Bad Roads (E&M Investigations, Book 2)

by Lena Bourne

  A car’s bright headlights appear at the curve in the road up ahead and blind me as they glide towards me. I stop instinctively , the memory of the car that saw me exit Anita’s house vivid in my mind. I have no idea if this is the same car. It has EU plates, I think, but I can’t make out which country they belong to. Maybe I’ll be able to once it rolls past.

  “What’s going on, Eva?” Mark asks just as the car stops in front of Fata’s house.

  “I think Renata is getting picked up by Rado, her boyfriend,” I say. “Hang on a second.”

  Right on cue, Renata comes out of the house, walking slowly and deliberately over to the car. It’s only as she reaches the street that I realize she’s still wearing her green evening dress, which she has now paired with impossibly high-heeled shoes.

  She doesn’t see me, because she only has eyes for the man in the car as she opens the passenger door and gets in. The light doesn’t come on in the cab to confirm my suspicions, but I’m sure it’s Rado come to pick her up. He makes a sharp U-turn and drives back the way he came. The plates are definitely EU, since the streetlight illuminated the circle of stars on it perfectly, but I still can’t tell which country they’re from. Probably not Slovenian, since I didn’t see a coat of arms on them.

  “Eva?” Mark says.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I thought they’d ride past me and I could say good night to Renata, but they didn’t.”

  “I wish I could say good night to you in person,” he says and chuckles softly, making me feel all sorts of warm inside.

  “You and me both,” I reply.

  “How long do you think you’ll stay there?” he asks, and the light, joking way in which he says it doesn’t quite hide the real reason he wants me back. Fear for me. It doesn’t annoy me the way it would have just a couple of months ago.

  “At least until I find out something concrete,” I say and start walking towards Fata’s house again. “If I’m perfectly honest, I want to solve Anita’s sister’s disappearance now too.”

  “Do you now?” he says and laughs. “What a pair we make.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. I’ve reached Fata’s house and I walk to the front door, but don’t ring the doorbell yet.

  “Are we just doing this to make up for all the women we didn’t save back in Berlin?”

  I think he’s doing that. I think what threw him the most about The Fairytale Killer was that he didn’t catch him before that psycho could murder a whole bunch of women.

  “You mean because of him,” I say, putting extra emphasis on the last word. He knows who I’m talking about, his sigh tells me that.

  “Yeah,” he says in a faraway voice. “But I always had a thing about saving young women who found themselves in trouble. Or making sure I got the guy who harmed them. I investigated so many cases involving strippers and prostitutes working around military bases, I don’t even remember how many. Too many. Most of them dead. Some were beaten to near death. Either way, they never came out of those cases in a good way.”

  He falls silent and I don’t know what to say, how to confront him. I know he probably does remember most of those cases, his memory is very good, but I don’t think that’s what he needs to hear now.

  “Am I going after the wrong guy here? Am I going after a good guy?” he asks, answering my main unasked question.

  I take a seat on the stoop by the front door. His voice hasn’t been this hollow since the time he was getting nowhere catching The Fairytale Killer.

  “I’ve never met anyone with better instincts and intuition than you,” I say.

  “I’m not sure I have any of that left,” he says.

  “Or anyone as prone to doubt himself as you are,” I add in a harder voice, finishing off with a wry chuckle. “What’s brought this on, Mark? Is it just because Simon’s telling you to back off again?”

  “That too, but I can handle Simon. It’s not just that though. I’ve been going around collecting evidence on Leskovar, assuming he’s behind Anita’s death, but it’s not adding up,” he says. “I might have wasted two days running down bad leads. All because I wanted to believe that an old man involved with young women couldn’t be anything other than crooked and sleazy.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” I say. “We’ve still got time. I’m sure you’ll find Anita’s killer, you always do. Especially now that I’m on the case too.”

  I chuckle and he laughs. His voice isn’t hollow, or distant or cold as he says, “What would I do without you?” It’s just full of love and longing.

  “I’m thinking the same thing,” I say. “Most of the time.”

  “But not all of the time?” he asks wryly.

  “I’m my own woman too, free and independent, you always knew that,” I say.

  “Yeah, I did,” I say. “It’s why I can’t get enough of you.”

  And there he goes again, making me regret I left him to come here.

  “I can’t wait to come back home too,” I say. “But we have a job to do first. Both of us. Now get some rest. You sound like you need it.”

  He chuckles again and tells me he will. But I know he’s probably lying to me.

  I stand there in the darkness for a few moments after we say our goodbyes, then try the door on the off chance that it’s unlocked. It is.

  So for all the talk of thinking that a murderer lives among them here, they still feel perfectly safe not locking their doors. Good to know.

  18

  Mark

  After I spoke to Eva for the second time, I sent Mira with the two women and Lina to find a hotel room. I’ll speak to the other sister, Drita, tomorrow. After that, I even had the good and healthy idea of going back to the cottage and getting some real sleep in a real bed.

  But Brina came into the office just before ten, fuming over being blocked at every turn in trying to open the investigation into Leskovar and Anita.

