The Fire and the Veil (Veronica Barry Book 2) (21 page)

“Lola is your student?” Khalilah asked as they exited the freeway onto Elk Grove Boulevard.

“Yes.”

“Is that how it works… these odd… connections?”

“I don’t really know. But I think, maybe so. I think the spirits tell me things, but they can also influence things. I think, maybe… maybe Lola had a few choices of where to go—or the person she was with in my dream did—and the spirits might have a way of—of influencing that decision.”

Veronica hadn’t ever worked it out in her own head that way, but now that she’d said it aloud, it felt right. The spirits didn’t just see things—they influenced events as well. She just wasn’t sure how.

“You said they don’t want you to find Amani,” Khalilah pointed out. “Why would they suddenly make it easier?”

“I don’t know,” Veronica said, some of the wind leaving her sails.

“Well, it can’t hurt to knock on 137’s door, in any case,” Khalilah said.

“Look, there’s the sign,” Veronica said, pointing.

The orange sign was shaped like a huge walnut—or perhaps a peach—and part of the neon tubing was dark, so it read “P ACH W LNUT M TEL.”

“I bet it charges by the hour,” Khalilah said.

They turned right on Walnut Avenue and in another moment Khalilah pulled the car into the motel parking lot. Veronica took a deep breath. She looked at the buildings. There might be a courtyard inside, it was hard to tell. The motel probably used to be nice, she thought. It had a sixties quality to its beige and yellowing architecture. Maybe in its day it was a pleasant stop for families driving through to Sacramento or down to Stockton, when Stockton’s port was vibrant and the city was thriving. But not anymore.

They exited the car and walked to the main office. When they entered there was no one at the front desk, although the traditional bell sat on the counter. Glass doors led out into a concrete courtyard. Veronica pushed them open, looking around, her skin crawling. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she walked outside.

“This is it,” she told Khalilah with a shiver. “This is the same motel.”

“Let’s go find 137,” Khalilah said.

They began to jog as they followed the numbers until they came to the section Lola had been in, when the man took her to room 141.

Khalilah and Veronica stopped in front of 137. Khalilah knocked.

After a pause, the door opened a crack. A dark eyed woman peered out at them. She looked younger than in Veronica’s dream, but she was the same woman.

“Excuse us,” Khalilah said. “We’re looking for Amani Ahmad.”

The eyes widened and then the door slammed shut.

Khalilah shot Veronica a look and began pounding on the door. “Amani? Amani?”

“We just want to talk to you!” Veronica put in. “Please, if you’ll just open the door, we’ll be gone before you know it!”

The knob of the door turned and Khalilah and Veronica stepped back as it swung inwards. The woman stood with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, glaring at them.

“How did you find me?” she demanded.

Veronica had no idea how to answer that question.

“Amani, is it really you?” Khalilah asked. “How is this possible? You father saw you abducted—yanked into a van—” Amani lifted her chin and looked away. “If he knew you were here, safe—”

“You mustn’t tell him!” Amani exclaimed.

“May we come in?” Veronica asked.

Amani sighed and stepped back from the door. Khalilah and Veronica entered. Amani shut the door behind them. There wasn’t very much light, just one of the two bedside lamps was on. The room was fairly large, however, and a small refrigerator and a counter and sink lined one wall, with the bed on the other. A cabinet stood across from the bed. Its doors were open and a TV sitting inside was on, playing an old episode of
Married with Children
, Veronica noticed. Amani saw her look and grabbed the remote, turning the TV off. She set the remote down rather sharply, turning to face them. But she said nothing, instead, beginning to ring her hands. As Veronica looked at them, the room fell away. She was walking on a sidewalk. It was very sunny, but not very warm. An aging man with bronze skin and a dark beard walked ahead of her. Ahead of them, a boy called across the street to a woman in a window. There were signs over storefronts with Arabic lettering.

Then she saw a dark blue van turn onto the street and rev its engine as it approached. It drove past her and the man. She was tense, as if it frightened her. And then the van came to an abrupt stop just ahead, and the back doors opened. Two people in ski masks emerged, and one pushed the man so he stumbled and fell to his hands and knees.

“Baaba!” she cried—ah, Veronica thought, it must be Jahid. She turned and reached for the fallen man.

