My stomach drifts down an inch. One consolation: in Russia, I’m not obligated to thank him for not helping. I pivot to the lobby, slowing to a stop at the reception desk.
Danny’s — no. I can’t let myself even think the words. I march up to the desk and wait for the clerk, Natalia. “Have you seen Mr. Fluker, room 302?”
She searches her memory. “I don’t think so.”
“He didn’t leave a message?”
“No, miss.”
The chill starts in my scalp and creeps down my neck, but I try to act normal, nodding to her.
What do I do? He can’t just pop into a restaurant next door — the hotel’s centrally located, but in a residential area off a main thoroughfare. He can’t negotiate with a cabbie or understand a marshrutka driver. His phone doesn’t even work.
He couldn’t go wandering off in a foreign city alone, right?
But if he’s not alone —
My knees nearly give way, and I steady myself on one of the lobby’s gold sofas. The buzzing at the back of my brain turns into full static. I can’t block out the thought this time.
Danny’s gone.
I sink onto the couch cushions. After two weeks of marriage, I’ve lost my husband.
I lost Danny.
He can’t be gone — he can’t. I vault to my feet again. Pointless, maybe, but I have to search a city of over a million. I have to do something.
I have to save Danny.
I canvass every restaurant, produkty (corner store) and apteka (drug store) I can find, scouring a range far beyond a normal SDR. I loop back to check the hotel every fifteen minutes.
Every time I reach our floor, the hope sparks up again. And every time, his room is empty and dark. The last ember of hope is fast dwindling.
I strike out again, taking a different side street — all residential. I hurry down the block, scanning the pedestrians around me, like Danny wouldn’t say something if I passed. At the corner, I open a door to yet another produkty. I have to look twice to make sure he isn’t in line. But the images in my mind aren’t of Danny standing at the counter, being waited on by the clerk. They’re memories I never want to face again. Danny’s wrists in ropes. Danny flinching away from a gun aimed at his head. Danny bleeding, broken, shot.
The last one wasn’t really him, but a memory of my partner twisted in a nightmare to be Danny. I have worked so hard and risked so much to keep that from becoming a reality, to keep Danny safe. That possibility slips through my fingers with every step, every stop, every failure.
Next, a napitki. Nothing. Yeah, shocker, he’s not in a liquor store. Unless he’s tied up in the back. Should I be barging into the stockrooms of every shop?
No, I should be trying to figure out who could’ve done this. I’m not law enforcement, but a few obvious suspects leap to mind: Borislav. Kita the lingerer. The FSB officer.
Before I know it, I reach the merchants’ entrance to the tsentral′nyy rynok — the open air market square downtown. This courtyard is bustling every hour of the day and every season of the year, but now it’s quiet. Above the rooftops loom the gold onion domes of the cathedral where I met Semyon this morning. The cathedral’s clock tower shows it’s been over two and a half hours since anyone has seen my husband.
The truth finally smothers the last little bits of belief, of hope. I don’t know where to go. I’ve already failed, and even a band of bloodhounds wouldn’t find him if he’s already tied up, spirited away, or even —
Even dead.
I drag myself back to the Hermitage one last time, but his room’s still silent, dark, empty.
I drift back down to the lobby and sink into a gold couch. Defeated.
The reality crystallizes like ice in my bones. I lost Danny. I lost Danny. I lost Danny.
The worst-case scenario was not supposed to be an option on this mission.
Like I flipped a switch, the pain and the panic shut off. Too much. I can’t handle it. I can’t deal. I’m still sitting on that golden velvet upholstery, staring up at the tray ceiling, but this can’t be real, this can’t be happening, this can’t be my life.
No, it’s real, and I have to — I have to — I don’t know what. Everything’s so wrong, no course seems right. Track down Borislav and . . . what, beat him? Not harsh enough.
Do I call Semyon? The politsiya? Normally I wouldn’t come within twenty meters of them as a spy on their turf, but it would look weirder if his interpreter didn’t.
What did Danny say about a whole lot of my job consisting of looking like I’m not up to anything?
