by Cleo Coyle
I hurried back to the storeroom and my transmitter, while Nancy alerted Madame.
The stage was set, the curtain about to rise. But would there be a happy ending?
EIGHTY-SEVEN
“CAN you hear me, Madame?”
“Loud and clear, my dear.”
“What’s happening?”
“Nancy and I are circling our mark, and—oh, excellent.”
“What?”
“Mr. Packer took one look at our bait and his jaw dropped. In fact, I do believe the Wolf is slavering.”
I was in the storeroom, headset in place, smartphone primed with my intelligence on Stuart Packer.
At my elbow, a carving knife lay beside a half-eaten Poisoned Apple Sharlotka. The cake was forgotten as Boris and Eldar eavesdropped on our transmission.
“I hope Nancy can pull this off. She’s so sweet and naïve—”
“Anya was innocent, too,” Madame reminded me. “Nancy’s naiveté may be her appeal—that, and her daring décolletage!”
Suddenly I heard another voice. The Wolf, speaking to his friend.
“You remember my ex, don’t you, Phil? Well, the best thing I can say about that marriage is she had the same initials as me—and the Standard and Poor’s index—which means I didn’t have to change monograms on the luggage and towels.”
Gruff laughter was interrupted by Nancy’s sweet voice, speaking in a sexy Southern drawl I’d never heard her use.
“Excuse my rudeness, Mr. Packer. Madame Tesla would like to read that cute palm of yours. We’re both quite interested in your future,” she added coyly—and no doubt with a toss of her flowing wheat-colored hair.
Taking the bail, the Wolf quickly dismissed his pal.
“Sure, honey child. Anything you say.”
“Why, thank you, kind sir.”
“Your hand, please,” Madame commanded.
“No, the right hand,” I heard Nancy purr. “Here . . . Let me help.”
“What does the future hold?” Madame asked after a beat.
The Wolf replied, but his words were directed at Nancy. “Here’s hoping you’re a big part of my immediate future, honey child.”
He loudly drained another cocktail glass.
“Oh, Mr. Packer, you are so funny.”
“Mr. Packer is my daddy’s name, darlin’. Call me Stuart.”
More like “stewed,” I thought. The Wolf was loud and his words were slurred—he’d been drinking constantly, and he probably started to party before actually arriving at the party.
A lucky break. If his little gray cells are pickled, he’ll be easier to spook.
“I see a journey, Mr. Packer,” Madame continued. “To a foreign capital. Ah, yes, it’s Moscow. And you’re leaving within the week.”
“How did you know?”
An article in Forbes Business News, I silently answered. Reporting you’re a guest speaker at an international investment seminar next week.
“But I sense danger,” Madame Tesla continued ominously.
“Let me guess. A plane crash or something?”
“I see no crash in Aeroflot’s future—”
“Lufthansa!” I corrected. “He flies Lufthansa!”
“Nor will a Lufthansa airplane crash,” Madame amended. “Accidental death is not the threat, Mr. Packer. You have moved millions of dollars out of Europe and deposited the money in the Bank of Moscow—”
“You can’t know that!”
I glanced at the smartphone. Why not, Packer? I’m looking at a Financial Times article about the transfer, with a photo of you and the bank’s president.
“Madame Tesla is very good,” Nancy cooed. “And she has one more message from the spirit world.”
“I don’t know if I want to hear it.”
The Wolf was suspicious, and the alcohol was making him belligerent. Fortunately, Madame’s years of experience with bad customers proved invaluable.
“The message is this,” she said in a calm and even tone. “Accompany this young woman to a private meeting across the hall, or those assets will vanish.”
“What the hell—”
“Overnight,” Madame interrupted with a snap of her fingers.
“Nobody can do that,” the Wolf declared. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Did we overplay our hand? Too late to stop now. In for a kopeck, in for a ruble, I say.
“Deliver the coup de grâce, Madame,” I commanded.
