Soldier's Redemption

by Alice Sharpe

  “Yeah,” he said. The house had a chill that went deeper than the snow outside or the paucity of coal on the grate.

  The old woman reappeared—alone. She and Skylar talked for several minutes, their voices soft and their speech quick. A noise on the stairwell caught Cole’s attention, and he looked up to find a woman of about forty with dark hair and way too much makeup hurling herself down the stairs. She looked from Cole to Skylar. “You are Aneta’s friends?” she cried in passable English.

  The old woman said something to her, but the younger woman, who had to be Yelena, shook her head, responded in kind and then zeroed in on Skylar. “There’s not much time,” she said, glancing at her watch.

  “I worked with her, yes,” Skylar said in English. “Inna told me your younger daughter is missing?”

  Yelena spared a dismissive look at her mother. “Not missing. She had a great opportunity in America, and she took it.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Zina is fourteen. Why? Do you have news about who killed Aneta?”

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Skylar said. Aneta’s mother’s face crumbled just as her own mother’s had, but her eyes stayed dry. Given the heavy mascara that went with the red lips and rouged cheeks, that was probably just as well.

  “You must leave,” she said. “It’s almost noon. I must be at work soon and Burian—he comes home for lunch.”

  “Please,” Skylar persisted. “Did you know that Aneta stole a valuable piece of art right before she died and that she said she needed money to travel to help her sister?”

  “My Aneta did not steal,” Yelena said. “I do not believe this story.”

  “It’s true,” Skylar said. “Where was she going to go to help her sister? Do you know?”

  “I tell you it is all lies! Who would she steal from? That rich American woman who is married to Luca Futura? Who would steal from such a woman with a husband like that? You are saying bad things about Aneta because she is not here to defend herself.”

  “But what about Zina?”

  The back door slammed. Both the older women immediately glanced at each other and then away as a man entered the room from what must be the kitchen. He was a big guy, easily as tall as Cole and fifty pounds heavier, wearing dark jeans and a heavy jacket that increased his bulk. His face was set in a terrible scowl, and he yelled at Aneta’s grandmother, who tried to placate him. She used the name Burian in response. So this was Aneta’s father.

  With his arrival, the already semi-hostile atmosphere instantly deteriorated. The man stood with hands clenched at his sides, ignoring Skylar, casting Cole a steady, menacing glare.

  Great. All Cole needed was a fight with a grieving, angry man. He raised his hands open-palmed in front of him, hoping the guy understood the universal sign for “Hey, Dude, no problems.” Burian growled a few sentences to his wife and laughed, which was fine with Cole. The grandmother spoke, and Burian advanced on her as though he meant to backhand her into silence. Cole’s muscles tightened. He might not fight for himself right this minute, but he’d be damned if he would stand there and watch the man hit an old woman.

  Yelena caught Burian’s arm and held him back. She said something to him, and he waved her off, scowling at Cole before returning to the kitchen. Aneta’s grandmother hovered near the door, neither in the room nor outside it.

  “He is just home for a while. You must leave,” Yelena said.

  “I don’t understand your lack of concern for Zina,” Skylar persisted.

  “I told you,” Yelena whispered. “Zina went to America. She left me money she knew I needed.”

  “Where did she get the money?”

  She lowered her voice. “From a wealthy woman who admired Zina’s excellent work.”

  “Her work?”

  “At the café where I am hostess. No one knows Zina is my daughter. There is a policy about families working together. Anyway, this woman offered Zina a big opportunity and she took it, so do not worry about her. And don’t tell Burian about the money. He would drink it away if given the chance. Go, now.”

  “I think you should be worried about Zina,” Skylar said as Inna shooed them toward the door. “There’s another girl about the same age who also disappeared under very similar circumstances.”

  “Zina rode on a jet all the way to America, and someday I will join her and maybe even Grandma, too. Just not Burian. He has the terrible temper. She is fine, that one. She is strong. It is Aneta who is dead.”

  “Have you ever heard of a man named Ian Banderas?”

  “No. I do not know that name,” Yelena said. “Now, please, you must go.”

  * * *

  “AMERICA?” COLE SAID. “Why would some woman offer to pay a kid’s way to America?”

  “I should have asked her what the woman looked like,” Skylar said, checking the visor mirror, more out of habit than because she expected she would find someone back there trailing them. “It was tense, wasn’t it? Especially at the last?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s obvious both women are scared to death of Burian. That’s what Yelena was telling me before Inna came downstairs. Inna didn’t come down at first because she was afraid to talk to us with her husband due to arrive soon. I guess the thought we might have news about Aneta’s murder changed her mind.”

  “Where does the mother work? That was some pretty heavy-duty makeup.”

  “As a hostess somewhere. She was late for work because she’d been crying all morning. Maybe that’s why she slapped on the makeup a little heavy. Anyway, according to Inna, Aneta did not have a new boyfriend, so her excuse for her distraction at work doesn’t seem to hold water.”

