"Those are actually the wildebeests," the pilot indicated with a jut of his square chin. "Each year, thousands of them begin their long trek from the Kenyan border to the Masai Reserve. They're constantly tracked by predators and circled by vultures, so their journey is dangerous and long. But they do it and most of 'em make it." His deep voice was filled with admiration. "Nature is a remarkable navigator."

"That was incredible," Nicole said when Nairobi's airfields came into sight. "I can't thank you enough. I'm sorry, but I don't even know your name."

"Mike. And it's not me you have to thank. Kira asked that I take you for a quick tour before dropping you at the airport."

A tender warmth rose up in Nicole's chest. d.a.m.n. Kira would have to go and do something nice like this to just mess with her mind one last time.

The helicopter descended onto a white circle painted atop the black tarmac.

"Your ears may ring for a bit," Mike informed Nicole jovially, helping her from the c.o.c.kpit and taking her headset. "If you go inside the small blue building there and ask for Tom, he'll drive you over to the main terminal."

"Mike, if you see Kira, will you tell her..." And Nicole found she couldn't complete her thoughts, not sure what it was exactly she wanted to say. The horrible woman had faked a hijacking, caused Nicole to miss her teaching internship, accused her of treason, and labeled her father a criminal-never mind what had occurred between them last night. She shouldn't feel at all grateful for the brief excursion over the wilds of Africa, but she was, and the feelings fluttering about her heart left her tongue-tied.

"I'll tell her," Mike stated kindly, nodding his fair head in parting before disappearing into a maintenance hangar.

Nicole had the inexplicable feeling that she had not seen the last of the hunky pilot.

Chapter Eleven.

The first thing Nicole's blurry gaze fell upon was a decade old N'sync poster featuring a very young Justin Timberlake in the center. It was mounted on the back of her bedroom door with strips of tape that had aged to a dusty urine-colored yellow. She stared hard at his boyish features and curly hair until her tired eyes were finally able to focus.

It wasn't quite seven in the morning yet, but it was already hot and humid. She'd come home to a good old-fashioned East Coast heat wave, and for some odd reason her mother hadn't yet switched on the air conditioner for the summer.

Placing a pillow under her head, she gazed up at the ceiling fan's motionless white blades and thought how wonderful its gentle breeze would feel, but she simply lacked the required amount of energy needed to get up and yank the cord.

Even though she'd arrived home before yesterday's sun had even dawned, and done little else but sleep and watch TV since, she was still suffering the disorienting effects of jet lag.

At least that's how she was trying to explain the strange emptiness that had opened up inside her, like a black hole in the center of her very being vacuuming out the remnants of the person she once was. Looking around her childhood bedroom, she expected to see the ghost of her former self hovering in one of the corners.

A lot had changed during the past week.

She had changed.

Lying there in her old bed amidst a sea of stuffed-animals she'd collected over the years, her faded pink and white gingham coverlet strewn across the bed in twisted disarray, she reflected upon the extraordinary events of the prior week.

It wasn't much different than if she'd been abducted by s.p.a.ce aliens, taken to another galaxy, experimented upon, and deposited back onto Earth. No one would believe her if she told them her wild tale.

Straight to the looney bin she'd go.

"Did you enjoy the show last night?" she asked out loud.

She lay silent for a full minute, waiting for Kira to travel through some invisible portal and appear in the middle of the room. Were the microphones they'd planted still active? Had they even existed to begin with?

She rolled over on her side, recalling the excruciating and humbling conversation she'd had with her mother last night. After a calorie-laden delivery pizza with extra cheese, her mother had tentatively broached the subject of Nicole's sudden, unexpected return from Africa. Although Nicole longed to tell her mother everything that had happened, from the first moment Kira had entered her life to the last, she realized she couldn't. The real story of her few days away, even minus the kiss and s.e.xual attraction, would frighten her widowed mother and would probably turn her already graying hair white.

Her husband had been killed in a strange foreign country, and twelve years later, her daughter had almost suffered the exact same fate. Yes, even though the hijacking had been a sham, her mother would never be able to listen to anything beyond gunfire and kidnapping.

No, this lie Kira had created about being deeply homesick was much better than the truth.

"You must've been laughing your a.s.s off when you sent those e-mails to my mom pretending to be me." She was speaking again to the ceiling. "I have no idea what you wrote to her, but I guess you can add creative writing to the list of your many talents."

"It's my fault that you've turned into such a homebody," her mother had said at the kitchen table last night, pursing her lips and averting her dark brown eyes. It pained Nicole to hear the guilt and self-reproach in her mother's tone. "All the hovering and worrying I did. You were always so much like your father, and I suppose I've tried to stifle that part of you."

