“Very well.” She set her book on the bench, placing the wanga bag atop it, crossed her legs, and took a sip of tea, replacing the cup carefully in the saucer on the end table. “I’ll make it as easy as can be. Sinclair, come with me. We’ll be out of town by sundown and on the next plane home.”

Aha. So that was where this was leading.

He shook his head. “No.”

She stared at him, and although she looked elegant and perfectly relaxed, lovely as a model posing for a photo shoot, I felt that same tangible sense of menace rolling off her like fog rolling over the lake when a cold front comes through. “It’s where you belong, Sinclair. It’s your home.”

“No, it’s not.” If Sinclair felt menaced, it didn’t show. In fact, his expression had turned as flinty as his sister’s. “I made my choice a long time ago, Emmy. Why the hell can’t you respect it?”

“Because we need you!” Emmeline came off the bench as fast as a rattler striking, eyes blazing with sudden passion. I found my hand on dauda-dagr’s hilt and the blade half drawn without thinking, but she wasn’t paying any attention to me. I might as well have not existed. “Dear God, Sinclair, do you not know why a country that ought to be a fucking paradise on earth is paralyzed by endless poverty? Do you need a history lesson?”

“No,” he murmured. Well, that made one of us.

“Debt and desperation,” she said grimly, ignoring him. “The International Monetary Fund’s been imposing impossible conditions on Jamaica since before you or I was born, Sinny. Brutal austerity measures. Tearing down trade barriers that protected our fragile commerce. Do you know local farmers still can’t compete with the price of imported produce? And they bloody well destroyed the dairy industry importing powdered milk when we were still children. Powdered milk! Have you forgotten?”

“I remember,” he said quietly.

Emmeline jabbed a finger at him. “That’s the battle our mother’s been fighting her whole life!”

“Oh, really?” Sinclair shot back. “Funny how nothing ever changes, except that Letitia Palmer gets richer and more powerful every year, while anyone who dares oppose her ends up broken.”

“It will change,” his sister said emphatically. “She’s spent a lifetime positioning herself for it. She’s running for a seat in Parliament next year.”

“And I’m sure she’ll get it,” he said. “The same way she’s gotten almost everything she’s set her will to.”

“She needs you, Sinny,” Emmeline said. “Your country needs you. I need you. I miss you. It’s where you belong. It’s what you were born to do. It’s in your blood. It’s your birthright. You can help us finally, finally make a difference. Just come home.”