Vanishing Act

by Linsey Lanier

“Maybe we should make a break for it.”

  Parker eyed the curtains. “Through this window?”

  “How about through that door? Just walk out the way we came in.”

  His hands behind his back in a rigid posture, Parker didn’t move. “The officer who brought us in still has our passports.”

  Her shoulders sank. She studied Parker’s frame a moment. He had his back to her, hiding his chagrin. And probably a lot of festering anger.

  “How’s your lip?”

  He turned around and she saw the bleeding had stopped.

  “I’m fine.” He came around the table and took her chin in his hand. “You’re getting a nasty bruise.”

  “Yeah, that guy was a big one. I think he had a few pounds on your guy.”

  His gaze locked with hers. There was pain in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Miranda.”

  “Sorry?”

  “For bringing you here. For getting you involved in this.”

  She didn’t want him to feel that way. “This is our case, Parker. This is for your father.”

  “I don’t believe—”

  Before he could finish, the door creaked open and a man entered the room.

  He was a short man with a mustache and a slight beer belly, maybe in his early forties, and dressed in dark slacks that were a little on the baggy side. His brown tweed jacket and matching vest seemed a bit oversized as well, as if he’d recently lost weight despite his round girth. He reminded Miranda of a Ukrainian Colombo. Under his arm he carried a stack of manila folders.

  They were oddly shaped folders, not exactly legal size, but not regular either. Then Miranda realized they must be the A4 European standard.

  How did she know that? She’d been doing too much paperwork lately back home.

  Without looking at Miranda and Parker, the man lumbered slowly over to the opposite side of the table, slapped the folders down on it, and took a seat. There were two dark covered pamphlets on top of the folders.

  Their passports.

  Without a word the man reached for one of the passports and opened it.

  As he studied its contents, Miranda eyed the man’s pudgy pear-shaped face. He had thick wavy hair that seemed a little long for an Inspector. The same color as his hair, his sooty brown mustache was thick, as well. Matching brows crowded a narrow forehead lined with furrows from overwork or the stress of difficult cases. The brown tie tucked into his vest had a coffee stain on it.

  Not a handsome man, but Miranda suspected he didn’t care much about his looks. He cared about control. Which, at the moment, he had in spades. There were no Fourth Amendment rights here.

  At last, the man looked up at them. “The names on these papers are Wade Parker and Miranda Steele.” He spoke in a low pitched Ukrainian accent with a hint of British.

  Parker sat back with a casual air. “And you are?” he said, as if he were meeting the man at a cocktail party.

  “I am Inspector Denis Gurka. Chief Inspector of the Kiev Municipal Police.” He did not offer a hand.

  Parker met his expressionless gaze with an ingratiating smile. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, Inspector. I can hear your accent isn’t purely Ukrainian.”

  “I studied in England for a year or so with Scotland Yard.”

  “Very impressive. We have friends in England.”

  Inspector Gurka’s eyes narrowed. “Do not try to smooth talk me, Mr. Parker.”

  Well. That was a fine “welcome to our country.” Miranda could feel Parker bristle beside her.

  He leaned forward, summoning all his civility. “Very well, Inspector. I’ll be perfectly honest with you. As I told your officer earlier, we’re private investigators looking for a young man who went missing—”

  “I am aware of your story, Mr. Parker. Let me be perfectly honest with you. I am also aware you were at the MMA Club called Udar earlier this evening.”

  Miranda stared at Parker, feeling as if the breath had been knocked out of her. They hadn’t mentioned that to the police officer.

  “What were you doing there, please?”

  “How did you know we were there?” Parker said stiffly.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Do we have a right to an attorney?”

  Miranda watched the Inspector’s chest go up and down for several long moments.

  “You are not under arrest, Mr. Parker. Neither of you are.”

  They weren’t? Miranda couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. “It sure feels like it.”

  Gurka fixed her with a bland gaze. “You are not under arrest—yet.”

  What the heck did that mean?

  “Once more. Tell me what you were doing at Udar tonight.”

  Miranda tapped a finger on the table. “Exactly what Parker just told you. Looking for a young man who went missing fourteen years ago.” She took out her phone and scrolled to the photo. “This man. His name is Sasha Pavlovych. That picture was taken when he was eighteen. He’s thirty-two now.”

  Gurka took the phone and studied the picture as if he were inspecting a smelly piece of cheese.

  “And why did you select Udar?”

  “That’s where the trail led us.”

  He returned the phone to her. “What trail?”

  Before she could answer, there was a knock on the door. It opened, and a uniformed clerk stepped into the room, handed Gurka another folder, then turned and left.

  Gurka opened the folder, studied its contents for a while, and scowled.

  Miranda felt sick at her stomach. Was that their arrest warrants? Were they going to be sent to Siberia or something?

  After another moment the Inspector spoke again. “I see you both have had quite illustrious careers.”

  “Excuse me?”

  One by one Gurka took papers out of the folder, turned them around and placed them on the table before them.

