The Fire and the Veil (Veronica Barry Book 2) (15 page)

Khalilah asked the woman at the front desk if Yesenia was free. They were in luck; she was. The woman buzzed Yesenia, who came and met them, shaking their hands. Khalilah gave Veronica a look, but Veronica returned her look with a subtle shake of her head. No visions from the handshake.

Yesenia Saleh was a middle-aged woman wearing a lavender flowered head scarf and a bronze satin blouse with a navy skirt. She took them back to her office.

“So,” she said, sitting down and gesturing to two chairs opposite her desk. “What can I do for you?”

“I understand you often serve patrons of Masjid Al-Taqwa,” Khalilah said as she and Veronica sat down.

“Yes, and other mosques,” Yesenia said.

“What sorts of things do they see you about?” Khalilah asked. Veronica knew she was trying to find a way to fish for information without tipping Yesenia off about Amani. A stalling tactic—Khalilah was trying to give Veronica enough time to have a vision, but Veronica couldn’t relax and have one when Khalilah and Yesenia were right there, having a conversation.

“Didn’t you want to ask about the teen theater program?” Veronica asked, pulling the obscure fact that the SCCS had such a program from the recesses of her mind.

“Right. Are you involved with that?” Khalilah asked Yesenia.

Yesenia’s brow furrowed. “No, I’m not. You want to speak to Gordon Eastly or Miranda Hart.”

“Well, that’s alright,” Khalilah said quickly. “You see, I’m trying to get a sense for all of the resources available to Muslim youths and families. My brother, Fayez Jadeed, works at the Islamic Center and I keep telling him he needs to create a binder. I got your name from Nasir Moshar—he thought you could help.”

Yesenia’s face cleared. “Of course,” she said. “We have many programs here that serve refugees and also people who have been living here in Sacramento for some time. How about a tour?”

Khalilah nodded, but Veronica covered her eyes with her hands. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just sit here while you go,” she said to Khalilah.

“Don’t tell me the migraine is back?”

“It’s on its way. Maybe if I just sit still and breathe for a few minutes it will pass.”

Khalilah turned to Yesenia, who was gazing at Veronica with concern.

“She’s just come out of one,” Khalilah said.

“I thought I was well enough to come out and help Khalilah with her hunt,” Veronica said in a weak voice. “But just now I had a wave of nausea.”

“Perhaps another day…” Yesenia suggested.

“No, no,” Veronica said. “It’s fine. Let me just sit. Maybe put out the light? And when you get back I’m sure I’ll feel better.”

With a little more back and forth, Yesenia was convinced, and she and Khalilah left for the tour of the center. They shut off the light, and shut the door behind them, and Veronica pushed her chair back against the wall so she could lean back and close her eyes. If all went well, anyone who saw her there, either through the door’s window or if they opened the door, would assume she was resting, which would gel with the migraine story.

Veronica got as comfortable as she could—the chair was metal with a cushioned seat, not exactly lush. She slowed her breathing and whispered, “Show me Amani Ahmad. Show me what she told Yesenia Saleh about the person she was afraid of.” She focused on her breath and clearing her mind. After a moment, the vision came.

Amani sat where Veronica was sitting, except closer to the desk. She was in her full abaya. It was a deep burgundy color. All Veronica could see was her eyes. Yesenia sat behind her desk, wearing a green hijab scarf and a matching dress with long sleeves and gold buttons down the front.

“Tell me, Amani, please. I cannot help you if you don’t tell me what you are afraid of,” Yesenia said.

Amani fidgeted in her seat. “I cannot say,” she murmured. “It would mean dishonor to my family.”

“Your safety is at stake,” Yesenia said. “You’ve come all this way. You can’t leave without telling me who it is who threatens you. Is it a man from your neighborhood? Perhaps a suitor?”

Amani barked a bitter laugh. “If only it were so simple,” she said.

“Explain it to me,” Yesenia said.

“I have no suitors,” Amani said. “How could I? My father never lets me out of the house. My uncle would never allow it.”

“It sounds like your uncle is in charge of the decisions your father is making?”

“You could say that. My father is a good man, Mrs. Saleh. He loves me, I know this—when I was a little girl I was always his princess. But my uncle, he is… he is a harsh man. He saw a lot, in Iraq. We had to flee… the Shias tried to burn down our house—and before that the Sunnis were always making trouble. Now it’s the Sunnis’ turn to flee for their lives. But either way, we could not stay there.”

