In For the Kill (14 page)

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Authors: Shannon McKenna

BOOK: In For the Kill
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Becca pointed, her mouth tight. “That's Zhoglo.”
Nick squeezed her shoulders. “Dead and gone.”
“He haunts me, though,” she said. “The bastard.”
Sam leaned to examine the mafiya vor's swollen, grinning face, then the younger guy. “How about that guy?” Sam asked. “Who's he?”
“I don't know,” Sveti said. “And there's no one left to ask.”
Yeah, that was the thing exactly. No one wanted to say it, but there it sat, begging to be said. There was no one left to ask, and nothing left to ask about, because everyone associated with this old story was dead and gone. The phantom torturer had been asking questions about Sveti's unresolved psychological issues. Nothing that was relevant or current. He didn't know a gentle way to say it, so he kept his mouth shut. Let some other poor fool point it out.
“Your mother took this?” he asked, indicating the photo.
Sveti nodded. “She was a gifted photographer.”
“Here are the pictures by Sveti's bed!” Rachel popped up suddenly. “The ones in the gold frame! I ran and got them.” She held up the hinged frame triumphantly. Her eyes sparkled with excitement.
“We've talked about eavesdropping, baby,” Tam said sharply.
Rachel shrugged. “If it's about Sveti, I need to know about it.”
“We looked at these pictures already, sweetheart, on Sveti's tablet, but thank you anyway,” Becca told her gently.
Sam took the photo frame from Rachel's hand and examined it. They were, in fact, the same ones Sveti had just shown them, but these had been trimmed to fit the frames. The shot of Sveti's mother was cut to half its original size, and something was scrawled in Cyrillic script over the top, with a couple of numbers below. The one of Sergei was trimmed, too, the third man cut away, but Zhoglo still smirked in it, his bulbous goblin face positioned right over Sergei Ardov's shoulder.
“You keep a picture of Vadim Zhoglo by your bed?” Sam said.
Sveti frowned. “No, I keep a picture of my father by my bed,” she said stiffly. “It's the only one I have where he's smiling.”
“His murderer is smiling, too. Doesn't that bug you?”
Sveti shrugged. “You have to take the bad with the good, if you want to salvage anything.”
“You lie in your bed at night and let that monster leer at you?” he asked, incredulous. “And that doesn't hurt you?”
“Back off!” she snapped. “Maybe it does, I don't know, but I'm used to things hurting. I don't even notice.”
It made him furious that Sveti should be so used to things being painful that something so fucking crazy horrible as having Zhoglo's ugly mug enshrined on her bedside table should just slip right past her. Unnoticed, among all the other crazy horrible things.
“That needs to change,” he announced. He unhooked the lever in the back that held the picture in place, and the chunk of cardboard picture backing fell out, along with the picture.
Everyone watched as he twisted and snagged the kitchen shears out of the knife block on the kitchen bar behind him.
“Sam!” Sveti leaped up and started around the table. “Stop! That's
mine!
What the hell do you think you're doing?”
“Changing history.” He cut into the photo, angling the shears carefully around Sergei's head to cut out Zhoglo's face.
Sveti skidded to a stop next to him, poppy red. “That was not yours to alter,” she said, her voice tight. “You had no right to do that!”
He'd be damned if he'd apologize. He shook the shears. The scrap of photo fell from the blades and fluttered onto the table.
“You can't change the past.” Sveti's voice quivered, dangerously.
“No?” Sam stabbed the point of the scissors in the middle of Zhoglo's face. “You can change how you think about it.”
“And you think it's so simple? How the fuck would you know?”
Sean fidgeted uneasily. “Um, guys? This sounds like the kind of argument you two should have in private.”
Sam lifted up the shears, with the offending scrap stuck upon the point. “Burn this ugly motherfucker,” he said. “Burn him to ash.”
Nick looked around. “I'm with that program,” he said. “Anybody here have a lighter? Nobody smokes in this crowd anymore.”
