Mathers said nothing. Didn’t make eye contact in the rearview mirror. Windermere sat back, watched the city lights through tinted windows. Goddamn it, she thought. We don’t have time for this shit.
87
IRINA FOUND HER MARK outside a convenience store. She watched him from the shadows.
He was about her age. Pale, his skin pockmarked with acne. He was alone, and he appeared to Irina as though he were used to it. He had sad eyes and a slight frame. He did not look threatening.
She’d been in her hiding place for ten minutes, watching customers pass in and out, trying to work up her nerve. A group of swaggering young men in baseball caps lingered by the front door, smoking cigarettes, laughing, swatting at flies. There were five of them, cocky and brash. Irina shied away from them, stuck to the darkness. Prayed they wouldn’t look in her direction.
The men finished their cigarettes and disappeared inside the store. Irina let herself breathe. Inched out of the shadows a little bit. Within a minute or two, her mark showed up.
His car was old, but it was clean. It ran okay. The young man parked and fiddled with his radio, and then he climbed out of the car and started for the store. Irina pushed herself off the wall. Now or never.
“Hey,” she said, stepping out of the shadows. Her voice came out harsh, too urgent. The young man flinched. Irina tried again. “Hey,” she said. “You.”
The young man turned around this time, his expression guarded, his body tense. He didn’t look interested in her; he looked wary, as though he could read her intentions already.
“You,” she said again. She put a smile on her face, approached him slowly. “Do you want to have me?”
The young man shifted his weight. “Um,” he said. “I don’t—”
“I want you.” Irina tried to sound seductive. Put her hand on her hip, dared the young man to admire her legs. “Will you take me somewhere?”
“Um.” The young man looked around again. “I just need some milk, lady. Whatever you’re selling, I don’t really—”
“Forget the milk,” Irina said. “Take me.”
The young man laughed, a childish burst, surprised. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t—this is too weird.”
He started toward the store. Irina followed him. “Wait,” she said. “Please.”
The young man ignored her. Reached the front of the store just as the gang of men emerged from the front doors. The young man nearly collided with them. Ducked aside as they came out, pushing and shoving each other. Then the men saw Irina and stopped, nudged each other. Their eyes roved up her legs to her hips and the swell of her breasts. One of them, the tallest, said something to his friends. They all laughed.
“What’s up, cutie?” the tallest one asked her. “What are you doing tonight?”
Irina didn’t answer. Didn’t move, just stood frozen in place. Felt a tightness in her chest. Behind the men, the young acne-faced man slipped into the store. Irina, desperate, watched him go. Wanted to call to him, but he was gone. She was alone out here, now, with these terrifying men.
“What’s the matter?” the tallest one said. “You don’t like me? Why you acting so scared?”
One of his friends called out something, and all the men laughed. The tall one spun around, faked a punch at his friend. Then he smiled at Irina, his teeth gleaming, his eyes narrowed.
“You don’t want to be friendly?” he said. “You want to be mean?”
He took a step toward Irina, then another. Not cautious steps; he was coming for her. He would take her if he wanted, and he knew that she knew it. His friends followed close behind him. They spoke to Irina. She didn’t know what they said, but their voices were mocking, singsong. They swaggered toward her. Irina ran before they could catch her.
She could hear the men’s voices as she fled the parking lot, away from the convenience store and into the darkness, the night, through an industrial neighborhood, the men’s laughter echoing off the vast warehouse walls. She ignored them, kept running until she was far away from the store and the men were gone.
She crawled into an alcove and huddled in the darkness. She didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare close her eyes, afraid she’d see the tall man leering at her. Or worse, she’d see Catalina. Instead, she huddled there, wide-awake and hungry and scared, cursing her failure, her ineptitude, her fear, waiting for the morning.
88
STEVENS HUNG AROUND the FBI office just long enough to get the full story from Mathers. Then Windermere kicked him out.
