“Your time’s up, Candace. You better be on the road back from Detroit.”
“About that,” I say. “I took a bit of a detour.”
I tell her about the dead doctor, stinking up the room upstairs next to the blonde with no face.
“Razinski? The doctor on your birth registration?” Looks like she finally managed to pull the records.
“Yeah.”
“Jesus, Candace. What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s got the Scapellos written all over it.” Deep stares me down from across the kitchen island. I don’t want to tell Malone the next part, but I can’t think of a reasonable alternative to the truth in this case. “I think Janet may be mixed up in it,” I finally admit to her.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because she was here, at the doc’s place. And now she’s missing.”
“What was she doing there?”
“Looking for Angela.”
Malone sucks in a breath that threatens to deplete my supply of oxygen right through the phone. She lets out a string of curse words on the outbreath that shows she’s been hanging around me for too long.
“You were supposed to be taking care of her!”
“I was,” I say. But I realize now that I wasn’t. If I had been, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
“You got to send the Feds to Alex Scarpello’s, Malone. I know he has her.”
“I can’t just send the Feds in on your hunch, Candace. I need probable cause. The link between that doctor and the Scarpello’s is tenuous at best. I’d never get a warrant.”
“So, you’re just going to sit there on your goddamn cop hands and do nothing?”
“Best I could do is send a couple of uniforms to Alex Scarpello’s home, get them to talk to him.”
“You can’t do that, Malone! It’ll drive him even deeper with Janet if he knows we’re on to him. You can’t go for Alex until you’re ready to rush him.”
“Then I’m going to need probable cause, Candace.”
I think about those women tagged and reduced to numbers on a screen, traded like stocks on a pervert exchange. If that isn’t probable cause, I don’t know what is.
“What if I could get probable cause for you?” I ask. “It’s not about this thing with the doc,” I tell her, “But it should be enough to get you a warrant for something else.”
“Okay, I’ll bite then, what is it?”
“It’s complicated,” I tell her.
“I don’t need complications, Candace. I need reasonable proof that a crime has been committed.”
“I can send you proof. I just need a couple of hours.” All the damning data on Scarpello is back at the motel room. Deep and I need to drive back and get it before I can send it to Malone.
“I still don’t understand,” she says. “Why are you so sure Alex Scarpello is behind Janet’s disappearance and Doctor Razinski’s murder?”
I could put her off on this question. But I’m getting tired of keeping this all from Malone. She needs to have the whole picture, so she can understand the seriousness of the situation with my sister. I tell her about Angela, and how I think she figured out that Alex was her son. About how Anya Scarpelllo needed a kid to validate her power marriage, and with the dead doctor’s help, she’d used my twin brother to fill the cradle gap. I even admit to having thoughts about capitalizing on all of this, through blackmail or alliances. In short, I spill my guts. I think that confession with the priest earlier in the week has had an adverse effect on me.
“But Candace, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know it sounds crazy, Malone. But all the pieces fit.”
“No, they don’t, Candace.”
“Why the hell not?” I don’t appreciate Malone casting aspersions on my powers of deduction. I like to think I’m just as good at this detective stuff as she is. Maybe even better.
“Because we got more results on the DNA we lifted from the nurse in the freezer. The amniotic fluid from the other baby shows he had a faulty chromosome, a congenital birth defect.”
“Then that only supports my theory, Malone. I found a fucking pharmacy of meds in Alex Scarpello’s desk drawer.”
“You don’t understand,” Malone says through the phone. “The birth defect was a fatal one. The baby would’ve been healthy on delivery, but the pathologist says he wouldn’t have made it past his first birthday.”
Deep jumps when I stab the knife into the butcher block kitchen counter.
“You’re wrong, Malone.”
“I’m sorry, Candace. I’m not. There’s no possible way Alex Scarpello is your twin brother.”
CHAPTER 21
“SO, YOU WERE WRONG.”