A box of kitchen matches sailed into the air from the other side of the bar, lobbed by Rachel. The box bounced on the table, sliding open. Wooden matches spilled out.
Sveti stood like a statue, fists clenched. Sam held the shears out to her. An offering.
“I know what you're trying to do,” she said. “And it won't work.”
“I'm with Sam,” Becca said, her voice hard. “Burn it, Sveti.”
Tam banged her forehead against the table. “For the love of God, finish it,” she snarled. “I can't stand it anymore.”
It was Becca, finally, who grabbed a match and scraped it against the box. The puff of sulfur burned Sam's nose as the flame took hold. Becca held it up to the photographic paper.
They all watched it burn in silence. Flames blackened the edges, curling green and blue, shrinking from the outside in. Ghostly shards of ash drifted onto the table, disintegrating into a puff of gray dust.
“Enough.” Tam sounded unusually subdued. “Let's move on.”
Sam picked up the picture frame, but Sveti snatched it out of his hands. “Do not touch my stuff again,” she muttered, as she teased the backing out of the frame. The picture of Sonia fell out, along with a square of thin, almost transparent paper.
Sam held up the photograph. “What does that writing say?”
“The Sword of Cain,” Sveti said. “The guy kept asking what it meant to me. I would have told him if it meant anything. It doesn't.”
“Did the part you trimmed off have anything written on it?” he asked.
“Nothing about a sword,” she said. “On the picture side, there were a few numbers. I figured they were phone numbers, or maybe filing numbers. Sometimes she printed several different versions of a photograph before she was happy with it, and numbered them. The other side had snippets of poetry, the address, and stamp.”
“Did she send any others?”
“Not through the mail,” Sveti said. “She sent me lots of JPEGs, on my e-mail. But they're just art photography. Pretty pictures of Italy.”
Sam turned it over. On the back was more scribbling. Some in Cyrillic and some that appeared to be in English, but such tiny cursive, he could barely read it. “What's this stuff written on the back?”
Sveti shook her head. “Mama was cryptic,” she said. “They're lines from various obscure poems. Some French, some Russian, some English, but she'd translated them all into English here. She taught poetry at the university, before Papa was killed. That first line in Ukrainian Cyrillic says, ‘When you don't know which way to turn, look to the source.' Then come the quotes.”
He squinted at the first quote. The writing was so miniscule. “‘
Darkness from that ragged hole/pulls like a prisoner's shackling chain/drawing me into Hell's blind'
. . . what's that?”
“Realm,” Sveti said. “Hell's blind realm. Peter Rodionov. It's very sad. Don't read any of them aloud, please. I'll break out into a cold sweat if I have to listen to them again.”
“Is there a unifying theme?” he persisted.
She shook her head. “Only that they're all depressing. Lukyenov, Rafael, Lebedev. Poems about death. Whatever point she meant to make with them, I missed it.”
Sam peered at another one. “ ‘
Bear witness to this bowl of bones/this yellowed snarl of sticks and twigs.'
Wow. Cheerful.”
“Esther Rafael,” Sveti said, her face stoic. “She survived Auschwitz. She wrote about the Holocaust. Oh, and another thing. The man who questioned me yesterday? He's the one who killed my mother.”
Tam's eyes dropped. Val's gaze slid away. Nick and Becca exchanged worried glances. A nervous silence stretched out.
“Sveti,” Sean said carefully. “Wasn't your mom's death a suicide ?”
“That's what we thought,” Sveti said. “But that man talked about Mama as if he'd known her. He talked about the red dress she wore that night. How would he know if he wasn't there? Besides, Mama was not a person who would kill herself. She must have been taking pictures that made someone nervous, so they killed her. And The Sword of Cain is the key, if I could figure out what the hell it is.”
Sam took advantage of her distraction to pick up the square of paper. Sveti twitched it away and smoothed it back into its folds.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Mama's last letter to me,” she said.
Sam waited, but when the obvious next thing was not forthcoming, he fished for it. “And you're going to read it to us, right?”
