by Lila Dubois
Marco pulled the liner from the garbage can and passed it over. She wrapped it around her hand and reached in to the case, feeling along the edge.
“Got it,” she said.
“Got what?”
She held up what she’d found—a steak knife. “The murder weapon.”
Marco’s vision darkened and he sat down. “Murder weapon? Who did you kill?”
Tasha folded the knife into the bag. “Do you take the cello home with you?”
“Yes. Tasha, who was murdered? Why was the knife in my case?”
“Good, I can deal with the blood when we get it to your condo.” She went to the small couch across from the dressing table. Kneeling, she reached under it and pulled out a pair of black gloves and a small silver item about the length of a phone but only an inch wide.
“What’s that?”
“My knife.” She flicked a button and a blade shot out of the end. It was bloody. She wiped it clean with the gloves, careful not to touch it, and then put both into the garbage bag.
Reaching back under, she pulled out a tie and a cellphone, which she shoved into the bag. Finally, she bundled the jacket from the floor in on top of everything and twisted the bag closed. “I don’t think he had time to plant anything but the knife, but look around. Tell me if you see anything out of place.”
Marco looked around, but he was having trouble believing what he was seeing. “Why is there blood on your hand? Who was murdered? Who is he?”
Tasha stepped onto a chair and peered at the top of the wardrobe unit. “He is the man who murdered Sandra. She was stabbed with the knife that was in your case. He planted it there in order to frame you for murder. I followed him and we fought—that’s why there’s blood on my knife. That’s his jacket.”
“Did you kill him?”
“He ran. I stayed. I needed to distract them so no one would search your dressing room and find the knife.”
There was a knock.
Tasha jumped off the chair, tousled her hair with her left hand and unzipped her bodysuit down to her bellybutton, letting it gape open to show the inner curves of her breasts. She grabbed Marco’s shirt and yanked. Buttons went flying. “Answer the door.”
In a daze, Marco unlocked and opened the door. The manager was cradling his cello. The proper older gentleman took one look at Marco’s bare chest and ripped shirt and jerked his eyes to the ceiling.
“Here you go.”
Marco opened the door enough to accept the cello. Tasha had positioned herself on couch, and was trailing fingers up and down the bare triangle of flesh she’d exposed.
“Lyubov moya, come back to me.”
“Would you call me a car?” Marco smiled weakly. “Thanks.”
He took the cello and all but slammed the door in the manager’s face.
“I thought my reputation with women couldn’t get any worse. I was wrong.” Marco sighed and laid the instrument into the case and closed it.
“You’re the one who started it,” Tasha said. There was a hint of anger in her words. “I would have been fine on my own.”
“Beautiful, no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just a little freaked out.” Marco reached for her but she turned away.
“How long until they bring you a car?”
“Ten minutes.”
“That’s okay. I can wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She tapped her fingers against her thigh in a steady rhythm. “I got the evidence he planted on the body, and you’re now well alibied here. The assassin looked confused when he saw your jacket and the cello case—he didn’t think you’d be here.”
Marco took a minute to absorb what she was saying. This whole thing felt surreal. “Why bring the knife here?”
“Tomorrow an anonymous tip would be called in to the police saying you’d killed the woman whose body someone will find tonight or tomorrow morning. The police would search the condo first and then come here. They’d find the knife with her blood on it in your possession. If you’d left on time you would have had a less firm alibi for the time of the murder—an alibi that might be overlooked due to physical evidence. Your tie was near the body, your phone in her pocket. Damon’s hair was on her coat.
“You’d be a suspect in the murder, your connection to Damon would come out in the investigation, and the resulting scandal would bring enough public attention to both of you that the Trinity Masters’ secret would be in real jeopardy.”
There was another knock and Tasha zipped her suit closed. She picked up the garbage bag and wrapped it in Marco’s coat, which was draped over a chair.
She cocked her hips. “Let us go home and fuck like minks, lyubov moya.”
