Sidney Sheldon’s
Angel of the Dark
TILLY BAGSHAWE

For my sister, Alice

His wings are gray and trailing,

Azrael, Angel of Death,

And yet the souls that Azrael brings

Across the dark and cold,

Look up beneath those folded wings,

And find them lined with gold.

—ROBERT GILBERT WELSH, “AZRAEL” (1917)

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Part I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Part II

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Part III

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Part IV

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading

About the Authors

Also by Sidney Sheldon and Tilly Bagshawe

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

LOS ANGELES

1996

HE GOT THE CALL AT AROUND nine p.m.

“Unit 8A73. Come in, please.”

“Yeah, this is 8A73.”

The patrolman yawned into the radio. It had been a long, boring night making the rounds in West Hollywood and he was ready for his bed. “What’s up?”

“We got a 911. Female. Hysterical.”

“Probably my wife,” he joked. “I forgot our anniversary yesterday. She wants my balls in a jar.”

“Your wife Spanish?”

“Nope.”

“Then it ain’t her.”

He yawned again.

“Address?”

“Four-twenty Loma Vista.”

“Nice neighborhood. What happened, the maid forgot to put enough caviar on her toast?”

The operator chuckled.

“Probably a DV.”

Domestic violence.

“Probably?”

“The lady was screaming so much it was tough to make out what she was saying. We’re sending backup, but you’re closest. How soon can you guys be there?”

The patrolman hesitated. Mickey, his partner, had ducked out of their shift early to hook up with yet another skank on Hollywood Boulevard. Mickey got through hookers the way that other men got through socks. He knew he shouldn’t cover for him, but Mickey was so goddamn charming, saying no to the guy was like trying to swim against a riptide. What to do? If he admitted he was alone, they’d both get canned. But the alternative—showing up solo at a DV—wasn’t an appealing prospect either. Violent husbands were not usually the LAPD’s biggest fans.

Fuck it.

“We’ll be there in five.”

Mickey’s skank had better be worth it.

FOUR-TWENTY LOMA VISTA TURNED OUT TO be a vast, sprawling, Spanish Mission-style 1920s estate, perched high in the Hollywood Hills. A discreet, ivy-clad gate set into a fifteen-foot wall gave little clue of the opulence that hid behind it: a dramatic, sweeping driveway and gardens so enormous and perfectly manicured they looked more like a country club than the grounds of a private residence.

The patrolman barely registered the fancy real estate. He was looking at a crime scene.

Open gate.

Front door ajar.

No signs of forced entry.

The place was eerily quiet. He drew his weapon.

“Police!”

No answer. As the echo of his own voice faded, from somewhere above him he heard a low moaning sound, like a not quite boiling teakettle. Nervously, he mounted the stairs.

Goddamn you, Mickey.

“Police!” he shouted again, more loudly this time. The moaning was coming from one of the bedrooms. He burst in, gun drawn. What the fuck? He heard a woman screaming, then the sickening crunch of his own skull as it slammed against the floor. The wooden boards were as slick as an oil spill.

But they weren’t slick with oil.

They were slick with blood.

DETECTIVE DANNY MCGUIRE FROM HOMICIDE DIVISION tried to hide his frustration. The maid was making no sense.

“¡Pudo haber sido el diablo! ¡El diablo!”

It’s not her fault, Detective Danny McGuire reminded himself. The poor woman had been alone in the house when she found them. No wonder she was still hysterical.

“¡Esa pobre mujer! ¿Quién podía hacer una cosa terrible como esa?”

After six years in homicide, it took a lot to turn Detective Danny McGuire’s stomach. But this had done it. Surveying the carnage in front of him, Danny was aware of the In-N-Out burger he’d eaten earlier fighting its way up into his esophagus in a desperate bid for freedom. No wonder the officer who’d arrived at the scene had lost it. In front of him was the work of a maniac.

If it weren’t for the crimson sea of blood seeping into the floorboards, it might have looked like a burglary. The bedroom had been ransacked, drawers opened, jewelry boxes emptied, clothes and photographs strewn everywhere. But the real horror lay at the foot of the bed. Two bodies, a man and a woman. The first victim, an elderly male in his pajamas, had had his throat slashed in such a repeated, frenzied manner that his head was almost completely severed from his neck. He’d been bound, trussed almost, like an animal in an abattoir, with what looked like climbing ropes. Whoever killed him had tied his mutilated corpse to the naked body of the second victim, a woman. A very young, very beautiful woman, judging from the taut perfection of her figure, although her face had been so badly beaten it was hard to tell for sure. One glance at her bloodied thighs and pubic area, however, made one thing abundantly clear: she had been violently raped.

