Fourteen
Malik invited Fatima to dinner at the Malibu house, partly because he hated the idea of having to sit down to eat by himself, and also because he knew his sister was in a similar predicament, her own Chosen gone as well. He thought it better for the two of them to be together so they could commiserate. Anyway, it wasn’t healthy for her to sit by herself in her big empty house and wait for word about Adam, word that might never come. If, by some grace of God, a new development arose, the djinn in the Bel-Air community could reach out to her and have her come home quickly enough.
She seemed to have recognized the dinner invitation for what it was, and did her best to be animated as they ate their food and drank some wine and attempted to discuss everything except the kidnappings o
