by Tami Hoag
“All right,” I said softly. “Thank you.”
He started to walk away, then turned back, cupped his hand around the back of my head, and kissed me with restrained frustration.
“Please don’t get yourself killed,” he said.
Surprised, I stood flat-footed and watched him leave the ER, wondering if I was pushing away one of the few people in my life ho might have stood behind me in what was to come.
Chapter 42
Edward Estes was a distinguished-looking man: neat, lean, elegantly dressed. His face seemed to arrange itself quite naturally into a look of disapproval.
Alexi Kulak sat in his office in the back of Magda’s bar, watching Edward Estes on the television screen with an intensity that would have frightened the man had he been able to see it.
Estes.
Alexi’s blood boiled harder every time he read the name at the bottom of the screen.
This was not a common name, he thought. He knew from different things Irina had told him that Elena Estes came from a wealthy background. She knew these men with whom Irina had entangled herself. And now these men were being represented by an expensive lawyer of the same name.
Just how much a part of this group was the woman he had chosen to find out who had killed his Irina?
With every passing moment he became more and more convinced that she would never give him the name of the murderer. She would lie to him. She would lie to protect her own kind.
A single knock sounded against his door before it opened and Svetlana Petrova stuck her head in.
“I brought for you lunch,” she said, slipping into the office.
Every move she made was like a reptile slithering, Alexi thought. There was always that look in her eye as well: cold, sly. His brain, twisted with grief and lack of sleep and the pills he was popping to stay awake, superimposed an image of Irina over her. Irina, tall and elegant, proud. Irina, slender and graceful, her eyes large and watchful, her lips as full as ripe berries. Then the image melted away and once again he could see only Svetlana. Svetlana, short and stubby, calculating. Svetlana, with her piggy little eyes and garish makeup, her clothes too tight, her hair too big and brittle with spray.
She came around the desk and took a seat on the desktop.
“You are too sad, Alexi,” she said. “You torment yourself. It was not your fault. Irina did as she pleased, and this is what happened.”
Kulak stared at her, hating her more with each passing second. She wasn’t worthy to have kissed Irina’s feet.
She leaned forward so he could see her breasts inside her sheer blouse She reached out a stubby little hand and touched his cheek.
“Let me make you feel better, Alexi,” she whispered. “Let me take your grief away, if only for a short time.”
“You told me you brought me lunch,” he said bluntly.
She smiled her sly reptilian smile. “But of course I did.”
Her feet braced on the arms of his chair, she leaned back, raised her skirt, and allowed her legs to fall open.
Alexi stared at her as she touched herself, opened herself. Her pussy was wet and red. He could smell her. Heat filled him.
Heat, but not the heat of sex.
The heat of rage.
“You fucking cunt!” he shouted, coming out of his chair.
He backhanded her hard across the mouth, the force of the blow knocking her off the desk.
“You dare do this!” he shouted, rounding the desk. “You dare debase my grief! You are nothing but a whore!”
Svetlana was on the floor, dazed. She looked up at him as he came toward her, bore down on her, and she tried to turn onto her hands and knees to scramble away.
Kulak grabbed her by the front of her flimsy blouse, which tore away as he tried to lift her to her feet. She landed hard on her backside and tried to push herself backward, but as she started to turn, she ran into the old file cabinets.
This time he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to her feet.
She tried to say no, but her jaw hung slack, and all that came out of her were animal sounds of fear.
“You dare think you can take her place, you stupid, filthy cow?”
Still holding on to her hair, he made a fist with his other hand and punched her in the breast as hard as he could—once, twice.
She was crying now, hysterical, trying to pull away. Her nose was broken and bleeding, the blood running into her mouth.
Alexi shoved her roughly to the floor, where she landed in a heap, half naked, mascara running twin black rivers down her face, making her look like a ghoulish clown. She glanced toward the door, looking for someone to come and save her, knowing no one would.
He made to strike her again, and she cringed and cowered like a dog.
“I should kill you!” he shouted. “I should kill you!”
And he might have, had something on the television screen not caught his eye. A photograph of a man, handsome, arrogant. Beneath the photograph a name: Bennett Walker. And beside it a photograph of a woman. Much younger than she was now, with a wild mane of black hair. Beneath the picture a name: Elena Estes.
He looked down at Svetlana and spat on her. “You are not worth my effort.”
He had more important things to do.
Once more he stared at the television screen. A photograph of Irina filled the frame beneath the title: MARKOVA MURDER.
He went back around his desk, took a gun from a drawer, and left.
Chapter 43
“I got the warrant. I’m at Palm Beach Polo,” Weiss said. “We’ve got the girl’s car driving in the west entrance at two-thirteen a.m. Sunday.”