Covering his mouth, Detective Danny McGuire moved closer to the bodies. The smell of fresh blood was overpowering. But that wasn’t what made him recoil.

“Get a knife,” he said to the maid.

She looked at him blankly.

“Cuchillo,” he repeated. “Now! And someone call an ambulance. She’s still breathing.”

THE KNIFE WAS PRODUCED. GINGERLY DANNY McGuire began cutting through the ropes binding the man and woman together. His touch seemed to rouse the woman. She began crying softly, slipping in and out of consciousness. Danny bent low so his mouth was close to her ear. Even in her battered state, he couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was, dark-haired and full-breasted with the soft, milky skin of a child. “I’m a police officer,” he whispered. “You’re safe now. We’re gonna get you to a doctor.” As the ropes loosened, the old man’s head lolled grotesquely against Danny’s shoulder, like some hideous Halloween mask. He gagged.

One of his men tapped him on the shoulder. “Definite burglary, sir. The safe’s been emptied. Jewelry’s gone, and some paintings.”

Danny nodded. “Victims’ names?”

“The house belongs to Andrew Jakes.”

Jakes. The name was familiar.

“He’s an art dealer.”

“And the girl?”

“Angela Jakes.”

“His daughter?”

The cop laughed.

“Granddaughter?”

“No, sir. She’s his wife.”

Stupid, thought Danny. Of course she’s his wife. This is Hollywood, after all. Old Man Jakes must have been worth a fortune.

At last the ropes gave way. Till death us do part, thought Danny as Angela Jakes literally tumbled free from her husband’s corpse into his arms. Slipping off his overcoat, Danny draped it over her shoulders, covering her nakedness. She was conscious again and shivering.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “You’re safe now. Angela, isn’t it?”

The girl nodded mutely.

“Can you tell me what happened, sweetheart?”

She looked up at him and for the first time Danny saw the full extent of her injuries. Two black eyes, one so swollen that it had closed completely, and lacerations all over her upper body. Scratch marks. Danny thought, She must have fought like hell.

“He hurt me.”

Her voice was barely a whisper. The effort of speaking seemed to exhaust her.

“Take your time.”

She paused. Danny waited.

“He said he would let Andrew go if … if I …” Catching sight of her husband’s bloodied corpse, she broke into uncontrollable sobs.

“Someone cover him up, for Christ’s sake,” Danny snapped. How was he supposed to get any sense out of the girl with that horror show lying right next to her?

“We can’t, sir. Not yet. Forensics isn’t finished with the body.”

Danny flashed his sergeant a withering look. “I said cover him.”

The sergeant blanched. “Sir.”

A blanket was draped over Andrew Jakes’s body, but it was too late. His wife was already in deep shock, rocking back and forth, eyes glazed, muttering to herself. Danny wasn’t sure what she was saying. It sounded like: “I have no life.”

“Is the ambulance here yet?”

“Yes, sir. Just arrived.”

“Good.”

Detective Danny McGuire moved away out of the victim’s earshot, beckoning his men around him in a tight huddle. “She needs a doctor and a psych evaluation. Officer Menendez, you go with her. Make sure the medical examiner sees her first and we get a full rape kit, swabs, blood tests, the lot.”

“Of course, sir.”

Tomorrow, Detective Danny McGuire would question Angela Jakes properly. She was in no fit state tonight.

“You’d better take the maid with you while you’re at it,” he added. “I can’t hear myself think with her wailing in my ear.”

A skinny, blond young man with horn-rimmed glasses walked into the room.

“Sorry I’m late, sir.”

Detective David Henning might be a card-carrying nerd, but he had one of the best, most logical, deductive brains on the force. Detective Danny McGuire was delighted to see him.

“Ah, Henning. Good. Call the insurers, get me an inventory of everything that was taken. Then check out the pawnshops and Web sites, see what shows up.”

Henning nodded.

“And someone get on to the security provider. A house like this must be alarmed up the wazoo, but it looks like our killer just strolled on in here tonight.”

Officer Menendez said, “The maid mentioned that she heard a loud bang of some sort around eight p.m.”

“A gunshot?”

“No. I asked her that, but she said it was more like a piece of furniture falling over. She was on her way upstairs to check it out, but Mrs. Jakes stopped her, said she’d go up herself.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. The maid went upstairs at eight forty-five p.m. to bring the old man his cocoa as usual. That’s when she found them and called 911.”

His cocoa? Danny McGuire tried to visualize the Jakeses’ married life. He pictured a rich, lecherous old man easing his arthritic limbs into bed each night beside his lithe, sexy young bride—then waiting for his maid to bring him a nice cup of cocoa! How could Angela Jakes have borne being pawed by such a decrepit creature? Danny imagined the old man’s bony, liver-spotted fingers stroking Angela’s breasts, her thighs. It was irrational, but the thought made him angry.

