Read Online White Bone by Ridley Pearson - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t escape him that an arranged trip, one he had not signed up for, could well be a trap. But staging an abduction while he was in the company of other hotel guests had to be the lamest idea he’dever heard. Knox checked for messages on both phone numbers he carried, switching out the SIM cards and restarting his phone. Nothing.
    Moving through the lobby, he made note of everyone he saw, including a husband and wife in the gift shop. Nothing out of the ordinary, not that he found that reassuring. He was unlikely to spot a true professional.
    Outside, flags hung, lifeless, in the painfully hot exhaust-filled air. Taxis waited in a queue, drivers sharing smokes. Hotel guests came and went on foot, some asking questions of the various bellmen. The traffic was as bad as the night before.
    Approaching a white high-top van bearing a tour company logo, Knox remained on high alert for a possible attempt to grab him. His gut wrenched at the thought of Grace, coming down these same steps, facing this same street.
    The van held a half-dozen anxious-looking hotel guests. Knox spoke his name for the sake of the driver and ducked inside. He apologized to the others, crammed his legs in behind the passenger seat. A bellman slid the van’s side door shut, his eyes expressionless, his smile practiced.
    “Please enjoy,” he said.
    Knox studied the faces of his fellow passengers. A woman riding shotgun was using the visor mirror, attempting to rub the white of her sun cream away. Knox used the mirror, too; watched for anyone overly interested in him, anyone reaching for a phone. He scratched off his list the retired couple from Ohio who’d been outfitted by Orvis. The African slacker and his Princeton-semester-abroad redhead were too small and self-absorbed.
    He assessed the remaining three: solo travelers; a buttoned-up middle-aged woman who showed little joy; and two black businessmen, one in his thirties, the other twice that. Nothing registered.He smelled body odor and suntan lotion, cologne and perfume. He saw camera bag straps and sunglasses and water bottles, jet lag and anticipation and a lot of sweating.
    The guide turned out to be the woman Knox had taken for the joyless middle-aged traveler. In guide mode, she snapped into an all-too-cheery robo-caller voice, nasal, with a thick South African accent. Kibera had been created as a land gift for Nubian soldiers returning from war in 1904, she told them. Over a century of use and expansion had left a sea of corrugated metal huts, open drains and overcrowding. The government estimated the population at a tenth of its nearly million souls. She rattled off some do’s and don’ts. Don’t pay anyone to take their photo; don’t buy bottled water from the children, it’s street water; negotiate every sale; be respectful; remember nearly everyone speaks English and can understand what you’re saying.
    Their arrival drew hordes of kids, trying to sell them souvenirs or the aforementioned bottled water. The guide cut a path through them and led her flock ahead. The smell of open sewers carried on a light breeze. Several tour guests clasped handkerchiefs over their noses, a practice the guide discouraged.
    The large number of roaming children, like flights of winter birds, followed in waves, adding to Knox’s sense of tragedy. He hated being associated with an “edutainment” tour, of curiously inspecting a place where a bottle cap was currency.
    The guide led them down narrow lanes between open-stall stands that sold everything from trinkets to Coke. Other Kibera residents had set up souvenir stands on inverted crates, displaying craftwork made from recycled plastic, aluminum cans and bottle caps. The people were clean, as were their colorful clothes. Their smiles genuine. Houseflies outnumbered people a thousand to one.
    Knox kept track of the guide as she took a moment with a woman at a souvenir stand. He witnessed an exchange, the passing of a note along with money. It went