“What did you do?”
He laughed without humor. “I told him he could either sign the paper or I’d carve out his eye with the pen.”
She stared at the side of his stony jaw. She breathed slowly—in, one breath, out, the next—keeping her voice even. “Did you mean it?”
“At the time?” He turned to look at her now, full on, eye-to-eye. “Yes. Absolutely.” He went back to his oaks. “Spencer knew it, too. He signed. Next day I moved out with Shane to Old Lady Crawford’s.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I can’t imagine what—”
“No,” he cut her off. “That’s just the story. It’s the conclusion that’s really awful.”
She flexed her toes as tight as they would go. Maybe somehow she could dig them into the dirt beneath her rubber clogs and brace herself for what could possibly be really awful after everything she’d already heard.
“You see, I shot Barney to save Jed—my father threatened to kill both dogs if I didn’t kill one. But here’s the sick, pathetic, worst part.” He focused on a red-breasted bird, watching it flit from one tree bough to another. “I pushed Jed away afterward. I banished him from my room. I stopped playing with him. I never walked him. I never once petted him again, not even the n-night…” His voice came apart and he stopped. He closed his eyes and kept them squeezed shut for a very long time. “Not even the night he died of cancer.”
More tears fell, and she wiped them away. There was an aching desperation inside her to take Jason’s pain for him.
“I learned that caring for Jed was a liability my father could use against me, and I was never going to give Spencer the satisfaction again. But…” His complexion went stark. “Jesus, I ended up doing it with everyone. I didn’t let myself care for anyone, because I knew the hard side of loss.”
… the hard side of loss. A sudden, startling realization slapped her in the face. She pressed a hand over her mouth.
“So the conclusion of the story is, yeah, I guess I, uh… I guess the old man did break me. Because he succeeded in turning me into an unfeeling, cold, distant son of a bitch, although I honestly didn’t know I was cutting myself off as much as I was until recently. I got a clue when Shane told me I’ve always dated women I could hate.” He looked at her. “Which means you were never supposed to happen. Out in the real world, I never would’ve come within ten feet of you, Farrin. My radar would’ve picked up on how kind and caring and likeable you are. But in Pakistan, I didn’t have a choice, did I? I was stuck with you.” His lips tilted into a disarming smile. “And I fell in love.”
She clasped her hands to her cheeks and stared helplessly at him. She couldn’t think or speak. He loves me.
He angled his body toward her. “The morning you got on the helicopter, it felt like an amputation, and all the realizations about Barney and Jed, and how I’ve been pulling away from everyone in my life who could possibly mean something to me, came crashing down on top of me. I was completely paralyzed by it. That’s why I didn’t say anything to you, not because I don’t love you. I know I must have hurt you, and I hate that I made you feel bad. Please say…please tell me you understand.”
Sniffing, she nodded vigorously. “I-I do. More than I ever knew I could. I had an epiphany while you were talking about not letting yourself care for people. I realized that I’ve acted much the same way. After Raham, I swore I’d never be miserable again, and after I escaped Iran, I promised I’d never be afraid again. Because of that, I never really let myself feel. I didn’t grow to love my adoptive parents. And soon after earning my MD, I joined IHMR because I knew I’d move a lot with the organization, which would keep me from ever settling anywhere long enough to care for someone. But now I see that by cutting myself off from all bad emotions, I also deprived myself of the good ones. My life has been so…so lonely and empty, Jason. But now you’re here, in Virginia, and we’re together, and…” Her breath hitched. “I love you, too.”
His head bowed slightly in what seemed like profound relief.
“For the first time in my life, it feels like I have a chance for something very good.”
“Yes.” He looked up. “I know what you mean.” He took her hand in his. “I was originally going to ask you to be my girlfriend, but since you say you love me…” His jaw worked, as if he needed to test his next words before he could speak them. “Will you marry me, Farrin?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No doubts.
He blinked, then barked a disbelieving laugh. “Hell, really?”
