The Romanov Legacy (21 page)

“No.  But he gave me your box.”

“How much did he sell it for?”

“Nothing.”  

“You’re lying, Natalia.”  He sighed, the exhale
interrupted by liquid pooling in his lungs.  “That poor family will never
know peace, will they?”

“Peace and certainty are luxuries we don’t all get.”
 She thought about how hard it was to make her shrinks understand that
angels and the afterlife were real things, not the made-up invention of
Israel’s lost tribes.  “But you don’t have to be afraid of me, I promise.”

“Of you?” he said, a tiny smile curling his lips. 

“Yes, me,” she said defensively.  “Lots of people are
afraid of me.”

“They can’t see it, can they?”

“See what?”  She resisted the urge to look behind
her. 

“The angel.  Standing behind you.”

Natalie gulped.  “That’s Belial.  No one’s ever
seen him before.”

The old man smiled, wrinkling his parchment-thin
cheeks.  “He thinks you’re beautiful.  He tells you things he doesn’t
want anyone else to know.”

A thousand questions sprang into her mind.  She opened
her mouth but clamped it shut immediately. 
This isn’t about you
,
she told herself. 
Get it together
.  “I need to know where the
real letters are, Grigori.”

He chuckled.  “So you’ve discovered my little
trick.  Did your angel tell you?”

She smiled at him.  “I figured it out myself.  The
paper wasn’t right.  It was too new.”

“I could think of nothing else.  I knew Yuri would sell
them as soon as I was gone.”

“Grigori, how did you get them?”

“My father carried them from Ekaterinburg to Korea.  He
gave them to me when he knew he could no longer keep them safe.”  He took
a deep breath but couldn’t fill his lungs without coughing.  She poured a
glass of water from the carafe on his nightstand and held it to his lips. 
Grigori swallowed obediently, draining half the glass and patting her hand when
he’d had enough.  “Thank you,” he said, eyes glistening with cough-induced
tears.  “They tell me it will only get worse until the
end.”   

“They’re doctors.  It’s their job to lie to you.”

“It is what I deserve.  God gave me one chance, and I
ruined it.”

“No,” she said, as firmly as she could.  “You did the
right thing.  I can make it right if you tell me where the letters are.”

“Letters,” he mumbled, turning his head into the
pillow.  “Always the letters.”

“Please, Grigori.  Let me help.”

“Where do they stop?  Where do I begin?”  He
closed his eyes and stopped breathing for a single count.  Then he choked,
coughed and blinked his red-veined eyes.  He looked at the plastic curtain
hanging around his bed and then at her, as if he were confused about where he
found himself.  “What has happened to us all?”

“We’re fighting a war,” she said, reaching for his
hand.  “A war that never ends.  I swear to you, Grigori, I won’t let
anything happen to your letters.  I’ll help that family find the peace we
can’t.  Look at me, Grigori.  You can trust me.  You can trust
Belial.”   

The old man’s eyes glowed with tears and fervor.  “I
believe you, Natalia.”  He leaned over slowly, opening the drawer of his
nightstand.  From the bible resting inside, he pulled an onionskin
envelope that contained several folded pieces of paper.  He placed the
envelope in her outstretched hand.

“You?” she breathed.  “You had them with you all
along?”

“Of course.  I was waiting for you.”

“You are a good man, Grigori,” she said, touching his cheek
as softly as she could.  “Thank you.”

“I am tired.  Wake me when the war is over,
Natalia.”  The old man turned his head, letting the pillow absorb the
tears streaming down his face. 

She bit her lip as she placed his clammy hand beneath the
thin blue blanket.  What gave men like Grigori and his father the strength
to defy dictators and countries and even time to do what they believed to be
right?  It wasn’t fair that these men died alone and forgotten when they
were the best of humankind.  “I wish I could be more like you,” she
said. 

She stood up, kissed him gently on the forehead, and pulled
the blanket up over his shoulders to keep him warm and hide him from public
view.  Then she saw it—an old rotary phone on Grigori’s bedside table,
next to a Russian-language magazine and the weekend edition of the
Chronicle.  She glanced out the observation window.  Constantine stood
with his back to it, arms crossed over his chest.  