“I'd rather not,” she said. “It has nothing to do with anything, and it just makes me sad, and I really don't . . .” Her voice petered off.
Sam gazed at her, relentless. “You said everything, Sveti.”
She unfolded it, with agonizing slowness, and began to translate.
My dear Svetlana,
I write to you from Renato's atrium in the Villa Rosalba. An orange tree is heavy with fruit over my right shoulder, a lemon tree to my left. Before me is Renato's sculpture garden, full of figures from myth and legend. Atlas is my favorite. Approach him from the bench where I sit, following the tree of life, until you can see his eyes.
Look beneath. Look within, to find your way through the labyrinth. You already know more about that labyrinth than any young woman should. For that I will always be sorry. Forgive me for not protecting you better. I should have taken you back to France before disaster struck. Love makes one stupid.
Sam winced inwardly. The very last thought he wanted Sveti to reflect upon right now, and he had bullied her into voicing it.
He broke in as Sveti faltered. “France?”
“She was part French,” Sveti said. “Raised in Paris. She met my father while visiting her mother's family in the Ukraine.”
“And Renato? Who's he?”
“Renato Torregrossa. Her Italian boyfriend,” Sveti said. “A rich Italian count. He was a bigwig in some multinational pharmaceutical company. Had a fancy villa by the sea. I never met him. Or wanted to.”
“And the labyrinth, the tree of life? What's that about?”
“I don't know,” Sveti said. “She just talked that way. She was a lit professor. She liked poetic metaphors.” She read on.
I had hoped to spend Christmas holidays with you here, but it will not be possible until spring. I am in the middle of an assignment that takes all my attention. Come for spring vacation instead, and we will swim together in the Mediterranean in April. Don't be angry at me, love. Be strong. You'll find your strongest weapon buried in all this garbage.
All my love, always. Until spring,
Mama
 
“She died ten days after that letter is dated,” she said softly.
“Where is this Renato?” Sam asked.
Sveti turned the letter over, indicated the return address, penned on the letter. “I have the address of the Villa Rosalba.”
“I'll find him,” Val said.
“No, don't,” Sveti said. “I'll find him. I will talk to him personally.”
Val frowned. “Sveti. We have experience that you do not.”
“I don't want him on his guard. It makes sense for me to want to talk to someone who knew Mama and spent time with her. It's entirely different if a group of foreigners start making threatening noises!”
Tam's mouth curved. “Thank you for that vote of confidence.”
“Don't touch it,” Sveti said. “Promise me.”
Sean drummed his fingers against the table. “Moving on,” he said. “If you're going to Europe no matter what we say, who goes with you?”
“I will cover her while she is in Italy,” Val said. “But we must think in longer terms for London.”
“I'll check SafeGuard's roster of bodyguards,” Sean said.
“I'll go.” The offer flew out before Sam could gauge its insanity level. Which he instantly realized was very high.
Sveti gaped at him, blank. “Go . . . what? Go where?”
“With you,” he repeated. “To Italy. And England. You know. To protect and serve.”
Nick's eyes were cold. “You opportunistic son of a bitch.”
Tam exchanged speculative glances with Val. “The idea has merit. He'd be earning his oxygen. And we wouldn't have to trip over him around here. There's definitely something to be said for that.”
Sveti sputtered, wordlessly. She finally found her voice. “No way!” she burst out. “I cannot afford to hire a goddamn bodyguard!”
“I work cheap,” Sam said.
Several men in the room exploded with quickly stifled laughter. The women in the room shot them quelling glances.
“Looking to score some points, huh?” Nick demanded.
“What if I am? She'll have her back covered all the same.”
“And plenty else besides, I bet,” Tam said dryly.
“You won't do her much good in Italy if you don't speak the language,” Val said.
“I speak Italian,” Sam said.
Val's face froze, mouth slightly open.
“Non mi hai mai detto che parli italiano,”
he said. You never told me you speak Italian.
