The Fire and the Veil (Veronica Barry Book 2)

by Sophia Martin

  Surely Amani had read from some of these books. If Veronica could find one of them, she might be able to see something by touching it. But if she tried to open herself up with each book she handled, she’d be here all day, and she’d have dozens of irrelevant visions to sort through.

  Veronica took a deep breath. Maybe she could get help. She closed her eyes and made her breathing slow down, become even. “I could use some help,” she whispered. “I need to know about Amani Ahmad. Help me find her book. Give me some image of her, so I can try to find her. I want to help her. Please, help me help her.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at the shelves. For a moment, nothing changed. But then she thought she saw something. A blur. A shadowy blur by the bookshelf closest to the door. It was a spirit.

  Veronica gazed at it, watching it gather substance. Gradually it was more shadow than blur. After another moment, it began to take shape, but the shape was still somewhat formless. In a flash of insight, Veronica understood it. It looked like a woman in a hijab—maybe an abaya, in fact. Flowing robes that covered head to toe.

  “I see you,” Veronica said. “Show me which book I should touch.”

  The woman-shadow raised an arm and pointed directly at one of the Qur’ans. Veronica stepped forward and reached for it. “Thank you,” she told the spirit. She rested her fingers on the spine of the book, then took it into her hands.

  She closed her eyes and clutched the book, slowing down her breathing again. If this worked, it would be the first time she called up a vision on purpose since the day she’d run around Saint Patrick’s, trying to figure out what had happened to Angie.

  Nothing was happening. Veronica began to worry that Khalilah would run out of things to distract Nasir with. Worrying was breaking her concentration. She considered hiding the book in her purse. Oh, sure, she thought. Good idea: let’s steal a holy book from a house of worship. No, she told herself. Just stop fretting and focus.

  She took two deep breaths and then closed her eyes, feeling the fabric that covered the cardboard cover of the book with her fingers. She relaxed, thinking about her breathing, the feel of the fabric, the silence in the room.

  She could see the room the way it looked with the rugs laid out. People—women—in hijabs, some in full abayas, milling around, putting books on the shelf, rolling up the rugs. Some older women were in chairs. She saw one young woman in a full abaya put a book on the shelf, and she knew that it was the same one as the one she was holding from the location. The young woman must be Amani. Another woman, middle-aged, in a long-sleeved dress and simple head scarf, approached her.

  “I was hoping you’d come today,” the woman in the scarf said.

  “Yes,” Amani said. “I had to. He’s worse than ever, Yesenia.”

  “I told you,” Yesenia said.

  “I’m afraid of him.”

  “Do you think he’ll do something?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Amani said. “I’ll find myself a prisoner.”

  “We can’t let that happen,” Yesenia said. “I can talk to Nasir—”

  “No!” Amani said. “I can’t.”

  “This is a matter of your safety, Amani. We can’t just do nothing, and wait for him to act. It will be too late.”

  “Oh, thank you, Nasir!” came Khalilah’s voice, cutting through the flimsy reality of the vision.

  Veronica opened her eyes, feeling a bit dizzy to find herself in the same room, except that it was empty. She replaced the book. The vision hadn’t shown her very much, but it was all that she was going to have time for.

  Nasir and Khalilah appeared in the doorway.

  Veronica smiled at them. “Thank you for allowing me to visit,” she said, not sure what to call Nasir. She had a sense that Muslims didn’t say ‘father’ like Catholics. And she wasn’t sure he was a priest. Did Muslims have priests?

  “It was my pleasure. I will be sure to tell the others about your ideas,” Nasir said to Khalilah.

  “Good,” Khalilah said.

  “We’d probably better get to the next mosque,” Veronica said to her.

  “You’ve seen all you need here?” Khalilah inquired, her dark-eyed gaze intense.

  “I think, as much as I can,” Veronica said, giving her a quick smile. She stepped to the shoe rack and put her flats back on. Khalilah followed suit with her own shoes.