Did it make somebody else angry too? Danny wondered. Angry enough to kill?

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, DETECTIVE DANNY McGuire drove to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He felt excited. This was his first big murder case. The victim, Andrew Jakes, was a scion of Beverly Hills high society. A case like this could propel Danny’s career into the fast lane if he played his cards right. But it wasn’t just his career prospects that Danny was excited about. It was the prospect of seeing Angela Jakes again.

There was something uniquely compelling about the young Mrs. Jakes, something beyond her beauty and that violated, made-for-sex body that had haunted Danny’s dreams last night. All the circumstantial evidence suggested that the girl was a shameless gold digger. But Danny found himself hoping that she wasn’t. That there was some other explanation for her marriage to a man old enough to be her grandfather. Danny McGuire loathed gold diggers. He did not want to have to loathe Angela Jakes.

“How’s the patient?”

The duty nurse outside Angela Jakes’s private room eyed Danny suspiciously. “Who’s asking?”

Danny flashed her his badge and most winning Irish smile

“Oh! Good morning, Detective.” The nurse returned his smile, surreptitiously checking his left hand for a wedding band. For a cop he was unusually attractive: strong jaw, lapis-blue eyes and a mop of thick black Celtic curls that her own boyfriend would have killed for. “The patient’s tired.”

“How tired? Can I question her?”

You can question me, thought the nurse, admiring Danny’s boxer’s physique beneath his plain white Brooks Brothers shirt. “You can see her as long as you take it easy. She’s had some morphine for the pain in her face. Her left cheekbone was fractured and one of her eyes is quite badly damaged. But she’s lucid.”

“Thank you,” said Danny. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

For a hospital room, it was luxurious. Tasteful oil paintings hung on the walls. A Wesley-Barrell upholstered chair stood in the corner for visitors, and a delicate potted orchid quivered by the window. Angela Jakes was propped up against two down pillows. The bruises around her eyes had faded from last night’s uniform plum to a dark rainbow of colors. Fresh stitches across her forehead gave her the disconcerting look of a dressmaker’s dummy, but still she remained quite astonishingly beautiful, alluring in a way that Danny could not remember ever encountering before.

“Hello, Mrs. Jakes.” He held up his badge again. “Detective McGuire. I’m not sure if you remember. We met last night.”

Angela Jakes smiled weakly. “Of course I remember you, Detective. You gave me your coat. Lyle, this is the policeman I was telling you about.”

Danny spun around. Standing stock-still against the wall behind him was probably the most handsome man Danny had ever seen this side of a movie screen. Tall and olive-skinned, with the perfect, aquiline features of a hunter, jet-black hair and blue eyes, flat and almond-shaped like a Siamese cat’s, he scowled at Danny disapprovingly. He was wearing an expensively tailored suit, and when he moved it was like watching oil spread across a lake, smooth and fluid, almost viscous.

Danny placed him instantly. Lawyer. His upper lip curled. With a few honorable exceptions, Detective Danny McGuire was not a fan of lawyers.

“Who are you and what are you doing here? Mrs. Jakes is not supposed to have any visitors.”

“Lyle Renalto.” The man’s voice was practically a purr. Walking over to Angela Jakes’s bedside, he placed a proprietary hand over hers. “I’m a family friend.”

Danny looked at the two preposterously attractive young people holding hands and drew the inevitable conclusion. Yeah, right. And I’m the Queen of Sheba. Family friend, my ass.

“Lyle was Andrew’s attorney,” said Angela. Her voice was low and husky, nothing like the frightened whisper of last night. “Conchita called him last night to let him know what happened and he came straight here.” She squeezed Lyle Renalto’s hand gratefully, her eyes welling with tears. “He’s been amazing.”

I’ll bet he has. “If you’re up to it, Mrs. Jakes, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Lyle Renalto said curtly, “Not now. Mrs. Jakes is too tired. If you submit your questions to me, I’ll see that she answers them once she’s rested.”

Danny instantly bridled. “I don’t believe I was talking to you, Mr. Renalto.”

“Be that as it may, Mrs. Jakes has just been through an indescribably harrowing ordeal.”

“I know. I’m trying to catch the guy who did it.”

“Quite apart from witnessing her husband’s murder, she was violently raped.”

Danny was losing patience. “I’m aware of what happened, Mr. Renalto. I was there.”

“I didn’t witness Andrew’s murder.”

Both men turned to look at Angela, but her attention was focused wholly on Danny. Feeling a ridiculous sense of triumph, he moved toward her bedside, edging Renalto aside.

