Chapter 44 - The Brother in the Photograph
The car stopped at the far end of the lot. A man stepped out but did not approach. He stood beside the driver’s door, watching Samira.
The investigator’s team moved into view. The man returned to his car and drove away before anyone could reach him.
Samira did not run. She sat at the table and held her hands together as if she were trying to keep them from shaking.
“Was that Henry Rusk?” the investigator asked.
“I don’t know his name,” Samira said. “He came to my apartment last week. He said he worked for the government and that my brother had been found.”
“Was your brother with him?”
“No. He said my brother was in trouble and needed to be moved.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I did at first. Then he asked me to sign a release form.”
“What kind of release?”
“He said it would allow them to place my brother in a protected program. I asked to read it. He told me there was no time.”
Nadia’s expression hardened. “Did you sign?”
“No. I took a picture of it with my phone. That’s when he left.”
“Do you still have the picture?” the investigator asked.
Samira nodded, then handed over her phone. The form listed a different name for her brother, but the destination address was an office connected to a contractor that had once worked with Grayline.
The investigator called the office. It had closed several years earlier. The building was now occupied by a nonprofit that assisted refugees and veterans.
“Was your brother ever part of the relocation program?” I asked.
“Yes. He was sixteen. After Kunar, they said he would be safer if he left the country. I didn’t see him again.”
“Who told you?”
“Dr. Shaw’s assistant. She said he was being taken to stay with family. But my brother had no family outside our province.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
Samira looked at me. “I was told the same thing you were told. That questions would put everyone at risk.”
Nadia leaned in. “Did you believe that?”
“I was afraid. I had watched my brother disappear. I thought if I spoke, they would make him disappear again.”
The investigator asked for his name. Samira gave it: Amir Rahal. He would be in his late twenties now.
The photograph in the tube showed him as a teenager. The man who had left the car could have been Amir, but Samira could not be sure. She had not seen him in more than ten years.
“Why did you send the message to Claire?” Nadia asked.
“Because I remembered her warning me not to sign anything. You were the one they kept calling a patient. Claire was the first person who asked whether I had chosen the name on my chart.”
I had no memory of it, but the photograph and the note made the moment feel real.
“I didn’t do enough,” I said.
“You did one thing,” Samira replied. “I didn’t forget it.”
The investigator arranged for Samira to be interviewed in a secure office, with an interpreter of her choice. She agreed on one condition: no one would contact Amir without her consent.
“Do you think he’s alive?” Jonah asked when Samira had left with the liaison.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I know someone used his name to make me sign a form.”
Before we returned to the farm, the investigator received a call from a lawyer representing the nonprofit in Baltimore. A young man had arrived that afternoon asking to speak with Samira. He had said his name was Amir Rahal.
“He’s alive,” Samira said.
The relief lasted only a second.
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The lawyer added that Amir had left before they could verify his identity.
And he had taken the original file from the nonprofit’s office.