“Listen closely, Mr. Packer,” Madame said. “You can talk to my colleagues now. Or you can hurry to Moscow to retrieve your lost assets. There you will be met by less reasonable men, who will put a bag over your head, shoot you in the heart, and leave your corpse in Sheremetyevo International Airport’s parking lot.”
It was quiet for so long I worried that the earring batteries had died. Finally Madame spoke again.
“It is only a conversation, Mr. Packer. You can bring your bodyguard there if it makes you feel safe.”
I didn’t need visuals to sense the Wolf was wavering. In the end, it was sheer curiosity—and young Nancy—who swayed him.
“Maybe we can clear up this silly old mess without resorting to extortion, or violence,” she said in a breathy tone.
“How about it, Stuart? Let’s go for a walk.”
EIGHTY-EIGHT
THROUGH the crack in the door, I spied Nancy and the Wolf approaching, arm in arm. Nancy continued her charm offensive, but the increasingly wary Wolf was no longer buying it. The creepily familiar bodyguard loped sullenly and silently behind them.
I closed the door but left it unlocked. “Everyone take your places.”
Eldar flattened himself against the wall, so when the door opened, he would be hidden behind it.
Boris stood beside me, the transmitter in plain sight between us. I no longer needed the device to communicate, but it was a useful prop to convince the Wolf of my “credentials.”
I held my breath until the door opened and Nancy and the Wolf stepped inside, the bodyguard sticking like glue to his charge.
As soon as they were through the door, Eldar slammed it.
Wolf and bodyguard whirled, saw Eldar’s intimidating stare, and faced me again. “What the hell is—”
“I do the talking here, Comrade Packer,” I said, channeling Boris’s heavy Russian accent.
“Who are you people?”
“I am Magda,” I replied. “Man beside me is Boris. Man behind you Eldar. Now we have been introduced—”
The Wolf was flushed under a sheen of alcohol perspiration, but he was so scared he was no longer slurring his words. “Look, I don’t mean names—”
“Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki,” Boris snarled.
The Wolf didn’t react, but his bodyguard sure did. The man hadn’t taken a drink all evening, but suddenly he was flop-sweating rivers, just like his boss.
“American rudeness is renowned,” I continued. “To answer your rude question, we are from the Foreign Intelligence Service, Comrade Packer.”
“The SVR?” The Wolf pointed at Nancy. “But you can’t be Russian spies. This sweet young thing has a Southern accent.”
“Because she went to school in your Georgia,” I replied. “But was born in ours—Republic of Georgia.”
Now the bodyguard spoke up, his tone challenging. “!”
Boris stepped forward. “!”
Whatever he said worked. The bodyguard blanched.
Wolf saw his man’s fearful reaction and was suddenly in a mood to cooperate—
“Okay, okay, I believe you. What do you want with me?”
“I wish to know why you murdered one of my sexpionage agents, and put another in coma.”
Wolf’s knees got weak and he wavered. “You’ve got to be kidding! Are you talking about Anya Krevchenko?”
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“And Rozalina Krasny.”
“I never heard of this Krasny chick, but Anya . . .” He frowned. “I know her.”
“She is suing you,” I said. “For your vicious assault on her person.”
“She was . . . Is suing me, it’s true. But it’s extortion. I spoke with the girl for ten minutes, and I sure didn’t assault her. If I were guilty, I wouldn’t be pushing for a court date.”
“You want trial?”
“Sure, if that’s what it takes to clear my name.”
My expression was doubtful.
“Look, if I wanted Anya out of the way, I would have killed her,” the Wolf insisted. “Girl dead, the lawsuit goes away. Alive, justice marches on, with my legal team and that bastard Van Loon getting rich off my misery.”
“Perhaps this is misunderstanding?” I offered. “You made unwanted pass. She took it too hard.”
