by Shirl Henke
“Some gangster from New York, Brighton Beach, isn’t he? I’ve read about him in the newspapers. I never imagined my father-in-law was in the same business.” She shuddered.
“What happened then?”
“My husband stormed for the door and I ran for cover, ducking into the little library adjoining Mikhail’s office…Nancy was there and it seemed pretty obvious to me that she’d been listening, too. The door between the two rooms was ever so slightly ajar and she’d been standing by it when I slipped in the hall door.”
So the trophy wife was picking up info, too. He filed that away for later. “Any idea what this evidence Alexi had collected was?”
“No, only that when Alexi made the threat, Mikhail was furious. Whatever it was, it must’ve been really important…and damning.”
“You still don’t think the old man intended to kill his son?” Matt asked.
Tess shook her head. “No. Alexi was his only son, only child. He was very old-world that way. He might punish him in some way—Lord knows he whipped him when Alexi was young. To ‘make a man of him.’ But he’d never kill him—intentionally.”
Matt reserved judgment on that. “Why do you think Nancy was listening in?”
“She was always nosy. The yelling must’ve caught her attention. She’s a slut who only married Mikhail for his money. I think…no, I know she and Alexi had a brief fling. I caught them coming off our yacht. He claimed he’d just taken her out to show her how fast the new twin engines he’d had installed could go. He was into boat racing, too, and always souping up engines so he could fake out his competitors.”
“There was a news story a week or so before he was killed. About his leaving you for some Hollywood chick, one of the ones who can’t tell the difference between scavenger hunting and shoplifting. Nobody ever figured Nancy might be one of his lovers, did they?” Matt asked rhetorically. The case for Mikhail offing his son had just moved up another notch in his book.
Tess’s expression was tight, cynical. “The cops are speculating—a crime of passion, woman scorned, that sort of thing. I should put my life and that of my son in the hands of guys who reason like that?” She scoffed. “I consulted my attorney the day after the escapade you mentioned turned up in the tabloid headlines. Steve has been more and more reserved here lately. His father’s lifestyle was hurting him. I couldn’t let it continue. That’s why I intended to divorce Alexi and never look back. Our marriage was over years ago. The star-lets—and Nancy—can have him.” She looked tired now, massaging her temples with her fingertips.
Matt believed her. He was good at reading people and seldom made mistakes. But you made a beaut with Sam Ballanger. Didn’t think she’d use that stunner. “Okay,” he agreed, brushing away thoughts of the furious woman they’d left tied up in the motel room, “but if you didn’t kill Alexi, and Mikhail didn’t do it either, then who did?”
“Oh, I think Mikhail killed him.”
“Come again?” Matt’s head was spinning now.
“Oh, he didn’t intend the bomb to kill Alexi. I said he wouldn’t kill his son intentionally. Alexi was driving my car that day. He’d forgotten to put gas in his Ferrari and needed to be in Palm Beach for a game, so he took the Lexus.”
“According to the cops, that’s also his. You drive a Town Car.”
“The transmission was slipping on it. I’d started using the Lexus a few days earlier. Mikhail knew that.”
“Okay, why would he want to have you killed? I don’t figure it was just to keep sonny boy from having to pay alimony.”
Tess shook her head, pressing her fingers together over the tip of her nose and trying to gather her thoughts. “That’s not it. It’s all so…sordid.”
Sam crouched behind a clump of wild rosemary bushes and listened to their conversation, trying to piece it together with what little Patowski had told her about the case. She could bust up this little party right now and take him back, but the information she’d gather if she sneaked along for the ride could turn the case for Pat.
What the hell? Pat’s FBI contacts here in Utah could retrieve her car for her. She’d retrieve Granger after she got the dirt on Renkov for the authorities. There might even be an additional reward in it for her.
She dashed back to the Yukon and waited as a convoy of semis whizzed past, drowning out Tess and Matt’s voices…and what little noise Sam made as she slipped through the opened back hatch of the SUV. She burrowed beneath the mound of backpacks, sleeping bags and other kid droppings just as the sister and her daughters came out of the building. No one saw her.
