“I’m glad,” she said politely. “He was always my favorite of your friends when we were growing up.” This was true.
“You had a crush on him,” Billy said.
“How in the world would you know?”
“Because you were always following us around. You didn’t follow around my other friends.”
She smiled. “I did.”
“Why?” asked Margie. “What was it about David?”
“Have you two met?” asked Katie.
The woman nodded, and Katie felt a slight pique: Billy had introduced Margie to his childhood pal before he had introduced Margie to her. She tried to let it go. “He was nice to me and he was cute,” she replied. “A lot of Billy’s friends were cute, but not a lot of them were nice to me.”
Billy gently ran his fingers over the back of Margie’s hand. “That’s all it takes when you’re the progeny of Roman and Glenda Stepanov,” he told her. “Someone’s nice to you? You fall for them. Katie and I are both beaten puppies that way.”
“I am not a beaten puppy,” she insisted.
“And you’re not either,” Margie reassured him.
Billy grinned, but it was derisive and self-mocking. “Well, my sister and I are who we are because of that pair. Tell me something,” he said to Katie. She waited. “I know David loved seeing you when I brought him by. He loved catching up.”
“And?”
“Just curious: do you still think he’s nice and cute?”
“Yes. Sure.”
“You two should go on a date. I mean, you’re not seeing anyone.”
“Are you fixing me up?”
“I guess.”
She shrugged and thought, why not? They could have lunch at Billy’s. It hadn’t worked out with actors. Maybe it would with a man who’d known her when she was still Katie Stepanov, and had been a friend to her brother and her when they’d needed a friend—and a little kindness—most.
* * *
.?.?.
They answered her cries. Or, perhaps, they were coming to the hut anyway.
Two of them entered, one with a flashlight, and the beam cast flickering shadows that made her think of bad dreams and the childhood monsters that crawled out from under the bed. She was still weeping, and she asked them what was happening, to please, please tell her, but they remained silent, and she stopped asking questions when one of them untied her, helped her to stand, and walked her outside. It was not quite dark, but almost, and she saw the bright pinprick that was Venus against a deep purple sky and the first bold, bright stars to the east. The majestic profile of an acacia tree looked like a painting, and she might have stood there, struck silent by its beauty, if this had been just another night in the Serengeti.
The one who’d untied her instructed her to sit on the ground in the center of the boma, and then he started to round up stray sticks and branches and toss them into a pile in front of her. From a small dead tree, a kind she didn’t recognize, he tore off skeletal twigs and added them to the mound too. When it was the size of a mother warthog, he lugged a jerry can from the back of one of the Land Rovers, sprinkled some fuel onto the heap, and set it on fire. She had been cold, and the warmth from the fire felt good on her face and arms. She rubbed at her wrists and her ankles, where she had been tied.
A moment later, a fellow who seemed to be in charge sat on the ground beside her, stretched his legs before him, and tried to hand her a canteen. In the light from the fire, she saw his fingers were gnarled. Not arthritis, she surmised, but likely broken in the past. Easily two of them and maybe three. She stared at the canteen for a moment but didn’t touch it. She wondered if it had been poisoned and this was how they were going to kill her. Would they then add more wood to the blaze and toss her body onto the pyre?
As if he could read her mind, he winked at her, his eyes a piercing blue, and took a long swallow, and once more offered her the water. His face was lightly freckled. This time she accepted the canteen and drank some. The water was warm, but she chugged great mouthfuls. When she was done, he handed her a paper bag of mixed nuts, and she put a few in her mouth.
“Are the others still tied up?” she asked him after she had swallowed the nuts.
“They’re in their huts,” he said, not precisely answering her question. He had a trace of a Russian accent.
“Why have you brought me out here?”
“Because you sounded hysterical.”
“Where is Margie?”
“She’s in her hut.”