by Hart, Callie
I look down at the intricate image depicted on the card—a beautiful woman with flowing, unbound hair, seated on a throne and holding a scepter in her right hand. Her robes flash under the light of the lamp, limned in gold. On her head, a bright, elegant crown shines, dotted with a series of what look like stars. There’s no text on the card. Nothing to let me know which one I’ve drawn.
Shelta’s face is expressionless as she stares down at the card. Her face has gone deathly pale. She picks up the glittering woman, her hand shaking even harder as she puts it back into the deck and pushes them to one side. “I’m afraid this isn’t working,” she informs me. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
So far, I’ve managed to keep a tight leash on my temper, but this…this is too much to bear. “Look. This little boy is in trouble. He’s five years old. Five. You have children. You said that smug piece of shit that just walked out of here was your son. So imagine for a second, if you can, that he went missing when he was Corey’s age. How would you have felt? What would you have done to get your son back?”
Her face is carved out of stone. She pins me to the chair with her gaze, her eyes dark stony and uncompromising. “What do you know about him? My son?”
“What? Nothing. Why the fuck would I know anything about him? I only met him a couple of minutes ago. And he wasn’t exactly polite.”
She narrows her eyes. For some reason, she doesn’t believe me. Sitting back in her chair, weary all of a sudden, she picks up her mug. She looks as if she’s just aged ten years in the span of ten short seconds. “Have you got a son?” she asks.
“No. But I don’t need to be a mother to know how frightening this must be for—”
“I really must insist that you leave now.”
What the actual fuck is wrong with this woman? Her attitude is fucking glacial. I glower at her as I slowly get to my feet. “Don’t worry. I can see now that it was a mistake coming here. I’ll leave your tent and—”
“Not just my tent. I need you to leave the fair, please. And don’t come back here. A return visit wouldn’t be advisable, if you know what’s good for you.”
I gape at her, my mouth hanging open. “Are you…are you threatening me?”
The woman’s eyes form two angry slits. She smiles up at me, but the thin line of her mouth is a cruel looking thing. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m just looking out for your best interests, that’s all. And coming back here wouldn’t be a wise path for you, child. Go home now. Get some sleep. Wake up tomorrow and put all of this behind you. I’m sure your friend Corey will show up sooner or later.”
If I stand here for one second longer, I’m going to snap. If I have to look at the woman’s calculating, unfeeling face for one more moment, I’m going to end up doing something rash. I reach across the table for the photo of Corey, but Shelta’s hand slams down on top of it. “I think I’ll keep this,” is all she says. Why she wants to keep it, I have no clue, but I get the feeling I’m being baited. Like she wants me to do something ill-advised. I back away, shaking my head.
“By all means, keep it. I can print out another one.”
I don’t look back as I storm out of the tent. Garrett’s thunderous expression tells me he heard what Shelta said. He scowls as I hurry back the way we came toward the exit, where Leo, still in his orange jacket, jumps out of his seat when he sees us flying past. “Leaving already? Barely in there an hour, you were.” He shouts something else after us, his voice full of excitement, but I don’t hear his words. I’m too angry to stop and talk to him. At the top of the stairs, Patrin is waiting. The line of people has gone now, everyone undoubtedly already down below, but a man stands beside him. Their body language suggests they’re locked in a heated argument, but their voices are soft and quiet. Hissed, almost. As I reach the top of the stairs, I see the broad, muscular shoulders and the looming height of the other figure, and I realize who it is. It’s the guy with the obnoxiously green eyes. Perfect.
Patrin stops speaking to him as he sees me approach. It takes the other guy a second longer to notice that I’m barreling towards them. Garrett makes a grab for the back of my jacket, but he’s not quick enough; I’m already curling my hand into a fist and launching it into the guy’s arm, snarling at him like a deranged lunatic. “Nice family you’ve got, buddy. You tell her she can’t bully me. She can’t threaten me into doing what she wants. I’m going to keep looking for Corey no matter what cryptic bullshit she comes out with. And I will come back here if I want to. She can’t stop me. Who does she think she is, some fucking Bella Mafiosa dictator? No wonder your attitude stinks. You were probably raised by a pack of fucking wolves.”
He’s shocked, that much is clear. He opens his mouth, but I don’t give him a chance to respond. It would only be more arrogant, self-serving swagger anyway.
Garrett grins at Shelta’s son like a fiend. I grab hold of his sleeve and drag him off down the street. We’re fifty feet away when laughter, loud and boisterous, floods the empty cross section, bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings. It’s a raw, rough, brash laugh that makes me want to pivot on my heel, run back there and slap the bastard across that savagely handsome face of his.
I don’t know who he is.
I don’t even know his name.
But I do know he hasn’t been slapped nearly enough.
It’s not until I get back home, slamming the door to the apartment closed behind me, that I realize I have forgotten my phone.
12
ZARA
THE BADASS CARD
“So, you went to the fair, got fucked around by a hustler, threatened by a fortune teller, assaulted a perfect stranger, and managed to lose your phone? Sounds like quite a night.” In the cafeteria at work, the glare I send my co-worker Kelly’s way could curdle milk. She shrugs it off, smirking at me wickedly. “What did he say? The fortune teller’s kid? After you ripped him a new one.” She sucks strawberry milkshake through her straw with all the determination of a hooker who wants to get the job done and go home early.
