Chapter 17
Seventeen
He was not pleased. I wouldn’t have been, either, had it been my nose.
“I didn’t actually hit you,” I pointed out, not for the first time, later. “And it wouldn’t have happened if you’d given me some warning.”
He scowled. “I did give you warning.”
“And that’s why you don’t have a broken nose right now. If you hadn’t said my name, I would have cracked your skull open.”
He glanced at the jagged piece of drawer front, lying next to me on the front steps of the house. “I believe you.”
I was sitting outside, getting debriefed, while a lot of things were going on around us.
Mendoza had suggested doing the honors inside, in the living room where Konstantin and Yuri had talked to Rachel and me last night, but I’d told him I’d rather be outside.
I’d only been locked in for a few hours, but it had been enough to make me appreciate not being locked in.
Mendoza had rescued Edwina from the Lexus and brought her to me, and I was holding on to her. It was very calming, having her warm weight on my lap while I ran my hand over her short fur.
Konstantin and Yuri had been taken off by immigration officials. So had the girls. I didn’t know what would happen to them after this, but I figured, even if they were returned to Russia, they’d probably be relieved to be out of the life they’d lived for the past several weeks.
An ambulance had shown up, and had taken Rachel to the hospital. She had a spongy lump on the back of her head that they wanted to X-ray, to make sure the skull wasn’t cracked. I asked them to please take her to Southern Hills, so I could visit her and Zachary together once this was over.
At the moment, it was just Mendoza and me out here on the stoop, and half a dozen cops and immigration enforcement types crawling all over the house, looking for information.
“We put a tracer on the car,” Mendoza explained.
“Last night, before the whole Arena fiasco, I talked to the folks in vice about Stella’s.
They were interested in what we’d seen, and called in ICE.
At one point during the evening, an agent went into the parking lot and put a tracer on the black sedan, so we could follow it home. ”
“That must have been before Rachel and I got up on the bluff.”
Mendoza’s lips twitched. “The two of you were up there?”
“We talked about what a good vantage point it would be, remember? So after what you call the fiasco at the Arena, when you went home with Diana… did you find anything there, by the way?”
He shook his head.
“When Diana dropped me off at the Apex, I picked up Edwina and met Rachel on the bluff. We kept watch until the last car was gone from the parking lot, except the sedan. Then Rachel took her car down to the McDonald’s parking lot, and waited.
I let her know when the sedan began moving, and we took turns following them here. ”
“And somewhere along the way, they must have made you.” His lips didn’t twitch this time, but his eyes were dancing.
I made a face. “I guess so. Probably when Rachel stopped in front of the house. Or maybe when I pulled into the driveway down the street. They didn’t actually catch us until we were snooping around in their yard, though.”
Mendoza nodded. “How’s the head?”
“Fine,” I said. “Yuri didn’t hit me as hard as Konstantin hit Rachel. I have a lump and a headache—” I reached up to feel it; the lump, not the headache, like a small bird egg under my fingertips, “but it’s no big deal. Nothing like what Rachel has.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
He held up two.
“Four,” I said. “I’m fine. If I needed medical attention, I’d get medical attention.”
His eyebrows drew down. “If you see four fingers…”
“I see two. Index and middle. A nice victory sign. Or are you too young to know what a victory sign is?”
“I’ll be thirty-four in February,” Mendoza said. “I know what a victory sign is.”
And I’d turned forty last July. “Great.”
“It’s not like you’re old enough to remember World War Two yourself, you know, Mrs. Kelly.”
No. Far from it. But hearing that he wasn’t even thirty-four yet, made me feel very old.
I petted Edwina some more. At the rate I was going, I’d end up like Mrs.—excuse me, Miss—Grimshaw.
Alone, with a pet dog. “If you want me to feel younger, you could stop calling me Mrs. Kelly. Mr. Kelly is dead. I’m not Mrs. Kelly anymore. ”
And wouldn’t have been, even if David hadn’t gotten himself murdered.
Maybe I should drop Kelly and just go by my maiden name from now on.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Mendoza said.
“You called me Gina earlier.” Unless I’d imagined it.
He didn’t answer. “To continue. While the two of you were playing leapfrog behind the sedan, we were also tracking the sedan by GPS. We weren’t planning to make a move until morning, but once we saw the two of you being captured, we thought we’d better step up the schedule.”
“And we appreciate it,” I said.
This time he smiled. “You looked like you didn’t need much help.”