  “Nor does the police point of view. But I don’t know—do modern young women living away from home tell their grandmothers about their boyfriends?”

  “Good point,” Skylar admitted. “Still, you can’t get around the fact that there are lots of similarities in the way Aneta’s little sister and Svetlana’s daughter left home.”

  “Dead of night, a little note to stay quiet, a little money to pay for their patience, at least for a while. And then nothing.”

  “Exactly. Svetlana said her daughter was as good as dead. It gives me the chills. When we get back to Traterg, I’m going to ask Malina’s girlfriend at the café where she works if Malina ever mentioned America.”

  “Good idea.”

  She took a deep breath and glanced over at him as he drove. It was strange the way he seemed so familiar and yet not. She wanted to ask him about the clown figurine she’d found in his drawer; it seemed so out of character for a guy like him to travel with something like that on a business trip, but she couldn’t bring herself to invade his privacy.

  What was it about him that had her coming and going? It wasn’t just his appearance or the way he looked at her or reached for her hand. It was more than that, yet on some primal level, it was all just that.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “I am. But this road doesn’t seem to be cluttered with restaurants.”

  “I remembered that from the last time I traveled it. That’s why I asked the kitchen to pack a picnic for two, strictly things easy to eat while driving.”

  “Bring it on,” he said, smiling at her.

  Maybe it was his smile. Sure didn’t hurt. She reached for her carry-on and took out the box the kitchen had delivered at her request that morning. There were crisp crackers and pâté, bottles of sparkling water, pickles and olives, spreadable cheese. She laid it all out as well as she could on her lap and the console between the seats, and they ate while talking about the deteriorating weather as the altitude gradually climbed and the air outside grew colder. The rain that had started while they were inside Aneta’s family home in Chiaro began to leave icy trails down the windows.

  “Who are you going to meet with today?” she asked as she handed him a chocolate mint as dessert.

  “A woman who runs a small cooperative of local women who make ha
ndcrafted items.”

  “Really?” She turned in the seat to smile at him. “Like with fabric, maybe? Fashion of sorts?”

  “I doubt it,” he said quickly.

  “Then what?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. My partner set it up before I bought in to the business. I guess I’ll find out.”

  “Do you want a translator for the meeting?”

  “Uh, no. She wanted us to meet alone.”

  “That’s all right,” Skylar said. “Well, Slovo isn’t exactly a huge place, but there is a little museum I read about that’s located at the Winter Palace Hotel that I would like to see.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “It is. It’s a castle turned into a hotel. I told you about it the other day. I’ve never stayed there. Anyway, I think if we’re early enough, I’ll have you drive me over. If you don’t have time, I’ll catch a cab. Then if your meeting runs late, I can eat dinner there. Is that all right?”

  “Sounds good,” he said.

  “Just look for the bridge as we enter town,” she added, gazing out the window. It had begun to snow and the world was slowly turning white. The pitter-patter of rain was gone now, and it was very quiet inside the luxury automobile.

  “Do you miss your old life?” she asked.

  “The army? Sometimes,” he said. “But that kind of soldiering is hard on a body and soul, and eventually, most men outgrow the need for it.”

  “You had a need?” she asked, stressing the last word. “I don’t understand. How can you have a need to be shot at?”

  “It’s not just getting shot at,” he said, smiling at her as though she’d said something amusing. “It’s the need to do something important that involves risking your body. Putting everything on the line, giving everything you have.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said.

  “Sure you do. Why do you design clothes?”

  “It’s hardly the same thing.”

  “No, think. Why do you design clothes that you yourself might never wear?”

  “Because I have to,” she said.

  “Exactly. Your aunt has to blow glass and your uncle has to be involved in politics and strategy. I had to be a soldier. I had a feckless youth with parents who didn’t much care for me. That can make a person feel a little disorientated and worthless.”

  “How could anyone not care for you?” she said.

  He seemed to wince at the tenderness that had snuck into her voice and she touched his leg. The gesture was meant to diffuse the impact of her words, but when he covered her hand before she could move it, the effect was exactly the opposite.

  “Your parents must have been worried sick when you came home injured.”

  “My mother was ill. By the time I was out of the hospital and could go home to see them, she was in her grave and my father was ready to move on with his life.”

  “What does that mean? No, wait. They never came to see you in the hospital?”

  “Mom was too sick to travel, so I understood how my father was obligated to stay with her. That wasn’t a problem.”

  Skylar sat back in her seat and stared at the wipers flinging snow this way and that and tried to imagine months in a hospital with no one visiting. Impossible. She’d be inundated with relatives and school friends. “Do you see much of your dad now?”

  “No. I never see him.”

  “Why?”

  “There was just a kind of a mutual agreement not to prolong the agony of our relationship. I don’t even know where he lives now.”

  It was unfathomable. “And the clown you carry?” she asked, her voice very soft.

  He spared her a quick glance. “A leftover from childhood.”

  So he did have some good memories, some connection to this family of his that apparently hadn’t been gifted at parenting.