“Non mi hai mai chiesto,”
Sam replied. You never asked. He continued, in Italian. “I spent time there as a child, and studied there, in college. I speak French, Spanish, and Italian. My sister speaks Japanese and Mandarin, too. I'm the underachiever of the family.”
Tam snorted. “Listen to him. A Florentine accent, of all things.”
“Wow,” Sean said with a low whistle. “Didn't see that coming.”
“I'm not surprised at all,” Tam said. “You forget that Sam here isn't like the rest of us hardscrabble proles. He's the Petrie princeling, massaged and molded to take up the reins of global leadership.”
“Shut up, Tam,” Sam muttered.
“But you're a rebel, Sam,” Tam went on. “You turned away from the big money to wallow in the worst cruelty that humanity can inflict upon itself. Vice and homicide, on the big city streets. Why, I wonder?”
He shook his head. It was none of her goddamn business, for one thing, and for another, he truly didn't know. He chose not to examine his own motives that closely. It never led anywhere good.
“I can't take my firearms to Europe,” he said to Val. “I'll need to score some weapons once I get there. You have contacts?”
“I'll set you up,” Val said. “You understand what is expected of you, no? You must be with her every second of every day.”
“No, he will not!” Sveti yelled. “I will not be—”
“I'll follow her into the ladies' room when she pees,” Sam broke in. “I'll follow her into the changing rooms where she shops.”
“I'm not going there to shop!” Sveti's face was bright red again.
Sam pressed on. “I'll sleep across the threshold of her door.”
“That I doubt,” Tam said. “You'll find a warmer, softer nest.”
“I can't ask Hazlett to buy another ticket!” Sveti protested.
“I'll cover my own ticket,” he said.
“Money's not an issue, with Samuel Petrie,” Tam said. “Did you not see the suit he wore to the wedding? His portfolio almost equals my own. And loaded as he is personally, his family is still more loaded. We're talking the top one percent of the top one percent.”
“You hacked into my bank accounts?” Sam demanded. “Why?”
“I had to know everything there was to know about a man who looked at my girl the way you looked at her,” Tam said coolly. “Did you think we wouldn't notice?”
“What does my portfolio have to do with me perving on Sveti?”
“Not much, but I found it entertaining just the same,” Tam said. She turned back to Sveti. “He has a huge trust fund, too, but he's never touched it. It sits there, desolate, accruing interest like barnacles. This pathological lack of interest in such a large sum of money strikes me as suspicious. It hints at deep-seated control issues in his family. Though he does well on his investments with his own money. Are you bored to the point of suicide yet, Sam? Bummer about your detective job. You hero types, so desperate for validation. You have to put your ass on the line to earn the very air you breathe, hmm?”
“Leave him alone, Tam,” Sveti whispered. “He doesn't deserve it.”
“Aw, look at that,” Tam crooned. “Defending him, how sweet. I've often wondered why a guy would choose to live in a forties-era two-bedroom bungalow in grotty North Portland and pull a government salary when he has that fat, soft cushion of money. He could just lie back on it and drift away on a slow-flowing river of bourbon, hmm?”
“Fuck off, Tam,” Sam said. “You know nothing about me.”
Tam's smile was catlike. “I know when I've hit a nerve.”
“Stop it,” Sveti said. “I don't want to watch you hit nerves.”
Tam opened her mouth, paused, and closed it with a snap. “Have it your way. The point is, Sam can afford to go to Italy a thousand times over. And nothing makes a man as focused as a sexual obsession.”
“It's my decision!” Sveti was on her feet. “I don't want someone breathing down my neck, following me into the bathroom! And it's not economically feasible or sustainable in any way! Who pays for it?”
“You can't stop me from coming,” Sam said.
“Sure I can!” she shot back. “I'll tell the cops you're stalking me!”
“Yeah, you do that. It adds lots of credibility to your testimony. They'll figure it's not just PTSD, but a personality disorder, too.”
Sveti's face contracted. “Oh, shut up.”
