Page 130 of Kiss Her Goodbye

Two uniformed officers lead our intruders away, already looking way out of their league.I’m guessing it won’t last for long.FBI, CIA, DOD, hell, some organization with initials bigger than TPD is bound to take over.

It’s not my problem.None of this is my problem.I’m here to locate Sabera Ahmadi.

Who just died on my watch.

I roam the compound over and over again, the drying blood on my face making my cheeks itch.

Finally, I sit outside Petunia’s room, just a girl and her iguana, while we wait for all the assorted experts to get the hell out.

Finally, as the last official departs…

Genni returns with Zahra, easing the slumbering girl out of the front of her truck, cradling her in her arms.A four-year-old child who’s now lost her mother and her father, not to mention the damage done to Aliah, whom she trusted, and Daryl, whom she adored.

I feel like a total failure, fraud, failure all over again.I feel…

I can’t do this.I shouldn’t have done this.Who am I trying to fool?

“Now what?”Genni asks.

And I realize our next problem.

LILLA ASKED POINTEDLYfor Zahra twice.Zahra, who remembers everything, including her grandmother’s cryptic matrices and her mother’s more recent riddle.

Sabera may be gone, but Zahra…

Lilla knows about Zahra.Lilla, who’s been here.

And other members of the Habib–Taliban cabal?I have no idea.

But Zahra, beautiful, sweet, precious Zahra.

I’m exhausted, concussed, traumatized, but in a curious sort of way, the most alert I’ve ever been.Zahra’s not safe.Not here, not anywhere.

I just watched Zahra’s mother die right in front of my eyes, a woman who wouldn’t break for anything.I’ll be damned if I can’t at least protect her daughter.

With Zahra passed out between us on the massive U-shapedcouch, Genni and I debate options.Zahra is vulnerable here.Zahra is vulnerable anywhere.What to do, where to go?

It’s Genni who comes up with the answer.

Where do people never search?

The place they believe they’ve already looked.

With that, we’re off and running again.

FOR ZAHRA’S SAKEas much as my own, I shower first.The cuts on my face sting, bleed more, not to mention the knife wounds to my throat, my shoulder.Afterward, Genni inspects the damage.

“You probably need stitches,” she announces.We both know that’s not going to happen, so she makes judicious use of butterfly closures instead.She has a steady, adept hand.I wonder how many of her own wounds she’s tended over the years.Is there anyone who goes through life without accruing a patchwork of scars?

Given my specialty is supposedly human nature, I search through Zahra’s backpack.Sure enough, the bottom of a side pouch, a single house key…

This is it.

“You shouldn’t stay here,” I advise Genni.“Someone might still come looking.”

“Honey, I don’t run, I don’t hide.Rusty blades, remember?Let ’em try.”

I want to share her bravado.Mostly I feel eviscerated.Generally my searches end in identifying the dead.Only two have resulted in finding the living.But this, discovering the living to watch her die…