A Touch of Betrayal (18 page)

N
INE

Grant held Alexandra’s hand as they climbed the broad walkway to the outer gate of the huge Fort Jesus. The bastion, built of carved coral blocks by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, had weathered countless attacks and sieges. But it wasn’t the fort’s colorful history that dominated Grant’s thoughts.

Back at the bungalow, Mama Hannah had insisted she was feeling fine—
“The Lord is with me,
toto
.”
But she didn’t look fine. On changing her bandage, Grant found the entire area swollen and flecked with dry blood. The knife wound snaked from her eyebrow to her ear, dotted with stitches like a row of black gnats. Jones had left his mark, and not even Mama Hannah’s beloved nylon head scarf would cover the scar. Grant reminded himself that the guard outside the bungalow would keep a close watch on the old woman while he was away.

Then there was Alexandra. Tall and confident, she walked along beside Grant with her sketch pad under her arm as though this were nothing more than a casual afternoon outing. On the beach, she had seen no one who resembled Nick Jones. All the same, she was determined to lure her stalker into the open as quickly as possible. Grant thought the plan was crazy and more than a little dangerous, and he wasn’t about to let her go off alone.

Something about the woman intrigued him. Fascinated him. He felt a powerful need to protect her from the man who threatened her life. The emotion she evoked in him was unsettling. He didn’t know what to make of it—and he sure couldn’t suppress it.

“Take a look at this, Grant!” she said, pointing out the lengthy inscription inside the long coral tunnel that led into the bastion. “‘In 1635 Francisco de Seixas de Cabreira, age twenty-seven years—’”

“‘Was made for four years captain of this fort,’” Grant continued. “I can quote the whole thing. When I was a kid, I used to pretend I was Francisco de Cabreira. I subjected all the people along the coast to His Majesty the King of Portugal. I made the African kings of Otondo, Mandra, Luziwa, and Jaca tributaries to the king. I inflicted punishment on the towns of Pate and Sio. I had all the rebel governors and leading citizens of Pemba executed. In short, I was the meanest, baddest Portuguese captain who ever ravaged the coast of East Africa.”

“Ooh, I’m scared,” Alexandra said.

Grant caught the sparkle of laughter in her blue eyes, and he grinned. “Unfortunately the kings of East Africa—whose real names were Fiona, Jessica, and Tillie—weren’t always as cooperative as I would have liked. Sometimes they ganged up and whipped the tar out of me.”

“Aw, you poor tyrant.” Chuckling, she leaned against him and grazed his cheek with a quick kiss. “You just needed Wonder Woman at your side, didn’t you?”

Glad to have her with him now, Grant watched the sunshine gild Alexandra’s blonde hair as they emerged from the tunnel into the main courtyard of the fort. When her lips parted and she caught her breath at the sight of the towering battlements, Grant felt his heart stumble. He was smitten— and he didn’t know how it had happened.

He had always imagined his heart to be as impenetrable as this fortress. And why not? He had built the walls himself— hewn them out of disappointment, frustration, even rage. But Alexandra Prescott had somehow soared right over those barriers and into the inner sanctum of his very soul.

“There’s the ticket office,” she said. “Grant, I’m going to give my broker another call. It’s still early in New York, but this might be my best chance to catch him.”

“Go ahead.” He couldn’t understand why Alexandra kept making calls to a man who rarely even left her a message in response. But then, he really couldn’t imagine money being all that important. He needed financial support, of course, and the thought of losing his funding left him uncomfortable. But not desperate.

Grant paid for the tickets, and then he stood beside Alexandra as she dialed the international operator on the public pay phone. He took the opportunity to study her. In the short time he had known her, Alexandra had changed. Not drastically, but in a subtle, deeply affecting way. She had ceased being glamorous and had become . . . beautiful.