“We’re going to have a conversation about that accent.” Marco murmured as he picked up the cello case. There was a wheel on the bottom. He propped the neck on his shoulder and opened the door. The security guard stationed outside looked vaguely disappointed when Tasha emerged fully dressed.
She walked beside him to the side door of the hall where an SUV was pulled up. The guard let them out and locked the door behind them.
“Let’s go home.” Marco put his cello in the back and climbed in beside her.
“Home,” she said. “That sounds good.”
*****
“They were trying to frame me for murder,” Marco told Damon.
Damon’s face was a stony mask on the video call. “I doubt they would have been able to convict you, but it would have been an almighty scandal.”
Marco nodded. The instant they’d walked in, Tasha had confiscated his cello case. She now had it open on the counter and was using a powder she called meat tenderizer to clean it.
Marco had tried to help but she’d stared him down until he retreated to the breakfast bar to place a video call to Damon.
“Go back to the part about Tasha and the fight,” Damon said.
“Actually, I don’t know much.” Marco twisted his tablet so that Damon could see Tasha.
She was blotting the interior of the case with a paper towel. She held it up, inspected it and then nodded. She closed the case and fastened the buckles before taking it off the counter.
“What happened?” Marco asked.
She washed her hands and then moved the small box of supplies she’d retrieved from her luggage to the island. She upended the garbage bag they’d smuggled out of the Symphony Center on the granite. “When I found the body I cleaned up the scene. They had your hair, Damon, and Marco’s tie from last night and his missing phone.” She plucked the phone from the mess and set it aside. “I knew the assassin—who looked a bit like Marco—had at least a half an hour head start. I guessed that he would go to the Symphony Center and not come here.”
She unzipped the top of her suit, and for a minute Marco lost track of what she was saying.
“I got in one of the emergency exits and found the dressing room. He was already there, looking at Marco’s jacket and cello case. I think he realized there was something wrong. Marco shouldn’t have been in the building.
“Before I could attack, he heard me. We fought. I went down for a moment and he planted the knife. We heard guards. He ran. I didn’t want them looking around and finding the knife, so I stayed to be a distraction.”
Wincing, she peeled the top of the suit off, pushing it down to her waist. Blood poured down her left side.
“Tasha!” Damon yelled
Marco jumped from the stool and ran to her, heart pounding. There was so much blood. “I’ll call 911.”
“No. Don’t. I’ll be fine.” She winced and pressed a small medical pad to the injury. “The suit was keeping it from bleeding too much.”
“The blood on your hand…it was yours.”
“Yes.”
Marco forced her arm up and examined the wound. It was a slice along her ribs that looked deep.
“You need stitches.”
“I know.”
“So we’re going to th
e hospital.”
Tasha rolled her eyes. “No, we’re not. I’ll do it myself.”
“Take her to the hospital!” Damon demanded.
“Calm down and think,” she snapped. “We can’t. Marco, explain to him who you said I was.”
Marco haltingly told Damon how he’d said she was his girlfriend Natasha, a model. “And then she started speaking Russian.”
Damon rubbed his head. “She’s right. No hospital. The police might get involved, and if they talked to anyone who was at the rehearsal they’ll know you two had a fight. Instead of murder you might be charged with domestic abuse or assault.”
Marco took a seat and watched as Tasha cleaned and disinfected the wound and then picked up a small packet containing a pre-packaged needle. He got her a mirror and sat in silence as she closed her wound with three small stitches. When she was done, Marco helped her bandage it.
“What do we do now?” Marco knew who Tasha was, knew what she could do, but somehow watching her calmly stitch herself closed brought home for him that she’d lived a life he would never really understand.
“I’m going to run a trace on the phone.” Tasha’s teeth were gritted and she was taking shallow breaths. “Both women involved in the original plot have been neutralized, as has the assassin.” She took a bottle out of her kit, shook a pill out and swallowed it dry.