“Yes, it must have been very hard,” Yesenia said. “I was born here in Sacramento. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to abandon my home—to face the violence you had to leave behind.”

The two of them were silent for a few moments. Then Amani spoke again. “It’s my uncle,” she said. “I am afraid that now that he has a husband in mind for me, he’ll lock me up. He’s hateful to me—always angry. Like he believes I will dishonor the family somehow. I’m very careful. I never speak to men except for him and my father.”

“He has chosen a husband for you?” Yesenia asked.

“Yes. One of his business partners,” Amani said tonelessly.

“Have you met this man?”

“He came to dinner one night some time ago.”

“Amani, you can’t be forced into marriage. It won’t be upheld under California law, much less Sharia.”

“Tell that to my uncle,” Amani said. “He’ll force me to do it, and I must consent or he’ll become angry… and he frightens me when he’s angry, Mrs. Saleh.”

“Amani, we can stop this from happening. You mustn’t think you’re alone. You can’t be forced to marry against your will.”

“I wish you were right,” Amani said. “You’ll see. Soon enough, I’ll be a prisoner.”

Veronica opened her eyes. The vision had ended, and she wasn’t sure what to think. Had Hamza abducted Amani? Was he holding her prisoner? But, why? It sounded like he had Jahid under his thumb—he would marry Amani to his business associate whether she wanted him to or not. Why go to the trouble of kidnapping her? Why frighten his brother so badly that Jahid told outsiders about what he’d seen? Was Hamza crazy?

Or perhaps what this meant was that Amani had not known her abductor after all. Someone else entirely snatched her, and Yesenia knew nothing about it. Veronica groaned and closed her eyes again. What was she supposed to do now?

If Hamza had Amani, he would be keeping her locked up to save her for his colleague. There would be no rape, and no reason to kill her once he released her. Just a forced marriage that Veronica found abhorrent. But at least Amani was alive and relatively unharmed in that scenario.

If Hamza didn’t have her, everything was back to square one—Amani abducted and at risk of being murdered by her family if she was found. And all of the searching and visions Veronica had, had brought her no nearer to finding Amani.

She stood up and left Yesenia’s office. She found Khalilah and Yesenia walking back towards the office in a side corridor.

“Veronica?” Khalilah said when she saw her.

“You don’t look well,” Yesenia remarked.

Veronica shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s not getting better. Do you mind driving me home, Khalilah?”

“Of course not,” Khalilah said. “Thank you for your time, Yesenia.”

“I was glad to help,” Yesenia said. “I’m sorry you are unwell, Veronica.”

Veronica nodded slightly. “Yes, bad timing. I hope we’ll meet again when I’ve put this migraine behind me.”

Khalilah took her arm and guided her out of the center. They didn’t speak until they were inside the car again.

“You do look awful,” Khalilah said. “What did you see?”

“I don’t know,” Veronica sighed. “I think we may be on a wild goose chase.”

“What?”

“The person Amani was afraid of was her uncle, Hamza. He was being… overbearing,” Veronica said with a shrug. “I don’t know how to put it. He chose a husband for her and he was all worried she was going to do something to mess it up. She was afraid he’d make her a prisoner until the wedding.”

Khalilah thought about this. “Maybe he did. Maybe he abducted her.”

“But it doesn’t make sense. Why be so theatrical about it? From what Amani said, Hamza is in charge. He makes the family decisions, and Jahid goes along. If he wanted to lock Amani up, why go to the trouble of pulling her into a van? It doesn’t make sense.”

“So you think it wasn’t Hamza.”

“I don’t see how it could be. It must have been someone else.”

“What about the fiance?”

“Amani said she only met him once, at a dinner. It sounded like this arranged marriage was some sort of business transaction for Hamza.”

“But maybe it meant more to the fiance,” Khalilah said. “Maybe he got impatient. Or he and Hamza had some sort of falling out, and Hamza was going to break the engagement. Maybe he felt he had to grab her or lose her somehow.”

Veronica pondered this. “I have no idea who this business partner was.”

Khalilah sighed. “Maybe Fayez will know something about it. I’ll ask him tonight—we’re supposed to have dinner.”

