The Lullaby Girl (Angie Pallorino Book 2)

by Loreth Anne White

  Once outside, she stopped and let the cool evening rain kiss her face and the winter wind pull at her hair. Inhaling a shaky breath, she wiped her sleeve across her mouth.

  It was him. The man she’d seen under hypnosis. A man with a crab tattoo exactly the same as Milo Belkin’s, but on his wrist. It was Semyon Zagorsky who had given her—and maybe her sister—those shoes. As a gift. With a purple bow. Zagorsky, Belkin’s associate, knew who she was, too. He’d cared enough to give her presents. She’d liked his eyes. Had he been at the cradle with Belkin that night? The second male, perhaps? Or if he wasn’t, he had to know what had gone down, given his continued acquaintance with Belkin over the subsequent years—at least until the 1993 drug haul.

  Could he be her father?

  No way in hell was she not going to drive out to Kelvin first thing tomorrow. That man, mob links or not, was part of her past and could be her dad. She needed to look into his face. Into those blue eyes. And even if he told her nothing, maybe the sight of him would make her remember everything.

  CHAPTER 42

  “I know it’s late and a Saturday, but I’m also aware you’ve been waiting—” The voice that came over Angie’s phone was that of IDRU tech Kira Tranquada.

  Angie’s hand tensed around her cell.

  “It’s a match,” Tranquada said. “The child’s foot DNA is identical to yours, apart from the minor epigenetic variations consistent with those of a monozygotic twin.”

  “No mistake?” Angie said.

  “It’s not an adventitious match, no. We conducted detailed analysis that went beyond the accepted standard thirteen loci. We repeated the results with a second sample. There’s no mistake.”

  Angie killed the call and stared out of her hotel room window. It was dark out. Through her reflection on the pane she could see lights from the yachts in Coal Harbour below. A sheen of rain glistened on the wings of wet floatplanes moored at the dock. Beyond, to the east, the lights of cargo vessels and tankers twinkled and played peekaboo with mist—the crews inside no doubt edgy for the port strike to be resolved so that they could enter and discharge their imports.

  She’d known that when Tranquada called this would be the news. But still, the cold, hard scientific evidence dropped like a weight through Angie’s chest. A twin—who’d somehow ended up in the Salish Sea, possibly deep under water, just lying there on some seabed for years, decomposing, being consumed by sea life, her left foot finally disarticulating, the air in the small ROOAirPocket floating it up to the surface where the tides and wind and currents had bobbed it along on a journey … for how long? From where?

  Had she suffered?

  Had their mother suffered?

  Who was Semyon Zagorsky to them all?

  She swallowed and checked her watch. She’d already phoned the warden at Kelvin Maximum Security Institution and arranged to visit Zagorsky tomorrow. It was a six-hour drive into the interior where the prison was located. She’d need to start early. She was unsure what time she’d manage to return. She could drive back through the night if she had to, make the ferry at the crack of dawn on Monday, be in her uniform and at the MVPD station by nine.

  This wasn’t about disregarding Maddocks’s warning, she told herself. This was about looking into the blue eyes of a man who could perhaps be her father, who might help her remember. Nothing in this world could stop Angie from doing this now—her need to know was too powerful. It was a fire consuming her.

  She opened the minibar and took out a small bottle of cold white wine. She poured a glass and carried her drink back to the window. She raised it to her mirror image reflected in the dark pane. Here’s to you, Mila, my other half. I’m going to find you. I’m going to lay you to rest in a place where we both belong. I’ll find that place.

  She sipped her wine as she watched Vancouver grow darker. And as it did, her reflection looking back at her grew more apparent. A stranger. A sister.

  She had a sister.

  Come … Comeum dum …

  No matter the cost, no matter what she learned, the truth would be preferable to what she had now—silence. And ghosts.

  Angie took another sip and jumped when her phone buzzed in her pocket.

  She fished it out, cleared her throat. “Pallorino.”

  “It’s Sergeant Vedder.”

  She stilled. Her boss. Calling on a Saturday evening? The tone of his voice did not bode well. Nor did the fact he’d announced his rank. Slowly she set her wine glass down on the table in front of the window.