The Wolf shook his head. “Van Loon claimed he had proof, the kind of evidence a certain White House intern had on the former President. I knew that was bull, so I let Van Loon’s docs take my DNA.”
His frown deepened. “They came back claiming the test proved my guilt. Now we’ll see—in court.”
Stuart Packer was as convinced of his innocence as he was convincing. If he was lying now, then he had to be a stone cold sociopath with no fear of death.
Not so his bodyguard. The man had been glancing over his shoulder at Eldar, as if he expected an ice pick to plunge into the back of his neck at any moment.
When he turned this time, I got a good look at that neck—and the crescent-shaped scar that marked him!
“It’s you!” I cried, dropping my accent. “You are the phony nurse who slapped Anya in the hospital. You got away because your partner took a shot at me and my boyfriend!”
With the desperate cry of a trapped animal, the bodyguard pushed his boss aside and snatched the carving knife from the Sharlotka tray. Before I could react, he wrapped a powerful arm around my throat, and held the blade aloft.
“I’ll kill her!” he threatened.
Oh, no, you won’t!
Channeling my inner She-Wolf, I bit down on his arm, hard. The man howled, releasing me enough to lunge away. That was when Eldar and Boris both jumped him. Suddenly the blade flashed, and Boris cried out.
I saw blood! Boris was badly hurt, yet still clutching at the man as Eldar struggled to hold him. I whipped around for a weapon, saw the heavy Sharlotka serving tray and dumped its contents.
As cups bounced and shattered, and the Sharlotka splattered on the floor tiles, I swung the metal disc, striking the bodyguard’s head once, twice.
He was probably down for the count after two, but you can never be too careful so I whacked him again.
The Wolf, paralyzed during this entire struggle, turned with a girlish scream and ran through the door. Blond pompadour flying, he raced toward the party shouting at the top of his lungs—
“Help! Help! Russian spies are trying to kill me!”
I dropped to my knees and tried to stem the bleeding from Boris’s wound. He looked up at me, eyes bright with pain.
“I’ll find a doctor!” Nancy cried, racing to the party.
“I will call 911!” Eldar declared.
I pressed my hand against the wound in Boris’s abdomen, but warm blood continued to seep between my fingers. Suddenly the young baker gripped my arm.
“Tell my czarina my last thoughts were of her.”
Then he closed his eyes.
EIGHTY-NINE
WHEN I phoned Esther with the bad news, she screamed again. But this time she didn’t bury her head under a pillow. Instead, she raced to the hospital to join the rest of us, crashing through the doors of the Intensive Care Unit, demanding to see “her Boris.”
Eldar, Nancy, Madame, and I waited until Boris was out of danger. But when we spoke with the docs and it was time to go, Esther remained behind, waiting for her man to open his eyes.
I knew that simply seeing his “czarina” would be the best medicine for Boris, and (thank goodness) Esther’s ferocious vigil was a good sign for the future of their relationship.
The clock was close to striking twelve when I finally trudged into the Village Blend. I found Franco waiting at the espresso bar. He stood to greet me—
“I heard about your rough night, and I have news.”
“About Matt?”
“That, too . . .”
I pulled us fresh espressos and we took over a quiet corner table.
“Listen to this,” he began. “I talked to the team who collared Packer’s bodyguard. Turns out the guy was more afraid of ‘Russian spies’ than he was of the arresting officers. He confessed because he thought exposing foreign agents would get him pardoned.”
“What did he confess to exactly?”
Franco frowned. “Not Red’s murder, or Anya’s drugging. He and his boss were both way out on Long Island, in the Hamptons. Ironclad alibis. Someone, probably an accomplice, tipped them about Anya landing in the hospital with what looked like a drug overdose. The bodyguard took a helicopter to Manhattan, arriving in time to pull that gender switcheroo at the hospital.