Beth
, she thought.  She picked up the receiver
and twirled the phone’s plastic dial.  After a brief click on the line, it
began to ring.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then she heard the telltale click of the answering
machine.  “Hi, you’ve reached Beth and Seth, but we can’t come to the
phone right now.” There was a brief shuffle as Seth stepped up to the
recorder.  “Don’t be lame and hang up.  Leave us a message so my mom
feels cool.”

The beep echoed in her ear. 

“If you’re there, pick up.  Come on, Beth, this is
serious.”  Natalie glanced out the observation window.  “I’m all
right, but I need your help.  I need you to come and check on a man called
Grigori Voloshin in the Seaside Oaks nursing home in Daly City.  Please
make sure he’s okay.  Tell Seth I’m sorry I missed the sharks.  I
love you, Beth.  Lock your doors and don’t let Seth or Roo out of your
sight.  I’m going to fix this.  I promise.”

July 2012

San Francisco, California

Beth picked up the phone for the tenth time that
morning.  She held her right thumb over the “9” and her left over the “1,”
promising that this time she’d tell the police about Natalie’s condition.
 But then she pictured Sergeant Lopez tossing Natalie into the back of a
patrol car, hauling her to a county hospital, and dosing her with a month’s
worth of mind-destroying drugs.  She couldn’t do it.  She put the
phone down. 

All her life, she’d protected Natalie from the clutches of
the system—lying to social workers, lying to doctors, and lying to anyone who
asked why her sister was “weird” or “mental.”  After their parents died,
Natalie was all she had.  Never, she vowed, would those vultures sink
their claws into her own flesh and blood.  Even now, she couldn’t betray a
lifetime’s worth of trust.

In the den, she kept a sideboard as a bar.  She opened
it up and stared at the dust-covered bottles.   She reached for a
bottle of single-malt scotch and took a shot straight out of the bottle. 
It hit her immediately—a slow burn that rose from her belly with the speed of
mercury on a hot summer day.  She closed her eyes and concentrated on
relaxing.  Then she heard the noise.  A soft click, like a doorknob
latching, coming from upstairs.

She’d been hearing strange noises all over the house since
early that morning, like the walkie-talkie noise in Seth’s room.  Every
time she investigated, it turned out to be nothing.  Still, she couldn’t
shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.  Lopez had promised her a
squad car would patrol the area until they found her sister, just in
case.  Images of Natalie’s bed, spattered with bullet holes, sprang to her
mind. 
Don’t be a victim
, she told herself.

Beth tiptoed to the kitchen and slid a chef’s knife out of
the wooden block.  Long and triangular, the blade was sharp enough to
slice through a shoe.  She held it at eye level and moved toward the
stairs.  One at a time, she crept up the stairs to the first landing and
then the hallway. 

The first room off the hallway was her office.  She
glanced at the phone, resting on a storage cube beside the desk.  The
handset hadn’t been removed from the console or switched off. 
That’s a
good sign, right?
she thought. 
Don’t the bad guys usually cut your
power or your phone before hacking you to bits?

She glanced around the room.  Nothing had been
moved.  The papers on her desk were lined up properly and the shelf of
books was still in order. 

Then her eyes latched onto the closet doorknob. 
“Fuck,” she whispered.

She tried to make her feet move forward but they held firm
less than a foot from the hallway. 
You can do this
, she
thought. 
You gave birth without drugs.  You ran a marathon. 
You gave the commencement speech at graduation.

She shuffled forward, gaze fixed on the closet door. 
If the noise had come from this room, the closet was the only place to
hide.  She transferred the knife to her left hand and wiped her sweaty
right palm against her jeans.  Then she hefted the knife in her right hand
again and twisted the doorknob. 

There was a face behind the door and it was smiling at
her. 

She screamed and slashed at the pale, ghostly cheeks. 
A hand shot up and grabbed her wrist, immobilizing the knife.  She wasted
three seconds trying to press the knife closer to the intruder’s face before
she changed tactics and kneed him in the balls as hard as she could.

