At Tattoo4U’s back door, I risked a quick squirt of light from the miniflashlight on my key chain. The padlock was secured, just as it had been when Aaron tried to break in. A quick glance to left and right, wrenching pressure on the bolt cutters, and the lock gave way with a metallic snap. Slipping the hasp free, I finagled the doorknob lock with a bent paper clip and a rarely used credit card, vowing to find someone to teach me how to use the picklocks Gigi had acquired via eBay. With a deep breath, I pushed the door open just wide enough to sidle through it.
I was barely clear of the door when my foot snagged on something solid angled across the floor and I staggered. I managed to stay upright by grabbing what felt like a counter or shelf but knocked against something that rolled in a clunky way and then dropped with a resounding thud. Great. I felt about as stealthy as a sumo wrestler in a lingerie shop. Steadying myself with one hand, I flicked on the small flashlight and pointed it at the ground. Oh, shit.
The suddenly shaking beam traveled up a jeaned thigh, across a blood-soaked shirt with two bullet holes in it, over a tangle of ginger beard, to a staring eye. The eye startled me so much I jumped and almost dropped the flashlight. A split second later I realized the eye was filmed and unmoving. Automatically, I squatted and searched for a pulse on the man’s neck, the wiry growth of beard feeling alien under my fingertips. Graham was slightly chilled and most definitely dead.
31
My phone vibrated, and I jumped. Still staring at Graham’s body, I pulled it out. Gigi. I debated not answering it, not wanting to tell her what I was up to since she was almost as opposed to breaking and entering as she was to lying, and she’d certainly freak if I told her about Graham, but I picked up before it went to voice mail. “What?”
“I slid off the road and wrecked the Mustang! The on-ramp was so slick. I can’t—”
The hysteria in Gigi’s voice sounded way out of proportion for a fender bender, and it stopped my own shaking as I focused on her panic. “Are you hurt? Did you call Triple A?”
“I’m fine. It’s not me, it’s her!”
Her? Had she hit someone? My muscles tensed.
“She’s with her. They’re meeting Dmitri. Oh, my God, my baby!”
“Calm down, Gigi,” I said, utterly confused. “Who’s with who?”
“Kendall,” Gigi gasped. “With Irena. Well, she’s not with Irena, but she’s in the Hummer.”
“Irena kidnapped Kendall?” Surely not. Who in their right mind would voluntarily snatch a sullen fourteen-year-old? Better question: Who would pay good money to get one back?
“I don’t know if she kidnapped her, exactly,” Gigi hedged. “It’s possible Kendall might have … invited herself along.”
“Good God!” I wanted to say more, but my imperative was to get out of Tattoo4U before a cop ventured along to ask awkward questions about the body on the floor. “I’ll call you back in a min—”
“They’re at the World Arena.” Gigi sounded close to tears. “Kendall heard Irena tell Dmitri she’d meet him there and they’d ‘finish it.’ She’s scared.”
“Where is she?” I didn’t need this, not while I was hovering over a dead body.
“Still in the back.”
“Of the Hummer?”
“Uh-huh.” She paused. “Under a blanket.”
“She stowed away.” I closed my eyes. Kendall must have seen Irena rifle Gigi’s purse for the Hummer keys and figured she’d get in on the action by stowing away. Maybe she even hoped to be the one to find Dmitri, confounding Gigi and me. Whatever, now she was in the midst of something that had already resulted in at least two deaths. “Tell her to stay in the car, no matter what Irena does.”
“I already did,” Gigi said. “I don’t know if she’ll listen to me.”
Fat chance.
“She’s not answering her phone now, Charlie!” Tears choked her voice.
“I’m on my way,” I said. “Hang up now and call Triple A, Gigi.”
I clicked off. After a moment’s hesitation, I picked up Tattoo4U’s phone and dialed the nonemergency police number to report a body in Tattoo4U. As I spoke, I trailed the flashlight’s beam around the room, hitting at least four computers, a printer, and a professional-looking camera on a tripod in front of a blue backdrop. I felt little satisfaction in the discovery now. I hung up on the startled officer, hoping I’d slowed the response enough to get clear before the cops arrived. Slipping out the way I’d come, I jogged back to my car without seeing anyone. Inside, I took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it out. I started the car and cranked up the heat.
