Chapter Thirteen
I texted Naomi before I called since I figured she would just ignore an unknown number. When she answered, I skipped the preliminaries.
“Something you’d like to tell us?” I asked.
“Billie. Good to hear from you. How are things on your end?” She sounded like a woman who was trying hard to be nonchalant. Too hard.
“Fine,” I said politely. “And how are you ?”
“Good, good. Matters here are under control.” In the background I could hear a few quick pops. Gunfire or firecrackers.
“It’s a little early for Fourth of July,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Nowhere special,” she replied. “Hang on a second.” She must have put the phone down because things sounded muffled. Another quick pop, then a second, much closer than the first two. When Naomi came back to the line, she was breathing heavy.
“Naomi, is someone shooting at you?”
“A little,” she admitted. “It’s actually not a great time for me. Maybe we could talk later?”
“Sure. Just find out who is trying to kill us before you call me back, okay?”
I heard running footsteps and the bang of a heavy door slamming shut. She was puffing hard now. “What do you mean? Who’s trying to kill you?”
“That’s what I need you to find out. They burned down Benscombe.”
“Were you in it?”
“No, they torched it before we arrived.”
“Then they weren’t trying to kill you,” she pointed out calmly. More running footsteps and more puffing.
“Have you considered a little cardio? Maybe a mini-trampoline. You could keep it under your desk,” I suggested.
“Screw you, Webster,” she said before returning a volley of gunfire. “Got him. That’s right, you little bitch. Stay down.”
“You better be talking to your target,” I said mildly.
“Keep your panties on. I have to finish him.” A patter of running footsteps, another volley of gunfire, and some muffled whimpers. Naomi gave a grunt and then came back to the phone. “Sorry about that.”
“Shootout?” I asked. The sounds were familiar.
“Church league paintball,” she said. “We’re undefeated. But damn, I’m hungry now. I should have put a Luna bar in my purse. I’m going to treat myself to a bacon cheeseburger on the way home. Double fries.”
“Get a milkshake too,” I urged. “You earned it.”
“Look, I’ll chase down anything else I can find on Pasha Lazarov’s known associates,” she promised. “But the files were pretty thin. The only relative we have on record is his aunt Evgenia, and she’s in an old folks’ home somewhere. Switzerland, I think.”
She sounded a little too offhand for my liking. “Naomi, we’re stuck in a safe house with our nearest and dearest and a couple of cats who aren’t any happier about the situation than we are. Put this at the top of your basic bitch Rae Dunn to-do list.”
I punched the “end call” button but it wasn’t nearly satisfying enough. I missed receivers you could slam down. Hell, I even missed flip phones you could snap shut.
I went back to the dining room where the others were waiting.
“She’ll look into it,” I said.
“That’s all?” Mary Alice demanded.
“She had her hands full when I called,” I explained.
“So we’re just going to sit here?” Nat asked.
“If you’ve got a better idea, I’d love to hear it,” I told her. “Until then, we have no leads on who Pasha’s associate might be. There’s no point in chasing our tails.”
“Maybe we know more than we think we do,” Nat pushed.
“Like what?” Helen asked.
“I don’t know,” Nat replied. “Let’s just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.” She rummaged in her backpack and emerged with a green eyeliner pencil. She uncapped it and cleared a space on the table. Then she started scribbling on the oilcloth roses of the tablecloth. Pasha Lazarov , she wrote in block capitals. She drew lines out for his family members and jotted their names. Father, Boris Lazarov. Mother, Irina Dashkova. Sister, Galina. Aunt, Evgenia Dashkova.
Helen plucked the eyeliner from her hand and started crossing people out, starting with Pasha’s parents. “Lazarov is an orphan.”
“Thanks to us,” Natalie pointed out.
Helen went on, slicing lines through the names. “Father, mother, and sister dead. He’s been on his own for a long time.”
“No wife?” Akiko asked. “Girlfriends? Boyfriends? Partners for furry sexcapades?”
“Funny you should mention furries,” Mary Alice said. She started to describe Lazarov’s devotion to his teddy bear, but Nat stopped her.
“I can’t with the teddy bear, Mary Alice. It’s too sad.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what happened to him? Did they put him in the coffin with Lazarov? Did they pack him up for the next of kin?”
“God, that is sad,” Helen put in.
“Speaking of next of kin, what about Aunt Evgenia herself?” Taverner asked.
“I found the facility in Switzerland,” Minka piped up. She turned her phone to show pictures of an elegant grey stone building set on sweeping green lawns. “A home for old people. Exclusive and expensive.”
“How did you find it?” Mary Alice demanded.
Minka shrugged. “Was easy if you know where to look.”
“If she’s that old, do we really think she’s capable of traveling to England and torching Benscombe?” Natalie asked. Helen winced at the mention of Benscombe.
I shrugged. “She could hire somebody. We don’t know if Lazarov pays for the old folks’ home or if Auntie Evgenia has money of her own. Either way, there is a slim chance she might know who Pasha would choose to partner with in his little assassination games.”
“Or she might be the brains behind the whole thing,” Mary Alice suggested. “Old women can be nasty. We should know.”
“Preach, sister,” Natalie said, raising her glass to clink with Mary Alice’s.
Taverner was frowning into his coffee. “So Pasha Lazarov had no other living relatives besides his aunt, no known associates beyond a handful of paid bodyguards, no wife, no kids. That sounds grim.”
“That sounds understandable,” I corrected. “He was a child when his father died, and his mother and sister were killed just a few years later. Losing your entire family when you’re young can mess with your head, make it hard for you to trust in anything. Some people never really recover from that.”
Taverner’s gaze sharpened. “So I’ve heard.” He stopped talking then which was good. It gave me a chance to let the little flicker of rage that had risen up die down again.
When I spoke, my voice was level, and the hand that reached for my coffee cup was steady. “I think our next course of action is clear,” I said calmly. “Pack your bags, girls. We’re heading to Switzerland.”