Soldier's Redemption

by Alice Sharpe

  Skylar stepped into Svetlana’s apartment and closed the door after her. “I’m not here to harm you,” she said softly. “I just want some information.”

  “You are the niece of Luca Futura,” Svetlana said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “He is a bad man.”

  “Why do you say that?” Skylar asked.

  “Because he employs Ian Banderas,” she said.

  “May we sit down for a moment?” Skylar asked.

  Svetlana cleared a chair of what appeared to be clean clothes in the process of being folded after washing. As spartan as Aneta’s apartment had been, this one was cluttered, crammed with cast-off furniture and worn carpets. As Skylar sat, Svetlana perched on a corner of a sofa, twisting her hands in her lap.

  “First of all, my uncle isn’t a bad man. He is kind and loving to his family and very concerned about the people whose lives he touches.” He’s also turning out to be something of a control freak, she thought to herself. “Svetlana, have you ever heard of a woman named Aneta Cazo?”

  “The name is familiar,” Svetlana said.

  Skylar sat foreword. “Really? In what context?”

  Svetlana frowned in concentration. “I read it. In the newspaper. She’s the woman who was murdered in her apartment a few days ago, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. But had you heard of her before that?”

  Svetlana shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Was she a friend to my Malina?”

  “I don’t know,” Skylar admitted. “Listen, will you tell me again what you believe Ian Banderas did to your daughter?”

  The woman popped to her feet and grabbed a framed photograph off a shelf, pushing it into Skylar’s hands. It showed a girl of about fifteen sitting in the chair Skylar currently occupied. “She’s lovely.”

  “That was taken just a few months ago. She worked at a café. That’s where she met Ian Banderas. She doesn’t know I know about him, but I do. The dishwasher there is a friend, and he warned me. Banderas is way too old for my Malina, too sophisticated. The next thing I know, Malina is gone, leaving me money, promising more, telling me not to tell anyone, not to worry. Where would she get money, and why would she disappear?”

  “Did you ask Banderas about your daughter?”

  “Not at first. I went to his apartment right after she left. I knew Banderas was at work, so I talked to the man who stands at the door. I showed him that picture of Malina, and he said he had never seen her.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  The tears were back, running unheeded down Svetlana’s cheeks. “I do not know what or who to believe, but I do know Ian was with Malina the night she disappeared.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Malina’s friend at the café, Katerina, told me.”

  “Has she heard from Malina?”

  “I don’t think so. She is being friendly to Banderas, waiting to see what he does. We stay in touch. She has no family, and I worry for her.” Svetlana dabbed at watery eyes. “I finally pretended to bump into this Ian and ask about Malina, but he said he had never heard of her. That’s a lie. That was months ago. Malina’s note told me to be patient. I try, but time keeps passing. The other night I decided to corner Ian in a public place and try to scare him into telling me the truth. Not one word do I hear from my girl. But he does not scare, that one. I am sorry about hitting your friend. If Banderas knew I tried to attack him, I think he might kill me. He is evil. I am so grateful he doesn’t know what I did, but what do I do now?”

  Skylar sat very still. She’d told her uncle this woman’s name. He would innocently mention it to Ian when they spoke. What would Ian do? “Svetlana, do you have anywhere you can go for a few nights?”

  The panic was back in the woman’s eyes. “I must stay here in case Malina returns.”

  “No, you must disappear for a while.” She gestured at the cell phone on the coffee table. “She can always call you, right?”

  The worried frown softened a bit. “Yes, she can call.”

  Skylar dug in her purse and came up with most of the euros she carried. “Take this, and get a room or pay a friend for space. Something. Leave now, tonight. Right now.”

  Svetlana apparently grasped the urgency in Skylar’s voice and gathered a clean change of clothes from the basket on the floor, shoving them into a paper sack. She picked up her phone to call her friend, and Skylar stopped her. “Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Just surprise your friend.”

  Svetlana nodded, eyes solemn, dropping her phone into her coat pocket, but she refused to take money from Skylar. “Money is what Malina left me, but what good is money without my girl?”

  Skylar called another cab, and the two women took it to Svetlana’s friend’s place on the outskirts of Traterg. “You will try to find what happened?” Svetlana asked as she got out of the cab. “Maybe you could ask your uncle. But don’t say my name, please.”

  “Yes, I promise.” She was making lots of promises tonight. This was one she had no right to make as it had been broken before she even got here. But reflected in Svetlana’s voice was the same longing to know what was really going on that Skylar had heard in her aunt’s. “It may take a couple of days,” she added. “What was the name of the café Malina worked at? I take it Katerina is still there?”

  “Yes, yes, for now. It’s called Pushki’s,” Svetlana said. She grabbed Skylar’s hands and squeezed them, then hurried into her friend’s house.

  It was very late by now, well after two in the morning, and Skylar wasn’t sure what to do. If her suspicions about her uncle’s intentions were correct—that he had engaged someone to follow her—they might find the note she’d left in her room. She would bet money they would settle on Cole’s hotel as her likely escape.

  But that’s exactly where she needed to go. She needed to talk to Aneta’s family to gather more information with which to get her uncle to open his eyes to his assistant’s escapades. And she needed Cole’s help to do that.