“Would you like to tell me what you did witness?”

“Angel, you don’t have to say anything,” the attorney butted in.

Danny raised an eyebrow at the endearment.

“Angel was my husband’s pet name for me,” Mrs. Jakes explained. “All his friends used to call me that. Not that I am an angel, by any means.” She smiled weakly. “I’m sure I could be quite a trial to poor Andrew at times.”

“I highly doubt that,” said Danny. “You were telling me about last night. About what happened.”

“Yes. Andrew was upstairs in bed. I was downstairs reading.”

“What time was this?”

She considered. “About eight, I suppose. I heard a noise from upstairs.”

“What sort of noise?”

“A bump. I thought Andrew might have fallen out of bed. He’d been having these spells recently. Anyway, Conchita came running in, she’d heard the noise too, but I said I’d go up. Andrew was a proud man, Detective. If he were …” She searched around for the appropriate word. “If he were incapacitated in any way, he wouldn’t have wanted Conchita to find him. He’d have wanted me.”

“So you went up alone?”

She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, bracing against the memory.

Lyle Renalto stepped forward. “Angel, please. There’s no need to upset yourself.”

“It’s all right, Lyle, really. The detective needs to know.” She turned back to Danny. “I went up alone. As I was walking into the bedroom someone hit me from behind. That’s the last thing I remember, the pain in my head. When I woke up, he was … he was raping me.”

“Can you describe the man?” asked Danny. He knew from experience that the best way to calm emotional witnesses was to stick to the hard facts. Once you started with all the “I know this must be distressing for you” bullshit, the floodgates opened and you’d lost them.

Angela Jakes shook her head. “I wish I could. But he wore a mask, a balaclava.”

“What about his build?”

“Most of the time he was behind me. I don’t know. Stocky, I guess. Not tall, but he was certainly strong. I fought, and he hit me. He said if I didn’t let him keep doing it, he would hurt Andrew. So I stopped fighting.” Tears streamed down her swollen cheeks.

“Where was your husband at this time? Did he try to help you? To raise the alarm?”

“He …” A look of confusion came over her face. She glanced at Lyle Renalto, but he looked away. “I don’t know where Andrew was. I didn’t see him. On the bed, maybe? I don’t know.”

“It’s all right,” said Danny, sensing her anxiety levels rising. “Go on. You stopped fighting.”

“Yes. He asked me for the combination of our safe and I gave it to him. Then he raped me again. When he’d finished, he knocked me out a second time. When I came to … the first thing I remember is you, Detective.”

She looked Danny in the eye and he felt his stomach lurch, promptly forgetting his next question. Lyle Renalto smoothly took advantage of the silence.

“Conchita, the Jakeses’ housekeeper, told me that all Angela’s jewelry was taken and a number of valuable miniatures. Is that correct?”

Before Danny could respond that he wasn’t in the habit of leaking sensitive information about a murder inquiry to “family friends,” Angela blurted out angrily, “I don’t care about the damn jewelry! Andrew’s dead! I loved my husband, Detective.”

“I’m sure you did, Mrs. Jakes.”

“Please find the animal who did this.”

Danny cast his mind back to last night’s crime scene: the blood-soaked floor, the old man’s all-but-severed head, the disgusting, obscene scratches on Angela Jakes’s thighs, buttocks and breasts.

Animal was the right word.

THERE WAS NO SIGN OF THE pretty nurse outside Angela Jakes’s room. As Danny stood waiting for the elevator, Lyle Renalto oiled up to him. “You don’t have a very high opinion of attorneys, do you, Detective?”

The lawyer’s tone had switched from hostile to ingratiating. Danny preferred hostile. Nevertheless, it was an unusually perceptive comment.

“What makes you think that, Mr. Renalto?”

Lyle smiled. “Your face. Unless, of course, it’s just me, personally, whom you dislike.”

Danny said nothing. Lyle went on.

“You’re not alone, you know. My father hated lawyers with a passion. He was crushingly disappointed when I graduated law school. I come from a seafaring family, you see. As far as Pa was concerned, it was the United States Naval Academy or nothing.”

Danny thought, Why’s he telling me this?

The elevator arrived. Danny stepped inside and pressed G but Lyle stuck an arm out to hold the doors. His film-star features hardened and his cat’s eyes flashed in warning. “Angela Jakes is a close friend of mine. I won’t have you hounding her.”

Danny lost his temper. “This is a murder inquiry, Mr. Renalto, not a game of twenty questions. Mrs. Jakes is my key witness. In fact right now, she and her maid are my only witnesses.”

“Angela didn’t see the man. She told you that already.”

Danny frowned. “I thought Mr. Jakes was a close friend of yours too. I’d have thought you’d want us to find his killer?”