  So in the end, she and I went over every piece of the evidence in Anita’s case. Slava left to go home long before we called it quits. We found several more examples of shoddy police work, all of which I’m hoping will shed some much-needed light on this case. There were also no less than three things that have mysteriously disappeared from the official evidence, but which Brina is sure she saw when she first went over it all years ago.

  I also planned to have some real dinner, but had to settle for a fast food kebab, because it was the only thing still open when I finally realized I should eat something. It was past two when Brina finally left and I lay down on the sofa in my office. It’s fine for sitting, but leaves a lot to be desired for sleeping. The last thing I remember thinking was that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to turn one of the empty offices into a nap room with a real bed. And the first thing I woke up to was Simon’s face staring at me through the glass wall of my office.

  His head is meticulously shaved, gleaming slightly in the overhead lights, and his goatee is totally on point too. I needed a shave yesterday morning already, and I’ve needed a haircut for a while now.

  He grins at me, turns, and stalks off to the little kitchen. I check my watch, not surprised it’s just past seven AM, since I feel like I haven’t slept at all. I toss the coat that I used as a blanket onto my office chair, put on my shoes then stand up gingerly, not able to fully straighten right away. Years have a funny way of reminding you that they’re piling up. I buckle my belt, do what I can about my hair by running my hand through it a few times and walk out into the main area of the office at the same time as Simon comes out of the kitchen, carrying two cups of coffee—one with a picture of the Dragon Bridge, the other of Bled Island.

  “You spent the night,” he says and hands me the Dragon Bridge cup.

  I thank him and run my fingers through my hair again. “I should’ve rented a hotel room, but it was a very late night.”

  His face is unreadable as he takes a sip of his coffee, and I do the same. It’s strong, black, and sugarless, so just the first taste does the trick.

/>   “I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” he says, kind of reservedly, but then grins. “And I also feel like we keep doing it.”

  I nod and take my coffee to the table, which is covered with papers, folders, and photos of Anita’s case. We probably should’ve cleared it up last night, before Brina finally almost fell asleep in her chair and I made her go home. But I had no energy to do it. I take a crack at it by stacking some of the folders into a not very neat pile, but then give up. Maybe this talk Simon clearly wants to have is overdue.

  “You do tend to worry too much about the outside pressure we’re facing when we investigate cases,” I tell him as I lean back in my chair. “One of the first things you said to me, back when you were still trying to recruit me to the task force, was that we’d have to face a lot of push back from up high. You also said you’d push past that. So what changed?”

  He takes a seat at the narrower end of the oval table two seats down from me.

  “I don’t know,” he says simply after a couple of minutes of silence. “Planning on doing this job, and then actually getting calls from people who have the power to shut us down are two very different things, I’m finding. This task force has been a dream of mine for years.”

  “The road to hell and good intentions and all that,” I say and drink some more of my coffee.

  He chuckles. “Something like that. But I’ve thought about it. All night actually, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re doing exactly what I sought you out for, and it’s me that needs to be reined in. From now on, I won’t interfere as much and I won’t worry so much either. I mean, you’ve proven over and over again that you know how to get your man, and me, I’m still just learning the ropes. I should probably take a back seat.”

  He clearly has been thinking, and practicing how he’s going to present the things he came up with. I drink the rest of my coffee while I try to come up with a good response of my own. It’s not just Eva and Brina who aren’t good at taking compliments. I’m no good at that either.

  “Slava found out that DNA evidence from Anita’s case was never compared to anything,” I say. “We’ll run it against Leskovar’s. But while we wait for those results, I’ll lay off that side of the case. Maybe that will take some heat off you and the task force. What do you think?”

  He smiles, I think despite himself, because in the next moment he’s clearing his throat and looking down into his coffee cup.

  “If you think that’s best,” he says and clears his throat again. “I mean, do what you think is best. I’ll get out of your way.”

  I nod and grin at him, still wondering if what I’m about to say is a good idea, even though I’ve more or less already decided to do it.

  “I can get carried away sometimes and I don’t always do things the proper way. It worked, for the most part, while my bosses all outranked me, and I could potentially face a court-martial if I disobeyed orders. You and I are going to have to figure out a way to work together without that.”

  He laughs. “I trust your judgment and my job isn’t giving you orders. So I’ll focus more on my job, the bulk of which consists of dodging all those outside pressures, so you can do your job.”

  He reaches into his pocket and holds out a set of keys to me. “Why don’t you go to my apartment to take a shower and change? Then maybe we could get some breakfast.”

  I reach for the keys but don’t take them. “I’m not sure lending me your apartment falls under your job description.”

  “Go on,” he says and lays the key on the table between us. “It’s in this building, on the fifth floor. Better than you driving all the way to your house now or renting a hotel room. Though I thought Eva had an apartment in Ljubljana too.”

  That last sentence was a question, with glaring sub-questions and I don’t like it. He clearly showed he has feelings for Eva a couple of months ago, and it sounds like he still hasn’t given up.

  “Her parents are there now,” I say. “Since I’ve only met them a couple of times, I’m not sure how welcome I’d be if I just showed up to spend the night.”