  They thanked Nasir again as they left and Veronica noted that Khalilah just called him by his name. But then, Veronica had been to Protestant churches where members of the congregation called the minister by his or her first name as well.

  “Is Nasir the mosque’s… priest?” Veronica asked as they went down the walk.

  “No, he’s just one of the caretakers. Muslims don’t have priests,” Khalilah said. “Some mosques have an imam, but in others that role gets passed around. It’s like being the leader of a Bible study. Sunnis have mufti and maulana. But it’s not the same, it’s more like scholars than clergy.”

  They sat in Khalilah’s car and closed the doors.

  “What did you see?” Khalilah asked, starting the car.

  Veronica took a deep breath. “Not a lot. But I think I did learn a couple of useful things.”

  Khalilah said nothing, only glancing at her quickly as they pulled away from the curb.

  “I think Amani knew her attacker,” Veronica said. “She was afraid of him. She knew he wanted to abduct her—she said she was afraid she would end up a prisoner.”

  Khalilah nodded. “Did she say a name?”

  “No,” Veronica said with regret. “But someone else knows who he is. Another woman who goes to that mosque. Her name is Yesenia.”

  Khalilah processed this silently.

  “If we can find this woman, Yesenia, she can tell us who abducted Amani,” Veronica said.

  “That may be complicated to do,” Khalilah said. “I don’t know how to find out who she is.”

  “Maybe it’s time to involve the police,” Veronica said. “I can tell Daniel.” It would be a relief to get Daniel involved. She hated feeling like she was sneaking around behind his back. “He’s a smart guy, he won’t just go off half-cocked and arrest Jahid and Hamza for no reason—”

  “No,” Khalilah said. “I have to find her first. I have to get her to a safe house. Then we can call the police.”

  Veronica sighed. She was feeling much less sure about Khalilah’s plan. Every moment they went stumbling around trying to find Amani themselves was another moment the woman was at the mercy of her abductor.

  “He might be hurting her,” Veronica said. “Can we really afford to take our time with this?”

  Khalilah pulled the car over to the curb and stopped it. “Veronica, you know I appreciate everything you’re doing to help me,” she said. “You just don’t know what these people can be like. It’s hard to believe that they would hurt their own flesh and blood. But it’s centuries-old tribal law.”

  “So now you’re saying that they are going to kill her?”

  “I don’t know!” Khalilah exclaimed. “I can’t be sure of anything. I don’t want to take the risk!”

  “I’ll tell Daniel not to let her go home,” Veronica said. “He has resources we don’t have, Khalilah. He could track this Yesenia woman down in fifteen minutes, just make some calls, flash his badge, ask questions. Nasir would just tell him who she is.”

  “And as soon as he started asking those questions, Jahid and Hamza would hear about it.”

  “So what?”

  “The grapevine is very fast,” Khalilah said. “They’d hear Yesenia’s name. She’d be in danger.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they might decide to blame her for what happened.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the thing, Veronica. It’s not just Amani’s life that’s in danger. Jahid said it, himself. If they can find someone else to blame, they don’t have to kill Amani.”

  “You’re not saying they’d kill Yesenia.”

  “I d
on’t know what they might do.”

  “You don’t plan to let them know if we find her at all, do you?”

  “I think it would be best if they assumed her abductor killed her. They wouldn’t be dishonored, then.”

  “What?”

  “I know it sounds strange,” Khalilah sighed. “They wouldn’t be dishonored, but they might see it as something to avenge. I don’t know. I don’t fully understand any of it.”

  Veronica sat still. Her mind was spinning. She couldn’t seem to make sense of it all. Amani was being held prisoner somewhere. Her father and uncle wanted to find her, but if they did, they might assume she’d been raped, and that would dishonor their family. One way to fix that was to kill Amani. Another was to find someone else to blame and kill that person. If Amani was already dead they would not consider themselves dishonored, but they might still want revenge for her murder. Which they themselves were contemplating committing. What a mess.

