Charles had intended to take his half up front, but a politically ambitious district attorney at the time had been keeping tabs on Charles. Any sudden windfall would have brought an immediate investigation, so Ernst, whose gaming skills bordered on legendary, had claimed the entire amount as winnings—no questions asked.
Distracted by…um, personal matters at the time, Charles didn’t find out until too late just what Ernst had planned for the money. Four trust accounts in his daughters’ names. Charles had been furious, but Ernst—a most charming and likable man—had placated him with promises of larger profits down the road—when any hint of impropriety was gone.
Charles’s patience—and trust—had been taxed as first one daughter then another was given access to the money. His money. He’d finally confronted Ernst. Tempers had flared. Charles had snapped, and a pushing match ended with Ernst unconscious on the floor.
The only reason Charles didn’t let the old man die was the fear that he’d lose access to his money. He’d called 911 and Ernst had been rushed to the hospital. A stroke, the doctors said. Everyone assumed that the stroke had caused Ernst to fall and hit his head. Only Charles and Ernst knew that the “fall” had come first.
And Ernst, although he recovered to some degree, had returned home with no memory of the argument that had triggered his decline. Charles had remained close to the family, never giving up hope of one day gaining access to the remaining money in Grace’s trust account.
When Grace suddenly suggested using the money to go into business with him, Charles had been so shocked he hadn’t been able to reply. The irony made him want to do a jig on Ernst Radonovic’s grave, but he didn’t dare show his enthusiasm. Yetta still controlled the account, and she was the one woman who made him nervous. There’d been times when he was certain she could see every black mark on his soul.
Speaking of black marks, he thought, grinning at his reflection in the glass. Wasn’t it time for another?
Lydia and Reezira, the prostitutes he’d “rescued,” were waiting in his suite.
He’d read about the plight of Eastern European Gypsies on the Internet. Many had fled to Canada, where the immigration laws were more welcoming than in the United States. Although these young women were accommodated, in some cases, their lot in life was not much improved over the hardships they’d endured in their native lands. Some turned to prostitution.
Charles had put word out on the underground that he was looking for healthy, ambitious young women to work in his casino. And he didn’t mean waiting tables or serving cocktails. He wanted women who knew how to pleasure men.
Once he was sole proprietor, he’d turn this place into a destination spot for people who knew what they wanted and didn’t mind paying for it. Prostitution was illegal, but there were loopholes in the system if a person knew how to find them, and Charles had always been good at skating past trouble on lies, diversion and bribery. He didn’t expect to have any trouble once he’d cleared up two small problems: his blackmailer and his pesky partners.
But both headaches could wait till tomorrow. Right now, he planned to lose himself in a world that met his very specific needs.
“Hello,” he called, his anticipation growing. “Daddy’s home, little girls.”
YETTA INHALED deeply. For her, every breath was a gift. She’d struggled with breathing problems all of her life. As a child, her frequent colds and debilitating coughs had been shrouded with whispers and looks she didn’t understand. Until she’d turned ten. Then her mother told her the story of the fire that had cost their family so dearly. One daughter killed. One deformed and destined to die young. Yetta’s life had been spared, but her lungs had been permanently damaged.
Over the years, Yetta had slowly unraveled the threads of the story. An accident, for sure. But the person who’d shouldered the blame for it was Jurek Sarna, who had been just a child himself at the time. It broke her heart to think about the injustice done to him.
Now she had Jurek’s son in front of her. Nikolai. The person who would help her rid her family of a threat. But Nikolai was more than that. He was the only one who could bring peace to a man Yetta had long since forgiven. A man who believed he was dying.
“Would you like me to tell you about your father?”
The question obviously annoyed him.
“I know my father. He’s alive and well and recently retired from the police force.”
They were sitting at Yetta’s patio table protected from the sun by a large canvas umbrella that Nick had unfurled for her. Nice manners, she thought, but no trust. None whatsoever. Everyone was a suspect, including her.
Which meant Yetta would need to move slowly to build a connection between Nikolai and the very distant past. “You have questions for me about Charles, then?”
The change of topic seemed to surprise him, but he shifted position in the padded lawn chair and faced her, resting his elbows on the glass-topped table. “How long have you known him?”
“Oh, goodness, twenty years, at least.”
His blue eyes reminded her so much of his mother. Beautiful, sweet, reckless Lucille, but there was the wariness of Jurek, too. Jurek, who never took anything at face value, including Yetta’s love for him and his family.
“Ernst was forever bringing home wounded souls. Like a child brings a bird with a broken wing.”
“How’d they meet?”
“Through work. Charles was a young up-and-coming attorney with the firm that represented the casino where Ernst worked. This was during a very turbulent time when unions were making a push for inclusion in the gaming industry.”
Yetta could see him mentally comparing what she told him to what he’d undoubtedly read from some file.
“What do you know about his past? His family?”
“Very little. Charles has never been particularly forthcoming about his childhood. I’ve gathered he had a bit of a rough time. Ernst told me his father died when Charles was quite young. His mother remarried and had another child—a girl—later on.”
