Blue Voyage Read online

  I shook my head in disbelief. “I can’t believe she would have earned enough making tourism videos to pay for all her living and school expenses.” Let alone a Blue Voyage cruise, I thought. And what about that stack of cash she’d used to buy stuff from Baklava Guy? No, the job that paid for such things had to have come from Lazar. That money came from smuggling antiquities.

  “So now what?” Nazif asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, Nazif. I really don’t know.”

  At that point, Mustafa came into the room and spoke to Nazif, somewhat harshly.

  “I’m sorry. I cannot talk now,” Nazif explained with apologetic eyes. “I talked to my father about doing a puppet show at the hotel party. He did not like this idea, or the fact that I am practicing late at night instead of resting up for work. We had an argument this morning.”

  “I totally get it,” I said. “I have parents, too. But please don’t give up on the puppet show idea. Your dad has to change his mind. People would love your work.”

  He shrugged. “Thank you. I will try.”

  While Nazif went back to work with his dad, I checked my email on the lobby computer, even though I expected Mom to come haul me back to work any moment as well. Two new messages popped up. One was from Dad, which I ignored; I was so not up for an emotional package bomb. But the other was from Sheila Miller. Sage’s mom!

  Hand trembling, I clicked to open the email.

  Dear Alexandra,

  I am sorry I cannot help you. I have no contact information for Amy at this time. Amy was declared an emancipated minor when she was seventeen. Her father is not in the picture. I have not been responsible for her, financially or otherwise, since her legal emancipation from us. I was aware that she had gone to Turkey to study last year, but we have not been in touch since. Is she in some kind of trouble? It would not shock me. Amy has an impulsive streak, which has sometimes gotten her into trouble. If you do find her, tell her I would not mind if she checked in. I would like to hear how she is doing.

  Sincerely, Sheila Miller

  I gazed at the screen, blinking back tears. I felt so bad for Sage. What a horrible email. I didn’t know what would make Sage want to separate legally from her parents, but there must have been good reason; I knew from my dad that emancipation was a hard thing to get approved. (I knew because in the heat of an argument once, I’d threatened to do it myself.) A brother dead from a drug overdose, a dad who was AWOL, and a mother who didn’t care that her daughter was wandering around Turkey by herself. Whatever I had going on in my family, it wasn’t half as bad as Sage’s situation. No wonder she’d said she couldn’t go home.

  Out of her enormous pack of lies, her sad family situation was actually authentic. My heart ached for her. Sheila Miller’s daughter was way more lost than I was, having fallen a much farther distance. Even if I had to turn her in as a thief, I wanted to do something to help her, reach out a hand and try to pull her back up. I wanted to save her if I could.

  The problem was, with Lazar breathing down my neck and no clear person to trust on the police force, I had to worry more about saving myself.

  31

  All morning, I was stuck working with Mom on the database project, surrounded by lists and brochures. Mom went through my spreadsheet and called every organization I’d entered to ask who might be willing to offer a raffle prize for our party or discount rates for hotel guests.

  “This Voyager Balloon company in Cappadocia is the best,” Mom said as she finished her one-billionth call. “They’re going to offer a free balloon trip for the raffle. It’s worth five hundred dollars!”

  “Awesome,” I said, glancing at the brochure for the whirling dervishes. Then the address of the dervish show caught my eye: Istiklal Caddesi, the main drag in the Beyolu neighborhood. I’d heard of that street before. A new plan for tracking down Sage came to mind. I couldn’t wait to run it by Nazif.

  A half hour later, I was pushing a cart with freshly laundered sheets down a hall on the second floor, and Nazif was pushing a cart with ladies’ dry-cleaned dresses hanging from it. We almost collided.

  Laughing, we maneuvered our carts around each other in the narrow hallway, until we were finally standing side by side and mere inches apart.

  Nazif’s eyes were shining. “He said yes!”

  My mind was on the Lycian Society and my new plan. “Sorry. What?”