  I’m also pretty sure they both think their daughter could do better than a man who almost got her killed, but that’s definitely not something I’m going to think about now.

  “I’m actually working on renting a second apartment in this building, or nearby, you know, for the times when one of you has to stay the night,” he says.

  “That’s a good idea. I was thinking along the same lines while I tossed and turned on that sofa all night.” I stand up and take the keys. “I’ll take you up on your offer now.”

  “Good,” he says and stands up too. “And I have a couple of emails to answer.”

  I go back into my office to collect my overnight bag, already planning the day ahead. I’ll send Walter with Lina and the two women to find a doctor for the younger sister. That should keep them busy and not demanding that we return their brand new IDs right away.

  Dino will look for the co-worker and best friend of Anita’s dead construction worker brother. The man had come to the police station after the brother’s death, saying he needed to speak to a detective urgently, but was never contacted, or seen again. Brina failed to locate him too, but I’m hoping Dino will have better luck.

  Slava will arrange the DNA testing, with Ida’s help, I hope, then check if the IDs are real. Brina can have the task of finding some more of the women Leskovar presumably helped.

  As for me, I’ll make some calls and try to find out what happened to Anita’s sister. Maybe I can even reach her brother, see if he knows something more. And it’s not just so I can get Eva back home faster, although I wouldn’t mind that at all.

  Eva

  I set my alarm clock for seven-thirty AM, but had to hit snooze three times before I actually got up. The house was still quiet and cold when I went upstairs to take a shower, but I can now hear Fata shuffling around in the kitchen. Renata’s bedroom door—at least what I assume is her bedroom—is still firmly shut as I make my way back downstairs, first depositing my clothes and toiletries in the living room and then entering the kitchen.

  “Ahh, good morning,” Fata says, looking at me over her shoulder from where she’s preparing coffee on the stove. Its enticing aroma overshadows all the other scents in the kitchen. “You got in alright last night?”

  “Yes, I got in just after nine,” I say. “I’m sorry you had to leave the door unlocked for me.”

  She waves her hand through the air dismissively and turns off the stove. “It’s always unlocked. Nothing to steal in this house.”

  She chuckles dryly at her own joke, then turns and brings the copper pot of coffee to the table. I get the cups and milk from the counter to save her a second trip.

  “Renata’s still asleep,” she says as she pours the coffee for both of us. “I didn’t hear her come in last night and I don’t imagine she’ll come down before noon.”

  There is no good way to ask the question I need answered, so I just blurt it out. “Why are you so against her dating Rado?”

  She pauses in stirring sugar into her coffee and looks at me sharply. “I’m sorry about the scene we caused last night. But that girl needs to learn a thing or two about living a normal life. I had hoped she had already learned them, but clearly she hasn’t.”

  So much for getting a clear answer to a direct question. But after all the conversations yesterday and the day before, I’m not even surprised. Fata is a master of dodging questions she doesn’t want to answer. But I know a thing or two about asking questions.

  “Rado has a criminal past, doesn’t he?” I ask, putting some sugar and milk into my cup of coffee. What I want to do is gulp it down, but then I’d just scald my tongue. “That’s the reason why you don’t want her seeing him?”

  She shrugs. “That’s a big part of it, yes. No one knows for certain, but that boy always had money and he was never seen working for it. Now that he actually works for money, he has very little of it. I think he w
orked with the mafia once but stopped after his brother killed himself. A lot of people suspect him of hurting Esma. And causing his brother’s death. I don’t want him around Renata. She hasn’t had an easy time fitting back in after returning. A lot of people still view her as just a whore. Getting together with Rado is not going to help that. The opposite. It’ll set her back. And he could be a killer.”

  Her voice was getting more and more heated the longer she talks and she finishes her rant by tossing the spoon on the table so hard it bounces, sending drops of coffee flying.

  Lots of things to say to calm her down are coming to mind, but none seem like a good thing to say. I don’t know this community, I can’t tell her everything will be all right. I can’t even tell her that they love each other, because I don’t know that either. All that would be just empty platitudes and I’m certain Fata isn’t the type of woman who appreciates those.

  “I heard that Rado’s brother might be the one who actually harmed Esma,” I say instead. “Do you think there’s any truth to that?”

  She looks at me with wide, bulging eyes. “That’s one of the rumors flying around. And I honestly don’t care one way or another. The whole Rajić family was trouble, and Rado and Milo were too.”

  “But weren’t you good friends with his grandma?” I ask.

  “She died while the children were young,” she says. “I had my own life to lead back then. A sick husband, a drunk brute for a son-in-law, and a weak daughter. Not to mention my wayward granddaughter, who still hasn’t grown out of it.”

  She gets up laboriously, leaning heavily on her crutch. She’s done talking to me, I can hear that loud and clear in her tone. She shuffles to the fridge, takes out a plate covered in tin foil, and brings it to the table.

  “Here, have some breakfast,” she says. “I have to go see about the chickens.”

  I thank her and then watch her walk out of the kitchen. Then I peel the tinfoil off the plate and take a piece of cold cheese burek from it. At least Fata sounds like she just doesn’t want anything to do with Rado and not like she’s hiding something.