by Rebecca Hale
Clutching the guinea’s limp neck, the Princess skipped off down the path to her tribe’s circle of huts, sniffing the air for a smoky hint of the day’s first fire. The cooking servants should have gathered the kindling by now. A savory gruel would be bubbling in the camp’s large iron pots.
But as she neared the edge of the encampment, her forehead creased with concern. The plume of smoke rising from the trees up ahead had a dark ominous color, its billowing char indicative of a far greater volume of combustion than that produced by a single fire pit.
Her anxiety heightened as she reached the edge of the village. There was no sign of the typical morning bustle, no evidence of the regular foot traffic between the huts—and everywhere a dense choking smoke.
She had only been gone a short while. What had happened during her brief absence?
Tentatively, the Princess rounded the corner to her father’s hut. A fog of smoke and red dust hung over the entrance. The air was thick with the scent of a recent struggle, stinging her eyes, blurring her vision. The morning’s busy chatter had been replaced by an eerie silence and the rancid smell of death—one far more potent than that of the guinea.
The bird fell from the Princess’s grasp as she leaned into the hut’s dark hazy entrance. Her stunned gaze sank to the stiff body sprawled across the scuffed-up ground and the ragged, blood-soaked heap of her father’s clothing—piled up next to his severed head.
The Princess’s oldest brother knelt on the floor next to the corpse, his face blanched with shock as he examined the cut below their father’s once proud chin. Her mouth opened to set loose the horrified scream coursing through her body, but a hand quickly reached out to muffle it. A second brother wrapped his arm around the Princess’s trembling shoulders while together they stared in disbelief at the gruesome display on the floor.
The pounding thud of human feet sounded in the distance, cutting through the awed hush of the hut. The older brother snapped his head up from his father’s mangled figure. Lurching forward, he shoved the Princess out of the tent.
“Run!” he yelled hoarsely.
She stumbled, her feet tripping clumsily on the red dirt. She shook her head, numb with confusion as her brother grabbed her shoulders and spun her body toward the savannah.
“Go!” he ordered firmly. “Don’t let them take you alive!”
The Princess panted heavily as she reached the end of the goat trail on the far end of the open plain. Her body was drenched with sweat, and her throat rasped for liquid, but she immediately began the rugged hike up into the mountains. Picking her way through the thickening forest, she slowly gained altitude. She had to put as much distance as possible between herself and the sabotaged encampment.
All the while, her head pounded with questions. How could this have happened? What had become of the rest of her family? Who had attacked her tribe? Which of her father’s allies had turned against them?
She reached a stand of trees overlooking a steep cliff and slipped into the shadows beneath their canopy, melding her body into a nest of branches. It was a hiding place she had used many times before—usually after playing a joke on one of her brothers for which she feared retribution. Never before had she stood in this spot with such urgency, desperately willing the smooth contours of her skin to harden into the shape of the surrounding wooden limbs.
Trying to steady her frightened nerves, the Princess reached a hand up to her collarbone and cupped it around an amulet that hung from her neck on a thin leather strap. Her fingers, still sticky with the blood of the guinea fowl, ran along the raised ridges of the iron-forged medallion.
The circular piece of metal had been crafted into the shape of the sun. It was the symbol of her tribe—her father’s emblem, known throughout the region.
Her ragged breathing began to slow as she took a calming strength from the amulet. Her thoughts focused on her immediate needs, how she would survive alone in the bush for the next twenty-four hours.
But as the Princess began to sift mechanically through her available resources, she felt the presence of another being lurking in the woods behind her. The hopeful breath within her chest instantly evaporated.
In that long elastic moment, she stood, paralyzed, fervently praying one of her family members had escaped to meet her—all the while knowing, like the guinea, that it was not a friendly companion who had tracked her to this spot.
Her eyes drifted to the edge of the cliff as she heard her brother’s voice, calling out his last cautionary warning.
“Don’t let them take you alive.”
The ledge was just a few footsteps away. A short sprint would take her to it—and the endless drop into the abyss. The Princess swallowed hard, trying to summon the will to throw herself forward.
Her feet dug defiantly into the rocky soil; the muscles of her legs ached with stubborn resistance.
At long last, she overcame her body’s instinctive objection and lunged from her hiding place, committed to the fateful jump…but it was too late.
A swift blow to the back of her head knocked her unconscious, and her body crumpled to the ground.
Conrad slammed the book shut and pushed back from the table. He wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his face; then he reached his hands up to massage a stiffness that had crept into his shoulders. As he popped a loud crick in his neck, he noticed his cigarette had burnt all the way down to its end.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa…what happened here?” he muttered as he twisted the stub in his fingers.
He’d been so engrossed in the story, he had missed out on the most pungent puffs. He puckered his lips and sucked in a last stale puff from the charred paper. Lifting his head, he tried to inhale a large volume of the air above the table, a futile attempt to recapture the lost smoke. Still snorting loudly, he climbed onto the seat of his chair and tilted his head toward the basement’s low ceiling.
He suddenly stopped, midsniff—someone had entered the room. A shadowed figure lurked among the stacks, just out of view.