  “My father. He said I can do the puppet show at the party! I convinced him that it would be good for tourists to experience some Turkish culture they might not often see.”

  “Oh, Nazif! That’s wonderful!”

  “What about you? Anything new?” Nazif asked.

  “The Lycian Society,” I said. “I’ve decided I need to go there in person. Maybe I can find out something about Lazar and Vasil. Or the clients they buy artifacts for. If I can’t get to Sage myself, maybe I can find something about the smugglers that I could give to authorities at the embassy. Maybe I can get a list of the Onyx-level members and find out who might have been dealing with him, or even who was buying the Karun Treasure urn!”

  Nazif nodded excitedly. “And if you find anything that links the Onyx clients to Lazar, investigators could arrest him.”

  “Exactly. And then Sage might come out of hiding.”

  “This plan sounds good. Except how will you get the list of Onyx members?”

  “I’ll go into the office asking for tour information for our hotel,” I explained. “I have the perfect excuse. I met a tour representative on the boat cruise. I’ll go into the tour office asking for him. Mom’s looking for raffle prize donations. I’ll ask what they can offer us. And I’ll tell them we’d like to offer a special package for Onyx-level members of the Lycian Society. I’ll need their email addresses. Even though Mr. Tabak works on the tour business side, I bet he has some connection to a society staff member who could give him that information. He feels so bad about Uncle Berk dying and the guest speaker thing not working out on the cruise, he might be willing to bend a rule for us and get me a membership list.”

  “It could work,” Nazif said slowly. “But will your mother let you go out again?”

  I handed him the brochure I’d folded up and put in my pocket.

  Nazif looked puzzled. “The sema? You wish to see the whirling dervishes? How are men spinning in white robes going to help you find Sage?”

  “Stay with me, Nazif! The whirling dervishes do their performance in a hall that is practically next door to the Lycian Society.”

  “Ah!” He smiled, comprehending.

  “I’m not going to stay there and watch it, but it will get me close to where I need to be. And as far as my mom’s concerned, it’s the perfect evening activity to do with my pretend grandparents, Milton and Maeve.”

  The Lobsters loved my idea of seeing the whirling dervish ceremony that evening. So did the entire German tour group, who overheard us talking in the hall and decided to come along.

  “The more, the merrier!” I said, beaming at them. Mom would have to let me go now! And it would be easier for me to slip away unnoticed from a larger group.

  Mom did let me go. But then Aunt Jackie insisted that Mom go, too. “Mustafa, Nazif, and I can hold down the fort,” she said. “Half the guests will be at the show anyway.”

  Mustafa nodded. “The sema is a beautiful religious ceremony, and the dervishes are an important part of Turkish culture,” he said. “The Mevlevi Order is the oldest group. Zan should not miss this, and you should not either. We will take care of Jackie.”

  My heart sank a little, and I was sure a look of disappointment crossed Nazif’s face, too. His dad wasn’t going to let him come. And I had let myself imagine, for a moment, sitting beside Nazif—close to him—in a taxi, or at the performance hall, our hands touching, legs brushing against each other.

  I shook off my fantasies. In the past, I had
been a master at orchestrating romantic encounters with guys in the dark. A dimly lit corner at a party? The backseat of a friend’s car? Shadows and darkness were my friends. So were guys who drank too much. If they kissed my makeup off, they weren’t likely to notice. The problem was, none of those relationships, or whatever they were, lasted too long, because they couldn’t survive in the light of day.

  But I didn’t have time to swoon over Nazif. I would barely be at the whirling dervish ceremony before I’d have to duck outside and begin my mission.

  Up in our room, Mom had second thoughts about the plan as we got dressed for the evening. “Did you see that file Jackie was carrying?” she said. “My God. More of those articles about crimes in Cappadocia. Plus email printouts from correspondence with lawyers and local business owners out there. I don’t know how she keeps unearthing all of this information.”

  My stomach twisted.