  “What is it, Sarge?” she said quietly.

  “Sometimes I think you want to self-destruct, Detective,” came his voice. He was angry, clearly angry. “You were on probation. Do you understand what that means? It means a period of detention from which you can be released subject to good behavior under supervision. I went to bat for you, d’you know that? I argued for your continued employment while others at the MVPD wanted you gone. All you had to do was report to that desk for a period of twelve months. You haven’t even lasted one day. I stuck my neck out for this?”

  “Sir?”

  “I just got a call from the RCMP’s E-Division. You were asked to hand over evidence and stand down from messing in an active investigation. But you went and compromised the evidence before returning it, and you interrogated a key suspect today, an inmate who now refuses to cooperate in any capacity with the RCMP. And you did it using your MVPD badge while on disciplinary measures.”

  She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, counted to three, and released air slowly from her lungs in an effort to stop herself from countering her superior. Or from trying to explain her personal situation to him. She was beyond this. She couldn’t play this game any longer.

  “The RCMP will be taking its own action against you, but you leave me no choice. You were in clear breach of your probation. I expect your badge on my desk first thing Monday morning. Your position with the MVPD has been terminated.”

  Her chest clamped tight. She swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

  Angie killed the call and swore violently, hurling her phone at the hotel bed. She then snagged her glass off the table and downed the remaining wine in one long swallow. Her eyes watered as she wiped her mouth, and she caught sight of her mirror image in the pane again. Face in the mirror … Face of a sinner. She swore again and grabbed her sling bag. She rummaged inside it for her makeup.

  She found her lipstick and eyeliner at the bottom under her notebooks. She took the makeup into the bathroom, where she washed her face and brushed out her hair. Carefully she applied the eyeliner, good and thick and dark. She slicked on deep-red lip color. Moistening her lips together, she opened the top buttons of her shirt. What she saw in the mirror would have to do—it was the Angie she knew. The sinner. She stuffed her wallet in the rear pocket of her black jeans, pulled on her heeled boots, grabbed her leather coat, and stepped outside the hotel room door.

  CHAPTER 43

  Angie strode through the historic brick alleys and streets of Gastown, night lights and store windows smeared by falling rain. Vedder’s words dogged her, playing like a loop in her head.

  All you had to do was report to that desk for a period of twelve months. You haven’t even lasted one day … I expect your badge on my desk … Your position with the MVPD has been terminated …

  Sometimes I think you want to self-destruct, Detective.

  Was this it? Was this the end of everything she’d worked so devilishly hard for? Had her hunt for her past blinded her this badly? Was this what she got for struggling to define a sense of herself outside of policing? She had no idea who she was anymore—hadn’t even managed to hold on to being a cop.

  She walked blindly past the homeless begging on corners and crouched in doorways, hands out for a few pennies. She marched by pairs of lovers of all sexes who laughed as they gravitated toward clubs on this Saturday night in the city. She went past the hissing steam clock, past the touristy gaslight-era lanterns haloed with mist, into the edgier, decide
dly untouristy part of town—Hastings Street. Downtown Eastside. The city’s oldest neighborhood, known for its open-air drug trade and riddled with sex workers, poverty, mental illness, homelessness, infectious diseases, crime. An area notorious for decades worth of missing women and for being the hunting ground of pig-farmer-serial-killer Robert Pickton.

  Fog grew thicker. Litter appeared in shadowed doorways. The nightclub and restaurant clatter and bustle coming from Gastown quieted. She became conscious of her boot heels echoing on paving. Wind darted down alleys and tugged at the hem of her black coat as if trying to pull her back, warn her against going forward. And now Maddocks’s words chased her into skid row, into this seedy and lost corner of destitution and sin.

  You need to stop, Angie … You have to trust me on this—you’re in danger … I’m not just talking your job. I’m talking about your life.

  She strode faster. His words hounded her still deeper into Downtown Eastside.

  Keep your head down, and … keep vigilant. Lock your doors … I’m telling you this because … Because I think I’m coming to love you … I care, dammit. I want you around and in my life.