“Hello?” Conrad called out warily, hopping off the chair as the remains of the cigarette dropped from his fingers to the floor.
Crushing the stub beneath the toe of his boot, he brushed the bag of cigarettes off the side of the table and kicked it into the bottom shelf of the nearest bookcase.
“Who goes there?” he asked suspiciously.
The shadow issued no response.
“District Attorney Man,” Conrad grumbled under his breath, “you’ve got yourself one heck of a persistent streak…”
A slender, barefoot woman stepped into the half-lit corridor on the far side of the basement. She wore a close-fitting beaded vest on her torso and a knee-length sarong around her waist. A dizzy mop of dark curly hair bounced youthfully around her shoulders. Despite the frosty New York winter outside the library, her cocoa-colored skin glowed with an equatorial warmth. Her neck was encircled by a narrow strip of leather; it had been threaded through an amulet whose shiny metal glinted in the dim glow of the nearest lightbulb.
“Wha—well, hello there.” Conrad quickly smoothed over his surprise. He ran his hand over the balding crown of his head as the Amina Princess peered bashfully around the corner of a shelving unit.
He cleared his throat. “I…I was just reading about you.”
Cautiously, the Princess approached the table. She gave Conrad a timid smile; then she wrapped her fingers around the edge of the book and slowly reopened it.
“You want me to…?”
Nodding silently, she pointed to the text.
“Yes, of course,” Conrad said, shrugging his shoulders as he returned to his seat.
Pushing the reading glasses farther up the bridge of his nose, he resumed the story.
6
The Miami Encounter
I stood on the small balcony outside my office, hidden from passersby on the brick path below by a dense bank of trees that had grown up against the railing. Through the mass of limbs and leaves, I watched as Hannah ac
companied Vivian up the hill toward the resort’s main reception area.
Even from a distance, the young woman exuded an inquisitive vigor. Her curly hair bounced in time with her energetic step as she carried on a lively one-sided conversation with Vivian, who sulked silently beside her.
My eyes followed the mismatched pair until they disappeared from view; then I returned inside my office, my earlier headache now amplified by a raging apprehension.
Scooping up the “Penelope Hoffstra” nameplate from the surface of the desk, I began to pace back and forth across the room, smacking the flat side of the triangular-shaped wedge against the palm of my hand.
“Hannah Sheridan,” I muttered grumpily as I tried to make sense of the morning’s events. “Not very likely.”
It had been four years since I’d last heard anyone utter that name—four years since I’d left behind my life in the States—four years since a mysterious airport encounter had changed everything.
An eternity had passed since that fateful scene.
When I looked back, I hardly recognized the harried woman in the tired business suit, nylon stockings, and high-heel shoes, wearily rolling her suitcase through the Miami airport. It was as if I were seeing someone else.
I was on the return leg of an unsuccessful business trip, the latest in a never-ending series of increasingly fruitless endeavors.
The airport was midway through a lengthy renovation project, and the wing where I was stranded had yet to receive the benefit of the coming improvements. After a long walk through a construction detour, I’d finally reached a crowded row of uncomfortable plastic bucket seats next to my gate.
I picked an open chair and slumped into its hard curvature, awaiting news on my indefinitely delayed flight home to LAX. A thin volume of air circulated through the failing ventilation system, overlaying a stale, moldy scent to the departure area’s overall sense of disarray and disruption.
Groaning, I kicked off my left pump, cracked the stiff bones in my big toe, and sized up the blister I’d worked up during the hike. Accepting the inevitable fate of a long sit, I unbuttoned my suit jacket and loosened the top buttons of my blouse.
The outfit had begun to show wear after one too many circuits through the dry cleaner’s, but there wasn’t any room in my diminishing budget for a replacement. I would have to make do until I figured out a way to reverse the current downward trend in income.
I’d spent the day with an elderly client in Boca, a cranky septuagenarian who was trying to determine which of her heirs would inherit her estate. She was still mulling over her options, but after numerous rants about her unworthy offspring, I was willing to bet her favorite tabby would end up with her most valuable asset, a nicely appointed oceanfront beach house.
The old lady looked to have a good year or so left in her, giving me, I hoped, time to solidify my relationship with the soon-to-be affluent feline.
I glanced around the dingy waiting area and thought gloomily of my pending coach seat to Los Angeles—six hours trapped in the confines of a middle seat with nothing but a can of soda to look forward to. Kneading my forehead, I propped my feet up on my suitcase, took a long sip from the now cold cup of coffee I’d purchased halfway through my marathon trek through the terminal, and opened my laptop computer.
After nearly a decade of struggling to build my solo legal practice, I was finally coming to the conclusion that the lawyer life wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
As I began tapping away at the keyboard, searching for alternative flights, a heavyset man waddled down the narrow aisle in front of my row of seats. Glancing up from the computer, I pulled my knees to one side to allow him space to pass through. He turned, pivoted like a stuffed penguin, and squeezed himself into the seat beside me.
