FIFTY-SEVEN
Abby pulled furiously at the copper pipe. The tape had dug deep into her wrists, and she could barely feel her hands. But she could not stop. The rusted pipes moaned and groaned under her efforts, but she could not seem to break the welded fittings.
She recalled her training, the resource of how to face crises, how to pull a twenty-four-hour shift, from where to summon strength and energy and focus. She closed her eyes, saw Charlotte and Emily in their little cribs on that day in South Carolina, the look on Michael’s face.
With one last burst of force she broke free. The severed copper pipe sprayed water high into the air. She pulled the duct tape from her wrists, her mouth, ran across the room searching frantically for something, anything she could use as a weapon. She spotted Aleks’s shoulder bag in the corner. She fell upon it, tore it open. At the bottom were four loose bullets, the rounds Aleks had taken from the magazine of Kolya’s gun. Abby pulled them from the bag, then began to search the nearly dark room for the weapon. She crawled on her hands and knees, more than once slipping in the blood. The sounds had ceased coming from upstairs, and the silence was even more terrifying than the sounds.
She soon found the. 9 mm pistol underneath the old oven. She tried to remember where Michael had thrown the magazine. She couldn’t recall.
Think Abby.
Think!
Michael had thrown the weapon to the right, the clip to the left. Abby stood where Michael had been standing, followed the trajectory with her eyes. To her left was a stack of wooden moving pallets. She ran across the room, began lifting the heavy pallets, pushing them to the side, her fear and frustration coursing through her like an electric current. When she lifted the last pallet she heard the metallic clank. In the dim light she saw the magazine. She fell to her knees, loaded the bullets into the magazine, her fingers slick with blood and sweat.
“Isa!” Emily screamed again from upstairs.
“Oh, my baby!” Abby said. She jammed the magazine into the gun, chambered a round, ran up the steps.
When she reached the second floor, and looked into Michael’s old bedroom, she saw a tableau she knew would haunt her forever. The room was covered with blood. Emily sat in the corner, just beneath the windows, her hands folded in her lap. She was shaking. Aleks was slumped against the wall near the closet, a long needle protruded from his temple, leaking blood. His eyes were closed.
Then there was Michael. Michael was on the floor, face down. The back of his shirt was covered in blood. Abby ran over to him, put down the gun, and tried to put pressure on the wound, but it felt too deep.
Oh God, Michael! Please don’t die! Please!
From somewhere in the distance she heard sirens, shouting. Perhaps it was in another world, another life.
The phone, she thought. Aleks had a phone. She crossed the room, began to rummage in Aleks’s coat pockets. She went through them all, found nothing. It must have fallen out downstairs. Before she could get to her feet Aleks opened his eyes. He rocked forward, struggled to his feet, lifted her high into the air. He threw her into the wall. Plaster crumbled, exploding into the room in a cloud of dust.
“Tutred!” Aleks screamed as he fell back to his knees, and began to creep across the room, toward Emily. He crawled on his stomach, using the knife, sticking it in the floor, pulling himself forward in a sheet of glossy blood.
“Em!” Abby shouted. “Come to Mommy. Run!”
Emily was frozen. She did not move. Abby looked around frantically, found the gun in the morass of her blurred vision. She picked it up as Aleks edged ever closer.
“No!” Abby yelled. “No!”
Abby held the gun out in front of her, hands trembling. Sweat salted her eyes. Aleks was now just a few feet from Emily.
“Stop!”
Aleks brought himself to his knees. Choking back blood, he raised the knife over his head.
The booming roar of the gun shook the room, stealing all sound. The bullet slammed into Aleks’s back, blowing a large hole in his chest. He fell to the floor, driving the long needle deep into his skull. The metal snapped. He rolled onto his back, his eyes wide, feral, disbelieving.
At the moment his eyes drifted shut, Abby saw something creep over his face, something dark, like the passing of a violent storm.
