City of Saints & Thieves(47)

He takes a sip of tea. “Sangui City is rough around the edges. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. It’s a little like I imagine the American Wild West was once. There’s crime and corruption, but there are also fortunes to be made if you are smart. It’s old and new all at the same time—shopping malls next to centuries-old mosques. Masai herding cattle down the median on the highway. People everywhere. There’s so much energy. So much life. I’m not sure my children understand it.” He frowns, looks down at his knuckles. “It’s funny. We hardly ever get to choose where our souls find their homes.”

We lapse into silence. I am so confused. Who is this man, who could speak so coldly on the phone last night about taking out his competition, and now so lovingly about his adopted city?

Mr. Greyhill turns to me. “You know, Christina, what happened here, to your mother . . .”

I tense. Out of the corner of my eye I can see his face, twisted ever so slightly in a grimace. But after a long silence, he just places a hand on my shoulder. “It was horrible. I’m so very sorry.”

It takes every ounce of my will not to fling him off. His hand is heavy and warm where it sits, and my skin crawls under it. “Yes,” I whisper, my eyes fixed on my old cottage. “I know.”

“If there’s anything I can do . . .”

He pulls his hand away, like maybe he can feel my loathing through his fingers, and when I look at him, his face is smooth again, his emotion hidden. Michael gets that from his father, I realize, the ability to put everything behind a mask.

“. . . you just have to ask,” Mr. Greyhill finishes.

It takes me a second, but I manage to lift the corners of my mouth into something that passes for a smile. “Thank you, sir, I will.”

He turns and leaves me. Soon the mist will evaporate, and the edges of the world will become clear. But for now they fade and merge, and as hard as I try, I can’t see where one thing ends and another begins.





TWENTY-TWO


I’m so sick of Michael’s room I could scream. If I have to stay in this house much longer, I’ll start breaking things just so it’s not all so perfect. I’m desperate for word from Boyboy, but after five unanswered texts he only writes back,

LEAVE ME ALONE WOMAN ALL OK NOT DONE.

And Michael is getting tired of watching me pace a hole in his carpet, but of course he’s too well mannered to say anything. Instead he taps his pen against his cheek in time with my steps, looking over his notes.

I hear him flip pages. “So according to Donatien, he and your mom were supposed to meet on April twenty-fourth, to take these photos, right? But then she doesn’t show.” He shuffles through the UN file. “Then you and your mom entered Kenya on May tenth.” He puts the papers down. “What happened in between? What do you remember about the time right before you left?”

“Not much.”

“But did something happen that would have prevented her from meeting Donatien? Something that would have made her want to leave Congo and come find my dad?”

I pause with my back to Michael. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

I can practically feel him sit up at attention. “Talk about what? What happened, Tina?”

“It’s . . . It doesn’t have anything to do with her murder.”

“How do you know? Come on, we’ve got nothing to work with here. Anything might help. Look at me.”

I turn to face him reluctantly. His face is eager. “We got separated,” I say. “Right before we left.”

Michael is all ears, hunched forward, waiting for me to go on.

I pleat the edge of the borrowed shirt I’m wearing with my fingertips. “It’s like the file says: Militia and soldiers used to come and attack our home, and we’d have to run and hide in the forest. Right before we left, that happened, and she sent me ahead.” I can feel my throat closing up, and I take a steadying breath. “And I was there in the jungle by myself for a while.”

“A while?” Michael prods.

I shrug. “I was five; I don’t really remember. A few days?”

Michael’s eyes go wide. “You never told me about that.”

The ache in my throat turns to anger. “She didn’t abandon me. She came for me eventually.”

“But . . . a few days? Where was she?”

I turn my back to him again. “I don’t know,” I say over my shoulder. “She didn’t tell me. I think she told Donatien, but he won’t tell me either. And like I said, I really don’t remember much about it, okay? After a while she found me in the forest and we left. End of story.”

“But she never said where she had been?”

I shake my head no.

Michael is quiet while he thinks. Finally, he lets out a deep sigh. “Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. What if something happened and she came to my dad looking for help? Maybe he was protecting her.”

“Protecting her? Why would he do that?”

“Maybe she had something he wanted.” He looks at me and makes a face. “No, not that. Something else. Gold?”

“He had plenty of gold,” I say. “What would Mama have brought with her from Kasisi that he couldn’t get himself? He had gold; he had power. She had nothing but me.”