Deep has been holding the accelerator flush to the floor of the Smart car for the entire trip. Despite this, we still don’t seem to be moving much faster than a souped-up golf cart. I wish my sister had left the keys to Deep’s Celica behind at the murder scene instead of her glasses.
“I was not wrong,” I say. “All the people who were around when my mother popped out me and my twin have either been bumped off or gone MIA. Except for Anya. You saw that dead chick at the retreat. She’d had one of those trackers cut out of her hip. Alex Scarpello is the linchpin holding this whole fucked-up thing together.”
“But he’s not your brother.”
“Maybe not,” I still find it hard to let go of this theory, despite the evidence. “But he’s got my sister. Both you and I know that.”
Deep nods, not taking his focus off the road, or his foot off the gas pedal. He’s worried. So am I. I don’t like being wrong. But I hate being worried even more. Janet is the same age as many of the girls Scarpello’s been trafficking. Every time I let my mind wander, I can see her big eyes tear up as they shoot one of those demented trackers under her light olive skin. It’s all my fault. For taking her to Detroit. For focusing on getting dirt on Alex Scarpello instead of finding Angela. Janet had to take matters into her own hands because of me. I just may be the shittiest big sister ever. But that’s going to change, right fucking now.
I look out the window, the flickering lights of Detroit are finally showing on the horizon. I turn to Deep. “Take me to Indian Village.”
“Hold up, Candace. You said we were going back to the motel, to send Malone the information she needs for her warrant.”
“You are. But I’m not. I’m going to get my sister back.”
“I thought we were waiting for the police?”
“Janet may not have that kind of time, Deep.”
The little car shivers and shakes as Deep guides it onto the exit for the city. I think he’s going to argue with me about my new plan. But he doesn’t.
When we pull up in front of Alex Scarpello’s, Deep insists on hiding with me behind the stone wall across the street. He trips on a vine, and I have to catch him before he does a face plant into a garden gnome.
“I just want to see you get in okay,” he says, righting himself. I’d tried to convince him to leave earlier, but he’s being uncharacteristically stubborn. If I didn’t need him to send that computer stuff to Malone so badly, I would have knocked him unconscious.
The beatification starts at eight. At 7:30, Alex and Anya Scarpello come out the front door of the house. He’s got on a tux, made to slim order. She’s wearing her three-quarter length fur coat, draped over a long flowing skirt. Bruno opens the door of a Lincoln Town Car for both of them, then gets in the driver’s seat, acting as both chauffeur and bodyguard tonight. I guess the Caddy isn’t fancy enough for saints.
That should leave Bruno’s partner as the only one holding down the family fort tonight. Anya had told me they were giving the rest of the staff the night off for the event.
“There he is,” I say to Deep, not long after the lights of the Town Car have vanished around the corner. I can see the lone patrol outside the house as he uses his surveillance of the perimeter as an excuse for a smoke break. The red-orang
e ember shifts in the darkness as he inspects the front lawn then disappears around the side as he goes to inspect the backyard.
“I’m going in.”
Not giving Deep a chance to object, I run across the street, aiming for the side of the house opposite to where the patrol went. I flatten myself against the brick wall of the attached garage and wait. When the patrol comes around the corner after making his circuit, I’ll have the element of surprise, not to mention the tricks of the trade my father taught me. I won’t break his neck, although I know how. I don’t like to kill people if I don’t have to. I’ll just put him in a sleeper hold, compressing both his carotid artery and the jugular vein so he’ll drop like a sack of wet cement. It only takes ten to twenty seconds if you know how to do it right.
But the element of surprise belongs to the guy with the cigarette, because two minutes later he’s got his nicotine stained fingers buried into my long shaggy mane, yanking me backwards by the roots. He’d come around the opposite way I’d expected, doubling back instead of going in a circle. I hadn’t counted on that.
