“Does that mean I should start calling you Constable?”
JC grinned. “Just when the uniform is on.” She cleared her throat and kept going. “Officially sanctioned means this could go well above my pay grade and could even get pulled by RCMP or Canadian Border Services, depending on where the information goes.”
“Fair enough,” Skye said. “But we’ll talk to you and only to you.”
Edie bristled at the “we,” and JC looked like she wanted to object.
“Let’s not get into a pissing match so early in the game,” JC said mildly. “We,” she said, indicating the three of them sitting around the living room, “are going to talk this out. We are the team right now. Deal?”
Skye nodded. Edie relaxed.
“Okay, moving on.” JC pulled up a file on her laptop. “I’ve got preliminaries on Faina Kassis. It’s always best to start with a name and a history. Usually it leads us somewhere.”
Edie understood this. It was exactly how she opened up a story.
“Only preliminaries? Your guys haven’t gone deeper yet?” Skye said.
“I am the guy going deeper into this information, Kenny.” JC’s voice was still even but sharper. “I’ve been given the go-ahead but no real extra manpower here. Until I’ve got a better connection, I’m digging through this shit pile with a toothpick. Now, do you want to hear this or not?”
Skye clenched her jaw and nodded. Her left leg started to bounce as JC kept talking.
“Faina Kassis. Age twenty-six, Syrian born, holds passports for Syria and the UK. She’s been in Canada, ostensibly studying, for the past four years. I’ll be following up on that. Her mother died in England when Ms. Kassis was eighteen. Looks like there were some questions as to cause. I’ll also be following up with that. Here’s where things get interesting.” JC leaned forward. “Faina’s birth certificate lists no father, but her paperwork for her university application lists Peter Nikolay.”
The name meant nothing to Edie, but Skye dumped her laptop on the table and began to pace.
“Tell me what you’ve got on Nikolay,” Skye said tersely.
“High up in the Russian army at one time, at least two decades ago. His name pops up a lot at the end of the Cold War, particularly in connection to some questionable humanitarian practices. Seemed to have a falling-out with the Russian government and went missing ten years ago. He’s presumed dead by our government, but no one has been able to verify.”
“And this is Faina’s father?” Edie said as Skye continued to pace. “Why did she put his name on her application?”
“My guess is to lend her some credibility,” JC answered. “She is supposedly here studying Slavic languages at the University of Ottawa. Maybe she thought his name would never be connected to anything else. Did she ever mention anything like that? Did she ever talk about her father?”
“No, she never talked about being a student or taking courses. She mentioned she’d love to study literature and writing, but it seemed like a far-off dream. And the only thing that she ever mentioned about her father was that he spoke Russian, among other languages. I didn’t get the sense she was close to him.”
“What about the siblings?” Skye said, ceasing her pacing and gripping the back of her chair.
“Alex and Yana Nikolay,” JC confirmed. “I was just starting to dig into their backgrounds this morning. All I have is that Alex is thirty-nine, lives in Kiev, and works for a military arms manufacturer. So far seems legit. Yana is forty-one and an academic, all I can figure out is that she’s some kind of scientist.”
Skye made an impatient sound and resumed her pacing.
“Dude, chill. Google Translate is a bitch, okay?”
“Jesus, Caldwell. We live in the nation’s fucking capital. Tell me you don’t have eighty translators at your disposal.”
JC tensed at the clear insult but kept her voice calm. “You’re not listening. I don’t have anything at my disposal. I’m doing what I can with the information I’ve got, the leeway I’ve basically begged for, and the time that I steal from my kids. So I don’t care if you need to wear a line in the floor over there, I’m not yours to command in this situation, Major, so shut the fuck up about my shortcomings and let me get on with this.”
Skye’s tension was palpable. Edie wasn’t entirely sure what had prompted Skye to lash out at her friend. Impatience, the unknown, her inability to do anything, too many restrictions.
