Chapter 20
“Take the next turn and circle back to those old brick buildings,” Magda said. “And turn your headlights off.”
Daniil looked at her as though he were giving her a quick sanity check.
“Staring at me won’t help find her. Just do as I say,” she said.
She was not only eager to succeed in the hunt for this Jane woman.
She wanted the other one too, Brian Finlay.
Maybe she wanted him more at this moment.
She had helped to pass the time over the past two days by researching his former employer Bart Stillivant on the internet, and getting a sense of his wealth and power.
He could easily pay millions for his former assistant.
Right at the start, before she even found the woman who made people disappear, her expedition had been headed for success.
She had been feeling amused and excited about the game she was playing with Brian Finlay.
She had immediately fooled him into assuming she was Jane, the one person he thought could save his life, but she was just holding on to him to help her catch Jane.
Magda had been constructing a great irony—he would help destroy his own last hope, and then she would sell him to Bart Stillivant.
She had begun to imagine the sight of his face when he realized what he had done to himself.
He had those earnest blue eyes, and she imagined them opening wide to show his dismay when he would find out, and the strong mouth going slack-jawed in shock.
She had begun to relish the power and control she had over him.
A night ago, she had ordered a change in the sleeping arrangements.
She moved Maxim down into the den to watch the front door, had Brian Finlay go upstairs to one of the bedrooms, and put Dmitri in the bigger bedroom with Daniil and Mikhail.
Two would sleep in the twin beds while the third stayed awake and watched through the back window.
When it was night and all were situated, she went to lie on the couch in the living room.
As soon as Maxim was asleep, she got up and climbed the stairs to the bedroom where Brian Finlay was.
She opened the door, stepped inside, and locked it.
Then she began to take off her clothes, draping them over the only chair in the room.
She walked to the bed. She explained nothing, said nothing, simply lifted the sheet, slid in beside him, took his hand, and put it on her waist. The next morning, she was out of the bed and dressed before the darkness was dispelled.
She had accomplished exactly what she had wanted.
She had sensed some hesitancy, maybe timidity, in him at first, but before long she was sure she owned him, and sure he knew it.
She thought he would do anything for her.
And she had even managed to hide her tattoos from him in the darkness.
The next night—tonight—she had repeated her visit, and she had been even more certain.
Their night had begun at full darkness, and had lasted until they were both asleep.
Or maybe it was only Magda who had been asleep.
Had he known that Magda was not Jane? Had he been the one to fool her—make a fool of her?
As soon as Maxim’s yelling and the running noises had begun, she had thrown on her clothes, run out, and locked the bedroom door, this time from the outer side.
She ran downstairs, grabbed the gun and flashlight out of her bag, saw Mikhail ahead of her, and followed him to the cellar door.
Maxim was just dragging himself up the stairs, and when he emerged into the kitchen, she could see that his face was covered with blood.
His nose was broken, and his eyes were swelling into slits.
He said, “She thought I was Brian. I was climbing out with her and she saw I wasn’t, and she slammed the door on my face. And I think my wrist is broken.”
“Where did she climb out?”
“There, by the driveway.”
Magda whirled and ran for the front door, followed by Daniil and Mikhail.
They dashed outside and around the house to the driveway, shining their flashlights in every direction.
She found the little door because there was a blotch of Maxim’s blood on the pavement beside it.
There was no sign of her. They ran onward to the backyard, shining their lights at the wall that separated the yard of this house from the neighbors’ yard, then spreading out so they could illuminate it from different angles. There was no sign of the woman.
“The cars,” she said, and ran toward the one that was parked around the corner, just out of sight. When she and Daniil got there, she said, “You drive.”
Daniil started the car, then reached for his pistol and cycled a round into the chamber.
She said, “If you kill her, you’d better be able to make the dead speak.”
He set the gun muzzle down into the door cup holder beside him and pulled ahead.
He accelerated along the quiet street with the high-beam headlights on.
Magda was looking on the right side of the street, and Daniil looked at the sidewalk on the left.
They saw only houses with darkened windows and cars left along the curbs of the empty street.
They came to a traffic signal and she could see the sign said Main Street.
“Turn right here and go back up the next street. If she’s running, she can’t have gotten farther than this.
” She didn’t say what she meant, which was “they.” A few minutes ago, just as Magda had reached the street, she had looked back toward the Whitefield house, and what she’d seen had shocked her.
She had seen the white sheets from the bed she and Brian Finlay had shared, knotted together and hanging from the bedroom window that he’d slid down to escape.
When she had left him locked in that bedroom, he had been naked and asleep, but he’d had time to do all that?
No. He must have planned every movement, waiting for his chance.
She was trying to keep her mind focused on Jane, the woman who made people disappear, because that was her mission, but it was hard for her to do it.
She kept thinking about Brian. He had not been enthralled by Magda at all.
He had only been pretending. That was the worst. She had been exulting in the pleasure of fooling and manipulating and controlling this man.
Now she knew he was the one who had been manipulating her.
He had gotten the selfish pleasure of having this beautiful woman come to him naked and invite him to do as he pleased with her.
And one night had not been enough for Magda.
She had gone back for a second time tonight, thinking she was making herself the most important person in the world to him.
She had pretended to love every second with him, thinking she would make him like a dog that would follow her anywhere without a leash or a collar. She hated herself for being so stupid.
She watched the dim landscape as Daniil went around the next corner and headed back toward the abandoned factory.
She said, “Make sure you stop before you actually get there. Your headlights are off, but there are still brake lights.” He saw it and stopped.
She couldn’t help thinking about killing Brian.
He wasn’t the main target of their mission, and she had not yet told the Pachan about him, so he wouldn’t be counting on the big price he could charge for him.
She reached for the door handle and her phone rang.
“Yes?”
The voice was Mikhail’s. “Dmitri and I have been going along the road above the river, but we haven’t seen them. Have you?”
“Where is Maxim?”
“Still at the house, trying to get the bleeding to stop. Where are you?”
“We’re two streets to the east from the one where the car was parked. We’re at the back of a couple of brick buildings from an old factory.”
Jane and Brian had retreated inside the warehouse, waiting to be sure the car they’d seen a few minutes ago had gone.
Jane heard a sound, and looked out the empty frame of one of the back windows near the old loading dock, across the railroad tracks that used to bring raw materials and haul away finished products.
She saw a car with no lights parked on the far side of the tracks.
Since it was dark, at first Jane thought the car might be parked for the night.
But now she could see the small, bright light from a phone screen that revealed two silhouettes in the front seats.
“Come on,” she said. “Time to get out of here.” She moved out of the side of the building facing the factory shop, trotted to the parking lot, and increased her speed.
They ran across the street in front of the factory, kept going onto a lawn, then another, then began a curving path skirting a stand of tall trees, and came out onto a short residential street.
“Not far now,” she said to Brian. B
“If you searched hard and didn’t find her, come to where we are,” Magda said.
“Drive up the street where we were parked, turn right at Main Street, turn right again, turn your lights off, and come back toward the house. You can’t miss this place.
It has redbrick buildings and a big empty parking lot. ”
“Okay,” Mikhail said.
She could hear he was still on the line and driving. “Call me when you’re here. We’ll go in from both sides at once and trap them inside.”
Jane ran hard until they reached the Volvo sedan parked along the curb of Erie Street. She pulled the key fob out of her jeans, opened the doors, and when they were both inside, pulled away.
Brian caught his breath enough to say, “Where are we going?”