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The passing days had not shaken Dad’s determination. He talked about envying her chance, how he’d missed out on the mission trip with Mr. Besly and regretted it ever since. How he wouldn’t let the same mistake happen to Lydia. For once, for the only time she could remember, it was her and Dad united in a common cause.

  She’d gone to work, and the M’s had visited her again, but she didn’t tell them or manager-Lydia anything about Tanzania. Not yet. She spent every available moment alternating among pouring through every National Geographic magazine she could get her hands on, despairing that Mom would ever let her go, and daydreaming with Dad about her future wilderness adventures.

  “You’re sure he’ll be awake? It’s not bothering him to call this late?” Mom asked, letting them know she did not wish this conversation to take place.

  “The time difference is about eleven hours. He said if we called in the late evening this week, he would be in his office, making preparations for the rest of the year.” He stood up, rested his hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead before offering the cordless phone.

  Mom seemed on the verge of tears, but Lydia didn’t know if it was a result of the impending phone call, or because her father had just kissed her mother in the most tender moment she’d witnessed between the two of them in a long time.

  Mom pressed Dad’s hand against her cheek for a moment before taking the phone.

  “We’ll just ask him some questions, see exactly what he has planned for Lydia, and go from there,” Dad said. “Okay?”

  Mom let out a long breath. “Okay.” She dialed the number, then turned on the speaker phone.

  They listened to the beeping sound through the small speaker. It seemed such a faraway noise, continents away, and Lydia imagined all the land and ocean this little beep crossed to reach the desk of a man who was going to give her what she wanted—the chance to leave Sacramento behind with a camera around her neck.

  She saw a distant look creep into Mom’s eyes. These looks came upon her especially on hot summer nights like this one. Mom would motion to the matching kitchen towels, the white ceramic serving plates with designer utensils, a freshly mopped floor, Bible verses on plaques strewn around the walls. “I have everything I thought I wanted.”

  On nights when Mom wasn’t trying to be nice, she would tell Lydia never to fall in love with a WASP and to find a man who didn’t dream big, because dreaming big meant making big sacrifices—putting aside family and days off.

  “Jambo,” a woman’s voice cut through. The speaker crackled with static.

  Dad cleared his throat as if preparing for a Sunday sermon. “Ah, yes. This is Aaron Gibb. I’m looking for Paul Besly. Is he in the office today?”

  “Paul?” Then, “Saburi tafadhali.”

  “Hello? Hello?” Dad said.

  “Aaron?” A male voice spoke. “Aaron, this is Paul.”

  “Hi, Paul! I have you on speaker phone here with my wife and daughter.”

  “Gloria! Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” Mom said, maintaining her straight-backed vigilance.

  “Good to hear your voice. I still get your Christmas cards every year. It’s amazing to look over the pictures and see how Lydia has grown.”

  Mom sent those cards to everyone. It was a way of keeping in touch with old friends and building a support network that could be called on to donate money for a specific church project in a pinch.

  “Thank you, Paul. Am I still only addressing it to you? No kids or wife to include?”

  A silence on the other end, then, “I never married. It’s one of the greatest regrets of my life.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  Paul cleared his throat. “No harm done. No harm. But you must know that I’ve envied you and Aaron since our Bible college days.”

  “But whatever happened to Abby?” Mom asked.

  “It didn’t work out between Abby and me.”

  “Oh, well. I heard—”

  “I hate gossip, don’t you?” Mr. Besly gave a sigh. “Abby was very dear to me, I thought she would stay and become my wife. But well, she…”

  Mom angled her head at the long pause of silence. “Paul?”

  “We didn’t work out. You must have heard? She died while giving birth. I don’t think she ever figured out who the father was,” Mr. Besly said.

  Lydia tried to envision what it would feel like to never hold your baby. All she could picture was a lot of loneliness. A girl in youth group had gotten pregnant sophomore year. People never treated her the same, even though she gave the baby up for adoption and came back to school. It didn’t matter how normal she tried to act. No one forgot.