  “You see what happens the moment I turn my back? She gets obsessed with her murder theory, and then she’s agitated. It’s not good for her health or the baby.” Mom set down her purse. “I can’t do it. I won’t enjoy myself, worrying about her the whole time. You go on without me. I’d better stay here to distract her.”

  Mustafa called four taxis to take the Germans, the Lobsters, and me to the performance. As I got into one of the cabs, Nazif ran up to the car and pressed a cell phone into my hand. “Here. It is mine,” he whispered. “You can use the camera app. If you see anything important, take a picture. And please. Be careful.”

  “I will,” I said. “And thanks,” I added, touched by his concern for me.

  He closed the taxi door, and I felt a tugging sensation inside me as I watched him go back inside the hotel. I wished he were coming with me. I was starting to get used to the idea that we were solving this mystery together. I felt like I was off to a climbing wall to use the auto belay, when it was always more fun to belay with a partner.

  We arrived about fifteen minutes later at the Galata Mevlevi Lodge, a large performance hall where the dancers would do their sema ceremony. I set my plan into motion almost immediately, complaining of a stomachache. “Too much hummus,” I apologized.

  “Oh, honey.” Maeve looked alarmed. “We should get you right back to the hotel.”

  “No, I’ll be okay. But if I leave partway through, I’ll just be in the restroom.”

  The hall was almost full now, with crowds seated in a circle, about five chairs deep, around the perimeter of the room. The lights dimmed, and a quintet of musicians appeared beneath the spotlight and began to play. I recognized the oud, and a hand drum, but I’d never seen what looked kind of like a flute or the other stringed instrument before. The music was strange to my ears and hard to follow, like a tangle of musical threads, winding and unwinding. Like the different paths to finding the seahorse urn. Lazar. Vasil. Sage. Uncle Berk. Maybe Riza, too, and the captain of the Anilar. All of them connected to the urn. An urn I was sure my uncle had died for.

  The five dancers—the Mevlevi dervishes—walked slowly toward the center of the floor, arms crossed in front of them. They were dressed in long black robes and wore tall brown hats on their heads; it almost looked like a funeral procession. “They’re supposed to be from the grave,” whispered Maeve, her eyes wide. “The hats represent tombstones.”

  “Guess this is someone’s idea of fun,” Milton muttered grimly. “But not mine.”

  Maeve shot him a look. “This is a spiritual ceremony, not a Broadway show. It’s a meditation. They go into a trance and purify their souls.”

  The dancers walked in tighter circles, stopping every few steps to bow deeply. Then they removed their robes, revealing white jackets and long white skirts. Slowly they stepped into the circle again, crossed their arms in front of their chests, closed their eyes, tipped their heads to one side, and began to pivot.

  I knew it was time to feign illness and get to the Lycian Society building while it was still open. But I was transfixed by the dervishes. Their arms unfolded and extended, until each man had one hand raised, palm up, and the other extended to the side, palm down. Their faces were serene, emotionless, even as the music sped up and their whirling intensified. They seemed to carve the air with the scoops of their hands and the flare of their white skirts. Their heads were tilted, their eyes still closed, as if resting on a pillow.

  I brushed aside a tear, the sudden appearance of which surprised me. This was no time for emotions to get in my way. And then, through the blur of the spinning white skirts, I glimpsed a familiar face across the room. Nazif! He had come after all!

  He was standing by the back wall, not far from the main door, and clearly looking for me.

  I clutched my stomach and stood up, muttering an apology to Milton and Maeve, who gave me a sympathetic look. I threaded my way through the audience, ignoring the annoyed stares, and ran out into the early evening light. A flock of pigeons scattered.

  Nazif joined me a moment later on the steps of the Mevlevi Lodge.

  “Wow. You actually came?” I said. “I mean, your dad let you go?”

  “The hotel was quiet,” he said. “I suggested I come help everyone get taxis and return safely to the hotel afterward. My father thought that was an excellent idea. What did you think of the sema?”

  “I loved it,” I said. “I have no idea how they do that without getting dizzy! And they look so peaceful. I can’t believe they’re going to keep that up for almost an hour! I wish I could stay and watch the whole thing.”

