Chapter 6
TESSA
Isew the last three inches of black lace with an armed man standing between me and the front door.
His name is Matvei. He introduced himself when the car brought us back this morning, then checked the workshop before letting us inside. I saw the gun beneath his jacket when he helped Peggy lift a packed dress form. Since then, every time he moves, my eyes go to the place where he keeps it.
The needle slides through the last loop. I secure the thread and cut it close, keeping my fingers clear of the lace. These gowns were supposed to be the lovely part of my Wednesday. Twelve finished gowns, paid invoices, perhaps a photograph of Peggy and me looking smug beside the rail.
Now we're taking them to The Ninth Masque because someone might come here to hurt us.
“Last one,” I tell Peggy.
She holds the garment bag open while I ease the dress off its form.
The lining brushes my wrist, still slightly warm from the iron.
I'd finished the detachable pieces at home last night, with a guard downstairs and my phone beside the machine.
The larger gowns needed to stay upright until their hems were secured.
Now the last one folds into its bag without pulling a single seam.
I run the zip closed with more satisfaction than the act deserves.
Peggy checks it off her list. “We should charge extra for whatever this service is.”
“Armed collection.”
Neither of us quite laughs.
My cinnamon gum has lost its sweetness. I wrap it in a scrap of paper and drop it in the bin, then reach for my bag. My phone is already in my back pocket. I keep touching it to make sure it's there.
The shop smells of steamed velvet and the toast Peggy ate over the invoices.
Beyond the front fitting room, our display faces the street beneath a paper sign saying we're closed.
Matvei checked the lock after the last load went through the rear door.
Another guard watches the delivery entrance while the driver loads the van that will follow our car to the club.
The clock over the sewing shelves is a few minutes short of nine.
I look away from it.
Klim cancelled that appointment yesterday. I watched the refund leave our account. The customer received an email and a message, and nobody promised him another date.
It should feel like an appointment we aren't having.
A fist strikes the glass in the front door.
Peggy stops with her pen against the paper. Matvei moves into the fitting room, looking past the edge of the curtain.
I can see a man's shoulder through the gap. He lifts a phone toward the glass, its screen bright against his dark jacket.
“Collection for nine,” he calls.
Matvei stays inside the locked door. “It's cancelled. You need to leave.”
The man shifts, and I see his face.
Klim showed it to us yesterday, enlarged on his phone. The man leaning against the parked car. He'd seemed ordinary in that picture, somebody waiting for a person who was taking too long.
Now he's looking past Matvei into our shop.
“Tessa. Come sort this out.”
My hand closes around Peggy's arm. She has seen him too. I feel the tendons in her wrist move as she puts the pen down, very slowly.
“We're leaving,” I tell her, barely making a sound.
Matvei turns his head. “Back. Both of you.”
I get one step toward the rear before he shouts for us to get down.
The first shot is so loud I feel it against my face. The front display window breaks inward, scattering glass across the fitting room and against the metal legs of our display. Peggy folds beneath my hand. I go down with her, my knee hitting the floor hard enough to jar my teeth.
Something slams against the front door. There's a crack of wood, another blow, and the door hits the wall inside.
I crawl backward, dragging Peggy by her sleeve. The hem of a cape catches beneath my palm. I slip on it, catch myself on the sewing bench and keep moving until we're beside the office wall, with hanging costumes between us and the front of the shop.
My chest won't let me take a full breath.
“Where's the phone?” the man shouts. “What did you give the police?”
I see him through a gap between two garment bags. His gun looks terribly small in his hand, nothing like the noise it made. He's coming toward the archway. Behind him, the open doorway shows a second man moving past the broken glass.
Matvei hits the first man from the side.
They crash into the nearest stock rail. Its wheels slide, then one catches against the fitting-room threshold and the whole thing tips. An upright buckles as they land on it. A dark cape drops over the man's shoulder as he falls, and his gun skids beneath the overturned rail.
Another shot cracks from the front of the building.
I push Peggy lower against the wall and cover my head. Her breath comes in little broken sounds beside my ear. Mine seems to have stopped altogether. The air smells sharp and bitter, and I can feel grit between my fingers where I spread them over the back of my neck.