He was crossing over, becoming. He smelled the wet fur, felt the warm breath on his face. He turned his head. The grey wolf sat next to him – young and strong and full of life.
Behind the wolf was the gate to his home. The gate was open, the road to the house covered in pine needles, the air sweet with the fragrance of cornflower. He knew that if he could just get inside, Anna, Marya, and Olga would be waiting for him.
He saw a shadow near the gate. A man in a black leather coat, a garment a few sizes too large. The man was young, but not so young that he had not already crossed the devil’s path. There was a finger missing from his right hand. In the dying light Aleks could just make out the young man’s face, and in it he saw himself.
In it he saw eternity.
Abby sensed someone else in the room. She spun around, gun raised. Behind her was a woman in an attack stance, holding an automatic weapon. From the barrel of the woman’s pistol curled a thin ribbon of smoke. Abby pointed the gun at the woman, but the woman did not back up, did not recoil. Neither did she lower her gun.
The woman spoke to her. In the aftermath of the thundering echo of the gun blast, Abby could not make out the words.
Somehow Abby knew the woman, the voice, but she could not place her. All she knew was that this was not over. The woman was there to take her daughter.
“No,” Abby said. She cocked the pistol. “You can’t have her!”
“It’s okay,” the woman said. “You can put the gun down.”
A man stepped up behind the woman. Abby could see the man, too, had a weapon in his hand. He held it at his side. He was nervous, and his eyes shifted back and forth.
“It’s over,” the woman said softly, lowering her weapon. She slipped it into her shoulder holster. “Please, put down the gun.”
The sirens drew closer. More footsteps. They were coming up the stairs.
“Please,” the woman repeated. “Put the gun down, Mrs Roman.”
Abby looked at the woman’s eyes, heard her words.
Mrs Roman.
Detective Desiree Powell took a few steps forward, never taking her eyes off the pistol in Abby Roman’s hand. To those whose only experience with a moment like this was watching Law amp; Order or reading about it in a book, Powell had a message. The longer you stare into a steel barrel, the worse it gets. No one ever takes it in their stride.
She gently eased the weapon away, handed it to Fontova. She heard the young detective exhale loudly.
“It’s over,” Powell said softly. “It’s all over.”
Abby Roman slid to the floor. She gathered herself to her trembling little girl with one arm, positioned her body to protect her husband. Powell had seen a lot of carnage in her time, a lot of fatal and near-fatal injuries. Michael Roman did not look good.
With weapons secured, Fontova stepped out the door. As paramedics rushed inside, Desiree Powell found her own way to the floor. She’d had two guns pointed at her on this day. She’d like to say she was getting used it, but she hoped she would never reach that place.
In her twenty-four years on the NYPD, she had drawn her weapon four times, fired it twice. Today was her first kill. She was kind of hoping to make it one more year without reaching that milestone, but it was not meant to be. When she had gotten out of bed that morning, she did not know that by the end of her tour she would be part of this exclusive club.
While the paramedics tended to the living, Powell closed her eyes.
Outside the window, the city of New York went about its business; traffic swept along, oblivious, heading toward the majestic bridges – the Triborough, the 59th Street, the Williamsburg – toward the island of Manhattan with its steel and glass ridd
les, dark fingers in a gloaming sky. Powell had read once that more than forty million people came into New York City every year, each with their own dreams and thoughts and ideas on how to solve the city’s many mysteries.
Some, Desiree Powell knew too well, by the grace or wrath of God, never leave.
FIFTY-EIGHT
The street was crowded with kids and parents. Easter in Astoria was a magical time, a time when Michael’s father would relent and let him go down to La Guli’s, the legendary pastry shop on Ditmars near 29th Street. Once there, money in hand, Michael had to make a decision between a pignoli tart or a sfogliatelle. Life was never easy.
On this Easter Sunday Michael lay in bed, eyes closed, the maddening aromas of baking ham, new potatoes, and peas with mint owning his senses.
