Russian Connection

by Lakes, Lynde

“Sorry, honey,” the woman drawled. “I haven’t seen your friend. Only families are staying in here now.”

  Nikki caught the word now. “What about before?”

  “Six men shared the empty unit. Standoffish bunch. Foreign speaking.”

  Nikki’s heartbeat accelerated. The kidnappers? If so, where was Glenda? Nikki took a deep breath. “Are you sure you didn’t see a woman?”

  “Just that bunch of men. Try the dormitories. One of the teens might’ve seen your friend.”

  The dorms teemed with young people, either jabbering in noisy groups, or off alone studying. None of the students she spoke to remembered seeing Glenda.

  Maybe she’d have better luck at the main hotel. Her neck prickled and she glanced around. A pencil-thin man stood in the shadows of a pine tree watching her. Was he with Security? Was he Russian? She skirted past him at a fast pace and sighed in relief when he didn’t follow her.

  Inside the lobby, she grabbed a hotel brochure and sank into cushioned chair and studied the layout diagram. The main floor consisted of a lobby, a dining room and an international theater with meeting rooms on both the ground and second floor. That meant the guest rooms were on floors three through six.

  Probably the rules in this religious hotel were even stricter than in a regular hotel. It was risky, but she had to get upstairs and look around. She waited until the reservation clerks were busy and slipped up the stairs to the third floor.

  Halfway down the corridor she met a slender, dark-haired woman in her early forties coming out of one of the rooms with a chart in her hands. The woman smiled, but her eyes looked wary. “May I help you, Señorita?” she asked. Her badge read: Carmen Garcia, Head-housekeeper.

  Nikki swallowed to moisten her dry throat. “I’m looking for my friend,” she said, trying to control the tremor in her voice.

  “Name?”

  “Glenda Hollinger.”

  Carmen punched the name into a hand-held computer. Her eyes narrowed. “She’s not registered here. What is your name?”

  Nikki’s heart pounded. “Nikki Brown.” She had no legitimate business here—she’d better win this woman over fast.

  She held out a flyer with Glenda’s picture on it. “This is my friend. She’s been kidnapped, and I think she’s being held here.”

  “Oh, no!” Carmen’s hand shot to her mouth. The sudden tears in her eyes surprised Nikki. “I’ll do anything to help you. Anything. I know what you’re going through. I…”

  Nikki felt a wave of compassion for her without knowing why. “What happened?”

  Carmen closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. “No importante, you have plenty of troubles without hearing mine.” She stared off into space for a moment, as though remembering something very painful, and then she straightened her shoulders. “I’ll pass the word to the maids to watch for your friend. But she could be here without us knowing.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Sometimes special guests ask for total privacy, and the rooms become off-limits even to staff.”

  Excitement rose in Nikki. Although she’d wanted some irrefutable sign of her friend’s presence, just knowing it was possible for her to be there gave Nikki hope. Dayd was good at sneaking into places where he didn’t belong. Now she wished he was here. She had no idea how to gain access to those secret rooms herself.

  Nikki glanced down at her map of the grounds. “What about the steam caves, Carmen?”

  She shook her head. “Your friend couldn’t be there. Muy caliente—too hot.” The more emotional Carmen became, the more she lapsed into Spanish.

  “I can’t leave without checking,” Nikki said firmly. “Is there a guard on the gate?”

  “No, but you’d need a key. And you’re not a registered guest.”

  “Could you take me? If I didn’t check…and if Glenda was tied up in there with all that heat…”

  Carmen paled, as though she’d seen the face of death. “I’ll take my break now.”

  They left the hotel and headed across the grounds in a brisk gait. At the sound of footsteps behind them, Nikki turned. She saw nothing. Her gaze lifted to the Arrowhead Landmark; it seemed as though a living, breathing entity was watching over the whole valley.

  Carmen paused briefly. “Magnifico, no? Even the Indians of long ago felt its power. Many tribes put aside their weapons of war to bring their sick and wounded for healing to the cold water springs and steam caves.”