He wraps his arms around me from behind, pinning my arms in a crushing bear hug. I thrash and buck, but he’s squeezing me so tight I can barely catch the breath needed for the effort. Using one of Deep’s Chelsea boots, I come down on his right foot with all the force I can muster. It won’t be enough to get him to release me, but it’ll fucking hurt. Expecting the satisfying crack of metatarsal bones, I hear the crash of breaking pottery instead. The guy’s arms drop, and so does he, falling to the ground with a thud. Deep stands above him with what’s left of a shattered garden gnome in his hands.
“Like I said, I just wanted to make sure you got in okay.”
I crawl over to the unconscious man who tried to squeeze me to death and shove the Ativan I stole from Alex’s desk down his tobacco-reeking gullet. There’s still a faint bump on his forehead from the head butt I gave him at the poker game, but it’s nothing compared to the goose egg he’ll have from Deep’s handiwork. I’m glad I kept the pills in my jacket. Like I said, you never know when a good bedtime benzo is going to come in handy. I find his Uzi a few feet away. But after a quick inspection, I discover it’s a replica. Alex wasn’t kidding when he said it was all about appearances and intimidation.
“Well, it looks like I’m okay, Deep,” I say, standing up and stretching, getting some of the kinks out of my body that the bastard on the ground put there. “Now it’s time for you to go back to the motel and let me handle the rest.”
This is the closest Deep’s going to get to thanks from me, and he knows it. He drops what’s left of the gnome on the grass and starts walking back to the car.
I grab a few zip ties from the garage and secure Sleeping Beauty with them. Then fashion a gag out of a greasy rag. The guy shouldn’t wake up until New Year’s with the amount of Ativan I’ve stuffed him with, but you can never be too sure. When I’m done, I pull him out of sight behind an azalea bush in the backyard.
He’d left the side door unlocked. I slip into the house and rush to Alex’s study to get his gun out of the desk drawer. There shouldn’t be anyone else here, but you never know. If I’m going to search the place for Janet or at least clues to where she might be, I need something to back me up in an emergency. The run-in with the bear-hugger has me spooked. I won’t have Deep and his whimsical garden decor to save me if I let someone get the drop on me again.
But of course, the damn door is locked. It’s solid oak, so I don’t see myself breaking it down too easily. I run back down to the kitchen to find one of those metal skewers I used before. It takes me a while. I have to be quiet while I search, just in case there’s someone else in the house. Although if there was, they probably would have shown themselves by now, having caught Deep and my antics with the patrol on the CCTV.
Who would have thought cooking could require so many goddamn specialized tools? One drawer seems to contain nothing but varying sizes of melon ballers, the other has a dozen different grades of cheese grater. I finally find the skewers in a drawer with a tofu press and a sushi bazooka, and I only know what those are because they’ve got labels on them. I grab a skewer and one of the nastier knives I came across during my search before I return to Alex’s study. Deep should be back at the motel by this time, sending all the goods we found on Scarpello to Malone. I can’t wait to see that son of a bitch do the perp walk. I don’t even feel bad about ratting on him anymore.
It’s tougher to spring the lock this second time around. Probably because I damaged it the first time I broke in, but eventually it gives. I race to the desk and am about to get to work jimmying the lock on the drawer with the gun when my phone goes off in my pocket. Deep had made me turn the sound back on when we drove back from the retreat, afraid we might miss a call from Janet if she was trying to reach us. I take the phone out of my jacket more to shut it up than to answer it, but then I see who it is.
“I’m just a little busy here, Deep,” I say. Holding the phone with my shoulder as I attempt to spring the lock on the drawer with the skewer. I’ve dropped the knife on the desk blotter, so I can use both my hands.
“Candace, I’m at the motel.”
“Have you sent the records to Malone yet?”
“I’m about to, but I got an email from my friend in Pavlovsk. He found a birth certificate for Alex. It didn’t turn up initially because it was under Anya’s maiden name. It’s not what we thought, Candace.”
“I don’t care about that anymore, Deep.” The drawer pops open, the syringes and other medication are there, but no gun.
