The master bedroom on the second floor overlooked the front of the house. It was tastefully, if not expensively decorated. A four-poster bed, a dresser with an LCD flat-screen TV on it, an exercise bike in the corner. This room was not quite as tidy as the girls’ room. It had the look and feel of people who lived their lives in a hurry.
Aleks went through the drawers. It seemed Abigail had control of the top three drawers in the dresser; Michael the bottom two.
The closet was packed with suits, shirts, skirts, dresses on wooden hangers. The shelves were crowded with boxes containing folded sweaters and vests. The top shelf held a box full of photos and memorabilia. Aleks removed the box, placed it on the bed.
He flipped through a pair of photo albums – Michael and Abigail at their wedding, their honeymoon, at Christmas and birthday parties. The second photo album was dedicated to the girls. On the first page was a large photo of Anna and Marya in a crib, in what looked like a doctor’s office. They were no more than a few months old. Aleks tried to recall this time in his life, the first year or so after the girls had been stolen from him. The fury he felt was never far from the surface. The rest of the album was of the girls on the beach, the girls in the backyard, the girls on their tricycles.
At the bottom of the box was a scrapbook of sorts. Near the back of the book he found a series of articles about Michael. The longest article – indeed a cover story – was from New York magazine, dated five years earlier. The title on the front:
A QUEENS PROSECUTOR ESCAPES DEATH TO PUT GANGSTERS AWAY
Aleks flipped to the table of contents, scanned it, then turned to the article. On the left-hand page was another photograph of Michael Roman, this time leaning against a car on a New York side street. Aleks began to read. The lead was typical fluff, but it was in the fifth paragraph that Aleks found something that fascinated him, something he had never expected.
Mr Roman, 30, has served as an assistant district attorney in Queens County for five years. Born in Astoria, he is no stranger to the world of street violence. When Roman was just nine years old, his parents, Peeter and Johanna, were murdered in a botched robbery of their shop, a specialty bakery called Pikk Street on Ditmars Boulevard.
A graduate of St John’s Law School, Roman came to work for the Queens County DA’s office in 1999, and since that time has prosecuted a number of high-profile cases.
Aleks’s eyes skimmed down the page.
Investigators believe the car bombing was the work of the Patrescu brothers in an attempt to delay the trial. Incredibly, in the blast that destroyed half a city block, Mr Roman received just a few minor wounds.
Aleks looked at the photograph of the bombing. The car was a charred shell; the building behind it was all but rubble. It reminded him of many of the city streets in Grozny. It was truly stunning that the man had not been killed. A miracle.
And that’s when it occurred to him. The man who had taken care of Anna and Marya all these years, the man whom his daughters called Daddy, was just like him. Michael Roman had faced the devil and walked away unharmed.
Michael Roman, too, was deathless.
TWENTY-ONE
In the backyard, Abby talked to the girls. She saw the fear in their eyes, but she did her best to allay it. The young man stood at the back of the property, smoking a cigarette. The one who called himself Aleks – the one who claimed to be Charlotte and Emily’s biological father – was still in the house. Abby could not see him, but she could all but feel his predator’s cold eyes on her.
For the moment, the girls still looked concerned, but not nearly as frightened as they had before. “Everything is okay, guys. There’s no reason to be scared.” Abby wished she knew this to be true. “Okay?”
The girls nodded.
“Are we going to Britanny’s house?” Emily asked.
Brittany Salcer was a babysitter two streets over. She also babysat for her own sister’s twin boys, who were just over three years old. “Not today honey.”
“But why?”
“The boys have a cold. Brittany doesn’t want you guys getting sick.”
“Are you going to the hospital?”
The hospital was in fact the Hudson Medical Clinic, an urgent-care facility on Dowling Street. When they had moved from the city Abby had tried to hang onto her job as an ER nurse at Downtown Hospital, but the commute – an hour each way, not to mention the expense – was killing them. Her work at the clinic was not nearly as challenging, but she had fallen into a rhythm there. Throat cultures, lacerations, flu shots, skinned knees – what the job lacked in challenge it more than made up for in satisfaction.
“No,” she said. “Not today.”
Abby suddenly saw movement to her left. She noticed that the young man at the back of the yard noticed as well. A flash of bright red in the woods behind the house.
Abby glanced over. Zoe Meisner was walking through the woods, down by the creek. Her golden Lab Shasta was following a scent. Abby saw the dog stop, glance up the hill, nose high in the air. Was he picking up the scent of the young man? Of Kolya? In a flash the dog came bounding up the hill, churning leaves, kicking dirt, vaulting over logs. Zoe called to Shasta, but the dog did not heed her.
Zoe – she of the outrageously bright floral gardening smocks and even more outrageous floral perfume – noticed Abby and the girls and waved. Abby lifted a hand to wave back, but stopped herself. If she acknowledged Zoe, maybe the woman would take it as a reason to walk up the hill for an over-the-fence hen session. On the other hand, if Abby didn’t acknowledge her, she might come over to see why. Abby waved back.
A few seconds later Zoe started to walk through the woods, up the hill, to the Roman house.
Shasta was already romping with the girls.
Abby saw the young man at the back of the yard toss his cigarette, stand a little straighter. His eyes flicked from the big dog, to the woman walking up the hill, back. He unbuttoned his jacket.
Inside the house, the curtains parted.
No, Abby thought.
No.
TWENTY-TWO
Joseph Harkov’s apartment was a third floor walk-up on Twenty-First Avenue, near Steinway. According to the report, Joseph Harkov worked night shift at the MTA station at Broadway and 46th Street.
Michael and Tommy stood across the street in a Super Deli, watching the entrance. Michael had met Joseph Harkov twice, but that had been a few years ago, and only in passing. He wasn’t sure he would remember the man if he saw him.
At just after one, Joseph Harkov walked out of the front door. Michael pegged him instantly. He looked like a younger version of his father and had already taken on the old man’s bent posture, although he was probably only in his forties. He waited at a bus stop on the corner for fifteen minutes or so, every so often dabbing his eyes with a tissue, then boarded a bus.
Michael and Tommy waited five minutes. Joseph Harkov did not return. They crossed the street, and entered the building.
The hallways smelled of frying foods, disinfectant, room deodorizers. The sound of soap operas poured out of more than one room.
Tommy Christiano had developed his techniques of breaking and entering as a street kid in Brooklyn. He
