Chapter 6
Emily
I’ve been keeping a log of all the lies and truths Alice has told me.
I moved from Estonia about six years ago. Partially true. The where is a lie, obviously, but her timeline is not. I imagine she chose Estonia as her cover because her mother was from there.
She passed away when I was a child. Also true. I didn’t push for details there, though I’m curious if she knows how much of a hand Konstantin had in her death. It would be uncouth and suspicious for a stranger to pry about the circumstances, though.
My father died in a car accident last year.
She’s created a persona of emptiness. A woman with no one, nowhere, nothing to hold onto.
I’m surprised by how many of the things she tells me I can’t categorize.
Did she really learn English from her nanny and grow up fluent?
I know she spoke English, Russian, and Mongolian by the time our paths crossed, but did she grow up learning them all in tandem?
Is her biggest fear truly snakes? Is strawberry actually her favorite ice cream flavor?
Every minute with her is a reminder that my infatuation with her all these years was built on nothing but my imagination.
She’s witty. Not quick to laugh, like I imagined she would be when I watched a recording of her giggling behind a delicate hand at something Ilya said.
But she catches onto every slip of the tongue, every opening for a double entendre or barb.
The more we talk, the less she openly smiles.
But working for the tiny twitch in her deadpan expression is much more of a gift than the grins she shares with patrons.
She’s also wildly brave. Once she allowed the dam holding back her personality to split a little, it became obvious why she was flabbergasted by my fear of…
well, everything. When the ROV signal became compromised, she was the one who leaned over the side of the boat and hoisted the tiny machine back up so I could fix it.
She told me about swimming in the open sea, jumping off high cliffs into the ocean below, even how she dreamed of SCUBA diving, which I told her was my version of Dante’s seventh ring of hell.
I’ve tried to keep focus on my mission throughout our conversations, to ask her questions that help me understand her past and how it haunts her today.
It’ll take time to convince her to open up about some things though—especially her family.
She gave me the barest details before clamming up and asking me about my past research.
The threat of Clara’s clock ticks in the back of my mind every second of the day. I know I don’t have time to lull Alice into a sense of security and friendship. Six weeks will go by in the blink of an eye, and then my hand will be forced.
Sitting on my bed, I watch the video feed as Alice leans her bike against the front facade of the grocery store. She doesn’t go in, but walks around the side alley, filled with decaying cardboard boxes and broken beer bottles, to the ancient payphone near the dumpster.
Deniz pulled the call records before I even got here. Up until January, there were regular calls from this line to Mikhail Shevchenko, the long distance fee paid by the recipient. Since then, the calls are still placed every Friday evening. They all go unanswered.
Does she think her uncle abandoned her, or does she know her father well enough to suspect his involvement? Does she worry that her father discovered her drowning was fabricated?
Deniz has confirmed that not a single call has been placed from this payphone to anyone related to Konstantin, personally or professionally.
In fact, the only calls made from that phone over the past year have been to Mikhail, other than two to a bail bond provider and one to a funeral home in upstate New York.
I haven’t had a chance to sneak back over to place a recording device in the payphone, so for now I watch Alice as she feeds coins into the receptacle and dials the burner number that her uncle will never answer.
Clara and Deniz are fairly certain that Konstantin isn’t aware of the burner, but we likely will never know everything he pried from Mikhail’s throat.
We can only assume that if he knew about the calls from this payphone, Alice would already be gone.
When she finally gives in and hangs up, Alice walks back around the corner and into the store. The owner was watching me like a fucking hawk when I picked up groceries yesterday after I got off the boat, so I couldn’t place any cameras inside. Which means now I’m antsy.
I shouldn’t be watching Alice’s every move anyway. My cousins are all pitching in with surveillance, reviewing recordings and following up on anything potentially concerning. I should be doing what they can’t—putting myself face to face with Alice.
Instead, I’ll be doing anything but that.
It’s my first non-research day, and I’m itching to be in her presence again. I’ve tried to convince myself the feeling is due to my creeping deadline, or my wholehearted dedication to The Syndicate's mission.
I suppose I’ll have to create a list of lies I’m telling myself.
There’s no gym in this town, but I need to burn off energy and I’m tired of fucking running.
I’ve always preferred lifting, personally believing any cardio you do alone is a waste of time.
There’s a defunct playground a few miles inland, and I decide it's worth the risk to see if the rusting monkey bars can hold my weight.
I change into my standard workout gear—spandex shorts, a sports bra, and a MIT sweatshirt—and slip my headphones in.
I never play music while I’m exercising, especially not when I’m running, but I like the way the noise cancellation mutes the outside world.
I focus on my breathing and heart rate as I jog through the mist, my clothes immediately clinging uncomfortably as the humidity makes my skin slick.
I hop the fence surrounding the abandoned RV park and jog to the advertised community play area.
The swings are broken, and the slide is filled with stagnant, mildewy water, but the monkey bars stand strong. Or so I hope.
The metal bites into my palms as I grasp the bar, shifting my weight and curling my legs up so they don’t touch the ground on every rep.
The calluses that my hands have grown accustomed to have softened a little in the last three weeks since I’ve been away from any real gym.
But the pain is good. It centers me, focuses me, gives me something to think about other than reluctant smiles and pink-streaked hair.
My muscles stretch and burn as I pull myself up and let myself drop over and over, my body and mind controlled, organized, and obedient.
Everything is conquerable. Fear, pain, lust, curiosity.
Every emotion is a tool or a test that I will use or overcome.
I am a Costa. I am cunning, strong, brilliant, and cutthroat. I will conquer this.
Whatever this is.
I drop to the ground and find a soft patch of dirt and grass. I usually hate getting dirty while working out, but there’s something about holding a plank in the muck and getting pine needles in my hair as I do crunches that feels necessary right now. I need the distraction.
It’s a sick twist of fate that I have actually enjoyed getting to know Alice.
It struck me as we were sitting on that boat sharing the oranges I brought as a snack that if circumstances were different, we could have been friends.
Maybe more. If Konstantin had been open to a partnership with The Syndicate, if we had become allies, if he had been a different man, perhaps we would have spent more time together.
Aunt Lucia, and by extension Clara, maintains relationships with the families and enterprises we work with across the globe.
Alice—well, Alisa—could have been one of them.
Instead, I’m learning about her with the sole intention of using her. And even if, by some miracle, I find a reason not to sacrifice her in the name of accessing her father, there’s no way she’ll ever forgive me when she finds out who I am.
All of these feelings—the guilt, the anticipation, the twisted sense of duty—would be tolerable, if it wasn’t for the attraction.
It might be the only thing I got right in the fantasy I created about Alisa.
Es una hermosura. Delicate and shimmering in the sunlight, her allure is only magnified by the little truths about herself that she lets slip every now and again.
Not facts that I can write down in coded language in my research notebook.
But inherent truths that we can’t hide when we feel comfortable, and that we naturally conceal when we feel endangered.
Her humor, her bite, her inquisitiveness, her bravery. All of it makes the blue of her eyes brighter, the soft curve of her popped hip more enticing. The person I’m getting to know is so much better than the fantasy I created.
And I hate her for it.
It would have been so much easier to do what must be done if she wasn’t…
Alice. But she is, and the relief I had only a few days ago at being able to use her without guilt has been extinguished.
Now I have to wonder if this brave and beautiful woman has built herself up from the crushing grip of her father’s control, only for me to destroy her again.