British Airways Flight 208 from Miami landed at Heathrow as scheduled. By ten thirty A.M. London time, Shada emerged from the sausage grinder that was the immigration chute and ducked into a public restroom. Ten minutes later, she was dressed like a Westerner.
Returning to her neighborhood wearing a hijab and carrying a suitcase wouldn’t have been smart. There were religious laws against Muslim women traveling alone, and there were men in Somaal Town who took it upon themselves to enforce them. The hijab had been a charade anyway, simply a disguise to make Shada unrecognizable while in Miami. Maysoon Khan had never dressed that way in London.
The tube ride from the airport was over an hour, and Shada was so sleepy that she nearly forgot to change lines at the Holborn Station. The final leg of the trip home took her to Bethnal Green, and she could walk to her apartment from there.
Northeast London had been overcast and chilly when she’d left six days ago, and it was even colder this morning. Or maybe it just felt that way after the warmth of Miami. She walked briskly, her suitcase on wheels clicking at each crack in the sidewalk behind her. Every half block or so she glanced over her shoulder, back toward Somaal Town, where gangs had been known to crack skulls just to protect their turf. Even in daylight Shada checked for trouble sneaking up from behind. Her own neighborhood, up around Wadeson Street, was only slightly better, though a steady increase in trendy clubs and restaurants like Bistroteque and Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club drew crowds from all over the city.
Shada climbed the front stairs to her building, dug the key from her purse, and entered the apartment. It wasn’t much warmer on the inside. She left her bag at the door and walked straight to the thermostat to crank up the heat. Hunger pangs growled in her belly, but instead of going to the kitchen she went to her small study and switched on the computer. It was something she and Chuck had in common, this obsession with information. The PC took a moment to boot up, but finally the screen blinked on and brightened the room, bathing her in the blue light of her digital desktop. She jumped onto the Internet and went to the home page for the Miami Herald.
Shada wasn’t technically a news junkie, but she had followed the local news in Miami daily since McKenna’s death. The Internet made that a snap even from London. Most days were the same: nothing about McKenna. Until recently. Out of the blue, she’d read about the return and arrest of Jamal Wakefield. Each day since had brought new developments-often several breaking stories in a span of hours. The latest headline jarred her:
Data-Mining Pioneer Is Prime Suspect in Wife’s Disappearance
Shada knew immediately what the story meant, and the feelings of guilt and regret almost made her dizzy. But she read on:
Three years after his wife’s disappearance, Miami businessman Charles “Chuck” Mays, a pioneer in the personal information industry, is the focus of a criminal investigation. According to sources at the Miami-Dade Police Department, Mays could face charges of first degree murder.
A sick feeling welled up in Shada’s throat. She forged ahead, skimming over the part about how Chuck became a millionaire, her hand shaking on the mouse as she read about McKenna’s death and then about her own disappearance:
Six months after her daughter’s death, Mrs. Mays’ kayak was found floating upside down in the Florida Everglades, less than a mile from her parked car. An empty bottle of sleeping pills was in the front seat. “Clearly someone was trying to make it look like suicide,” said Miami-Dade homicide detective Jim Burton, but her body was never recovered.
For nearly three years, police theorized that Mrs. Mays and her daughter were killed by the same man. Jamal Wakefield, a U.S. citizen and alleged “enemy combatant” of Somali descent, lived under an assumed identity at the Gitmo detention facility until January of this year, when he was transferred to Miami and charged with McKenna’s murder. Just one day after his release on bail, Wakefield was brutally murdered, his body found less than a mile from where Mrs. Mays had disappeared in the Everglades.
“We still believe Wakefield killed McKenna Mays,” said Detective Burton. However, new evidence has led police to suspect that Mrs. Mays was killed by her husband.
Shada scrolled down, but the story offered no clue as to the nature of the “new evidence,” concluding with a quote she would have expected from Chuck: “ ‘The charge is total bull-.’ ” Clicking on links to “related stories” pulled up nothing but earlier postings that she had read before.
Shada sat perfectly still, her face aglow in the warm light of the computer screen. The words she had written to Chuck at her daughter’s grave replayed in her mind: “I promise I won’t let anyone blame you for what happened to me. Or for what I made them believe happened.”
Now what?
There was no clear answer. She owed Chuck, but was now the time to honor her promise? Or later, if and when he was formally charged? Her head hurt too much to think about it.
Shada closed out the Web page. She thought about going to bed, but her information addiction kicked into another gear. Unopened e-mails beckoned. It took her ten minutes to get through the ones under her main identity. Then she switched to another screen name-one that allowed her to be the person she wasn’t. Seven messages, one for each day Shada had been gone. The first had hit just a few hours after Shada had left for Miami. The most recent was from last night. All were from the same woman. A lonely woman whom Shada had met only in cyberspace. They had been exchanging instant messages for almost a month, but of course Shada had told her nothing about her trip out of the country. Shada knew her only as kitty8. kitty8: Hi cutie. kitty8: Miss u. kitty8: Where r u? kitty8: r u playing hard to get? kitty8: Been thinking about u soooo much. kitty8: Do u have any clue what u r passing up?
The string of messages ended with a playful threat: Last chance. kitty8 n88ds a FB.
Shada smiled. She’d sent enough text messages and IMs to know that “8” was code for oral sex, and that “FB” in this context was a kind of buddy, not “Facebook.” A photograph was attached, and upon opening it, Shada had to catch her breath. She’d worked hookups online before, but this was one of those rare instances where the photograph actually lived up to the “as advertised” hype. And it left no doubt as to the kind of buddy that kitty8 needed.
Shada typed a short reply-Let’s meet!-and hit SEND. The message was on its way.
And kitty8 was in the bag.