Page 40 of Trust Me

She thought of the site she’d played a key role in destroying and the dead boy in the stairwell and hoped to hell his words were true.

Chapter Twenty-One

College Park, Maryland

Six weeks later

The first time Diana saw Jamal, she was in the hospital in Germany, practicing using the rolling cart to get around in preparation for her discharge. He was at the other end of the corridor and wore scrubs and a mask, but she recognized him. She knew his posture. His gait. It was him. She’d screamed, and nurses came running with security in tow.

When a Pakistani orderly was presented to her an hour later and she was told that was the man she’d seen, she didn’t believe the story. She insisted she’d seen Jamal. That was when she first learned the Intelligence Community was questioning her account of having spotted Rafiq in Jordan.

Now they questioned her ability to tell one brown-skinned man from another, and the implication that she was racist for signaling out the Pakistani man as a terrorist was delivered loud and clear.

It didn’t matter that she’d lived with and been engaged to a Lebanese-American, or that she’d lived in Jordan for nearly half a year by the time she was rescued, nor did it matter that she’d spent six weeks in the desert with Jamal. Her identification of Middle Eastern men was suspect.

So when, one week after she returned to the US, she saw Jamal standing on the subway platform at Gallery Place as her Green Line train departed the station, she didn’t tell anyone. Not even Morgan and Freya.

She knew it would shake their trust in her, and if she lost their support, she’d have nothing left.

All she could do at the time was lean back in her seat on the train, clutch the shopping bag to her chest, and hope that when she used the tablet she’d just purchased with cash to log into her throwaway email account, the photos of the artifacts would be in her inbox.

An hour later, when she was finally able to check the account, her inbox held nothing but seven months’ worth of spam. She’d known it was a long shot, but after weeks of having everything about her story questioned, she’d hoped to have tangible proof of something.

She’d told the CIA about the camera and photos, but she hadn’t disclosed that she’d used an old, online-only email address with a domain that was phasing out in a slow death by lack of filters and function. In the moment, it had been the ideal choice because the address was a series of digits and letters that wouldn’t reveal Diana’s identity if someone spotted the draft emails in the camera’s outgoing mailbox.

The intelligence officer in the hospital hadn’t asked what email address she’d used because they already had access to all her known accounts, and likely had been monitoring her various inboxes from the moment she was abducted.

Diana didn’t trust them not to swipe the photos if they arrived and never tell Diana they’d been received. Those photos could give up an IP address with Rafiq’s new location. And so, as soon as she felt up to venturing out after her return home, she took the Metro to Pentagon City and bought a tablet and 5G hotspot with cash so she could finally check that old email address, but on the way home from the store, she’d spotted Jamal on a subway platform.

In the ensuing days, she’d managed to dismiss the idea she’d seen the boy turned terrorist. She’d been tired and her ankle hurt after her first big outing since returning. Plus, she’d been doing something proactive, so naturally, she was braced for danger.

At the time of that second sighting, it had been five weeks since she’d fled the compound in Aqaba, but still, her body was wound tight. Would that ever leave her? Or would she expect the worst everywhere she went?

In the first months after the car accident that had killed Salim, every ride in a vehicle had filled her with dread. It wasn’t until she could drive herself around again, be in control of the vehicle instead of the helpless passenger, that the feeling began to fade. Now she was again hampered by a rebuilt ankle. Driving was out for the foreseeable future.

But it wasn’t cars and rainy, dark roads that scared her.

It was public places like shopping centers. Hospitals with people who questioned her memory and sanity. Airplanes in which she was trapped for hours, returning to a home that was forever changed. It was public transportation of all kinds, where she might see the face of a boy who wanted to kill her.

She also feared rideshare vehicles that she might climb into with a feeling of safety, but then discover the driver was working for the abductor she’d managed to escape in the market.

In short, she was afraid of leaving her condo even if she knew the destination to be safe, but now, a week after that second Jamal sighting, she needed to take the Metro once again.

She considered calling Morgan and un-RSVPing to her birthday party but told herself she needed to be brave. If she didn’t start going out into the world now, it would only be harder later. She didn’t relish the idea of becoming a recluse, and while she had enough money to live on for several years, she wasn’t rich enough to be considered charmingly eccentric.

Plus, there were enough questions about her sanity given her claims to have spoken with a dead man three times.

Still, she wanted to put off venturing out for one more day. After all, she had a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. She’d have to take the Metro. That would be enough bravery for one week.

She turned on the TV and went to the home screen, pondering which app to search for something to binge. But she was sick of TV after nearly two weeks at home, and without the distraction of TV, she would spend the evening reliving the moment when the glass shard dragged across Bassam’s throat, opening the taut skin like a separating zipper.

He hadn’t shaved in the weeks she’d known him, and his light beard had thickened, inching ever closer to manhood.

She set down the remote, grabbed her crutches, and crossed the living room to her bedroom, where she flung open the closet door and scanned her clothing for something she could wear to the party. A skirt would be best given the padded brace on her right ankle, but it would be chilly, and she didn’t have leggings. She’d ordered some online that she’d be able to cut just below the knee to accommodate the brace, but they hadn’t arrived yet.

In the end she chose a calf-length skirt and wore a thick knee-high stocking on her left leg. The walk to the pub from the Metro would be short enough that she shouldn’t get too chilled.

As she put on makeup, she tried to psych herself up for a night of peopling. She had a sneaking suspicion Morgan had decided to celebrate her birthday in a public place as a way to draw Diana out. And really, if there was anyone who even had an inkling of understanding of what Diana had just been through, it was Morgan.

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