“Get some sleep,” she told him. “Kiss your wife and say hi to your kids. Harris is going to want a full briefing tomorrow, so you might as well be well-rested.”
“Yeah?” he said. “What about you?”
“You know me, Stevens,” she replied. “I never sleep.”
But there were circles under her eyes, and a flatness to her voice, and Stevens knew she was exhausted. Knew she was pissed off, too, and knew she’d sleep an hour or two in her office tonight, if at all. No way she was leaving anyone else in charge, not now.
“Go,” she said, pushing him out the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She signed out a Crown Vic from the motor pool for him, flung him the keys, and waved good-bye. Then she climbed back on the elevator, and Stevens couldn’t do anything but find the car she’d picked out for him and drive home.
He thought about Irina Milosovici as he drove. Wondered what she planned to do. It was dark up in Brooklyn Center, away from the lights of the city, and he wondered if she was safe somewhere. If she even had a plan.
He thought about Catalina Milosovici, too, and couldn’t even comfort himself with hope. She was most likely still out there, still alive somewhere, but Stevens felt only helplessness as he contemplated what she must be enduring. It was no wonder Irina had run away. She must have felt like she had to do something.
> > >
THE HOUSE WAS DARK when Stevens pulled up. He parked behind Nancy’s Taurus in the narrow driveway and entered through the side door, quiet as he could.
He felt his way into the kitchen in the dark, fumbled with the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. Then he stopped. Something was moving in the living room.
His senses heightened, his nerves on edge, Stevens felt around for the light switch on the kitchen wall. Found it and flipped on blinding light. Someone gasped from the living room. Someone else swore.
Stevens looked in through the doorway. Saw his daughter on the couch, framed in the light from the kitchen and bare from the waist up aside from her bra, which she was clutching to her chest in a panic. Beneath her lay Calvin, still as a log, as if Stevens wouldn’t notice him if he just didn’t move.
“Oh my God.” Andrea fumbled with her shirt. “Get out of here, Dad.”
Stevens ducked away, gave his daughter a little dignity, the image ingrained in his head. He saw Andrea, half-naked, still a child, on the couch, her boyfriend’s hands on her. He saw the girl in the Blue Room, battered and bruised, could still feel the impact wound where her attacker had shot him. And he saw Catalina Milosovici, her flat stare in the photograph, Andrea’s age herself and a prisoner, a victim. He stepped back into the room and fixed his eyes on Calvin.
“Son,” he said, his anger rising, “you need to find your way home now.”
89
“THIS IS BULLSHIT.”
Andrea, now fully clothed, sat on the couch. Triceratops lay beside her, blissfully oblivious. Nancy sat in the easy chair opposite, and Stevens stood by the window, too angry to sit still.
“It’s not bullshit,” Stevens said. “And you’ll watch your language, young lady.”
“We weren’t even— Ugh.” Andrea flounced back against the couch cushions. “It’s not like that. I’m practically grown up anyway.”
“You are not,” Stevens told her. “You are nowhere near an adult yet, and
you continue to prove it.”
Calvin was gone. Stevens realized he could have offered the kid a ride home, made him call his folks or something, instead of just letting him run off into the dark. At that moment, though, he’d been furious. Couldn’t trust himself not to strangle the kid.
“I am too,” Andrea said. “I’m practically seventeen, Dad. I’m allowed to have friends.”
“Is that what you call tonight?” Stevens asked. “‘Friends’?”
Andrea colored. “He’s a good guy, Dad,” she said. “He’s not some criminal. Just because everybody you know is a piece of shit doesn’t mean the world’s full of them.”
“Andrea.” Nancy glared at her. “Watch your mouth.”
“So, what, Dad?” Andrea said. “You think Calvin’s, like, some rapist?”
Stevens felt his anger mounting again. “I think tonight’s behavior is entirely inappropriate, is what I think.”
“So you want me to be some kind of nun?”
That doesn’t sound so bad, Stevens thought. Christ, where did my little girl go?
