Domino (The Domino Trilogy) (28 page)
Read Domino (The Domino Trilogy) Online
Authors: Jill Elaine Hughes
I felt as if all the wind had just been knocked out of me. Of course I knew only one person could poss
ibly be responsible---Peter Rostovich. But why? And moreover, how? Had Rostovich managed to track down my mother in another state less than 12 hours after meeting me and have a team of scary-looking dudes interrogate her? How the hell does that even happen?
“Mom, are you sure you’re aren’t pulling my leg?”
Mom gasped. “I would never joke about something like this, Nancy. I’ll send you a copy of the police report if you don’t believe me.”
“All right, all right, I believe you!” But that didn’t mean I understood. The whole thing
was mind-boggling. Was Rostovich some kind of one-man CIA or something? Was he even an artist at all, or was that just some kind of ruse, a cover for something else, something very sinister? Or could there be a perfectly innocent explanation? I had no idea.
“Nancy, are you listening to me?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, um, what?”
“I just asked you
---again---if you’re in some kind of trouble that you need to tell me about. It’s okay if you are, I just need to know so I can help.”
“No, Mom. I swear, everything is fine. Normal, even. I’m just going to school and work like I always do.”
Lie.
Big
lie.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
No, I’m not sure at all. But I’m not about to tell you the truth, because you’ll probably find some way to kill me through the phone.
“Nancy Adrienne Delaney, if I find out you’re lying to me----and if you are, I will---mark my words I’ll be on the first plane to Cleveland and I will make your life very unpleasant.”
“Mom, don’t talk to me like I’m twelve years old. I’m a grown woman, I can look after myself.”
“
Hmph. I’m not so sure. Even your father is in agreement with me on this point. He’s willing to cut his classes short for the semester and come with me if there’s something going on there that needs straightening out. I swear, I still think you should have stayed closer to home for college instead of jetting off to that Godforsaken wasteland. I can only imagine what strange things go on out there. I’m always terrified you’re going to get burned up in a wildfire or shot through the head by some nutbag Ted Nugent type.”
“Mom, they don’t have wildfires in Ohio.” Though I couldn’t exactly dispute her Ted Nugent remark. Cleveland was full of his gun-toting
white-supremacist fans. And if my dad was really on board with Mom on this, the situation had to be bad indeed. “Seriously though, I have no idea why this might have happened to you. And I’m very sorry it did. But that’s all I know to say.” I wasn’t being entirely truthful, but I really had no idea why or how such a thing could have happened. I spaced out then, trying in vain to come up with an explanation.
“NANCY!”
“Huh?”
“Are you watching TV instead of listening to me? You watch too much of that,
whatyoucallit,
Downton Abbey
nonsense. You do realize that program is not the least bit historically accurate, don’t you? Especially when it comes to the Irish independence movement. I wrote a scathing letter to the BBC about that just last week.”
“I’m sure you did, Mom. But no, I’m not watching TV. You woke me up out of a dead sleep. You know I’m always up late on Friday nights working.” To call what I did with
Rostovich last night
working
was stretching the truth quite a bit of course, but I didn’t figure it would be in my favor for Mom to think I had done anything last night besides cocktailing----her highly unfavorable opinion of such notwithstanding.
“
Hmph. I still can’t believe you work---and I use the term loosely----as a cheap cocktail waitress slinging booze at those Midwestern boobs. It’s sleazy, Nancy. It’s tragic you have to work at all. Students should just focus on their studies, not on earning dollar bills in a dirty cocktail outfit. Can’t you find something more respectable to do instead?”
“Not something that pays well,” I retorted. Of course, I’d just landed two perfectly respectable journalism gigs, one of them
quite well-paying----though what I’d gotten mixed up in since wasn’t exactly what I’d call respectable.
I had to shut this conver
sation down, pronto. I had too much to do, too many fires to put out, and having my mother breathing down my neck and threatening to fly to Cleveland was the absolute last thing I needed. “You know Mom, if you hadn’t blown your entire inheritance and maybe saved a little more money when I was growing up, I wouldn’t have to do stuff like this. I could just be a spoiled brat wearing Burberry and spending my summers frolicking across Europe instead, just like you did when you were my age.”
Dead silence.
I waited on the line while my mother digested that. I knew just how and where to hit her hard. God knew I’d had plenty of practice over the years. Finally, she spoke. “Nancy, that is grossly unfair.”
“It’s the truth.
And if you don’t mind, I really need to get back to my day. I have a lot of work to do. Tell Dad I said hi.” With that, I hung up before she could get another word out. It rang in my hand again almost 30 seconds later, Mom’s cell phone number on the caller ID. But I didn’t pick up. I had something I needed to do first.
After a brief trip to the bathroom and then to the kitchen for some milk and a bagel, I sat down at my computer, booted it up, and waited impatiently as the CPU and then the firewall software went through the start cycle. It seemed to be taking longer than usual, and I wondered if perhaps I’d been hacked.
It would certainly fit the tone of the past 24 hours if I had. By the time I finally got into Gmail, my palms were sweating and my heart was thumping in my chest.