“I would have brained Yuri or Konstantin. But that doesn’t mean we would have gotten out. I might not have brained him hard enough. And then he might have killed me. So I’m grateful you showed up when you did. I have no need to be a hero.”
After a second, I added, “I’m sorry I almost hit you.”
He shrugged. “You didn’t, so don’t worry about it.”
“It would have been a shame to break that perfect nose, though.”
“I snore,” Mendoza said.
Well, it looked perfect from the outside. As for the snoring, I doubted I’d ever get to experience that for myself. “So what happens now?”
“ICE and vice fight over Yuri and Konstantin,” Mendoza said. “I’ll have to sit in on some of the interviews, to see whether they had anything to do with Griselda Grimshaw’s murder, but my gut feeling is they didn’t.”
I shook my head. “I’m wondering whether Anastasia didn’t shoot her.
Steven probably gave her his gun so she could protect herself.
Under the circumstances, it’s hard to blame him.
She must have been terrified that Yuri and Konstantin would find her again.
Maybe, when I showed up, and you showed up, and Zachary showed up, she got scared. ”
“Maybe,” Mendoza said.
“I don’t know why that would make her kill Mrs. Grimshaw, but maybe she misunderstood something. Or maybe she didn’t mean to.”
Mendoza grunted. I have to admit I didn’t make a very convincing case for leniency. But there was no reason I could think of why Anastasia might have deliberately killed Mrs. Grimshaw. There’d be no reason for that.
Unless Griselda had threatened her somehow, I guess.
“She might actually be Steven’s daughter,” I said. “That’s what she told the other girls. And apparently what she told Steven.”
He nodded. “Doesn’t mean she actually is.”
No. “But Steven may have believed it.”
“And Griselda might have believed otherwise.”
So Anastasia shot her. That didn’t make any more sense, but was equally possible. “No way to know until we find them, I guess.”
Mendoza shook his head. “I don’t think these goons can help us with that.”
I didn’t, either. “If they knew where Anastasia was, I’m sure they’d have dragged her back here by now. In pieces if they had to. Just to show the other girls what would happen if any of them tried to get away.”
“That’d be my guess, too,” Mendoza said.
We sat—and in Mendoza’s case, stood—in silence a moment.
“You should go,” Mendoza said.
“Can I?”
“You haven’t been charged with anything. You’re the victim here.”
Hardly. “The girls are the victims. I just stumbled into this due to my own stupidity, and got a crack on the head for my trouble. But I wouldn’t mind going home.”
I tucked Edwina under one arm and extended the other hand. “It’s been a long night. Would you mind?”
He hauled me upright. “You look pretty good for not having slept for twenty-four hours.”
“So do you,” I said.
He smiled. “Occupational hazard.”
“Will you let me know what happens?”
He said he would. “Would you like me to walk you to your car?”
“I can find it,” I said. “And I’m not so tired that I’ll pass out on the way there. Just go inside and see what’s going on.”
He nodded. But he stood there and watched while I carried Edwina across the lawn, all the way until I was in my car and on my way down the street.
I was still too wired to sleep, so after taking a shower and getting into fresh clothes, I loaded Edwina back into the car and drove to the office.
I had told Diana someone would be there most of the day, and with Rachel and Zachary both laid up at Southern Hills, it looked like that someone would have to be me.
Good thing, too, because she did show up just a few minutes after I arrived. “I’ll let you listen to the message,” I told her, “but a whole lot has happened since we left the Arena last night, and we’ll have to talk about some of it.”
She was pale and looked like she hadn’t slept well, with dark circles under her eyes. She didn’t have that jittery, over-tired edge I sensed in myself, though. I probably looked like a monkey on speed, all twitchy and jumpy.
“What happened?”
“Message first. Then I’ll tell you.”
She listened to the message. Then I told her everything that had happened in the less than twelve hours since I’d seen her last. Ending with, “I don’t know whether it’s true or not.
She could be lying to everyone, including her friends.
But this girl took a big risk getting here to find her father, if he isn’t really her father. ”
Diana didn’t say anything.
“Did Steven spend any time in Russia, between twenty and twenty-five years ago?”
“That was before I knew him,” Diana said, “but yes. Steven spent time in a lot of places back then. He was a photo journalist. He was in Berlin when the wall fell. And he was all over Europe and the Middle East for the decade after that. I’m sure he didn’t stay celibate all that time.
If he had a child with someone he slept with over there, she never told him, though. ”