As the finding-a-dead-body jitters subsided, I pointed the car toward I-25 and tried Montgomery’s cell. Voice mail. Leaving a terse message about my destination and the situation as I understood it, I cut the connection and thought about calling 911. Deciding to wait until I’d had a chance to assess the situation in person—What was I going to say? According to a fourteen-year-old, an ice-skater and his mother were maybe meeting some bad people at the rink?—I skidded slightly getting off at the World Arena exit and went with it, glad there were no other cars around. I drove as fast as I dared, then cornered into the World Arena’s vast, empty parking lot. The building, its domed bulk set above the lots and wide stairs leading up to it, a Parthenon of entertainment, squatted in the middle of an asphalt landscape. The dim security lights didn’t quite reach to where a lone vehicle was parked at the far edge of the lot. I raked it with my headlights: Gigi’s yellow Hummer.
Figuring that surprise wasn’t really an option, I drove to the Hummer and stopped with the car’s lights aimed into the vehicle. I could tell the front seat was empty as I braked. Leaving my engine running and my door open, I liberated my flashlight from the glove compartment and drew my gun from its holster. Cautiously approaching the Hummer, I confirmed that there was no one slumped in the front seats and peered through the windshield into the back. No one. I circled the car, trying to peer in the back window, but could see nothing through the tinted window. On the passenger side of the Hummer, the back door was closed but not securely latched, as if someone had been in too much of a hurry to close it properly. Whispering, “Kendall?” I worked the handle with my gloved fingertips.
No answer. Easing the door wider with the flashlight, I announced, “I’ve got a gun.” When that didn’t elicit a response or a bullet, I stuck my head in, hoping it didn’t get shot off. No one crouched in the footwells of the backseat. “Kendall, if you’re in here, now’s a good time to come out,” I said a little louder. When I got no reply, I ducked my head around the backseat to the cargo area, spotting a rumpled zebra-striped blanket, a Snickers wrapper, and what looked like oil drippings on the carpet. No Kendall.
Letting my breath out in a long whew, I aimed the flashlight beam at the stains, which glinted red and wet.
* * *
Turning off the rental’s engine and shutting its door, I debated my next move, unsure what I faced. My fingers wrapped around the gun were tingling with cold, and I wiggled them. At the very least, I figured Dmitri, Irena, and Kendall were inside, along with whoever was after Dmitri. Whether that was a lone operator or a team of desperadoes, I had no idea. I wished they’d parked in the lot so I could estimate a head count, but Gigi’s Hummer was the only vehicle in sight. I tried Montgomery again with no luck. With an inward sigh, I called 911 and told the operator where I was and that I’d found blood in a car—no need to mention it was just a few droplets—and had reason to believe someone was in danger inside the World Arena.
“Are you being threatened right now, ma’am?” the calm voice asked.
“No, it’s—”
“Please stay where you are and—”
Screw that. I flipped the phone closed, silenced it, and headed into the World Arena.
32
I tried three sets of doors across the front of the World Arena before finding one propped open with a folded wedge of paper. I wondered how Dmitri had gained access but figured if he’d
been skating here for years, he probably knew his way around and/or had managed to score a key at some point. The concourse curved blankly to either side of me, the areas closest to the glass doors very dimly lit by the ambient light from outside, the rest obscured by darkness, which I did not find reassuring. I’d been hoping for a security guard or two and a little illumination, at least. The last two times I’d bumbled around in dark buildings I’d found bloodied bodies: Bobrova and Graham. I devoutly hoped I wouldn’t find Kendall in the same condition.
The thought of the teenager and of Gigi’s worry spurred me on. Slipping through the door, I crossed the concourse to swinging doors that opened into the auditorium, moving from almost dark to I-might-as-well-have-my-eyes-closed dark. I paused to listen and thought I heard the low murmur of voices coming from below me, in the direction of the rink. Hugging the wall, I slunk around the door and peered down. Nothing but darkness. It was like standing on the lip of a volcano crater at night. I could feel the presence of other people, though; I was not alone.