I swiveled further sideways, trying to avoid the extra folds of padded skin that spilled out over the armrest as he settled into his chair. My eyes scanned the waiting area, searching for another empty seat, but, predictably, they were all now taken.
The swollen fingers of the man’s right hand tugged against the collar of his golf shirt. A thin layer of sweat dotted his brow, and a light fog clouded the round lenses of his wire-rim glasses.
The gate attendant’s voice boomed through the intercom, providing a noninformative update to my flight’s status as the man over-occupying the next seat bent down to the floor to sift through his briefcase. A moment later, he emerged with a large manila envelope.
“Hannah Sheridan?” the man asked, politely clearing his throat.
A sudden intake of moist, moldy air flooded my lungs. I snapped shut the lid of my laptop and turned to give him a suspicious look.
My first instinct pegged him as a process server. I rolled my eyes internally. Another malpractice lawsuit, I thought grimly—that was all I needed.
After a moment’s pause, I dismissed this option as unlikely. If he were one of those guys, he would have already slapped the papers in my lap.
Perhaps he was from the state bar’s ethics committee, I considered ruefully. They were due to issue their ruling on the latest complaint against my law license any day now…
But, upon consideration, this too, I rejected. The bar wouldn’t have sent someone all the way to Miami just to deliver that news in person, and it was too soon for the Florida boards to have caught onto my activities in their state.
Hmm, I mused, tapping my fingernails against the metal surface of my computer. Maybe he was some sort of petty-crime bounty hunter, cashing in on the stack of unpaid parking and speeding tickets registered to my name.
The possibilities were numerous, I concluded with a sigh, and none of them promised a pleasant outcome. This ballooning walrus of a man had caught me at a point of minimal resistance. Whatever bad news he had to dump on me, there was no point in trying to avoid it. If this poor fellow had tracked me all the way through the airport’s maze of dusty construction detours, I supposed he deserved to deliver his coup de grâce.
Nevertheless, I glanced down at my feet. Both shoes were kicked off. I was ready to run if necessary, and I stood a greater chance of escape without the high heels. Clutching my laptop with one hand and the handle of my roll-around with the other, my face flattened into an acquiescent grimace, and I nodded my confirmation.
Yes, he’d found Hannah Sheridan—at least some depleted version of her.
“Please, I have something for you,” he said in a measured, even tone. “A proposal I think you might want to consider.”
I stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“Please,” he repeated. “Take a look. I think you’ll be surprised.”
Skeptically, I took the envelope. Pursing my lips, I pulled open the end flap and slid out the contents.
The papers inside outlined an unusual offer—one unlike any I had ever seen or imagined.
It had to be a joke, I reasoned, and glanced around the terminal, expecting to find someone smirking in a corner.
There were no obvious suspects; the area was a typical sea of introspection. Cell phones, tabloid magazines, and any number of handheld devices dominated the landscape. I was surrounded by strangers, each occupied by one means or another of self-amusement.
I returned my gaze to the puffy-faced man seated beside me. How had he located me, I wondered, and what was the catch? More important, what did he stand to gain?
He noted my perplexed expression and cleared his throat.
“I had someone else in mind for the job, but she fell through at the last minute.”
A puzzled stare was all I could muster. He tried again.
“I need someone on the ground there…someone with your skills.”
“Skills?” I asked dubiously, finally finding my voice.
“Yes,” he replied calmly. “Your legal training, your”—he paused and raised a suggestive eyebrow—“adaptive abilities.”
I squirmed uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair. Clearly, this guy knew far too much about me and my slightly illicit
operations.
As it became harder and harder to pay my bills, I had slipped into somewhat less than honest and aboveboard relations with my clients. A couple of my creative variations on the truth had come back to haunt me—to be honest, the California malpractice suit was the least of my legal troubles.
The man gave me a reassuring smile and nodded at the papers I’d removed from the envelope. “Take a close look. Let me know what you think.”
As the rain continued its numbing patter against the windows behind my seat, I returned my attention to the short sheaf of papers and began studying the details. The pay was minimal, but housing and meals were included; the scenery, it went without saying, came for free. When it came right down to it, what else did I really need?
I found myself giving the proposal serious consideration. The more I thought about it, the more the idea gained in appeal. Assuming false credentials wasn’t exactly new territory for me. Stepping into another person’s dream job on an idyllic tropical island where cell phone reception was spotty and pantyhose were a rare, even extinct invention—what was the worst that could happen?
“Penelope Hoffstra,” I murmured out loud, trying the name on for size. It was almost like slipping into a new pair of clothes. The moniker felt a little stiff at first, but it softened to my shape the more I repeated it in my head.
I avoided asking myself what might have occurred to the real Penelope Hoffstra that would have left her so conveniently unavailable for this assignment.
Desperate times call for blind leaps of faith. If it didn’t work out, I told myself, I would simply head for home after a much needed week of sunny rest and relaxation; I could regroup and remake myself from there.
And so, strange as it may seem, at the end of my conversation with the mysteriously marshmallowing man, I took the package from him, walked up to the ticket counter, and changed my destination to STT, the airport code for St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.
