Return (Matt Turner Series Book 3) (6 page)

Mrs. Absko quickly returned the candle to Ngina and frantically pointed her to the lavatory. Ngina complied and hastened down the hallway, replacing the candle on top of the toilet. She peered behind her, saw the Lady rotating a hand in the air for her to hurry. Ngina dropped to her knees, opened the cabinet beneath the sink, and scooped the flakes and chunks of wax from her other pocket into the cabinet, behind a neat stack of tissue boxes. Little flakes dropped, littering the carpet and the cabinet bottom. Feeling the rise of panic, she picked and swiped and scooped as much as she could into her palm, throwing it behind the boxes. Was he coming? Was he behind her? What was she doing there at this hour? And a nursery maid tending to lavatory affairs? A lie wouldn’t work. She couldn’t claim to be filling in. Lavatory hands would never touch the President’s son.

She closed the cabinet as she rose to her feet, spun, and strode out of the lavatory. Returning to the bedroom, she heard His Excellency still around the corner.

“Yes,” he said. “Your job is to advise and you have advised. Now leave, all of you.” The President appeared from the antechamber just as Ngina reentered the room. “Ah, my loves!” he said in English, then switched back to Swahili, “Oh, hello, Ngina.” His eyes cut to the lavatory hall and back to her. “What were you …? Where were you just now?”

Staff would never use a lavatory in the President’s suite, even if the Lady insisted. Ngina stumbled, still unprepared. Could she mention the candle? It’s what she’d told Thabiti, but the President had more cause for suspicion than Thabiti. “I … I was …”

His gaze moved to the Lady, on the floor, playing with Alexander as if nothing at all was happening.

The President took a step toward Ngina. “You were … what?” He towered over her small frame.

“Very sorry, Your Excellency,” Ngina finally said, her eyes fixed on the buttons of his pale silver suit jacket. “I had to …” she brushed the tip of her nose, “… blow.”

“Huh. No time to handle that in the staff facilities, eh?” He took a step back and Ngina relaxed a degree. “And why were you here in the first place?”

The party!

“So very sorry, Your Excellency. I’m escorting Alexander to the nursery so the Lady can prepare for the dinner party.”

The Lady’s head tilted. Apparently, she hadn’t yet been informed of the imminent guests. Ever watchful, the President caught the Lady’s movement, as well.

In English, he said, “I hope you received my advance apologies for the short notice, my dear. I had no warning of their visit.”

Mrs. Absko, with her regal poise, smiled and nodded and helped Alexander to his feet, straightening his shirt and cradling his cherubic cheeks in her palms. “I’ll see you later, Bubu.” She kissed his nose, gazed dotingly, and gestured for Ngina to take him.

Ngina curtsied, and on her way toward the hall, glanced through the baroque mirror on the wall. In the instant the couple’s reflection appeared in the mirror, she saw the President extend his hand to help the Lady up, but she disregarded it, opting for the bedpost. Ngina didn’t know what happened behind closed doors between those two, but she knew that in another house, a husband would feel justified to strike a wife so disrespectful.

As the suite door closed behind her, and Thabiti greeted Alexander, Ngina couldn’t imagine
anyone
laying a finger on Mrs. Absko. The idea was absurd. Mrs. Absko was no mere wife. She was a queen! The Jackie O of Kenya! The Cleopatra of modern Africa!

Despite her unique window into the First Couple’s private life, Ngina still revered their majesty. In Kenya—and much of the continent, too—rarely could a genuinely charismatic, iconic figure rise to the top. In Mr. Absko’s case, he was predestined to ascend, just like his beloved ancestors, but not just over Kenya.

During Mr. Absko’s campaign for the presidency, buzz spread from Egypt to South Africa that a new dawn lay just beyond the horizon, with citizens clamoring for unification under a single, worthy ruler. With His Excellency’s roots in both Islam and Christianity, his charitable work across the region, and of course, his royal lineage, what other candidate in a thousand years could bring this dream to reality? Africa, at least the western half, could be like the United States, or how the Romans used to be, not just this African Union with its meetings and arguing leaders.

