Page 34 of Over the Edge

“Any sign of our tails?” she asked him.

“Let’s cross the street, such as it is, and I’ll check.”

The alley here had widened enough for a single car, or perhaps two narrow donkey-drawn carts to pass.

She looked ahead of them while Trevor cleared behind.

“We’ve got company,” Trevor muttered.

“We’ll have to ditch the bags. They’re slowing us down too much,” she replied.

“Suggestions?”

“In here,” she bit out, ducking into an apothecary. The store’s shelves were crammed with glass jars holding dried herbs, spices, and powders. The smell was dusty and pungent.

A corpulent, middle-aged woman sat on a stool behind the counter toward the back of the narrow space. When she spotted Trevor, she reached for a fold of her black scarf and drew it across her lower face.

Anna spoke urgently. “Auntie, we need help. The religious police are following us because my fiancé is Western. May we leave our luggage here for a little while? We’ll pay you five thousand zaris now and five thousand more when we pick up our bags.” Five thousand zaris was around twenty-five dollars—not chump change in this part of the world.

The woman gestured for them to bring the bags to her. Anna and Trevor rolled their suitcases behind the counter, and their rescuer spread her voluminous robes out to hide the bags.

A pair of male shadows appeared through the front window.

“Out the back,” the woman whispered urgently.

Anna slipped through a hanging curtain with Trevor on her heels. They darted the narrow length of a storeroom as the woman in the front started talking in Zagari, insistently trying to sell the men herbs for male performance enhancement. God bless her.

Anna followed Trevor into an alley that was practically nighttime dark, no more than six feet wide, and so claustrophobic she struggled to breathe against the stench of too many humans and too little modern plumbing.

Three women moved toward her in a cluster, wearing shapeless robes and long veils that swathed them in black. Even their eyes were covered with black lace panels.

Crap. This was an ultra-conservativemohallah. Anna hastily yanked her own scarf across her face and tucked the loose end under a bobby pin. “Get in front of me and walk casual,” she bit out under her breath at Trevor.

He frowned, but moved ahead of her. Eyes down, she fell in at his heels. She didn’t enjoy playing subservient wife, but they had to blend in as much as possible.

Trevor’s pace was maddeningly slow in front of her, but then, she’d told him to act casual. Still. She was vividly aware of stares boring into her back. The locals were no doubt staring at the strangers wandering through this street way too far off the beaten path for tourists to stumble into. Maybe it was dark enough that nobody would notice Trevor’s light, gold eyes. He did have dark hair, so it was possible they would at least be mistaken for locals.

They approached an intersection, and Trevor muttered, “Which way?”

Left took them toward her grandmother’s house. But they dared not lead the tails to her doorstep. “Right,” she breathed.

Trevor veered right. As soon as they rounded the corner, he picked up speed, stretching his stride out until she almost had to run to keep up. Thankfully, they both wore crepe-soled shoes, and their rapid passage was mostly silent, marked only by the occasional splash through a puddle.

Another intersection.

“Left,” she instructed.

They wound through the maze for another half-hour, while she did her darnedest not to get lost or turned around.

Finally, Trevor stopped in front of her…which she figured out by running into his back. He grunted and stumbled a bit.

“Sorry.”

“If you want to make a pass at me, love, all you have to do is say so,” Trevor said drolly.

“Hah. You would have no idea how to respond if I did,” she retorted.

He turned swiftly. “Try me.” His eyes were shadowed in the dim alley, but still they blazed with desire.

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