  He must have had the officer doing research on them. The papers were newspaper articles about some of their cases. London. Los Angeles. Kennesaw.

  Suppressing a shudder, she raised her palms. “That’s us.”

  Gurka’s gaze narrowed again. “Then why are you interested in Udar? What do you know about the club?”

  Parker let out a sigh of resignation. “We got a tip that the young man we’re looking for may have become homeless after arriving in Kiev. We found a group of destitute young people near the train station. They told us about Udar. They said men in suits from the club come to recruit the larger and stronger of them. They said the men promise to make fighters of them and make them wealthy.”

  Gurka sat back and rubbed his thick mustache. Was he starting to believe them?

  And then she thought of something she should have back in the police car. “What do you know about Udar, Inspector? Do you think something illegal is going on there?”

  Instead of answering, Gurka got to his feet and strolled over to the corner where the flag stood. Hands behind his back, he began to mutter as if to himself, though he was speaking English.

  “I have lived through the Soviet era, Independence, and several revolutions. When Independence came I was about to enter college. I decided to study Law. I wanted to serve my country. This flag was adopted then. The yellow is for the wheat fields of Ukraine. The blue for its skies and mountains and streams. I loved the new flag. I was idealistic.”

  Miranda gave Parker a worried look. What did this patriotic speech have to do with them?

  “I have an older sister. She works at the Natural History Museum here in the city. She had a son. His name was Rinat. He was tall and strong. Five years ago Rinat decided he wanted a career as a mixed martial artist. The sport was growing in popularity at the time. He was twenty-two.”

  Miranda tensed. Gurka was using the past tense. This wasn’t going to be a happy story.

  “He chose Udar as the place to train.”

  She knew it.

  “He took classes, was assigned a coach, progressed in the sport. He won several amateur championships
in Ukraine.”

  He fell silent.

  “What happened to him?” Miranda asked softly.

  “After Rinat was there a little over a year, they asked him to become a trainer. He was thrilled and accepted the job. Then after another few months, they asked him to do another sort of job for them. He came to me and told me about it.”

  “What sort of job?” Parker said.

  “They wanted him to drive a delivery van for them. Not very often. Once a week or so. They told him he would drive to a particular spot, leave the back of the van unlocked and go to a nearby café. He was to spend half an hour in the café then return to the van and drive it back to the club. They said he could earn a lot of money.”

  “They were running drugs,” Miranda said.

  Gurka shrugged. “Or illegal firearms.”

  “Where was the drop-off?”

  “Rinat did not say. A few days later he told me he had said no to the club’s offer. He said they threatened him. He told them he would report them to me. They did not like to hear that. They probably suspected he had already done so.”

  “And?”

  Gurka drew in a breath, and Miranda saw real pain on his face. “Three days later we found his body near the fountain in Independence Square. They made it look like a random shooting.”

  Miranda was stunned. Suddenly instead of outrage and fear, she felt sheer heartbreak for this police inspector. And she felt Parker’s rigid silence beside her. The same emotions were going through both of them. Sorrow, anger, indignation.

  “What happened?” she asked in a whisper.

  “My office was put on the case and we investigated it thoroughly.”

  “Did you find your nephew’s killer?”

  “I did and I did not.”

  That didn’t make any sense. “What do you mean?”

  “The killer left prints at the scene. And blood stains. We found a match in the database for an Ilya Elkovich Dudnik.”

  That was a mouthful. “Did you bring him in?”

  “He did not exist.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We went to the apartment listed for him in our records and discovered no one by that name had ever lived there. We checked hospitals for birth records, bus stations, train stations, the airport. There was no trace of any Ilya Elkovich Dudnik anywhere.”

  “How could that be?”

  “His identity was manufactured.”

  So Udar was into identity theft as well as the distribution of whatever they were transporting around the city.

  Gurka strolled back to his side of the table. “Ever since then I have been investigating that club. Resources have been limited, but we keep surveillance on them as best as we can.”

  Parker’s gaze narrowed. “That’s how you knew we were there tonight.”

  Solemnly Gurka nodded. “And so I ask you once more. What did you learn at the club Udar tonight?”

  Miranda didn’t see a reason to hold anything back now. “We went undercover, so to speak. I posed as an amateur fighter from America and Parker was my manager.”

  “And what did you accomplish?”

  “Little more than arousing their suspicious, I’m afraid,” Parker said.

  “We think they sent two men after us to beat us up.”

  “We were unable to capture those men.”

  Must have been another patrol car in the area.

  Gurka stared down at the table a long moment, pursing his thick lips. Then he stacked up the files and handed Miranda and Parker back their passports. “We are finished here. You are free to go. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

  And that was that.

  A different officer drove them back to their car. Still shaken Miranda couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel.

  She took a long shower, trying to wash away the soreness from her fight and the mortification of being taken in by the authorities in a strange land. But the story of Gurka’s nephew wouldn’t leave her. A young man shot down in his prime because he refused to do a job. His mother must have been beside herself.

