Her finger hovered over her mother’s name on the computer. Alice Barrett had a complicated relationship with her ex-husband. They had four children together. Most of the pent-up hostility that she might have laid claim to had been worked through over the last twenty years, but she was still an advocate on his behalf because three out of her four children cared for him so much.
Hell, there had been times she had tried to bridge the gap between Ethan and Daisy. She’d tried hard to make Daisy see the good in her father, but it had been like pushing a boulder uphill. When Daisy was fifteen, she and her mom had had a shouting match that could be heard all over the Tajikistan embassy. Alistair had to step in. After that, her mother had finally stopped trying to intervene. She’d left it for the lost cause it was.
Daisy opened her mother’s e-mail first. She wasn’t surprised by what her mom had to say. She told Daisy to not wear herself out trying to be all things to her brothers and sister. Her mother knew that Daisy would try every avenue to rescue their father, but that she mustn’t beat herself up if she was unable to do so. She told Daisy to remember that her father had put himself in harm’s way and that Daisy was not responsible for fixing this problem.
Daisy smiled wanly. It was a nice thought, but her mother didn’t understand. She was the Executive Director of W.A.N.T., her unofficial job title was Maker of Miracles. She’d actually heard some of the women in her organization say that!
She and her team had helped get the money to ransom the girls from Boko Haram in Nigeria. Daisy along with others in her organization had gotten water wells drilled in the poorest villages in Zambia despite the government corruption. One arm of her organization that was just starting in Cambodia had just opened up a center for young girls and teens who had been sold by their families to brothels. These girls were severely physically and emotionally traumatized and needed a new start. It was Daisy’s hope that with the new people she had brought on that they would eventually be able to stop some of the trafficking before the girls were sold into sex slavery. The idea of not being able to save her father was unacceptable.
Next, she opened the e-mail from her oldest brother, Jim.
Hey Sis,
I think we’re really making progress over here. Brian met with a senator yesterday who seemed to think that the United States could get the Afghan government to do something. I don’t know if that means negotiate with the terrorists or if they would do an attack. But Brian said it might be something.
But I’m not sitting on my hands. I don’t trust our government to do anything, so I’ve been working with Davy. You know he has worldwide investments. He’s working with an embassy that might do something for us if ours fails. You know what I’m talking about, sis.
Meanwhile, Karen is working with mom and Alistair to keep Dad’s situation on the front page. She’s managed to find one of his success cases to interview almost every day. Karen’s making it look like Dad should be up for a Nobel Peace Prize.
I know Dad isn’t always your favorite person, but what you’re doing means the world to Brian, Karen, and me. If anyone can push the grunts on the ground there in Afghanistan to do something, it’ll be you. We all love you, Daisy.
Love, Jim.
She opened up the attachments that he’d sent. She couldn’t help but smile when she saw Freddie and Mikey grinning into the camera with their identical gap-toothed smiles. They’d even lost their front baby teeth on the same day. Talk about identical twins.
She adored her nephews. They had just turned four years old. It had only been three weeks since she’d last seen them, but it felt like forever. She needed to get back to the States.
Daisy opened up Brian and Karen’s e-mails. They pretty much reiterated what Jim had told her, except for telling her about Jim’s friend Davy. Now that situation scared the hell out of her. Davy was Deyvid Chubais, his father owned the largest bank in Russia, and Jim had performed CPR on Davy’s mother-in-law at a restaurant years ago. They’d been friends ever since. If Jim was thinking of having Davy go to the Russian embassy for help, that was going to turn this into a circus.
She jumped when her phone rang. She looked at her watch, happy to see that Rayi was calling two hours earlier than she thought he would have. She looked at the number on the phone and frowned. It wasn’t an Afghan number, it was a US number, and it wasn’t any that she recognized. She thought about letting it go to voicemail, when she did the math and realized it was four a.m. on the East Coast in the States. It must be important.
She answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Daisy, this is Leo.”
She licked her bottom lip.
“Well, this is a surprise. I’d ask how you got my number, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to answer, right?”
He chuckled. It