  “I don’t want Amani to be killed, and I don’t want anyone else killed in her place,” Khalilah said. “We can’t know who they might target. It’s too tricky to take to Daniel. We just have to find her ourselves and get her to safety. If her family never finds her, they can never determine whether she was assaulted or not. They won’t have reason to kill anyone, except maybe for her abductor, and at this point I don’t feel too badly about that.”

  Veronica took a deep breath. She couldn’t think of a better way to handle the situation. It felt very precarious, but what could she do? If Khalilah was right about the way this honor thing worked, if Amani was found and the family decided she’d been raped, anyone might become a target. It was best to keep Amani hidden from her family, so that they would never know either way.

  “Yesenia knew Nasir,” Veronica offered. “She wanted to go to him about the person Amani was afraid of.”

  “It sounds like this attacker was probably a part of the congregation as well,” Khalilah mused.

  “Maybe you could talk to Nasir, ask him for Yesenia’s last name.”

  “Under what pretext?” Khalilah asked.

  “I don’t know,” Veronica said. She closed her eyes and leaned back into the seat. Then she opened them again. “When are mosque services held?”

  “Fridays,” Khalilah said.

  It was only Tuesday. They couldn’t just leave Amani in the clutches of her captor for three days.

  “Maybe Nasir has a mailing list or something, on his computer in the office,” Veronica said.

  “And?”

  “One of us needs to get on that computer. Or get access to that list somehow.”

  Khalilah thought about this. “Perhaps we can use the cover story. We could go back and tell him you want to bring a guest speaker into your class. We could ask him for a list of people who attend the mosque.”

  “He might just give us one or two names of people to call,” Veronica said.

  “True. But if I can stand close enough to the computer when he looks up their information…”

  “It’s worth a try,” Veronica said.

  “Are you ready to go back right now?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  ~~~

  “I would be happy to come and speak to your class,” Nasir said as they stood in the entryway of Masjid Al-Taqwa.

  Veronica forced a wide smile. This was not going the way they had planned.

  “What subject did you say you teach?” Nasir asked.

  “French,” Veronica said, figuring that at this point she’d be safer telling the truth. At this rate Nasir would be visiting Eleanor Roosevelt, and she didn’t see getting one of the geography or world history teachers to collaborate in this scheme. “I’m doing a unit in my beginning classes on the different cultures in the world where people speak French. A lot of people don’t realize how wide-spread the language is.”

  “The French certainly colonized quite a lot of the Islamic world,” Nasir agreed.

  “Didn’t you say you wanted two speakers, Veronica?” Khalilah asked. “A man and a woman?”

  “Yes,” Veronica agreed. “So it would be lovely if you could be one of them, Nasir.”

  “And Khalilah would be a fine choice for the other,” Nasir said, beaming at her. “She’s Tunisian, one of those French colonies.”

  “Yes, it would be perfect,” Khalilah said smoothly. “But I have my own classes to teach, I’m afraid. We need someone who is available during a weekday.”

  “Preferably a Tuesday or Thursday,” Veronica chimed in.

  Nasir nodded. He headed for his office, looking thoughtful. Veronica and Khalilah exchanged a look and followed him.

  Nasir sat down at his computer and then opened a drawer of the desk, pulling out an old-fashioned rotary index card file.

  “I would have thought you’d keep your information on the computer,” Khalilah said lightly.

  “Oh, no, I never trust computers,” Nasir said. “New viruses every month. I use it for email and typing things up, but I still keep hard copies of anything important.”

  Veronica eyed the rotary card file. How could she get a look at it with Nasir sitting right there? If only he’d just give her Yesenia’s information as a candidate for her class talk. But how could she request Yesenia specifically? Gee, Nasir, I was sort of hoping for someone whose name starts with a “Y.” Veronica wanted to grab the card file away from Nasir and find the card with Yesenia’s name herself. If such a card even existed. There was nothing to prove that Nasir had Yesenia in the card file at all.

  “I think Rania Mahamoud might be available,” Nasir said, stopping on a card. “I’ll write down her number, and maybe one or two more.”

