Dawson heard the airport announcer in the background over the phone. “Sounds like they’re calling your flight, sir. I appreciate your time. Have a safe journey.”
BEFORE RETURNING HOME, Dawson rode the short distance from CID headquarters to a district of Accra called Osu, where his older brother, Cairo, owned a curio shop. Besides trying to stop by to see Cairo at least once a week, Dawson made it a rule to do his best to visit anytime he was going out of town. He supposed it was a kind of superstition that if anything happened to him on the road, Cairo would at least be able to look back and say that he had spent time with his younger brother, Darko, not long before he died.
Cairo had been a paraplegic since he was a teenager. In a tragedy that had occurred in just a few seconds but would affect him for the rest of his life, a car had hit him as he crossed the street on the way to buy some provisions. Flying up over the roof of the car and down the back, he had severed his spine and become paralyzed from the waist down.
In years past, he had relied heavily on the care of others, but the Cairo of today was fiercely independent, far from helpless, and doing very well for himself. His curio shop was located along the tourist trap, clustered around Oxford Street. It was packed with souvenir vendors, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, banks, and telecom giants like Vodafone. During the global economic downturn, Cairo had fallen on a rough time, as had other merchants, but he had survived and trade had picked up again. Until only a couple of years ago, he had been single, but now he was married to Audrey, a gem of a woman, and they had one daughter.
The shop, Ultimate Craft, was air-conditioned and filled with the sweet smell of wood and leather goods. Recently Cairo had expanded, buying out the neighboring shop and annexing it. Georgina, his faithful store manager, greeted Dawson and told him his brother was in his office.
Dawson poked his head around the door. “Busy?”
Cairo looked up and grinned. “Darko, come in! Not really. I’m only pretending.”
Dawson laughed and leaned down to hug his brother. “How are you?”
“Fine-just going over the books,” he said, waving at the laptop on his desk. “You know how that is.”
He was three years older than Dawson and had the same closely shaved hairstyle. They resembled each other in the face, but the physiques differed. Cairo, athletic as a boy before the accident, was now chunkier than his younger brother, although he had recently lost weight on the orders of his doctor.
