“In Pakistan, it is different. My sisters cannot marry if I have been dishonored. Unless I am dead.” I gasped; when I tried to speak, I couldn’t find any words. “Your sister reacted the same way,” Padma said. “You and she are so similar.” She wrapped her fingers around my hand and held it against her cheek. “I would have been killed if Tariq had not intervened. He… dealt with the men who attacked me. Then he brought me here.”

It took me a moment to put the story together in my mind. Claudia had hinted that Tariq had killed someone in Pakistan, and now I understood why. “His life is in danger every time he goes back,” Padma said, breaking into my thoughts. “The men who attacked me are from a family allied with terrorists. They put a bomb in his car in the summer. It went off before he got in, but he was badly harmed. He would not wish me to speak of it.” She lifted her head and sat up. “You are a good person, Lily. ”

“How can you say that? You hardly know me.”

“Your sister did some bad things to you, and you still took care of her,” Padma answered. “To my family, I am like one who is dead. They wish I were a ghost. Not because of anything I did, but because of what happened to me. At the time I accepted it. But… it makes Tariq angry, and now it makes me a bit angry, too.” She regarded me guiltily. “Do you think that wrong?”

“Of course not.” After everything that had happened to her, Padma worried that she was a bad person.

We got up off the floor. “I’m going to call a couple of people. Maybe I can find out what’s happening with Tariq,” I said. The cops wouldn’t talk to me, but Renfrew or Bruxton would be able to wrangle information out of them.

“Can I bring you some tea? You did not have anything to drink before,” said Padma. “Perhaps something to eat, too. It may get very late.” There was a sweetness about her that made my throat constrict. Most of the nurturing I’d had in my life had come from Jesse. It felt unfamiliar, and a little uncomfortable, to have this girl who had suffered so much fussing over me.

She left the library and I dialed Martin’s number’s again. Nothing. Wasn’t it his responsibility to call me to let me know what had happened? What had Tariq said to him—and how had Tariq and his driver ended up as the ones getting hurt?

CHAPTER 31

“I hate hospitals, everything about them,” Renfrew said. “The way they look. All those beeps and bells going off. But mostly it’s the way they smell. Did I mention that?”