She smiled. “Can I make a request, though?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’d like to have children right away.”
Another laugh came out of him, more discordant than the last. “Works for me.”
She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.
On the walk to the car, Jason had his own request. He wanted to get married very soon… like, maybe they could drive over to the courthouse right now.
Farrin was happy enough to move things along rapidly, but postponed by a week.
There was one more chapter in her life she needed to close first…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mr. Arash Kadivar, the Iranian divorce lawyer Farrin found on the Internet, did business out of a small, fetishly neat office on East Plume Street.
Hands folded in her lap, Farrin sat in a plush burgundy leather chair surrounded by tasteful prints of Life Magazine covers and two blocks of shelves lined with leather-bound law books. A waxy-looking fake plant stretched tall in the corner by a window with its louvers slanted low to block out the brightest of the sun’s rays. A hefty mahogany desk was the room’s mainstay. Seated behind it was Mr. Arash Kadivar.
Oddly, the lawyer somewhat resembled the CIA agent who’d been Farrin’s contact at the Tehran Peace Museum eighteen years ago—same beaked nose, same olive skin, similar charcoal-colored business suit with a white dress shirt, although Mr. Kadivar wore a tie.
She watched him move a gold pen to the right of his desk blotter. He had tapered, effeminate fingers. “Divorcing someone who doesn’t live in the United States,” he told her, “can be very difficult, Dr. Barr. Not impossible, but very difficult.” He sighed. The weight of the world. “The primary challenge being, of course, that we’ll have to serve your husband a copy of the divorce petition all the way in Iran. And, unfortunately, Iran isn’t a member of the signatory to the Hague Service Convention. The court can’t request process of service as a ‘letters rogatory’ procedure.”
She looked at her lawyer for an elongated moment, then rubbed an achy spot between her brows. Now she knew what non-medical people felt like when she tried to explain a surgical technique to them.
Mr. Kadivar replaced the pen to its original position. “We’ll have to hire a private process server.”
“What if Raham refuses to sign?” When he refused to sign, she should say. There was no what if about it.
Mr. Kadivar waved a dismissive hand. “Your husband can’t prevent a no-fault divorce.” He transferred his pen off the blotter again.
She shifted in her chair, edgy and irritated. Why couldn’t Mr. Kadivar have been a doodler instead of a weird pen-fiddler?
“Six months following the date your husband is served,” he added, “the court will grant your divorce.”
She sat up straighter. What?! “Six months?!” She would have to wait six months to marry Jason? How would she explain the delay? She’d never even told him she was still married, too embarrassed to admit that she hadn’t rid herself legally of Raham after all these years. She’d hope that a discreet divorce would let her get away with not having to make the confession.
“These things take time,” Mr. Kadivar said, a little defensively. “And money. There will be my legal fees—more than the usual, since I’ll need to translate the divorce petition into Persian—plus filing fees. I’ll also have to hire an investigator to track down your husband.”
“Raham is probably still living in
the same apartment.”
Mr. Kadivar’s eyebrows went up. “You have a last-known address? Excellent.” He flipped open a laptop. “If your husband is still there, that will indeed expedite matters.”
She told the lawyer her old address in the Elahieh District of Tehran.
Mr. Kadivar typed the information into his laptop.
Rather than living in the Dashti Street penthouse, Raham should have been in jail, but he wasn’t and never had been. From what she understood, the CIA had told the appropriate Iranian government official about Raham’s terrorist affiliations, who, she imagined, had said sure, sure, thank you while sticking the evidence in a drawer.
Farrin never found out more from the CIA other than some bare information—Raham roamed free, and he hadn’t ruined her parents. The CIA had dropped ties with her after they settled her with her adoptive parents. There was no reason to remain in contact; Farrin wasn’t in a witness protection program. Her life was hers to live how she wished.
“I can put everything in motion today.” Mr. Kadivar glanced at her over the top of his screen. “If you’re sure you want to press ahead?”
