Kwabena now went by Kamil. He was in town, convenient. Had to come in because of Dennis Smith’s death to handle their business dealings. And one of their businesses was a place called the Lotus Flower. She immediately recalled the photocopied business card from Cort’s office. Okay. But where’d she seen it before that?
“It’s a day spa,” Witt was saying when she refocused on him. “Seems innocent enough.”
Nena knew its true purpose because just like mental connections seemed to do, something clicked, and she remembered. “It’s not,” she said. “It’s a front for human trafficking, and the people who ‘work’ there are being trafficked, most likely. If you check for business partners, you’ll find the Cuban was a client of the spa.”
Witt sat with the information for a moment. “Well, that’s your proof right there, yeah?”
But was it enough? “The Council was willing to go off script, kill a man just doing his legitimate job, to gain more power and territory. Do you think they’ll care that these guys were selling people?”
“Noble will care, and he’ll set things to rights. This justifies your dispatch of Smith and will get your dad to look further into who backed them, like Lucien Douglas, for example.”
Hearing the name of Paul’s alter ego gave her a visceral reaction she wasn’t sure she had masked fast enough.
“What is it?” Witt missed nothing.
She told him.
He might have been a master at showing no emotions, but this was too much. He gawked at her incredulously. “Are you sure?”
Nena managed to keep back a biting retort. She was tired of everyone asking if she was sure about these men. Their faces were forever seared into her mind.
“My God, how can this be?”
She wanted to say, You tell me. After all, you’re the one who was supposed to make sure he was gone. But she didn’t. She kept her mouth shut and her face impassive. She didn’t need to say it, though, because Witt could read it in her face. He knew they hadn’t been thorough enough. Nena placed her hand against her hot forehead, leaning back against the chair in her office and releasing the frustration and accusations she felt toward Witt and the Tribe at the moment. They were not the real villains here. They did not know, as she did, what chaos Paul was capable of, how he was always waiting just beneath the tranquil surface for the right moment.
“Someone within the Tribe is Paul’s benefactor,” Witt surmised. “Just like you guessed.”
“Yup.”
“Who?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t even think of that now, and she told Witt as much. “I need to compartmentalize, to focus.”
Witt warned, “If you dispatch Paul’s third man, you’ll poke the bear.”
“Then he’ll know I’m no longer the scared little village girl from before.”
42
BEFORE
The woman and I consider each other as we stand in the wreckage of the ordeal we have shared. She has a cut just above her eye, but despite the blood, disheveled clothes, and ripped pantyhose, she does not look too bad off. She does not even seem too shaken, which is perplexing. Surely a woman as high class as her should be quaking in her shoes, of which she is only wearing one.
“I should have been more careful. I saw those men hanging around before going into the store.” She searches the ground, locating her purse and her phone within it. She places a call.
“I have something for the Cleaners, double order. Yes. In an alley across from my hotel. I’m leaving now,” she says tersely, tenderly touching the cut. She ends the call, then turns back to me. I am concerned about my rucksack and wondering where I am going to sleep tonight, because the area will be too infested with police to stay in the park. “Noble is going to be angry with me.”
I just look at her. Not sure who Noble is and why he would be angry with her for being attacked. He sounds quite the opposite of his name if that is the case. Not my business. I want only to return to my own life. However, the woman has other plans.
“Can you speak?” she asks in French.
I nod.
“Will you speak?” she asks in English.
I hunch my shoulders.
Her eyes narrow as my mistake dawns on the both of us: I understand English too.
“Where is your family?”
There is no way I will answer in either language.
She nibbles on her lip. She does not know what to make of me, nor I of her. I am still trying to figure out how I was tricked into disclosing anything about myself.