  Nikki nodded. The hotel brochure had mentioned that, along with the Legend of the Arrowhead—a tragic tale about a warrior who, following custom, entered the caves unarmed where an enemy waited to fatally stab him in the heart. His grief-stricken sweetheart, Indian Princess White Sage, asked the wind to shatter her into one-hundred-thousand featherlight seeds, and blow the delicate grains over the sacred land. From the seeds, white sage plants grew to form an arrowhead, the tip forever pointing to the steam caves where her lover had been murdered.

  Nikki shivered and folded her arms over her chest. She knew the scientific claims that perennial plants, fault lines and shifting soil had caused the oddity of nature, yet…

  Carmen took Nikki’s arm again and gave it a squeeze. “You should know that the Indians believed anyone of true heart who visited the sacred caves would be blessed with lasting love. I like to believe it, too.”

  Lasting love, Nikki thought, that was something she’d never had.

  At the sound of crunching gravel, she looked behind her. A man’s pencil-thin shadow darted out of sight. She shivered. Was it the man who had watched her earlier?

  Just as the covered walkway leading to the caves came into view, Carmen got a call on her beeper. “Lo siento,” she said. “There’s an emergency. I must rush back to the hotel.”

  “But we’re here now. Please open the gate for me before you go. I’ll be inside less than five minutes, I promise.”

  “There’s a hotel rule that all guests must go in twos. It’s dangerous to go in there alone.”

  Nikki knew that Carmen was bending all kinds of rules for her. But she needed this last favor. “I’ll be careful.”

  Carmen hesitated.

  “Please. It could be a matter of life and death.”

  Carmen sighed. “Cinco minutos. No mas,” she said, opening the gate and letting Nikki inside.

  Hoping five minutes would be enough, Nikki hurried down the covered walkway to an unlocked heavy wooden door. She paused a moment and rubbed her arms, thinking of the tale of the Indian warrior murdered inside those rock walls. Nikki took a deep breath, then opened the heavy door and entered into an inferno of heat. She pushed aside a curtain of hemp. Inside the small room-like rock cavity, steam rolled over her. The blanket of whispery, hissing fog rose steadily from the rock strata beneath the latticework floors, stealing her breath. Heat swirled about her, its moist fingers clinging to her skin.

  Her slacks and sweater grew damp and burdensome. She longed to shed her clothes, but wouldn’t be here long enough for that. With all the energy she could muster, Nikki raced from cavity to cavity, calling Glenda’s name. Her voice echoed against the rock strata. Nikki’s heart pounded hard. Every pore in her body opened. Moisture rolled from her face. Her hair went limp.

  After proving to herself that Glenda wasn’t in any of the small caves, she silently thanked God. No one could last long in this heat.

  Growing weak with fatigue, she staggered to the entrance. With all her dwindling energy, she shoved on the heavy door. It wouldn’t open. She tried again in vain, and then pounded on the rough wood. “Please, someone help me!”

  Panicked, she pushed—pounded—shouted. Time passed, but she had no sense of time. It could’ve been merely minutes, or… Her knees gave, and she sank to the floor. If only the car she’d seen had been Dayd’s. How she needed him. Sounds of hissing steam ebbed into silent blackness…

  Chapter Nineteen

  Nikki felt a refreshing coolness. She opened her eyes to beige walls and felt a firm mattress beneath her. Blinking, she tried to br
ing the world back into focus and realized she was on a daybed in the hotel’s employee lounge. Carmen leaned over her, her face drawn with worry. “Are you all right, Señorita?”

  Nikki nodded. “I couldn’t get the door open.”

  “Muchas miedo, no?” Carmen stroked Nikki’s forehead with cool fingers. “A huge boulder blocked the entrance. The maintenance man I sent to check on you had to get help to remove it.”

  “How did it get there?”

  Carmen shrugged. “Every now and then one of those giant rocks mysteriously breaks loose. I should not have left you alone.” She frowned, looking puzzled. “And it wasn’t even necessary—the emergency call was a mistake. No one needed me.”

  Nikki’s antenna went up. She had a strong hunch that the incident was no accident—that someone had purposely blocked the door to seal her in until she died, or at the very least to scare her away. She recalled the darting shadow on the path. With a fulcrum and lever, even a slight-built man could have placed the boulder in front of the door. The thick cave walls and hissing steam must have muted the noise. She rubbed her aching head.