“But he got away.”
“He won’t get far.”
“Did you put a tracker on him or something?” Marco saw her shiver. “Hold on, I’m going to get you a shirt.”
He brought her a button-up shirt and then helped her slip into it. She thanked him and then asked him to get her computer. When he brought it over she hooked his stolen phone up and started tapping the keys.
“Tasha.” Damon sounded worried. “How do you know he won’t get far?”
“The blade of my knife was coated in sarin.”
“Jesus,” Damon breathed.
Marco looked at the screen. Damon’s face was ashen. “What’s sarin?”
“It’s a highly illegal chemical weapon that is seriously dangerous to handle. Tasha, how do you have sarin? In large quantities it’s considered a WMD. Even possessing it is enough to bring down UN sanctions and possible military action.”
Marco looked at Tasha, expecting her to correct Damon. Surely she wouldn’t carry a knife doused in something that dangerous. She ignored both of them. The skin on the back of Marco’s neck prickled.
After what felt like an eternity of silence, she spoke. “The stab wound wasn’t deep.” She finished tapping the keys. “Marco, watch this.”
“What am I looking for?” He took over the spot in front of the computer.
“The number of times the photos were downloaded from your phone.”
Marco watched the scrolling lines of code, feeling like he was in the matrix. Tasha put on latex gloves and then picked up the leather gloves she’d shoved in the bag, turned and dumped them in the sink.
“Sarin is a nerve agent.” She flicked the knife open, tipped what smelled like bleach out of a tiny bottle onto a gauze pad, and cleaned the blade. When she was done she threw the cotton pad into the sink. “In low levels it causes permanent neurological damage.”
“So the guy you fought with…he’s as good as dead,” Damon said.
“Yes.”
There was another beat of silence. Then Damon exploded. “Damn it, Tasha, what if he was just some random guy?”
Marco, too, was having a hard time understanding that she’d just effectively murdered someone. She seemed the same as she had before, as if this were all normal for her. Sometimes he forgot that it was.
She picked up the jacket and turned it inside out. “He wasn’t some random guy. He knew how to kill Sandra, was very skilled in hand-to-hand combat and there are no tags in his clothes.” She held up the jacket as proof.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Clothing can reveal more about a person than is safe. Anyone in the game would have tag-less items.” She tossed the jacket into the sink with the gloves, tie and cotton pad and took a small vial from her kit.
“What’s that?” Marco took his eyes off the computer for a moment to look at her.
“Chlorine triflouride. It’s a weak form, but it’s still one of the most flammable substances on earth.” She upended the vial into the sink, lit a match and tossed it in.
Marco jumped back as a fireball whooshed its way up towards the ceiling. It dissipated, leaving a pile of ashes, which she quickly washed down the drain.
“Holy shit!” Marco scanned the ceiling, but nothing seemed to be on fire. “You just made a fireball. In my kitchen. Damon, is that legal?”
Damon had his head on his desk, so all Marco could see was his hair. He looked up and rubbed his face. “She poisoned a man with a substance which, if she had a gallon of it, would be considered a WMD. She just used a different substance, this one so dangerous that the Nazis refused to touch it, to destroy evidence.”
“The computer,” Tasha snapped at Marco.
Marco glanced at the screen. “I think it’s done.”
Tasha stripped off her gloves. She peered at the screen and then a grin spread across her face. “Got it.” She wiggled out of the bottom of her cat suit, which was almost enough to distract Marco from the seriously dangerous and insane things she was doing.
“What did you get?”
“The photos were only downloaded once. There’s no real way to tell how many times the files were moved after that—but I can use the details from the phone to tighten my digital net.”
Tasha gathered up her computer and went to the dining room table.
Marco got her something to eat and sat with her as she worked on her computer. After an hour, she went to the bedroom and came back wearing shorts and fuzzy socks along with his shirt. Her glasses were perched on her nose. Marco stayed with her for another hour, but it didn’t seem like there was anything he could do to help.