The figures in ski masks each grabbed one of her arms and lifted her from the ground, for they were both taller than she was.

“Shi treed?” she cried. In three steps they had her in the van. They slammed the doors shut and the van’s engine revved. It lurched as its wheels found traction and it surged into motion.

They removed their masks. They were two young men. One grinned shyly at her, his eyes full of warm emotion.

Then the driver turned her face so Veronica could see it. It was Yesenia Saleh.

She blinked and found herself once again in the motel room.

“You staged the abduction,” Veronica said.

Khalilah stared at Veronica.

Amani shifted from one foot to the other. “I did not,” she said, her faint accent making her voice velvety. “I had no idea. Yesenia never said—” she stopped herself, apparently uncertain as to whether she had revealed too much by using Yesenia’s name.

“Yesenia!” Khalilah exclaimed. “What does she have to do with this?”

“It was Yesenia’s idea?” Veronica said. “Who were the two men who helped her?”

“I don’t know,” Amani said.

“Wait, what are you saying?” Khalilah demanded. “Yesenia Saleh staged a fake abduction?”

Veronica gave her a firm nod. “And she’s lying—she knew at least one of the men who helped her. They were a bit rough on your father, don’t you think? And do you have any idea of how upset he was, witnessing that?” she asked Amani.

Amani’s shoulders slumped and she sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, bringing both hands to her face. “I never wanted to hurt him.” She looked up at them both. “Is he alright?”

Khalilah blinked. “Well, he’s a mess, as you might expect!” she snapped. “Alright. I need a full explanation. What the hell is going on?”

Amani flinched. She looked down at her hands. She seemed unwilling or unable to speak.

“You told Yesenia you were afraid of your uncle,” Veronica prompted.

Amani’s eyes flew to Veronica’s face.

“Yes, I know about that, and a lot of things, but Khalilah wants you to explain it,” Veronica said. “So start with the first time you talked to Yesenia.”

Amani shook her head. “I didn’t know what to do. We’ve been in Sacramento for over three years. I went to high school for two, now I am finished with school, and stuck in the house—and at school, I saw how girls live. Even in other muslim families, they have so much freedom. I envied them. But I love my father, and I would never do anything to dishonor him.”

“But you don’t love your uncle,” Veronica said.

“Of course I do! I love and honor my uncle!” Amani exclaimed.

“You’re afraid of him!” Veronica said. “He set you up to marry his business partner and you were afraid he’d make you a prisoner.”

Amani looked miserable. “Yesenia told you? I am ashamed that I told her those things.”

“Are they true?” Khalilah asked.

Amani cast her eyes down on the floor and shut her mouth in a tight line. Khalilah addressed her in a stream of rapid Arabic. That seemed to surprise her, and she met Khalilah’s gaze. Stunned, she answered Khalilah’s questions.

After several minutes of this, Khalilah turned to Veronica. “You were right, she’s terrified of her uncle. And she didn’t want to do anything to disgrace her father, but she didn’t want to marry the business associate.”

“So Yesenia faked her abduction?” Veronica asked.

“I did not know that she would do it,” Amani insisted. “She only said that she would help. She said she knew how to help me, that she had done it before.”

“What happened after they came with the van?”

“They drove me here,” Amani said. “Yesenia gave me money and said she was going to give me new papers soon. I am waiting. She will take me to Los Angeles then. To start a new life.”

“Could Yesenia be involved in some sort of human trafficking organization?” Khalilah asked Veronica.

“What is ‘human trafficking’?” Amani asked.

“I don’t know,” Veronica answered Khalilah. “She doesn’t seem like the type.” She turned to Amani. “Who was the man in the van? The one who smiled at you like he knew you?”

Amani looked down. “A friend.”

“Is he a friend of Yesenia’s?”

“He attends our masjid,” Amani said.

“And he noticed you there,” Veronica said. “He liked you, and you liked him.”

Amani covered her face with her hands.

Khalilah began speaking to her in Arabic again. Eventually, she turned back to Veronica. “It sounds to me like Yesenia is running some sort of… underground railroad. Amani doesn’t know if she’s done this sort of thing before, but it isn’t easy to get fake papers made for an immigrant, particularly of Middle Eastern descent. She’d have to know someone. Of course, she is a social worker. You meet all sorts of people that way.”