“Of course I do,” snapped Lyle.

“Or perhaps you weren’t quite as close to Andrew Jakes as you were to his wife. Is that it?”

This seemed to amuse Lyle Renalto. “For a detective, I must say you’re a pretty poor judge of people. You think Angel and I are lovers?”

“Are you?”

The attorney smirked. “No.”

Danny desperately wanted to believe him.

“This is a triple felony, Mr. Renalto,” he said, removing the attorney’s arm from the elevator door. “Rape, robbery and murder. I strongly suggest you do not attempt to obstruct my investigation by coming between me and the witness.”

“Is that a threat, Detective?”

“Call it what you like,” said Danny.

Renalto opened his mouth to respond but the elevator doors closed, denying him the last word. Judging from his twitching jaw and the look of frustration etched on his handsome face, this wasn’t something that happened very often.

“Good-bye, Mr. Renalto.”

FIVE MINUTES LATER, BACK ON WILSHIRE Boulevard, Danny’s cell phone rang.

“Henning. What have you got for me?”

“Not much, sir, I’m afraid. Nothing in the pawnshops, nothing online.”

Danny frowned. “It’s still early days.”

“Yes, sir. I also checked out Jakes’s will.”

Danny brightened. “And?”

“The wife gets everything. No other family. No charitable causes.”

“How much is everything?”

“After taxes, around four hundred million dollars.”

Danny whistled. Four hundred million dollars. That was quite a motive for murder. Not that Angela Jakes was a suspect. The poor woman could hardly have raped and beaten herself. Even so, Danny thought back to the words Angela had murmured repeatedly to herself last night: I have no life.

With four hundred million in the bank, she certainly had a life now. Any life she wanted.

“Anything else?” he asked his sergeant.

“Just one thing. The jewelry. A little over a million bucks’ worth was taken from the safe and Mrs. Jakes’s jewelry box.”

Danny waited for the punch line. “And … ?”

“None of it was insured. Seven figures’ worth of diamonds, and you don’t add it to your homeowner’s policy? Seems strange, don’t you think?”

It did seem strange. But Danny’s mind wasn’t focused on Andrew Jakes’s insurance oversights. “Listen,” he said, “I want you to run a check for me on a guy named Lyle Renalto. R-E-N-A-L-T-O. Says he was Old Man Jakes’s lawyer.”

“Sure,” said Detective Henning. “What am I looking for, exactly?”

Detective Danny McGuire said honestly, “That’s the problem. I have no idea.”

CHAPTER TWO

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO 1892

THE LITTLE GIRL GAZED OUT OF the carriage window at streets teeming with filth and life and noise and stench and poverty and laughter, and felt sure of one thing: she would die in this place.

She had been sent here to die.

She had grown up in luxury, in privilege and above all in peace, in a sprawling palace in the desert. The only daughter of a nobleman and his most favored wife, she had been named Miriam, after the mother of the great prophet, and Bahia, which meant “most fair,” and from her earliest infancy had known nothing but praise and love. She slept in a room with gold leaf on the walls, in a bed of intricately carved ivory. She wore silks woven in Ouarzazate and dyed in Essaouira with ocher and indigo and madder, shipped in at great expense from the Near East. She had servants to dress her, to bathe her, to feed her, and more servants to educate her in the Koran and in music and poetry, the ancient poetry of her desert ancestors. She was beautiful inside and out, as sweet-faced and sweet-tempered a child as any noble father could wish for, a jewel prized above all the rubies and amethysts and emeralds that adorned the necks and wrists of all four of her father’s wives.

The palace, with its cool, shady courtyards, its fountains and birdsong, its plates of sugared almonds and silver pots of sugary mint tea, was Miriam’s whole world. It was a place of pleasure and peace, where she played with her siblings, sheltered from the punishing desert sun and all the other dangers of life beyond its thick stone walls. Had it not been for one terrible, unexpected event, Miriam would no doubt have lived out the rest of her days in this blissfully gilded prison. As it was, at the age of ten, her idyllic childhood ground to an abrupt and final halt. Miriam’s mother, Leila Bahia, left her father for another man, riding off into the desert one night never to return.

Miriam’s father, Abdullah, was a good and honorable man, but Leila’s betrayal broke him. As Abdullah withdrew increasingly from life and the day-to-day business of running his household, the other wives stepped in. Always jealous of the younger, more beautiful Leila and the favoritism Abdullah showed to their child, the wives began a campaign to get rid of Miriam. Led by Rima, Abdullah’s ambitious first wife, they prevailed on their husband to send the child away.

She will grow into a serpent, like her mother, and bring ruin on us all.

She looks just like her.