  After she rested a while and slowly drank several glasses of water, she began to feel pretty good. She touched her cheek. It felt like velvet. At least the steam gave her a great facial. But the oppressive heat could have killed her.

  When the symptoms of dehydration passed, she thanked Carmen for everything, and handed her some flyers with Glenda’s picture to show around to the rest of the staff.

  Nikki drove back down the hill, realizing how close she’d come to death. Then a surge of excitement shot through her. Oh, wow, she thought. The attempt on her life was a good indication that someone didn’t want her snooping around the hotel. That meant she was on the right track. And, dammit, no one was going to scare her off.

  She swung by her apartment to pick up Jimmy and his two friends. They distributed the rest of the flyers to restaurants, markets, everywhere they could think of. By the time they returned to the apartment complex darkness was creeping over the valley. She parked. “Thanks, guys,” she told the boys and they all went their separate ways.

  In spite of Dayd’s instructions to stay put, she needed to take care of her cat. It wouldn’t take long. She walked inside and sighed. It felt good to be home, familiar. With the new locks on the doors, she felt safe and decided to cancel her reservation at the B & B. Before she hung up, she asked for any messages. There weren’t any. Why hadn’t Dayd called? Had he let her down?

  She quickly prepared a cup of tea, grabbed a saltine cracker, dabbed it with some cheddar-spread and took it to the living room. She curled her legs beneath her in her favorite overstuffed chair and wriggled until she was in just the right spot for comfort. Mitzi leaped up on her lap and began to purr. Nikki stroked the Siamese’s silky coat. “I need to persuade Detective Sinclair to search the hotel,” she told the cat. “If I disclosed what I learned, and what happened—”

  Mitzi closed her eyes and purred a little louder.

  “You’re right,” Nikki told the cat. “If I mentioned the off-limits rooms and the falling boulder, he’d want to know what led me to the hotel.”

  Oh, what a tangled mess she’d gotten herself into. She couldn’t even tell him about her plan to meet with the kidnapper tomorrow night. If she asked for the detective’s help, he’d try to stop her. Still, she had to find out if he’d made any progress. Without disturbing the now napping cat, Nikki dialed the police department.

  Detective Sinclair wasn’t in, but she left her number and he returned her call a few minutes later. Based on the background noises, she figured he was home. It was Sunday after all, and she couldn’t expect him to be out looking for Glenda every minute.

  “Thank you for returning my call so promptly,” she said. “Glenda’s been missing over fifty-four hours, and the longer she’s gone…” Her throat tightened and tears flooded her eyes as she imagined the horrors her friend might be suffering.

  “I know you’re worried,” he said, sounding kind for the first time. “But new information lends credence to the idea that she might have left on her own. I checked at the hospital where she works and learned she’d taken a week’s vacation. Friday night was her last shift.”

  Nikki had forgotten. Glenda had planned to take the week off to repaint her apartment and do some shopping for new drapes and carpeting.

  “But she wasn’t going anywhere. Her parents are coming to visit next month and she wanted to paint and redecorate the apartment for their visit.” Nikki gripped the phone tighter. “Please, you have to take this kidnapping seriously. Somehow it’s all connected to Luke’s and Kitty’s murders.”

  “So you admit the two murders are connected?”

  She’d almost forgotten that she was still a suspect. “I’m only going on what you told me.”

  The detective went silent for a moment. “I want to find your friend for you,” he said finally, “but so far we’ve come up empty. Get me something concrete to go on.”

  This was all Dayd’s fault. If he hadn’t removed the key chain from the crime scene, the detective would know about the connection to the hotel. But if she told now, she and Dayd could both end up in jail. Still, she had to do something.

  “I know this is a long shot, Detective Sinclair, but I had this dream about the Arrowhead Springs Hotel. I think my friend is being held there. The head-housekeeper told me there’re some rooms marked as off-limits to the staff.”

  He chuckled. “Now you’re clairvoyant, huh? Sorry, dreams or hunches won’t get a search warrant. Every hotel has some rooms with do-not-disturb signs.”