Truthfully? She wasn’t sure. Pressing ahead with this case would equal the ruination of eighteen years of hiding, and although she’d known the consequences coming into this appointment, now, sitting here with the reality of a confrontation with Raham bearing down on her—because Raham would come to America for her—doubts started to creep in.
Did she really need to expose herself with this divorce petition? After all, technically, “Farrin Barr” had never been married. The woman called “Nasrin Farrin Behzadi,” who had married Raham, wasn’t even a person anymore, having simply ceased to exist the moment she left Iranian airspace and “Farrin Barr” was born out of the CIA’s files. Couldn’t Farrin marry Jason in her new identity and just let the past lie?
But would her marriage be real? Or would doubts about the legality of her union always peck at her? Moreover, would she ever escape her past if she didn’t confront it once and for all? And if not, how could she offer Jason all of herself if she didn’t have it to give?
She made herself pick up her purse and pull out her checkbook. “Yes, Mr. Kadivar, I would like to press ahead.” She wrote out the amount of her lawyer’s retainer, the idea of seeing Raham again balling her stomach around a knot of the fear she hated. She kept writing. She had to remember, and keep reminding herself, that she didn’t have to deal with this alone. She had someone strong to support her.
She had Jason.
One week later…
Farrin checked her appearance in the mirror above the mantelpiece in her living room, angling to the right, then left. She looked pretty, if she did say so herself, wearing a simple blue dress, her makeup in order, her hair curled and flowing down around her shoulders. Tonight would be the first time Jason saw her in a dress.
Following last Friday’s lunch date at Captain Groovy’s, she and Jason had spent the weekend together, taking a tour of the USS Wisconsin battleship, now a museum docked on the Elizabeth River, on Saturday, then on Sunday going to a matinee—activities requiring only casual clothes.
It had been a sex-free weekend. They’d decided to wait to make love again until after they were married…of course, that was before she found out the wait would be six long months. She hadn’t had the chance to break the news to Jason yet. On Monday he flew his helicopter out of town on something called a “cross-country” for work, so they hadn’t seen each other all week. To celebrate his return, tonight they were going out for a nice dinner.
Standing here, looking at herself in the mirror, she became abruptly aware that she was no longer alone. She stiffened, the sticky, icky feeling crawling over her flesh telling her exactly who was with her.
Her heartbeat charged into a series of battering, abusive blows, urging her to dart through the archway leading from her living room into her kitchen, then continue out the back door. No. The time to face her past was here. She stiffened her shoulders another degree and, as composed as she could make herself, turned around.
Raham stood just inside her living room by the front door.
Her lips parted in shock, her nervousness temporarily forgotten. He was so old! She understood logically, yes, that he was nearing his eighties, but she just hadn’t expected him to look so…so old. His hair was completely white, his hands liver-spotted, the flesh on his face devoid of any visible elasticity, and the bones of his shoulders nothing but frail, angular protrusions against his sweater.
She could only stand and gape as Raham strode deeper into her living room, crossing to her couch.
His eyes cold, he spoke to her in Persian. “You’ve aged, Nasrin.”
She sucked in a hard breath and blew it out in a laugh. She couldn’t imagine a more ridiculous thing for such a feeble-looking creature to say. This thought, plus her laughter, popped a balloon inside her and released heated energy into her stomach. She was triumphant in this confrontation already! She didn’t fear this decrepit man at all.
“Why, Raham,” she said smoothly, “you came in person to deliver the divorce papers. How considerate of you.”
His eyes cooled to a more opaque shade of ice. “I go by Babak now,” he told her. “I had to change my identity in order to travel. America put me on a terrorist watch list.” He straightened the cuffs of his sweater. “Interesting, how that happened right after you disappeared from Iran.”
She didn’t react. He was merely fishing. He couldn’t possibly know about her participation in his downfall. The CIA had promised to keep her involvement a secret, and she trusted them to do so. Not because the CIA was incredibly trustworthy, but because it served their needs. Who else would ever come forward to offer the CIA information if their reputation for protecting their sources got tarnished?
