I stepped out of the kitchen and found myself face to face with a man who smiled oddly at the sight of me, as if his search was over and he’d found what he’d come looking for.

But I hadn’t expected to be found. The second his hand touched my shoulder, the scream I’d stifled since the night of the coup erupted from my throat, loud enough to stir the sullen martyrs in their graves.

Chapter 20

Indigo was lucky I hadn’t reached for the paring knife again. He stared at the shards of the ceramic plate I’d dropped and shook his head.

Tilly! I’m a friend of Tilly’s, he’d stammered when I started to shout. Didn’t you hear me knock?

He and Patricia had decided to leave a day ahead of schedule, he told Tilly when she came down the stairs. He didn’t want to leave without checking in. Tilly had looked at me.

“What do you say, Star? What is your heart telling you?” she asked, looking equally ready to head out the door with Indigo or climb back up the stairs and resume her morning nap under the sun.

I looked at this man Nia wasn’t willing to trust and wondered if she was right. He was gulping down a glass of water Tilly had handed him. He looked too scared to be scary.

Antonia wanted time to figure out the perfect plan. She wanted to work with people she knew, but I was worried about the people she knew. She was at the ministries and arranging meetings with the very people who had organized the coup. What if one of her contacts told them about me? Aware that there was no such thing as a perfect plan, I said resolutely, “It is time to go.”

Tilly cleared her throat and told Indigo we needed a few moments to gather our things. She brought the duffel bag to me and scrawled a note to Antonia. We didn’t discuss it. We left as if we’d been expecting Indigo to appear, as if we were headed out of town for a holiday.

Indigo promised to get us to Islamabad. He said it wouldn’t be hard to find the U.S. embassy once we were there. After that, he said, we would be on our own. Tilly nodded.

Stepping out of the apartment, I wondered if I was making the right decision. Tilly looked more relieved than nervous. The van smelled of cigarettes and stale bedsheets. The woman next to me eyed me with excitement, though she pretended to be looking at something outside my window.

“Her name is Patricia,” Tilly said, pointing at her. She put her hand over mine. “My gosh, you’re still shaking. Indigo must have given you quite a fright back there.”