Ajza checked the circular mirror in the corner of the store. Her father was a compact man with nut-brown skin. A fringe of gray hair framed his head. Glasses covered hazel eyes. He rarely smiled even on good days, but he was always courteous.
'Yes,' Ajza replied.
'He's giving me one
'And what kind of look would that be?'
'The kind that tells me he doesn't like me talking to his daughter.'
Ajza laughed. Her father had cowed all the young men who had taken an interest in her when she was growing up. That ability had often left her irritated with him because few of the young men had been brave enough to ask her out. And Ilyas had chased away most of those.
'My father hasn't changed much,' she said.
'I suppose not.' Razool looked at her. 'I'm going to be in town for another couple of weeks. To make sure my mother gets squared away properly.'
'That's very thoughtful.'
'It's going to be misery, I promise you. But maybe you could help.'
'Me?'
'Mum's doing astonishingly well. If I told her I was having tea with a pretty young woman, it would do her heart good.'
'I'm flattered, but…'
'It would also give me an excuse to get away from her for a short time. As I said, she's doing absolutely brill.' Razool glanced over Ajza's shoulder again. 'Besides, I think going out to tea with me might just flummox your father. If you're not too grown up for that.'
You're good, Ajza thought. I'll bet you do just fine for yourself in Boston.
'Let me give you a card.' Razool took a business card from his pocket and scrawled a phone number across the back. 'That's my mum's phone number. If you'd like tea — when you get through sweeping.'
Aware that her father was watching her with the same disapproval he'd shown in her childhood, grateful that she could somehow feel like a rebellious teen again, Ajza accepted the card.
'This doesn't mean I'll call,' she cautioned.
'Then I'll come by again. Ciao.' Razool waved at her and walked to the counter. 'Good morning, Mr. Manaev. How are you?'
Her father scowled at Razool and quoted the price. Razool grinned, thanked him, nodded to Ajza and left the shop. The bell over the door rang.
Her father snorted in displeasure and folded his arms across his thin chest. 'He is still a wastrel and a no- account.'
'He's a college professor,' Ajza replied, and instantly couldn't believe how quickly she'd stepped back into that old battle of wills. Her father was a good man. She wouldn't allow anyone to ever say otherwise. But he could be controlling, too.
'Then why isn't he working?' her father demanded.
'He works in Boston.' Ajza swept the debris she'd collected into a dustpan. 'He's here because his mother just had surgery.'
'He left his mother here while he moved away?' Her father shook his head in disapproval. 'What kind of son is that?'
Ajza knew better than to touch that. The fact that Ilyas didn't show any inclination to take over the shop had bothered their father. After all, he had worked hard to provide the business for them.
'I think he's very handsome.' Ajza's mother put fresh bread out on the racks. Over the years, she'd gained a little weight and was now bigger than her skinny husband. She wore a nice dress and scarf to cover her head, a nod toward traditional dress.
Ajza didn't hold with cultural attire. That was another sore point between her and her father. And her mother didn't insist that Ajza wear any of it. Her father waved away the comment. 'Handsome. You don't want a handsome man. You want a man who will work. That's what you want.'
'At this point,' her mother said, 'I would be pleased to see her taking an interest in
For a moment Ajza wondered why she'd bothered to take leave and come back for a visit. She had known what the time here would be like. Her father would worry about the business, her mother would worry about Ajza's lack of a man in her life, and no one would say anything about Ilyas.
But the earlier events had gotten too close. Every time she came out of a deep-cover assignment, she always felt the need to go home again. There was nowhere else she could go that would allow her to be herself again.
She carried the broom and dustpan to the back room. While she was there, she looked at the small space and thought of all the hurried and secret conversations she'd had with Ilyas when they'd conspired against their parents to go out on dates or to school parties. She missed her brother.
Without warning a pair of strong arms wrapped around her. For a moment Ajza almost broke free of them and fired an elbow backward. She caught herself just in time from smashing her mother's face.
'I know,' her mother said. 'I know.'
Without a word, Ajza turned and settled into her mother's embrace. Her mother's callused hands stroked her back and patted her as if she was a child. The tears came then, and so did the old frustration.
They deserved to know what had happened to Ilyas. The government owed them that.
'I'm sorry, Mum,' Ajza whispered. 'I try to be strong.'
'Some days are easier than others,' her mother replied. 'But we still have each other. That's what we need to concentrate on.'
'I will.' Ajza held her mother fiercely. 'I will.'
16
'Give me the money and you won't get hurt, old man.'
The harsh threat in the young male voice drew Ajza's attention at once from the street outside the shop. She'd been watching the two intent and quiet young men who had set up camp there in a MINI Cooper.
Ajza glanced at the mirrored disk in the corner of the shop. Two boys — they weren't men by any stretch of the imagination — confronted her father at the counter. They looked like street urchins, dressed in ragged jeans and patched football shirts. They didn't even belong to the same team.
The boy who'd spoken looked as tall as her father, and he weighed more, but Ajza doubted he was even fourteen. His face had the softness of youth, though the eyes were bitter hard. He was very pale, his blond hair dyed blue at the spiked tips.
'Are you deaf?' the boy demanded.
Her father kept his hands folded over his chest and locked gazes with the boy. 'I'm not deaf.'
'Then what are you bloody waiting for?'
Her father shook his head. 'I'm not giving you any money. If you want money, go out and get your own. Or go ask your parents.'
The young man drew a switchblade from his pants pocket. The blade
Her father scowled at him. 'You are a bad boy. You should be ashamed.'
Quietly Ajza strode forward. Her father wouldn't allow himself to be robbed. He never had. In the past he'd beaten would-be robbers with the baseball bat he kept behind the counter. Twice he'd ended up in surgery, once with a cranial fracture and the second time with a gunshot wound. But he didn't seem to acknowledge the threat before him.
From the corner of her eye, Ajza knew that the two men across the street in the MINI Cooper had noticed what