I can’t do these mental gymnastics. I can barely keep my brain from running through the memories — real and invented — of all the times I’ve put Danny in danger.
I lean forward on the couch and bury my face in my hands, like I can hide from those nightmares.
Footsteps trail past me, through the lobby, toward the elevator. The dimmest hope glows in my heart: maybe the kidnappers are back to search his room. I barely dare to look.
Danny strolls out of the lobby, his back to me as he heads for the elevator alcove.
Am I imagining this? Pasting his suit and hair and gait on a stranger in psychic CGI?
Against my better judgment, a full blown sunray of hope sends new energy into my exhausted muscles, and I practically leap up. I fly across the tiles to the elevator alcove. Just as the doors slide shut, I catch a glimpse. Danny. Not even close to dead.
I’m gonna kill him.
I run up both flights of stairs, but Danny’s already down the hall when we get to our floor. He unlocks the door and I swoop in behind him. He steps in and turns to close the door — and then he sees me and startles. “Oh, hey. You’re back.”
“I’ve been back. Where have you been?”
“Dinner.” He steps aside to invite me into the room.
“Where?”
Danny gives me a smile that says not sure where the aggression’s coming from here. “Floating restaurant on the river.”
“The one Borislav mentioned? Why not downstairs?”
“He called and invited me five minutes after you left. You could’ve come too, if you’d been around.” His voice carries no accusation.
Good, because I’m still on the attack. “You didn’t leave a note? You didn’t think to call?”
“I did leave a note, under your door, and I don’t have a SIM card. Or your number.”
“You—” Crap. He’s got me.
“You want to talk about disappearing?” Judging from his tone, his genial façade is reaching its stress limit. “Where were you? Do I want to know?”
“That’s immaterial.”
He scoffs, like I’m so unbelievable it’s amusing. “When I worry, it’s immaterial, but when you worry, it’s the end of the world?”
“When I worry — !” I strangle off the shout and press a fist against my lips. I can’t break cover. I can’t fight with him. I can’t let myself yell —
I’m angry, but the heat in my chest’s covering the real reason I’m upset.
I really thought I lost him.
If Danny thinks being silly was me being vulnerable, he has no idea what my real weaknesses are.
“We need to talk.” I pivot and practically jog away. Danny’s key rattles in the lock behind me. I reach the stairwell and drop to sit on the top stair. Danny’s through the fire door before it closes, and his footsteps pause behind me.
He settles on the step next to me. He tries to reach for my hand; I hug my elbows and don’t let go.
We’re alone. I’m supposed to be Talia. I promised to drop the cover here, but I’m in no mood for cute. These identity flip-flops are more dizzying than any clothing quick-change.
I need to be Lori. Lori, the interpreter. Lori, the stranger. Lori, the person who isn’t his wife.
I have to be Lori. Even when we’re alone.
“Sorry,” Danny murmurs. “Didn’t mean to scare
you. I tried to let you know—”
“I know.” My voice holds too much emotion, and I try to swallow that down.
“Come here.” He holds out his arms, waiting to hold me.
I need that — I need him so badly. But I can’t. I hold up a stop palm. “That’s exactly what I need to talk to you about: I have to be Lori. All the time. It’s too hard to jump back and forth.”
“Okay.” He sounds like he’s buying time while he constructs a better plan.
I’d love to hear it.
Nothing comes. We sit there, the silence growing stale, until I gather the courage to turn to him again. He’s shifted away, and my whole side’s cold where he should be next to me.
My job is pushing us apart. It’s pushing him away. Stealing him.
I can’t sit anymore. “Well.” I rise to my feet. I came back to use him as a cover to get into Borislav’s office, but the new plan falls into place as I speak. “Since you’ve already eaten, I’d better finish my rounds.”
“‘Rounds’?”
I cock an eyebrow, daring him to ask for details of my spy escapades deep in enemy territory.
“You don’t want me to come with you.” It’s not a question.
I shake my head and start down the stairs. If I had my way, I think I’d lock Danny in his room for the rest of this trip. Better for me to be out after dark alone than risk a repeat of tonight.
