Bad Roads (E&M Investigations, Book 2)

by Lena Bourne

  After I hang up, I turn to look who came into the office before. I was expecting to see Brina or Dino, possibly Slava or Walter, but it’s Jana, Leskovar’s daughter, standing by the front door, with Mira by her side. She’s hugging her chest tight with her arms and, as far as I can tell, wearing the same clothes she had on yesterday.

  She locks eyes on mine and shudders, but as I walk out of my office to greet her she sort of lunges towards me, tripping a little on the thick carpeting.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” she says. “Lina says I can trust you.”

  “Come into my office,” I say stepping aside and pointing it out, then ask Mira to bring her something to drink before following her inside.

  Simon is standing by the door of his own office, looking at us with an unreadable expression on his face. I bet he recognizes Jana and I bet he’s concerned right now, but I’m happy to ignore him.

  Jana is already sitting on the sofa when I turn to her, bent over at the waist and still hugging her chest tight.

  “Do you feel alright?” I ask her, sensing I better ease into this conversation and let her take it at her own pace, or she’ll bolt again.

  “No, not really,” she says and looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

  I take a seat in one of the two armchairs.

  “Everything is broken,” she says, pain oozing from her voice. “Everything.”

  I just look at her sympathetically and nod slightly.

  “We were doing such great work with the women,” she says. “Such important and groundbreaking work. Stuff no one else dared to do. We were making such a difference in their lives. Offering them a new start, a place to live until they got on their feet, money.”

  She pauses to take a shuddering breath, glances at me, and then back down at her feet.

  “At least I thought so,” she says in a barely audible voice.

  I see Mira is about to walk in with a steaming cup of tea and a plate of pastries, but I wave her away. Interrupting Jana now could lead to a disaster.

  “What do you mean?” I ask since she has paused and isn’t continuing.

  She looks up at me. “Not everything was as it seemed. Most of the women we gave new papers to have disappeared again. I didn’t believe Lina when she told me, but then I checked for myself. And I went to speak to my mother.”

  She pauses again, and while her eyes are determined, her breaths are shaky.

  “And what did your mother tell you?” I ask, hoping that prodding is what she needs. Things are looking good that she’ll tell me everything, but that could still turn.

  “Nothing,” she says. “She said she knows nothing about that.”

  “But you didn’t believe her,” I say after letting the pause drag for a bit.

  She rocks back and forth a few times, but then looks at me and straightens up.

  “The day before my father died, I had dinner with him,” she says. “And he told me there was something he needed to do. That he knew something about someone and couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. I pressed him to tell me who and what, but he wouldn’t, saying I’d be safer if I didn’t know. He looked sick with fear. Voice and hands shaking, couldn’t eat, a cornered look in his eyes. Distracted. It frightened me to see him like that. But he wouldn’t tell me what spooked him so much. He just said he’d be going to the police first thing the next morning to right a wrong. But the next morning, he was dead.”

  She looks at me square in the eyes, shivering slightly. What she just told me raises a whole host of new questions, but it also explains a few things.

  “That’s why you were hiding when we first spoke?” I ask and she nods.

  “I was afraid whoever killed my father was coming after me too,” she says.

  “The official finding is that your father was shot by his wife, who then shot herself,” I say.

  “Murdered, both of them,” she says. “I’m sure of it. I didn’t like his new wife very much, she was stuck up and bitchy, but she wouldn’t have killed him like that and she certainly wouldn’t have killed herself too. She didn’t care enough for my father to do that, only his money, and she was way too impressed with herself to commit suicide.”

  “But no one came after you, right?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. But I’ve been hiding out at friends’ houses.”

  “And you warned your mother too?” I ask.

  “Yes, but she wouldn’t listen, said I was delusional, that I was having a mental breakdown, tried to get me to see her psychiatrist,” she says indignantly. “She’s the delusional one. But what if she’s also something worse? What if my mother is involved in whatever happened to all those women we supposedly saved?”

  I have no idea how to answer this right now, so I won’t even try to.

  “Do you think your father was talking about Anita’s killer when he said he knew who did it?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes he’d mention her.”

  “But he didn’t on the night you had dinner?” I ask.

  “No, not then,” she says. “He was very vague about the whole thing, like I said. He cut our dinner short, saying he had some more work to do.”

  “And at what time was this?” I ask.

  “Around seven,” she says. “I was home by eight.”

  “Thank you for coming to tell me all this,” I say. “It will really help the investigation.”

  “Do you think my mother had something to do with it?” she asks. “Is that why she won’t talk to me?”

  I wish I knew what to tell her. And I’m spared having to come up with the right words by Mira walking in with the tea and the food. I give her a cross look for not obeying my instructions and staying out, but she just walks past me, sets the tea and plate of pastries down in front of Jana, and tells her to eat.

  She turns to me once Jana picks up her cup of tea. “Brina is on the phone for you. She says it’s urgent.”