  Anxiety, claustrophobia tightened her chest, crowded her brain. And a mad kind of desperation rose inside her—a cry for relief. From this shit inside her head and her heart—these feelings she had for Maddocks that terrified her .

  She saw it up ahead. A pink neon sign. RETRO ADULT LOUNGE CLUB. The letter L flickered. The last letter E had died. Red triple XXXs blinked wildly across the top of the club entrance. And next to the tripleX banner was a rooms-by-the-hour sign. VACANCY.

  A bouncer stood, feet planted apart, at the door—bald head, black leather jacket with shearling at the collar. No lineup. Quiet street. A ripple of heat coursed through her.

  Angie made for the door. The bouncer admitted her with a nod.

  Inside, a small lobby was bathed in red light. A reception area was tucked into an alcove on her right. It was hot inside. Music throbbed below the linoleum-covered floor and pulsed up from a stairwell that led underground. On the reception counter a sign read, COAT CHECK. Another beside it declared, ROOMS FOR RENT. A musty smell of mold and old alcohol and stale cigarettes filled her nostrils. She noticed another set of stairs leading up behind the reception area, presumably to the rooms upstairs.

  Angie hit the bell on the counter.

  A woman chewing gum stepped out of a small room at the back.

  “Yes, love?” the woman said in the husky and scratchy voice of a heavy smoker. Her skin was dulled and heavily lined. Half-moon bags sagged beneath her blue eyes, and aquamarine shadow plastered her lids. She wore a green sequined jumpsuit circa 1970, and her overtreated, red-dyed hair sprouted in a frizzy halo around her worn features.

  Angie blinked at the woman, her world feeling suddenly tilted.

  “Want a room?” the woman prompted as she scratched at the side of her arm with chipped carmine-coated nails. The bass of the music from the club reverberated below Angie’s boots, heavy with promise.

  “No. Thanks. Just want to check my coat.” She shrugged out of her coat and handed it over the counter to the “concierge.” Rings glittered on the woman’s fingers as she grasped for Angie’s long leather garment. She offered Angie a numbered ticket in return. Angie pocketed the ticket, wondering if she’d ever see her coat again. She turned to go, then hesitated.

  “How much are the rooms?”

  The woman angled her head, assessing Angie. She grinned slowly. A gold incisor glinted under her upper lip. “For you, nineteen dollars for two hours. Want one?”

  “Ah … I’ll take a look downstairs first. Thanks.” She headed for the throbbing stairwell. Heat emanated up the well with the sound.

  As Angie descended into the pulsing, smoky miasma of the basement club, something made her stop. She glanced back over her shoulder. The concierge smiled at her again, then slowly the woman’s grin faded as she held Angie’s gaze. Shrugging off the odd sensation that she’d just been afforded a glimpse of a future version of herself through some hideously distorted funhouse mirror, Angie turned and resumed her way down the stairs. But the sense of disquiet followed her below ground.

  Angie stopped at the bottom. The area was dimly lit with a hazy red glow. Music was from the eighties. A bar counter fronted by plush stools ran the entire length of the back wall. In the floor space in front of the bar, smaller tables and booths faced a stage that was lit from the bottom, colors undulating and shifting across the surface. Upon the stage two topless women wearing only G-strings and Perspex platform heels gyrated and swung from chrome poles as the light pulsed beneath them. About two dozen patrons, more males than females, nursed drinks as they alternately conversed and ogled the dancers.

  Angie felt as though she’d stepped back in time into some seedy Las Vegas strip club.

  She made for the bar at the rear, slid up onto a vacant stool, and ordered a vodka tonic. The bar guy smiled, but she ignored him. Turning on her stool, she sipped her drink, watching the dancers for a few moments, wondering how they’d gotten here—who they were. She shifted her attention to evaluating the obviously single and hunting males in the establishment.

  “Drink?” said a deep voice near her ear. She jumped and spun her head—she hadn’t even seen or heard him approach. She was off her game. The owner of the voice smiled. Light-hazel eyes. Good haircut. Gym body. Small gold cross nestling in chest hair between the V of a pristine white golf shirt. Maybe early forties, she guessed. Her attention flicked briefly to his hand resting on the bar, a little too close to her. A slightly paler indent marked his ring finger. It was also devoid of hair. Long-term wear from a band. Her gaze ticked up to his face.

