“Sorry,” she mumbled.
The girl still looked ready to toss her drink in Dani’s face. Dani opened the other articles attached to the email and read them in rapid fire succession. And she replayed her memories.
King just said he saw Lou— Then she’d forced a smile once she realized Dani was listening.
Piper knew Lou.
Piper had seen her, talked with her.
And unlike Melandra or King who might sense her snooping a mile away, Dani suspected that Piper was not as well versed in deception.
Piper was the key that would turn the lock and get her closer to the detective and hopefully Lou too. The job at the occult shop was good enough reason to be near the apartments, and perhaps find a way into King’s place. But she needed more than that.
She had to keep her eyes peeled. At any moment, her target could turn up, and then she’d have her chance.
She had to be patient.
If this story was as big as she thought it was—so much bigger than even Clyde Baker suspected—it was worth the wait.
* * *
Henry, dressed like his idol Cher, bent at the waist, and flicked his long black hair over his shoulder. His cheekbones glittered in the spotlight as he danced to “Dark Lady”, twirling the long train of his dress in one hand, the other pressed to his heart. His white stiletto boots tapped out a mirrored melody on the stage.
Piper watched all of this from the table she’d grabbed to the right of the stage. In the opposite chair sat Dani, nervously combing a strand of her hair between her fingers. Her eyes were fixed on Henry.
This one was hard to read, but not in the sexual attraction department. Piper had always had the ability to identify, almost immediately, if a girl was into her. But there was something else coming through, too. Beneath the flirting, beneath the batting eyelashes and self-conscious desire, was something else—and Piper wished she could put her finger on it.
When Henry’s number ended, he bowed and exited the stage to enthusiastic applause. Someone screamed, “You’re beautiful, bitch!”
The next thing Piper knew, glittery arms were sliding over her shoulders.
“You were amazing,” she said, accepting the air kiss from the bejeweled drag queen.
“You really were!” Dani beamed. “Where did you learn to dance like that?”
“My mom,” he said. “P, who’s your new friend?”
“This is Dani. She works at Mel’s shop.”
“Cool. You want to be a tarot reader, too?”
Dani laughed one of her shy giggles. “No. I restock the candles. Hey, you want a drink? I bet you are hella parched after a routine like that.”
Henry tilted his head like a bird. “I like her, P. Hell yeah I want a drink. Tell them to make me a Mai Tai.”
“You can start a tab under my name,” Piper told her.
Henry watched her slide through the crowd. Then he took Dani’s empty seat facing Piper. “You’re dating a cop?”
“What? No.”
“That girl is a cop.”
Piper scoffed. “Don’t be stupid. She’s our age. Shit, she might even be younger than me.”
“Whatever man, I’m getting cop vibes. She’s sniffing around for something. So if you want weed, I don’t have any.”
Piper decided not to tell him that was exactly why Dani wanted to meet him, and why she was probably buttering him up with free booze.
“And if you wanna buy weed for your detective friend, you better do it later.”
Piper laughed for real now, her breath skimming the top of her drink. “King hasn’t smoked weed in months. I’m pretty sure he’s still got most of what I gave him last time.”
“Anyway, watch that one.” He kept his eyes on the girl at the bar, coming up on her toes to speak to Tyler.
Piper followed his gaze. “No. She might have secrets or whatever, but she’s not a cop.”
Henry arched a brow and tilted his head as if to say if you say so.
“How’s your mom?” Henry said, squeezing her knee, dropping his tone.
“Same,” she said.
“You need to get the fuck out of there. When Kevin moves out at the end of the month, I want you in that other room, sweetie.”
“Half my clothes are already at your place.”
“Yeah, well I want the rest of your shit there, too. Most importantly you. You don’t need to be in that hellhole anymore.”
Piper wasn’t sure she wanted to trade an addict mother and handsy boyfriend for three drama queens, but she admitted it would be an improvement.
Piper knew she should take the offer. At least for a month while she saved a bit more of her paycheck. She wanted to make sure she could cover the deposit, two months’ rent and still have enough to furnish a place. She could get most of what she needed from the internet. She didn’t need to live large or anything.
But she wanted this move to be permanent. She didn’t want to end up back at her mom’s in a month or two.
That’s not the only reason, a small voice in her head chastised her. You want that second bedroom because—
She shook her head to clear it. “I appreciate you letting me hang at your place as much as you do. I don’t want to abuse that.”
Henry laughed. “Remember when I was hard up for Peter, so much so he had me blowing his coke-head ass behind the Jack ‘n the Box?”
Piper failed to suppress a snort.
“Who picked my ass up at three in the morning when he left me there with a crackhead?”
Piper pointed to herself.
“And who listened to me cry for six days over some fuckboy not worth the vomit on my shoes?”
“You’d never let someone vomit on your shoes.”
Henry ignored this. “Who drove my ass all the way to Pensacola to visit my sister when her baby came two weeks early?”
“But it was your car.”