“The bodyguard also admitted to phoning Anya a few days before—and that morning. He spoke to her in Russian, trying to convince her that if she didn’t drop the lawsuit against the Wall Street Wolf—who has important financial connections in Russia—her mother would be killed in prison. It was a fake threat. He said he was only trying to shake her up, get her to drop the lawsuit.”
“And who’s the Cuckoo nurse’s accomplice?” I asked. “The fat guy who fired the gun?”
“The bodyguard is mum about that, even with a weapons charge hanging over his head.”
The news was so depressing I changed the subject.
“How’s Matt holding up?”
“He’s still being interrogated. Plesky and Endicott are pulling an all-nighter and tag-teaming him.”
“Not you?”
“They figured out I was working my own angle at Dwayne Galloway’s Meat-dieval Tournament and Feast. Endicott is keeping me at arm’s length now.”
“How long can they hold Matt?”
“The full twenty-four hours, if Mr. DNA has his way. Or they can charge him with a crime and keep him longer. Endicott is hoping for a confession because the evidence is circumstantial.”
Franco shook his head. “He and Plesky are so off the mark it’s scary.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re hoping Matt’s hooked on this mystery drug, and if they keep him away from it long enough, he’ll break down in a cold-turkey sweat and confess to his crimes to get a fix.”
“Fat chance.”
“No chance at all.” Franco grunted. “I suggested they keep bringing Matt coffee so he’ll stay alert. Endicott and Plesky are delivering cups every hour. Your ex-husband’s complaining about the ‘crappie cop swill,’ but he’s drinking it.”
“Thank you, Franco!” I hugged him, smiling for the first time that evening. “As long as he gets his caffeine fix, Matt will be okay.”
“I think so,” he said. “We may get out of the woods yet.”
“You two look chipper,” a familiar voice proclaimed. “What am I missing?”
Wilson approached us, a big grin on his face. Without an invitation he pulled out a chair and sat down.
I’d promised Mike that the next time Wilson showed up, I’d let Franco deal with him.
Okay, Franco was here, and that would have to do—because I was angry and frustrated enough to “deal” with Wilson myself.
NINETY
“LISTEN, Mr. Government Agent, my business partner is in jail and possibly facing a murder rap. You can fix this. You need to tell the police that Red’s murder is connected to a cold case from the nineties, that there is no way Matt
could be involved.”
Wilson scratched his chin. “Well—”
“No! Don’t even try it! No hemming. No hawing. Start with Franco. Tell him what you told me.”
Franco narrowed his gaze. “Who is this guy exactly, and what is he supposed to tell me?”
After a quick introduction, Wilson did as I asked. Then he explained to us why going to Endicott with this information wouldn’t do us any good.
“It’s only a theory. I can’t prove a thing. That’s why I came to you, Clare. In a few short days you’ve uncovered more leads than I could.”
“But I’m at a dead end!”
“For now. You’re also close to the principal players, closer than me, and in one case, practically a part of the family.”
Part of the family? I stared at him. “You’re talking about Leila, aren’t you? You actually consider Mike’s ex-wife a suspect in a CIA agent’s murder?”
“She came to the city at seventeen as a young model. She fits the profile, and Anya Krevchenko was working for her at the time she was drugged. I can see how much this distresses you, Clare, but you have to consider every possibility. The clock is ticking.”
“Clock? What clock?”
“The police are likely to release Matteo Allegro in the morning. If that happens, he’ll be dead within the week.”
“What?!” Franco and I cried in unison.
“That’s what I came here tonight to tell you, Clare. I wasn’t completely honest with you.”
“Is that so?”
Wilson nodded. “Back in the nineteen nineties, when that KGB coup failed in Moscow, Petrov—also known as Vasily Petrovus—was called back to the Soviet Union.”
“You told me that.”
“What I didn’t tell you was that he never arrived. Petrov ignored his superiors. He was preparing to flee the USA, but not for Mother Russia. He’d established a new identity for himself in Quebec. He even had a young wife and a son resettled there. And he never got to them.”
“What happened?”