“You cannot just let guys take what they want,” Nancy was saying. “Andrea, you have to be smarter than that.”
Andrea flung around to face her mother. “You think I don’t know that? My God, it’s like I’m out turning tricks or something.”
Stevens and his wife swapped a glance. “You’re not to see him, Andrea,” Nancy said. “Not alone in the dark. Not like this.”
Not at all, Stevens thought, but he didn’t say it. “This is bullshit,” Andrea said again. Then she stomped up the stairs and was gone.
For a moment, neither Stevens nor Nancy said anything. Then Nancy sat up. “We can’t keep her from growing up,” she said. “Not forever, Kirk.”
“That’s not growing up, Nancy,” Stevens told her. “Fooling around on the couch, letting some guy take her clothes off because he told her she’s pretty, it’s not—”
“It is, though,” Nancy said. “We all did it.”
“Irina’s sister is the same age as Andrea,” Stevens said. “That little girl in Billings, I can’t even guess what those men did to her.” He looked at his wife. “The world’s a tough place for girls like Andrea. I don’t want her getting hurt.”
Nancy rose, crossed the room to him. Took him in her arms. “She’s a smart girl, Kirk. She’s not going to do anything stupid.”
“She’s naive,” Stevens said. “She’s too trusting. She thinks the whole world’s as kindhearted as she is.”
Nancy hugged him. Rested her head on his shoulder. “We can’t keep her locked up forever.”
“I know, Nance,” Stevens said. “But maybe just until she’s thirty.”
90
CARLA WINDERMERE spent the night in the situation room at the FBI office in Brooklyn Center, working the phone and struggling to coordinate the efforts of the FBI, the BCA, the Minneapolis and Saint Paul police departments, and the Hennepin and Ramsey County sheriff’s offices as the search for Irina Milosovici continued.
So far, she’d been shut out. A couple cranks had phoned in reports, but for the most part, the wire was silent. She’d sipped bad coffee and waited out the night, had turned down an offer from Mathers to crash at his place—“Closer than your condo,” he’d said, “I’ll sleep on the couch”—and tried to stay upright. Finally, around a quarter to four, she passed out on a desk somewhere, got a couple fitful hours.
She woke up to her phone ringing. Reached for it, groggy, wiping the hair from her face and the sleep from her eyes. “Windermere.”
“Agent Windermere, it’s Andy Tate in Reno.”
“Tate.” Windermere blinked, tried to shake herself awake. “You guys miss us already?”
“Something like that.” Tate gave a low laugh. “Could have used you tonight, anyway. Reno PD managed to track down those girls you were after. Place called the Bunny Lounge in Damonte Ranch. Guess a couple of the working girls had heard of it, been trying to get an officer out there for months.”
“No shit.” Windermere was wide-awake now. “So you found the place. You get a chance to look around?”
Tate chuckled. “Oh, I’d say so,” he said. “Found us a tidy little ranch house with about fifteen girls inside, none of whom speak a lick of English. Couple low-life meth heads running the show; they were too damned high to care we were putting them in handcuffs.”
Windermere rubbed her eyes. “Anything to point us back to Irina Milosovici’s kidnappers?”
“Not from what we can tell. We’re debriefing the girls, but, like I say, most of them don’t speak English, and half of them are stoned, to boot. We’ll be lucky if they can tell us their names.”
“Right,” Windermere said. “I mean, whatever you can find. Maybe we get lucky and one of them knows the score.”
“Prevailing opinion around here says they don’t, but I’ll work on it anyway,” Tate told her. “I’ll call you if we make any progress.”
Windermere thanked him. Remembered Sanja from the Blue Room, and asked Tate to keep an eye out for the girl’s friend Amira among the Bunny Lounge women. Fifteen more girls rescued, she thought, as she ended the call. It was a pretty damn big achievement, all things considered; should have made her want to jump for joy.
Not now, though. Not with both sisters missing and the whole case stalled around her. Not now. This morning, the news only made her more tired.