The sleek, chic hairstyle had given way to a casual bob that bounced just below her ears when she walked. Grant had gotten used to seeing her in the tattered dress she was wearing when the Maasai brought her to his camp—or in his own shirt and trousers cinched at the waist with a rope. But with the return of her baggage, this intriguing blue outfit had emerged. The gauzy fabric draped on her tall frame like the gown on a Greek statue. Her designer shoes had been replaced by the tire sandals, which, oddly enough, looked perfect on her slim, pale feet.

Grant turned his focus to the tourists who meandered around Fort Jesus. Was one of them Nick Jones? The two men had met in the darkness once, and Grant could not swear he’d actually seen the man’s features.

Alexandra had described her attacker as broad shouldered and brawny. He wore his dark hair combed back into a wave, and he had a gold stud in one ear. The most defining feature was his narrow black mustache.

“James!” Alexandra exclaimed suddenly into the receiver. “Is that really you? It’s me—Alexandra Prescott.” She laughed in delight. “I know, I know—but I’m okay now. Yeah, I was scared, too. He’s some kind of a lunatic, I think. He knows about my family—the business and all. I suspect that’s probably what’s behind it.”

Grant glanced over at Alexandra. She clutched the telephone cord like it was a lifeline to safety. A link to the real world. It was hard to imagine that in a couple of days she would fly out of Grant’s life and back into her own. But she would. He’d better get used to the idea.

“How’s Lily?” she asked. “The kids?
Harvard!
You’re kidding, James! That’s great. Give Betsy my congrats, okay? Listen, James, about that weird cablegram I got—” She paused for a long time, listening.

Grant’s gaze zeroed in on an African man who wandered up to the ticket counter. Most of the tourists were European or Asian—of the dangling-camera, baggy-shorts species. The African studiously turned the pages of his guidebook as he sauntered past the telephone, his sandals slapping the concrete floor. Green thongs.

“Are you sure everything’s all right?” Alexandra asked. “James, you know how important those stocks are to me. If anything is wrong, I want you to tell me.” She paused again. “Okay, listen, I’m staying in Mombasa. I have a little bungalow on Diani Beach, and I’m doing some touring. Don’t worry, okay? I’m safe. The police have posted a guard outside the bungalow at night, and an undercover officer follows me by day. We’re actually doing a little sleuthing, trying to lure out the bad guy.” She laughed. “I
know
what Daddy would say! But stop worrying, James. You’re starting to sound like an old mother hen.” Another pause. “All right, I’ll call you soon. Even at home. Even if I wake you up. Okay, relax, would you? Say hi to everybody for me. I’ll be back . . . soon.”

Grant shifted from one foot to the other. Already she sounded like she was halfway gone. Alexandra hung up the receiver and let out a breath.

“There was a mix-up at the brokerage while James was away on vacation,” she explained. “The notice I got was supposed to go to another client, but his secretary sent it to me instead. One of those glitches.”

“So your treasure is safe?”

“Safe and sound.”

He pointed in the direction of where they should begin their tour of the fort. “You know what Mama Hannah would say about all this, don’t you?” he asked. “There’s something in the Bible about treasures on earth that rust and rot . . . and treasures in heaven that nothing can destroy.”

She gave him a curious glance. “Quoting Scripture, Professor? I thought you didn’t believe in that nonsense.”

“The Bible isn’t nonsense. It’s a very thorough mythology. Origins of the universe. Commandments by which to live. Proverbs. Even poetry. Biblical doctrine provided a strong moral backbone for Western civilization.”

“Indeed.”

They strolled across the courtyard and paused to inspect a row of long black cannons lined up on the grass. Grant had played around the guns as a child, and he couldn’t summon up as much interest as Alexandra. On the other hand, curiosity about
her
plagued him like an itch that demanded to be scratched.

“You’re an intelligent woman,” he said as he watched her peer into a cannon’s iron muzzle. “Do you
really
believe a man walked on water?”

“I believe Jesus Christ did. He was a man, but he was also God.” She looked up at him. “That made walking on water a cinch.”

“So, you accept the dogma that Jesus was actually conceived in the body of a virgin?”

“Yes, I do.” Her blue eyes narrowed as she stood. “Is this some kind of pop quiz? Get any answers wrong and I’m eternally doomed?”

