“David told me what happened at the gala,” she said, coming to stand next to him behind the desk. Her hazel eyes were ringed lightly with coffee-colored liner, and her black hair hung wild down her back. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Sebastian inclined his head. “Thank you.” He pulled open the drawer he’d been reaching for and raised his eyebrows when he saw it contained a pile of pens and notepads. “David told me you’re looking for information on Blakely Manor. I do not think he expected you to break into Anton’s office.”
“Probably not. I rarely have an opportunity to sneak into the house without an audience with our dear tata—” daddy in Serbian, said sarcastically “—but somebody had to do it.” She was watching his face for something, but Sebastian couldn’t figure out what. “I did not realize that David had… confided in you.”
“I doubt he wanted to, but after last night he didn’t have a choice,” Sebastian replied, and realized with a start that Diana was nervous. It was an emotion he’d never seen her exhibit before, which was why it took him a moment to place it. “Relax, Dijana. Do you think I care that you work for the government? You are probably the best position out of any of us to take Anton down.”
Diana frowned mulishly at the use of her true name. “I do not want to take you down with him,” she said, which surprised Sebastian. He knew she cared for him on some level, but until now he didn’t think it went beyond her own self-interest. “Please try to stay out of this. Help me find the information on Blakely Manor and then get the hell out of here.”
They started opening drawers, checking underneath and behind them, and it wasn’t until Sebastian picked the lock on the bottom left-hand drawer that they found something interesting. It was an old datebook, and stuck inside its pages was a newspaper clipping. It was three and a half paragraphs of praise for the work of a clinical psychologist named Elena Ivanova was doing at Blakely Manor… and Boston social magnate Anton Codreanu had donated a significant sum of money for restorations and improvements to the facility.
“Ivanova,” Sebastian murmured, and Diana made a questioning noise, leaning in to read over his shoulder. He tapped at the newspaper clipping with his index finger. “Isn’t the Russian gang Anton does business with run by a man named Ivanov?”
“Mikael Ivanov,” Diana confirmed, tucking her hair behind her ears. She wore simple earrings, a little silver hoop in each lobe. “Moskovskiy volk—the Wolf of Moscow. Never had the pleasure but I’ve heard he is a real bastard. You think she is a relation?”
“We both know Anton is like a spider—he weaves webs between people, and if they suffocate slowly, that’s not his problem.” Sebastian held the clipping out so Diana could take a picture of it with her phone, then returned it to the datebook and the datebook to the drawer. “It is more likely than not that this Doctor Ivanova is behind the production of Rapture.”
Diana cocked her head. “But I thought Anton said Rapture was being manufactured in Russia and then shipped here. That was why he needed the warehouse from the Mahoney Mob, the crates of wine from Lavinge…” Her eyes went wide, and she shifted her weight like she was getting ready for a fight. “He’s moved production to the United States, and he wants to cut out the middlemen.”
“That’s why he helped Mahoney with his raid on Lavinge’s swingers’ club,” Sebastian said, and when Diana raised her eyebrows he realized she didn’t know about that. He told her, then started ticking off salient points on his fingers. “Lavinge and the Mahoneys are distracted, which makes it easier for him to kick them out of the operation. He needs the Russians for their chemical supply, Blakely Manor, and Doctor Ivanova, but only until he locates his own supply of chemicals and another place to make them into Rapture. Danh Sang wants the formula because he sees the writing on the wall—Anton doesn’t need Sang’s connections at the wharf anymore.”
Diana swore under her breath in Serbian. “This is bad. If Anton monopolizes the entire Rapture operation he will be nearly impossible to pin down. The money he’ll pull in without having to give cuts to the other gang leaders will be enough to grease any palm in the city.”
Sebastian agreed with that sentiment, but before he could say so out loud, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked the screen and frowned. “It’s Jim. Is Anton still ripping Constantin a new asshole?”
Diana went to the door and put her ear to it. “Yes, he just said something about Constantin being a goat-fucking imbecile.”
“Wonderful,” Sebastian said, and answered the call. “Jim? I’m in the middle of searching my father’s office.”