As his supporters grew, a noisy few popped up, questioning his royal heritage, but no one wanted to hear this, and Ngina was certain that some sort of proof was brought to light. President Jivu Absko was a direct descendent of Cleopatra and Marc Antony. The posters and murals of His Excellency and the
“new Cleopatra,”
Mrs. Absko—their flawless faces like Greek statues, gazing off to a bright future—helped advance a national pride unfelt in as long as anyone could remember.

The Lady may not have the President’s royal blood in her veins, but she was easily as beloved as her husband. And this child beside Ngina, his little hand balled in hers, did he not elevate his mother even higher?

Ngina entered the nursery, and watched Alexander run off to the TV. The boy loved being here during non-school hours when he could watch his super heroes and turtle ninjas.

Ngina went to the sink to wash her hands. Inspecting her face in the mirror, she thanked God for protecting her, and she apologized to Him. She’d have to help the Lady just one more time after all, despite the risks to her own life.

* * *

Tuni slid herself into a charcoal and aqua gown she’d never seen before, let alone worn. Perusing her ever-changing wardrobe was like shopping for free on a personal Rodeo Drive. Prada, Versace, Valentino—outfits, shoes, even undergarments—all simply appeared and disappeared. Often she’d search her racks for a top she particularly liked only to find that it had been “cycled out” of her closet. Hired stylists deemed she’d worn it too many times. Returning from a trip, she’d find a selection of new designer pieces or jewelry, often one-of-a-kind items. If they weren’t put on after some indeterminable period of time, they too would vanish to wherever her clothes went.

At the back of the vast closet, Tuni kept an eye on the doorway as she grazed her fingertips across the row of hanging scarves, lowering her hand when she reached the winter coats, and slipped the ring from the overcoat pocket where she’d hidden it. Into her cleavage it disappeared.

Hello, Matthew,
she thought.
I hope this message finds you well …

She sat down at the vanity.

Jivu leaned against the doorframe and watched her work on her hair in the mirror. “Would you like me to get Samy to help you with that?”

Tuni inserted a bobby pin and grabbed another from between her teeth. “No, thank you.”

“Are you upset about the Minister and Ambassador coming?”

“Not really.”

Jivu plucked his presidential standard pin from the cushion and set it in his lapel. “Are you upset about
anything?
If so, just say so.”

“I’m fine. Do I sound upset?”

He wagged a finger at her. “No, no, no, of course not. You don’t work with such unambiguity. That would be too obvious, too perceivable. Instead, there’s a flat smile, a lingering look, polite blinking.” He snapped his fingers
a-ha
and pointed at her. “Polite! That’s what you are! That’s the infuriating game! Quiet, polite, gracious.”

Tuni thought to challenge him.
You wish me impolite? Is that what you’re asking for?
But what he really wanted was for her to
engage
, and she wouldn’t fall into yet another trap. She pressed her lipstick against her lower lip and regarded him through the mirror.

“I’m sorry, dear.” An even more infuriating response, though she needed to stop. There was nothing she could gain from prolonging the conversation in its current direction. She had hoped he’d grumble about his trip or foolish advisors, perhaps drop a bit about money, something incriminating. Unfortunately, she could never ask, and didn’t know what, if any, illicit material his ring currently held.

Jivu crossed his arms. “I’ll not call you names, no matter how you bait me to do so. I won’t say it.”

Tuni stood and turned, allowed him a second to inspect her outfit and statuesque form, then walked to him and placed her hand delicately on his abdomen. “I know you never would. Let me find some shoes so we can get to the foyer before they arrive.”

She returned to the closet, a silent Jivu behind her. Her words seemed to calm him and she’d be able to salvage an evening of peace. A pair of mid-height heels called to her and she grabbed them from the rack. She turned to go.

Jivu stood in the doorway, arms out to his sides, blocking the way. “And you call
me
manipulative. What are you up to? What is it you
think
you’re going to get away with?”

Tuni put up a hand. “Jivu, I-”

“Why can’t you be that lady from New York? What have you become? Nothing but a lifeless mannequin in an imaginary prison. I should have you stuffed and mounted—what would be the difference?” He looked at her with subdued disgust, as though she wasn’t worth his anger. “Who
are
you?”

