The Garden of Burning Sand (8 page)

The Lexus, it turned out, belonged to the son of a bureaucrat at the Ministry of Finance who worked for Barclays bank. Joseph called his office and confirmed that he was, at least ostensibly, in South Africa on the night Kuyeya was raped. Dominic, too, seemed certain that the crest on the perpetrator’s SUV had been situated to the left of the plate. The child even drew a sketch in Joseph’s notepad. In a flash of insight, Joseph drew the emblems of the popular automobile manufacturers above the plate, and the boy circled the three-pointed star of Mercedes Benz. But of this fact he had been less certain.

Joseph returned to haunt the Lusaka Golf Club in search of another silver SUV. Zoe, meanwhile, spent her days at the office, whittling down the stack of legal work that had piled up. New case files had to be reviewed and status reports delivered to Mariam; two research memos she had written for Sarge and Niza required editing; and a brief Sarge had drafted for the Zambia Supreme Court needed footnotes with citations along with substantial grammatical polish. She checked her iPhone obsessively, hoping for a text from Joseph. But the time passed without incident and she found herself wishing that she had pushed Mariam to authorize the Livingstone trip despite Joseph’s reluctance. Whatever the merits of her theory, searching for Kuyeya’s family was far more interesting than being handcuffed to a desk.

On Thursday after work, Zoe vented her frustration, doing thirty laps in the pool without pause. Afterward, she sat on the edge and dangled her feet in the water, breathing steadily until her pulse—and her mind—stopped racing.

It was then that her iPhone chimed. She jumped to her feet, certain the text was from Joseph. She groaned when she saw it was from her father.

She walked the length of the pool, and then swam another ten laps for good measure. When she climbed out, the sun was gone and the garden had fallen into deep shadow. She dried off and walked home, slower this time, drinking in the twilight. She gave thought to calling Joseph but couldn’t think of a legitimate excuse. Letting herself into her flat, she remembered something her father used to say: “
Patience is a necessary evil
.”

She smiled at the irony.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
.

The following evening, Zoe sat on the couch in her flat, staring at the clock and dreading the forced march of time. She crossed her legs, certain that the black dress and pearls she had selected were too formal. Although the Intercontinental was one of Zambia’s premier hotels and her father would be wearing a suit—a Zegna, no doubt, with a crimson tie—Lusaka was worlds apart from Paris or New York. Still, it was the look he would be expecting, the Zoe Fleming who had dazzled the deans at Stanford and Yale Law, the daughter of elegant Catherine. She twisted her watch—a diamond-encrusted
Charriol the Senator had given her as a graduation gift—and felt like a fraud.

When six thirty came, she collected her purse and left the apartment. The air was cool in the dwindling light, and a crescent moon hovered over the trees to the west. She drove to the Intercontinental in a daze, wishing she could have declined her father’s invitation. It would have been easy to contrive an excuse—a critical business trip, a long-planned holiday with friends. But St. Francis had lost a third of its donors after the financial crisis, and SCA was struggling to stay afloat. They needed her support, as did the children they served, and she needed her father to run interference with Atticus Spelling. For the thousandth time, Zoe wondered why her mother had named Spelling as her trustee. He was Catherine’s antitype—calculating, institutionally minded, and instinctively bleak. It was a mystery that had baffled Zoe for a decade.

After parking in the hotel lot, she entered the lobby and made her way to the Savannah Grill. The restaurant was located on a covered terrace overlooking the pool. She saw her father at a candlelit table for two, studying the menu. She also saw his security detail—two men in suits, one by the grand savannah window and the other sitting by the pool, looking ridiculous.

The Senator stood when she appeared. “Zoe,” he said, kissing her cheek, “I’m so glad you could come.”

She touched his arm. “Hi, Dad.”

He seated her formally and then returned to his place. Almost immediately, a uniformed waiter appeared, and Jack asked for a bottle of champagne.

She searched his face. “What are we celebrating?”

“That you’re here, that I’m here. Do I need a better reason?”

She twisted her watch. “Why
are
you here, Dad?”

Something like annoyance flashed in his eyes. “Is it such a crime for a man to want to take his daughter to dinner?”

