Watch Over Me

by Susan May Warren

  “Oh, God, where are you?” she moaned. “I’m so sorry I turned away from You. I need You more than ever. Don’t abandon me!” Gracie gritted her teeth. She might not deserve God’s protection, but it couldn’t keep her from asking.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Psalm 23. For the second time, the Psalm filled her mind. This time she allowed it to find root. David had been pursued. Chased. Abandoned. Afraid. His best friend had been killed. She grabbed her satchel and dug through it for her Bible and a flashlight.

  Flipping through Psalms, her eyes fell not on Chapter 23 but on Psalm 22. “‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” She trembled as the words embedded themselves in her heart. These were Jesus’s words, spoken as He suffered on the cross. Even God knew what it felt like to be alone and afraid.

  “‘Do not be far from me, for trouble is near.’” Gracie said in a whisper.

  “God, I’m terrified. I know You can save me, but will You?” Gracie surrendered to the burn in her throat, tears filling her eyes. “What do I have to offer You? I don’t deserve Your love. I’ve failed You so many times.”

  She bit down on her trembling lower lip. Leaning back, she clutched the Bible to her chest. What did she have to offer God? Why should He protect her? She wasn’t like Evelyn or Dr. Willie, leading people to the Lord. She was on the run—from her past, from her guilt. She was the one who deserved to die. A sob shuddered through her, and she clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling it.

  Remember David.

  Gracie’s rapid breath stilled. David. Her eyes widened and she wiped her sodden cheeks. Of course. David, the King, the anointed one, the favored of God. David, who killed a man to hide his sins with Bathsheba. David, the man after God’s own heart. Why did God love David?

  Gracie laid the Bible in her lap and scanned the verses in Psalm 22 with her flashlight. Verse twenty-three nearly screamed her name. “‘You who fear the Lord, praise Him!…. For He has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.’”

  Cried unto Him. David called on God. Not because he deserved it, but because he needed God’s salvation.

  Gracie flipped to Psalm 51, David’s prayer of repentance. “‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love.’” Her mind sorted through the words. David had called on God’s mercy and unfailing love. God had not only forgiven him, He’d restored him and protected him. David’s faith and his need for God, instead of his triumph as a king, earned him a place in God’s esteem. Not because he was perfect. But because he wasn’t.

  “‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.’”

  Gracie let the words sweep through her. Could it be that God hadn’t abandoned her? Maybe, in fact, she’d just been ignoring Him. If her understanding was correct, it was those who needed Him who found Him. Maybe she didn’t have to be a stellar missionary or even someone deserving of forgiveness to receive it. She could be like David…a person whom God loved, despite her mistakes. “Oh, God, please forgive me,” she whispered. “I know I don’t deserve Your love, but because of Your mercy, save me. Protect me. Deliver me home.”

  She drew a shaky breath as warmth flooded her. Although eerie gray shadows filled the room and the air was nippy, the warming peace swaddled her.

  Why had it taken a trip across the ocean and the death of her friends for her to see it? She closed her Bible and curled up on the bed. Tucking the Bible next to her, she rubbed it gently. Fingers of moonlight streamed across her hand, and she imagined it was God caressing her hand with His own.

  11

  The Wolf leaned against the chipped cement building, the cold sneaking in under his flimsy gray trench coat. What was he doing, depending on someone else, again? Had thirty years as a pawn taught him nothing? He watched a young couple stroll by. She laughed, her head back, bleached blonde hair streaking into the wind, skinny legs in slinky black hose, her leather jacket longer than her skirt. The young man beside her smoked a cigarette and the smell curled around the Wolf like a snarl, taunting, mocking. He bristled.

  He missed those days. Youthful days when desperation didn’t know his name.

  What was taking her so long?

  Farther down the street, the statue of Lenin cast a dark shadow across the newly tiled Lenin Square. The old Russian boss’s arm stretched out, finger pointing up to the future. The Wolf couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. The Grandfather of the Glorious State would weep to see her today.

  A stiff wind, carrying the odor of mud and old snow, slogged down the street, scraped up candy wrappers. A dented can rattled toward him. The Wolf felt grit clinging to his eyes, nose.