“He didn’t say anything. He just laughed.”
“What a prick. How old was he?”
“I don’t know. Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?”
“What did he look like?”
“Like a twenty-eight-year-old asshole. I’m sure you can fill in the blanks.”
She beams at me. “So, he was hot, then.”
This is the understatement of the century. The guy was more than hot. He was fucking beautiful. Not in a feminine way. Beautiful in a savage, rough, raw masculine way, that had robbed me of my breath. I’ve been steaming mad since last night, especially with myself—how could I have been stupid enough to leave my fucking phone?—and I’ve only been getting angrier. I can’t seem to shake the memory of him from my head, and there are so many other things I should be thinking about. Corey, for one. “Please can we change the subject. It’s the fortune teller I’m still reeling over. The fucking stones on her. She was rude as hell when we went in there. Then even ruder after she drew that stupid tarot card. I should call somebody.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’d be a dick move, but the fair’s set up in the old subway station in Rochester Park. If I reported it to the—”
“No, Narc. I meant what do you mean about the tarot card. You didn’t tell me she actually read your fortune.”
I groan, stabbing my pasta salad with my fork. I have explained the tarot card to her. I should be speaking to one of my other co-workers about this. Jerry, or Claire. Kelly’s attention span is that of a goldfish with short term memory loss. “She insisted on having me draw a card. When she saw it, she got all weird and told me I had to leave.”
Kelly’s intrigued. “What card was it?”
“No idea. I don’t know a thing about tarot cards. Very pretty, though. Gold foil. The woman on it looked like a beautiful badass.”
“Ahh. The beautiful badass card. I can see why she freaked out.” Kelly’s raucous
bark of laughter attracts the attention of three official looking men in suits, who, up until now, have been grimacing into their cafeteria fare. Kelly doesn’t even notice. “If I were you, I’d find out what the card was and what it means. Then you’ll have a better idea of why she shifted into bitch mode.”
“She was already in bitch mode. And I don’t have time to be researching tarot cards. I did have a reason for going to that fair.”
She rolls her eyes. “Zara, the cops have all the relevant information. Let them do their jobs. If you start losing sleep over this one kid, then you’re going to be well and truly fucked. What happens the next time another kid goes missing or gets hurt? You’re gonna be even more wound up about it. You’re gonna drive yourself fucking crazy with this vigilante detective bullshit.”
“God, Kelly. Haven’t you ever heard of empathy? We need it in order to do our jobs properly.”
The humor drains from her face. Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, she shakes her head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Llewelyn. We don’t need empathy to do our jobs. We need to be as detached as humanly possible. You start feeling things when you answer those calls, and it won’t be long before everything starts to unravel. Trust me. I’ve been here longer than you. I’ve seen it happen. If you’re not careful, it’s precisely what’s going to happen to you. And then you won’t be helping anybody.”
My food has turned to dust in my mouth. She might sound like a grade A bitch with her uncaring words, but the sad thing is that Kelly’s right. We were trained to be calm. We were trained to be professional and efficient. And however I might have been acting recently, my behavior has been neither one of those things.
* * *
It’s dark by the end of my shift. It was dark when I arrived, too. During the winter months in Spokane, I usually miss the daylight hours. The wind whips across the parking lot as I hurry toward my car, my skin covered in goose bumps, my hair flying around my face as I hunt inside my purse for my keys.
I stumble, coming to an abrupt halt when I see the dark shape of a man leaning against my Volvo. His trench coat is long, a little too big for him. The suit beneath it is well tailored, though. Expensive. His face is crosshatched with lines—wrinkles that don’t really seem to mark his age, since he doesn’t appear to be that old. He looks like he’s lived a hard life, as though he spends most of his time grimacing in considerable pain. I read all of this on him in the heartbeat it takes to close my hand around the can of pepper spray in my purse.
His hands are huge, like shovels. Panic surges through me as he takes a step toward me. “Miss Llewleyn.” He has an accent, thick and strong. Nothing like the accents I heard at the fair last night. His is Eastern Block. It dawns on me pretty quickly that he’s Russian.
“What do you want?” I stand still, trying to think over the warning bells blaring inside my head. People don’t lurk in dark parking lots, waiting to surprise you, unless their intentions are bad, Zara. Of all the times to hear my mother’s voice of warning…
The man takes another step forward. “Please don’t be alarmed,” he says. “I didn’t want to disturb you at work. I figured I would wait. I know how it looks.” His accent really is strong, but his English is perfect. Makes me think he was educated here, or in England, perhaps. “I am Yuri Petrov. I believe you’ve been speaking with Detective Holmes. About my son,” he adds on the end, as if I might not have pieced everything together by now.
“Y—yes. I—” ‘Covert’ is not my middle name; I sweep the parking lot, searching for another dispatcher leaving work. A friendly face. A motherfucking witness.
