The Romanov Legacy (11 page)

“Why did you leave?”

“We needed supplies.  It was safer for me to go alone.”

She shook her wrist, rattling the cuffs.  “I have to go
to the bathroom.”

He nodded, setting down the coffee and pulling a key from
his pants pocket.  As he bent to insert the key in the lock, she caught a
whiff of soap and alcoholic aftershave.  “We can’t stay here much longer,”
he said.  “There are fresh clothes for you in the bathroom.”

She looked down at her stretched-out white t-shirt. 
How
the hell did I get this?
  Bits of memory shook loose from her fogged brain
as the full impact of the previous night settled over her.  “You killed
two people,” she said.  “And I distinctly remember wearing pants at some
point.” 

He looked at the floor and tightened his grip on the key
until his knuckles shone white.  “That was wrong.  I’m sorry.” 

She’d meant it as a joke, but he was genuinely
uncomfortable.  She waited for him to look up but he didn’t; he remained
crouched before her like a Taliban prisoner about to be beheaded.  “You’re
serious,” she said and watched his head dip even lower.  Then it hit
her:  he was ashamed of himself for having almost slept with her.

Natalie flung back the covers and stalked into the bathroom,
slamming the door behind her.  In the mirror, she watched her cheeks and
throat explode in bright red splotches that looked like poison oak. 
Against her will, her eyes clouded with tears. 
Even kidnappers are
ashamed of me
, she thought. 

She took a deep breath and repeated the meditation mantra
Beth had given her as a child:  “God grant me the serenity to accept the
things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know
the difference.”  It was years before she realized Beth had cribbed it
from AA.  She thought of all the elementary and middle school teachers who
must have wondered what the hell went on in the Brandon household after
school.  Still, Beth’s intuition had been right—sometimes, if she caught
it early, a moment of concentrated thought centered on this phrase could force
Belial to lie back down and be quiet.

She repeated the mantra until the bathtub faucet ran hot,
then slipped the stopper into the drain and waited.  Behind the wall,
pipes clanged like an out-of-tune organ.  Just thinking of her sister made
her feel homesick.  She’d missed the start of Shark Week with Seth because
she’d been too proud to apologize to Beth.  Now two men were dead and
Nicholas’s money was behind it all—even her argument with Beth.
 This
is all a dream
, she thought. 
It has to be.

She tossed away her t-shirt and underwear and slipped into
the steaming water.  Affixed to the wall, a rusted metal rectangle held
out a bar of soap.  The letters on its surface were sharp and crisp, with
no water erosion or divots.  She frowned and straightened up in the tub,
looking over to the plastic garbage can.  She spotted a barely used bar of
soap and two paper wrappers. 

“I had it all wrong,” she said, turning the soap over in her
hands.  Constantine hadn’t been ashamed of her—he’d been ashamed of
himself.  So much so that he’d given her a fresh bar of soap so that
nothing that had touched his bare skin need touch hers.    

A fluttery feeling tickled her pit of her stomach.  It
was one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for her, anticipating her
reaction to something so small.  For a moment, she felt human.  A
wave of longing crushed her when she realized she couldn’t tell Beth, the only
person who would understand what it meant.

She wondered if the police had found the dead men in the
alley yet.  Once they realized her apartment was all shot up, they’d
connect the dead men with her disappearance and start looking for her. 
They’d tell Beth and probably scare the hell out her in the process.  How
long could she and Constantine evade the police?  Surely in a city so full
of people, two of them could remain unseen. 

That’s what you think,
Belial said, stretching his
wings.

“Good morning to you, too,” she said, rinsing the soap from
her skin.  Behind her eyes, the angel smiled. 
Get dressed, little
one.  We have work to do.
  

Constantine had left her a striped oxford blouse, black
skirt suit, and leather pumps.  The skirt fit snugly and the shoes pinched
her toes, but once she put them on, she looked like an average office
worker.  A smaller bag held a conglomeration of drugstore makeup. 
She reached for a black crayon and traced thick circles around her eyes then
smeared her lips with something dark and sticky.

