Free The Garden of Burning Sand by Corban Addison

felt a twinge of hope. “Are her parents still alive?”
    Doris shook her head. “I think they are dead.”
    “And her extended family?”
    “I don’t know. She never talked about them.”
    Zoe took the conversation in a different direction. “When Bella brought men here, what did she do with Kuyeya?”
    Doris stood. “I will show you.”
    Zoe followed her down the hallway to the door on the right. The room beyond was bare except for a mattress and a chest of drawers.
    “This was her place,” Doris said. “Now I rent it to other girls. When Bella did business here, she put Kuyeya in the bathroom. When she went out, she left Kuyeya in this room.”
    On the far wall, Zoe saw thin marks in pairs and triplets. She knelt down and examined them carefully. From their spacing, she guessed they had been made by fingernails. She pictured the girl scoring the wall, and remembered Joy Herald’s explanation of the stigma of disability. The indignation she felt was tempered by sorrow.
    “Bella was popular with the men,” Doris said when they returned to the living room. “But she never had enough money. She was always giving it to
ngangas
for Kuyeya’s medicine.”
    Zoe frowned. An
nganga
was a traditional healer. “Why didn’t she go to a clinic?”
    “She trusted the
ngangas
. They helped us with STDs.”
    “Did the men Bella brought here ever … touch Kuyeya?”
    Doris looked horrified. “No. The child was not available.”
    Zoe took a breath. “We think her rapist may have been a client of yours or Bella’s. Can you think of any man who showed an interest in her?”
    Doris shook her head. “Kuyeya was like a shadow. A spirit. When Bella put her in the bathroom, she gave her medicine to sleep. The men left her alone.”
    Zoe sat back against the couch. Doris’s lifestyle and Bella’s history were interesting but irrelevant without a connection to a suspect. Then an idea came to her. It was bizarre, really—on the far side of remote. But she had no other cards to play.
    “Did you ever keep a record of your clients? Did Bella?”
    Doris narrowed her eyes and vanished into the hallway, returning moments later with a spiral-bound notebook. “Bella liked to write,” she said, handing the book to Zoe. “I am not good at reading, but I kept it. Other than Kuyeya, it was her most precious possession.”
    Zoe studied the notebook. Its cover was worn, its pages dog-eared. On the inside cover, Bella had written in English: “V OLUME 3: A PRIL 2004—”
    “When did Bella die?” she asked Doris quietly.
    “The winter of 2009. July, I think.”
    Zoe pointed at the inside cover. “This says ‘Volume 3.’ Are there other notebooks?”
    “That’s the only one I have seen.”
    “Zikomo,”
Zoe said. “I’m sorry to ask such difficult questions.”
    “Life is difficult,” Doris replied. “Is the child well?”
    “She’s in good hands.”
    Doris nodded gratefully. “I owe Bella a debt I can never repay.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Ask her,” Doris said, gesturing at the book. “I think she will tell you.”
    When Zoe emerged from the apartment, the sun hung low and molten above the horizon, and traffic on Chilimbulu Road was at a near standstill. She glanced at her watch and searched the crowded roadway for Joseph. It was almost 5:30 p.m. He was nowhere to be seen.
    She leaned against the fender of his truck, waiting. She saw a group of boys knocking a soccer ball around. One of them gave the ball a swift kick—too swift for the intended recipient—and the ball rolled in Zoe’s direction. She scooped it up and walked toward them, intending to ask about Joseph, when she saw him striding toward her, holding a stuffed doll and a pair of wire-framed eyeglasses.
    “Where did you find those?” she asked, tossing the ball back to the boys.
    “I could ask you the same thing,” he said, eyeing the notebook in her hands.
    “I asked first.”
    He grinned. “I’ll show you.”
    She followed him down the