“True. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re good to a lot of people, P. Not just me. It’s why you break half the hearts of these Quarter groupies and they don’t even hate you for it. You’re sweet as hell, and you think you’re an asshole. Let someone be there for you for once. I know you don’t know what the fuck that looks like, but I’m gonna show your boney little ass.”
She laughed so hard her nose burned. She still had tears in the corners of her eyes—realizing now she was more than a little buzzed from those back-to-back shots—when Dani showed up with three Mai Tais and a big smile.
“Did I miss the fun?”
“Naw, sweetie,” Henry said flipping his wig over a shoulder and crossing, uncrossing his legs. “We’re just gettin’ started.”
13
Lou woke under thick blankets. For a moment she only lay there, enjoying the cocoon of warmth. Then she had to move out of necessity. Several of her muscles were too stiff.
Her bare thighs rubbed against each other, and her hands felt cool against her warm stomach. She sat up and the blanket fell away to reveal a lot of skin. She was naked except for her black sports bra and black panties—the only color one could wear to hide the countless blood stains she knew she must have.
The left side of her underwear, the side where she’d gotten shot, was stiff, the cotton no doubt saturated with dried blood.
At the end of the bed, over the wooden footboard, lay her pants and shirt, now laundered.
She vaguely remembered Konstantine undressing her. She’d awakened, reached out into the dark and had found his hands cupping her feet. He’d replaced her wet socks with his thick, dry ones.
So you will sleep better, he’d said, or she thought he’d said.
It seemed that once sleep had finally found her, it hadn’t wanted to let go.
Beside her clothes rested a breakfast tray. It was lacquered wood and featured a red Chinese dragon against a black background. Light filtered through the water glass, dancing with the shadows. She heard voices outside. A door opening and closing somewhere nearby.
“Goo
d morning,” a voice said. She turned and saw Konstantine in a striped sweater pushed up past the elbows, and dark jeans hanging at his hips. “How do you feel?”
“What time is it?” Her voice was thick and cracked with sleep.
“What day is it,” he corrected. “You’ve been sleeping for 25 hours.”
“Damn,” she said.
“Please, eat before you go.” He gestured to the tray at her feet. “Two rolls with butter and jam. Uh, fette biscottate…I don’t know the word in English. It is like…a cookie, but also like a bread. It’s delicious. Try it. And the cherries, too, they’re sweet.” He extended a steaming mug toward her, and she accepted it. “This is a caffè latte.”
She pulled the tray toward her, felt her arm tremble. She was weak but also hungry. When was the last time she’d been hungry like this? She pried apart one of the rolls and slathered on the butter and jam with the knife on the tray. She ate half of it before sipping the coffee. She relished the heat. He hadn’t added sugar, only milk. It was lovely.
But it reminded her bitterly of the coffee her aunt used to deliver to her on mornings without warning. Her heart flopped in her chest. The texture of the bread thickened in her mouth, turning to paste.
“Petrov called me while you were asleep,” Konstantine said.
His weight sank onto the foot of the bed, arm’s length from the tray.
She eyed him over the rim of the coffee mug.
“He mentioned your gift. Did you actually carve not interested into a man’s chest?”
“Why are you smiling?” she asked.
“I never realized you had a sense of humor,” he said, his smile widening.
“You think carving a man up is funny?”
He shrugged. “I can see your humor in it.”
She reluctantly placed the mug on the tray. She needed the hand to pluck a cherry from the bowl. Her hunger had reacted to the food the way a parched throat reacts to water. Sleeping. Eating. Her body acted as though she hadn’t done either in ages. Honestly, she couldn’t remember the last time she had.
“I’m glad he understands English,” she said before taking another bite. “I can’t write in Russian.”
Konstantine nudged the tray closer to her. “I need to tell you something.”
She met his eyes.
“He doesn’t want to employ you. I believe that was only a trick to get you to come closer with your guard down perhaps.”
“What does he want?”
He hesitated, smoothing the coverlet under his hand. “You killed his son two months ago. In a warehouse near the Kazakhstan border.”
Lou saw the white expanse of an endless winter. She saw snow falling down from the black sky, illuminated only by the headlights pointing out into nothing.
She saw the bodies in the snow, their blood sprayed out behind them on the icy field.
“Not in a warehouse,” she corrected, taking a sip of coffee. “I killed him after they loaded the trucks. They’d made it about eight miles east before I…started.”
She remembered the white smoke fogging in front of her face as she surveyed her carnage. The caravan of trucks sat in the desolate road, their headlights illuminating the pavement before them. No signs of life for miles in either direction. No noise but the gentle hum of idling engines and the crunch of frosty grass beneath her boots. No witnesses to the twenty murders but the large, unblinking moon and innumerable stars. She could still see the blood freezing on the back of her hands.
Please, he’d begged. Please I didn’t want this. My father—
“May I ask you something?” Konstantine spoke quietly. He picked at his dark jeans, at an imaginary string that was not there. She’d seen him do this once before, but she couldn’t remember when or where.
She paused in her chewing and arched an eyebrow.
“Is last night the first time you’ve killed since Petrov’s son?”
She only stared at him. Then she managed, “Why do you ask?”