When she emerged, she saw the table set with a single place:
one plate of scrambled eggs and toast, one cup of coffee, and one paper napkin
folded in half, tucked beneath the plate’s edge.  Constantine stood at the
sink washing an ancient iron skillet, his suit jacket discarded and white
sleeves rolled up to the elbows. 

“Is this for me?” she asked, pointing at the plate.

“Hurry, before it gets cold.”

“Where’s yours?”

“I already ate.”  He turned his head to smile at
her.  “You look very pretty.”

“I feel like I have a placenta on my lips.  Why are we
dressed like this?”

“You’re supposed to be a professor, remember?”  He set
the skillet on a dish towel and came to sit beside her.  “We’re meeting a
man named Voloshin to see what kind of proof he has that the Tsar’s fortune
exists.  He’s the one trying to blackmail the ambassador.”

She paused, fork halfway to her mouth.  “So I didn’t
make it all up.  This is really happening.”

“Why would you think it wasn’t real?”

“Sometimes I get confused between what really happens and
what Belial shows me.”  She set her fork down and picked up the
toast.  “Once when we were little, I watched a dark-haired man kidnap
Beth.  I screamed for someone to chase him and when no one did, I took off
after him.”

“What happened?”

“Beth tackled me halfway down the street.  She’d been
standing next to me the whole time.  The neighbors stared and pointed and my
mother never let me play in the front yard again.”

“Didn’t your parents try and help you?”

“They tried.”  Images of needles and rosaries and
leather restraints flashed through her mind.  “It just didn’t work.”

“Where are they now?”

“Dead.” 

Good riddance
, Belial muttered.  He shifted his
feet and set off a tremor of rolling earthquakes in the back of her
skull.  She ignored them as best she could, scooping up the last bit of
scrambled egg and washing it down with coffee.  “Beth took care of
me.  It was better that way.  Belial hated my parents.”

“Why?”

“They did everything they could to kill him.  He and
Beth have a much better working relationship.  Can I ask a question now?”

“Yes.”  He took her plate and brought it back to the
sink, plunging it into the soapy water. 

“Where did you learn to speak English so well?”

“Satellite TV.”

“Shut up.”

He smiled, crinkling the skin at the corners of his
eyes.  “The security company I worked for brought in private tutors for
us.  That’s how it all started.”

“Why did they do that?”

“If we spoke English, we could masquerade as Red Cross or
USAID workers to get closer to our targets.  Then in Chechnya, we stole
TVs and satellite antennas for our safe houses.  We watched
NYPD Blue
and
The Practice
to learn how to interrogate in English.”  

“How long were you in Chechnya?”

“Two years.”

“What did you do there?”

The smile fell from his face.  “Natalie, stop.  We
need to get ready to go.”  He reached for his suit jacket and slipped it
back on.

“What did you do?”

“What do you think?  I killed people.”  

“You seem awfully pent up about the things you do.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“You just told me—you killed people.  Plus, I saw
it.  I was there last night, remember?”  He bent his head
Taliban-style and she softened.  “I saw the soap in the garbage.  You
didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you didn’t.  Ask any of my shrinks.  None of
them had much luck getting me to do things I didn’t feel like doing.  If I
didn’t push you away, it was because I didn’t want to.”

“But I know better, even if you don’t.”

Anger flared in her belly.  “I’m trying to let you off
the hook.  Don’t jump back on it and play the martyr.  And don’t you
ever pity me.  Not for a second.  Belial hates that.”

“Belial,” he said softly.  “Right.”

“Fuck you.”

“Let’s just get this over with.  Are you ready to go?”

“
You
kidnapped
me
, remember?”  She got up
and paced, hating the way her toes squished together to fit into the
pointed-toe shoes.  “Before we go, tell me one more thing.  Where
does this guy say he got the password?”

“A pair of letters, written by two of Nicholas II’s
daughters.”

“A pair,” she repeated.  “That’s new.”  The
guard’s granddaughter’s tale mentioned
one
letter from Marie to Ivan
that was promised but never arrived.  “How’d he get them?”

“His great-grandfather smuggled them out of the Ipatiev
House.  That’s all I know.”

“Who wrote the second letter?”

He turned his head sharply.  “What do you mean?”