“An interesting opening. I should think there are less contentious ways to begin a conversation between us.”

He thought about what he’d said, and his eyes darkened. “Hardly intentional.”

She shrugged. “You haven’t answered my question.”

He grimaced. “I’m in Africa to—”

“I know why you’re in Africa,” she said, cutting him off. “You’re here to satisfy your constituents that the cuts you’re proposing to the foreign-aid budget don’t stand a chance of making the Dark Continent any brighter. So what difference does it make if a few hundred thousand AIDS patients die an early death?”

He looked wounded. “You accuse me of heartlessness. You know as well as I do that I voted
for
PEPFAR, not against it. I’m not suggesting that it be eliminated, just reined in a bit.”

“That’s not what your campaign is saying,” she retorted.

He gave her a calculating look. “That’s just politics.”

“Precisely,” she said.

He took a sharp breath. “It’s been eleven years. I thought by now you would have …”

The anger in her eyes seemed to interrupt his train of thought.

Would have what, Dad?
she almost said.
Gotten over it? Are you really that naive?

She allowed him to stew in discomfort until the waiter appeared with the champagne. The Senator took his glass and looked out over the gardens. Zoe left hers on the table untouched. When the waiter asked if they wished to order, she shook her head.

“Give us a few more minutes, please,” she said kindly.

She stared at her father, wondering how this was going to play out.
She had hoped she might find a way to socialize with him with her emotions chained in the basement. Obviously, she had miscalculated. The problem was she needed his support.

“So how is the campaign?” she asked, attempting to make conversation. “The BBC says you’re up in the polls.”

He turned back to her. “The Brits tend to understate things. We’re well ahead.”

“Which makes it doubly odd that you’re here,” she said, unable to help herself. “You don’t need to win any austerity points.”

“I’m on the African Affairs Subcommittee,” he said.

She smiled. “I’m your daughter. Your DNA is better than a lie detector.”

He tensed. “What do you want me to say?”

“Why don’t we start with the truth?”

Her father just stared at her.

“Okay, let me guess. Sylvia wants you to make sure I keep quiet. Am I getting warm?”

The Senator blanched. It was no secret how little Zoe cared for his second wife. Yet he never seemed to grasp how well she could read Sylvia Martinelli’s mind.

“I thought we had an … understanding,” he said slowly.

“You mean the suggestion you gave me when I was seventeen? That doesn’t count.”

The waiter reappeared, looking gun-shy. This time the Senator waved him away. “You would talk about it in public? Why?”

“What I might contemplate and what I intend to do are not necessarily the same.”

He frowned. “This isn’t a law class. You don’t get points for being coy.”

“True, Dad, but it’s so much fun.”

He looked away and sipped his champagne. To her surprise, he dropped his guard. “You’re right, Sylvia wanted me to come. But it was a good excuse to get away. I wanted to see you. I thought we turned a corner in Cape Town.”

She steadied her breathing. “In a way we did. You stood up to her.”

He shrugged. “The trust is almost yours, and Atticus is a bit of a Scrooge.”

“So you’ll talk to him again this year?”

“Only if you finish the meal with me and leave the old grudges out of it. I want to hear about you. Talk to me like you did when you cared what I thought.”

He made the statement so baldly, so unsentimentally, that Zoe almost missed the emotional charge beneath it. Then the words registered, and she felt like she had been punched in the gut. Even after all he had done, had she ever stopped loving him? It was a question too painful to examine, let alone to answer with conviction.

“All right,” she agreed. “Just pleasantries and platitudes.”

“And a good old-fashioned African braai,” he said with a smile.

The meal passed without incident. Zoe filled up on tenderloin while her father regaled her with scuttlebutt from the campaign trail—the media snoops digging for dirt; the rows with the other candidates; the hanky-panky between interns; even a self-effacing gaffe or two. She couldn’t help but wonder at the political animal he had become. He was born brilliant and charismatic, a lord among leaders. But since his departure from the boardroom, he had added polish to his innate sense of timing and delivery. At moments, Zoe found herself mesmerized by him.

