Page 8 of Grave Danger

“I see this as a humanitarian issue, not a political one.”

“That makes the case even more interesting to me.”

“Ultimately, it’s up to Ava to decide whether she wants you to be her lawyer.”

“Ava is her name?”

“She goes by the name Ava Bazzi,” said Myra.

“Goes by? You mean she’s using an alias?”

Myra drew a deep breath, as if there were so much more to the story. “Two years ago, Tehran’s morality police arrested Ava Bazzi for taking part in a hijab protest. She was taken to an Iranian jail. That’s the last anyone has seen of her.”

“I remember hearing about the protests in the news.”

“Ava did get news coverage at the time, but so did others. Over five hundred demonstrators were killed or disappeared. Amnesty International was very vocal about it. All those stories lost traction when the mainstream media turned to bigger international issues after Russia invaded Ukraine.”

“And now, out of the blue, Ava Bazzi reappears in Miami as a respondent in a lawsuit filed under the Hague Convention?”

“Or does she? Most rational minds—governments excluded—believe Ava Bazzi died in custody at the hands of the morality police.”

“So you’re saying this is not the real Ava Bazzi? That this case is not about keeping a mother and her child together?”

“That’s the threshold question. The Iranian government says Ava abandoned her husband and fled to the West with her daughter.”

Jack finished Myra’s point for her. “So, if the Iranian government is right, and this is, in fact, Ava Bazzi, the stakes could not be higher.”

“Absolutely.”

“But if you’re right—the real Ava Bazzi is dead, and someone else abducted Yasmin—then what?”

“Then we have a potential international crisis that threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the Hague Convention and all the good work this organization does for abused mothers in desperate need of help all over the world—which both Harry and I entrust to you.”

“I get the picture,” said Jack.

“Either way, it should be a very interesting first meeting with your new client.”

Jack looked past her, gazing through the window toward the White House. “Interesting, to say the least.”

Chapter 3

Jack’s day trip to Washington carried over to the next day. He landed in Miami late Wednesday afternoon and drove straight from the airport to his law office.

Myra Weiss had essentially locked him in a conference room with a Georgetown law professor for the required crash course on the Hague Convention, international child abduction, and child custody law. His training included case studies, which only confirmed that, way too often, the accused abductor was an abused woman fleeing domestic violence. The other point the professor impressed upon him was the speed at which the cases moved through the court system. “Six weeks from filing to finish,” she’d told Jack. “In the world of jurisprudence, a Hague proceeding is a sprint, not a marathon.”

There was no time to waste. Jack called Andie from the car and told her he would not be home for dinner; he had a seven o’clock meeting in his office. His client arrived early and was waiting on the front porch when his car pulled up in the driveway.

“I’m Jack,” he said as he unlocked the front door.

“Do you live here?” she asked. “This looks more like a house than an office.”

Jack smiled and showed her inside. It actuallywasa house that dated back to the 1920s, built in the old Florida style with external walls of coral rock, a gabled roof covered in Cuban barrel tile, and, on the inside, refurbished floors of Dade County pine. Over the years the neighborhood had transitioned from residential to commercial, one old house after another transformed into a doctor’s office, a wine bar, a Pilates studio, or a cigar shop. The area was especially popular with criminal defense lawyers,who could practically walk to the courthouse along the Miami River. Jack’s office was in the oldest house on the block, once home to Florida pioneer Julia Tuttle.

“Sometimes my wife does accuse me of living here,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I’m keeping you away from your family, aren’t I?”

“Not at all,” he said, though, truthfully, she was.