  “It comes from a time before I can remember the people who raised me,” he said.

  “You mean before your parents?”

  The glance he spared her this time was longer. “Yeah.” He lifted her hand in his and kissed her knuckles.

  “Cole—”

  “I see a green turret up ahead,” he interrupted. “I think we’ve found Slovo.”

  Chapter Ten

  Skylar had been one hundred percent right about the hotel. It was like something out of a fantasy or a fairy tale, sitting on an island that wasn’t much bigger than it was, reachable only by boat or the narrow bridge connecting it to the town, towers rising to be lost in the snowy skies, secrets lurking in all the shadows. For one minute, as he opened her car door and took her hand to help her out, he wished he could stay with her.

  He’d tried, originally, to approach this mission like any other, but now the very idea of that seemed naive. This journey had been fraught with emotional baggage from the get-go. New brothers, a past revealed he’d never guessed at, his own life upside down, what little supposed family he had gone now and out of reach. He’d come here with a personal vendetta, carrying the weight of his brothers’ needs as well as his own, and the first thing he’d done was meet Skylar Pope.

  And now he wanted to ditch this no-win scenario, seduce the living daylights out of her and spend a little of the inheritance that had showed up courtesy of his brothers. He was getting hedonistic at the ripe old age of thirty.

  “I’ll be in the hotel somewhere,” she said, “but I’d rather you didn’t page me. I have my cell phone. Use the phone at the concierge desk to call me.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “This place looks like it’ll take what’s left of the day to explore.”

  He handed her the carry-on, and as she took it from him, their hands brushed. In that instant he was transported back to the first time she’d shown up at his hotel room door and he’d kissed her because he needed her to believe he was falling hard and fast for her.

  Now he did the same thing, wrapping his free arm around her and pulling her against him, their mouths connecting like fireworks, her lips parting, both of them lost in each other as the snow fell unheeded. But this time, he didn’t need to kiss her—well, not for strategy’s sake, anyway. This time the need ran deeper and stronger. “Don’t go off alone,” he said, giving her one last hug. “Stay around other people.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “And if you get spooked, rent a room and lock the doors, but have someone escort you to the room.”

  They both looked around at the other guests. Because of the weather, there weren’t many braving the outdoors, but those who were didn’t look the least bit threatening. Still, when she glanced back at him, he saw he’d reawakened the nerves she’d greeted him with that morning.

  “I will,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  He left before he could change his mind.

  The bridge was partially covered with a long, narrow enclosed building on one side. He’d noticed it when he drove Skylar to the hotel, but this time he found a parking area with five or six cars in it.

  The building was empty floor space except for a few benches. The walls were hung with large framed prints of the bridge under construction and looked out toward the hotel through a bank of windows. Of course, the hotel and the island on which it sat were almost invisible now thanks to the falling snow. The room was partially heated but still cool enough to demand a coat. He took a quick perusal of the handful of other people walking from poster to poster, a smattering of different languages reaching his ears.

  None of the women wore a green scarf and a black coat. He hoped Irina wouldn’t be too late for a host of reasons, starting with his desire to see Skylar again and ending with the difficulty of appearing interested in an exhibit that was worth ten minutes, tops.

  A half hour later, it was almost dark outside, and he’d about written her off. She was a cop. Maybe something had happened at work that had held her up. Plus the weather was deteriorating.

  He kind of wished he hadn’t made Skylar nervous about being followed. She said she wasn’t afraid of he
r uncle—just annoyed at being watched like a kid, but there was something about her reactions to all this that made him wonder. If she truly wasn’t frightened, then why all the subterfuge?

  As for him, he’d thought he’d shaken off concerns about being followed when they spent all that time in Chiaro looking for the Cazo house. Nobody could have trailed them through the narrow streets that dead-ended without warning. So why had he warned her about going off alone?

  It was as though kissing her had awakened instincts he didn’t know he had. The thought of something bad happening to her made him shiver inside. And there was only one road in and out of Chiaro. Someone could have easily waited for them at the turnoff and picked them up again when they reemerged.

  “Mr. Bennett?”

  He turned to find a woman fitting Irina’s description. She was younger and prettier than he’d thought she would be, early forties he guessed, with raven-black hair and very pale skin. Her green scarf floated around her shoulders, sparkling with snow.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Irina,” she said, extending a gloved hand. As they shook hands, she sized him up the way every cop he knew seemed to do. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said at last.

  “Don’t worry about it. Do you want to talk here or go somewhere else?”

  “There’s a man who wants to meet you,” she said, her voice soft although it seemed to Cole they were the only ones left in the building.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t want to say his name in a public place. He’s waiting for us. He’s quite elderly and he’s still afraid—”

  “Afraid? Of what?”

  “I’m going to let him tell you. Do you want to ride with me or follow in your own car?”

  “I’ll follow,” Cole said, glancing at his watch. It was almost five o’clock, and the way Irina was acting was just odd enough to make him wary. She took off in a dark red truck—that would be easy enough to follow in the snow.