Chapter 11 #2
“I thought he should have his own, so it wouldn’t seem like a replacement.
So I got it all,” Brooks said as they started unloading.
“Toys, bed, chew bones, leash, collar, bowls, puppy chow. Got these papers. He has to see the vet for the rest of his shots and the—” He made snipping motions with his fingers.
“I’ll take the copy back to Petie tomorrow. ”
“We’ll take care of it. This means the world to her, and to me. I’ve missed having a dog. I bet he perks up old Chuck, too.”
“Might at least get that cat off the couch a couple times a day.”
“Might. Your mama’s going to be busy with that pup for a while. How about I toss some burgers on the grill?”
“I say—hell,” he said when his radio squawked. “Chief Gleason.”
“Hey, Brooks, are you down at your folks’ yet?”
“Yeah, right in the yard,” he told Alma.
“Mrs. Willowby’s reporting an intruder again.”
“Okay, I’m two minutes away. I’ll take it.”
When he clicked off, he shrugged. “Old Mrs. Willowby reports an intruder about once a week. The house settles, the faucet drips, the sun shines the wrong way on the window, they’re coming for her. I’ll have to stay for weak tea and stale cookies after I go through the house.”
“Then we’ll wait to throw the burgers on.”
“That’d be great. Shouldn’t take but about thirty minutes.”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
* * *
Once or twice a week, when her workload allowed for the time, Abigail gave a few hours an evening to personal business.
In the normal course of things, she paid any bills that weren’t on auto-payments as they came in, did her online shopping as the need—or sometimes just the whim—demanded.
She followed the news, a handful of blogs on a weekly or daily basis, and even allowed a certain amount of time each day for games.
Since she’d designed and programmed one and hoped to do more one day, she felt she needed to keep abreast with current trends and technology.
But once or twice a week, she went hacking.
She checked on her mother by hacking into bank accounts, brokerage accounts, the hospital work schedule.
She knew Dr. Susan L. Fitch planned to take a three-week vacation in May to tour Provence. She knew which hotels Susan had booked, which private charter service she and her companion of the last several months—one Walter P. Fennington III—would use.
She knew quite a bit about her mother’s life, activities, finances.
They had neither seen each other nor spoken since the night Susan had left her with Terry and John at the first safe house in Chicago.
But she checked, off and on, out of curiosity, and to reassure herself the Volkovs had taken no reprisals in that area.
Why would they? Abigail wondered. They had moles in law enforcement. And those moles knew Susan Fitch knew nothing, cared to know nothing about the daughter she’d so meticulously conceived, then walked away from.
She checked on John’s family. She hoped he’d be happy his wife had remarried eight years after his death. He’d be happy his children were well and apparently happy. She knew where they lived, worked, attended school. Just as she knew Terry’s parents had moved to Sarasota.
She’d programmed an auto-search so any mention in any media outlet of the Volkovs popped on her computer.
She followed them carefully. Ilya was engaged; a fall wedding was planned.
His fiancée was from a wealthy family with ties to another bratva.
She considered it as a kind of merger, though she imagined Ilya was pleased enough, as the woman was very beautiful.
Hacking into Ilya’s computers regularly took more effort, more time and a great deal of research. But she didn’t mind. On every visit, she copied and downloaded all of his files, e-mails, stored them, reviewed all the sites he visited.
People like him thought they were careful, but they weren’t. She knew his business nearly as well, she imagined, as he did. She knew his life, his fiancée’s, his girlfriends’, how he spent his money, where he bought his clothes, his shoes.
Everything.
And she knew the Volkovs still looked for her.
She wasn’t a priority, but from what she could extrapolate, she was more than a loose end. Elizabeth Fitch was a principle.
She was to be found and eliminated. As long as Sergei Volkov served as head of the bratva, she would remain a target. And she believed, absolutely, she would remain one when Ilya officially took his place.
She knew Yakov Korotkii continued as enforcer. She’d compiled a list, one she added to on these visits, of people she believed he’d terminated. She knew—as she’d hacked those agencies as well—that the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and Interpol, among others, had similar lists.
But nothing stuck to Korotkii. He was, perhaps because of her, a highly favored and well-protected tool.
She also knew the FBI and the marshals continued to look for her. Or for Elizabeth Fitch.
She remained a witness in the murders of Julie Masters and Alexi Gurevich, and also a person of interest in the deaths of John Barrow and Theresa Norton.
John had spoken the truth, protected her to the end.
She could trust no one. To the Volkovs she was a target to be terminated out of pride and principle as much as any potential testimony she might give.
To the authorities she was witness to the murder of two federal marshals, or, depending on the analysis, a fugitive who may have, out of desperation, boredom, madness, incapacitated one federal marshal, killed another, wounded one more, as Cosgrove had been shot in the hip during the melée.
Some theorized she’d initiated the gas explosion to cover up her crimes while she fled.
The plan to eliminate her had been in place, she imagined, for days, even weeks, before her seventeenth birthday. Keegan and Cosgrove had initiated it.
She had been meant to die along with John and Terry in the explosion.
She rarely thought of those first few months on the run, that first year in hiding, all the terror and grief. But she’d found her way.
