don’t like to keep secrets, but if you tell Dad that Uncle Camden included me in his will Dad’s blood pressure will shoot through the stratosphere.”
“I’ll let him know you called and that you’re all right. But you have to call me back and let me know what’s going on.”
“Promise. I love you, Momma.”
“I love you more, hummingbird.”
Sasha’s chest suffused with love at the sound of her pet name. She waited for the click on the other end of the line before placing the phone back on its cradle. Sasha slid off the bed and stretched as her toes sunk into the carpet before slipping into the hotel slippers and donning the plush terry bathrobe.
Spying a small counter with a coffee pot, tea and snacks, her stomach growled, reminding Sasha that she hadn’t eaten since arriving on the East Coast. Just as she crossed the living area, she heard a knock on the door.
Sasha secured the belt around her robe and opened the door. A hotel attendant smiled and Sasha stepped aside as the man wheeled in a dish-laden cart. “Good morning,” she greeted him.
“Morning, I hope you don’t mind that I’m a little late. We had a little problem with the service elevator this morning. But don’t let that bother you because the toast should still be warm and the coffee could still scald the living daylights out of a man.”
Sasha laughed and shook her head as she let go of the doorknob and let the door swing closed. “I wasn’t expecting breakfast, so cold or hot really doesn’t matter to me since I’m starving.”
Her eyes, which had just minutes before been narrow slits, opened when the smell of fresh roasted coffee wafted into her nostrils. He sat the cart alongside the windows and pushed back the curtains, letting bright sunlight into the room. She crossed the room and picked up one of the silver covers to discover fresh croissants, muffins, toast, fruit and an assortment of jams.
“This is enough to feed a small family.”
“The Ritz might be cheap when it comes close to Christmas bonus time, but they don’t play around with making the guests feel welcome.”
“Would you like to join me for breakfast?”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Originally? No. I was born in North Carolina, but I’ve spent most of my life traveling.”
He chuckled and a smile slid up his face. “You know, we’re not really supposed to talk to the guests.”
Happy to hear American English and be in the company of a fellow person of color, she winked. “I won’t tell if you won’t. How about a cup of coffee?”
“All right. My name is Frank.”
After a half hour of food and conversation, Sasha locked the hotel door behind Frank and made her way to the bathroom. All it took was one quick look into the wall-length mirror to ruin her easy morning. The Senegalese woman who’d braided her hair had done an excellent job. But hiking through tropical forests and moving through thick underbrush had turned her stunning hairstyle into a complete disaster. The cornrows were in dire need of rebraiding. Since that wasn’t an option and she didn’t possess a proper hat or scarf, she sighed heavily. Sasha sat on top of the closed toilet seat, reached over her head and pursued her only option. Wincing at the thought, she began the two-hour process of unbraiding her hair.
People should be required to give three months’ notice before dying.
Sasha reached into her purse, pulled out a small packet of facial tissues, and wiped away a stray tear. So what if dying was an inevitable part of life—her uncle Camden should have told her he was terminally ill with cancer and he was putting her in the will.
Sasha balled the damp tissue in her hand and looked out the window at the passing scenery. The afternoon sunshine felt warm against her skin, but she turned away and closed her eyes. She let the motion of the moving car and butter-soft leather seats against her spine lull her into a calm state. But not even soothing jazz pouring from the invisible back speakers could rid her of the sense of loss and sadness.
She was feeling guilty and angry, and she hated it. Hated that she’d been off on the other side of the world while her godfather had suffered. Hated the fact that she hadn’t called or written in over a month. If only she’d known…
Her nails dug into the armrest and she resisted the urge to rub her eyes as she contemplated the remainder of the day. Uncle Camden’s attorneys had arranged for the three-hundred-dollar-a-night suite with all the perks money could buy, but she’d barely slept a wink. The idea of spending an afternoon of sitting with people she didn’t know and finding out that she might have inherited things that she didn’t want had kept her awake throughout the transcontinental flight. Sasha shivered with the thought.
This was the first time in her memory that someone she loved had died. Both her maternal and paternal grandparents had died when she was a baby. Her mother and father had been only children and keeping with what she called the Clayton tradition, Sasha was on only child. Not for lack of trying for a little brother or sister. Her mother’s second miscarriage had guaranteed that she would be the only offspring. If the day came that she actually took part in the mating cycle and got married, she vowed to have at least three kids. Every child should have a sibling. Instead of having an older brother or younger sister, she’d been alone. Of course, that meant extra attention from her parents and the undivided love of Uncle Camden, but she could have traded it all to not feel the loneliness she felt at that moment.
“Here we are, miss.”
The car stopped and the driver began to unbuckle his seat belt in preparation for opening the door, but Sasha waved him off. “I can get the door.”
“Of course, I shall be returning you to the hotel. Please wait in the lobby for me.”
“Thank you.” Sasha looked the driver again. Short black curly hair with a smattering of silver. She’d been too distracted and upset to pay attention to the man when he’d picked her up at the airport the day before. But now she noticed his British accent. It wasn’t the fashionable accent of the international reporters she often met in her travels, but the familiar lilt of Uncle Camden’s British lilt. Feeling another bout of weeping coming on, she scrambled out of the car.
Sasha stepped out of the taxi into a landscaped lower plaza. A cold breeze hit her cheek as the car door closed behind her. She pulled the winter air deep into her lungs, let it out slowly and released a smidgen of tension. A clear blue sky complete with tiny dots of clouds reflected off the doors. She instinctively tilted her back and she looked upward over the glass-and-steel structure. Her eyes landed on the top of the building and she blinked in pleasant surprise. Unlike most of the skyscrapers she encountered in her travels, she didn’t find the pointed top. Instead, the building hosted two half circles like delicate wings curving toward one another.
Shaking off her thoughts, Sasha gripped her purse and joined in the stream of people entering the building. Men and women were dressed in the latest business wear chic. By the time Sasha made it from the automatic glass doors to the richly appointed elevator lobby, she’d lost count of the number of designer handbags, ties, timepieces, cell phones and wireless headsets.
Sasha felt more out of place than ever, not that she didn’t blend in. She’d had her herringbone black suit custom-made from one of the best tailors in Bangkok. So what if the Brooks Brothers design
