Vengeance. Mystery Writers of America Presents B00A25NLU4

out. She was wearing one of her sister’s short skirts, a low-cut top, and ballet shoes on her feet. In her shoulder bag were silver high heels, a pair of fashionably outsize Jackie O. sunglasses, and her cousin’s burka. Out in the hall was the family bike that she’d oiled and left ready. And she’d picked the day very carefully.
    Her grandfather was a cricket fanatic. He was already in his armchair with various fruit juices and nibbles in easy reach, getting ready for the first day of the England-Pakistan match being played in London. Every ball would be shown on the TV, along with the replays and analyses. Rukshana knew her grandfather; he wouldn’t be moving from that spot all day. He might briefly go upstairs for a call of nature, but even that wasn’t certain. Where cricket was concerned, he had very firm bladder control. And there was a house rule — no one disturbed Granddad when the cricket was on. Knocks on the door went unanswered, the phone was left to ring, and any attempt to start a conversation was ignored.
    When the first ball of the match was bowled, Rukshana looked up at the clock on the wall. It was half past eleven. She had thirty minutes to complete the first part of her plan.
    “I’m just going upstairs to read a book.”
    She was met with silence. Out in the hall she put on her cousin’s burka and wheeled the bike out onto the street. Very, very gently, she pulled the front door shut. She mounted the bike and began pedaling, the burka wrapped around her, only her eyes visible. She rode to the end of her street and turned onto the main road that led to the City.
    On a typical day in London, you could see almost anyone dressed almost any way, but even so, a woman cycling in a burka was unusual. Truant schoolkids laughed as she flew by. Some drivers did double takes when they saw her, which were quickly followed by contemptuous stares directed not at her but at her burka. Rukshana almost wobbled on her bike, she was so shaken by the response to her clothing. She’d heard women in her family talk about how they were sometimes insulted and verbally abused on the street when they wore their burkas, but Rukshana hadn’t thought it was as bad as this. And — perhaps it was inevitable — one guy leaned out of the window of his van and yelled “Terrorist!” when she stopped at a traffic light. She threw off her shock. She began to feel mad and bad. She felt like an outlaw.
    It took her twenty minutes to arrive at her destination, a quiet side street two blocks away from the bank where she’d worked. She parked the bike, locked it up, and checked the street. There was no one looking. She pulled the burka off over her head and put it in her bag before swapping her slippers for the high heels. She put on sunglasses. She used a mirror to apply some makeup and arrange her long raven-black hair so that it waved and flowed around her face. She smiled at her image. She looked fantastic, nothing like her normal headscarf-wearing self. She couldn’t help thinking that she could give her sister a run for her money in the looks department.
    Unsteadily at first, but with growing confidence, she clip-clopped down the street on her heels and then turned onto the main road. With her new look, she might as well have been in a different country. The same sort of male drivers who had given her dirty looks when she’d been on her bike were now slowing down to admire her bronzed legs. When a man leaned out of a van’s window and shouted, “Oi, oi! Do you fancy a portion, sweetheart?” Rukshana avoided eye contact and kept walking. She wondered if it was the same man who’d shouted “Terrorist!” at her fifteen minutes earlier.
    She walked the two blocks. On the left was the bank, and on the right was a small park where the staff sometimes went to eat their lunches. Rukshana took a seat on a bench that gave her a view of the entrance to the bank. She crossed her long bare legs and looked at her watch. It was 11:55 a.m. She’d made it. A bicycle courier walked past her wheeling his bike; he clocked her legs, and she heard him whisper “Asian babe” as he went by. She smiled and looked at her watch. It was noon. She looked over to the entrance and sure enough, just as Kelly had foretold, Jeff emerged from the bank and walked down the steps. He adjusted his tie and ran his fingers through his hair a few times before trotting off and turning down a side street.
    Five minutes after that, Sarah too came