“Fane!”
The voice was a bellow not far in front of me, and I instinctively dropped to my haunches behind the back row of seats. A faint reddish glow from the exit sign above me was the only light—useless.
“Fane! I am through playing games. We deal now or I will hunt down everyone you ever cared about and kill them.”
I didn’t recognize the voice. It was deep, with a Mexican accent.
“I’m here. Keep your shirt on.”
Dmitri. His voice came from the far side of the rink. He was trying to sound calm, but I heard a slight tremor behind the flippant words. Apparently, so did the other man, who laughed.
“It is good for you to be scared,” the man said.
“You have the money?”
“Right here.” He thumped on something that might have been a suitcase. “You’d better have the data.”
“It’s in the center of the ice. Walk out there, leave the bag with the money, take the disk, and go.”
“What is this shit?” the man grumbled. “If this is some kind of trick…” His voice receded, and I could hear footsteps as he tromped toward the ice.
Where the hell was Kendall? Where was Irena, for that matter? My eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness and I slipped my shoes off to silently descend the steps, grateful now for the inky blackness. I prayed the lights would stay off since I was all too shootable on the stairs. The fibers of my socks stuck to bits and smears of gum or congealed sno-cone syrup, and I could feel threads pulling away. Nearing the ground level, I slowed, feeling my way with my toes so I didn’t trip on the last stair.
At the bottom, I hunched low and duck-walked to the wall surrounding the rink. I poked my head up, scanning for either of the women. The ice gave off a dim glow of its own, probably the reflection of exit lights on the oval surface. I caught a flicker of movement to my left; someone crouched, half hidden in the aisle between the seats. Kendall? A faint whiff of musky herd animal and coconut drifted to me. Kendall was definitely nearby. I wondered briefly if my sense of smell was compensating for my eyes’ lack of usefulness in the dark. Staying low, I edged my way along the wall.
I was almost there when a light sliced through the darkness and made me fling a hand in front of my eyes and drop flat on my stomach. When there was no outcry, I raised my head cautiously. A spotlight, the beam of pure white light tracking from far above the rink, illuminated a circle in the middle of the ice where a packet the size of a CD lay. A husky man with brown hair crouched over the packet, duffel bag in one hand, gun in the other. I’d never seen him before, although the brown hair and pudgy physique made me wonder if he was the guy Angel saw with Dmitri at the grocery store. When the light blazed on, he spun around, pointing the gun wildly, trying to evade the spotlight, which followed him as he moved. “What is this?”
“Leave the suitcase and go, Aguilar,” Dmitri called. “Or should I say ‘Belcaro’?”
His voice was close, so I knew it wasn’t him operating the spotlight. Irena? Everything outside the circle of light was darker than it had been, cavern-in-the-bowels-of-the-earth black, and I blinked rapidly, trying to restore my night vision. I edged forward again, but a movement to my left caught my attention. I squinted, making out a vaguely human shape, but it was a man, not Kendall, and he was crouched, forearms braced against the wall, sighting a pistol toward the middle of the rink.
I froze. Whose side was he on? Since he hadn’t shot Duffel Man when he had the chance, I guessed he was gunning for Dmitri.
By this time, Aguilar had pocketed the packet and dropped the duffel bag in the circle of light. He called out, “This better be the end of it, Fane. Don’t expect any referrals from me.”
“I’m retiring,” Dmitri called back. “Open it.”
With the air of someone humoring a child, the man bent, flipped back the duffel’s straps, unzipped it, and flung it open. Bundles of money lined the interior, and several spilled onto the ice as the man nudged the case with his foot contemptuously. “Want to count it?” Aguilar taunted.
“I trust you,” Dmitri said, his voice jauntier now. “Just go.”
The man turned toward me, the spotlight at his back now, and shuffled toward the gate in the wall between the gunman and me. The spotlight trailed him, glancing off the still Zamboni parked by the gate. He would pass within an arm’s length of me when he came off the ice, so I sidled to my left, hoping he wouldn’t spot me in the dark. As he passed through the gate, he muttered, “Kill him,” to the hidden gunman and trotted up the stairs. A slight creak fifteen seconds later told me he’d pushed through the swinging doors leading to the concourse.
