If you don’t get a grip, you’re going to get yourself fired.
They entered the terminal, the airport almost empty.
He looked to his right, saw the paramedics push Shanti through an entrance farther down the terminal.
Two people ran to her—a tall man with dark hair and a woman with blonde hair.
“Shanti!”
They hugged her, their joy at having their daughter back palpable.
“A happy ending,” Tower said. “You gave them that.”
“We all did.” Connor tried to feel a sense of satisfaction, but everything in the world that mattered to him was leaving by the door at the far end of the terminal. When the door closed and Shanti disappeared from view, he felt it in his chest.
Shanti spentthe night in the hospital, her mother remaining by her side while her father stayed in her apartment. In the morning, she saw an orthopedist and a neurologist who did a CT scan on her head, gave her discharge instructions, and sent her home.
It felt strange to walk through her own front door. Bram and her friends from work had sent flowers, and her father had gotten her flowers, too, so the place smelled like roses and lilies. “Thanks.”
It was a relief to be out of the jungle, to be safe, and yet…
God, she missed Connor.
If he’d just given her some sign that he cared about her…
You knew it would end like this.
And she’d let herself fall in love with him anyway.
Her mother made them cups ofcha, and they sat together in her living room, Shanti taking up the sofa so she could elevate her leg. Like a true Bengali, her father asked her about little things at first—the weather in Bangladesh, her flight home, whether she’d heard from her brother yet.
“Enough, Dev,” her mother said. “What happened? One day, we get an email from you, saying you’re busy at work. A few days later, the State Department calls to tell us you’ve been abducted, the helicopter has crashed, and you are missing in Myanmar. We didn’t even know you were in Myanmar. God, Shanti, I’ve never been more afraid. I think it took ten years off my life.”
Shanti told them the story, leaving out the sexy bits—her visits to the camps, the soldier’s cell phone with its damning evidence, the abduction, and Connor being shot.
“I thought he was dead, but then I saw he was still breathing. His gun had fallen to the floor of the helicopter, so I got a hold of it and hid it. I told myself that I would kill, if necessary, to save his life. I don’t know if I could have pulled the trigger.”
“My sweet, brave girl.” Her father poured her morecha. “You never should have been placed in that position.”
She told them about the helicopter crash, the wild gaur, and the long trek home—the tree house camp, the bombed remains of themandir, the cobra that had almost bitten Connor, the rope ladder and bridge, the World War II plane fuselage with the skeletal remains of its crew inside, and Ashin Dempo and Mya.
“We didn’t trust them at first, but they put their lives on the line to save ours. Mya led us out to the river while her father was in the Great Hall with General Naing.”
She told them about the remains of Myar Zin and their trek toward the border and how she’d broken her ankle. “Connor carried me for miles on his back until we were discovered.”
By the time she got to the part where she’d told Connor to leave her, her mother was in tears. “Oh, Shanti. You told him to leave youalone?”
“If he had stayed, they would have gotten both of us. He would be dead, and I would be in prison. This way, he escaped and turned the tables on them. He rescued me from Naing’s men and got the two of us to the Naf River.”
“Thank God for him,” her mother said again.
“I had trouble staying conscious. I guess I passed out in the water.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “And then he was there, Dad—Uncle Abani.”
She told them what her vision of Uncle Abani had said. “I was drowning, but he woke me. I pushed myself to the surface and coughed up water—and then Connor was there. He held me the rest of the way to the boat. He said he thought he’d lost me. Was Uncle Abani truly there? Was that hisatman,his soul?”
Tears filled her father’s eyes. “Who can say? But as this vision of him saved your life, I call it a miracle.”
“I wish we’d gotten a chance to meet Connor and thank him,” her mother said.