  I had turned off my phone before I started interviewing Jana, since I didn’t want us to be disturbed, so it must really be urgent. I tell Jana I’ll be right back and follow Mira out of the office, closing the door behind me.

  “Which phone?” I ask.

  “Mine,” she says, nodding towards her desk.

  I stride over and pick it up. “What is it, Brina? I’m in the middle of talking to Leskovar’s daughter.”

  “I know, Mira told me,” she says. “Her mother and Ivan Derganec have been shot. I’m on my way to the hospital now.”

  I look back over my shoulder at Jana who is sipping her tea, looking straight ahead with unfocused eyes.

  “Are they dead?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure,” she says. “First reports are that they were both still alive and have been taken to the hospital.”

  “Alright, I’ll meet you there,” I say and hang up even though she was asking something.

  The last thing I want to do is go back into my office and break this news to Jana. Especially since I have next to nothing to tell her.

  What the hell is happening in this case? I wanted to rattle their cage a little. I never expected more people to die.

  21

  Eva

  The sun has almost set as I’m walking back to Fata’s house. The neighbors are nowhere to be seen tonight and fewer of the chained dogs bark at me as I pass their yards. It never ceases to amaze me, how quickly animals adapt and how good they are at recognizing when something is a danger or not. We humans, on the whole, generally lack that skill.

  I’ve gone over Esma’s file twice more, sent Mark photos of its contents, and even wrote up a two-page document of everything I’ve learned so far while having dinner in town.

  I was hoping putting it all on paper would help me make sense of it, but I doubt that’s going to happen unless Rado decides to speak and tell me what he knows. And since he hasn’t done it in the fifteen years since Esma’s been gone, he probably never will. Not without something to nudge him
. And I think Anita’s purse and its contents could serve as that nudge.

  A car is parked by the curb next to Fata’s house. A new model, gleaming dark Mercedes with Austrian plates, and it sticks out like a sore thumb among the houses here, which are all in need of repair in one form or another, and some more than others.

  I slow my steps as I near it, trying to determine if anyone is sitting inside, but the windows are opaque in this half-light of evening.

  The driver’s door opens when I’m just a few meters away from the entrance to Fata’s yard and a tall, thin man steps out. He’s slightly hunched over, dressed in an ochre, thin woolen coat, grey slacks, and a black sweater that’s most likely cashmere. Everything about him screams money.

  “Are you Eva Lah?” he asks in Slovenian, but with a rather heavy Bosnian accent.

  “Yes,” I say slowly and continue approaching him. “Who are you?”

  He strides over, his right hand extended. “Tarik Rajić.”

  Esma and Anita’s older brother. He has clearly done well for himself. Very well indeed.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask as I shake his hand.

  “I heard you were investigating my sister’s disappearance, and I came to see what progress you’ve made,” he says.

  His tone and the way he speaks suggest he’s used to giving orders and being in charge.

  “I am here to try and find out if there is a connection between Anita’s death and Esma’s disappearance,” I say.

  “And?” he asks when I don’t continue.

  “And I have a couple of questions for you too?” I say.

  He nods. “Good. Let me take you to dinner and I’ll answer them.”

  There’s nothing in his voice or his demeanor to suggest he’s a threat, and I would like nothing more than to have him answer all my questions regarding his family and more besides. But he’s also a suspect. Right? I completely froze while trying to answer that question in my head, and feel my cheeks heat up as I shake my head.

  “I just ate, but thank you,” I say. “I’m visiting the police commandant tomorrow. Perhaps we could meet at the police station in the morning.”

  His face grows very dark and his eyes narrow. “I have nothing to say to that incompetent old bastard.”

  “He brought cadaver dogs to your family’s house and they smelled a dead body inside,” I say. “Why didn’t you let them investigate further?”

  He scoffs. “Because it’s pointless. My sister didn’t die there. My mother, father, and grandmother all did. That was just him trying to look like he’s doing something and not an actual investigation.”

  “Did the private investigator you hired find something?” I ask, shocking him it seems.

  “I see you have been busy,” he says. “But the answer is no, not much. Only things I already knew. Such as that Rado and Milo were both out of town on the night Esma disappeared. He did say he heard gossip of a couple of strange men sneaking around town at the time of her disappearance and assumed they could’ve been human traffickers. But since no other women disappeared that night or around that time, I doubt that was the case. He was incompetent too, just trying to sell me something because he found nothing.”

  He sounds honest, warm even, and frustrated too, angry even. That could be because he’s fed up with the situation.

  “How did you know you’d find me here?” I ask.

  He grins. “I still know people in this town and they told me you were here and why. I came as soon as I could to offer my help.”

  If all I had to go on was his tone of voice, I’d believe him a hundred percent. But the biggest psychopaths are also the best liars. You can’t tell that they’re lying either, not unless you deliberately set a trap for them, and I don’t know with what I could do that in this case.

  Fata opens the front door a crack and looks at us. “Eva? Are you coming inside? I wish to go to sleep.”