Matt waited for Tess to go on, but then he heard Jenny and her dragons returning to the car. He and Tess retraced their steps and joined the crew. “I can handle sordid,” he said gently to her. “We’ll talk later.”
Tess nodded, then walked back and slammed shut the rear hatch of the GMC.
In her nest, Sam relaxed. Peeping out, she could see the kids climb in, dripping bright red Sno-Kones and making loud slurping noises. Ugh. She’d noticed Matt had messy red stains on his shirt and knew they weren’t from the Slurpee. For a minute, she was afraid he’d been shot before she realized it had to be something the kids must’ve smeared on him.
“That oughta hold them until we stop for the night,” Jenny said with an apologetic glance at Matt whose jeans already bore several drops of sticky liquid in addition to the red licorice. “Oh, unless you want to ride straight through to San Diego? We could take turns driving. The girls are used to sleeping on the road,” Jenny offered.
“Mom, you promised McDonald’s,” Scout whined. The lead tickler joined in the protest.
The thought of being cooped up with two miniature Torquemadas for the long drive made Matt give serious consideration to stopping, but he really needed to get back to San Diego. “If you’re up to it, I’m game—and we could stop at the next McD’s along the way,” he added quickly when Melanie and Tiffany narrowed their eyes dangerously at him.
“Hey, you took his handcuffs off,” Scout said, suddenly noticing their victim was not only no longer mute but no longer defenseless, as well.
“Mr. Granger was never our prisoner, Tiff,” Tess explained. “We only made it look that way so we could throw that bad lady off our trail.”
As they pulled out of the rest stop and headed down the road, “that bad lady” seethed in the rear of the car. The air-conditioning from the front didn’t reach her hiding place. Being labeled “bad” while she crouched in sweaty misery with every muscle and bone in her body aching didn’t help, either. Aunt Claudia wasn’t the only one who would pay when this deal was over. Patowksi was going to owe her big-time. The thought made her smile.
Chapter 7
Jenny pulled the GMC into the McDonald’s parking lot and took the girls inside to place their orders. Matt and Tess opted to stretch their legs and climbed out of the car, leaning against the frame as they talked. It was full dark now and the temperature had cooled appreciably. From her hiding place, Sam could hear as they resumed their interrupted conversation at the rest stop.
“So why does your father-in-law want you dead? The threat of divorce?”
Tess sighed. “It’s Steve.”
Comprehension dawned. “You mean if you took him away, the Renkov dynasty would end with Alexi.”
“Yes. And Mikhail knew with me out of the way my family would have no chance of winning a custody battle. Look at poor Jenny, hiding from an abusive husband. The only other kin we have is an elderly aunt up in Michigan. Mikhail has always been devoted to Steve—as if to make up for the way he messed up with Alexi, I suppose. I know he intends to train him to take over the family business.” She shivered.
“He knew you’d talked to a divorce lawyer.” It made sense.
“Nothing goes on in Miami that he doesn’t find out about. If only I’d known he was a criminal before I married his son…” Her voice faded before she took a deep breath and went on. “Mikhail can be incredibly charming when he wants to be. I
thought he was a highly successful international businessman dealing in imports and exports. And Alexi…well, he was successful, too—maybe the next Tiger Woods according to the sports commentators. I was dazzled—and dumb.”
“I can see how you could make the mistake,” Matt said sympathetically. “The media has all but forgotten Mikhail’s KGB activities since he defected and became the State Department’s darling. He’s supposed to be going straight, but a turkey like him never does.”
“I had my first inkling of that over a year ago.”
“What happened?” he prompted.
She smiled thinly. “I suppose I have to trust you, don’t I, Mr. Granger?”
“Call me Matt and yes, you can trust me. I won’t write anything until Renkov’s behind bars and you and your family are safe. My word on it.” Even though he could smell Pulitzer now, he would keep that promise. The lives of two innocent women and their children depended on it.
She studied him in the flickering lights from the fast-food building, then nodded. “Last year Alexi and I were at their house in Aventura during the holidays. I overheard Mikhail and Nancy arguing.”
