Viking Bay by M. A. Lawson

prepping in New York, in which case she wouldn’t be in town. She’d ask Mercer about that tomorrow.
    â€œWould you mind taking care of the dishes?” Jessica asked.
    â€œHey, of course,” Kay said. “You cooked.”
    â€œThanks. Brian and I are going to a show.”
    Huh.
She wondered if they were really going to a show. She wondered if that horny little bastard’s parents were out of the house and they were planning to go to his place to fool around. But instead of saying what she was thinking, she said, “What are you going to see?”
    â€œThe new Woody Allen.”
    â€œWoody’s a whiny little wimp,” Kay said.
    â€œHe’s a genius,” Jessica said.
    â€œYeah, right, a genius who . . . Aw, forget it. You just make sure you’re home at a decent hour. You got school tomorrow.” Kay knew that was a totally unnecessary thing to say to her overachiever daughter. What she’d really wanted to say was:
You come right back after that show, young lady, because if that boy knocks you up, I’m going to shoot him.
    â€”
    KAY CLEANED UP the kitchen, then unlocked her briefcase and pulled out the background material Anna Mercer had given her on Ara Khan.
    The Callahan Group had done a lot of research on Ara, had looked at every record they could find, and talked to over thirty people who had known her. The picture that emerged during Ara’s high school and college years was: normal girl, even normal Western girl.
    Ara wasn’t religious—she never attended a mosque while she was abroad, nor had anyone ever seen her praying—and she appeared to like the things that most young girls liked: fashion, movies, music, and boys. While attending high school in France, she’d been chaperoned by teachers at the school she attended but was able to travel extensively throughout Europe. She skied in the Alps every year, and when she went to the beaches on the Costa del Sol, she wore a bikini. Although she socialized with boys her own age, there was no evidence the Group could find that she’d ever had a lover while in France. Nor was there any evidence that she’d been particularly close to anyone, male or female, while in Europe.
    Things changed in college, primarily due to her roommate at NYU—Carolyn Harris. Carolyn, as Callahan had said, was a bit of a wild thing. She partied a lot and dated a lot—meaning she slept around a lot—got drunk fairly often, occasionally did a little recreational dope, and in general seemed to go through life having a good time while managing to maintain a C average at NYU.
    She introduced Ara to New York: shopping, after-hours clubs, booze, and men. Harris’s wealthy Connecticut family also appeared to have adopted Ara, as she spent a lot of weekends and holidays at their estate in Connecticut. Carolyn Harris’s mother told one of Callahan’s investigators that she thought of Ara as a daughter and as a sister to Carolyn.
    Ara, either due to her background or just plain common sense, was more restrained than Carolyn Harris. It appeared that quite often Ara was the one who managed to get Harris safely back to the dorm after Harris had imbibed too much. In college, Ara had sexual relationships with at least two men. She dated one of them—a now-married stockbroker in Boston—most of her sophomore year. The second man she dated for only four months but slept with him. Kay had no idea how Callahan’s investigators had obtained this information. Also, unlike Harris, Ara was a serious student and had almost a straight-A average. She didn’t join any campus organizations but frequently attended lectures on political topics when lecturers appeared in New York.
    Kay had to admit that she was beginning to develop a grudging admiration for Ara’s father, Sahid Khan. He may have been a corrupt thug, but in a country where women were often married off at the age of thirteen,