  “Please, Detective Sinclair, can’t you at least take a drive up there…look around, talk to the staff?”

  He sighed. “Okay, you win. Sometimes it’s the wild leads that pay off. But I’d like to know how you really came to suspect that funny business is going on there. I don’t buy the dream bit.”

  Nikki’s face grew warm. “Thanks, detective. I knew I could count on you.”

  What a laugh, she thought as she placed the receiver back in the cradle and glared at it. She could count on Sinclair about as much as she could count on Dayd. Why hadn’t Dayd called? She checked at the B & B again. Nothing. Where was he, and what was he doing?

  Chapter Twenty

  Hours later, hidden by darkness, Dayd and Boris crouched in a tangle of oleander bushes near the entrance of the Arrowhead Springs Hotel watching a constant parade of people coming and going. Their strategic position gave them a clear view of the hotel and well-lit circular driveway.

  Boris put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and took it out again. Dayd knew as badly as Boris wanted to smoke he wouldn’t chance it. They could be discovered. Besides, The Bear knew better than to smoke on land surrounded by a national forest, especially after three hotels on this site had burned to the ground—the last in the biggest fire to ever hit the area.

  Dayd tapped his pocket to assure himself that the map of the hotel layout was still there. He had studied it carefully and knew every passageway, every nook and cranny, and, even without the benefits of lights, he felt he could find his way around. It was necessary to have that ability because the hotel lights went out at 11:00 P.M. Getting off the grounds presented a problem too. At midnight, the senior guard locked the entrance gate and his men began their high-security patrolling. He and Boris had a very narrow window of opportunity to slip in and out of the area undetected.

  Unbidden, Nikki’s image flashed into his mind. He remembered the way her emerald-green eyes had blazed and the way her lower lip had trembled when she’d given her ridiculous ultimatum. As much as she fought it, she counted on him. He would rather walk on a bed of hot coals than disappoint her.

  Daem, he swore in Russian, they needed a break.

  Then it came—paydirt. Dayd tapped Boris on the shoulder and pointed. Boris nodded as Peter Ziyakbusky placed a traveling bag in the trunk of a black Saturn and slowly drove away.

  “Follow him,” Dayd s
aid. “I have to get inside.”

  “Watch yourself, repoh,” Boris said, calling him hero in Russian, then he took off running through an eucalyptus grove toward his rental car.

  Dayd rolled his eyes and shook his head at the nickname, then circled around the back of the building, keeping in the shadows. The whistling wind and uneven ground reminded him of the bloody night he’d rescued Boris from Godunov. His actions had been instinctive, violent, not heroic.

  Dayd glanced over the grassy bluff. It was a clear night, and lights from San Bernardino Valley and the whole Inland Empire winked up at him. The facade of peacefulness was deceptive. Crime was rampant down there. But he could only deal with one crime at a time. It was all up to him now. Boris would be occupied all night trailing Ziyakbusky. They’d come in two cars, hoping for a break like this.

  Even before he’d found the polished arrowhead stone under the murdered woman’s bed, rumors buzzed among the other operatives that some of Godunov’s goons stayed at this hotel. Now he’d confirmed it. What a shrewd cover. Who would suspect evil going on inside a religious hotel? Ziyakbusky had probably wheedled an invitation by promising the holy leaders that he would further their cause in Russia. They would never deal with him if they knew he was a member of the Russian Mafia.

  Voices came from the building. Dayd dug his nails into his gloved palms. To keep Nikki from going through with the insane plan to meet with one of Godunov’s men, he’d have to make his move on this place without his usual lengthy surveillance.

  He peered in windows where the drapes weren’t drawn, then slipped through the unlocked glass door of an unoccupied meeting room. He moved quickly in soundless, black running shoes. According to his map, the guest rooms were on levels three through six.

  In his dark clothes, he was just another shadow on the wall. He moved stealthily, going from room to room, hiding when he heard footsteps or voices coming in his direction. Although he could usually talk himself out of tight spots, he didn’t have time to get caught.

  He listened outside closed doors, sometimes hearing people talking. Nobody spoke Russian, or with the distinctive accent.