  “We hadn’t spoken for months,” Paul said. “It was quite a shock to hear about how far she’d strayed. I can only hope she found forgiveness in her last moments…”

  “I didn’t know. You weren’t the…” Mom’s words trailed off.

  “The father? Gloria. I haven’t had to think about that painful time in years. How devastated—”

  “I’m so sorry, Paul. I didn’t know,” Mom said.

  “How could you know? I felt it was important to honor her memory, so I sent money to help support the baby for a while. I believed it was the least I could do in Christian charity. Then they could find no family willing to care for him so I took him in for a while, but he is no longer a part of my household. He chose a path different from my own.”

  “The sins of the mother…” Dad said. “You made a Godly sacrifice. You will be rewarded.”

  Mom didn’t say a word, but the concerned ‘O’ dent had formed on her forehead, which only happened when she felt both embarrassment and compassion at once.

  “I think sometimes about what might have been…You’re right to ask questions. You’re thinking about sending your daughter to another continent. Gloria, Aaron.” Lydia could picture him nodding his head in each of her parent’s direction. “I want you to understand how seriously I take my commitment to protect your daughter while she’s here.”

  He talked about East African cultures, the need for Christians like the Gibbs to get involved. The difference Lydia could make by taking pictures of The Work they were accomplishing in Tanzania, how they needed exposure as a way to raise money.

  “Think about how worthwhile an experience it would be. A way for a young woman to learn real compassion. She will be very safe. I’ll care for your daughter as if she were my own.”

  Dad cleared his throat. “Well, we’re glad to hear that. We need to discuss this—”

  Mom interrupted. “But I have another question.”

  Lydia’s stomach flipped at Mr. Besly’s long silence.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Not that we don’t appreciate your offer, but you’ve never met Lydia, you’ve never seen any pictures she’s taken…why her? Why can’t you find a local photographer to help you?”

  Lydia felt like Mom had slapped her. Why not her? Didn’t she deserve to go?

  “Gloria, there are many reasons why I’ve made this request of your family. I could talk about how hard it is to find local Christian workers here, how the professional photographers are a Godless bunch. I could tell you of the financial woes hitting many Christian organizations throughout Africa, how the only way we can move ahead is with the support of our brethren in developed countries. I could tell you many stories of distress and broken promises. But in the end…I was sorting paperwork and came across your family Christmas card in which you wrote about Lydia’s interest in photography. A coincidence—”

  “A coincidence is a miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous,” Dad interrupted. He squeezed Lydia’s hand. “I should write that one down. Wait, I think I’ve heard it before.” He took up the pen and pad from the coffee table and scribbled. “Just in case.”

  Paul’s voice came through again. “Gloria, what do you think?”

  “I think that Aaron should have talked to me first, before—�
�� She stopped, bit her lip, closed her eyes for a long moment then asked, “Do you really want to go, Lydia?”

  “Yes,” Lydia said without hesitation. Even as she said it, the urge rose up stronger inside her. She wanted to go, she wanted to get out of Sacramento and see if maybe life had something different for her than what her parents and the church hoped. She ached to go, felt ready to claw for it, this opportunity that talked on a phone on the other side of the ocean.

  “You’ll be gone for three months. You’ll get homesick.”

  “Please.” Lydia held her breath as Mom remained silent for what seemed like an eternity.

  With her eyes still closed, Mom whispered, “Okay.”

  Lydia jumped up from the cushion. Was she serious?

  “Do you mean that, Gloria?” Dad asked.

  Mom nodded her head.

  Lydia gave a shout. “Yes!” She was going!

  Dad picked up the phone. “I’ll work out the final passport and vaccination requirements.”

  Lydia returned to her seat on the couch and rested her head on Mom’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “There’s only so many free passes he gets,” she mumbled. “Not asking me first, telling me in front of all those people.” She glanced down at Lydia’s upturned face.

  “Mom?”