“Who paid for law school?”
“I have no idea, but Charles is a very smart man. Cagey, even. He knows how to work the system, and he is most astute when it comes to making the right connections.”
“How did your husband figure into this?”
“That’s a very good question. At first, I thought he spent time with our family because he was lonely. Alexandra and Elizabeth were beautiful—eligible—young women. But, in hindsight, I wonder if I imbued him with too much humanity.”
“What did your husband get out of the relationship?”
She could almost hear Ernst chuckling. He’s a smart one, Yetta. You may have gotten more than you bargained for when you invited him here.
Or was that her imagination talking?
In her youth, Yetta had trusted the voices in her head, the visions that came to her. Her gift had set her apart, made her special. Ernst had revered her, called her his goddess, but after his stroke, the sight had failed her. She no longer trusted her instincts, which was one reason she’d asked Jurek for help.
And he’d directed her to this man, whom she didn’t know but to whom she felt an overwhelming connection. And she alone knew why that was.
Perhaps it was time to share her secret. “I was the third person to hold you when you were a baby.”
“Hmm. Now, about Charles’s connection to your daughter—”
“Your parents were renting a little mobile home on Mojave. I remember because Jurek always called it ‘Mo Jave’ with a hard J. He was teasing, of course.”
Nikolai didn’t appear interested, but she sensed that was a front. “Your mother was working in a stage review before she started to show.”
“A stage review? Is that another name for a striptease?”
His snide tone made her angry. “No. She’d worked a razzle-dazzle show once, right after she moved here, but this was modern dance. Full of passion and grit. One reviewer said your mother ‘danced with her he
art, not her feet.’”
He still looked unconvinced. “Dancers don’t get pregnant and have babies.”
“That is true of many, I’m sure. And I will admit your mother wasn’t thrilled when she found out she was expecting, but your father was over the moon. He was so proud. He thought your birth would make Lucy give up her dream of being a dancer.”
“Obviously he was wrong.” A statement, not a question.
“Lucy tried to be a stay-at-home wife and mother, as was expected of her. But the urge to dance was just too strong. She started doing exercises and fasting to get back in shape. Alexandra was just seven months old when you were born. I love babies, and since I was home anyway, I offered to babysit. What was one more?”
“Uh, double the work,” he said drily.
“Double the treasure. You were a perfect baby. Alexandra was as imperial as her name. From the very beginning she seemed to assume the rest of us were there to serve her,” she said, smiling at the memory. “But you…you were a gift.”
“I doubt that.”
“Don’t. You see, I came from a family that put boys on pedestals. My brothers were young gods. My sisters and I…well, it was different for girls. It’s possible I was suffering from a little depression because I didn’t give my husband a son, even though he worshipped his daughters and always insisted that he preferred girls.
“When you came along, I could pretend that you were mine. That I’d had twins. I didn’t love Alexandra less—she wouldn’t have allowed it,” she added. “But I had you, too, to feel fulfilled and complete. Which is why…” She couldn’t say it. Even all these years later.
“Why what?”
“Why I did what I did.”
His eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”
“I…nursed you.”
“I was sick?”
She shook her head and looked at her hands in her lap. “No. You were healthy, but you weren’t gaining weight like most babies do. Your formula didn’t agree with you. You’d spit it up every time I tried to feed you, so I gave up trying. I had more milk than Alexandra could take, so I put you to my breast.”
He seemed surprised but not repulsed. “Really?”
Yetta took a deep breath and let it out. “I never told anyone. Even my husband. I was afraid it would seem wrong. That someone might say I was slighting my child in favor of another. A boy child. I might have even thought that myself, but you were so happy when we nursed. Alex…she ate because it was time. You…because you needed me.” She reached for his hand. “And I needed you.”
“Why?”
“You helped me get over my blues. I only had you for six or seven months, then your father lost his job. Although it was unheard-of at the time, he became a stay-at-home father.”
“You let me go.”
“I had no choice. I…I was pregnant again. I’d trusted my cousins who said that a nursing mother can’t get pregnant. They were wrong, of course.”
“I…I meant after my mother died. Why didn’t you…anyone…?”
“Come for you,” she supplied, knowing how hard it must have been for a man like him to ask.
He nodded.
“I did, but I was too late. Jurek went into some place no one could reach him after your mother died. Emotionally, I mean. He was in jail for another four months. And the whole time, he wouldn’t talk to anyone.”
She pictured her cousin when she’d visited him in jail. He’d reminded her of photos she’d seen of prisoners of war—hollow cheeks and dead eyes.
“I know he’s never forgiven himself for what happened,” she said. “Lucy didn’t drive and he’d been picked up for writing a bad check, so she had to take the bus to work. She’d just stepped out the door of the bus when some crazy guy ran the light and broadsided another car that struck her.”
Yetta remembered feeling overwhelmed by shock and sadness when she’d learned of the tragedy. “I was back east visiting my parents when it happened. By the time I heard the news, you were gone. Jurek ordered me not to search for you, but I did anyway. Maybe because you’d been adopted by a policeman the authorities were more tight-lipped than usual. It wasn’t until last week that I even knew Jurek had maintained a connection to you.”