Tuni’s internal filter dissolved in an instant. “Who am
I?
Is that some sick, ironic joke? Who are
you?
Abel? The Gray? Actually, you don’t have to answer that. I know now
exactly
who and
what
you are—probably better than you do yourself—and it’s certainly not the person I met, however meticulously you strove to
ease
me from that persona to
this
.” She spat the last word and pushed her way past him, pausing on the bed a second to put on her shoes.

She glanced up. His eyes had changed the way they sometimes could, to those that saw an enemy before them. Fear dropped into her belly like a cement football. Fear and
embarrassment
, because Matthew would see all of this, and feel what she felt: a frightened, diminished speck of the person she once was—the person she
hoped
she used to be, and not just clinging to some false memory of a confident, intelligent woman who never existed. Now, reduced to impeccably outfitted arm candy, or worse, a high-priced whore paid in excessive lifestyle, the only happiness she could find on a given day was in her little boy, Alexander. And though guilt beat her brow for ever thinking it, he too was just another cog in the control machine, the heaviest link in her chains.

“I find it interesting,” Jivu said, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms, “all this brewing scandal. High eighties approval polls just a month ago. Now we have no-name dissidents demanding a new investigation into Hali.”

Hali Ma Wenza, Jivu’s original political opponent, missing since a year before the election. “I don’t know anything about it. How could I?” She motioned around the room, her opulent prison.

“No, of course not. Nor could you know of these new accusations about the pipeline. Or
other
business partners—lifelong rivals, these families—suddenly talking to each other, comparing notes, demanding explanations.”

Without the first clue about any of it, Tuni brushed aside whatever he was insinuating. “Jivu-”

“Universally beloved one day,
questioned
the next. After all I’ve done for this country. It’s disgusting.” He held up his index finger, wagging it toward her, shaking his head with a twisted smile. “It’s just so
curious
, how this all follows in your wake.”

Tuni shrugged. “It doesn’t seem so bloody curious to me. Only the ultimate megalomaniac would think it so. Seems the natural evolution to me. Those closest to you grasp it first, then your acquaintances, and on in this manner to everyone else.”

Jivu’s smirk deflated to a straight line. He slid his hands into his pockets. “Grasp what, exactly?”

He knew the answer, but she’d never said it aloud. It would sting for him to hear, but to make her say it would uphold his control over her—clearly his utmost concern at this point, as he knew there’d be no winning back her heart.

Tuni regarded him with a warm smile. “That you’re the fucking devil, dear.”

He blinked. His Adam’s apple rose and fell. Any hint of that acerbic smile had disappeared.

Tuni didn’t know what he’d expected, but it was
not
these words. Dread returned, punching deep into her gut. She ached for a rewind, an
undo
—to pluck those words right out of his ears, and replace them with
anything
else.

Jivu cast his eyes downward.

“You know,” he began quietly, buffing his wristwatch’s face. “I told you before that you may leave whenever you wish.”

Tuni shook her head. “Later, Jivu. Your guests are waiting.”

She wouldn’t say Alexander’s name, wouldn’t invite the threat he was so eager to repeat. Now he’d say it anyway.

“You
choose
to stay. We both know it. You stay because you’ve grown accustomed to a certain standard of living. A standard you wish to maintain for both you, and our beautiful son.”

Tuni grabbed the small clutch purse from the table. “Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry. Shall we go?”

“We both know,
dear
… Alexander could
never
live without you.”

Newark, NJ, USA – Present day

Seated at her desk in the dining room-turned-office, Iris Turner peered up from her computer as the hum and whir of the opening garage door signaled her brother’s return. She glanced at the clock; he was only about fifteen minutes later than he’d earlier estimated. A reasonable degree of lateness, but she was starving, so crap must still be given. Oh, and driving to another state without telling her was pretty messed up, too. Yes, Matt would soon behold the ol’ mom-
hands-
on-the-hips.

The access door from the garage swung open and an unexpected female voice streamed in. Iris straightened her posture before her mind flashed to a panicked assessment of her appearance: yoga pants, ribbed tank top with no bra, no makeup, hair lazily tied back, probably something in her teeth from when she’d snacked, and who-knew-what else.