“Can you see her in the car?”
“The tape isn’t that good.”
“And Walker?” Landry asked, getting that old familiar tension in his belly. He could practically smell Bennett Walker’s blood.
“And Walker and Barbaro in Walker’s Porsche. And Brody’s Escalade with a passenger. Ovada, maybe. And a couple of other cars I’ve got a deputy running plates on, but even money one is Paul Kenner and one is Sebastian Foster.”
“Jesus,” Landry breathed.
He stood on the far end of the sidewalk from the entrance to the ER. If he walked back inside and had a nurse take his pulse, they’d probably admit him.
He had the addresses of all the men in Brody’s clique. Of them, two lived in the Polo Club development: Paul Kenner and Bennett Walker.
“And going out?” he asked.
“Brody leaves via the west gate around three-thirty; the car I think belongs to Foster goes out behind him. Not Kenner, not Walker.”
“And the girl’s car?”
“Drives out the west gate Sunday night, late.”
“Can you see the driver?”
“No.”
“Shit,” Landry said. “Go to Walker’s place and canvass the neighborhood. See if anyone was aware of a party going on there Sunday morning. Kenner lives in the Polo Club too. If you don’t lit pay dirt in one place, try the other.”
“If we can place the cars at either house, I’ll get a search warrant,” Weiss said. “In the meantime, should I get Walker and Kenner picked up for questioning?”
“No,” Landry said. “We wait until we’ve got enough for an arrest warrant. Picking them up now will only piss off their lawyers—and give Dugan another excuse to chew our asses some more.
“I’ll talk to Dugan about having someone sit on them from a distance.”
“Right.”
“Did they get any prints off the car?”
“A couple of partials is all.”
“Better than nothing.”
“My money’s on the footprint,” Weiss said. “What’s up with the Perkins girl?”
“I haven’t interviewed her yet. She looks like an extra from a horror movie. And she’s scared shitless, but she claims she doesn’t know who attacked her.”
“I thought you hadn’t interviewed her yet.”
“I gotta go,�
� Landry said, and ended the call.
Immediately he called Dugan and updated him on the guard hack videos.
“Is there any way we can freeze these guys’ passports?” he asked. “They have access to private planes.”
“I’ll call the state’s attorney,” Dugan said. “I’m guessing no. If you don’t have enough for an arrest warrant, they’re free to do as they please.”
“Can we sit on them?”
“And have Estes and Shapiro screaming harassment?”
“From a distance.”
Dugan hesitated.
“Jesus Christ,” Landry snapped. “Do we have to ask please and say thank you when we slap the cuffs on them? Do we have to ask permission from their lawyers before we arrest any of them for murdering a girl and feeding her to the fucking alligators? Whoever did this is a goddamn criminal. I don’t give a rat’s ass how much money he has in his bank account.”
“Yeah, that’s all very socially conscious of you, James. But the reality—which you know as well as I do—is rank has its privileges. Life isn’t fair. If anyone past the age of six hasn’t figured that out by now, they need to get their heads out of their asses and look around.”
“So the answer is yes,” Landry said. “I’ll have to go home and get my white gloves and party manners before I arrest one of these assholes.”
“And when the time comes, Landry, every t crossed, every i dotted on the affidavit, or Edward Estes will chew up your warrant and shit motions to dismiss. Got it?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Where’s the other Estes in all this?” Dugan asked.
“Why would I know?”
“You have a way of coming across her. Do I have to worry about that?”
Landry didn’t answer right away, considering the ramifications one way or the other. If he told Dugan that Elena was at the hospital with the Perkins girl, Dugan would try to do something to get her out of the way, to contain her. Taking her out of harm’s way, Landry thought. But preventing Elena from doing any damn thing she wanted was no easy task.
If she thought Landry was behind Dugan’s actions—and she could—whatever small scrap of trust she might still have in him would be gone, probably for good.
And while she didn’t carry a badge anymore, this case was hers in all the ways that mattered. This was her vendetta, if in fact Walker had murdered Irina. Could he take that away from her?
Should he?
“Landry?”
“Yeah. I’m here. My phone cut out. What did you say?”
“The media is digging up everything from twenty years ago,” Dugan said. “She was involved with Bennett Walker. Testified against him on a rape/assault. Now here she is again, in the middle of it. Edward Estes’s daughter. This could be the fucking Rubik’s cube of conflict of interest. Do you know where she is?”
“No,” Landry said. “I don’t.
“Look, I have to go interview the Perkins girl,” he said. “She’s in the hospital. Someone beat the crap out of her last night.”