“Oops, sorry.” Wolfe sounded truly apologetic, even for such a small inconvenience. It was one of many things Sebastian lo—liked about him. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Good news is we’re still getting paid, but the bad news is we got shitcanned by Nikki and Christopher.”
Sebastian blinked. “Then… how are we getting paid, exactly?”
“Melissa—she wants us to investigate and figure out which of the candidates hired Laine.” Traffic noise in the background, including Wolfe leaning on his horn and cursing. “Sorry again, some asshole in a Miata cut me off and I thought about crushing his little tin-can car. Anyway, the first thing we need to do is look into Governor Halliday, and conveniently enough, I know where he’s going to be today.”
“A chili cook-off in Nahant,” Sebastian said, and smiled a little when Wolfe sputtered. “I got an invitation to that but never RSVP’d… do you suppose they’ll be upset if I show up with a couple of guests?”
Wolfe chuckled. “I was hoping you could sweet-talk us in, but this is better. If you, me, and the fencepost—” meaning Constantin “—are busy in Nahant, who’s gonna go with Scarlett to Big Mike’s book signing a couple hours from now? He’s our other prime suspect, and while he’s not as hard to get to as Halliday, he needs to be… baited properly. And I’m being a concerned partner and not a misogynistic douche when I say I don’t want her going alone. She’s at her place getting ready now.”
“I can help,” Diana said from where she’d appeared at Sebastian’s side like a ninja, and eavesdropped on his conversation through his phone’s tinny speaker like… well, like a sister might. “Big Mike likes pretty ladies, yes? I think Scarlett and I can handle that.”
Wolfe’s response was surprised but grateful: “Thank you, Diana. I’d appreciate that.”
The front door slammed, the reinforced reverberation of it echoing through the house. Ten seconds passed, and Constantin opened the door to the office a crack and peeked inside. “Get out here, both of you!” he hissed. “Anton read me the riot act and left, but I do not know how long he will be gone.”
“Perfect timing,” Wolfe said, and Sebastian heard the Mustang’s engine in stereo, over the call as well as out on the street. “I’m here to eat donuts and detect shit, and I just ran out of donuts.”
~***~
Chapter Fourteen
After the incident at the laundromat, David drove out to Petersham on Route 2. It took him about two hours, and once he arrived, the closest he could park his rented Corolla to Blakely Manor without arousing suspicion was the dirt lot outside the Petersham Gun Club. The gun club was directly across from Blakely Manor, which was denoted by a long, twisting driveway that led away into a thick cover of trees. A chain-link fence topped with curls of barbed wire cut through the forest, connected to a tall gate that crossed the driveway; next to the gate was a call box and a rotating surveillance camera.
It didn’t rotate far enough to catch David hunkered down behind the steering wheel in full stakeout mode. His baseball cap was pulled down low and all his windows were down for maximum air flow. He was in the middle of sipping sparingly from a large iced Dunkin’ coffee when his phone rang. “Hey, D. What’s up?”
“You’re out at Blakely, right?” When David made an affirmative noise, Diana continued, “I will not be able to join you. Your son needs my help with something.” She explained what she and Sebastian had found in
side Anton’s office, and pitched Sebastian’s theory about Anton cutting the other players out of his game. “My brother may be right.”
“Son of a bitch,” David said, and shoved half of a glazed donut into his mouth. Spies were different from cops and private investigators in many ways, but their choice of breakfast food was not one. “We’ve gotta figure out a way to nail Anton before he gets his hands on that kind of cash flow.” The first thing Diana told him registered. “Are you trying to get back in Jimmy’s good graces?”
Diana made a disparaging noise, her BMW purring in the background of the call—probably on her way to pick up Scarlett, David presumed. “You think I give a shit what Wolfe thinks about me? I only want us to be civil at Caitlin’s wedding.”
“Speaking of the upcoming nuptials,” David said, and if he wiped his suddenly sweaty palm against the leg of his jeans, nobody was around to see him. “I… need a date.”