Silence settled on the rink. Not a peaceful silence, but the uneasy silence that comes a split second before an avalanche when all the birds and critters still, intuiting the rending of the snow crust before any human can hear it. I’d been skiing the backcountry near Steamboat once and felt that silence just before the ground heaved and a wall of snow hurtled down the mountain. The hiss of skate blades across ice broke the silence. Dmitri? I debated calling out, but the growl of an engine startled me, and I flinched as the Zamboni trundled across the ice. I could vaguely make out its hulking outline as a darker shape in the dark. Who was driving it? The gunman, figuring he didn’t have much of a shot with no light? I’d have given six months’ fees to know where the light switch was.
Even as I had the thought, the spotlight flared to life again, its beam skidding across the ice. I saw Dmitri standing in the middle of the rink on skates, the suitcase at his feet. The glare bleached his skin white, and his mouth was pulled down in a snarl of concentration. It glinted off the gun in his hand before moving on, finally illuminating the Zamboni. I followed the light beam up and made out Irena crouched behind the spotlight far above the rink, using it to steady her aim as she pointed a gun at the Zamboni coming from my right. She fired, and a bullet pinged off the metal. Just then, the overhead light blazed on, illuminating the strange tableau. The dark-haired man steering the Zamboni with one hand ducked and tried to level a silenced pistol at Dmitri. I swung my H&K up. I wanted desperately to find Kendall, but I felt some compulsion to keep the shooter from killing Dmitri.
“Look out, Dmitri! He’s got a gun!”
Kendall’s clear young voice rang out, and suddenly there she was on my left, surefootedly running across the ice toward Dmitri, pointing at the gunman. As if Dmitri could miss an armed assailant chugging toward him on a Zamboni. Startled, Dmitri swung his gun in Kendall’s direction. With a look of grim satisfaction, the dark thug’s finger tightened on the trigger.
With no time to think, I fired at the man on the ice cleaner, hitting him midtorso so his shot went wild, digging into the ice mere feet from Dmitri. In slow motion, the man toppled off the far side of the Zamboni, which continued toward the far end of the rink, where it lodged against a colorful travel agency ad on the rink wall, chirring uselessly. As I watched, Kendall flung herself at Dmitri, almost knocking h
im over, and exclaimed in the voice of a movie heroine, “Thank God you’re safe! I got here in time.”
Dmitri threw an arm around her to keep from falling but quickly disentangled himself. Her expression of bliss turned to one of consternation as he grabbed her by the ponytail, jerking her head back, and lodged his pistol under her chin.
“Drop it,” he said, gaze fixed on me, “and come here.”
“Dmitri, what—?” Kendall began.
“Shut it, Kendra,” he snapped.
“Kendall,” she and I corrected him.
“Don’t think I won’t do it,” Dmitri said meaningfully to me, jamming Kendall with the pistol hard enough to make her whimper.
“Easy,” I said, carrying my H&K loosely in my raised right hand as I bumped the gate open with my hip. After a moment’s hesitation, I stepped onto the ice, feeling the cold and wet immediately through my socks. Dmitri motioned toward my gun again, and I stooped to place it on the ice. As I straightened, I said, “You’re stressed, not thinking right, because of what’s happened. We’re no threat to you.” All the missing pieces were falling into place, and I was very, very scared for Kendall. Dmitri was clearly not the victim he made himself out to be, but I had to make him think I still saw him as the coerced, unwilling participant in this whole charade, at least until I figured out how to get Kendall away from him.
“Yeah, right,” Dmitri said. Without taking his eyes off of me, he said over his shoulder, “Mom, get the money.”
I’d been dimly aware of footsteps descending the stairs, and now Irena appeared, lithe figure tensed, gaze darting around the rink, gun gripped tightly in a white-knuckled hand. One foot skidded when she stepped on the ice, but she recovered. She ignored Dmitri’s order, stopping a foot from where he held Kendall. “How’d you get here?” she asked Kendall, eyes narrowed, tapping the gun against her thigh.
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