“I’m positive Grand Duchess Marie wrote one of them, but
I’ve never seen anything that mentions a second letter.”

“What are you saying?”

“He’s either telling the truth or the world’s worst liar.”

“Let’s find out,” he said, grabbing her arm and propelling
her out the door.

July 2012

San Francisco, California

Yuri Voloshin lived one block southwest of Russian Hill Park
on a court filled with pretty Victorians.  Natalie stared at the houses,
most with children’s bikes and toys lying in the small front yards.  This
was not a neighborhood accustomed to drive-by shootings and gun-toting
spies.  Had Yuri Voloshin ever considered what might happen if the
Russians called his bluff?  Or was he in over his head, just like she
was?  “Tell me again what’s supposed to happen,” she said.

Constantine flicked his head from side to side, looking at
house numbers as the BMW crawled down the street.  “We get the Romanov
letters from him and try to verify their authenticity as best we can. 
Then we get the hell out of here.”

“What happens to Yuri?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

“I said I don’t know.”

“I think you should.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “Why is that?”

“He put everyone on this street in danger.  He put Beth
in danger.  She has a son, for God’s sake.  What would have happened
to him if Vympel found Beth instead of me?”  She shivered.  “Just for
that, he deserves to die.” 

Belial, quiet until now, raised his head. 
I can
help you
, he said.

“Let me handle Voloshin.”  Constantine pointed at the
least attractive house on the cul-de-sac, painted a tired brown with peeling
ochre trim.  The house wore its drooping gutters like a worn-out
scarf.  A short driveway angled down into a one-car garage with a yellowed
NO PARKING sign nailed to its door.

“That’s it,” Constantine said.  He parked across the
driveway, blocking the garage.  Natalie followed him up to the porch and
looked down at the spiny green welcome mat, missing its plastic daisy. 
Constantine rapped on the door and Natalie closed her eyes.  What would
this man look like, the man who’d lied about her sister?  Would Belial be
able to tell if he was lying just by looking at him? 
Please, Belial,
she thought. 
I need help here.
 

But no one answered Constantine’s knock.

Natalie turned to look at the street, scanning parked cars
for raised heads.  “Maybe Vympel got him already.”

Constantine knocked again, louder this time, and something
moved behind the door.  The handle turned, opening just enough to reveal a
sliver of pasty skin and a single dark eye. 

“Yuri Iosipovich Voloshin?” Constantine asked.

“Who wants to know?”

“I do.”  Constantine kicked the door open and shoved
his way inside.  Natalie followed, pulling the door shut behind them.

“Who the hell are you?” Yuri growled.  Short and stocky
with bulging eyes and thick lips, he didn’t look to Natalie like the type to
break into a foreign embassy undetected.  He looked more like a child
molester.

“I represent the government you’re attempting to blackmail.”

“Did Kadyrov send you?”

“Russia sent me.  You will never speak to Kadyrov
again.”

Yuri’s black eyes darted from Constantine’s face to the
briefcase in his hand.  “He told you what I want, right?” 

“Just before I killed him, yes.”  Constantine set the
briefcase down.  “You broke into my embassy, Mr. Voloshin.  Consider
yourself lucky I haven’t killed you, too.  Show me the letters.”

Yuri snorted and reached for a lighter and a pack of
Marlboros on the sideboard.  His fingers were tipped with a perfect quarter-moon
sliver of white.  Rounded and buffed, each nail shone like a newly waxed
car.  “Until I get what I asked for, you don’t see shit.” 

“How about this?” Constantine asked, palming the
Walther.  “Do you see this?” 

Yuri blew a puff of smoke into Constantine’s face and
shifted his gaze to Natalie.  “Is he like this with you, too?”

“Worse,” she said.  “I woke up handcuffed.”

“I bet you did.  What’s your name, sweetheart?” 
Voloshin licked his lips as his beady eyes traveled from her face to her breasts. 

The kitchen is full of knives,
Belial said. 
Sharp
ones.
 

Natalie tried to ignore Belial’s voice and forced her lips
open in a smile.  “I’m surprised you don’t recognize me, Mr.
Voloshin.  After all, you told the ambassador we worked together.”