“What about Angela?” Diana asked, honking her horn a few times. In Boston traffic, that sound was more common than the click-click of a turn signal. “You texted me that the two of you talked, and I just assumed—”
“She’s going with Constantin.” And you were my first choice anyway, he thought but didn’t say. “Please, D? Don’t tell me you were going stag.”
He practically heard her roll her eyes. “Fine. But you better not step on my feet like that time in Prague.”
“Hey, the dancefloor in Prague was collapsing, which was Dev’s fault—wait a minute.” David glanced at the road and did a double take, because passing right in front of him was a car he’d seen photographed countless times: a black-on-black Mercedes SUV with tinted windows and Massachusetts plates. It didn’t turn at the gun club, but instead pulled to a stop in front of the gate to Blakely. He put the call with Diana on speakerphone and opened his phone’s camera to take pictures. “Holy fuck—Anton’s here, in his personal car.”
Diana was as surprised as she ever got, which was fifty percent less than most people. “Is he alone?”
“It was him driving,” David said, watching as the SUV was admitted through the gate. “This could be how we get him. If we found some kind of proof of whatever’s going on at Blakely, he’d be done for.”
“That would be nice,” Diana agreed. “But somehow I do not think it will be that easy.”
~***~
The first thing Laine heard in… hours or days, she didn’t know, was Dr. Ivanova’s voice from a great distance away, like she was trapped underwater: “Thank you for coming, Mr. Codreanu. I have some concerns—”
“And as I told you on the phone, those concerns are unfounded,” a man’s voice said, his tone snappish. “You have precisely one job, Elena, and that is to figure out how to get our weapon under control. We will not even discuss the fact that you killed Otis behind my back.”
“I did not have a choice!” Ivanova snapped. “He left the facility and the failsafe mechanism was activated—and as for this wretch, she is hardly an ideal candidate! We have given her twice the recommended dosage of Rapture, and the electroconvulsive therapy is too dangerous if the levels are any higher.”
Laine blinked, a slow, deliberate motion that brought her shadowy world into focus. She was in a cold room, strapped to an even colder table, something heavy over her mouth. She wasn’t sure she could’ve spoken even without the gag; her entire body felt heavy and useless. Ivanova and the man were vague outlines near the door, along with a couple of white-clad orderlies. Everything smelled like burned hair and ozone, the slightest tang of urine and some kind of cleaning solution present as well. The room was familiar to her… and so was the man’s voice, especially when it went from annoyed to irate.
“Give her the Rapture intravenously,” he barked, “and turn the ECT up to maximum. She’s useless to me if I do not get the results I require… and so are you.”
Ivanova was silent for a moment. “What about the brother? Won’t he object?”
“Her brother is no longer a viable handler,” the man (Anton, the back of Laine’s brain whispered) said, and she heard the squeak of his shoe on the floor as he turned to walk away. “Make sure she listens to me. Leave no trace of Aiden behind.”
The man left, and Ivanova let out a long sigh before she came over to the table, muttering as she adjusted dials and instructed the orderlies in terse Russian.
Laine’s last thought before they put the helmet on her head and the needle in her arm was clear as a bell: who is Aiden?
Hours later, when they took the helmet off and the needle out, her first thought would be: who am I?
~***~
The smallest municipality in Essex County, the town of Nahant was the bulbous end of a peninsula that jutted off the southeastern edge of Lynn. Arguably most famous for the thin strip of white sandy beach that followed the eastern side of the peninsula road, Nahant was home to around three thousand people. While Wolfe was reluctant to categorize any area as resembling a loaf of Wonder Bread—he was from a city touted by many as most racist in the country—the label fit the little island community well.
The drive from Anton’s brownstone in Back Bay took about an hour thanks to construction on Route 1, and by then it was close enough to lunchtime that even Constantin grumbled about being hungry. Sebastian mostly spent the ride looking out the passenger’s window, seeming especially enraptured as they drove down Nahant Road past the beach. That made Wolfe wonder if Sebastian had ever been to the beach, or done anything else remotely fun.