  “You still could,” he said.

  “No. You know I have to get this done. But if we solve this mystery? I’ll come back here and see the whole thing.”

  “I’ll take you,” he said.

  “Oh.” I smiled. “Thanks.”

  “I thought of another plan,” he went on. “We go in together. I am still in uniform. This will leave no room for doubt that we come from a hotel.”

  “Good plan,” I said, giving him a thumbs-up. “Let’s go.”

  Maybe I only imagined the electrical current between us. Focus!

  As we sprinted down the steps and ran down the street, I felt a twinge deep inside me, like the taut string of an oud, reminding me that at this very moment, I was deceiving the Lobsters, whom I’d blatantly lied to in order to get away. And I’d lied to Mom, too, acting exactly like she thought I would act and giving her no reason to trust me.

  But this situation was different. We’d come all this way to help Aunt Jackie, and that’s exactly what I was doing.

  32

  Two blocks from the performance hall, Nazif and I stood before the Lycian Society headquarters, the narrow, gray stone building I’d seen on the computer screen. On the left side loomed a taller and more modern office building. On the right side there was a tiny, dark alley, and then another modern building with a restaurant on the ground floor and tables out on the sidewalk. A smiling host approached us with menus, but we shook our heads and waved him away.

  “This is not the kind of restaurant I would take you to anyway,” Nazif said. “It is touristy, this place. I would take you for a more traditional meal.”

  Was he asking me out? Would we go to a restaurant sometime, like a couple?

  No swooning! “I think we’re fine to go in,” I said, stepping forward toward the front steps. “It’s an office building. Nothing’s going to happen to us here,” I added when Nazif hesitated.

  We went up the sagging stone steps and tried the door. It was locked. The wrought-iron gates barricading the heavy wooden doors were as impenetrable as a fortress, even though it was just after five o’clock. I took a deep breath and pressed the buzzer. I could hear it reverberating somewhere inside. I pressed it again, twice, but no one buzzed us in or came to the door.

  “It’s just after five,” I said, checking my watch. “I guess they already closed for the day.”

  Nazif frowned. �
�In Turkey, most businesses are open until six or seven. This is strange. Maybe we must find a way to come tomorrow and try again, earlier.”

  “But we’re here now,” I pointed out. “And I came up with this whole complicated way to get to this neighborhood tonight. I can’t pull it off two days in a row.” I surveyed the building. “There must be some way to get in.”

  Nazif looked alarmed. “But the building is closed.”

  “To some people, yes, you could say that.” I recognized the feeling coming over me that I sometimes got when I shoplifted. It started with a buzz and a tingle, as if my nerves were waking up. It was like being in a gray space, somewhere between being seen and not seen, kind of like a ghost. And once I started, and the buzz got going, it was hard to stop.

  I went back down the steps and walked to the narrow alley on the right-hand side of the building. Nazif shadowed me; I could hear the quietly reassuring tick-tick-tick of his shoes on the cobblestones. I gasped as a huge rat scuttled by, and quickened my steps. Looking up, I could see windows caked with grime going all the way up to the top. Near the back of the building, three stories up, were four windows covered in black paper. “Hey, look!” I said, pointing. “That one’s open!” One of the blacked-out windows was cracked open. A rusting fire escape led to it. If I could jump high enough and crawl onto it, I might be able to get inside.

  “I don’t know about this,” said Nazif, glancing back toward the street.

  “I can do it,” I insisted, jumping for the fire escape and missing. Repeatedly. Nazif tried, too, but he wasn’t much taller than me.

  Then I realized that the walls of the two buildings on either side of me were made of brick. Brick was basically a rock. When I thought about it, I wasn’t in an alley, but in a canyon. I pushed my back against the wall of the neighboring building and put my feet on the façade of the Lycian Society, and began to inch my way up while Nazif watched in awe. I scraped my back on something but ignored the sting and pressed on.