“You weren’t wearing your vest. You didn’t have any guns. You clearly fought with them but you weren’t prepared to.”
Of course he would have noticed. She’d begged him to stitch her up after all. And she couldn’t deny it. She hadn’t been prepared. But how in the world could she explain that she hadn’t had the heart to put on the vest since he returned it to her.
“If you don’t like the insulation I added—” he began.
“There’s nothing wrong with the vest,” she said. “I just…” God, what do I even say? That I don’t know what I’m doing anymore? That none of it matters? Kill them or don’t kill them. Die, don’t die. It’s all the same.
“What was it about that night?” he asked again.
Another question she couldn’t answer. Was it that he’d begged for his life? Plenty of men had before, and that had done nothing to persuade her.
No.
It was that the moment she’d pulled the trigger, she’d seen her father lying there. Not Petrov’s son, her father, on his back and bleeding. Her father on the other end of her gun.
“I don’t know,” she said. She lowered her coffee to the bed, feeling the warmth on her leg through the covers.
“But you were able to kill last night to protect yourself, at least.” His words hung somewhere between an accusation and a question. Both held hope. “If you intend to face Petrov, you must be at your best. Wear your vest. Take your guns. Eat. Sleep.”
For a moment she could only look at him. “Are you worried about me?”
“Always,” he said. “But I am more worried you will go to him, and he will be ready.”
She shouldn’t have asked that question. Now she was in a conversational corner that was more than uncomfortable. She knew all the platitudes that would follow in such a moment. I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.
But why should she say these things to him? She owed him nothing. More than that, much to her horror, she suspected that he knew better than to believe her empty promises.
“Don’t you have work?” she asked, before putting the remainder of the roll in her mouth and picking up the coffee again.
“That’s what’s good about being the boss,” he said with a smile. But it was forced now. He knew she was steering them away from intimate territory, and he was not challenging her.
The muscles in her back relaxed.
“I can come and go as I please. I can even hide in my apartment for days if I see fit. They will either think I’ve taken up with a woman, or that I am hatching plans for world domination.”
“Do you often keep women in your bed for days?” she asked.
“This is a first,” he said with a half-hearted laugh. “But you are welcome to come again, whenever you need. You won’t find another woman in it. I promise.”
Another lengthy silence, their locked eyes steady.
Konstantine scooted closer to her. “Louie. Surely…”
She turned the coffee mug in her hand, trying to decide if she should put it down or disappear with it. She was reluctant to let it go before finishing. And while the bread was gone, there was still the fette biscottate and three cherries in a bowl.
“This is the last time I will say it,” he said as she popped the last three cherries into her mouth, preparing to flee. “I want you. It is an open invitation that you can redeem anytime, with any conditions you need.”
She stood from the bed, still holding the coffee mug and plucked the fette biscottate from the tray.
“Where are you going? If I’ve said—”
“I left a pile of bodies somewhere I shouldn’t have,” she said. It was true. But it was also an excuse.
Cool air licked her skin without the protection of the warm blankets. She considered the laundered clothes, but thought it stupid to put them on given what she was about to do.
“You want your clothes?” he asked, seeming to read her mind.
“I’ll be back,” she said.
Before he could say anything more, she st
epped into the corner of the room and let the darkness take her.
She stepped out of her linen closet into her apartment, mostly naked, holding a cookie and a cup of coffee. She stood there in the center of her living room, unsure of what to do with herself.
Her apartment was warmer than his, so that helped. But her coffee was still cooling quickly.
Dipping the fette biscottate into the coffee made it all the better.
She finally settled on the stool at her kitchen island. But there lay her aunt’s letter.
More requests of her. More expectations. More unfinished business.
More emotion threatening to undo her focus.
It would mean the world to me, if you would go see her, Lucy had written. Just once. There is so much I wanted to tell you but never found the courage. But Ani has promised to explain for me. So please go, Lou. Please go for me. It’s my last request.
Lou turned the page over as if this would make it disappear.
She shoved the last of the fette biscottate into her mouth and washed it down with the remaining coffee. She dressed herself in clothes she didn’t care much about.
She knew these two meetings were rushing toward her. Both with this mysterious woman and Dmitri Petrov—she’d see each soon.
Lou stepped out of the shadows of the enormous pine and into the encroaching darkness. She took a deep breath, inhaling the icy cold, and tried to appreciate it. In a few weeks, the eternal night that she came to rely on would lighten, and she would be back to her Nova Scotian wilderness.
But it could never replace this landscape. The light fog hanging over water. The reeds and cattails framing its tranquil edge. The gentle breeze that rippled the surface. The endless rolling plain that spread out in all directions, punctuated only by large, looming conifers.
She breathed deep. First the scent of pine sap and crisp, cool air. Then the stench of rotting flesh.
She bent and grabbed the cracked leather boot closest to her and dragged the corpse into the water after her, the way a child might drag her favorite blanket in her wake.
The water was freezing, raising the bumps along her arms and legs. Every muscle tightened when it reached her navel. But still she continued out into the dark water. When it reached her bra, she ducked her head down beneath the surface.
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