“We’re still moving forward,” Edie said into the tense silence. Skye shot her a quick look, her eyes hard. “We know more than we did this morning. As long as that keep being true, we’re doing okay.” Skye said nothing and kept pacing. “Skye. Okay?”
Skye sat suddenly. “Yes. Okay.” She flexed her hands. She looked at JC. “Sorry.”
JC waved it away easily. “Next up. The parking lot at the base of the hills. No surprise, I didn’t get approval for satellite or a flyover, so I checked it out myself.” JC pulled out her phone and started swiping through screens. “I don’t think there’s been a ton of traffic since you guys were out there, but enough that identifying tires and make and model of cars would be next to impossible. I did find this, though. I wondered what you thought.”
JC passed her phone to Edie. Skye came over and crouched beside her so they could look at it together. It was an image of the gravel of the parking lot, edged by some of the cedars that lined the entrance to the trail. Edie could see scratch marks in the gravel, but the image was too close.
“Keep swiping. I climbed on my car to get an overhead view. I don’t know if it’s anything, but when Skye told me about Ms. Kassis communicating by drawing in the dirt, I kept looking until I found this.”
Edie swiped, the pictures getting farther back until there was a wide angle.
“Does it mean anything to you?” Skye said, her voice very close to Edie’s ear.
“I don’t know,” Edie said. She turned the phone to see it from another angle, but the image automatically flipped back.
“Here,” Skye said. She held it still and faced Edie. “Now look at it.”
Their knees were touching and Skye rested her phone hand lightly against Edie’s leg. The contact sent a shock up through Edie’s chest, even as she registered the sweet warmth of her touch. Unintended, Edie reminded herself. Skye was focused and so should Edie be. She looked at the swirls and lines until they registered something familiar in her brain.
“It’s Arabic,” Edie said. “I’m sure of it.”
“Can you read it?”
Edie stared at the screen. Her Arabic was incredibly shaky. “No, I don’t recognize any of the words. I can try to copy out the characters, though. Then maybe someone else can translate it?”
“Do it,” JC said. “I’ll find someone to help us out.”
As JC tapped on her laptop, Edie took the phone and flipped between images. She wrote down her best guess at the Arabic characters, double-checking them. Whatever Faina was trying to communicate could be pivotal. She swiped the image again and a picture of two kids, maybe ten years old, popped up on the screen. The girl had straight hair tucked behind her ears and seemed to be rolling her eyes at her brother, who was making faces at the camera.
“Sorry,” Edie said and automatically swiped back. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
JC looked up from her typing and glanced at her phone. “Did you find a picture of my kids? Don’t worry about it. I hope it wasn’t the series of them trying to out gross each other.”
Edie laughed. “No, just making faces. How old are your kids?”
“Ten. Charlie and Tatum are twins. And a royal pain in my ass.”
“Can I take a look?” Skye said.
“Sure.”
Skye swiped back until the pics of the kids came up again. “God, they’re so big,” she murmured.
“Yeah. It’s been over a year since you’ve seen them,” JC said. “They keep growing.”
Skye said nothing, just flipped through the photos. She sighed
as she gave the phone back. Then she stood and scanned the area out the window. “What’s next?” she said to JC.
“I’m hoping to hear back from someone about the Arabic message. It’s the best thing we’ve got so far.” She looked between Skye standing at the window and Edie curled into the corner of the couch. “We need a break. Lunch? A hike? Canoe ride? Didn’t we play an epic game of lawn darts last time we were here?”
“We’re not at camp,” Skye said with a snort, some of her earlier tension clearly gone. “And we’re damn sure not going to play any drinking games with pointy objects.”
“Basher will be disappointed,” JC said, grinning. Then the smile fell away, as if she realized what she’d said.
Edie watched as Skye froze at the name, then gave a quick shake of her head.
“I’ll pull some lunch together. We can eat outside,” Skye said.
Skye left Edie and JC sitting in the living room. JC sighed and closed her eyes briefly. Edie gave her a questioning look but JC just shook her head slightly, obviously unwilling or unable to share whatever had sent Skye running.
