London Twist: A Delilah Novella

really cared about at this point. Fatima could tell her anything at all about her brother and anything else, but if Delilah didn’t get that password—
    She didn’t want to think about it.
    She wished again she’d brought her camera. The light was so delicate, and Fatima, with her sad expression, so lovely in it. And then she had an idea—an idea that, even as it blossomed, she realized her subconscious had been trying to serve up to her for some time.
    “Merde,”
she said, “I wish I had brought my camera.”
    “The sunset?”
    Delilah laughed. “No, my dear. You.”
    Fatima took a sip of wine. “You’re way too nice.”
    “Let’s go back to the room. We can take the wine. The sky is going to be gorgeous—lavender and indigo and with that crescent moon rising, too—perfect for the magazine. And I want to shoot you, too. In this light, I promise you will look sad and solemn and not at all fashionable. Nothing that could detract from your well-deserved activist image, all right? Nothing that could make someone suspect there might be another side to you.”
    Fatima smiled—a touch nervously? “You think I’m hiding something?”
    “I think you’re afraid of something, yes. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know if you do, either. All I know is, you haven’t let me shoot you since we arrived.”
    Fatima gave her a theatrical sigh. “All right, let’s go back. I don’t know why you like to shoot me so much, but at least I can keep you company while you work.”
    Interesting. Not an acceptance, but not a refusal, either.
    They took the wine and walked back to the bungalow. Delilah noted the laptop on the coffee table in front of the couch. Good. She brought her equipment out to the deck and began to set up. Fatima came to the sliding door and said, “You get your shots—I’m going to take a shower.”
    Delilah smiled. “Don’t think you will escape me that easily.”
    Fatima laughed. “Don’t worry, I don’t.”
    Delilah used a tripod and a long exposure to capture some dramatic shots of Mount Otemanu, silhouetted by a violet sky and set off by the moon. The magazine would be pleased. When the best of the light had faded, she went inside. Fatima was coming out of the bathroom wearing one of the hotel terrycloth robes, her hair wrapped in a towel.
    “If this is how you plan to get me not to shoot you,” Delilah said, “it won’t work.”
    Fatima smiled. “How was the rest of the sunset?”
    “Lovely. Though not as lovely as you.”
    She set the camera down on the coffee table next to the bottle of wine and Fatima’s laptop. The lights were already quite low, and Delilah lit a pair of candles the hotel had thoughtfully left on the end table next to the couch. She sat, poured two glasses of wine, picked up both, and extended one to Fatima. “Join me?”
    Fatima sat. They touched glasses and drank.
    Delilah set her glass down and picked up the camera. “Look straight ahead.”
    Fatima regarded her with mock suspicion. “Why?”
    “Trust me.”
    Fatima turned her head. Delilah raised the camera and snapped a shot. Fatima looked at her and said, “You’re really not going to let me stop you, are you?”
    Delilah smiled. “When we’re done, you can take the card and do anything you want with it.” She poured more wine. “Here, this will relax you.”
    Fatima laughed. “Do I not seem relaxed?”
    “Maybe just a little tense.”
    “Well, we wouldn’t want that.”
    “No. I want you to enjoy.”
    Was there some double entendre there? She wasn’t sure. She realized she was a bit more drunk than she’d intended.
    But… that concern she had, that Fatima might think she was coming on to her. She realized again this was something her unconscious was trying to tell her. If Fatima had any operational suspicions, any vague sense of ulterior motives, the possibility that Delilah might be attracted to her would provide a ready explanation her conscious mind could grab onto, to soothe the suspicions away.
    Or was she rationalizing? She decided it didn’t matter—the dynamic would work either way.
    She looked at the image she had just shot in the camera’s viewfinder. “Hmm, nice, but a little dark. Hang on.”
    She got up, grabbed her iPhone, and quickly booted Kent’s app. Then she switched over to a light-meter app, which Fatima wouldn’t know she didn’t really need, and theatrically adjusted her camera and the two candles accordingly. She set the iPhone down next to