She had a life now, and she meant to keep it.
With the dog at her feet, she tiptoed into Ilya’s accounts. He changed his passwords routinely, updated his security, his firewalls.
But she’d spent a decade studying, developing, programming systems—their ins, their outs. Whatever he built, she could break. It gave her a great deal of satisfaction to invade him, to peer into his private world, shatter his privacy.
Her only regret was he’d never know.
He’d never fear as she had feared.
But she cost him.
Every now and again, when she had enough, when she was sure of the data and her own safety, she found a way to leak bits of information to an agent with the FBI—one she’d thoroughly researched, one she felt she knew as well as she knew herself.
Whoever she happened to be at the moment.
She signed the brief, data-heavy memos tvoi drug. Russian for “your friend.” There were files, profiles, searches, queries, on tvoi drug. Most believed the informant male, and connected within the Volkov bratva.
Tvoi drug had cost lives. Abigail hoped she’d saved some. Her greatest achievement, on her gauge, had been compiling enough information to generate a raid on a warehouse in South Chicago, and dismantle and destroy the forced prostitution ring operating out of it.
Now she studied recent activity. Codes, cryptic phrases, false names. She passed over information on basic computer scams. If the federals couldn’t handle those on their own, they didn’t deserve any help.
But the money laundering, she considered.
Scraping away at the Volkovs’ bottom line offered satisfaction. Maybe not the deep and visceral satisfaction of knowing she’d played some small part in freeing more than twenty girls from sexual slavery, but diminished funds made their business more difficult to operate.
Yes, the money laundering would be her new personal project. She’d consider it a kind of wedding gift to Ilya.
She set about compiling snatches of information from e-mails—Ilya’s, the accountant’s, a handful of other contacts.
It amazed her, always, what people revealed with keystrokes, how careless they were.
While she worked, she thought in Russian, entrenched herself in it.
So much so that when her phone rang, she muttered a mild Russian oath.
She expected no calls, but a few clients seemed to prefer phone conversations or texts over e-mails. She glanced at the display. Frowned.
Brooks had managed to dig up her cell phone number. Not really that hard, but it would’ve taken some time and effort.
Why?
Cautious, she answered.
“Hello.”
“Hey. It’s Brooks.”
“Yes, I know.”
“What do you like on your pizza?”
“I…It doesn’t matter.”
“Pizza toppings matter, Abigail. They’re vital to the pie.”
She supposed he had a point. And she wished everything about him didn’t appeal and confuse. “I like black olives and hot peppers, particularly.”
“That’s a go. Any objection to pepperoni?”
“No.”
“Perfect. I’ll be by in about a half hour.”
“I didn’t ask you to come by.”
“Yeah, I noticed. You really have to start doing that.”
“I’m working.”
“It’s going on seven. Let’s take a break. Besides, I have news for you.”
“What news?”
“It comes with the pizza. About a half hour. See you.”
She set the phone down, studied it.
She wasn’t prepared. Why did he always interrupt and insert himself when she wasn’t prepared? Now she’d have to close up the work.
And she’d planned to have chicken stir-fry for dinner.
He’d expect conversation, and she wasn’t sure she had any more. Between him and his mother, she was out of what struck her as appropriate small talk.
Still, she wondered what he’d meant by news.
Resigned, she shut down the work, then reluctantly put her gun and holster in the drawer.
She assumed he’d also expect a drink, so she considered her nicely balanced selection of wines and chose a good Chianti.
Then she stopped, stared at the bottle.
She was having dinner with him again. That made twice in one week, and that didn’t count the huckleberry pie.
She was dating the chief of police.
“For God’s sake. How did he do this? I don’t date. I can’t date.”
She set the wine down and did something else she didn’t do. She paced. She needed to find a solution, a resolution to this…situation. Clearly refusing to see him would only make him more determined and suspicious. In any case, her attempts in that area had failed.
She understood the concept of pursuit and conquer. The male felt challenged, driven to persuade, capture, conquer. Perhaps she should reconsider having sex with him. With sex the pursuit would end, the challenge would be removed. His interest would begin to wane.
Those were logical reasons.
It would also include the benefit of eliminating this yearning. Once her own physical needs were met, his challenge met, his interest faded, she would have no reason to think of him at inopportune times. Everything would go back to normal and routine.
She considered the theory valid.
They’d have sex, then each would get on with their own separate lives and agendas.
Relieved, pleased with her qualified decision, she went upstairs, Bert trailing, to make certain there was nothing in her bedroom, bathroom, or indeed anywhere on the second floor, that would catch his eye.
He’d have no reason to ask about the second bedroom, and the door was secured. She took another moment, asking herself if breaking her own precedents—good precedents—and having an intimate encounter with a local, in her own home, made the best sense.
She believed it did. She believed she was capable of handling the one-time abnormality.
She glanced toward her bedroom station when her security signaled. Murmured to Bert to stand down.
Brooks was prompt, she thought, as she watched him drive toward the house.
She liked pizza, she decided, as she started downstairs. She liked sex. As she unlocked the door, she assured herself the plan was sound, and both parties would complete it amiably.