“Underground railroad,” Veronica said.

“There are women who feel very strongly about the way girls and woman are treated in some Islamic cultures—quite a lot of muslim women want to make serious changes. But you run into all kinds of dangers with tribal customs and such,” Khalilah said. “I think Yesenia decided to cut through all of those complications by staging this abduction.”

“She must have known that Amani’s family would be distraught.”

“I’m more surprised that she’d take the risk of their seeing it as a dishonor,” Khalilah said. “She must have felt sure that Amani would never see them again.”

“Is that what you want?” Veronica asked the young woman. “Never to see your father again?”

Amani raised sad eyes to meet Veronica’s. She stared at her for a moment, then nodded her head, and looked down, her shoulders slumped.

Veronica sighed and looked at Khalilah. At least now she understood why the spirits hadn’t wanted her to find Amani. But what didn’t make sense was how Lola had led Veronica to Amani. Had that one spirit somehow orchestrated that, against the others’ wishes? She didn’t know how it all worked. She probably wouldn’t know, until she was dead herself.

“We should go,” she said to Khalilah. To Amani she added, “I’m sorry we troubled you. I wish you the best.”

“Alla ykhalliich,” said Khalilah.

“Alla bil-kheer,” Amani answered.

Khalilah and Veronica left Amani in her motel room to wait for her new life to start. They were silent as they walked to the car, and silent for most of the drive home. As they neared Veronica’s duplex, Khalilah said, “I didn’t expect it to work out this way.”

“No, me neither,” Veronica said.

“I am really grateful to you for your help in all of this,” Khalilah said.

“You’re welcome.”

“I hope… I hope you figure out how to help your student.”

“Thanks,” Veronica said.

“We should get together sometime, for coffee or something.”

“I’d like that.”

Then they arrived on B street and Veronica got out of the car and walked to her door, feeling out of sorts. Well, at least Daniel would be relieved, she thought.

She let herself into her duplex and went to the back door to let in Harry. He ran around her legs in ever tightening circles, panting and wagging the entire pack end of his body so hard he struck her legs at intervals. “I missed you, too, buddy,” she told him.

No sense settling in right away when Harry could use a walk. So she put on his harness, dodging puppy kisses, and led them both out again. As she headed for the sidewalk her cell phone went off.

The display read “Angie.”

“Hey, Ange,” Veronica said, frowning. What was this about? Angie never called unless something was wrong.

“Veronica, you have to help me.”

“What’s going on?” Veronica asked as she stopped and waited for Harry to do his business on the wheel of a Corvette.

“It’s Mom. She’s being so totally unreasonable.”

“She is? About what?”

“You have to talk to her, okay? She won’t let me go to this party tomorrow night.”

“What party?”

Harry started off again, pulling her behind him.

“At Regina’s. It’s her birthday.”

Veronica felt a rush of happiness for Angie. “She invited you?”

“Yeah! And Mom is being totally stupid about it!”

“Okay, I’ll call her. I’m not making any promises though.”

“Call her right now, alright?”

“Yep. Right away.”

Veronica clicked end and looked at the phone thoughtfully. It didn’t make sense. Melanie was dying for Angie to make friends. She hit two and speed-dialed Melanie.

“Hi,” Melanie answered.

“Hey Mel,” Veronica said, trying to sound casual. She felt the urge to demand an explanation on Angie’s behalf, but it was unwise to do that before she’d gotten Melanie’s side. “What’s new?”

“Not a lot… ah. Angie called you, didn’t she.”

“Yeah,” Veronica said. She crossed the street with Harry trotting happily ahead.

“Man, she’s persistent.”

“So… you want to tell me what’s up with this party?”

“One of the girls you introduced her to, Regina something, invited her.”

“Yeah,” Veronica said. “That’s awesome—isn’t it?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Angie said you won’t let her go…?”

Melanie clicked her tongue. “Is that what she said? Pul-lease. I
want
her to go. But I said I would only let her if I could be one of the adults there.”

“Ah,” Veronica said. She wasn’t sure what to do with that. She studied Harry’s spots of black, white and tan, as if the pattern of his fur would give her inspiration.

“I mean, I don’t think it’s such a strange idea,” Melanie said after a moment. “But what worries me is how adamant she is about saying no. I think there aren’t going to be any adults there at all, V.”