Wherever She Goes (ARC)

by Kelley Armstrong

  I remember a couple of weeks after we’d begun dating, he suggested a club, which shocked the hell out of me. I’d pulled on my little black dress, and we spent exactly twenty awkward minutes in the club, before I confessed it really wasn’t my thing, and I swear he melted in relief. Instead, we’d bought a bottle of champagne and checked into a hotel, and he showed me that, while clubs themselves weren’t for him, he did appreciate my clubwear.

  Even if I had those dresses, they wouldn’t fit anymore. I put on fifteen pounds with Charlotte, and I decided to keep most of it. I was in good shape, and I kind of liked the extra weight—it made me feel more like my image of a mother, whatever that might be. So I needed to do some shopping.

  Fortunately, I’d taken out more money than I needed for the laptop. I bought a dress, heels, undergarments . . . I left my fancier underthings behind when I split with Paul—not much use for them in my current celibate life. While I won’t be showing off my panties tonight—definitely not on my agenda—the new ones make me feel like a single girl going to a club.

  Buy clothing. Buy makeup. Buy pins and styling products for my hair. Find a mall restroom and transform from suburban mommy into . . . well, suburban-mommy-goes-clubbing. That’s still what I see when I look in the mirror. At least all the component parts are there—the hair, makeup, short dress and heels—and if I look like a young single mommy on the make, oh well, I’m sure I won’t be the only one there tonight.

  I arrive at the club just after eleven, which I seem to recall is a good time, not too early but not hard-partier late. What I’ve forgotten after three years of stay-at-home-mommy life is that you don’t just show up to a club and walk in. There’s a line. A massive one that isn’t moving because, duh, it’s the grand opening.

  I also realize, as I’m getting out of the cab, that I’m alone. Of course I am—I’m on a mission. But I have enough ego to be very aware of how I look, a thirty-year-old going to a club by herself. So as I’m trying to figure out my next move, I stand at the head of the line, pretending to scan it for my friends.

  “Hey, Blue Dress,” someone behind me says.

  I keep searching the line, wondering what my chances are of sneaking in a back entrance, when the guy calls again, and I realize I’m wearing a blue dress.

  I turn to see one of the bouncers waving me over. He’s midforties, bald, steroid-pumped. I wonder what I’m doing wrong, maybe breaking some rule about hanging out too close to the doors.

  “You look like you know your way around a gym,” he says, as I walk over.

  “Uh . . . yes . . .”

  “You should try Bart’s.”

  “I . . . don’t think I know that one.”

  “It’s very exclusive. Here.” He takes a Sharpie from his co-bouncer’s pocket and motions for my hand. I give it to him. He writes “Bart,” and then what I think is an address, but when I look, I realize it’s a phone number. It actually takes about five seconds for me to realize he’s Bart, and this is his cell, and there is no gym.

  Yes, I’ve been married for a while.

  “I might . . . check that out,” I manage to say, as my brain struggles to ignite my rusty flirting skills and use them to get into this bar. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. And your friends? They’re inside. They said to watch for you.” He winks. “Hot brunette with a blue dress and biceps. That’s gotta be you, right?”

  “Yes . . . Yes, it is. Thank you.”

  He opens the door. Again, it takes a few seconds for me to realize I don’t coincidentally fit the description of an actual “friend” someone’s waiting for. He’s letting me in ahead of the line, in hopes I might actually call his number. If not, well, a party can always use more single women. Maybe I don’t look as mom-ish as I feel. Or maybe the bouncer just decided to shake things up for variety.

  Inside, the club is packed, as one might expect from that line. If I felt old walking up, I feel ancient now. It’s loud. So freaking loud. And it stinks—perfume and aftershave and BO mingling together. Then there are the lights, colored strobes and mirror balls.

  I stare at the mirror balls before remembering that’s the theme of Zima’s clubs: faux seventies. Mirror balls. Caged go-go dancers. Disco songs that have been remixed because the illusion of the seventies is all well and fine, but please don’t make us listen to the music.