“Just saying,” he murmured.
There was an awkward pause, and Becca piped up. “Well, then. If she doesn't want Sam to go, let's look again at SafeGuard.”
“I'm going, no matter who you send,” he said.
Sveti slapped her hands on the table in a rare show of temper. “I can't pay for SafeGuard!”
“So opt for the bargain-basement option,” Tam reminded her. “Behold, Sam Petrie, with his lustful gaze and his volunteer services, if you're uncomfortable letting us hire someone.” Her eyes raked him. “But I'm sure he'll get his just recompense out of you.”
Liv winced. “Ouch.” She leaned over and laid a hand on Sveti's arm. “Honey. When you're in Europe, will you do something for me?”
Sveti looked wary. “What?”
Liv tugged at her hand, taking off a ring, a thick, complex snarl of yellow and white gold. “Wear this.” She held it out.
Sean whistled. “Wow, babe. Really? That's the first time I've seen you take that thing off since Osterman bit the dust.”
“I want Sveti to wear it,” Liv said quietly. “It's lucky.”
“Oh, no! I can't take it!” Sveti held up her hands. “You should keep it, Liv. It's your talisman. It saved your life!”
“And besides, I could give Sveti the prototype,” Tam offered.
“No,” Liv said stubbornly. “This one's better. It's been through the fire. It's all charged up and ready to rock.” Her eyes flicked to him. “Kind of like Sam.” When Sveti still hesitated, she grabbed the younger woman's hand and slid the ring on. “I'll feel safer if you're wearing it. God, your fingers are tiny. Wear it on your index finger. Yes, that fits.”
Sveti held out her hand. The ring gleamed, lavish and voluptuous, and subtly dangerous, as if it could come to life and start writhing.
Sam eyed it suspiciously. “Is that one of Tam's designs?”
“Of course,” Tam purred. “I hope it makes you nervous, Sam. That is its prime function, after all.”
“Nonsense,” Liv said, squeezing Sveti's hand. “It's just for luck. ”
“Thank you,” Sveti whispered, staring down at the ring.
“We just want you to be safe,” Liv said earnestly. “And happy.”
“Happy?” Sveti's mouth shook, as if she were going to burst into tears. Then Sam realized that the silent shaking was laughter.
“Yes, happy!” Liv sounded defensive. “I don't think that's too much to hope, for a person as wonderful and as deserving as you!”
“I am happy,” Sveti said. “I have all my organs. I'm not chained to a sewing machine in a basement in the Philippines, or handcuffed to a bed in a Cambodian brothel. No one's chopped off my hands or put out my eyes and sent me to beg on a street corner in Bombay.”
“Sveti, baby. Calm down, please,” Liv pleaded.
“I'm perfectly calm!” Sveti jumped to her feet. “What do I have to be upset about? I'm fucking ecstatic, but I won't let myself be jerked around, not even by people I love, and owe.” She marched out and pulled the doors shut,
slam.
Glass shivered in the mahogany frame.
Shit. She'd bailed on him again, like she had at the wedding. Left him high and dry with these people.
Sean whistled. “Whoa. That girl needs to lighten up.”
“A tricky proposition,” Lara observed. “Considering.”
“You. Petrie.” Tam's voice rang out like the crack of a whip. “So? Hop to it. What are you waiting for? Get to work.”
“Work?” Sam looked around wildly. “How? What work? Here?”
Tam rolled her eyes. “On
her.
” She spoke with exaggerated slowness. “Lighten her up. Show her a good time. Earn your oxygen, if you breathe it in this house. Go . . . go stir her with your magic stick.”
Nick flinched. “Tam. Spare me.”
“I spare no one, as Sam will soon have reason to know. Petrie!”
Her voice snapped him around as if drawn up by a tether. “Yeah?”
“Protect her, in Italy and London.” Her voice was menacing. “Make her happy. Or else I will fuck. You. Up. Understood?”
He took off like a shot, to earn his oxygen.

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