He dropped a kiss on her head and then went and stretched out on the couch.
*****
It was nearly three in the morning when she sat back and flexed her fingers.
“Done?”
Damon’s voice startled her. She hadn’t realized that Marco had left his tablet on the table, the screen facing her and the video call with Damon still active.
“You’re still up,” she said.
“It’s not that late out here.”
She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She was hovering in that strange place between exhaustion and delight.
“You’re smiling,” Damon said. “Is that a good thing?”
“It is. Someone tried to send both the photos from Damon’s phone and the video to the Chicago police as well as several Chicago reporters.”
“Shit.”
“No, it’s a good thing. The net worked. Each file was corrupted, as were the source files in a cloud-sharing platform that some copies were being stored on. The messages will be blocked by the email clients, the text content is scrambled beyond recognition and anyone who did try to unscramble them or open the attachments would suffer from a serious OS malfunction.”
“You did all that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s amazing.”
The genuine admiration in his words had her smiling. “Thank you. I also got some leads on where the files originated from.”
“What do you mean?”
“My best guess is that Sandra and Jennie turned over the video and Marco’s phone to someone here in Chicago. I can see an initial upload here. Then the files were transferred to a server. An IP address that’s being cloaked logged in to that same server. I have to assume whoever that was copied or downloaded the images and video.
“It’s that download, which happened only a day after the party, and weeks before the blackmail, that I need to ID. Whoever did that is probably the person who put Sandra and Jennie up to this in the first place. They arrange
d the blackmail and they were manipulating the whole situation. They killed Sandra and tried to have Jennie killed.”
Tasha compiled her findings, ran them through an encoder and then uploaded them to a secure server that only the Grand Master and a few other members of the Trinity Masters had access to.
“I’m going to get some sleep, but I’ll head out in the morning.” She closed her computer and yawned.
“Go? Go where?”
“After whomever is behind this.”
“No, Tasha. You won’t. I meant what I said. You aren’t going to do this anymore.”
“Damon, I’m the only one who can—”
“Who can what? Hunt down this supervillian who tried to frame us?”
Tasha knew he was being sarcastic, but she replied, “Yes.”
They’d woken Marco, who stumbled over to the table and laid his hands on Tasha’s shoulders. “This whole time you’ve been able to see all the pieces—see how everything we did could and might be used against us.”
“It’s what I do.”
“You’re been beaten and stabbed. All for what? To protect our reputations? To protect the Trinity Masters? They’re not worth this. We’re not.”
“That’s not for you to decide.” Tasha’s words were quiet but firm. “To me, you are. I’ve suffered worse for people who never even knew I was there. I would die for both of you.” Her lips trembled for a second, but then she pressed them together. “When I’m with you, either of you, I feel…I feel normal. I can tease you, and you tease me. You respect me and want to keep me safe even when that’s stupid, yet you let me do what I need to.”
She shivered and Marco bent and wrapped his arms around her.
“I don’t know what love feels like,” she whispered, looking at Damon while Marco cradled her, “but I don’t think it could be better than this.”
Marco met Damon’s gaze and something passed between them—it would take a while for him to fully process what had almost happened to them, but for now what was important was that Tasha loved them, even if she didn’t use that word. Marco loved her, and if the look on Damon’s face was any indication, he loved her too.
*****
A few hours later, Tasha slipped out of bed. Despite their conversation last night, she had no intention of dropping this. Her assignment had been to deal with the blackmailer and to keep the Trinity Masters’ secret from getting out. She’d done that—both women involved were effectively neutralized. Sandra was dead and Jennie was so addled from drugs that Tasha doubted she remembered what she’d done. It also meant she wasn’t going to be of any help in identifying the person who’d paid five thousand dollars a pop to keep her on payroll at the BDSM club. It was entirely possible that once Jennie went to prison she’d be killed.