Page 5 of Deadly Storms (Sunrise Lake #3)

“I did have something I wanted to run by all of you,” Shabina said. She kept her voice carefully controlled, but her friends instantly fell silent, waiting, as if they knew this wasn’t as casual as she was trying to make it sound.

She couldn’t help laughing. She was so lucky. “You women. I can’t get anything past you. You knew all along I wanted to talk about something important.”

“It’s been obvious you’re upset about something, Shabina,” Stella said, her voice gentle.

“Your dogs are on edge,” Harlow pointed out. “Whether they’re picking up your mood or there really is something wrong, it’s apparent something is out of sync. We’ve just been waiting for you to share.”

Shabina took a deep breath. Now that she was going to articulate her fears, they seemed silly.

What evidence did she have that anything was wrong?

She found herself hesitating. If it got out that she was worried, her parents would insist she come home.

They’d keep her locked in their house, surrounded by security.

She wouldn’t be able to move or breathe without permission or having half a dozen guards around her.

All the things she loved doing wouldn’t matter.

“I’m not exactly sure how to start. Now that I’m going to say it out loud to someone, I feel a little ridiculous,” she admitted.

“Shabina.” Raine sounded more than gentle. “Take your time. We’re your friends. You don’t have to worry about how you sound. Just tell us what’s bothering you.”

Shabina sank to the floor so she wouldn’t be tempted to pace.

She’d worked hard to appear relaxed and calm at all times.

The moment she sat on one of the cushions scattered on the floor, Malik lay down on one side of her and Sharif on the other.

They pressed against her thighs, crowding close, feeling her inner agitation.

She had to keep reminding herself these were her friends and they had her best interests at heart.

“You know my father puts out oil fires all over the world, that he’s considered the best in the business, right?

” She knew they were aware of her rather famous father, but she had to start somewhere.

“I told you that when I was fifteen, he took my mother and me to Saudi Arabia to put out fires there and I was kidnapped. It was a strange time. Quite a few kidnappings had taken place, and my mother and I were coached on how to behave if it should ever happen to us. We were told ransom would be demanded. It would be paid, and we would be freed. We were instructed not to resist. Not to try to escape. Not to agitate our kidnappers in any way. We were told repeatedly that sometimes negotiations broke down but not to worry, they always resumed.”

“How strange that would be,” Vienna said. “Having to worry all the time about being kidnapped, so much so that you’re given instructions on how to respond.”

Harlow exchanged a long look with Shabina before she admitted to the others that she’d also been given strict instructions. “I grew up with a father in politics. We had security around us all the time, but obviously, my training wasn’t as intense as Shabina’s.”

Shabina sent her a small smile, thankful someone understood the pressures of having to be constantly on alert for danger.

“My mother and I went shopping at this little market. It wasn’t like we weren’t heavily guarded; we were.

The next thing I know there was shouting and jostling and guns waving at us.

My mother was grabbed by our security guards and they made a run for the armored vehicle.

I was on the other side of the table of a fruit seller’s stand.

I remember looking at the oranges exploding all around me and then at my mother’s back as the men shoved her into the SUV.

My guards threw me to the ground, and we rolled under the table with all the fruit. ”

“You must have been so frightened,” Stella said.

“I mostly remember being worried about my mother. I didn’t like being separated from her.

She didn’t look back either. That felt so strange to me.

She didn’t call out or look back. She let them push her inside the SUV.

I told myself if my mother could be that calm and do what we were told in the situation, I should be able to do it too. ”

Raine let out her breath. “You were fifteen, Shabina. Separated from your mother in the middle of gunfire. No one would have blamed you if you panicked.”

Shabina shifted her gaze to Raine. Raine could be a firecracker if she thought one of her friends had been misjudged—or in this case, was taking on guilt that wasn’t hers. She found herself smiling again, the heaviness in her heart lifting a little.

“The thing is, Raine, I didn’t panic. I just told myself the security team had gotten my mother out of there, and mine would get me out.”

“But they didn’t,” Stella whispered. She wrapped her arms around Bailey’s neck.

Shabina pressed her palm against her thigh, high up, where sometimes the muscle refused to stop aching. Like now. She told herself it was psychosomatic, not real, all in her head. No matter that she ran daily and stretched endlessly, that pain from the scarring never quite left her body.

“No, those men with guns were everywhere. My team didn’t want to start a war and get everyone in the marketplace killed, so they opted to lie down with the rest of us when they were told.

Two of them tried to cover me, but it was my mother and me they were looking for.

I was taken along with six other prisoners.

Two women in their thirties, both from France, and three men from London in their early twenties, and a woman from Argentina who was close to sixty.

I didn’t put up any resistance. No one had been killed.

I think a couple of people may have been wounded, but for the most part, when they left with us, the market just had to be put back in order. ”

“The fact that you weren’t the only one kidnapped was reassuring to you?” Harlow inquired.

Shabina nodded. “So much so that when the older woman, Kathryn was her name, began to cry, I whispered to her not to resist, that they would negotiate for our release. I was certain they wouldn’t hurt her.

I spoke in Spanish, hoping our captors wouldn’t understand me and be angry that I was reassuring her.

I had been told to stay very quiet and not draw attention to myself, but I didn’t like seeing her in such distress. ”

“That’s so you, Shabina,” Raine said. “You have the most compassionate heart. You clearly had it even then.”

“I would have been too petrified to move,” Vienna said.

Shabina couldn’t help laughing. Vienna hung off cliffs rescuing total strangers.

“I doubt that. I think what I’m trying to say is we were treated with kindness.

No one hit me or any of the others. They took us to a place with tents, gave us food and water and explained the rules.

We were told we were being held for ransom and once that ransom was paid, we would be freed.

It was more or less a profitable business for them, just as we’d been told by our security team. ”

“There were others in this camp?”

“Even some of their women. Old and young. The leader was a man named Salman Ahmad. He was soft-spoken, but what he said was law. No one disobeyed him. He didn’t torture or murder, but he meant what he said.

He had each of us make a video to plea with our families to pay the ransom.

There were no political statements, just simple business transactions. Then the entire camp was moved.”

Shabina rubbed her aching left thigh. The muscle pounded with the throb of her heartbeat.

“I should have tried to escape. I don’t know why I didn’t.

The truth is, I didn’t feel as if I was in a camp with kidnappers.

That first year, I was treated with kindness by the women and mostly ignored by the men.

I learned so many things and found everything about their lives fascinating.

I was able to help with the children and was taught to sew and cook.

I perfected my language skills. Kathryn was the first to go, and even she hugged a couple of the women and me when she was escorted away. ”

Tears burned behind her eyes, tears for those women and children she’d come to love.

They had been like family to her. “I thought about my parents, but it felt as if I’d been sent to one of the many camps or boarding schools while the two of them went off alone together.

This was nicer than the summer camps. I learned to play musical instruments and sing their songs.

The birds were so beautiful, and I could coax them to come right to me.

I practiced each note any bird would sing until I could duplicate it exactly.

I studied their beliefs and found them to be fascinating.

In most ways, they were a quiet, peaceful, loving people.

The men always wore the traditional garb, as did the women. I did as well.”

The lump in her throat threatened to choke her. She found she was rocking, self-soothing, something she had tried very hard not to do.

“Shabina.” Raine’s voice was gentle. “You don’t have to tell us.”