“I’m surprised he’d let his American trophy wife in on his business interests.”
“I imagine she found things out the same way I did, by accident—or eavesdropping. The conversation was through a closed door, so I couldn’t catch everything, but the gist of it had something to do with offshore accounts in the Caymans.”
“Money laundering for the Ruskies is my guess,” Matt said.
“I assumed that, but I didn’t actually hear much. Then Alexi caught me and steered me away. I…I don’t know if he told his father.” She shuddered. “After all that’s happened now, I think he did.”
“When Alexi was drunk and threatened Mikhail, you have any idea what kind of evidence he had squirreled away that he could sell to Pribluda’s crowd?”
“Somehow it was related to Alexi’s traveling in Europe. He mentioned his last golf junket to some eastern countries bordering on Russia and the Ukraine. That seemed to set Mikhail off.”
Matt considered a number of scenarios related to what he’d dug up about Renkov’s illegal international activities. The possibilities were endless but evidence was damned scarce. For some reason he had yet to penetrate, the CIA seemed to be covering for the bastard. “Any idea where your husband might’ve hidden his cache?”
“He said something cryptic. Remember, he’d been drinking, and he was muttering as he came toward the door. Mikhail couldn’t have heard him but as I opened the door to the library to hide, I caught part of it. He said…” She paused and tried to remember his exact words. “Something about ‘a clear channel straight to Pribluda.’”
Matt puzzled over that. “Anything else that might help me find out who killed him?”
“Alexi was threatened a few days before he was killed, told if he didn’t throw a game in Santa Barbara, someone in his family would pay the price. He dismissed it as some sort of crank call. Celebrity athletes get them now and then. He played and won. But Mikhail insisted he inform the police about it.”
“Did he?”
“Yes. Ironic, isn’t it? Then he ended up dead in my place.”
“Because he was killed in your car instead of you. Hmm.” Matt considered the puzzle pieces, stroking his chin. “If you’re wrong and Mikhail did kill his son, he may have arranged the threatening phone call as a diversion. That’s a possible angle to check.”
Sweating beneath a ton of kiddy refuse, Sam committed everything they said to memory. If only she could keep it straight until she had the chance to talk with Patowski.
On the way back to San Diego the three drivers were tired and tense. After the girls fell asleep, Tess gave Matt everything she could think of about Mikhail Renkov, his blond trophy wife and a long list of associates. Matt figured the best way Tess and Steve would be safe was for him to expose Renkov as a criminal, perhaps even the murderer of his own son. Tess had been present when Alexi received the threatening phone call and described that in as much detail as she could remember. Right now, it was the most solid lead he had, barring any new inspiration Tess could come up with about the hiding place for whatever Alexi had threatened to sell Pribluda.
Listening in the back, Sam wished Mrs. Renkov knew exactly what was going on in the Caymans and what her dear Alexi had been up to while he was touring in Eastern Europe. He’d threatened to sell something to Mikhail’s worst rival, Pribluda. If the cops and fibbies could find Alexi’s evidence, she would really put money in the bank with them. Considering the cloud under which she’d left the force, that was a good thing.
Sam desperately wanted to filch a pen and paper from one of the kiddies’ backpacks and take notes as Tess and Matt talked. Of course, before she gave Pat anything, she had to recapture Granger and put him on ice. As the hours went by she began to feel the same sort of acute discomfort Matt had the day she snatched him. But she couldn’t slip out of the SUV and relieve herself at any of the rest stops because the adults and kids never all left the vehicle at the same time.
Tandem peeing. What a concept! Why the hell couldn’t they all get out at once and take care of business? Just when she was certain she couldn’t hold off another minute, they pulled off the highway and everyone piled out of the car at a neon lit sign advertising “Eats! All Nite!” As soon as they hit the diner, Sam hit the bushes behind it.