  Veronica wondered what Yesenia’s last name was. Her information would not be under “Y,” in any case. Unless coincidentally her last name also began with a “Y.” If Veronica knew what her last name was, maybe she could happen to glance at the cards under that letter somehow. Maybe she could stumble, and fall against the desk, and knock the card file to the floor, and find the card with Yesenia’s name as she picked it up to return to Nasir.

  Nasir was done with the first number and flipping through the cards again. Veronica couldn’t see how she would accomplish such a feat of clumsiness in any sort of realistic way. Frustrated, she turned away from watching Nasir and faced a bulletin board on the wall. There, in the corner, was a business card with the name Yesenia Saleh.

  Veronica was so shocked, she reached out and touched it to make sure it was real.

  “How common is the name Yesenia?” she asked, not stopping to think about whether the question would seem strange.

  Nasir paused, but he didn’t seem put out by it. “Not very common, I think,” he said. “I only know one.”

  Throwing caution to the wind, Veronica asked, “Is it this one? Yesenia Saleh?”

  “Ah yes,” Nasir said with a smile. “She’s a social worker. She has been a great blessing to us here.”

  Veronica risked a glance over at Khalilah, who was staring at her in surprise.

  “I’d have suggested that you invite Yesenia to your class,” Nasir said, “but she as busy as Khalilah is, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, sure,” Veronica said, looking at the card and memorizing the phone number. “I was just curious. I’d never heard that name before.” She turned back to Nasir and Khalilah. “It’s pretty.”

  ~~~

  “You’re brazen,” Khalilah said as they hurried back out to the car.

  Veronica stuffed the paper with the numbers Nasir had copied into her purse, mentally repeating Yesenia’s number and trying not to let the sight of these other numbers disrupt her memory of it.

  “I can’t believe you just came out and asked him. I was at a total loss,” Khalilah continued in a near whisper. “I never would have thought to even check that board.”

  “916-875-2829,” Veronica replied.

  “Is that her number from the card?” Khalilah asked, eyes widening. “I thought we’d have to call information fo
r it. Well done.”

  They each climbed into the car.

  “I’ll call now. Maybe we can go see her right away,” Veronica said. She got out her cell and dialed quickly, worried she’d get the numbers confused. Of course, Khalilah was right. They could just dial information. But this way was faster.

  The phone rang three times and then a woman answered, “Sacramento Center for Community Service, may I help you?”

  “Um, hello,” Veronica said. “Is Yesenia Saleh available?”

  “She’s with a client. She should be done in a few minutes. Would you like me to put you through to her voicemail?”

  “Uh… no. Where are you located?” Veronica asked.

  “Eleventh and T Street. 1108 T street.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Veronica said. She turned to Khalilah. “Eleventh and T.”

  Khalilah started the car and pulled out into the street.

  “I hope she can tell us who took Amani,” Veronica said. “But if she does, then what?”

  “Then we figure out where he’s holding her and go get her out.”

  “That will be dangerous,” Veronica pointed out. She didn’t bring up the police again. She knew Khalilah wouldn’t consider calling them, and at this point she was fairly convinced that it was best not to, as well. But some sort of back up would be good. “What about your brother?” Veronica asked. “Maybe he could meet us there.”

  Khalilah glanced at her, and gave a quick nod. “That’s probably a wise idea, actually. He’s just as worried about all of this as I am. And I don’t have to tell him where I’m taking Amani.”

  “You don’t trust your own brother?”

  “I can’t be sure he won’t cave and tell Jahid.”

  “Why?”

  “Fayez was raised with some of the same basic ideas as Jahid.”

  “What, you kill your daughter if she’s been raped?” Veronica demanded harshly. She wished she hadn’t. She knew that that wasn’t what Khalilah meant.

  “There’s this idea that men should be in charge,” Khalilah said, ignoring Veronica’s comment. “Obviously it’s more extreme in a tribe like Amani’s. But conservative people in Tunisia believe it, too, on a deep level. He may decide that Jahid deserves to know where his daughter is.” She tapped her fingers on the wheel. “I don’t think he really believes Amani’s family would ever harm her.”