  The phone rang. He snatched up the receiver, nearly ripping the wire from the base. “Slyushaiyu.”

  “He just called. They went to his parents’ home.”

  “In Berozivka?”

  “Da.”

  He hung up. Gray, tired eyes watched him cross the street. The window of a rusty Zhiguli came down halfway.

  “It’s about time,” the Wolf said as he climbed in.

  Vicktor wrestled with his bedclothes as the dream took possession of him. He had the faint impression that perhaps, if he could just focus, he could alter the events, but the force of memory drove the nightmare unchanging through his mind.

  * * *

  “Vicktor, wait.” The voice sounds as if it is in a tunnel.

  Vicktor’s skin prickles as he enters the gutted apartment building. The moon creases the cement in splinters of pale light, and eerie shadows embed the crumbling walls of former habitation. He wades deeper into the darkness, steps echoing.

  Outside, sirens mourn.

  The Wolf is here. Vicktor knows it. He feels the Wolf’s presence like fingers on his clammy skin. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears screaming.

  The smell of fresh rain upon cement makes his nose wrinkle. He stills. Strains to hear beyond his roaring pulse.

  He knows the pain will come before it splinters his head. But he’s too slow, caught in the mire of subconscious regret. He falls to his knees. Another blow and his cheek slams into the floor. He rolls, scrambling to evade his attacker. A kick to the jaw, and his head rings. Blood fills his mouth.

  “Here I am,” a voice snarls.

  Vicktor blinks, scrabbling at the fog, the layers of pain.

  Metal glints in the Wolf’s hand. “No!” He hears himself, and another voice behind his thought pulses…

  Wake. Up.

  Then footsteps, swallowed by the darkness.

  No!

  A shot. He feels his chest burn as a scream rends the air.

  Sweat bathes his body. It’s dark. The scream forms, becomes his name. Then moaning. Over, and over.

  He’s in the street. Light shining at erratic angles, and he sees.

  Nickolai. Writhing. His dark eyes pin Vicktor.

  “What have you done?”

  * * *

  Vicktor cried out and awoke to the bedsheets clutched in his fists, one leg outstretched as if he’d tried to leap from the bed. He threw off the covers. The sweat layering his body chilled in the crisp night air. What have you done? Only the dripping of his kitchen faucet remained of the voice, but guilt had him by the throat.

  His impulsiveness had destroyed his father’s life.

  He got up and padded over to the window, bare feet turning to ice on the wood floor. Early morning had colored the cityscape deep purple. Across the street, the lights from two windows pushed against the morning shadows. His stomach tightened. Somewhere out there, an American woman was hiding for her life. And he had no idea from whom.

  Time to get religious. Roman’s voice echoed in his head. He gritted his teeth, wishing for once he had something to hold on to—not God, perhaps, but hope in a power beyond himself that might turn the tide in his favor. He scraped a hand through his h
air. Perhaps that was the appeal of God—someone to turn to when life felt out of control.

  Vicktor left the window and sat back on the bed. The frosty air prickled his skin, but he made no attempt to cover his bare chest. He knit his hands together and rested his forehead on them.

  What did Grace Benson have to do with the Youngs’ Korean smuggling connection? Was she a part of the ring of thieves? He blinked and saw her eyes—pure, naive, beseeching him. Sure, the woman had violent murderer and thief written all over her.

  He shook his head, stalked to the kitchen. After lighting the stove, he put a kettle of water on to boil.

  He had to admit, the whole thing made him slightly ill. In a small way he relied on people like David and Roman to fill the world with some kind of hope and light. To balance the darkness and despair.

  When the pot hissed steam, he fixed himself a cup of instant coffee and sat down at his tiny kitchen table. His gaze fell on his black laptop. He’d forgotten to ask Miss Benson about the password. He scrubbed a hand down his face and groaned. Keep this up and his new career would be chipping ice off the sidewalks. Or trash duty in the park.

  Then again, sometimes it felt that way already.

  The telephone rang. Vicktor jumped to his feet, sending the chair over, and strode to the phone. “Slyushaiyu.”