  But she’d told him to back off. How did she go back on that a mere twelve hours later?

  The night staff was sparse at the hotel, but someone eventually noticed Skylar lurking behind the plants and came to see if there was something wrong. She made up a story about a jealous boyfriend and heaven knows what else until the poor clerk took pity on her and allowed her to rent a room for the remainder of the night without formally registering. She paid in cash and went to her room, which wasn’t half as plush as Cole’s room.

  She sat on the bed and wondered what she was doing there. When her uncle found out she’d left the way she did, his feelings would be hurt, and that wasn’t her goal. Maybe she should just go back to the house, try talking to him again, maybe borrow her aunt’s car and drive to see Aneta’s family by herself.

  What had happened to her? Her whole life, she’d been the sunny girl who never seemed to have trouble with anything or anyone. She’d trusted everyone she knew and loved and thought she understood exactly who they were and what they wanted.

  And now she felt as if she’d lost her way, that the map she’d been following had somehow been torn in half and she was missing the directions she needed to make wise decisions.

  She left a wake-up call for early in the morning and doubted she would need it. Sleep seemed like something she’d done in a past life when her brain knew how to relax. Tonight, it just raced....

  * * *

  COLE SAT DOWN AT the counter in the hotel coffee shop as he had most mornings since arriving in Traterg. He wasn’t looking forward to the three-hour-or-more drive to Slovo and was still trying to decide if he should try to look up Aneta’s family. Without Skylar to bridge the language barrier, what was the point?

  The waitress set a cup of strong coffee down in front of him, and he nodded at her. He pointed at the picture on the menu that illustrated a stack of toasted bread. She apparently got the drift of his meaning because she walked off to give his order to the kitchen.

  The sugar
was on the other side of the person sitting next to him, who was buried in a newspaper. He tapped his neighbor on the arm. The paper shifted slightly, and he found himself looking into an alpine lake, or rather two eyes the color of one.

  “Skylar?”

  “Shh.” She was dressed simply in jeans and a bulky sweater and wore a wool knit cap pulled down over her hair. Keeping the newspaper high, she added, “I think someone may be following me.”

  “Who?” he asked, although the bigger question was why.

  “No idea. I don’t want to go into it all right this second, but can I change my mind and go with you to Slovo?”

  He was still getting over the shock of her presence. He’d written off his chances of ever seeing her again; yesterday’s conversation had revealed she sensed he wasn’t being forthright and he’d admired her for putting her foot down and drawing a line. Regretted it, sure, but admired it, too. Skylar Pope might look like an ingenue with her china-blue eyes and perfect skin, but she was no one’s fool.

  Yet here she was. “Why the change of heart?” he said knowing he should shut up and enjoy providence or whatever had caused it.

  Him, maybe? Was it possible she’d regretted not coming back to the hotel with him? He knew he had missed her horribly and had spent a good part of the night waiting for a tentative knock on his door, a soft voice. Dare he hope against all reason that she felt the same way?

  “Can’t a woman be fickle on occasion?” she said.

  He looked deep into her eyes. “Hell, yes.”

  “I hear a but in your voice,” she said softly.

  “But I really didn’t expect to see you again.”

  She looked hard at him and then away. “I see.”

  “You see what?”

  “You’ve found someone else.”

  “Now wait a second. You’ve got it all wrong.”

  She glanced back at him again. “I need to talk to Aneta’s family in Chiaro. I would rather not go alone, but if you’ve made other plans, I can borrow my aunt’s car.”

  He rested his hand lightly on her thigh. “I haven’t made other plans. Of course, you can come.”

  She sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

  “I have to be in Slovo by four.”

  “Then we’d better leave pretty soon, right?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Have you eaten?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “And you refuse to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get away from here.” She folded the newspaper back around her face as the waitress delivered a plate of crusty toast along with a glass bowl of the tart fruit spread he’d grown to appreciate. But now his appetite was off, too, as though Skylar’s anxiety had transferred itself to him. He took a cautious glance around the café, but no one was looking at him or Skylar.

  “I’ll go get the car,” he said after a couple of bites that tasted like cardboard.

  She met his gaze. “I’ll walk down the block and meet you on the corner.”

  “Give me a few minutes. I have to go back to my room for my coat and things.” Before he left, he posed another question. “Are you in danger?”

  “Of course not,” she said quickly, her voice evincing surprise at the question. “Who would I be in danger from?”

  “I don’t know. But this cloak-and-dagger stuff is a little...suggestive.”

  “I just want to go my own way without being followed like a troublesome child,” she said.

  He kept his mouth shut, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed the slight pause before she answered and the way her gaze jumped around.

  What had happened between the time she told him she was through with him and her showing up here hiding behind newspapers, begging him to help her find answers she hadn’t cared about the day before?

  And what had happened to his resolve to find a way to use this woman without becoming emotionally involved with her? Obviously, life had finally accomplished what he would have once thought impossible: finding a way around his best intentions.

  Chapter Nine

  “Can you tell if we picked up a tail?” Skylar asked, adjusting the mirrors to view the road behind them.