There are boots on the floor, men shouting over each other, then an engine climbing to a roar outside. I can't tell which voice belongs to Matvei. I keep waiting for someone to pull the clothes aside and find us.
Peggy's hand closes over my wrist.
I hold on so hard she whispers my name.
“Sorry.” I loosen my grip without letting go.
The next voice I understand is Matvei's.
“Stay there. Don't come out yet.”
I lift my head just far enough to see him beyond the fallen rack. One of the other guards has the man facedown beside it. His cheek presses into a strip of black lace, and he swears as his arm is pulled behind him. The gun remains on the floor beyond his reach.
He looks at the hanging bags.
I duck back before he can look at me.
My phone digs into my hip. I pull it out with fingers that won't bend properly and hold it against my stomach.
The screen lights up beneath my thumb, showing the ordinary photograph I've never bothered to change.
I have no idea what to do with it. Call someone, put it away, throw it across the room so he'll stop asking for it.
Peggy takes my other hand and places it over hers.
“It's still here,” she says. “So are we.”
I nod because she needs me to answer. My throat feels too tight for words.
Matvei comes around the end of the rail a moment later. He crouches where we can see him, both hands empty.
“Are either of you hurt?”
I look at Peggy. She looks at me. There should be a simple answer, but I need to check that all the pieces of her are where they belong before I can give it.
“I don't think so,” I say.
Matvei speaks into his phone, telling Klim we're under cover and the police have been called. I hear him say one man is being held, the others got away. Then he listens, his eyes moving toward the front entrance.
“They're coming from Charlestown,” he tells us after he ends the call. “Klim and my boss. Stay with me.”
Peggy nods. Her mouth is trembling.
I move my hand up her arm and hold her shoulder, the way I do when she's laughing so hard she can't stand straight. She's shaking beneath my palm now, and I can't make it stop.
A siren reaches us before I can decide whether I'm cold or going to be sick.
Police enter through the front while Matvei keeps us beside the office. I hear demands, answers, another order to leave something alone. When we're allowed to stand, my knees straighten too quickly and I sway against Peggy. She puts an arm around my waist.
We go toward the rear together, stepping over a hanger that has somehow reached the sewing benches. I don't look toward the fitting room until we're almost past it.
The man who called my name is being taken out in handcuffs. There's blood beneath his nose. He turns his head toward us, and a uniformed officer moves between him and the workshop.
I still step back.
Matvei guides us out through the delivery entrance to the waiting car. The driver has moved it close enough that we only have a few steps to cross. Cool air gets beneath my shirt. I stop with one hand on the open door, trying to work out why the street looks ordinary from this side of the building.
Peggy gets in first, pulling me after her.
The seat is soft enough to sink beneath my thighs.
I've been in this car twice already, last night and this morning, but now I notice the smell of the leather and the heavy quiet when the door closes.
Matvei stays outside the glass while an officer comes around to take our names and note our connection to Alison's case.
By the time Alison arrives, Peggy has found the cancelled booking on her phone. She shows it to her through the open door, turning the screen so she can read the message sent yesterday. Alison looks toward the workshop, then back at me.
“What did he say when he got inside, Tessa?”
I have to stop and swallow before I can repeat it.
“He wanted my phone. He wanted to know what I'd told the police.”
Alison writes it down. She doesn't ask me to guess which gun made which noise. I'm grateful for that, because I can't even decide how many shots there were. She goes to speak to the officers at the front, leaving us with Matvei.
A paramedic checks us while we sit with the door open.
My knee is sore from hitting the floor, but the skin isn't broken.
Peggy keeps turning her hands over, showing that there isn't any blood on them.
We don't need to be taken away in an ambulance.
I hear myself agree, although I don't want to be the person making decisions about anything yet.
I want somebody to tell me exactly where to put my feet.
Matvei brings water. Peggy drinks some and hands the bottle to me. I get the rim against my mouth, then spill it over my wrist when a car door closes nearby.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
Peggy takes the bottle back without making a joke.
I look at my phone. It's nine thirty-four. More than half an hour has passed since the man knocked, and I still feel the first shot every time something bangs.
Then I hear a voice beyond the open car door.
“Tessa. Are you hurt?”
My head comes up.