The governor’s chili cook-off slash campaign rally was held annually at the home of a local real estate mogul who had his face plastered on every billboard, bench, and bus from Billerica to Brookline. About ninety percent of the guests were the same shade of white as Wolfe, though he and Sebastian weren’t the only same-sex couple holding hands—wait, holding hands? When had that happened?
As soon as they were through security Constantin made a beeline for the chili smorgasbord, which was a series of long collapsible tables sheltered under a rented tent. The wind blew in furiously off the water, making the ladies hold on to their hair and the men squint into the salty air and remark on how a gust like this would screw up a hypothetical golf game.
To blend in, Wolfe ordered them a couple of local pilsners from the bar and they walked along the edges of the crowd. “You know we’re not being paid to… to look like a couple anymore, right?” He raised his voice enough to be heard above the stiff breeze. “You don’t have to hold my hand if you don’t want to.”
Sebastian took a sip off his beer and made a face like he’d just sucked on a lemon. “What if I do want to? This tastes like skunk piss, by the way—brace yourself.”
Wolfe thought he might be exaggerating and took his own sip, barely resisting the urge to spit it back out. “Jesus fucking Christ, why does everyone and their brother think they can make beer in their basement?” The first part of what Sebastian said filtered through his brain and Wolfe stopped walking, tugging Sebastian to a stop too. “Are you serious?”
Sebastian looked up into Wolfe’s eyes, that one always-errant section of dark hair breaking free from his otherwise perfect styling. “I would say ‘as a heart attack’ but I have always found that phrase to be… morbid.” He took in a deep breath, fingers tightening both around Wolfe’s hand and the beer bottle. “Jim, I—”
“Sebastian!” a voice exclaimed from nearby, and Wolfe glanced up to witness none other than Governor Halliday heading straight for them. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here—how’s your father?”
Checking in at a lanky 6’7”, Roy Halliday was a former NCAA star who went on to study law at Harvard and was one of few people Wolfe had to crane his neck back to lock eyes with. He was B-list actor handsome with a smile full of Chiclet teeth and a thick head of sandy blond hair cut and combed to hide a scar from an unfortunate encounter with a basketball hoop. Watching him shoulder his way through a cluster of semi-inebriated people holding soggy paper cups of chili was truly something to beho
ld, like a giraffe trying to shove aside a dozen warthogs and look civilized while doing it.
“Oh, you know him, always busy,” Sebastian replied, releasing Wolfe’s hand to shake Halliday’s when he drew close enough. The smile on Sebastian’s face looked real to most people, but Wolfe had spent enough time with him now to see behind the mask; he didn’t like Halliday but didn’t want the governor to know. “Governor, this is Jim Wolfe, he’s a—”
“Private investigator,” Halliday interjected, holding out one of those giant hands to Wolfe next—it felt dry and weak around the thumb. “Heard a lot about you over the past few days, including that Christopher’s campaign fired you this morning.” The Chiclet grin. “Makes me wonder what you’re doing here, Mr. Wolfe.”
Fuck, they’d been made. “I’ve been hired by Melissa Sullivan to look into the attempt on her husband’s life,” Wolfe said, and he knew this wasn’t going to end well. “I was just wondering if maybe you’d heard something I hadn’t.”
“All I’m hearing is you insinuating that I had something to do with an assassination attempt,” Halliday snapped, any façade of good humor vanished. “I know nothing about that beyond what’s been reported on the news and the briefings from my security team. I would ask you kindly to refrain from asking anybody else here about this, or you will be escorted out. Have a good day, gentlemen.”
~***~
“Okay, I kept my mouth shut on the drive here because I thought you’d get into a fiery car crash to avoid talking to me,” Scarlett began, squinting into the sun at Diana and pulling down the hem of her faux-leather skirt. Paired with a red bustier top with a large bow pinned between her boobs and a pair of six inch heels, she felt like a weird cross between Emma Stone in Easy A and Meghan Markle when she opened briefcases on that game show. “But now I can’t help myself—why the hell are you helping me seduce Big Mike?”
Scar Tissue Page 17