“None taken. Where’d they go, the ones in the white cars?”
“Different places. I think the old guy told the white chick to take the brother to a hospital, then he was out of there, too, in the opposite direction. No plates on his car. He knew his business.”
Don left Jojo in the pickup and rushed into the emergency room at Suburban, finding Emma in the waiting area.
“I’m so sorry, Dad.”
“Put it aside, Em.” He figured natural consequences spoke far more loudly than he ever could. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“How about Sufyan?”
“Fifteen stitches. He wouldn’t let them use an anesthetic. I thought I was going to throw up. He’s finishing up in there. But Tahir’s out for blood.”
“From what I heard, he already got some. And so did you.”
“I mean Tahir’s freaking angry, Dad. I could see it in his eyes. At me.”
“Can you blame him?”
“No.” Em shook her head.
Sufyan walked out, gauze wrapped around his right arm from his elbow to his wrist. He had a pill bottle in his uninjured hand.
“Did you call home?” Don asked as he pulled out his own phone.
“I left a message,” Sufyan said. “I hope he’s okay.”
“Your mom didn’t answer.”
“His mom never does,” Em said in a way that suggested that Don should leave that subject alone.
“I expect the police will be here any time,” Don said, calling Lana.
“A detective already came and went,” Emma said. “He took statements from us and gave us his card.” She handed it to Don. “Those guys attacked us and then they tried to blame us. But the detective said five people got video of it, all from different angles. Can you believe that?”
Easily, Don thought as he heard his phone ringing Lana’s. “So you guys are in the clear?”
They both nodded. “The cop made sure we were all right, and he said he’d be back in touch. We’re probably going to have to testify and stuff.”
Don nodded, knowing that as much as the video might have exonerated his daughter and Sufyan, it would also make them absolutely notorious to those who would drag them from cars and beat them to death.
Lana answered on the fifth ring: “Don, where are you?”
“I’m with them. Emma’s fine. Sufyan’s fine. They’re safe. I can tell you what happened when we get—”
“Hold on,” Lana said quickly. “Tahir’s pulling up in front of our place. And—”
“I think he’s going to be pissed.”
“He’s definitely pissed. He just slammed his car door. I saw him on the news. Now he’s running up here. Where’s Jojo?”
“Sorry. I’ve got him, too.”
“Got to go. He’s here.”
In the background, Don heard thunderous pounding.
Lana hung up.
Chapter 12
Lana rushed through the living room to her home office and grabbed her Sig Sauer 9 millimeter, racking the slide and jamming the barrel into the back of her pants. She draped the tail of her shirt over it as Tahir pounded on her door again.
She approached it without a word. He might not have heard her anyway; the door weighed almost fifteen hundred pounds and was made of reinforced steel, the kind used most often for panic rooms in homes. She figured her whole house qualified for panic status with all the security upgrades. She’d had them added when the seas rose and domestic “disturbances” escalated.
Lana looked at the screen of her digital door peephole. Tahir’s angry face loomed close; in the background she saw that the small blue car he’d driven was not the smashed-up Corolla he’d used to save Emma and Sufyan. She also noticed that he hadn’t drawn a weapon, though on the video she’d watched minutes ago online he’d acquitted himself handsomely with nothing more than his fists and feet.
She unlocked the door, and stepped back quickly, keeping her distance from Tahir. He moved past her without saying a word in greeting. He smelled of sun and sweat.
“Where are they?” he demanded in a hoarse voice.
“They’re coming. Don’s with them.” She mentioned him, lest Tahir assume he’d be facing only the teens and her.
Tahir didn’t respond. He looked around as if he still might find Sufyan lurking in the living room.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water.”
He sounded dry. But at least he’d answered her.
When she turned her back on him to go to the kitchen, she listened for his footfalls. If he’d taken one step to follow her she would have wheeled around with her weapon. But he remained by a bay window and stared at the street.
Lana filled a plastic cup with water, unwilling to give the apparently unarmed man a weapon of any kind; she knew the damage you could do to someone’s face with a simple glass because she’d been trained to do it. She suspected the maiming and blinding potential of a glass wouldn’t have been lost on a fighter like Tahir, either.
So be it. She offered it to him with her left hand to keep the right free for drawing her gun.
For a man who’d sounded parched, he sipped slowly. Maybe if you were born and bred in a desert, you always savored every drop.
“Do you want to sit?”
He turned his wide unblinking gaze on her, the whites as unblemished as any she’d ever seen. That was all the answer he gave her.
She perched eight feet away on the armrest of a chair, keeping her body free of cushions or anything else that could impede her reach.
“Thank you for what you did earlier.” She couldn’t leave that unsaid, even with malevolency alive in every moment since he’d stepped inside.
He shook his head, as if she’d just piled annoyance onto his fury. But after several seconds passed, he said, “Your daughter is not the problem.”
“I know that, but you’re the one who threatened her life right in this living room.”
“I hoped that would stop them.”
“Stop them?”
“Stop the two of them with all this”—he threw his hands outward—“this love.” Spoken like an epithet.
“You’ve also been trying to incite people to attack her, me, Don, our dog.” He stared at her. Didn’t disagree. “That’s right,” Lana went on. “I know it’s you. You’re in those chat rooms trying to whip those fools into a froth.”
“That will stop. My threats were part of my cover… ”
My cover?
He surprised Lana by revealing that he was anything more than an immigrant, although he might have suspected his appearance on the video would soon have reporters digging into his background.
Or he’s found my cybertrail and knows I’m already looking into him.
“I’m watched, too, not just by you. We’re all watched, even when they say we’re not. Eyes are everywhere.”
His gaze roamed the room, as though for cameras that weren’t there.
“You almost got them killed.”
“You think I do not know that. But I saved them,” he pointed to his chest. “If I wanted you or your daughter dead, or Don, you would not be sitting there.”
They both turned as Emma pulled into the driveway with Sufyan. “And she would not be with my nephew.”
Don drove in behind them in his pickup.
Neither Lana nor Tahir spoke. It seemed an hour had passed before the door from the garage opened. Don led Emma and Sufyan into the house. Jojo came up and sniffed Tahir, who ignored the Malinois.
“Hello, Tahir,” Don said.
The Sudanese didn’t respond. He stared at Sufyan, who quickly bowed his head.