  Outside, I’d been worried about how I’d fit in without friends. Now I laugh at that. Even if I had friends in here, I’d lose them in three seconds. No one’s going to notice that I’m alone.

  I make my way to the bar. When I get past the mob hanging out there, I lean over the bar and say, “Dark and stormy, please.”

  The bartender hesitates.

  “It’s rum and—” I begin.

  “Oh, believe me, I know how to make it. I’ve made so many that I’m out of ginger beer.”

  I must look surprised, because he chuckles, “Haven’t been clubbing in a while, huh?”

  “Evidently not. I guess it was just a matter of time before my drink actually became popular. Now I’ll have to find a new one.”

  “Hipster,” he says, and I laugh at that, and he promises to make me “something special.”

  We chat a bit. Nothing flirtatious. He’s wearing a wedding band and seems happy to spend a few moments talking to someone who isn’t checking him out.

  When I go to pay, a guy behind me leans over and says, “I’ll pay . . .”

  He stops as he gets a look at me. Apparently, I look younger from the back. Or hotter. When he sees me, he withdraws the twenty in his hand and mumbles something as he turns to talk to his friends.

  “Asshole,” the bartender says. “This one’s on me.”

  I shake my head and give him a twenty and a “keep the change.” Then I slide away, smiling to myself. I’ll admit to an ego bump when the bouncer let me in, and apparently the universe decided that needed straightening out, with the put-down at the bar. The thought puts me in a better mood than it should, and I’m wandering, sipping my drink, lost in my thoughts when I spot Denis Zima.

  That’s no coincidence. Zima is there to be seen, as much as those caged go-go dancers. Along one side of the room there are box seats, like those you find in old theaters, except these are raised just enough that the plebes on the dance floor can’t stumble into them. In the biggest box seat, Zima sits in an oversized throne-like chair, surveying his club while others in his box try—and fail—to catch his attention.

  According to my research, Zima is only twenty-seven. He looks older, though. There’s no uncertainty in his gaze, no hesitation. He’s the king of his pride, surveying the watering hole while his lionesses and hyenas all jockey for his attention.

  Seeing him up close does not answer the question of whether or not he’s Brandon’s father. Brandon takes after his mother, and Zima looks like the photo I saw—good-looking white guy with dark blond hair and blue eyes. Brandon is also white, blond, and blue-eyed. So is—was—Kim.

  But this is still Denis Zima. The reason I’m here. Now what?

  I have no idea. I don’t know what I was hoping for—that I’d see him and notice some secret mark that proved he was Brandon’s father? Hell, I hadn’t seen such a mark on the boy, so how would I find the same one on Zima?

  I didn’t know why I came here. Now I don’t know why I’m staying here. Desperation, I guess. Desperation and frustration, and the sense that this was the next logical step and that if I showed up here tonight, all would be revealed to me.

  Forget what I hoped to find. What can I find, now that I’m here? What am I looking for?

  Brandon.

  I am following a trail to Brandon. To a lost boy that no one else knows is lost.

  Kim Mikhailov is dead. After years of hiding her son from the world, she has been murdered, her son gone. And the boy’s potential father just happens to be in Chicago at the same time. That must mean something.

  I slip into a back hall. I’m looking for an office. Looking for a co
mputer. There’s bound to be one, and there’s unlikely to be anyone working on it at this time of night.

  Find an office computer and search it for anything useful. I’d love to find emails or documents telling me where Zima is staying—and might have Brandon—but I’ll settle for any useful tidbits. A computer always has those.

  I establish the layout of the building quickly. That’s one thing Ruben taught me. When breaking into a place, don’t go straight for the goods, even if you know where they are. Look around and get a mental map. Note exits. Note hiding spots. Note areas that might contain unexpected treasure . . . or dangers.

  The first floor is the club itself. There’s also a small kitchen. Nothing huge—this is a place that serves food because it doesn’t want you leaving if you get peckish, not because it wants you coming for dinner. There’s a basement. I’m going to guess that’s storage. There’s also a second story, with stairs around the back. That’s the most likely spot to find an office.