“Why didn’t he ever contact me?”
“He said you were with a good family. You seemed well-adjusted and safe.” She sighed. “Maybe he was afraid you’d hate him, and perhaps you do, but one thing I know for certain, the past is part of you, whether you want to admit it or not. You owe it to yourself to meet your father.”
“He isn’t my father.”
She didn’t argue. He was right. She wasn’t his mother, either. She got up. “Nap time should be over at The Dancing Hippo and I need to pick up Maya. That little squirt brought me back to life, just as you did once. Babies are good for the soul.”
He didn’t refute the statement, but Yetta could tell he didn’t believe her. He would. Someday. She’d seen it in his future. But she didn’t tell him that.
CHAPTER EIGHT
GRACE PULLED into the carport beside her mother’s eleven-year-old Lincoln. “Dang. If Mom’s home then, no doubt, our guest is, too,” she muttered, looking down at her grubby jeans and work shirt that she still wore.
She’d hoped to get back before the party at Romantique broke up. Fortunately, her home was situated in the rear corner of her parent’s oversize lot. As long as Nikolai and her mother were in the house, Grace could slip through the backyard unnoticed.
Her 1950s era motor home was tiny, but it served her needs. The interior paneling was teak, the built-in features ingenious given the date it was manufactured. The only downside was its lack of insulation. Her father had used steel poles and existing trees as anchors to secure cloth webbing above it to provide shade. Liz likened the look to some of the bunkers she’d seen in Bosnia.
Grace had moved home shortly after breaking up with Shawn. She’d poured her heart and imagination into creating a haven that vaguely resembled the inside of I Dream of Jeannie’s bottle. “Too girlie,” her male cousins had decreed. Grace didn’t care.
She quietly closed the car door and unloaded her gear. Still hoping her mother and their guest were sitting in the kitchen, Grace followed the flagstone path to the rear of the house. She was almost to the patio when she heard her mother’s voice.
She couldn’t make out every word, but Nikolai’s reply was loud and clear. “Don’t you mean stripper?” His question held a rawness that made Grace flatten herself against the rough stucco and slowly inch back into the safety of the garage.
She didn’t approve of eavesdropping, even if she was dying of curiosity. She closed the door and pulled out her phone. A few seconds later, Liz’s voice came on the line.
“Hi, do me a favor and call Mom on her cell and make up some reason for her to go into the house.”
“What are you talking about? Why don’t you call her?”
“Because I’m hiding out in the garage. She and Nikolai are having some big heart-to-heart and I don’t want to interrupt, but the only way to get to my house is past them.”
There was a slight pause. “I get it. You’re attracted to him and at the moment you’re looking less than stunning, but you’re too embarrassed to admit that.”
Grace let out a little yelp. “Nice call, sis. Maybe you are psychic.”
Liz snorted skeptically. “And you’re psycho. Just go back out there and breeze past. It’s something you do with flare.”
“You really think so?”
“Uh-huh. Now leave me alone. I’m busy installing my new dishwasher.”
Grace closed her phone and looked around. Liz was right. Nikolai was going to be here for a long time, most likely. There would be times when she wouldn’t be at her best.
Squaring her shoulders, she opened the door and walked outside. She’d just reached the edge of the house when she heard Nikolai’s laugh, followed by a harsh growl. “So much for your powers of prophecy,” he said, his tone dr
ipping irony.
“Hey,” Grace said, unable to contain herself. “Nobody talks to my mother like that.” She marched to the patio table where the two were sitting. A large ecru-colored umbrella protected them from the sun. Grace ducked slightly to get under it.
Nikolai sat at an angle to the table, one booted foot propped on his knee. Despite his casual pose, he seemed tense.
“You’re back,” he said.
Grace pretended to salute. “Yes, sir. Mission accomplished. No lives lost, although knowing my brown thumb there are no guarantees the new recruits will last long in the desert sun.” A powdery shower of sand drifted across her nose. She blinked and blew out a puff of air, sending her bangs haywire.
Her mother pulled out a chair for Grace to join them. “Hello, darling. Nikolai was worried about his belongings.”
Grace doubted that. Who would be crazy enough to take something of his?
“I dropped off his suitcase and coat at Uncle’s before I left.”
“For where?”
Something in his tone made her defensive. “I was giving lap dances at the cemetery,” she said breezily. “It’s just something I do.”
Her mother made a tsking sound. “Stop teasing the man, Grace. He doesn’t know you, yet.” Yetta stood up. “After I pick up Maya, I’ll stop at Claude’s to make sure he’s prepared a room. He’s such a pack rat the place is always a mess.” She looked at Nikolai and said, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Before Grace could say that she’d already checked on Nikolai’s accommodations, her mother was gone. Yetta took her hosting duties a lot more seriously than Grace did, so perhaps it was best that she sign off on Claude’s arrangements.
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