  The men who attacked them tonight had to be from Udar. The MMA club was a front for some criminal enterprise. And the people behind it would murder to keep it going. They’d been lucky to escape with a few bruises.

  As she crawled into bed next to Parker, she held onto him, craving his comfort. He did the same. They fell asleep clinging to each other, seeking solace in each other’s warmth.

  For tonight it was enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The next morning Miranda awoke to find Parker dressed and packing a suitcase.

  Brushing the hair away from her face, she sat up in surprise. “What are you doing?”

  He placed a rolled up pair of jeans into the suitcase and headed for the closet. “We’re leaving, Miranda.”

  “What?”

  “After what happened last night, how can you question the decision?”

  She scrambled out of bed and hunted for the complimentary hotel robe she’d left on a nearby chair. “How can I question it? We have a job to do.”

  “A job we took unwillingly.”

  He’d been the unwilling one. “What about Sasha? What about Udar? I think we’re onto something.”

  Parker maneuvered a suit coat into a clothing bag. “If the young man got himself involved in a criminal organization years ago, there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  He couldn’t be serious. She took his jeans out of the suitcase and put them on the bed. “We can’t leave now, Parker. We owe it to you father to finish this.”

  He crossed to the dresser and opened a drawer. “We owe my father nothing.” He shut the drawer and came to her, held her by the arms, his face grim. “We were almost arrested last night, Miranda. Do you know what prisons are like here? They don’t have the same legal system as the US.”

  She knew that. She could see he was worried about her. And she saw that tired look in his eyes again. “Well, what about Tatiana then?”

  That made him pause.

  This wasn’t the fearless fighter she knew. The man who had faced countless killers to avenge their victims.

  She spoke the next words softly. “What about my destiny? Our destiny?”

  He held her gaze and she watched a thousand emotions go through him.

  Before he could reply there was a knock on the door.

  She jumped at the noise. “Did you order room service?”

  “No. I had planned to eat on the way to the airport.”

  He really did want to leave in a hurry.

  She pulled her robe tight and turned, but Parker beat her to the door. He was dressed, after all.

  He opened it and found another policeman.

  Miranda ran a hand through her hair and went to Parker’s side. Now what?

  “Good morning,” the officer said briskly. “Am I addressing Mr. Wade Parker and Ms. Miranda Steele?”

  “You are,” Parker said stiffly. “What is this about?”

  “Inspector Gurka would like to see you.”

  “We saw Inspector Gurka last night.”

  “That’s right,” Miranda added. “We had a nice long chat with him. He let us go.”

  The officer’s lips thinned. “Nonetheless, the Inspector requests your presence this morning.”

  Parker started to close the door again. “I believe I’ll be calling the US Embassy and reporting the Inspector for harassment instead.”

  The officer scoffed and shook his head. “You are not under arrest.”

  “Oh? Then why are we being taken in?”

  “You are not being taken in.”

  “Where do you want to take us, then?” Miranda asked.

  “You will see when we get there. Inspector Gurka told me your services are needed.”

  Huh? What did that mean?

  “Give us a few minutes.” This time, Parker did close the door.

  Parker pulled her away from the threshold so they wouldn’t be overhear
d.

  Miranda lowered her voice. “We have to go, Parker. This could be about Sasha. Or Gurka’s nephew. Besides, if we don’t, that officer will arrest us.”

  “No, he won’t.” Parker looked very determined. And angry. He didn’t like this at all.

  “Tell you what. Let’s go and see what he wants. And if it leads to nothing about Sasha by the end of the day, we’ll go home. Deal?”

  Parker gazed into the vivid blue eyes of his beloved wife. She would go through hell to save a stranger if she thought right was on her side. He adored her for that. But she’d been through too much lately. And last night, after seeing her attacked on the street, and then the thought of having her taken from him by some unknown official of a faraway land had nearly brought him to his knees. He could not lose her.

  She had uncanny instincts. A sixth sense, as it were. But he had instincts, too. And right now they were telling him the search for Sasha Pavlovych would lead to no good.

  Yet after a night’s rest, he realized Inspector Gurka had only been doing his job last night. The officer at their door meant them no harm. It was very unlikely they would be arrested. And equally unlikely they’d turn up anything more concerning Sasha by the end of the day. He could postpone the packing until this evening.

  Miranda watched Parker’s expression go from stern to yielding. She smiled as she felt his chest rise and heard him sigh.

  “Very well.”

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be dressed in a flash.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was another long drive through the city.

  The air was as chilly as it had been last night, but the sun was out and the snow and fairy tale architecture of Kiev sparkled all around them.

  As promised, the officer did not take them back to the police station.

  Instead he drove to the edge of the river and turned south. As he did, Miranda caught sight of a street sign she could read. Naberezhno-Rybalsak. Whatever that meant. The officer continued down several more kilometers until a bridge came into view.

  Parker broke the silence. “This is the Dnieper River.”

  “That is correct,” the officer replied and fell silent again.

  Okay, the river that sliced the city in half, Miranda recalled from the maps she’d seen online and on their GPS. Why were they going there?