“I suspect that’s what you think about me. Grant Thornton, the unrepentant skeptic.”

“I think you’re a seeker. Nothing wrong with that.” The bristles inside Grant softened as she slipped her arm through his and they began walking. He steered them toward the Passage of the Arches, which would lead up to the fort’s curtain wall. “You know, the Bible promises that if you seek, you’ll find the answers to your questions.”

“My years researching mythology haven’t led me to the answer you hope I’ll find,” he said. “Most of the stories in our body of oral and written legends contain similar elements— reluctant heroes, wise old men, even instances of resurrection. The stories also overlap in the morals they’re trying to teach. In fact, there’s a distinct pattern to myths and to the whole myth cycle. You find the same elements across the board in the world’s oldest religions—Shamanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism.”

“And Christianity.”

“That’s right. My work with African tribal stories shows that they follow the same patterns as ancient Greek myths and early Native American oral legends. The religious doctrines of the world’s great faiths are just highly evolved collections of myths.”

Grant cast Alexandra a sideways glance, anticipating a strong reaction to his statement. After all, he’d just blatantly debunked her spirituality. If she was anything like his sisters, she’d probably clobber him. Instead, she was running her fingers along the sides of the pink coral passageway, her concentration on the rough path that led under the arches.

“In all your research,” she said softly, “all your study of world religions and mythology, have you ever found a single story you believe is true?”

Grant pondered her question as they climbed the inclined archway path. “Let’s see now . . . do I believe the Ganges River arose out of the hair of the Hindu god, Shiva? Or that Muhammad moved a mountain? Or that Moses held out a walking staff and the Red Sea parted?”

“Or that Jesus fed five thousand men with five loaves of bread and two fishes?”

“You’ve got to admit that’s a lot of people. And if I decide to believe the Jesus legend is true, then why shouldn’t the others be true, too?”

They turned onto a narrow set of steps that led to the ramparts and gun platforms Grant had explored as a child. He reminded himself to be alert to danger as they approached this vulnerable spot. Their detective in the green thongs was already waiting at the top. All the same, Grant was reluctant to cut off the conversation with Alexandra.

“What makes the biblical miracles authentic?” he asked, taking her elbow to guide her onto the walkway. “And what makes the Maasai stories Kakombe tells me merely fiction?”

Alexandra leaned against the wall that faced the Indian Ocean and let out a sigh. “I think you’re looking in the wrong place, Grant.” Her voice was soft. “You need to look at Jesus Christ. Learn who he was. Listen to what he said about himself. Study the things he did. His focus wasn’t miracles. It was people’s hearts.”

She opened her sketch pad and turned through the pages. In her drawings, Grant recognized the interplay of paisleys from an Indian sari she must have seen in Nairobi, the blossom of a bougainvillea vine, and the mottled geometrics of a giraffe’s hide. Her work was careful and detailed, but it showed a creative flair he would not have expected from the citified lady he had met at the airport.

“Those are good,” he said. “You’ve captured the colors of the giraffe.”

She smiled and turned to a clean page. “The colors of the giraffe are part of the reason I’m a believer,” she said. “‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ I’m no scientist, but you’ll never convince me this world evolved out of some random accident. I don’t need proof. I have giraffes.”

Flipping open a thin leather case holding a row of colored pencils, she selected a blue one. “If I can believe in the miracle of Creation,” she continued, “then I’m open to other miracles, right? And if I accept the presence of a Creator, why not allow him to have the name
God
? Given those two assumptions, I guess that makes me ripe to believe other things I can’t prove. Are you with me?”

“More than you realize.” Grant watched, bemused, as the colors of ocean began to spill across the white page beneath her hand. He had to admit she made a pretty good case for her beliefs when she saw the hand of God on Kenya. His childhood in the splendor of the African savanna had led him to deep doubts about the theories of a spontaneous formation of the earth and the chance appearance of life-forming DNA. So maybe . . .
maybe
. . . he, too, could say he actually believed in a Creator. Odd he’d never thought of it that way.