I
logged into my account and found several angry-looking emails from my mom, all of which I deleted without reading past the first line. They were all just a general rehash of this morning’s phone conversation. There was also the usual spam and a couple of bulletins from my college professors about upcoming assignments. But the first email, marked “Urgent” with red font and a little flag, said only “Open Me” in the subject line with no identified sender. And there was an attachment.
Normally I would delete something like that as a potential Trojan Horse virus. But I knew it had to be from
Rostovich. It was definitely his style.
I double-clicked and the message opened.
To: Nancy Delaney <
[email protected]
>
From:
Subject: [none]
I trust you got some sleep?
Yours,
ROSTOVICH
I thought about deleting it without replying. I considered calling the
Plain Dealer
and telling them I wouldn’t be completing the assignment, or the
Art News Now
piece either. I considered booking an all-inclusive Caribbean resort vacation on my Discover card, jetting out of town that very same day and pretending the world didn’t exist until this whole mess blew over. But I didn’t do any of those things. Instead I typed this reply:
To:
[email protected]
>
Date: 23 June 2012, 11:15 am
Subject: [none]
Mr.
Rostovich, to quote Ricky Ricardo, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.
Nancy
There was an almost instant reply.
To: Nancy Delaney <
[email protected]
>
From:
Subject: [none]
I’m sorry, I don’t follow.
I hope you aren’t too tired and sore from our endeavors and therefore possibly speaking out of turn.
R.
To:
[email protected]
>
Date: 23 June 2012, 11:16 am
Subject: [none]
I never speak out of turn. But apparently you do. Or rather, your goons in other states do.
To: Nancy Delaney <
[email protected]
>
From:
Subject: [none]
“My goons in other states?” Again, Ms. Delaney, I don’t follow. Perhaps you are the one who should be doing the “splainin’.”
BTW, how is the article going?
To:
[email protected]
>
Date: 23 June 2012, 11:18 am
Subject: [none]
Don’t get coy with me. I just had to field an angry phone call from my mother in Boston demanding to know why a bunch of Russian goons in
a limo showed up at her office asking her all kinds of personal questions about me. Seriously, you want to know who my first-grade teacher was? Is that some kind of obscure sex fetish I’m not aware of? Perhaps a new safeword?
Like I said, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do, pal. And BTW, how the article is going is none of your freaking business, other than the fact that you can now probably forget about me using a favorable angle. At least in terms of
your
favor.
Bye.
To: Nancy Delaney <
[email protected]
>
From:
Subject: [none]
Oh dear. Calling you now. Hold tight, Ms. Delaney.
Delete this entire email string immediately. I’ll explain why on the phone. I’m calling your land line. Please pick up when I call.
I promise I won’t bite, Or send any goons.
R.
My landline rang almost immediately. “Hello?”
“Ms. Delaney. How lovely to hear your voice. Even lovelier to know that you are safe and sound.”
“And why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because if what you told me about your mother and those goons is true, you and she may both be in serious danger.”
“Of course it’s true. Why would I lie about something like that?”
“I’m not accusing you of lying. I know you to be honest and forthright, even if I have only known you for a couple of days. But I don’t know your mother.”
“My mom is a lot of kooky things, but she’s not a liar.”
“I believe you. You are proof that she has ethics. Your kind of convictions don’t just appear out of nowhere. I should say, Nancy, that I continue to be impressed by your gumption.”
Gumption.
Now that’s not a word I would ever have expected to come out of his mouth. It was more Andy Griffith than International Man of Mystery. “Quit stalling and get to the freaking point.”
“As you wish. Nancy, did your mother give a physical description of the---ahem---gentlemen who paid her a visit?
Beyond ‘Russian goons in a limo,’ I mean.”
“She said they all wore expensive suits and earpieces. Bald heads.”
“Naturally bald or shaved?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Muscular? Large? Small? In-between?”
“She didn’t say. All she said was they looked like mob enforcers. They asked her weird stuff about me. My likes and dislikes, a list of my past boyfriends
, some other random stuff.”
He laughed at this. “It sounds as if they were profiling you for a teenybopper magazine.”
“That’s not funny. My mom was really scared and upset. She called the cops, but they wouldn’t do anything.”
“I’m not surprised. That’s usually how things like this go, unfortunately. The
local cops don’t like to get involved in this sort of thing. They usually will either say it’s a civil matter or refer it to the feds, and the feds usually just bounce it back to the local cops, and it just goes back and forth from there.”
“You sound as if you deal with this sort of thing a lot.”
He sighed. “Unfortunately, it’s an occupational hazard.”
That sounded a lot like an
admission of guilt to me. Maybe I finally had the opening I wanted. “Because you’re involved with the Russian mafia?”
“No. Because I come from a country and culture where strong
-arming and corruption are common. I do business with my fellow Ukranians and always have, but that doesn’t mean I’m a mobster.”
A slippery response
. “Fine. Then explain the goons.”
“I believe that the individuals who paid your mother a visit are associated with my client---or shall we say,
my
former
client---in Sevastopol. He’s a man with odd tastes, and sometimes he likes to investigate young women whom he’s taken an interest in.”
“
Taken an interest in?
Are you saying he’s taken an interest in
me?”