Hmph, I thought. Some safe house.
The sleeping alcove didn’t have a door. Instead a beaded curtain hung over the entrance separating it from what I presumed was a small apartment. I could hear people speaking in low voices on the other side, all in Ukrainian.
I parted the beaded curtain and padded on stocking feet into the main room, where Elzbeta, Rostovich, and two other men I didn’t recognize sat around an old chrome-and-Formica dining table, looking through a stack of photographs. I recognized some of them as from the same set Rostovich had shown me back at the Ritz.
He rose to greet me. “Good, you’re up. How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Tired. Weird.”
“That’s quite a combination. Can’t you just pick one?”
I ignored this and sat down in an empty chair. “Is there anything to eat?” I said, more to the air than anyone in particular. Rostovich muttered something to one of the unnamed men in Ukranian, who disappeared into another small alcove for a moment, then returned bearing a plate of bread and cheese. I gobbled up both greedily while I tried to decipher what Rostovich and Elzbeta had been discussing.
As if reading my thoughts, Elzbeta spoke up. “Once we know we’re safe, we’ll need your help, Domino.”
Domino. I didn’t want to go back there---not now. I’d just escaped that world and nearly died in the process. “Please don’t call me that. My name is Nancy.”
Elzbeta looked irritated and made a move to reply, but Rostovich waved her off. “Nancy, you remember our little discussion back in the States about my former client, and the photos I took of Chersonesus and the old Soviet buildings around here? Well, my original quest to solve the mystery of the dead shadow in those photos still stands. But now there’s a bit of a wrinkle.”
I raised my eyebrows in an unspoken question. Rostovich went on. “We’ve discussed that Julian received your fax, but we haven’t yet discussed what he did with your newspaper and magazine copy.”
My articles. In all the excitement I’d completely forgotten about them. True, I’d made getting my copy out part of my overall escape plan, but I’d never expected it to actually work. I’d scribbled off enough information for two abbreviated pieces that were more of a diary of my current predicament than art reviews, though I’d been careful to include as many references to Rostovich as possible---along with a request that any editor who received my pieces make an attempt to get the relevant photos from my apartment. I’d written both articles along with the plea for rescue without any expectation that they would be found, let alone used. But now it seemed my plan had worked perfectly. Perhaps even a little too well.
The expression on Rostovich’s face said as much. “I’ve often heard that foreign correspondents serving in war zones will go to great lengths to get their copy out, but this is the first I’ve heard of a reporter doing it via the shorthand hotel concierge method,” Rostovich said with a wink. “You did well, by the way. Art News Now is putting out a special edition showcasing your piece and the exclusive photographs, while the Plain Dealer ran your kidnapping narrative unedited in Section One of the Sunday edition. The AP wires picked it up the next day, and it’s gone viral. The papers want more. The whole world is following the story of Domino, the young-college-girl-turned-Mata Hari.”
“Which is not good for us,” Elzbeta snapped. “So much for going underground.”
“Now, now, it’s not as bad as all that,” Rostovich said. “We’ll just have to watch how we present ourselves, that’s all. Our hosts are both former KGB, and experts in disguise. Meanwhile, Julian has agreed to continue being our intermediary for collecting the copy. I recommend Domino---that is, Nancy---continue to write it in shorthand, though we can use an encrypted scan file to send it over the Internet now instead of a clunky old fax machine. By the way Nancy, I liked how you referred to me as, and I quote, ‘a cross between Salvador Dali and Al Capone.’”
Elzbeta gasped. “What? Jesus Christ, she’ll blow our cover! We can’t keep her with us. Take her to the American embassy in Odessa and leave her there.”
Rostovich shook his head. “Even if we could get there safely---which right now, we can’t---Nancy doesn’t have a passport. She has no way of proving her citizenship, and the staff there are just as corrupt as those in the Ukrainian government.”
I glanced back and forth between them. “If I’m such a liability, why did you go to all this trouble to get me?” I turned to Rostovich. “And not to be nit-picky, but if you were going to chase me halfway across the world after your old crime buddy kidnapped me, did it ever occur to you to bring my passport along with you? Hannah could have told you I keep it in my locked bottom desk drawer.”
Rostovich sighed. “She did tell me that, and we did look for it. But it seems our good friends Rolf and Wilhelm---Hannah told me about them---got to it first, when they grabbed the two of you from your apartment. By the way, those two did not work for me. They somehow intercepted the two bodyguards I sent over to protect you. My employees are still missing, and the police in Cleveland have no leads. Other than what we might be able to find for them, anyway. That’s where Nancy’s reporting skills can help. You can send out copy on what we find here using my secured connection without revealing our whereabouts. Someone who reads it back home might uncover a clue we’ve overlooked. There are many layers to this web, Nancy. I didn’t mean to catch you up in my own troubles, but now that you are, you’re probably the best person alive to get yourself out, not to mention several others.”
When Rostovich had arrived in my chambers at the House of Pleasure, I’d thought my troubles were over, that I’d be back safe in my American bed within a day or two. But it was not to be. “What makes you think I want to keep writing about all of this?” I exclaimed. “All I want is to go home. I don’t care about your stupid shadow-puppet-whatever mystery anymore. I don’t care about anything but getting out of this hellhole and back to the States.”
This wasn’t entirely true. I was thrilled at the prospect of the whole English-speaking world reading my words, hanging on every new detail as it happened---what journalist wouldn’t be? But I wasn’t sure I wanted to pay the heavy price required to get that kind of copy. Hadn’t I paid a big enough price already?
Rostovich reached over and squeezed my hand. His touch sent a jolt through my body; my groin warmed and my cheeks reddened as it evoked memories of our romp back at the Ritz. We’d been intimate only twice, yet I felt as if our bodies had been connected forever. Perhaps we’d been lovers in another life. Or maybe the passions stirred up when a Dominant like him took a virgin like me were so powerful they amounted to a powerful drug, even more addictive and seductive than opium. All at once I wanted to run away with him, to put all of this danger behind us and just share the pleasures we could give to one another. In a darkened room, with a silk scarf and a leather belt, things could be so simple, so beautiful.
“I wish I could get you home right now,” he said softly. “But Bluschencko controls most of Sevastopol, and he already knows we’re here. Until we can find a way to neutralize him, we’ll have to lay low.”
I leaned in closer to him. “Can’t you and I just go somewhere, alone, together?”
He kissed my forehead. “I wish we could. But not now.”
“First we must find Katje,” Elzbeta interrupted. She’d been eavesdropping. Not that there was a lot of privacy here. The whole apartment could fit into my parents’ garage.
“Who is Katje?” I asked.
“My sister,” Rostovich replied. “She’s been missing for almost eight years. I think the photos I showed you back in Cleveland might be the key to finding her. But I need your help. I need your special gifts. I can’t do it on my own.”
“My special gifts?”
“You have so many,” Elzbeta said. “I told you once, you didn’t believe me. Now you have proof.”
Domino (The Domino Trilogy) Page 34