When he opened his eyes he was more than a little startled to see a woman leaning over his bed. She was going to kiss him. It wasn’t Abby.
Instead of kissing him, the woman lifted his left eyelid, shone a bright light in.
He was in the hospital. The horrors came flooding back.
The girls.
Michael tried to sit up. He felt a pair of strong hands on his shoulders. As he eased back down, images came floating toward him. The paramedics loading him on the ambulance, the sound of the sirens, the lights of the operating theater. He recalled the pain coming and going, felt the weight on his chest and abdomen. He saw his wife and daughters sitting on a bench at Cape May. Behind them a dark wave rose.
He slept.
The room was filled with flowers. Abby stood at the foot of the bed. Tommy was next to her.
“Hey,” Tommy said.
Tommy looked older. How long had he been gone? Years? No, Michael thought. It was just the stress. Abby’s face was drawn and pale, too. Her eyes were rimmed in red.
Michael closed his eyes for a minute. He saw the monster standing over Emily, the knife near her throat.
“The girls,” Michael said weakly. His voice was barely a whisper.
Abby looked away for moment. Michael’s heart turned to ice. She looked back. “They’re… they’re fine. They’re staying with my brother. They don’t seem to remember much.”
Michael wished it were the case for him. “Is that good or bad?” Each word seemed to drain an equal measure of his energy.
Abby paused for a while. In the hallway people in blue scrubs were running somewhere. “I don’t know.”
“The man,” Michael managed. “Aleks.”
“He’s dead.”
“Did you…?”
Abby’s eyes were wet. She shook her head. “No.”
It was enough. Michael slept.
Michael felt new needles in his arms. He tried to swallow, and realized it was easier than it had been… when? Before. Earlier. What had been in his throat was gone.
He slept.
Two days later they raised his bed. He dozed for a while, and when he awoke he swung his gaze to the chair by the window. For some reason, Desiree Powell was sitting there. Her right arm was in a sling. Michael knew enough to know that there were going to be many legal complications from what had happened. He was fully prepared for the consequences of his actions. The dead man at his house, the two police officers on the street. Omar. But maybe not. Maybe Desiree Powell was just an hallucination.
No. The drugs weren’t that good. She was real.
“Counselor,” she said. “Welcome back.”
Michael nodded at the glass of water on his tray. Powell looked out at the hallway, back. Perhaps he wasn’t supposed to have water. She stood, and with her good hand lifted the straw to his lips. The cool water was every desire Michael had ever known.
“I thought you were dead,” Michael said. His voice was weak and raspy.
“No such luck.”
Another sip. “What happened?”
“I’ll spare you all the details for now. But what put me in this device – which, by the way, doesn’t go with any of my outfits – is that I took four in the vest. Broke two ribs.”
“In my house?”
Powell nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
Powell shrugged. “Just another sunny day in paradise.”
Although it was not the time or the place for it, Michael had to know. Over the past twenty-four hours he had envisioned ten futures. Nine of them were bad. “What’s going to happen?”
Powell took a few moments. “That’s a question for your office, not mine, Michael. But I can tell you the forensics are all coming back good. It was the bad guy’s knife that killed Nikolai Udenko. We found GSR on his hand, his prints on the grip of your wife’s pistol. Plus we have a dozen witnesses who saw what he did on the street with the two officers.”
There was going to be more, Michael knew. Powell was nothing if not thorough.
“Get better,” she said. “We’ll talk.”
Powell stood, walked over to the window. After a few moments she turned back to him. Michael noticed that, for the first time since he had met her nearly ten years earlier, she was wearing jeans and an NYPD sweatshirt. It must have been casual Friday. If it was Friday. “You’ve been through this before,” Powell said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, with that car bomb and all. Almost getting your ticket punched.”
Michael nodded.
“So, let me ask you something.”
“Sure.”
Powell walked back across the room, sat down. “How many times can you cheat the devil?”
Michael glanced out the window. The trees were in full bloom, the sky was a crystal blue. In the distance the river sparkled with diamonds. He looked back at the detective. There was only one answer. “As many times as you can.”