They finished off the meal with espressos, and then the Senator walked her to the parking lot, his security detail in tow. He nodded at the Land Rover. “I’m glad old Atticus isn’t stingy with your living expenses.”

In spite of herself, Zoe smiled. “It’s the only time he’s not.” She hesitated, then gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight, Dad. Thanks for the invitation.”

He looked into her eyes. “I wish I could change the way things are between us.”

“Please don’t. I was almost beginning to enjoy myself.”

The pain in his eyes was sincere. “Be safe,” he said, seeing her into the SUV.

She watched him walk back to the hotel, flanked by bodyguards, and then keyed the ignition. She flipped on her headlights and started to pull out when she recognized something in her peripheral vision. She peered into the shadows, searching for an explanation. At once her mind processed what she was seeing—a black Jaguar sedan with the blue crest of the Lusaka Golf Club on its bumper.

She scanned the lot, noting the silhouettes of at least twenty SUVs.
What if the rapist is here?
she thought with a shudder. She got out of the Land Rover and walked slowly down the row, her heels clicking on the tarmac. She passed two silver SUVs, but neither bore the familiar crest. At the end of the row, she caught sight of another candidate in the corner of the lot. She glanced around, taking in her surroundings. The darkened lot was eerily quiet. She walked through the last row of cars and approached the SUV.

Something moved at the edge of her vision.

She froze, her senses on high alert. She stared into the shadows. Something was not quite right, but she couldn’t tell what it was. A memory came to her suddenly: Johannesburg, 2010. The night she had stayed late at work; the long walk to the car; the gang that had appeared out of nowhere; the guns they had pointed at her face; the thought that she was about to die.

Suppressing her nervousness, she looked toward the silver SUV,
now fifteen feet away. For some reason, the driver had backed into the space. To see the trunk, she would have to walk around the vehicle. She focused on the hood and traced out the emblem in the dark. It was the three-pointed star of Mercedes Benz. Her heart soared.
Dominic saw a Mercedes
.

She stepped around the SUV. The shadows here were nearly complete. She reached into her purse, thinking to use the flashlight app on her iPhone, when she heard scratches on asphalt. She swiveled around and saw two men crouching behind the next car. One of them was holding an object in his hand. The fear came upon Zoe in an instant.

She was sure the object was a gun.

Kicking off her heels, she took off barefoot across the lot. She heard a muffled shout and poured on the speed. She didn’t have enough of a lead to use the cars as a screen. Her only option was to reach the hotel. She ran through the rows of vehicles, bypassing the Land Rover and sprinting toward the brightly lit entrance.

Two hundred feet. One hundred.

At once she realized something—the only footsteps she could hear were her own. She glanced over her shoulder and saw no one behind her. Suddenly, an engine roared and a yellow sports car careened across the lot, heading in her direction. For a second she stood transfixed. Then she jumped out of the way.

The truth dawned on her slowly.
They aren’t muggers; they’re car thieves
.

“Are you all right, miss?” said a male voice, as the sports car sped out of the lot and vanished into the night.

She turned around, feeling an extraordinary sense of relief. The man was older—perhaps sixty—and slightly heavyset, though his girth was concealed by an elegant three-piece suit. Beside him stood a gaunt young man in a pink dress shirt and expensive jeans.

She nodded. “I think they just stole that car.”

The older man followed her eyes. “I’m glad you were not injured.”

“I should call the police,” she said.

“You could, but they would not be helpful. The owner of the hotel is a friend. I will alert him about the incident. Insurance will replace the car.”

Zoe frowned, thinking of Joseph, but decided to take the man’s advice. She hadn’t seen the faces of the thieves, and she had no information about the car beyond its color. The man offered to escort her to her vehicle, and she agreed. She chatted with him briefly, but he didn’t offer his name or that of his companion. The younger man didn’t speak at all.

Zoe locked herself in the Land Rover and sighed, letting the residue of fear flood out of her. She watched through the windshield as the men shook hands and parted. The older man angled toward the black Jaguar she had seen earlier, and the younger man disappeared down the lane. At once Zoe remembered her lost shoes and the Mercedes SUV. With the thieves gone and the lot no longer deserted, she decided to take another look.