The late April sun was warm, but the breeze was cold in the shade of the porch awning when the three women brought their plates of food outside to eat. They spoke quietly and politely, covering topics of no consequence, a huge departure from the heated, intense discussions they’d had together so far.
Edie missed the connection with both of them but sensed some kind of healing was taking place. She understood you needed to create space sometimes. With her belly full and the sounds of the wind in the still winter-bare trees, Edie closed her eyes and listened to the now easy exchange between Skye and JC. She drifted in a made-up world where they were friends just spending time together. She spun out the tale for a little while longer, even knowing how much it would hurt when she opened her eyes again. She imagined following JC’s suggestion of a hike, pictured them returning to the cabin, tired and laughing to make dinner while sharing a drink. A fire in the fireplace, feeling sleepy against Skye’s shoulder on the couch. Skye’s hand in hers, leading them through the dark, cold cabin into the bedroom…
“Did we lose you?”
Edie opened her eyes. Both JC and Skye were watching her. The day was beautiful, but it was not the day she wanted. Edie sat up and willed the lingering image to dissipate. It didn’t.
“I’m here. Just resting.”
“I was just asking Skye if you’d found any connections through work. Any weird interviews stick out, contacts who had boundary issues, stories that would have generated controversy or an exceptional amount of attention. Anything.”
“Nothing so far. My work in the past few years wouldn’t have warranted that kind of attention. You can check with my boss at SunNews to see what stories generated the most attention or hate mail, but I’m pretty sure he would have shared any red flags with me.”
“It’s on the list to follow up on. Skye says you were in Afghanistan for two years. Did you piss anyone off, make any enemies, sleep with the wrong soldier?”
Edie could tell JC was trying to keep it light, and she appreciated the effort.
“No,” Edie said, keeping her voice even. “Nothing like that.”
“I need to ask a few personal questions,” JC said. Her gaze was steady on Edie. “My superiors are going to need the basics covered if they’re going to take any of this seriously.”
“I understand,” Edie said. “Go ahead.”
JC glanced at Skye.
“I’ll go inside,” Skye said quickly, pushing back her chair. Her voice had deadened.
Edie considered letting her go. With JC, she could remain neutral, pretend that she was simply handing over pieces of information. She sighed. “Stay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Skye sat. Edie turned her attention back to JC. “What do you want to know?”
“As you probably know, most cases of violence are instigated by someone known to the victim. Usually an intimate partner.”
Edie focused on the cadence of JC’s voice. Though she had retreated to more formal language, she had not lost any of the connection with Edie. She was very good.
“You want to know my sexual history,” Edie stated. Skye flinched across the table.
“No, not entirely. I am asking you to tell me who you have had a relationship with, an intimate relationship, in the last three years.”
“Well, I’m gay, let’s start there,” Edie said with a straight face.
“Kissing Kenny clued me in on that one.”
Edie grinned. Skye muttered curses at them.
“The last significant relationship I had was two years ago in Kandahar. Hanna Fleischer, she’s German. We were together about six or seven months. She’s the lead liaison with their Red Cross team.”
“Who instigated the breakup?”
Edie shrugged. “We both did. It was amicable. We both knew it was never going to be long-term.”
“Are you still in contact?”
“Not regularly, but we usually check in every couple of months. I’d say we’re still friends.”
JC wrote a note in her phone. “Anyone else?”
Edie shook her head and wished she wasn’t blushing. Was it better or worse that her romantic history was so scant? Less to have to draw out and share publicly but what did Skye think of her?
“I concentrated on my new teaching gig at the university when I got back from Afghanistan. And then I had my accident and haven’t been ready to try and meet anyone.”
The words until now hung heavily in the air. Edie refused to look at Skye, sitting so stiffly across the table. JC clearly had no compunction as she swung her gaze meaningfully to her friend before looking back to Edie.