“Please. Ms. Llewelyn. I promise, you’ll find no trouble here. I would just like to talk to you, if you have a moment. If this is an inconvenient time…”
It’s three A.M., on a frigid Spokane winter night. He’s speaking as though he just ran into me outside of a coffee shop in the middle of the day by accident. He came here in the dead of night, to find me specifically, knowing I would be alone, and he’s trying to make that sound normal? “I did speak to the detective, yes. But I wasn’t much use to him. I’m very sorry about Corey.” I want this to be over. I want this to be over right now.
“Detective Holmes is doing everything he can to help us. He is a good man. But we…my family and I…have asked him to allow us to conduct our own search for my boy. That sounds strange to you?”
“Yes, it does.” The words are out before I can even contemplate stopping them. “I’d have thought any help offered would be beneficial. Especially when the police have the authority to conduct searches and can obtain warrants.”
Yuri Petrov, Russian kingpin of Spokane smiles sadly. “Authority and warrants, in this particular instance, won’t be of any use to us. We know who was responsible for Jamie’s death, and we know who has taken Corey. We have received a video. Look.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone.
Now would be a great time to run. I steel myself, though, holding fast. Running would look bad. Running would be monumentally stupid. Yuri Petrov takes a step toward me and holds out his phone. On the screen, a video of Corey is already cued up and playing. The little boy looks tired, but he’s not visibly hurt. He’s wearing an oversized blue t-shirt that looks like it belongs to someone far bigger than him. He nods at someone off screen, and then he begins to speak. “Hello, Papa. Hello, Mama. I’m…I just…” He pauses, looking to someone off screen again, as if he’s looking for guidance. There’s a low mumble in the background and Corey turns back to the camera. “I’m okay. I’m being looked after. I get to eat ice cream every night if I’m good. I want to come home now, though.”
Yuri withdraws the phone. I don’t know if the video continues to speak or not, because his father silences the phone, putting it back in his pocket. “As you can see, he appears to be well. He will be home soon with us. You have no need to worry, Zara. We are dealing with this situation in our own way. We have experience in these matters.”
Horrified, my knees promising to buckle out from underneath me any second, I try to make sense of what he’s just said. “What? This isn’t the first time Corey’s been taken?”
“No. No one has ever dared before. But…” He holds his hands out, fingers splayed wide. “You’re a smart woman, I think. You read the newspapers. You listen to the news. You know who I am, no?”
This could be some sort of trap. It feels like a trick, even though I can’t see how it would be. Cautiously, I answer. “I hear the same rumors everyone else does, if that’s what you mean.”
“That my family have ties to certain organizations? That we are an influential family in our own right, yes?”
Oh, holy shit. “Yes.”
“Then you understand, I think. It is within our capabilities to resolve a matter such as this without involving government agencies. We would like to do that. We’re confident Corey will be home with myself and my wife within the next forty-eight hours.”
“All right. Well…I hope that’s the case.”
Yuri’s smile is still fixed in place. “Thank you, Ms. Llewelyn. There are only a few people who know about Corey’s disappearance right now. Detective Holmes, the chief of police, your boss, and yourself, of course. I have come here tonight to appeal to your kind nature. To ask you to keep this matter to yourself. If something like this were to appear in the news, it would draw a lot of…attention. Not to mention make my family look weak. You understand?”
Fuuuuck.
I was out canvasing an entire area of the city last night, telling people about a missing little boy named Corey. And now, here is Yuri Petrov, most definitely the most dangerous man I have ever stood face to face with, asking me for my silence.
I repeat.
Fuck.
“Of course. I already told Detective Holmes I wouldn’t say anything to anyone.” God, this is bad. This is really, really bad. I was careful not to be too specific last night, but now I’m freaking out.
Petrov displays a set of surprisingl
y white teeth as his smile broadens. “Wonderful. I anticipated your helpful response and took the liberty of sending you a small gift. I hope you don’t mind. Just a small token of the Petrov family’s appreciation. I will leave you to get home now. I’m sure you’re tired. And please…don’t worry about Corey. I thank you for your concern. It means a great deal. Good night, Solnyshko.”
His footfall echoes as he steps away from my car and begins to walk across the parking lot. It’s fear that makes me call out after him, rather than curiosity. “Mr. Petrov?”
He turns.
“What does that mean? Solnyshko?”
He looks surprised. Then amused. “It means, ‘small sun.’ Your hair is very unusual, Ms. Llewelyn. The color burns quite remarkably, even in the dark.”
13
PASHA
DR. CHOI
I’ve done plenty of illegal shit in my day. Plenty. I’ve been on the straight and narrow recently, though, focusing on the studio, and the fights have given me plenty of opportunity to blow off any excess steam I might have built up. I still know a few things, though. More importantly, I still know a few people in Spokane who are willing to bend a few privacy laws, or outright break them if you give them enough money. It’s two in the morning as I sit in the waiting room of Dr. Choi’s emergency dental surgery, watching the small T.V. cycle through commercials for teeth whitening, veneers, braces and implants, I run my tongue over my own teeth. I’m not contemplating getting work done, though. My grill is just fine. I’m thinking about her.