But Danny doesn’t turn for our door. I stop on the stairs and pivot to him. “Stay.”
He pins me with a raised-eyebrow, dropped-jaw I can’t believe you seriously did that. “I’m sorry, did you think you brought your pet dog with you?”
“Danny, I—” — totally treated him exactly that way. The realization lands in my gut like a sucker punch.
I’m not trying to be a jerk. He knows what I mean, after what I’ve been through. The anger and fear of ten minutes ago threaten a resurgence, and I stuff them into the furthest corner of my mind and lock them down. But I can still hear them in my voice, breaking as I almost beg him, “Please. Stay.”
“Where are you going?”
I have to give him something. “Shcherbakov. I’ll be fine.”
“When I worry—”
The door to our floor swings open, and we both fall silent. The maintenance man in navy coveralls doesn’t make a point to look at us or avoid our eyes. I watch him the whole way down the stairs. Don’t recognize him, but not like I know every FSB officer. Jumpsuits are a classic way to blend in.
Potential enemy operative leaving our floor. Who knows what he might’ve done in our rooms? Or found in mine?
Danny’s won this argument — no way am I leaving him here alone. Back to my original plan, I guess. I start down the stairs. At the landing, I turn to Danny, still on the floor above, waiting for me.
With an exasperated sigh, I nod for him to come.
“Do I dare ask what changed?” he asks when he reaches me.
“Maintenance man. Could’ve gone through our rooms, left a trap.” For all I know, Borislav took Danny out to give this guy time to get into his room, and the maintenance man either hid when I checked there (been there, done that), or I missed him.
“Or,” Danny draws the word out. “He could’ve done maintenance.”
I’m silent as long as possible, then begrudgingly admit, “Maybe.”
“Are our lightbulbs safe? Should we check on them?”
I shoot him a mock glare. Cute? Sure. Cautious as we should be? Ha.
He pursues me down the stairs, into the cold and up the hill to the thoroughfare. We’ll need a real cab again, and I hail one. I give the driver detailed directions once again.
We’re not alone, and we shouldn’t talk — but I have one more detail to settle before we get to Shcherbakov. Like Borislav said, they learn English from third grade these days. The cabbie might be too old to qualify, but he hasn’t made any attempts at English. After several tense seconds slide by, I decide it’s worth a shot as long as I monitor the cabbie (and the mirror). I lean over to Danny. “Give me your watch.”
“Going to let me in on the plan?”
I beckon for him to give it up. Silently grumbling, he unlatches the wristwatch I gave him as a wedding gift — more bells and whistles than . . . I don’t know, a bell tower in a whistle factory. It’s been a long day, okay?
“Thanks.” I slip the watch in my pocket and it clicks against the hard drive cloner. Anticipation builds in my chest again.
We’re going in. We pull into the parking lot. The cabbie agrees to wait for us underneath the blue neons of the Shcherbakov sign, and Danny and I march up to the glass doors. I glance at Danny. Earlier, his cover was the truth. Now, I’m trusting a ton of this cover to him — a lie.
Suddenly, I almost wish I’d stolen his watch and let him freak out over losing it. But no going back. My heart rate hikes before I give Danny his story. “You lost your watch and think it’s in Borislav’s office.”
Though he doesn’t make eye contact, Danny confirms the story. We stride through the doors and find a security guard kicking back at the reception desk. He stands and waits for us to speak.
“Tell him” is all Danny can manage. So I explain how we visited Direktor Zverev, and Danny’s missing his watch, and we have to find it before the cleaning crew finds it (i.e., steals it). The night watchman listens to the entire spiel impassively. He isn’t the slightest bit moved until I smooth my long copper bangs and tilt my head to smile up at him.
He unlocks the inner door and leads us in. Danny follows me close enough to lean in and mutter, “Not sure whether I hate that or love you even more.”
I meet his eyes. I want to wink — but I need to be Lori. My gaze falls.