91
VOLOVOI ARRIVED IN NEW JERSEY early in the morning. He was running on fumes, literally and figuratively.
The stolen Accord was almost out of gas when he pulled into the container lot. Catalina Milosovici was asleep in the passenger seat. Volovoi eyed her enviously, wishing he could do the same. He was exhausted. Hadn’t slept in more than a day. His shoulder stung raw. The bleeding had stopped at least, but the wound needed treatment. Volovoi needed treatment. He needed a rest.
He parked the stolen Accord at the back of the container yard, hidden from the road among stacks of empty boxes. There was a building back there, too, a long, low, ramshackle thing. Locked doors. Volovoi woke the girl up in the passenger seat. Pulled her out of the car and across the lot to the building, made her wait while he unlocked a door. Then he pushed her inside.
The building’s interior was dark, musty. A couple grimy windows and a bare lightbulb. Volovoi heard the girl gasp as she took in her surroundings. As her eyes adjusted, and she saw what the building contained.
Women, about twenty of them. Young girls in a large prison cell, stick-thin, their eyes wide. He’d been culling them from the boxes as they arrived in America, had Bogdan and Nikolai pick out the youngest and prettiest for safekeeping, just in case. Just in case the Dragon’s demand for royalties pushed him into a corner. Just in case he needed to appease his partner’s appetite for young female flesh quickly. Just in case the last week or so happened.
Volovoi had heard on the news about the brothel in Reno, the Bunny Lounge. Another buyer raided. The Blue Room in Billings was out of commission, too. The FBI insects were hot on the trail; soon enough, they would follow the trail here. His entire operation would be closed up and ruined. He would have only New York.
Well, so be it. He would get richer in Manhattan than he’d ever dreamed in New Jersey, and the Dragon would ensure the FBI agents wouldn’t connect the two operations. Let them tear down his New Jersey enterprises. Volovoi would move to Manhattan with the Dragon and flourish again.
Just so long as he could survive the next couple of days.
Volovoi shoved Catalina Milosovici in a cell with the other women. Then he pulled out his phone and called one of his idiot foot soldiers.
“The container yard,” he told him. “Bring me a new car, and a first-aid kit, immediately.”
“With pleasure,” the foot soldier replied.
Volovoi studied the girls in their cell. Pictured Lloyd
, the New York buyer, leering over his steak, and felt his stomach turn. “And have someone come out here with a truck,” he told the foot soldier. “We need to get this product to Manhattan.”
Volovoi killed the connection. Turned back to Catalina Milosovici and the rest of the girls. The Dragon’s prize did not look out of place among the rest of Bogdan and Nikolai’s selections. He wondered why the idiots hadn’t picked her out in the first place.
Because they were idiots, he told himself. One more reason they’re dead.
Catalina Milosovici stared at him. She didn’t say anything. The other girls watched him, too, some of them wary, some resigned. Volovoi let them look at him. He double-checked the lock on the cell door. Then he walked to the back of the building, to a dusty leather couch, and he lay down and slept for a while.
92
WINDERMERE SURFED THE INTERNET until dawn, hunting down leads and trying to chase the sense of foreboding from her mind. When the sun finally showed itself through the eastern windows, she forced herself to stand, washed up in the ladies’ room, pulled a change of clothes out of the suitcase she hadn’t had a chance to take home yet, fixed her makeup, and rode herd on the morning shift at the various law enforcement agencies around town.
Around eight, Stevens straggled in, looking like he’d taken her advice to get a little sleep and straight ignored it. He gave her a weak smile and a cup of fresh coffee. “How was your night?”
“Restless and uneventful.” She told him about the news from Reno. “You?”
“Dramatic,” he said. “Walked in on my daughter playing grab-ass in the living room with some punk from school. I took umbrage and World War Three erupted.”
Despite her fatigue, Windermere had to smile. “You shoot the poor kid, or what?”
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