LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Seven

      Sara shifted her sleeping son in her aching arms. She pushed back the soft dark curls that framed his face and repositioned him so that his weight lay across her, his head in the crook of her left arm. After Talib had given him back to her, in those moments of relief tinged with panic and despair, she’d seen what the future would be and she’d clung to her son. She would refuse to relinquish holding Everett to anyone, ever again. In the short time since Talib had found her, in all the chaos that had followed, he’d calmly made arrangements for an alternate place for her to stay and she hadn’t been allowed to lift a finger. The arrangements had been made swiftly, silently and efficiently. She wasn’t used to that. It was usually up to her, as a single parent, to do it all. Not now. The only thing she’d done was carry her son and she knew that she only had to ask and someone would do that, too. She wasn’t ready to relinquish Everett after everything that had happened. She knew that after all the craziness of the explosion and evacuation, holding Everett was more for her than him. He was over it and she knew that as soon as he awoke, he would rather be on the ground, exploring on his own terms.

      From the moment the car pulled up to the new hotel, the Sahara Sunset, again, everything was done for her. Assad opened the door. The valet offered to take her bags. She refused. She didn’t have much. Her suitcase had been left behind at the Desert Sands Hotel, part of the evidence in the investigation.

      Everett sniffed as if he was waking up and then settled against her shoulder with that familiar yet strange little sound. It almost sounded like an old man sighing. Sometimes her son seemed older than his years, and she wondered what he would be like as he grew up.

      That thought made her more determined and her fright faded into the background as she entered the hotel lobby. Nothing could stop her. She’d come all this way. Now, the only challenge she had yet to face was herself. But she knew that fear could stop her despite the distance she traveled. One sign that Everett was safe without Talib’s protection and she’d turn and run back the way she’d come. But that was asking for a miracle, and for the last seven months there had been none offered through the long days, transient jobs and three states. Every one of those days had been a nightmare, highlighted by fear that any minute she’d be discovered. Now, she had little money and no place to live. More importantly, no place to hide—no options.

      She shifted her purse.

      “Can I take that, ma’am?” a man with threads of silver in his short, dark hair asked. He was wearing a djellaba with a gold belt around his waist. The traditional Moroccan garment had the insignia of the hotel on his shoulder. It seemed to be the uniform of many of the men employed by this hotel.

      “No, I... Thank you. I have it,” she replied. Even though that was a lie. She barely had it, one bag was slipping but she refused to relinquish any of her belongings. There wasn’t much. Only her purse, the diaper bag and the bag with the essentials to get home or, alternatively, everything they would need if they had to run. It was an outrageous thought, but maybe not so much considering everything that had happened today.