The guard escorts us to the conference room where Borislav gave his PowerPoint, but obviously our search comes up empty. (At least it looks good for the cover.) I paint on that small smile again and turn to the guard. “We were also in Borislav Vyacheslavovich’s office.”
The guard frowns at me, but takes us to Borislav’s office and opens it. “Dve minuty,” he says.
I translate. “Two minutes.”
The guard stands in the door, though we don’t need the supervision. Two minutes isn’t nearly long enough to search with the state this place is in. I direct Danny to look next to the desk, and I round it, to get at the computer underneath. A fairly recent model. Good. With the desk shielding me from the guard’s view, I plug the cloner into a front USB slot.
Okay, now I need . . . another minute?
Danny comes even with the edge of the desk in his hunting, but he doesn’t say anything to find me fiddling with the CPU. “Any luck?” he says. Hope the guard can’t interpret the heavy irony in his voice.
“Not yet.” I try not to think about the clock ticking in my brain. (Finish up, cloner.) “Did you check by the door?”
He puffs out a breath, playing his cover. “I’m so dead.”
“Afraid of your wife’s wrath?”
“You know, one thing I love about her is that she’s a fighter. And that’s who she is sometimes even with me.” He moves over by the door, and I’m not sure whether the resignation in his tone has more to do with me or our little charade. “Still love her.”
I command myself not to look up, but I don’t hide the smile.
The green light reflects under the desk — all done cloning. (Don’t you wish your external hard drive worked that fast? We’re putting the “flash” in “flash memory.”) I slide the cloner out of the computer and pick up the watch. “I’ve got it. Under the chair.”
Danny releases his relief in an audible sigh. “Thank you.”
“Yep.” But I stay on the security guard. He hasn’t given any sign of understanding us, and that doesn’t change. I start past the desk, but “accidentally” bump a paper pile, triggering the same avalanche Borislav did this afternoon. His USB drives clatter to the floor.
Danny’s still focuse
d on putting the watch on, so I drop to my knees to clean up my mistake. All my practice in Paris ensures the maneuver goes smoothly, and the pile of flash drives is back on the desk by the time Danny finishes latching his watch, with one of the USB drives concealed in my palm. Danny helps me up, and the security guard marches us back out to our waiting cab.
My gaze settles on the side mirror, fixed on the maroon car with round headlights behind us. After about two minutes, I can’t take the quiet any longer. I might have to be Lori, but that doesn’t mean we have to sit in awkward silence. “Was dinner good?”
“Yeah.” Danny finally turns away from his window. “We had . . . pirozhki?”
“Yum. What kind of filling?”
He relents a little. (The power of good food.) “Minced beef and mushrooms, and — wow. Borya recommended that and the appetizers, but I didn’t catch the name.”
Oh, but I caught the name. “Borya, is he?”
“He said I should call him that.” Danny tilts his head a fraction of an inch, making his expression cautious. “Why? Did I do that wrong?”
“No, you’re fine. Short form of the name. It just means you’re real friends.”
Danny considers that. “That’s okay, right?”
Okay? An FSB officer building trust with my husband? Um, no. But I think I’ve overdrawn the your-paranoia’s-cute account with Danny. “What did you pick up about him?”
“Not much. Was I supposed to?”
I hold out a hand to say duh. Can I blame someone so wholly genuine when it’s not second nature to him to spy?
He rolls his eyes, and I direct mine back to the side mirror.
And a set of round headlights. A chill that has nothing to do with the cold slinks down my back. The same maroon car?
Should’ve known our afterhours visit would attract attention. I scan the blocks of buildings on either side of us. I didn’t specify what route to take, but this one’s okay. Though I haven’t scouted this street, it’s familiar, like I walked it a lot when I lived in Rostov.
A maroon car follows us through another light. Where can we stop for surveillance detection? Bank — closed. Karaoke bar — no parking. Boutique — closed. With a cabbie who’s already done something unusual for us, we’re running out of options faster than a “traitor” sentenced to the gulag. My pulse revs up to run. I stare at the mirror, watching those lights.
Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy) Page 65