“Thanks for that. Sorry this all sucks so much.”
Edie laughed, and a little of the tension left her body. “Understatement, Constable Caldwell.”
Just then JC’s phone rang and she picked it up, her face transforming from easy to laser focus in a heartbeat. She was a trained soldier, Edie reminded herself. Like Skye.
“Update,” JC said, her voice tense. “The message from Ms. Kassis seems to be a meet, but the message is confusing. Does laundry cat mean anything to you?”
“No,” Edie said. Confusion clouded her brain. A familiar fog she had absolutely no time for.
“Yes,” Skye said immediately. “LaundroCat. It’s a coin-op laundry, café, and cat rescue centre. There’s one on the edge of downtown, bordering the Glebe neighbourhood.”
“Did Ms. Kassis ever mention anything like that? Is it near where she lives?”
“I’ve never heard of it. And I don’t know her address, just somewhere west of downtown,” Edie said. Her thoughts felt useless, her brain and body seeming to slow as JC and Skye’s sped up.
“Is that the whole message?” Skye said.
“No. The rest of the message says Monday and eleven morning.”
“That’s tomorrow,” Skye said, her voice hard.
“Yes, it is.”
“She’s not going.”
JC said nothing. Edie felt a step behind.
“What’s happening?” Edie said.
JC and Skye seemed to be having a silent argument. Neither answered.
“Please,” Edie said and rubbed her head. Nothing helped with fog but rest. And even then sometimes it took days for it to clear. “I can’t figure this out on my own. Please tell me what’s happening.”
“We think Ms. Kassis wants to meet you tomorrow at this LaundroCat place,” JC said. “At eleven tomorrow morning. She’s our best lead, and we need to take it.”
“It’s too risky,” Skye replied. “Faina may be the best lead, but she’s also the most likely to lure Edie into a trap. Until we know her motivation, Faina equals danger. So she’s not going. End of story.”
Particles of sound and vision and fact and memory layered themselves into a gently tilting haze that separated Edie from the rest of the world. She fought
it, trying to stay connected to Skye’s words.
“Faina might not talk to anyone else,” Edie said quietly, keeping her eyes closed. “We might only get one chance. You can come with me, Skye, you can keep me safe. But I should go. I’m going.”
Edie was certain she was making sense, but she had no tools to evaluate that thought. JC and Skye immediately started to argue. Their words meshed into a wall of sound Edie did not bother trying to sort through. She was done. She stood slowly.
“You two fight. Then make arrangements for tomorrow. I’m going to lie down.”
Edie’s body felt drained, like she’d completed a marathon or spent the day in the Afghanistan sun moving boxes of rations. She’d done neither. Her weakness was simply that. Frailty.
Lying down on the couch, Edie could still hear Skye and JC arguing through the screen of the patio door. She let the words wash over her.
“You asked for the police to be involved and now I’m involved. You can’t direct this the way you want just because you care about—”
“Don’t. This isn’t about that. I’ve got a contract to protect this client, and that’s what I’m doing.”
“Right,” JC said with evident sarcasm. “This is about a contract.”
“I said let it go, Caldwell.”
“Fuck that. You want to pretend that’s what it’s about, go ahead, but I’m not playing along.”
Edie felt the wind from the lake on her skin, raising goose bumps along her arm as the breeze pushed into the cabin.
“Look, we’re not on opposite sides of this,” JC said, her voice gentler. “So stop treating me like I am.”
Skye had no response Edie could hear.
JC sighed. “I need to know if you’re armed.”
“Yes.”
“Permit?”
“Jesus, Caldwell. Yes.”
“Good. Bring it with you tomorrow. And the contract. This needs to be aboveboard all the way around, got it?”
“Yes.” Skye’s voice grated.
“We’ll work out a plan in the morning. We’ll keep her safe. And hopefully we’ll get some information so we can figure out what’s going on, bring these bastards in, and let Edie get back to her life.”
Repercussions Page 10
