“I need to go back to the prison,” I say. I call Mom and tell her we’ll be by soon to pick her up. I tell her I’ll explain when we get there. It must take all the strength she has not to press me for details.

As I explain my theory to Clay, I realize how flimsy it sounds. It’s just a few words remembered by a dying man. Still, I can’t let this go unexplored.

Moments later, we are in a taxi outside the American embassy. Clay goes inside to get Mom. I’m too anxious to deal with going through security now. Instead, I take out my phone and call the officer we met at the prison. He doesn’t sound surprised to hear from me.

“I have new information that I’d like to share with you,” I tell him.

“I’m listening,” he says.

“It’s best we speak in person. I’m headed to you now. We won’t be long,” I say before hanging up the phone. I don’t want to risk having him reject my theory over the phone.

I’m so distracted with what I might find at Pol-e-charkhi that I don’t notice the man with the short beard and dark eyes coming toward me until he’s closed the distance between us.

I look at him, my back pressed against the taxi.

I think about shouting or banging on the cab’s window to get the driver’s attention. But before I can do anything, the man is in front of me.

“Don’t run,” he says, as if he’s read my thoughts.

Chapter 60

The man is wearing a loose button-down shirt over gray slacks. He’s close enough that he could grab my wrist, but he makes no move to touch me.

I know he is the man who followed me when I left the restaurant. Though it was too dark to make out his features then, I recognize the shape of him. The slight hunch of his shoulders, the tilt of his head as he regards me.

I square myself to him, though I don’t feel threatened. Some other sensation pulses through me, one I cannot name.

“Who are you?” he asks me.

“Why do you ask?” I reply.

He comes a half-step closer and looks into my eyes, searching for something.

“Sitara?”

I cannot breathe.

“My God,” he says, though I’ve not confirmed or denied anything. He shakes his head.

From the corner of my eye, I see a police officer watching us.