  “Wake up,” Arkady barked.

  “I’m up.”

  “Get dressed and come over here.”

  Vicktor leaned against the wall. Cold streaked down his arm. “Where are you?”

  “Utuzh’s office. We have a surprise for you.”

  “What kind of surprise?” Vicktor rubbed his chin and headed over to the hall mirror. Red, cracked eyes stared back.

  “We found your chauffeur.”

  Vicktor’s breath caught in his chest. “Is he…?”

  “Yep, a clean, ear-to-ear smile right below his chin. Been dead for at least a day.”

  Vicktor groaned. “Are you sure it’s him? There’re a lot of chauffeurs in town.”

  “It’s him, all right, Leonid the Red, remember? This guy has a mop redder than the Kremlin.”

  Vicktor’s head pounded as he went for a cold shower.

  By seven a.m. Gracie couldn’t ignore the barnyard ruckus any longer and pried herself from the bed. Her matted, greasy hair felt like a wig, and chunks of mascara had wedged in the corners of her eyes. As she stared into Andrei’s tiny desk mirror, her shoulders slumped at the sight of the person in the wrinkled denim dress.

  Riffling through her satchel, she unearthed a hairbrush and attempted to construct a greasy braid. Oh, she was a real prize this morning. Wiping the mascara smudges from under her eyes, she sighed and surrendered to homeliness. Quickly smoothing Andrei’s bed, she sank beside it, clasped her hands, and bent her head. “Oh, God, protect me this day.” She stilled, waiting for peace, and found it in the rose-hued dawn that poured through the window.

  Silence bathed the living room as she cracked open the bedroom door. Andrei’s sheets were folded neatly on the made sofa bed. She padded to the kitchen and paused in the doorway. Aleksandra stood at the table, cutting bread. She appeared ages older than her fifty-some years with her hair tied back in a handkerchief and a hand-knit wool sweater covering her worn housedress.

  “Dobra ootra,” Aleksandra said. A slight smile wrinkled her face.

  Gracie returned the smile, inflecting apology. She couldn’t dodge the idea Andrei had put his parents in danger by dumping her on their doorstep like a stray.

  Aleksandra pointed to a chair. Gracie wrapped her arms around herself and watched Aleksandra cut bread. A teapot gurgled on the stove.

  “Where’s Andrei?” Gracie asked, fumbling in Russian.

  Of what Aleksandra answered, Gracie only understood the word soon.

  They fell into an uneasy silence. Gracie stared out the window. In the backyard, laundry flapped in the May breeze, a handful of chickens pecked, and the pig rooted through his food.

  Andrei emerged from the door of the tiny barn at the far end of the yard. He threw a mound of hay clamped on a rusty pitchfork into a tall, decaying pile of manure, eggshells, potato peelings, and bones.

  Gracie grabbed her trench coat hanging on a hook near the door and pulled on her hiking boots. The wooden door thumped as she closed it behind her. “Andrei!”

  He turned from the entrance of the barn. A wide grin formed on his unshaven face. “Dobra ootra.”

  Gracie wrinkled her nose as she stepped into the barn. Ooh, the smell of manure instead of breakfast. “What are you doing out here?”

  Andrei hefted his pitchfork. “Chores. Want to help?”

  “Sure, I can bat away the flies while you…um…what are you doing?”

  “I just finished milking.” Andrei threw his pitchfork into a mound. He looked decidedly provincial this morning, sweat running in a long trickle down his face and meshing with an array of coffee-brown whiskers. He reached for the pail. It brimmed with creamy milk.

  She reached for the bucket, and with it between them, they started toward the house.

  A crack shattered the crisp air. Gracie jumped. Milk sloshed into her boots. Another crack and Gracie felt Andrei’s hand snake around her neck. “Get down!” He slammed her into the ground, splashing the milk, covering her body with his. His hot breath steamed in her ears.

  “What?” She could feel his heart beating through his chest. Milk seeped into her dress. “Is that a gunshot?”

  “Stay down,” he hissed.

  Another crack. Gracie ducked her head. “Are they shooting at us?”