Nicole had to bite her tongue. Her mother was having a breakthrough, and although it was a few years too late, it wouldn't help matters for Nicole to vent her long-suppressed anger and resentment right then. Whatever Kira had written in those e-mails had made her mother feel guilty enough. There was no point in adding to it.

"Even just last week, when Liz and I dropped you off at the airport, I was still begging you not to go." She shook her head, upset with herself. "I remember when you were only nine and already studying French with your father. Most kids were playing with Barbie dolls, but you were researching student exchange programs. You had his wanderl.u.s.t, and it scared me."

The question lurking in Nicole's mind was at last answered. Her mother had known nothing of her father's dealings with Rhyse Taylor or with the government. If she'd had even the remotest sense of the danger her father had been in, there was no way she ever would have allowed her husband to leave the house, let alone the country.

But what if she had? What if she'd learned some of it after his death?

And maybe that was the real cause of her anxieties all these years.

Maybe her mother did know something. Not all of it, but maybe just enough to know someone out there still wanted something, whatever it was, and she was going to do everything she possibly could to ensure her two daughters didn't inadvertently stick their noses into it and put themselves into danger.

Yet that was precisely what Nicole had gone and done the very first opportunity she had.

"Lord, Nicky," her mother had lamented, "you were such a determined little girl. When you put your mind to something, anyone standing in your way had better just watch out. And to be honest, I didn't understand you. I thought maybe by just encouraging you to be more like your older sister, you'd have a happier life, and one day get married, have some kids." She'd sighed, a deep, melancholy sound that infused their small kitchen with a heavy sadness. "I messed up. I should have just allowed you to become the person you were meant to be."

It had taken every ounce of self-control Nicole possessed to keep the truth from spilling out from her lips when her mother slowly got up from the table and returned to her cold cup of coffee at the counter. Even now, remembering the sadness, the regret, in her mother's expression, seeing with a sudden clarity her mother's age in the lines and creases around her eyes and the slight sagging of her jowls, she felt a growing knot of tightness in her chest and a stinging in her eyes.

She rolled onto her back again after another minute and laced her fingers together under her head. "Well, aren't you listening anymore?" It took all of her self-control not to yell the words.

She knew she was acting like a fool, but in some strange way she found it oddly comforting to think there were some hidden wires running through the rafters overhead connecting her to Kira.

"And why I'm even talking to you, I really don't know. Or maybe I do," she said in a scathing aside to herself a minute later, tossing the sheets off in one violent motion. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Which means somewhere along the way I must have turned into a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t."

Downstairs, she found her mother already made up and dressed at the kitchen table.

"Mom, why don't you have the air on?" she complained, reaching for a carton of orange juice and a gla.s.s. "It's hotter than Hades and it's only eight in the morning."

"That thing eats electricity like it's going out of style, Nicole. You kids seem to think money grows on trees."

That was when Nicole noticed what her mother was doing, crouched there with a ballpoint pen in her hand. She was circling want ads in the weekly flyer.

"Mom!" Her voice erupted from her as whining mix of outrage and shock. "You teach a bunch of rowdy brats all year. The summer's always been your time to recuperate. You can't really mean to get another job?"

"Just trying to keep myself busy," her mother replied awkwardly, as if she'd been caught doing something shameful. She got up from her chair to refill her empty cup from the sophisticated KitchenAid coffeemaker Nicole had given her for Christmas one year. The modern piece of kitchen equipment looked incongruous amongst the rest of the dated decor. "You know the old saying, idle hands are the devil's tools."

Nicole kissed her mother and went back to her bedroom, slipping into running shorts and sneakers and taking to the neighborhood streets with a zeal she hadn't possessed in quite some time. It had been over a week since she'd had any real exercise-other than the death march from the bus in Muranga and the short hike to the helicopter with Stella and Bogie. Even though it was hot and muggy, she found the run exhilarating. When she finished her three miles, she walked the last block back home, her legs throbbing with pain and awareness, and her shirt damp with sweat.

Somewhere nearby a lawn mower roared as it did its job and sprinklers made their strange thwacking noise as they sprayed water over gra.s.s. She could hear children shouting and giggling from another block, and there was a dog barking. It all was very comforting and familiar, the sounds of a quiet neighborhood in the summer.

But a part of her ached for one more run from an imaginary gunman.

After showering, she returned to her bedroom and opened a window to allow some cool air in to circulate. Her desk and her bed were part of a set that was a gift from her grandparents the year after her father died. Her father's parents had purchased many things for them that year, maybe thinking gifts could somehow fill the void they were all feeling. Atop the desk's chipped, ink-riddled surface sat her laptop and cell phone, neither of which she'd used since her return from Africa. She'd avoided both for the past day and a half, but she knew there were some things she couldn't keep dodging.

