Page 39 of Sheltering You

“I promise.”

“You see. It’ll be all right.” She’d crouched beside the boy at that point. “Go ahead and ask him. Even if he says no, he will be kind.”

Rabie had blinked a couple of times, then said in a rush of words, “Can we have pizza for dinner?”

Derrick felt his answering smile. “My favorite. You like pepperoni?”

Jasmine’s wide eyes and the quick shake of her head came a smidge too late. Right. Muslims didn’t eat pork.

He amended quickly. “What toppings do you like?”

“Cheese and beef?”

Hamburger would work.

After they left the room, Derrick had ordered a small pie for Rabie and another for himself and Jasmine—who’d come to love pepperoni since she’d moved to Maine.

Then he clicked on the TV and found a local news channel, fearing he’d see his face plastered on the screen. But he didn’t. Nor did a Google search on his phone show any news regarding the kidnapping of the nephew of a foreign diplomat.

Come to think of it, there’d been no Amber Alerts on his phone all day.

So either Basma’s uncle hadn’t reported the kidnapping, or the police were keeping it quiet. Derrick prayed it was the first and not the second.

Jasmine opened the door and tossed Rabie’s dirty clothes onto the corner of the couch. “Here they are.”

He’d asked her to bring them out when Rabie was in the shower. “Thanks.”

He searched the small slacks, sweater, underwear, and socks, sticking his hands in the pockets and feeling around all the hems and stitching, finding nothing that didn’t belong.

He studied the kid’s dress shoes and again found nothing out of place.

He left the pile of dirty clothes on the corner of the couch, then took the backpack and dumped the contents onto the kitchen table. There had to be a tracker or something, somewhere. How else could the guards have found them at Dulles?

If there was a tracker, he figured it wasn’t a great one, or maybe it didn’t work well in the congestion of the city. But once Derrick had aimed for Dulles, those watching it had made an educated guess. Derrick, Rabie, and Jasmine had stayed at the rental car place a few minutes waiting for the car, which could have given the guards time to get into position at each of the terminals.

But even that felt…implausible. Dulles was a huge airport. There’d have to be twenty guards or more to watch all the doors. Why would they bother having anybody at the private terminal—the least likely place for them to go—much less a car there at the ready?

Didn’t make sense.

But Jasmine swore she hadn’t told Basma about Derrick’s jet.

After sorting the items in the bag, Derrick started with the clean clothes, which Jazz would want right away. A pair of pajamas, socks, and underwear had been shoved into the very bottom of the bag. He searched them like he had the dirty clothes and found nothing, then set them, along with a little baggie that contained two toothbrushes, toothpaste, and other toiletries on the edge of the couch near the door to Jasmine’s room.

He texted her to tell her they were there and moved on.

There were a Rubik’s Cube and a few other brain-teaser-type puzzles. He studied them, turning, twisting, and sliding the little pieces to make sure each was authentic. Seemed like normal puzzles to him.

A couple of chapter books—in English, interestingly. He flipped through them, then held them up and shook them to see if anything fell out. Aside from a bookmark in one, nothing did. He shoved it back in—wrong spot, but that was the least of his worries.

There were three drawstring fabric bags. He opened and upended one, and puzzle pieces spilled out. After running his hands among them—just regular cardboard—he felt inside the bag, then squished the fabric through his fingers, feeling for anything out of place. Nothing.

He replaced the puzzle pieces, then repeated the process with the other two bags and found more puzzle pieces but no tracker.

Three glossy eight-by-tens had to be pictures that went with the puzzles. He set them on top of the books.

He studied the handful of Matchbox cars, thinking maybe something sinister had been attached to one, but they seemed just like the cars of his youth.

He dug through the backpack again and found one more thing in the outside pocket, an electronic game—and it had been left on.