Chapter 30
Nick
RENAT AND I SAT IN the farthest back corner of the diner. The place was empty except for a line cook reading the sports page and a waitress in purple Crocs who carried herself with the air of a woman who had seen every type of loser Long Island had to offer.
“The window is two weeks,” Renat said, hands flat on the table, gaze never leaving my face. “After that, she disappears.”
“The girl?” I knew the answer but needed to hear him say it, like reading the charges to a convict before the needle.
“Woman,” he corrected because in our line of work, we had to make a distinction.
“Twenty-six years old. No family. Keeps to herself. The perfect target for these scumbags. Hidden cameras in the apartment with paid access for interested buyers. It’s all part of the pre-sale.
Bidders pay to watch before the auction. ”
He pushed a printout across the table. On it was a pretty girl sitting on the couch reading a book.
Wavy blond hair women would pay the big buck to get, but I guessed hers was all natural.
She didn’t look like the kind of person who’d spend a fortune at a beauty salon.
Just wasn’t the right vibe. Her eyes must’ve been hazel, but they looked almost yellow in the lighting.
“She doesn’t know yet?” I asked. If this was a part of the footage, then it looked like she was living her life oblivious to what was about to happen to her.
“No. Not yet.” He tapped the corner of the printout. “In two weeks, she’ll be kidnapped and sold. Some buyers enjoy the process of breaking their slaves, so she should be left relatively unharmed.”
That didn’t sound so bad, but...
Nadya’s face came unbidden to my mind. Having her apartment broken into was enough to rattle her. Granted, she’d already had plenty of trauma; nevertheless, being kidnapped and then finding out a bunch of creeps had been watching you for weeks, would do a number on this girl.
“You’re going in as a buyer,” I assumed.
He shrugged. “Best way to get access. If they know I’d buy a girl with the intention of breaking her all by my lonesome, then they know I wouldn’t blink an eye at the other shit they do. If I pay well enough, they’d also want me in as a repeat customer.”
I nodded, already picturing the layers of this. The playdates that would involve older victims since Renat was buying an adult. Finding out where the playdates happened and who else was invited. If the auction would be in person rather than online, we’d see who else would be there.
The waitress came by to refill our coffees, giving me a moment to process everything and imagine what other information any of the customers could provide.
We needed more than the customers, though.
We needed the people organizing this whole thing.
Then again, catching one or two associates and a whole bunch of buyers could unravel the entire thing if enough of them talked.
“You’ll be there?” I asked. “When they take her?”
He met my eyes, and for a second the mask slipped. There was something raw underneath—guilt, maybe, or just exhaustion.
“Yes. I’ll pay extra to be there when they grab her.”
Good. Maybe he’d be able to soften it for her. Even if she might not know it at the moment, she’d have one person there on her side.
“And after?” I prompted.
“I take her to a safe house. You bring supplies for the girl if I have to be away, and I check in with you every three days.”
Again, Nadya’s face popped up in my mind’s eye. I had to make sure she was protected while I was working.
Renat pulled a small flip phone out of his jacket and slid it across the table. “This is how you reach me. If you see or hear anything, you call. Nothing else. No texts. No emails.”
He reached into his other pocket, pulled out a business card. The numbers were in pencil, meant to be erased, but the last four digits had already smeared.
“Memorize this and burn it,” he said. Then he was gone, leaving the coffee to cool.
I sat there for five minutes, staring at the woman in the photo. The longer I looked, the more she resembled Nadya. Not in the face—just the raw nerves behind the eyes, the way they both seemed to hold a lifetime of bad news in their sockets.
I left a twenty under the mug, pocketed the flip phone, and stepped out into the parking lot. My bike was exactly where I left it. I kicked it to life, let the engine noise drown out the rest of my thoughts, and took the expressway heading back to Brooklyn.
Fortunately for me, all the traffic was headed in the opposite direction as people left work in the city and returned to suburbia. I made it back in record time, and as I rode through the city, I spotted a small pet store.
You know what? I needed to sprinkle some positivity on my day after the heavy discussion with Renat.
I pulled up and parked the bike, then went into the store that was too damn cheerful with its colorful dog toys, kittens playing in a pan, waiting to be adopted, and an older dog keeping an eye on the rascals. It seemed the local animal shelter had set up shop here.
The staff wore bright blue shirts and looked like they’d never set foot in the city after dark. I ducked my head, made my way to the cat aisle, and grabbed a bag of dry food. Then I added two foldable bowls to my loot and went to the register.
The teen girl at checkout was all smiles and orthodontic hardware, her nails painted to match the shirt.
“You cat has good taste,” the girl commented.
“I hope so. It might be the first time he’d be eating this brand,” I answered.
“Hope he likes it.”
Me too, I thought. Me too.
I had to circle Nadya’s building twice before I found a parking spot, and that was with a compact motorcycle. How did people park cars in this place? If I ever decided to move here, I’d have to find a place with dedicated parking.
The building’s side entrance was hidden by overgrown hedges, the kind cats could hide in. I poured a generous scoop of kibble into one of the bowls and filled another with water from my bottle, then sat down to wait.
The sun had dipped behind the roofs, and the only light was the orange glow from the streetlamps, but I stayed put.
Finally, I saw a flash of black and white fur dart from under a parked car to the base of the hedge.
Took him long enough. If only he had been that slow when stealing food from my bag.
Meatball eyed me, then the bowl, then me again. I kept perfectly still. Cautiously, he circled the bowl, then he sniffed it and attacked the kibble with so much enthusiasm I could hear it from the sidewalk.
“Atta boy,” I murmured.
Maybe now he wouldn't feel the need to steal. Feeding the poor guy might've just saved some old lady from having her wings stolen.
After a minute, he looked up, licking crumbs from his whiskers, then retreated under the car.
As much as I wanted to leave the food out for him, it didn’t seem right.
There was no telling what kind of sicko would see it and decide to slip something else into it.
Call me jaded, but poisoning a stray cat would be one of the smallest types of evil I’d seen in my line of work.
So, I picked it up and vowed to feed Meatball again tomorrow.