She pressed the power b.u.t.tons to both devices, and as their screens came to life, she towel-dried her hair, gathered its thick wavy length into an elastic band. She put on a pair of khaki shorts and an old T-shirt. She decided to tackle the least challenging of all those on her list first-her finances.

Money had always been a frustrating issue for her. Now the lack of it literally made her stomach ache.

Not long after making her decision to teach in Kenya for the summer, she'd increased one of her student loans to enormous proportions to cover the program's travel and living costs, and quit her part-time job as a waitress at the Greek restaurant she'd worked at for years. She shook her head, thinking she'd have to borrow those want ads when her mother was done with them or beg for her old job back.

Logging on to her bank's website, she wasn't surprised to see she now had less than seven hundred dollars to cover her expenses until she started working again. Luckily, she could live here at her mother's house rent-free, at least until school started in the fall. Only one more semester. Thinking of school made her wince. At some point, she would have to address the subject of her abandoned internship with her school's advisory committee, but that wasn't as much of a priority for her as the other issues on her agenda.

She opened up Google on her laptop and searched for any piece of information about one Kira Anthony. She wasn't surprised when her searches turned up nothing. Next on her list was Stella's mysterious scribble about the tin man. After an hour, she still had no idea what it meant.

By noon, she couldn't postpone the inevitable any longer and directed her attention to the inbox of her student e-mail account. It was already overflowing with spam but she scrolled down until her cursor settled upon the three dated e-mails from Danielle. The first was sent in January, two weeks after Nicole had moved out. The next came in February, and the last was sent in April. They were all still highlighted in bold, black text. Nicole hadn't deleted them, but she'd never read them either. She took a deep breath and clicked on the first e-mail sent in January. It was brief: Call me, Nick. We need to talk.

Then February: Why won't you return my calls? This is important. Beyond what happened between us at your mother's house over Thanksgiving.

And the last one, sent in April and just as concise: Nicole, I know you avoided me today outside of cla.s.s. I am not stalking you, even though it might seem that way. There are things I need to talk to you about-matters of utmost importance. Please call me.

The coward in Nicole longed to delete the e-mails and pretend she'd never read them, but she knew she couldn't. With a less than steady hand, she picked up her cell phone and dialed the number that would connect her to Danielle. She was astonished to find she still knew the number by heart. Good thing-she'd deleted it from her contacts months ago.

Despite her resolve to be brave, she breathed a sigh of relief when the call clicked over to voicemail. She left a message, her voice shaky. If what Kira said was true and Danielle was involved in some insane intrigue relating to her father's murder, she had no doubt she wouldn't have to wait too long for a return call.

Chapter Twelve.

"So, Nick, did you meet some s.e.xy native while you were in the jungle?"

Nicole wiped the sheen of sweat from her brow with the hem of her T-shirt and took a sip of bottled water before casting a glance toward her sister.

Weary of rummaging through her father's boxed belongings in search of a clue to the dead man's mysterious past, she'd decided it was too hot to spend a second longer in the tiny attic and had elected to engage in something as physical and mindless as mowing the lawn.

Yet even though her body had been out in the yard enduring attacks from mosquitoes and other annoying insects, her head was still up in the sweltering s.p.a.ce of the attic, wondering if she'd overlooked something. As she was pushing the wobbly-wheeled lawn mower back toward the garage, she'd spied her sister on the patio lying atop one of her mother's aged vinyl lounge chairs in a skimpy bikini.

"I can tell something happened over there." Her sister's eyes looked her up and down before finally settling on her face. "There's something different about you."

Nicole stiffened in reflex, deliberating for a fraction of a second if she dared share the truth about what had really happened to her in Africa before realizing just how absurd that would actually be. She loved her sister, but Liz was more than a bit obtuse. Lucky for her, she was pretty, and it was her looks that had gotten her through life.

Nicole heaved a tired sigh and watched as her sister fished through an elephantine bag riddled with a designer's initials across its dimpled leather, her oily cleavage glistening in the sun. She wondered again for perhaps the millionth time in her life how she and her older sister could be so different. Not only did they disagree in their ideologies and political philosophies, but they were as different in appearance and demeanor as night was to day. Nicole sometimes found it hard to believe they came from the same gene pool, much less grew up under the same roof four years apart.

"C'mon, Nicole. Aren't you going to tell me if all the men in Africa were dressed like Tarzan and walked around in loincloths?" Liz joked, pulling her iPhone from her bag and updating her Facebook page. She placed the phone on the arm of the lounge chair and rubbed the last of the oil into her knees.