I’ve already seen her making eyes at the servant boys, and even at Kasim, her own brother!

In the end, too weak to resist, and too heartbroken to look his favorite daughter in the face—it was true, Miriam did look exactly like Leila, right down to the soft curve of her eyelashes—Abdullah acquiesced to Rima’s demands. Miriam would be sent to live with one of his brothers, Sulaiman, a wealthy cloth merchant in Marrakech.

The child wept as the carriage clattered through the palace gates and she left the only home she had ever known for the first, and last, time. Ahead, the desert sands stretched out before her, apparently endless, a bleak but beautiful canvas of oranges and yellows, modulating from deep rust to the palest buttermilk. It was a three-day ride to the city, and until the walls of the ancient battlements loomed into view, they passed nothing but a few nomads’ huts and the occasional merchant caravan weaving its weary way across the emptiness. Miriam had started to wonder if perhaps there was no city. If it was all a wicked plan by her stepmothers to throw her out into the wilderness, like they did to criminals in the poems Mama used to read her. But then, suddenly, she was here, inside this anthill of humanity, this wild mishmash of beauty and ugliness, of minarets and slums, of luxury and destitution, of lords and lepers.

This is it, thought the terrified child, deafened by the noise of the clamoring hands banging on the carriage as they passed, trying to sell her dates or cumin or ugly little wooden dolls. The apocalypse. The mob. They’re going to kill me.

BUT MIRIAM WASN’T KILLED. INSTEAD, NOT twenty minutes later, she found herself sitting in one of the many ornate waiting parlors in her uncle’s riad close to the souk, sipping the same sweet mint tea that she was used to at home and having her hands and feet bathed in rosewater.

Presently a small, round man with the deepest, loudest voice Miriam had ever heard waddled into the room. Smiling, he swooped her up into his arms and began covering her with kisses. “Welcome, welcome, dearest child!” he boomed. “Abdullah’s daughter, well, well, well. Welcome, desert rose. Welcome, and may you prosper and flourish evermore in my humble home.”

In reality, Uncle Sulaiman’s riad was anything but humble. Smaller in scale than her father’s palace, it was nevertheless an Aladdin’s cave of sumptuous wealth, beauty, and refinement, all paid for with the proceeds of the younger brother’s thriving textile business. And Miriam did flourish there. Unmarried and childless, her uncle Sulaiman came to love her as his own daughter. For the rest of his life Sulaiman remained grateful to his brother, Abdullah, for bestowing on him so great and priceless a gift. If it were possible, he loved Miriam more than her natural parents had done, but Sulaiman’s love took a different form. Where Abdullah and Leila had protected their daughter from the dangers of the outside world, Sulaiman encouraged Miriam to savor and explore its delights. Of course, she never left the riad unaccompanied. Guards went with her everywhere. But under their watchful eyes she was free to roam through the vibrant buzzing alleyways of the souk. Here were sights and sounds and smells that she had read about in storybooks brought phantasmagorically to life. Marrakech was a delicious assault on every sense, a living, breathing, pulsing city that filled Miriam’s tranquil soul with excitement and curiosity and hunger. As she grew into her teens, more beautiful with each passing day, her love affair with the city intensified to the point where even a proposed vacation to the coast caused her to feel irritated and impatient.

“But why do we have to go, Uncle?”

Sulaiman laughed his booming, indulgent laugh. “You make it sound like a punishment, dearest. Essaouira is quite beautiful, and besides, no one wants to stay in Marrakech in high summer.”

“I do.”

“Nonsense. The heat’s unbearable.”

“I can bear it. Don’t make me leave, Uncle, I beg you. I’ll devote twice as much time to my studies if you let me stay.”

Sulaiman laughed even louder. “Twice nothing is nothing, dearest!” But, as always when Miriam really wanted something, he gave in. He would go to the coast for two weeks alone. Miriam could stay home with her guards and her governess.

LATER, JIBRIL WOULD REMEMBER IT AS the moment his life began.

And the moment it ended.

The sixteen-year-old son of Sulaiman’s chief factor, Jibril was a happy, outgoing child, seemingly without a problem in the world. Pleasant-looking, with curly brown hair and a ready smile, he was also bright academically, with a particular aptitude for mathematics. His father harbored secret hopes of Jibril one day founding a business empire of his own. And why not? Morocco was becoming more cosmopolitan, its inhabitants more socially mobile than they had ever been. Not like it had been in his day. The boy could have the world at his feet if he wished it, as bright and glittering a future as he chose.

Unbeknownst to his father, Jibril had secret hopes of his own.

None of them revolved around business.

They revolved around the incandescent, radiant, utterly lovely form of Sulaiman’s niece, Mistress Miriam.

