“So everything he said holds up?” she muses.
“It seems that way,” I admit. “But there’s still something rotten going on here. I just can’t figure out what it is.”
Again, her eyes drop, away from mine. I pass her some tea and she holds the cup. There’s a long pause. We both watch slim tendrils of steam curl off the top of the liquid and disappear into the air. She sips at the tea and shifts a little.
“What are you keeping from me?” I ask, out of the blue.
She looks at me. “What?”
“When I asked you if they did anything else to you . . . it felt like you were hiding something.”
She puts the cup down and pushes back her hair, out of her eyes. Then she ties it back. Then she gives all this attention to a loose button on one of her shirt cuffs. Lots of fidgeting and zero eye contact. My gut fills with misgiving.
“It’s not what you are thinking,” she says. “They didn’t really touch me other than the punches.”
“Then what?” I ask.
She gets up and opens a window, even though just that movement must be painful, then sits back down beside me. Outside, thunder simmers, crouched and grumbling. The scent of coming rain hangs there between us; metallic, intense. Then, suddenly, she reaches over me to switch on another lamp, and the light is soft and warm, and the sudden, fresh scent of her is right there, all around me. I don’t know how it happens, but I just lean across and touch my lips to her neck. Her skin is warm and soft against my mouth, and I close my eyes and kiss her again, just there. Riya’s hand comes up to caress my face, to look at me, and her eyes go to my mouth. Without thinking about it, I move closer, toward her mouth, to kiss her.
Riya pulls away, fast.
I sit back, away from her, wishing that the ground would open up and just swallow me whole. Anything to get me out of there.
“I’m sorry,” I say, flustered. “I’m an idiot. I don’t know what I was thinking. . . .”
Her hand goes to mine, taking hold of my fingers.
“It’s not that, Jessie,” she says. “Really, it’s not. It’s just that—they did do something else to me.” She reaches for her cup but her hand shakes so much that she puts it back down.
“They gave me an injection,” she continues. “That was when they told me I would die if I didn’t drop the case. I don’t want to kiss you, Jessie, because I don’t know what I have, how it’s transmitted, or when it will kill me.”
24
THE SORROW IN RIYA’S EYES, the belief she has in her impending death, breaks my heart. My first thought is that she needs an immediate blood test. But there’s no reply at the lab, and so I take the liberty of calling Ajay on his cell phone. He answers sleepily and listens while I explain my concern.
“We have the blood you both provided to us when you brought in the vial. But Riya will need a new test, since this just happened,” Ajay says. “My people are working, but the technicians don’t answer the phones at night. I’ll come over, let you in, and we can take her blood for analysis. For safety, we should get yours checked again too.”
Over our comms, I explain the plan to Hala. She heads home while Riya and I take a taxi to the lab, where Ajay arrives just minutes after us. He takes Riya through the whole decontamination ritual again just to be super safe. Once our blood tests are done, I drop Riya home and finally, around 1 a.m., I make it back to my hotel.
Up in my room, I’m too keyed up to sleep. I run a bath and try soaking in it, breathing, trying to release the tension in my neck and shoulders. Getting into bed, I close my eyes, which are gritty with tiredness, but sleep evades me like a shadow I can never put my hand on. I pull up the sheets and turn onto my back. Thin slats of streetlight filter through the blinds on the windows, painting bars of pale yellow onto the ceiling above me.
I check my phone again, hoping for some word, some outcome. Ajay promised that his team would work around the clock on those samples we brought in from India Laboratory, and also on the next round of blood tests for the girls and now Riya. But those tests involve advanced equipment and they will take time. Staring at my phone won’t make that time go faster. What does come up, though, is a message from Amber, on my Athena handset. It’s marked green, meaning it’s not super urgent, but I call her up on our video link anyway, wanting something to think about other than Riya, the schoolgirls, and what might be floating around in their bloodstreams. Amber answers straightaway, and Li comes into the picture, settling into the chair beside her. In front of them both are numerous boxes of Amber’s favorite Thai takeout.
“So, those contacts Jingo gave you are indeed relatively low level. But terribly helpful,” Amber says. “One of the lawyers is Muslim—and Muslims form a minority in India but a majority in Pakistan. That made me focus on him and, sure enough, he has a bigger office in Pakistan, in Lahore. And that office has links to both Imran and a General Khan in the Pakistani army.”
It feels like progress, but I can’t see what kind of progress yet. “How does that help us?” I ask.
“I won’t bore you with the details,” says Amber.
“First time in history,” I cut in.
“Very amusing,” she continues. “Without real evidence, we’re working on the theory that this general could well be one of the top people in Family First. So far it’s panning out.”
“Can we