“I’ve sent a copy of the birth certificate to you. Check your texts. You need to look at it. You need —” But Deep doesn’t have time to tell me what I need. The phone’s gone dead. I try calling him back, but it goes straight to voice mail. I bring up his text, open up the attachment, along with the translation of the Russian. Deep was right. It wasn’t what we thought. Looking down at the contents of the drawer, I understand now what all those injections are for.
“Hello, Candace.”
Alex Scarpello stands in the doorway of the study with the gun I’d hoped to find aimed straight at me. He walks up to the desk and whisks the knife away.
“Put down the phone, Candace.”
I place my phone on the desk. What else am I going to do? Alex looks down at the birth certificate from Russia that fills the small screen. The record that proves that a child named Alex was born to Anya over thirty years ago. But it wasn’t a son.
It was a daughter.
CHAPTER 22
“THIS IS ALL YOUR FUCKING FAULT,” Alex shouts at his mother.
Anya stands beside a satin wingback chair, holding a pearl-handled Derringer to Janet’s side. The gun looks more like a fashion accessory than a weapon. But unlike a Gucci bag, it’s more than capable of blasting a hole in my little sister, or me for that matter.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” Anya says, but she looks past him, and I wonder if her apology is meant partly for me.
He paces the floor like a mad animal, muttering to himself. Janet looks across the room at me, her cheeks streaked with tears. She could be one of those graphic horror faces she sketches with the shrieking open mouths, if hers weren’t covered in duct tape. Her hands are zip-tied in front of her, and there’s a bruise blooming around one of her big brown eyes. I am so going to fuck this guy up.
“Keep her around, you said! See if she leads us to Angela, you said!” Alex waves his Glock 9mm wildly around the room as he mimics his mother’s Russian accent. Anya appears to shrink within her shimmering white silk blouse.
“What happened to Angela, Alex?” I ask him. And that stops him pacing. He trains the Glock on me, his face a twist of silent rage. The grandfather clock ticks loudly from the corner, possibly with the time I have left.
“You,” he says finally, with a sneer. “You, are a pain in my fucking ass, cousin.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“When I c
ouldn’t reach security at the house, I knew it had to be your doing. I had Bruno turn the car around. I thought you might come for your sister. She’s probably been screaming for you in the basement all this time. But you wouldn’t have heard her. I keep it soundproofed down there for when I have business to conduct. I wouldn’t want to disturb my mother.” He smirks at Anya, then turns back to me. We all know he doesn’t care who the fuck he disturbs.
“I know about your little sex trafficking scheme, Alex,” I say, hoping to unnerve him. “And soon the Feds will, too. I have someone sending copies of all your fucked-up financial records to the cops right now.”
“You mean your East Indian friend? I sent Bruno over to take care of him, Candace. You think I didn’t have people watching you?”
I did, but I thought I’d been careful enough not to be traced back to the motel. Although last night, after the girl had her throat slashed on the stairs, I had not been myself. I’d let my guard down, and now I’ve let Deep down, as well.
“What is she talking about, Alex?”
“Yes, Alex, why don’t you tell your mother about your little set-up, tagging and trading women like goddamn livestock. I think she’d like to know how you —”
Alex steps forward and pistol-whips me across the face. I remain standing but spit out two of my teeth onto the Persian rug lying on the varnished wood floor. If I ever get out of this, he’ll pay for that. I’m going to have to get implants after this.
“You still didn’t answer my question,” I say, licking the blood from my lips. “What happened to Angela?”
“How the fuck do I know what happened to your crazy mother,” he says. “That bitch was pushing for a paternity test. She actually thought I was the other brat twin she had alongside of you all those years ago. Can you imagine? Me, the product of that lunatic of a woman and some Polish nobody.”
I ignore the jab. My dad was more of a somebody than this bastard will ever be.
“But you weren’t Angela’s son, so what did it matter?” I’ve got to keep him talking. There’s still a chance Malone might have the Feds on their way.
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