  “I don’t see anyone,” he said. “When are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Right now,” she said as he merged onto the highway leading away from the city. As he drove, she told him about her conversation with her uncle, about her worry that he hadn’t taken Skylar’s concerns about his employee seriously enough and that his goal of protecting her from the harsh realities of his life would come back to bite him.

  It was obvious to Cole that Skylar still believed in her uncle, and once again, his own doubts surfaced. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that a man couldn’t be cruel to one group of people and kind to another, but the disconnect between what Skylar knew of her uncle and what Cole suspected of his past were a world apart. They would never agree on this issue, and that meant there was no future for them unless he could prove he was right.

  But wait, what was he thinking? This wasn’t about the future. This was about the past, and the truth was that Skylar Pope was no longer of any use to him. She’d disclosed that her uncle had pegged Cole as a troublemaker.

  So, get through this day and then announce he was leaving Traterg for good and go underground, investigate Futura from a different angle, let Skylar go. Just get through today. Maybe Irina would have information that would tie this whole thing up with a bow, and he could retreat in time to salvage something of worth.

  “After I got it in my head that my uncle would have me trailed to make sure I was safe, I had to get out of that house,” she said. “And now, frankly, I’m not sure how to go back.”

  So that’s why she’d come to him.

  “There’s more, though,” she added. “There’s that woman who keeps showing up, Svetlana Dacho. Last night I went to see her. I thought maybe there was a connection between Aneta and her daughter, but it doesn’t appear there is and yet she mentioned a friend of her daughter’s, a girl named Katerina who also works at the café and who is apparently spending time with Banderas. Svetlana is terrified that he’ll come after her if he hears she tried to kill him. Unfortunately, I told my uncle about her, including her name. He’ll have no reason not to share it with Ian, so I think I’ve put her in danger.”

  “And what does all this have to do with Aneta?”

  “Uncovering why Aneta stole that painting is important to my aunt, who also wants to know why Aneta was murdered and is afraid my uncle will keep the truth from her in an effort to protect her. It’s clear to me the police don’t really care one way or another who killed Aneta.”

  “I agree,” he said. Now he knew why Skylar had changed her mind about coming—not because of him, because of her aunt. In a way, it was a relief. But, truthfully, it was also a disappointment.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said as though tuned into his thoughts. “I got cold feet and came off very righteous. I don’t know what got into me.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t apologize for looking out for yourself,” he said.

  “You say that with such feeling.”

  “You have good instincts. That’s all I’m saying.”

  They drove in silence for a while as the traffic thinned and the countryside became more rural. He’d looked at a map the night before and knew Chiaro was a very small town off the main highway, tucked into the mountains. He hoped the roads weren’t icy or blocked. It would take at least two hours to drive from there to Slovo, somehow unload Skylar and go meet with Irina. Better make it three to be safe. That left them just a couple of hours in Chiaro.

  * * *

  THE TOWN WAS SMALL, GRITTY, industrial and located in a pass where the major business seemed to be the enormous train switching yard on the outskirts through which they entered. The skies were overcast anyway, so the weak light coupled with the clanging of train cars and sooty atmosphere made it feel like they�
�d left one country and entered another.

  “Slow down,” Skylar said. “I looked up the Cazo family on the internet last night in my hotel room. There are a lot of them here in Chiaro, but I’m almost positive Aneta mentioned the name Inna once. There’s an Inna Cazo on a street that translates to Depot Way.”

  “As in train depot?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but it sounds reasonable.”

  It took forty minutes of driving and backtracking before they finally found the right house, a two-story dark gray brick building that kind of squatted on a patch of earth dusted with snow.

  They approached it warily. If this was the right house, the family might well be suspicious about people claiming to know their daughter who was murdered a mere four days before.

  There was no bell to ring, so Cole knocked firmly, glancing down at Skylar and trying out an encouraging smile. As usual, just the sight of her face warmed him in continually unexpected ways.

  After a moment or two, the door was opened by a woman who appeared to be in her seventies dressed head to toe in black.

  Skylar started speaking at once, her voice soft and respectful and yet rapid as though she was afraid the woman would tell her to get lost. The one word he caught was the name: Inna. The woman nodded, her lips parting to reveal a smile minus a tooth or two. She seemed a little old to be Aneta’s mother, and hadn’t Skylar told him Aneta had a younger sister, as well? How was this possible? Maybe poverty and hard work had aged the woman far beyond her years.

  The woman broke into a tearful smile and opened her arms. Skylar embraced her, wiping tears from her own cheeks as she answered what sounded like a slew of questions. Then she tugged Cole’s hand, and they stepped inside. The house smelled like roasting vegetables.

  After settling them on a sofa cluttered with doilies, the older woman disappeared up the steep stairs, climbing slowly as though her hips hurt.

  “Is that Aneta’s mother?” he whispered to Skylar.

  “No, that’s her grandmother. It’s her name Aneta mentioned, not her mother’s. Burian is Aneta’s father. He works at the train yard. Anyway, Inna is going upstairs to see if Aneta’s mother, Yelena, will speak with us. I gather she’s getting ready for work. Things have been tough around here lately.”