After taking care of business, she realized she was parched and starving. She’d always been a skinny kid with a high metabolism. In a big Irish family, everyone learned to wolf down food, much and often as it was available. It would be hours until they reached San Diego. Sam knew it wouldn’t be wise to chance eating or drinking anything. She settled for a few swallows of lukewarm, rusty water from a drinking fountain in the diner’s restroom hallway, then slipped back into her hiding place.
It was going to be a long hungry haul back to San Diego. She prayed her stomach didn’t growl and give her away.
As the SUV finally approached San Diego, Matt said to Tess, “If Renkov’s after you, he’ll likely have someone watching your place by now.”
“Thank God they don’t know about Uncle Hugo,” she said. “But if we lead Mikhail’s people to Steve, they’ll kidnap him.” Tess clutched the steering wheel with whitened knuckles. “I have to get my son out of there!”
“Call Uncle Hugo right now,” Jenny said with a hint of panic in her voice as she glanced at her sleeping girls.
Then a news bulletin on the radio cut short their discussion. An announcer’s voice droned, “This breaking news on the car-bombing death of golf’s golden boy Alexi Renkov. His widow, Teresa ‘Tess’ Renkov, wanted for questioning by Miami-Dade Police, may have a three-million-dollar motive. The Renkov family has alleged that their daughter-in-law killed her husband to collect on a three-million-dollar life insurance policy—”
Tess quickly clicked off the radio, then said, “Alexi didn’t have a life insurance policy—at least, that I know of. And I wasn’t the beneficiary of anything. By terms of the prenuptial agreement I signed, his whole inheritance goes to Steve.”
“It looks as if that devious KGB bastard’s setting you up to take a big fall,” Matt said. “Maybe you ought to give a heads-up to this Hugo Zandski.”
Tess pulled off the road, shaken by this latest revelation. She quickly placed a call to the old man, alerting him to watch out for strangers who might attempt to kidnap the boy. After signing off, she managed a weak smile. “He says Steve’s fine and he has enough weapons to hold off the whole Russian army.”
“My turn to drive,” Matt said, seeing how shaken Tess had become. As they switched places, he continued, “It’s only a matter of time until the cops track you to San Diego.” His mind whirled with various possibilities. Could Sam be working for the Company? They had the resources to figure out Tess’s location and send Sam Ballanger to get him out of the way. Then Renkov could do what he wanted with his daughter-in-law while the CIA
looked the other way, but that left too many loose ends. They’d just let Renkov’s goons kill him, too. Of course, there was Aunt Claudia. The old broad had a lot of clout in some pretty high political circles… Even the Company wouldn’t dare kill her only heir.
“We can’t let the police find us,” Jenny said, interrupting his chaotic thoughts.
Damn straight on that. “We have to get you out of Samaritan Haven until I can figure out what’s going on.” Matt tried to put the pieces together. Sam Ballanger sure didn’t fit the profile of a spook. And what about his aunt? He’d have to call her as soon as he saw that Tess and her loony sister and the kids were safe. His head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton candy. No one had had much sleep except the two girls since the three adults had taken turns driving through the night.
“How can we get to Steve if my father-in-law or the police are watching Samaritan Haven?” Tess asked.
“I have a map of the complex,” Jenny said. “Hugo gave it to me when we moved in because the girls kept sneaking off to play with friends in the next building and they’d get lost and I couldn’t find them.” Jenny climbed halfway over Tess and opened the large glove compartment, which was crammed to the brim with everything from Uncle Hugo’s guns to fossilized Girl Scout cookies. After rooting around for several moments, she said, “Here it is,” then unfolded the map.
Tess took it and began scanning it, then pointed to one spot, saying to Matt, “Look here. If we approach by way of Alvard Street, we can park the van, then cut across the common ground—”
“The woods are full of poison ivy,” a suddenly alert Tiffany announced.
“Tiff, you were supposed to be sleeping. How long have you been awake?” her mother asked suspiciously, swiveling her head around as she remained perched between the front and backseats.
“Are we going to be spies like in The Bourne Identity?” the girl countered, ignoring Jenny’s question.
“How did you see that movie, young lady? It’s not rated for kids.” Then before her daughter could reply, Jenny sighed and once more turned her attention to the glove compartment.