When Powell left, Michael slept. When he awoke, it was dark. He was alone.
Over the next two months Michael Roman grew to hate physiotherapy. More so, he came to hate the physiotherapists. They were all about twenty-six, perfectly fit, and they all had names like Summer and Schuyler. On any given day, after his fifth set of power squats, he had a few other choice names for them.
Slowly, he began to regain his strength and balance, returning to a form that was probably in many ways better than he was before.
During his convalescence, they stayed at Abby’s parents’ estate in Pound Ridge. They hired a company to come in and clean the Eden Falls house, but both Michael and Abby knew they would not be able to live there again. Whatever had been there for them was gone, dissolved in an acid of evil and darkness that no amount of disinfectant could mask. Michael had no idea what they were going to do, or where they were going to go, but for the moment that was secondary.
The Ghegan trial went forward in early July, helmed by a third-year ADA. Michael briefed the young man on the case and, with about an hour before opening statements, Falynn Harris showed up in courtroom 109. Two days later, after only four hours of deliberation, the jury retuned a verdict of manslaughter. Ghegan was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. It wasn’t what Michael had hoped for, what the city deserved, but Ghegan was off the street. The young ADA came to see Michael the day after sentencing. In his eyes Michael saw so much. Mostly himself, a few years ago.
In mid-august Michael returned, alone, to the Eden Falls house. He was still using a cane now and then, but for the most part he was independent. As he approached the house he saw something attached to the column next to the front door. His heart fluttered. Closer inspection revealed it was a decal, a stencil in the shape of a bright yellow daisy. Michael glanced around. There were no other decals, just this solitary, cheerful plastic flower on the column. Next to it was taped a small envelope. Michael opened it. Inside was a note card and a photograph. Michael looked at the picture first, an image of a young couple sitting on the stoop of a brownstone. By the look of the cars on the street it was probably the mid-Nineties. The man, who wore a Cleary green florist’s smock, was lean and handsome. He had a twinkle in his eye. The woman had fine features, light-brown hair pi
nned up with plastic barrettes. The baby – a toddler, really – sat on the man’s knee. There was no mistaking those sad eyes.
Michael looked at the note. On the back was a slip of paper. He turned it over. It was a receipt for the daisy decals. He had to laugh. She was informing him that she hadn’t shoplifted these. He read the note.
I just wanted to tell you that I think I know what it means, now. Zhivy budem, ne pomryom. (I looked up the spelling.)
It means that everything is going to be all right.
Be well all of your days.
Falynn xo
Michael folded the note, put it into his pocket.
After a few long moments he turned, and walked away from the house. He never went inside again.
FIFTY-NINE
A year after the horrible incidents in Eden Falls and Astoria, New York, a young woman stood across the street from the Pikk Street Cafe. Even there, on the corner, the air was rich with the aromas of cinnamon and marzipan and dark chocolate.
Inside, the owner of the cafe, a man of just thirty-six years, but one whose sandy hair was already shocked with gray, stacked boxes in the back room. There was never enough space.
At just after nine AM, after the morning rush had subsided, he stepped behind the counter. There were three customers at the tables, each lost in their coffee, their pastries, their copies of that morning’s Eesti Ekspress.
When they decided to move to Estonia, they knew that Michael would never again practice law. The day he was to return to the Queens County District Attorney’s office, he stood in Dennis McCaffrey’s office, surrounded by his colleagues and friends. Because there had been no hard evidence that Michael had broken the law, no charges were filed regarding the adoption of the girls.
But there would always be a wariness surrounding Assistant District Attorney Michael Roman. And the DA’s office – any DA’s office – could not afford a cloud of suspicion. He tendered his resignation that day.
And although they had both taken a blitz Berlitz course in Estonian, it was Abby who excelled. She applied to the Estonian government, and within six months would take the first of two boards she would need to work as a nurse in this country.
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