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Wishing you love, peace and courage in life,
Rula Sinara
To parents and teachers around the world—and often far off the grid—for loving and putting children first, no matter what unique challenges must be overcome. Your patience, strength and dedication to their emotional well-being and education paves the way for brighter futures for each of them and, hence, a better
tomorrow for all.
Contents
THEY WERE MISSING.
Dax Calder muttered a curse and tossed his laptop, satellite phone and several rock samples, on the hand-carved poster bed that occupied the bungalow’s main living space. He double-checked the adjoining bedroom, where his identical twin daughters were supposed to be waiting for him.
The room was in perfect order, down to their suitcases—one purple and one green—sitting uncharacteristically neat and aligned at the ends of their timber-pole framed beds. Two binders of math practice assigned from their virtual classes lay on a small writing table tucked in the far corner. He had a feeling the twins hadn’t touched a math problem since he’d left them three hours ago. Sheer white curtains danced over a colorful, handwoven tapestry rug in front of the sliding doors which led to a private, lava stone patio.
Escaped. Not kidnapped. Or killed. Or—God help him—eaten alive.
He raked back his hair and started for the open door. His flash of panic dulled to a smoldering irritation the second he spotted a piece of paper with a pair of cheeky smiley faces drawn on it taped to the glass behind the billowing sheers. Not again.
Their modus operandi. Cryptic notes. Nothing but the sketched faces and “bored x 2” written under them. How many times had he told them that they needed to stay put until he returned? Three hours was all he’d asked for out of desperation. Their nanny hadn’t arrived in Kenya yet, and the chief engineer overseeing the oil field extension Dax had been contracted to survey had set up a meeting this morning.
Dax ripped the paper down and crumpled it. It wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with their escapades. Using their twin factor to play pranks with hotel staff whenever he traveled was probably half the reason the hotels he frequented knew him so well. He wouldn’t be surprised if his name was tagged with a warning note: Beware of the twins.
Only he’d never stayed here at the Tabara Lodge before. Heck. They’d never stayed anywhere this exotic. He wasn’t worried about them sneaking into a hotel kitchen and switching the salt and sugar, or dressing up as the Grady twins from The Shining and knocking on random hotel room doors at night. No, at the Tabara Lodge he was more worried about what they’d run into. This was Africa...as in safari land.
As stunning as Kenya was, there was dangerous wildlife out there, and the girls’ idea of survival and self-preservation was limited to some pact they had never to rat on each other.
Dax tugged at the collar of his polo shirt, where it chafed the back of his neck. He paused only for a second to secure the door they’d left open.
He’d told them a million times to keep the bungalow locked up so that nothing would get stolen. He’d expected them to stay locked in because it made