Jibril first met Miriam the day she arrived at the riad as a frightened ten-year-old. Then thirteen and a kind boy, sensitive to others’ pain, Jibril had taken Miriam under his wing. The two of them quickly became friends and playmates, spending endless happy hours roaming the souk and squares of the city together while Jibril’s father and Miriam’s uncle worked long hours in the company offices.

Jibril couldn’t say exactly when it was that his feelings toward Miriam had changed. Possibly the early arrival of her breasts, shortly after her twelfth birthday, had something to do with it. Or possibly there was some other, nobler reason. In any event, at some point during his fifteenth year, Jibril fell deeply, hopelessly, obsessively in love with his childhood playmate. Which would have been as wonderful a thing as could have happened, had it not been for one small, but undeniable, problem: Miriam was not in love with Jibril.

Tentative allusions to his feelings were met with peals of laughter on Miriam’s part. “Don’t be ridiculous!” she would tease him, pulling him by the hand in a way that made Jibril want to melt with longing. “You’re my brother. Besides, I’m never getting married.” Memories of her mother’s flight and her father’s despair still haunted her. Uncle Sulaiman’s happy independence seemed a far safer, more sensible option.

Jibril wept with frustration and despair. Why had he ever behaved like a brother toward her? Why had he not seen before what a goddess she was? How would he ever be able to undo the damage?

Then one day, it happened. It was during the weeks that Miriam’s uncle Sulaiman was away on vacation in Essaouira. Jibril returned to the riad after his morning’s studies to find smoke pouring out of the windows. You could feel the heat from a hundred yards away.

“What’s going on?”

Jibril’s father, his face and hands blackened with soot, coughed out an answer. “It started in the kitchens. I’ve never seen flames spread so fast. It’s a miracle we got everybody out of there.”

Huddled around them was a throng of frightened household staff, some burned and weeping, others coughing violently. They’d been joined by numerous neighbors and passersby. Soon the crowd was so big that it was difficult for the men with water buckets to fight their way through.

Jibril’s heart tightened in panic. “Where’s Miriam?”

“Don’t worry,” said his father. “She left early this morning to go to the baths. There’s nobody in the house.” But just as he spoke, a figure appeared at an upper window, arms flailing wildly. It was hard to make out who it was through the thick, acrid clouds of smoke. But Jibril knew instantly.

Before his father or anyone could stop him, he darted into the building. The heat hit him like a punch. Black smoke filled his lungs. It was like inhaling razor blades. Jibril fell to his knees, blinded, utterly disoriented. I have to get up. I have to find her. Help me, Allah.

And God did help him. In later years, Jibril described the feeling as some unseen person taking him by the hand and physically pulling him toward the stone stairwell. He had no idea how, in that hell, he fought his way to Miriam, how he lifted her in his arms like a rag doll and carried her downstairs through the flames and into the street. It was a miracle. There was no other word for it. Allah saved us because He wills us to be together. It is our destiny.

When Miriam opened her eyes, and looked into the eyes of her rescuer, Jibril’s prayers were answered.

She loved him. He was a brother no more.

WHEN SULAIMAN RETURNED HOME TO HIS gutted riad, his only thought was for his beloved Miriam and how close he had come to losing her. He summoned Jibril to his study.

“My boy, I owe you my life. Tell me how I can repay you. What gift can I give in gratitude for your heroism? Money? Jewels? A house of your own? Name it. Name it and it is yours.”

“I want no money from you, sir,” said Jibril humbly. “I ask only for your blessing. I intend to marry your niece.”

He smiled, and Sulaiman could see the love light up his eyes. Poor boy.

“I’m sorry, Jibril. Truly, I am. But that is not possible.”

Jibril’s smile crumpled. “Why not?”

“Miriam is of noble birth,” Sulaiman explained kindly. “When her father entrusted her to my care, it was on the understanding that she would one day make an alliance befitting her class and status in life. I have already chosen the gentleman. He’s older than Miriam, but he is well respected, kind—”

“NO!” Jibril couldn’t contain himself. “You can’t! Miriam loves me. She … she won’t do it.”

Sulaiman’s expression hardened. “Miriam will do as I ask her.”

Jibril looked so forlorn that the old man relented. “Look. I said I am sorry, and I meant it. These are the ways of the world, Jibril. We are all prisoners, in our different ways. But you must forget about my niece. Ask me for something else. Anything.”

Jibril did not ask. How could he? There was nothing else he wanted. He tried to tell himself that he still had time to persuade Sulaiman. The older man might change his mind. Miriam might indeed refuse to wed the man to whom she had been unknowingly betrothed, though he knew in his heart that this was a vain hope. Miriam loved Sulaiman like a father, and would never bring dishonor on herself or her family by disobeying him, especially not in so grave a matter as marriage.