  I don’t just walk around opening doors. There are people here, staff zipping up and down the corridors. Staff who will be quick to point me back to the dance floor. Still, I do know how to do this. These skills don’t come from Ruben. We only ever broke into empty houses. I learned this part from, well, from playing video games.

  I’ve always been fond of first-person shooters, and I’m not the kind of player who blasts her way through to a goal. I approach the task with care, favoring stealth over force. Games like that offer an endless array of almost-empty buildings with the quest target hidden in the middle, requiring the player to pass umpteen guards who are, apparently, assigned to patrol one hall and only one hall. Which means that I’m very good at scoping out an area, finding every hiding spot, and then leapfrogging from one to the next while avoiding that gun-toting commando . . . or eagle-eyed server.

  I make it upstairs without being spotted. It’s not a full level—the club takes up part with its high ceiling. From the top of the stairs, it’s dark, and I see and hear nothing.

  I check doors as I walk. There’s a lounge area. An empty room with construction equipment. And then a locked door. It’s a simple lock, intended to keep people from accidentally wandering in. I open it with a credit card.

  Right inside the door, a dead bolt waits on the floor, along with a cordless screwdriver. That makes me chuckle. It seems that someone did foresee the need for more security . . . they just haven’t quite gotten to it yet.

  This is indeed the office. Filing cabinets. Two desks. One desktop computer. I check the cabinets first. Empty. Then I flip through a stack of papers on the desk. Purchase orders and work orders. On to the computer.

  It’s password-protected, which would take time to crack, if I didn’t check under the keyboard and find the password there. Hey, it’s a new office, new computer . . . it’s easy to forget these things. To their credit, they’ve used a complex password, one of random letters and numbers. Good for security; lousy for remembering.

  I enter the password. The desktop opens, and I go straight to the contact list. I find an entry for Zima. I make note of his cell phone number and email address. That’s when I remember the two unidentified numbers on Kim’s phone record, the one with no answer and the one out of service. I pull those up on my cell and punch them into the desktop computer for full file-system search. No match.

  I zip through email, but the computer belongs to whoever is playing office manager, and it’s clean. Clean in the sense that there’s nothing incriminating. It’s all business.

  I type in Kim’s names, real and fake. A global document search brings up nothing.

  I try “Brandon.” I do get matches, but only because that’s the surname of a contractor.

  Next I go into the trash—the computer’s trash bin, that is. Nothing.

  If the office manager plays any role in Zima’s less-than-legal business, it’s not here. I don’t even know that Zima has less-than-legal business. I’m—

  Footsteps sound on the stairs. I dart into the supply closet. I pull the door shut behind me and duck behind a stack of boxes.

  The footsteps echo through the empty upper floor. Then the office door opens and the footsteps enter.

  “What do you mean we don’t have the security cameras up and running?” a man’s voice asks.

  There’s a pause, as if he’s on the phone. Then, “Dummy cameras? Well, guess who’s telling Denis that. Hint? It’s not me.”

  A creak, as if the guy sat on the edge of the desk. “Right now, he’s busy looking for the chick from the news. He thinks she’s here tonight.”

  I freeze in a moment of sheer panic before I almost laugh aloud. Chick from the news? At a grand opening? Obviously, he means that Zima is hoping he’s spotted media coverage.

  The man continues. “Yeah, well, if those cameras aren’t working, I’d suggest you get all eyes on the floor. You saw her in the news?”

  A moment of silence. Then a frustrated growl. “Pay attention, asshole. Didn’t you get the memo?”

  Pause.

  “No, it wasn’t an actual memo. No wonder you’re a security guard. You aren’t even bright enough to be a beat cop, and that’s saying something. Yeah, yeah, stop sputtering. The chick’s about my age. Dark hair. Bright blue dress. That’s the clincher—the dress.”

  I look down at my dress.

  It’s bright blue.

  He means me? Zima saw me on the news? Saw me downstairs?