Veronica gasped and dug her phone out of her purse. It was four forty. “Oh, thank god,” she muttered. “Unless you can think of something else I can do right now, I’d appreciate a ride to Penny Coffee. I’m meeting Daniel.”

“I’ll call you after I’ve talked with Fayez,” Khalilah said with a shake of her head. “Until then, don’t say anything to Daniel, okay?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Veronica agreed. The whole thing was frustrating and exhausting. “I wouldn’t know where to start, anyway.”

Chapter 10

“So how did it go with Khalilah?” Daniel asked shortly after their server seated them. They were having dinner at a little Thai restaurant on J street that they both enjoyed. They sat at a small table with a lacy table cloth by the front bay window that looked out onto the street. Daniel whispered as he pushed in her chair that he thought the hostess seated them there because he was Asian—Asian customers in any Asian restaurant made it seem more appealing, the reasoning being that if an Asian person thought it was good, it must be. Daniel thought this was very funny. Thai food had nothing to do with Korean—he was no more a connoisseur of authentic Thai than Veronica was.

“It was fine,” Veronica said, giving him a quick smile and looking at the menu again. “Have you ever had the green curry? Do they put a lot of eggplant pieces in it?”

“I haven’t tried it. When I feel like curry I always get the red,” said Daniel.

“Is the red very spicy?”

“It’s not bad. I bet you could ask for them to make it milder, anyway.”

Veronica nodded and began contemplating the pra-ram. Peanut sauce sounded yummy. She found that after the day she’d had, she was famished.

“What was it you were helping Khalilah with?” Daniel asked.

Veronica glanced up at him. He seemed focused on his menu, like he was just throwing the question out there for small talk.

“Um, she’s trying to get some teachers from a couple of different schools together, to do this tour of some local mosques.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. We visited one today. It was interesting.”

“And she just decided out of nowhere that she wanted you to be a part of this project?”

“I guess she’s been running into some resistance,” Veronica said. She considered trying to change the subject again by asking him if he’d tried another menu item, but he might notice that.

“I bet,” Daniel said. “I doubt the good Catholics who send their kids to Saint Pat’s are all that keen on their kids visiting mosques.”

Veronica frowned, thinking back to the first time she’d met Khalilah. “Khalilah says that hasn’t really been an issue she’s had to deal with much. I thought it was strange that she works at Saint Pat’s, too, at first. But no one can argue with her credentials.”

“Working there is one thing. I’m telling you, if the parents get wind that she’s showing their kids mosques, she’s going to be dealing with some angry phone calls.”

“There’s nothing wrong with exposing kids to other cultures.”

“Sure, if you’re not a part of that culture,” Daniel said. “It’s no threat if Mother Theresa takes you to ogle the heathens in their pagan temple. It’s different if the teacher is a heathen herself.”

Veronica didn’t know what annoyed her most: the fact that Daniel was so intrigued by what she was doing with Khalilah that she’d had to tell this lie, the way he interpreted things so that Khalilah was foolishly letting herself in for the backlash of ignorant parents, or that probability that he was right in his prediction—or at least that he would be right, if any of it were true. But just because he was right that some parents would no doubt complain if Khalilah took their children on a field trip to see some local mosques, it didn’t make that okay. It didn’t make the theoretical Khalilah foolish for doing it. It just made the parents ignorant, at best, bigots at worst. But Veronica didn’t want to get sucked into arguing with him about it, especially since it wasn’t really going to happen.

“So I guess Khalilah must have approached some other teachers before she sucked it up to call you,” Daniel said, setting down his menu.

“I guess,” Veronica said weakly.

“Does she expect you to bring your kids on this field trip, too?”

“That would be the point of a joint field trip,” Veronica said. She kept her eyes on the noodle section of the menu, but she was starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

“And why would you take French students to see mosques?” Daniel asked. “I mean, I can see Khalilah taking her Arabic class. But yours…”

“There are plenty of Francophone countries in the world that are predominantly Muslim,” Veronica said.

Daniel was quiet for a moment. Finally, Veronica looked up from her menu. He was gazing at her.

“How long are you going to keep this up?” he asked.

Veronica tried to look confused.

“Please, Ronnie,” he said. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What is really going on?”