Not even Jibril’s own father could help him.

“You must forget the girl, son. Trust me, there will be scores of others. You have a bright future ahead of you, backed by Sulaiman’s money, if only you’d take it. You’ll be able to afford a house full of wives!”

Jibril thought darkly, Nobody understands. And though Miriam tried to comfort him, assuring him that she would always love him no matter whom she married, it was cold comfort for the boy, who burned for her body with all the fiery intensity of a volcano.

At last the day came when all Jibril’s hopes died. Miriam was married to a sheikh, Mahmoud Basta, a paunchy, bald man old enough to be her father. If she was distraught, she hid it well, maintaining a serene grace throughout the ceremony, and afterward, when she bid good-bye to her second, much beloved home.

The newlyweds lived close to the city, in the Basta family palace at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, and Miriam was able to visit her uncle Sulaiman’s house often. On these visits, she would sometimes see the hollow-eyed Jibril staring at her from across a room, pain etched on his face like a mask. At these times she felt pity and great sorrow. But the emotions were for Jibril, not for herself. Mahmoud was a kind husband, loving, indulgent and decent. When Miriam gave him a son at the end of their first year of marriage, he wept for joy. Over the next five years, she gave him three more boys and a girl, Leila. Over time, Miriam’s children came to fill the void that had been left by her doomed love for Jibril. Watching them play while their doting father looked on, she sometimes felt guilty that she was so happy, while Jibril, she knew, remained broken and lost. She had heard through friends that he drank heavily, and spent his days in the hookah bars and whorehouses of the souk, squandering all the money her uncle had given him.

The last time Miriam saw Jibril was at her husband’s funeral. Mahmoud, who had never reined in his fondness for baklava and sweet Moroccan wine, died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-two. Miriam was forty, with a fan of fine lines around her eyes and a comfortable layer of fat around her hips, but she was still a beautiful woman. Jibril, on the other hand, had aged terribly. Shrunken and stooped, with the broken veins and yellow eyes of a heavy drinker, he looked twenty years older than he was, and was as sad and embittered as Mahmoud had been happy and generous-spirited.

He staggered over to Miriam, who was standing with her eldest son, Rafik. She realized immediately that he was drunk.

“So,” Jibril slurred, “the old bashtard’s gone at lasht, is he? When can I come to you, Miriam? Tell me. When?”

Miriam blushed scarlet. She had never felt such shame. How could he do this? To me, and to himself? Today of all days.

Rafik stepped forward. “My mother is grieving. We all are. You need to leave.”

Jibril snarled. “Get out of my way!”

“You’re drunk. Nobody wants you here.”

“Your mother wants me. Your mother loves me. She’s always loved me. Tell him, Miriam.”

Miriam turned to him and said sadly, “Today I have buried two of my loves. My husband. And the boy you once were. Good-bye, Jibril.”

THAT NIGHT, JIBRIL HANGED HIMSELF FROM a tree in the Menara Gardens. He left a one-word note:

Betrayed.

THE YOUNG GIRL PUT THE BOOK down, tears welling in her eyes. She had read the story hundreds of times before, but she never grew tired of it and it never failed to move her. Sure, she lived in 1983, not 1892; and she was reading the book in a grim, freezing-cold children’s home in New York City, not some Moroccan palace. But Miriam and Jibril’s tragic love still spoke to her across the ages.

The girl knew what it felt like to be powerless. To be abandoned by one’s mother. To be treated like an object by men, a prize to be won. To be shoved through life like a lamb to the slaughter, with no say whatsoever in her own destiny.

“Are you okay, Sofia?”

The boy put a protective, brotherly arm around her. He was the only one she’d told about the book, the only one who understood her. The other kids in the home didn’t understand. They mocked her and her old, dog-eared love story. But he didn’t.

“They’re jealous,” he told her. “Because you have a family history and they don’t. You have royal blood in your veins, Sofia. That’s what makes you different. Special. They hate you for that.”

It was true. Sofia identified with Miriam’s story on another level, too. A blood level. Miriam was Sofia’s great-grandmother. Somewhere inside of her, Miriam’s genes lived on. The book Sofia held in her hands, her most prized possession, was not some fairy tale. It was true. It was her history.

“I’m fine,” she told the boy, hugging him back as she pulled the thin rayon blanket up over both of them. Even here, pressed against the radiator in the recreation room, it was bitterly cold.

I am not nobody, she told herself, breathing in the warmth of her friend’s body. I am from a noble family with a romantic, tragic history. I am Sofia Basta.

One day, far away from here, I will fulfill my destiny.

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