  The man continues, “Between you and me, I think Denis is seeing things. He’s all worked up about the kid.”

  The kid. My heart slams into my ribs.

  Stop panicking and get your phone out. Start recording this conversation.

  I’m fumbling in my purse as the guy says. “Yeah, I don’t know why she’d be here. She’s some chick from the suburbs, says she met Kimmy in the park. And now she’s clubbing in the city? Doesn’t make sense. But you know Denis. We’ve got to make it look good. Find every dark-haired chick in a blue dress, and tell her she’s . . . won free drinks or something. Specially selected to come speak to the boss.”

  I finally find my phone.

  “Yeah, I know it’s a pain in the ass. But it’s your goddamned job.”

  Where’s the app to record? I’ve never used it before.

  Damn it!

  The guy’s talking again. “Hey, asshole, watch your mouth. I might think Denis is wrong about the chick, but I don’t blame him. Not one bit. Put yourself in his place.”

  There. Found the app. I open it and click Record as the man continues.

  “Imagine your girl takes off. Disappears from the face of the earth. Then, five years later, you see this chick on the news, talking about your girl having a little boy. A little boy who’s five years old. Suddenly you know why your girl left. Not only did she leave, but she took something of yours, something you never realized you had. A son.”

  My head shoots up.

  Did he say Zima didn’t know about Brandon?

  No. I’ve misheard. Please let me have misheard.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” the guy says. “Denis might be hallucinating this chick being at the club tonight, but he’s not hallucinating the fact he’s got a little boy. A kid who’s disappeared.”

  A pause.

  “No, dumbass. The boy didn’t randomly get kidnapped the same day Kimmy dies. Someone has him. Someone’s taking care of him. Someone who is not his daddy. That’s a problem. One Denis is going to fix.”

  The guy has been gone for at least three minutes, and I’m still in that closet, paralyzed, barely able to gasp breath.

  What have I done?

  Oh God, what have I done?

  Zima never knew he had a son . . . until he saw me on the television, telling the world I’d seen his dead ex with a five-year-old child.

  Kim must have run from Zima before he knew she was pregnant. She hid Brandon so Zima would never find out he had a child. When she realized she was in danger she must have made arrangements for Brand
on. That’s what this guy obviously thinks, and from the way he’s talking, he knew Kim.

  She found a safe place for Brandon, put him in that park and told him to wait for someone to come get him. His rescuer comes. Brandon hears his name, and he runs over. He sees a stranger. He’s confused. He panics. The man quickly bundles him into the SUV and spirits him off to safety.

  Kim has protected her son again. Her final act was protecting him. She got him to safety before Zima found out he exists.

  And then I came along and ruined everything.

  As I make my way down the hall, I focus on how I will fix this. Get my audio recording to the police. Let them stop Zima. I’ve made a terrible mistake, but I can still fix it. I will fix it.

  That resolve lets me concentrate my escape. There’s no one upstairs again, so I get to the first level easily. I leapfrog from hiding place to hiding place. I remember an exit door partway down the back hall. I’ll use that.

  I get to the door and find it emblazoned with a huge sign warning that opening it will set off an alarm.

  I do not want an alarm. But the alternative is to go back through the club, while every employee is looking for a dark-haired woman in a bright blue dress.

  I remember the conversation between Zima’s employee/friend and the head of security. If the cameras aren’t operating yet, and the dead bolt isn’t on the office door, that suggests the security team wasn’t fully prepared for tonight’s opening. Is it possible, then, that this door isn’t armed?

  Even if an alarm does sound, I can run. It’s not like I have to worry about security cameras.

  I tug off my heels. Then I press down on the bar handle and carefully push the door . . .

  It doesn’t budge. I depress the handle harder. Still nothing.

  They’ve locked the damn emergency exit.

  Shoes slap the concrete. I duck into a hiding spot. A guy hurries past. Once he’s gone, I make my way toward the club. The entrance to the dance floor is just up ahead. I’ll cut a beeline through it to the exit, sticking to groups of people and avoiding that box where Zima sits. I’ll just—