“I didn’t disappear, Raham. I left you.” She expanded her chest, all the things she’d ever wanted to say to this man surging up her larynx. I had to be agreeable… Not anymore! Here, finally, was the chance she’d wanted. “Because I hate you. You, and your disgusting, old man’s flabby body, your half-hard erections, and your inept touch. No wonder you married a fifteen-year-old girl. No real woman would have you!”
Raham’s face became a mask of rage, the same he’d worn outside the security office at the Tehran Airport eighteen years ago. “Listen to you! Talking with such a vile tongue. You’re as much of a whore as you look, standing there with your hair uncovered and your legs bare.” His nostrils wrinkled. “How many men have touched you in the years you’ve been away, Nasrin? I hate even to think of it!”
“By holy Allah, yes! How horrible for you that I’m no longer your sweet flower.” She spat the two hated words at him as her mind became a minefield of memories: Raham threatening to ruin her parents in order to compel her to marry him, treating her like property, controlling her daily life, having her every move watched, stripping her of her power and identity, forcing her to always say yes, sir, making her endure six months of disgust and despair, pitch blackness, heavy breathing, groping hands…
Anger unlike anything she had ever known seethed inside her. Her cheeks on fire, she growled, “For the first time in my life, I see you with a woman’s eyes, not a girl’s—I understand who you really are.” You instinctively knew your husband was a creepy little fuck… “An aberrant pervert!” she flung at him.
Raham’s sagging jowls flooded with red. Snarling, he swung his hand up and slapped her.
The blow whipped her head to the side. She froze there, stunned beyond comprehension, her ears ringing. He hit me! Hatred rose up from her soul and burned through her veins like black acid. She rounded on him, glaring. “Get out!” she shouted. “Leave my home at once.”
Raham assumed an expression of such scathing condescension, she boiled with the uncommon urge to claw it off his face. “We are still married in the eyes of Allah, Nasrin. Even if you’ve been corrupted away from this belief, I have not. You’re coming back to Iran with me.�
�
“Allah,” she retorted, “would not be so cruel as to make me stay with a man such as you. Don’t wield The Merciful at me to make it seem otherwise. No. You seek to reclaim me for your own hurt pride, Raham. Now, get out!”
Raham showed her all his teeth, yellowed with age. He lurched forward and caught her wrist. “I will never let you go.”
She wrenched free and, with an explosive shove, sent him back across her living room.
He stumbled past her coffee table and collided with her couch.
A giddy sense of victory surged through her. She was stronger than he was! “You can’t force me to go with you.”
Raham’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he made a show of composing himself, dusting off the sleeves of his sweater, straightening the collar. “Not me, perhaps not,” he said with a sudden dangerous calm. “But Omid certainly can.”
When Raham spoke the name, Farrin saw movement in the archway leading into her kitchen. She glanced over…and experienced her first real taste of fear.
A man not quite the size of King Kong filled the jamb, his slab-like shoulders nearly touching each side. Black stubble covered his head, and a tattoo of some sort slithered out from one sleeve of his dark T-shirt to cover a bulging bicep. He had no discernible neck.
“Omid,” Raham said in a tone of level authority, “escort my wife to the car.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The rosy hues of sunset had just begun to shade the houses in Farrin’s neighborhood when Jason rammed through the front screen door of her home and stalked across her living room in record speed. He didn’t pause to analyze the situation or consider his options. A wise man probably would have, taking at least a second or two to evaluate an opponent who was so much larger and stronger.
But while Jason had been coming up Farrin’s front walk just now, he’d heard things; shouting in a foreign language—most likely Farrin’s native language of Farsi—and he’d picked out the one word he understood and the only one that mattered: Raham. It robbed him of the ability to form wise, rational thought.
Wings of Gold Series Page 80