  She patted Lydia’s hand. “It’s all right. You better be careful. I’m putting a lot of trust in both you and your father. Just because he’s an old college buddy doesn’t mean he’s a…” She seemed to be shrinking into the couch cushion. “Look, you’re almost eighteen so I can’t really stop you—”

  “I’m not…I wouldn’t force you to let me…” Lydia felt tears creep into her eyes. “I want you to want me to go.”

  “Oh, honey.” Mom pushed back Lydia’s hair and kissed her forehead. “I want you to go.”

  Lydia kept her head on Mom’s shoulder.

  “Your father trusts Paul. I am choosing to trust your father, partly because you’re almost an adult and because I know how much you want to go.”

  Lydia opened her eyes and stared at the skin of her mother’s arm. “Do you trust Mr. Besly?”

  “I trust you.”

  Lydia sighed and closed her eyes. “Thanks for the guilt trip.” She peeked to see if Mom knew she was teasing.

  “Ha, ha,” Mom said, then gave a real laugh.

  “There.” Dad hung up the phone and shuffled through the notepad. “Paul said he made the request for travel with the Tanzanian embassy already in case we said yes, but we need to buy the plane tickets right away. He wants her by mid-July.”

  “So soon?” Mom asked.

  “He has a resort-type business, Blue Nile Safari, I think he called it. Sometimes he takes people out for photo expeditions to help pay for his missionary activities.” He shrugged his shoulders. “He needed a photographer a month ago. He’s already lost a number of opportunities for fundraising and the resort isn’t paying for itself right now.”

  “But, Dad, how are we going to pay for all of it? For the equipment, the camera, the flight? And all the lenses I’ll need? They’re expensive.” And they didn’t have that kind of money, not with a pastor’s income, even with Dad’s new promotion.

  “I think this can be considered a priority missions opportunity. As long as the elder board agrees, we can dip into the emergency fund. You’d have to give a presentation when you returned and let me know how things are going so I can pass along some updates to the church. But this way, the equipment would be yours to keep.”

  A breeze wafted through the room, raising goose bumps on Lydia’s arms.

  “You assume a duty to use the equipment in a Godly way,” he said. “Though I know you will. How could you do anything but make us proud?”

  CHAPTER 3

  Paul

  Paul replaced the phone in its cradle and pressed his thick trigger finger and thumb on either side of his nose, into his eye sockets, hoping to relieve the headache that had started during his conversation with Aaron Gibb.

  The Christianese had sat strangely on his tongue. He’d allowed it to rust for almost two decades.

  The small stuffy office contained no windows and he considered retreating to any place else in the lodge. Dust covered the warped floorboards, a couple cushioned chairs, and the dozen taxidermied heads of various lions, leopards, buffalos, hippos, zebra, even a lone giraffe mount. Photos of legendary hunters interspersed the mounts. It was his job to make clients believe he was a skilled hunter. Anyone who entered his private office would know he wasn’t just a guide—he was a white hunter, a real bwana, like in the old days.

  On a day like today, the pictures and trophies only reminded him of how close his business was to disaster.

  The rhino had destroyed the camera and ripped open Barry’s leg, but nothing a few dozen stitches couldn’t fix. The way Barry threatened—he sounded like Paul had all but held him out as a target. Maybe Paul should have.

  Instead, he’d only avoided the white-person hospital. The doctors there would have asked too many questions. As soon as the stitches were in, Paul had taken Barry back to the man’s crummy apartment and threatened, cajoled, and bribed him. Paul promised to triple the ten grand if Barry waited to collect until after the hunting season, and only if Barry kept his mouth shut.

  Paul then called his local photographer contacts, but every single one had turned him down. He’d been blacklisted long before asking for Barry’s incompetent help.

  Then he’d decided it was best not to use a local after all. If he could talk someone into coming out who knew nothing about what was or wasn’t allowed, his plans would go that much more smoothly. Calling the Gibbs had been his first attempt at getting non-local help and they’d accepted. His luck was changing.