  “Sure. Vodka tonic.”

  He waved to the barman and indicated another for Angie and a refill for himself. She swigged back her drink and picked up the second, a nice buzz beginning to lift the edge off her brain and ease her body.

  “I’m Andy,” he said.

  “I’m sure you are.” She gave him a seductive smile.

  He hesitated. Uncertain. Then laughed. It was a nice laugh, a nice look. It warmed her. “I suppose you’re waiting for the Do you come here often line?” he said.

  “I was hoping for something a little more original from a married father from the suburbs.”

  His smiled faded. A dark look flickered through his eyes. And she wondered, is this what it came down to—the until-death-do-us-part-in-sickness-and-in-health shit? She’d encountered enough “Andys” and “Antonios” in her life to know the farce of that promise and the futility in thoughts of happy-ever-after. No doubt “Andy” here had himself stood in front a priest or marriage commissioner and made the same vow. Maybe he’d actually believed it at the time. Now here he was. Did it matter—a bit of sex on the side? Anonymous. Edgy. Thrilling. A risk. A break from the humdrum.

  Would it relax him? Make him a better dad and lover at home? Keep him nice because he had a secret? Or would it just excite him—fuel him only until he started jonesing for another fix? Perhaps he didn’t get any at home, poor boy. Wifey might be too busy feeding kids, dropping them off at day care, struggling to put in a full-day’s work, and falling into bed each night exhausted. Or wifey was happily fucking her own lover in the tennis clubhouse or doing some underage stud from her classroom where she taught at some secondary school. Or maybe she’d hooked up with a first love she’d rekindled via a surprise I-found-you! Facebook connection that reminded her what it had felt to be seventeen and in lust and have the world at one’s feet.

  The thoughts flattened her nice booze buzz, so she took another deep sip of her drink and turned to watch the strippers. And the men watching them.

  I want a normal relationship when things settle down. I want us to see if this can work … I’m coming to love you … I care, dammit. I want you around and in my life.

  James Maddocks’s face shimmered into her mind. Those deep-blue eyes. The warmth of his touch. The power in his movements. What
he could do to her in bed.

  Wasn’t it just the same timeless farce playing out?

  He’d already tried to play the game. To be a good dad. A husband. And failed. Maybe like Andy here he’d also hit the clubs for a bit of fun after Sabrina took up with that accountant of hers, hell knew. What was it to be human, to love? To be touched, to commit, to copulate. It could both nurture and hurt. It could create life, and it could kill.

  She glanced at Andy. He was watching her intently. She imagined him naked. Upstairs on a bed. Two hours. Cuffed. Get her fix. He goes home to wifey. She goes … back to her hotel. No job.

  She sucked back her drink, plunked the glass on the counter, and waved at the barman, eyes watering slightly. When the barkeep looked her way, she jabbed her finger at the empty glass. He nodded, reached for the bottle.

  “Hitting it hard tonight?” Andy said, still watching her keenly. He touched her arm, trailing his finger along it. His pupils darkened as he held her gaze. “What does bring a woman like you here tonight, then?” he said.

  “Sex.”

  He blinked.

  “You?”

  “I ah … yeah. Let off some steam.”

  Conflict warred inside her. Should she do it? Pick someone up again? Blow her brains out and numb her body and emotions with hot intercourse? Or should she draw her line right here, right now, get up and walk away, go home to the island, drop her walls and allow herself to love Maddocks … and brace for the pain that might cause her? Should she take that dizzying tumble into that abyss, just to see if she could survive?

  “So, Andy,” she said, reaching for her third glass of vodka tonic, speaking more slowly now as the edges around her tongue blurred. “Does it work for you?” She sipped, watching him.

  “What do you mean?”

  The music changed. Fresh girls on stage.

  “You come here. Get laid with … with some anonymous bitch, go home—helps you be, like, what? A good dad, husband? Until the next fix?”

  His brow crooked up. “You’re kinda weird.”