression unchanged. “I do not remember.”
Jessica’s heart flew as she remembered the desperation of the violent man who had visited the clinic shortly before she left. Apparently, another desperate man, or worse than desperate, might have appeared in his wake. “Moses . . . do you think this American man, this doctor, had something to do with what happened? Were the men with the guns his friends?”
Puzzled, Moses glanced up at her squarely for the first time. His face said, If you were not so confused, you would not ask such a foolish question. “The doctor fought the men, or they would have caught me, for true-true. He was not afraid of their guns. He saved me.”
“Yes, but how do you know that for sure, Moses?”
“I know!” Moses said angrily, startling her with his outburst. Now he was visibly shaking. “The d-doctor was a good man. I said the same to the police. He d-did not bring the men with the guns!”
Seeing Moses’s agitation, his father began muttering in Setswana, and Luck gazed at his father with utter respect, listening. “My father say you have long enough time with Moses,” Luck told Jessica. His English was poorer than Moses’s, more self-conscious. “He lost too much blood. The doctors tell him to rest. He should not talk of that day. My father say he wish Moses never go in that house again, but Moses disobey him. Now, look what happen—there is bad magic there.”
Both of Moses’s parents murmured then, as if in agreement. Jessica gazed at their nervous huddle, both of them draping their arms around the old woman as if to keep her out of Jessica’s reach. And how could she blame them? She had brought nothing but heartache to their family. Moses was a good student, their hope for the future, and now he’d been maimed, nearly killed. How could he be a doctor himself, as he’d planned, without full use of his right arm?
She would ask David to bring a gold bar to Moses and his family, she decided. And maybe she could do more.
“Luck . . . tell your father I can heal Moses.” Jessica dared not look at David, who was keeping a respectful distance, standing in the doorway. Under the circumstances, he would think she had lost her mind to offer them blood. Thankfully, he kept his silence.
Moses’s father did not need a translation. He began to shout at her, losing his polite composure. He gestured toward Moses, angry, taking a step closer to Jessica. She could hear the fear and heartbreak woven inside his anger.
“My father say . . . you been good to Moses and this family,” Luck said, although Jessica suspected his father had said nothing of the sort, “but we do not want your magic. Your magic bring killing. We trust in white-coat doctors. We trust in Modimo and the ancestors.”
Jessica gazed at Moses again, reaching out to touch his hand. He did not withdraw from her, but his hand remained limp, as if he was unaware of her. Poor boy! His teeth were chattering. “Moses . . . please. You have to remember something else—something about the men, what they said. Did they say where they were going? Please. Unless you tell me something more about them, how can I ever find my sister?”
Slowly, Moses shook his head. “No. I don’t want to remember, mistress,” he said, sounding apologetic. “I ran from there, from the guns. I ran from . . . the killing. I hid under the house. I am no help to you. I want to forget.”
The Moses she had known was truly gone, she thought.
Jessica wiped away the sudden tears that sprang to her eyes, but she knew many more would follow them. Now that she’d heard the story, she felt more helpless to rescue either her sister or Moses. There was little else to do except try to release the searing pain in her soul.
• • •
At 5 A.M., Jessica and David got back to the hotel room in Serowe, where Teferi had kept Fana after David had firs
t brought Jessica the news. Fana was awake, rocking in Teferi’s arms, but she didn’t ask what had happened to Aunt Sarah and Aunt Alex. After all, she now knew everything they knew. Wordlessly, Jessica lifted up her daughter and held her tightly, pacing the room with her. Her sobs felt dammed up inside her chest. “I love you so much, sweetheart,” she whispered in Fana’s ear, pacing in a blind circle. “So, so much.”
Her search of the house with David had turned up little. There had been a bowl of hardened porridge on the table, along with a half-empty glass of juice, and the sink in the bathroom was full of standing water, almost as if everyone were still there, hiding just out of sight. Alex’s room looked all but demolished—medical supplies and clothes strewn on the floor—but Jessica’s room, almost ridiculously, was nearly untouched, exactly as she’d left it, except for the broken window. Sarah’s room was pristine, too, except for the unmade bed. The men had come early in the morning, Moses had said, so apparently Sarah had just gotten up. She always made her bed, Jessica remembered. Sarah’s obsessive neatness had been a running joke among the three of them, usually triggering Sarah’s shy, delicate laugh. Poor, sweet Sarah!
The only possible evidence of the mysterious doctor Moses had mentioned was a black, vinyl shaving kit they’d found on top of the commode in the bathroom, the cheap kind available at most airport gift shops. Inside, there had been nothing but a white Bic razor, toenail clippers, a small plastic comb, a travel toothbrush, and a small tube of Colgate. The only piece of paper inside was a receipt from a Francistown restaurant called Burgerland, dated five days before, at noon. No name, no signature. The kit might have belonged to either Sarah’s brother or the doctor, and it was little to go on. But it was something, at least. Jessica had carried the kit with her in her purse as she wandered her house, wanting to keep it close to her, as if it could lead her where she needed to go.
They had worked in virtual silence, she and David, first as they examined the house for clues (but keeping far away from the living room, oh, God, because even though David had covered most of the worst bloodstains with a blanket, she still knew they were there, and some of that blood might be her sister’s, for all she knew), and then as they found a large duffel bag and began packing her things. Now, she knew, she would have to leave the house for good.