“And Sister Helen is on our side,” Arama said.

Vincente watched the whole exchange, his face flushed with embarrassment.

“This isn’t what you expected. I’m sorry,” Vincente said, and turned to go, but his daughter didn’t move.

“Jhana-Merise,” Vincente ordered her to follow him, but again, she didn’t move.

Father and daughter stood on the landing.

Arama stayed just outside the apartment door.

Isabel just inside, protecting her kingdom.

The map of Isabel’s life was intricate. It had taken her from South America to Washington, but it was a more tortuous route than it seemed on the surface.

Living and working in D.C. was something she’d wished for, growing up in a third world country in the shadow of America. And she broke free from the primitive land of the Incas and worked her way to becoming a U.S. citizen. She’d put herself through school in D.C., then university, then law school, working three part-time jobs: clerk, receptionist, and maid. By day she’d been an ambitious student competing for the most coveted law positions, by night, an invisible service worker dismissed as someone from a country far below the United States.

Her ambitions came from her mother, and when she died, Isabel’s passion to leave the land of her birth overwhelmed her and there was no turning back. Isabel knew Arama had a passion too—for magical thinking and omens. Something Isabel believed was foolish. But it now played havoc in her mind. For as much as she wanted them gone, what clairvoyant ability this young girl—whom her sister had placed before her—seemed to have, Isabel needed to know the full measure of.

If this young girl had dreams of Hashim, of what else was she capable that would need to be contained?

Isabel stepped aside and offered them a place to stay for the night. She didn’t know Arama had plans for them to be here longer.

51

51

The occurrence in the desert, and the miracle of her survival added to Dominique’s cachet. But it was her literary street cred and a call from Bruton that opened the door to the Department of Justice.

The White House was more than eager to set her up with access to the pending trial they’d been preparing since they’d known Hashim was on American soil. They couldn’t avoid media scrutiny, and thought the best way would be to make the first move and get out in front of the story before it broke. And they believed Dominique was the ideal journalist to help them disseminate that information, before all hell broke loose, and every media outlet clamored for coverage.