  It’s barely evening, so I doubt she’s telling the truth. But I do understand that she wants me away from this man, which raises my already raised hackles about him even more.

  “I should go,” I tell him. “But please meet me in town tomorrow morning. Let’s say eight o’clock?”

  He doesn’t look happy about it but nods. “Good. I will wait for you by the fountain.”

  Then he strides away and gets in his car, then speeds off just as I reach Fata.

  “I don’t like the look of that man,” she says. “He tried to come in earlier, to wait for you, but I told him he can very well do that in the street.”

  She opens the door for me. “Do you have any particular reason for not liking him?”

  “He’s too rich,” she says. “Came from nothing and now he’s too rich. And he made his money exploiting his countrymen from what I hear.”

  She waits for me to take off my shoes, then locks and bolts the door, even attaching the chain.

  “Is Renata here?” I ask.

  She shakes her head and shuffles towards the stairs. “And I’m done waiting for that girl and worrying about her. She’s old enough to know better.”

  “She hasn’t been in at all today?” I ask.

  “No,” Fata says and starts up the stairs. “I am going to bed. “There is dinner on the stove.”

  I thank her and tell her a good night, wishing she wasn’t in such a hurry to go to bed. And also slightly regretting not going to dinner with Tarik. Mark would be proud of me for not doing it, but I’m not sure that was best for the case.

  Mark

  One thing I have virtually no practice with is informing a victim’s loved ones that something had happened to their closest and dearest. And I’ve always been glad of that. Not so much today, because I messed up bad telling Jana about her mom being shot.

  She reacted by spilling half the cup of tea she was drinking all over the coffee table and her legs, then stared at me with eyes wide and bulging, her mouth moving but no sound coming out. We’re on the way to the hospital now, and she still hasn’t said a word. Thunder is rumbling in the distance and the sky is a mass of low hanging, thick dark blue clouds. A bad storm is coming. And I can’t shake a feeling of impending doom. Could be my reaction to Jana’s grief and fear.

  Brina is waiting for us at the main entrance to the ER and she hurries toward us as soon as we emerge from the parking garage.

  “Where’s my mother?” Jana asks her in a throaty, hoarse voice.

  “In intensive care,” Brina says. “They think she’ll make it, but they want to operate.”

  Jana bolted for the sliding door leading into the ER as soon as Brina said the first sentence, and we’ve moved with her.

  Inside, Jana is stopped by a security guard sitting on a stool just outside the admitting area, but Brina flashes her badge and tells him where we’re going, then takes the lead down a wide, blue linoleum-floored hallway. This is the same ward as the one where I visited Leskovar on his dying bed and despite myself, I can’t help but fear a similar outcome today.

  Even the room is the same, I realize as Brina stops about halfway down the hallway and points at a door. The grey-haired, thin-lipped doctor is definitely the same. She comes out of the room just as we try to enter.

  “Whoa, what is this?” she asks, instant recognition in her eyes as she sees me.

  “This is the victim’s daughter,” I say and leave it at that.

  “Whose daughter?” she asks. “We have two victims.”

  “Both survived the shooting?” I ask and she nods curtly.

  “My mother is in there, please,” Jana says in a broken, shrill, desperate voice.

  “OK, but only one person can go in,” the doctor says. “We’re about to operate.”

  Jana has already gone inside and I ask the doctor if she’d be willing to answer a few questions to which she curtly and rather sourly agrees.

  “How serious are their injuries?” I ask. “Will she make it?”

  “The man is already in surgery. He’s in critical condition. And the wom
an was shot in the shoulder, and stomach,” the doctors says. “We don’t think anything vital was hit, but she lost a lot of blood and one of the bullets is still inside her. We have to get it out.”

  “Can we see her before the surgery?” I ask.

  She shakes her head decisively. “No, she’s too weak. And the last time I let you speak to a patient, it didn’t end well.”

  I remember that all too vividly, everything, including his dying words.

  Two nurses and a tech are coming toward us, rolling a gurney and a stand used for administering IV fluids. The doctor nods at them.

  “This is the operating team now,” she says. “You can speak to the patient when she wakes up.”

  Her tone brooks no argument, nor does she give me a chance to as she walks back to the room and holds open the door for the team with the gurney.

  Brina and I move to the other side of the hallway to give them space.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “The two of them were staying the night at her country house near Vrhnika. They were most likely shot this morning,” she says. “Ida and her team are there now, gathering the evidence.”

  “What? This didn’t just happen?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “No, one of the neighbors discovered them just before noon, while he was walking his dog.”

  Jana comes out of the room, shaking so hard she’s vibrating. It’s shock. The worst kind.

  “Can we call someone to be with you?” Brina says gently, but Jana is unresponsive.

  “The doctor said your mother will be just fine, that she’ll make it,” I say, not sure if I’m helping at all.

  “She was worried about Vasko,” Jana says faintly. “That he would be shot too. You have to find him, for her.”

  “Has he been found?” I ask Brina and she shakes her head.