  “We have to get out of here!” Andrei iron-clamped her arm and yanked her to her feet.

  Panic stripped every rational thought, and she could only obey.

  Andrei dragged her through the muddy yard. She stumbled behind him, numb. “Why are they shooting?”

  He shoved her through a gap in the back fence. “Bwestra!”

  Gracie ran headlong through the next yard, scattering chickens. More shots ripped the air.

  “Oh, God, help!” she gasped, legs pumping. She slammed open a gate and nearly flew over three steps that led into the street.

  She landed hard, went down hard, and rolled into the mud.

  Andrei’s hands hooked under her arms. “Get up!”

  Pain made her woozy as she fought her way down the street.

  An odd stillness followed in their wake as they rounded the next corner and sprinted. Gracie heard only the sounds of her rasping breath and the whoosh of feathers as they startled pigeons.

  Andrei grabbed her elbow and yanked her into an alcove between a rusty metal dumpster and a rickety wooden fence. His hands gripped his knees. He hauled in heavy breaths, horror paling his face. “They found us.”

  Her voice was thin when she asked, “Who found us?”

  “I’ll get the car. You stay here and wait for me.”

  She nodded, but her heart froze in her chest when he left her there, crouched between a crushed soda bottle and a pile of decaying paper.

  12

  Vicktor stared at the death mask of Leonid the Chauffeur, turned a waxy yellow by the overhead lights, and winced. Did his father always have to be right? Frustration frayed his emotions as he walked a circle around the last known link between the Youngs, their killer, and Miss Grace Benson.

  “You’re sure it’s him?” Vicktor’s gaze strayed from the gray lips to the shock of bright red hair. The corpse lay on the long metal table, a red line down the center of his chest, coarsely stitched by Utuzh sometime in the wee hours. The indignity of it turned Vicktor’s stomach. It coupled with the pungent odor of formaldehyde, and for a moment, the room pitched.

  Vicktor slammed his hand on the metal table to steady himself, then yanked it back when it touched cold flesh. He’d had more than one nightmare about turning up on this table, naked and gray, with a seam parting his rib cage. Vicktor fisted his hands in his pockets and glanced up at Arkady.

  Arkady nodded without
meeting his gaze. “He had identification.” Fatigue etched craters into the Bulldog’s face and even the rumpled raincoat couldn’t hide the caving of his shoulders.

  Vicktor frowned at the obvious exhaustion. “Did you go home last night?”

  “What, and miss all the fun here?”

  A smile tugged at Vicktor’s mouth.

  “Your father called me.”

  Vicktor narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  “Seemed to think we’re after the Wolf.” Arkady rolled a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “Don’t get him worked up, Vicktor.”

  “Hope is all he’s got. I haven’t told him yet we were wrong.” Vicktor studied the corpse, the blackened wound across the man’s neck. “Maybe I should. What do you think, Utuzh?”

  “Still trying to figure that out.” Utuzh shuffled out of his office, a shadowed cave in the corner of the room.

  Okay, someone needed to tell these guys to take a day off and bathe. Utuzh smelled like day-old roadkill and looked worse. Chubby bags hung under his eyes, and his beard looked combed by a mammoth bone. His stained lab coat nearly sent Vicktor into the hallway. Someone would have to remove his stomach—and his olfactory glands—before they made Vicktor work in the ME’s office.

  “No signs of struggle,” Utuzh said, obviously unfazed by his appearance. “I doubt the chauffeur realized what was happening until his voice box was severed. Wolf handiwork, without a doubt.”

  Vicktor’s pulse rocketed. “The Wolf. Are you sure?”

  Utuzh’s bushy brows pinched together. “Do I look like an amateur to you?” He shot an annoyed glance at Arkady, who shrugged as if he’d toted in a kindergartner.

  “Where’d you find him?” Vicktor asked, ignoring the obvious scorn of his elders.

  Arkady fished around in his coat pockets. “Down by the river. Last night. A couple of unlucky kids kicked their soccer ball under his car.”

  Vicktor scuffed his toe into the mottled cement. “Pop said that where we found the chauffeur, we’ll find the Wolf.”