The man howled and his grip slackened.  She pressed her
advantage, double-fisting the knife and plunging it into his shoulder. 
Then she ran.

She took the stairs two at a time, wishing she’d kept her
cell phone on her instead of in her purse.  Downstairs, in the garage,
there was a spare car key.  She’d back straight through the garage door
before she’d let this creep catch her.

Heavy footsteps thundered behind her.  She felt the air
move as his hands reached out for her, clasping nothing as she ducked to avoid
his grasp.  The lunge left him off kilter as he reached the next
stair.  He stumbled and fell against her, crushing her between the
staircase and his weight.

Beth’s head slammed against the next-to-last stair and the
world went black for just a moment.  Her body contorted painfully against
the stairs, but every burning nerve ending urged her to fight, get up,
run.  She flung out an arm and grabbed one of the stair rails, using it to
pull herself out from under the man.

Kicking like a swimmer, she caused enough damage to force
him up and off her.  She slithered out from under him and darted for the
kitchen. 
The phone
, she thought. 
Call 911 and grab
another knife.

Her fingers reached out for the handset just as it began to
ring.  Caught off guard, she paused a second too long.  The attacker
came up behind her, circling her neck with his arm.  She clawed and
scratched, kicking out behind her.

The phone continued to ring.  Two times.  Three
times.

Black spots floated across the room.  She shot her hand
back, hoping to poke him in the eye.

The answering machine picked up.  When the voice on the
other end began to speak, white-hot lightning coursed through her veins. 
“If you’re there, pick up,” her sister’s voice said, low and anxious. 
“Come on, Beth, this is serious.”

She fought the press of darkness, summoning her strength for
one last attack.  She slipped her elbow forward and then slammed it back
into the man’s stomach.  He grunted and wheezed but didn’t lose his grip
on her.  Her hands came up to his arm, pulling with everything she had
left.  Her lips shaped her sister’s name as the last gasp of air flew from
her lungs.

July 2012

Daly City, California

Natalie slipped through Grigori’s door, onionskin envelope
in hand.  “I have the letters.  Let’s get out of here.”

Constantine glanced back at the old man.  “Are you all
right?  What did he say to you?”

“The world is a fucked-up place and I don’t want to talk
about it.”  She stormed back toward the reception room.  Myra was
gone, replaced by an Asian woman with freckles across the bridge of her
nose. 
Run
, Belial urged. 
The doctors told her not to let
you leave. 

“Go to hell,” she said.  There was no hope in a world
that punished a man like Grigori with a painful, lonely death.  If the
angels couldn’t stop bad things from happening to good people, there was even
less hope for someone like her.

As she passed through the sliding glass doors of the lobby,
a voice called out behind her.  “Wait!  Ma’am, I have something for
you!”

Told you
, taunted Belial.

Natalie’s blood turned to ice.  She recognized the
voice—it was Myra.  She gulped and turned around slowly. 

“Mr. Voloshin said to give you this.”  The woman held
out a ring with a mauve pearl surrounded by small diamonds.  “He said it
belongs to you.”

For a moment, the world swam before her eyes.  “I know
that ring,” she whispered.  She reached out for it, afraid it was being
used as bait to lure her back inside but still unable to resist.  The
woman dropped it into her palm where it lay warm against her clammy flesh and
turned to go back inside. 

Belial fluttered his wings and peered forward through her
eyes. 
Oh, dear.  This is getting serious.  I may have to
speak to someone about this.

“Constantine, do you know what this is?”

“Don’t tell me the tsar’s password has a decoder ring.”

“It was Alexandra’s,” she said, cradling it in her
hand.  “Nicholas gave it to her for Christmas in 1903.” 

“It means he trusts you.” 

She put the ring on her finger and watched the diamonds
sparkle in the dreary foglight.  “It feels so heavy, almost like
it’s
wearing
me
.  Like a part of her has followed it.” 

“Okay, take it easy,” Constantine said, pulling her back to
the Monte Carlo and opening the passenger door for her.  He closed it
behind her, got in the driver’s seat, and started it up.  “What’s our next
move?”

She raised her eyebrow.  “You’re asking me?  I’m
the crazy one, remember?”