  Sure, he was in the hole for thirty grand with a fat city-boy ready to squeal on him, but now he had a chance of earning enough money by the end of the season. It had been a shot in the dark, thinking he could talk Aaron into sending his daughter, and more importantly, her equipment, but it paid off better than he’d hoped. He might be able to skin and dress a trophy like an artist but he had few technological skills. Gibb’s daughter would bring both a photo and video camera, and the know-how to use them. She shouldn’t cost him more than a little room and board, and maybe the gas to pick her up from the airport. They’d get the pictures and video of the green hunt, and then he’d get the word out through underground channels.

  Green hunting was the new and trendy conservation strategy in South Africa, but it was still illegal in Tanzania. A client, hunter, and veterinarian stalked the animal within thirty feet, darted it with a tranquilizer so it slept long enough for the vet to draw samples—and for the hunter to take his trophy photos. It also allowed enough time for a mold to be taken of the tusk or horn so the hunter gained a replica for his trophy room. The vet would administer the antidote and the animal would make his uninjured way into the bush, ready to be green hunted another day.

  Simple. Bloodless. The client would go home with a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Paul would go home with lots of money. He didn’t understand why Tanzania hadn’t legalized it yet, not that it would ever permit green hunting something as endangered as a northern white rhino, but that wasn’t going to stop him.

  First though, he had to prove to potential clients that the rhino existed and that he could get a client to it.

  He dragged the phone from the common area into his office as it was the only one in the entire resort that worked. He put in a call to his first client of the season to confirm the booking details.

  A gravelly voice answered hello.

  “This is Paul from Blue Nile Safari. I’m confirming Jack Hellerman’s safari itinerary in four weeks.”

  “Yeah, about that.” Jack coughed. “I’ve been talking to the wife and doing a little reconsidering.”

  “What is there to reconsider? Blue Nile Safari will provide you with an experience of a lifetime at a discounted rate.”

  “Ye
ah, you cut us a good deal,” Jack said. “But I’m rethinking the whole thing. My back’s kinked out and spending ten days hiking and sleeping on the ground and then doing a showdown hunt…not sure if the body’s up for it. Thought maybe I’d do something low impact like duck hunting instead.”

  Paul almost spit on his desk. He swept his hand in frustration and sent various paper stacks flying.

  “You ever been to Africa?”

  “Well, no. That’s why we’d—”

  “Then you haven’t experienced a real hunt.” Paul tried to keep the fury from coming out in his voice. “I’d hate for you to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  “Yes, well. Like I said—”

  “Do you know why Blue Nile Safari is different from every other kind of safari operator you could work with?” Paul didn’t wait for Jack’s response. “Those other safari operators, those people who call themselves hunters, they’re murderers. They’re assassins who shoot at animals from the safety of their vehicles. They’d shoot an animal that wasn’t even looking at them. Shoot ‘em from behind, shoot a hippo while it’s submerged in water, plow down a herd of buffalo from a helicopter.”

  “Yes, but my back’s really been acting up—”

  Paul didn’t bother listening as Jack went on with his excuses. He had too many bills and not enough clients and this dipshit wanted to cancel.

  He glanced over the papers now scattered around his office, saw the Gibb’s Christmas photo and picked it up. Lydia Gibb. She was pretty. No. She was damn beautiful. He focused on her dark brown hair, how it shone in the photo. Glossy lips, a pretty smile. Not too fat, not too thin. Paul rubbed the palm of his hand across the scratchiness of his chin.

  “Look,” Paul said, interrupting Jack’s little speech on the amount of pain currently residing in his spinal cord. “I’ve got possibilities here. A pretty girl to take pictures and shoot video of your safari. And a special, one-of-a-kind hunt no one else is doing.”

  “Well, sure.” Jack laughed. “Ain’t it the truth? Pretty girls work just as good as a pain pill.”

  Paul thought maybe he could talk Lydia into flirting with the clients. Maybe he wouldn’t need to talk her into it. Girls like that tended to rebel at the first opportunity, hadn’t Neela?