“Does she know who?” Dugan asked.
“You’ll be the first to know.”
He closed the phone and went back inside to take Lisbeth Perkins’s statement.
Chapter 44
A nurse practitioner, who was both competent and compassionate, examined Lisbeth and did the rape kit, finding nothing. Landry allowed me to stay while he interviewed the girl—as if he could have gotten rid of me. I listened to her story for the second time, thinking she had been through one of the most terrifying experiences I could imagine: blind, helpless, completely at the mercy of a ruthless, faceless demon.
Physically, Lisbeth would be all right. The blood in her eyes would recede over the next few days. The swelling in her throat would abate. She was on a heavy dose of mega-antibiotics to fight off any infection that might take hold in her lungs from inhaling the filthy, stagnant swamp water. Psychologically, she was in a far worse place.
She stared at the dashboard as we drove from the hospital to the farm, saying nothing, sitting so still she might have been catatonic. I let her be. The last thing she wanted to hear was someone crowing at her to buck up and count her blessings for being alive. Alive probably didn’t seem like such a great thing just then.
Having been there myself, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. People who have never experienced anything more devastating than a head cold are always the ones with the big Hallmark-card platitudes and wisdom. If I had a dollar for every time I wanted to tell one of those people to fuck off, I could have bought and sold Donald Trump three times over.
Sean was riding D’Artagnan when we pulled into the drive. He had the rock-solid seat and perfect upper-body position years of training with German masters had developed. He and the chestnut were one, springing across the diagonal line of the arena in a huge trot that seemed barely to touch the ground.
I wished I could be out there with him, the outside world receding as I focused on every footfall of the horse beneath me. In our sport, there is no time for the intrusion of external thoughts. In perfect moments, there is no conscious thought at all, only a oneness with the animal, only being. Communication is the simple exchange of pure energy. There is no process; no idea, plan, action, reaction, result. There is only intent and realization.
How unfortunate the rest of life is seldom that free of complications.
I parked in front of the cottage, went around the car, and opened Lisbeth’s door—otherwise, I thought, she would have just sat there indefinitely, staring at nothing.
“Come on, kiddo,” I said. “Let’s get you situated.”
I had to put a hand on her shoulder to keep her moving, or she would have simply stopped and become a lawn ornament. Inside, I took her to the guest suite and showed her how to operate the shower. While she was at that, I set out a pair of my own sweatpants and a T-shirt for her, then went to the kitchen and heated some udon soup.
Elena Estes, Domestic Goddess.
No one who knew me would ever have imagined it (which was the way I wanted it), but there was a part of me that could have too easily been a nurturer.
The quality was not hereditary. My birth mother had sold me to the highest bidder before I was even out of the chute. Nor had I learned by example from Helen, my adoptive mother.
I had learned by longing, and wishing, I supposed. By imagining how I would be, and how I would not be, when I had children of my own.
We were going to have three, Bennett and I. A boy, a girl, and a bonus baby. I had been overjoyed at the idea, had chosen names, and had mentally mapped out the things we would do together as a family.
But then there was never a marriage, never a baby, never a family.
Somewhere in my thirties I had made a kind of peace with it. I had a different calling. I was dedicated to my career. Never the most social of creatures, I was long since used to my own company. That worked for me. I didn’t have to conform to someone else’s idea of perfection or endure their unending disappointment. I was able to find some satisfaction within myself. Contentment—or as close as I was ever liable to come.
I had grown used to being as irresponsible as I wanted to be, to being as spontaneous as I wanted to be. I could be as selfish and headstrong as I wanted. I resented ever having to compromise my time, my plans. I didn’t have to be considerate of someone else’s schedule or expectations.
That was my trade-off.
But there were times—when twelve-year-old Molly Seabright came to me and began to rely on me, for instance; and then with Lisbeth, who was in many ways younger than Molly ever was— that the old longing crept up on me and I wondered how differently I would have turned out if only. I never allowed it to last very long. It hurt too much and served no purpose.
I put a bowl of soup on a tray and took it to the guest room, tapping on the door before I let myself in.
Her curly hair was a wet tangle but clean at least. She had put on the clothes I left out for her and had assumed her fav
orite position of the day—sitting backed up against the head of the bed with her knees drawn up to her chin. Her fingers worried at the little medallion she wore.
“Eat a little bit of this if you can,” I said, setting the tray on the bedside table. “It’ll soothe your throat. I was choked myself just the other day, so I know.”
She looked at me, not sure what to make of what I’d said.
I shrugged and took a seat on the bed. “The world is going to hell on a sled. What can I say?”