"What?" Nicole asked. She hadn't been paying attention.

Liz pulled her pair of expensive tortoisesh.e.l.l sungla.s.ses down from her blond highlights, turning a charming pout in Nicole's direction. "I asked you if you met someone while you were in Africa. You're acting weird. Weirder than usual, s.p.a.cing out like a zombie. What's up?"

Nicole took a seat at the bottom of Liz's lounge chair, admiring the short, crisp rows the mower had scored into the lawn. There was finally a light breeze stirring in the late afternoon air, and the magnificent willow tree swayed gently back and forth with the wind. Nicole turned to her sister.

"Remember when you carved that heart into my tree?" she asked absently. "I wanted to kill you."

Liz made a face. "Why are you changing the subject? Why will you never talk to me about guys? I swear, Nick, sometimes I wonder about you." She removed her sungla.s.ses and arched a perfectly shaped pale brow upward, her attention focused on an invisible chip in the bright red polish of her recently manicured nails. "Truth is, sis, it is a bit peculiar that you've never shown much interest in the opposite s.e.x. And by the way, I denied it then and I'll deny it till the day I die. I never touched your stupid tree. And what was the big deal anyway? So some kid cut a heart into it? It's not like they chopped it down. And look at it-it's none the worse. It's grown almost as big as the house. Really, Nick, could you ever picture me with a knife in my hand messing up my nails and risking a splinter?"

Liz's question haunted Nicole the rest of the night. The willow in the backyard had always been a symbol of her father's love. She'd treasured the memory of helping him dig the earth to plant it, shoveling dirt over its roots and watering it every day throughout that spring. Days after he died, she'd discovered someone had chiseled a heart with some boy's name into its very center. Naturally, she'd blamed her stupid sister, and they'd fought about it for months. But now, as she readied herself for bed, she finally realized that what Liz had said was the truth. Although her sister's affection for boys had always been a bit obsessive, never in a million years would she have gone to all the effort and sweat it took to hew a heart into the tree's hard, brittle bark.

But then who did?

The answer came like a bolt out of the blue. In preparation for a quick shower, she'd removed both her watch and earrings and was just reaching for her necklace's clasp when she caught sight of the oval pendant hanging from its long, silver chain. With trembling hands, she held the side with the engraved willow to her before slowly turning it over to read the inscription.

In My Heart, Love Dad.

"Oh my G.o.d," she whispered as she grasped the significance of the five words. Liz really hadn't carved the heart into the tree!

Donning her robe, she ran to the bedroom window to look out at the willow silhouetted in the moonlight.

Her father had left a clue to whatever it was both Kira and Danielle were after in the trunk of the tree.

For her to find.

Nicole nearly flew from her bedroom down to the kitchen. Under the sink, hidden behind cans of open Ajax and bottles of Pine-Sol and other aging cleaners, she found the flashlight. When she pushed the rusted power switch forward and a bright beam of light erupted from its corroded head, she almost jumped with joy.

In just her robe, she ran out into the warm June night, her heart hammering almost painfully against her chest as dewy clumps of damp gra.s.s clippings collected between her bare toes. The neighbor's dachshund appeared at the fence, determined to wake the entire neighborhood with his annoyingly shrill yapping.

"Quiet, Henry!" she scolded, and the little dog scampered back toward his house. When she reached the willow, she pointed the flashlight up and down its trunk but couldn't find the heart. A wave of apprehension swept over her.

Twelve years had pa.s.sed and she wasn't sure how long tree carvings lasted. But then she aimed the dull beam of light higher. There it was! Its shape was a tad contorted and the letters faded from weather and time, but the five letters were still legible.

Gavin.

The unusual name had meant nothing to her back then, but now it was everything.

She ran back into the house as fast as her legs could carry her, lurching clumsily through the backdoor and into the kitchen, almost crashing into her mother.

"Nicole Anne Kennedy, it's almost eleven o'clock at night!"

Nicole clutched the ends of her robe tightly together, suddenly conscious of her state of undress.

"What on earth is all the ruckus?" Her mother stood at the kitchen sink in her nightgown looking down at the open cabinet doors and the toppled bottles of cleaners, then back to the flashlight in Nicole's hand. A shrill, electronic beep pierced the tense quiet. She was clutching Nicole's cell phone in a tight fist. Someone had sent a text message, and unless a b.u.t.ton on the phone was pressed, the harsh irritating buzzing would repeat all night.

"Sorry, Mom." Nicole was still panting from her exertions. "I thought my necklace fell off while mowing the lawn today and went out to look for it. Then I remembered I'd taken it off to shower."