elusive to my imagination. “I had family business to take care of. I had to move fast.” And asking for a leave of absence for what anyone would have classified as a wild-goose chase hadn’t been precisely practical. I couldn’t see my boss dead, but I had no difficulty picturing the expression on his face at the bizarrely mundane request for time off.
“So come back and explain it then. They’ll listen to you, Stefan; they’d have to. You’re Anatoly’s kid.” It was the same wheedling tone he’d used two weeks ago bargaining over the vodka. Getting me back would be some kind of feather in his cap. He had delusions of grandeur, did my pal Dmitri. He yearned to step out from behind that bar to bigger and better things, oblivious to the fact that those very things would swallow him whole. He didn’t have the balls for the work or the brains to recognize the lack thereof.
In one respect, however, he was right. They would have listened to me because of Anatoly, “would have” being key words of the past. At one time I would’ve been untouchable, but with my father pulling a disappearing act that had lasted well over a year, that was no longer true. His dominance, once bedrock solid, was now on the wane. He still had his contacts, but the tentacles of influence had become like phantoms. He was the monster under the bed . . . terrifying, but given enough time, he could be forgotten in the light of day. If I went back, the Korsak name wouldn’t save me and neither would the truth. I had called for help, but I would no longer find it here.
I disconnected, not bothering to spout protests of innocence. Dmitri wasn’t the one I had to convince and the one I did wouldn’t believe me. Konstantin’s son was a chip off the old diabolical block but with a looser grip on his temper. He would put me down before the first word left my mouth. It was entirely possible that he’d been the one to pull the trigger on his father. I hadn’t shown up; he’d seen his chance and next thing you knew, the head of Gurov senior was popping like a party balloon. It could have been him or it could’ve been one of Konstantin’s many rivals. Whoever was genuinely responsible didn’t matter. My ass was now grass in the city of Miami, if not the entire state.
I had made the call looking for names, for contacts that could provide us with a safe house for a night or two. That plan was shot to hell. I hadn’t planned on going back, even once Lukas was safe, but neither had I planned on having bridges burned so thoroughly. I wondered whether I was making a mistake by not contacting the police, but in the next second I changed my mind. They had found us. . . . That man Jericho had found us so quickly, so effortlessly, I found it hard to believe he didn’t have some government resources to draw upon.
My resources weren’t nearly as high-flying, but I still had them, although locating the one I had in mind wasn’t going to be easy. Anatoly hadn’t vanished from only the authorities and the Family; he’d disappeared from my life as well. He was still in the country, I was fairly certain. He would’ve let me know if he was leaving. I did receive the occasional message, such as the Christmas picture, but Anatoly had made it clear before he went on the run that even I had to stay mostly in the dark. Whether it was a matter of trust or he actually wanted to keep me out of his legal troubles, the bottom line was I had no idea where he was—not yet. But I did have a list of places memorized where he might go. My father hadn’t given me specifics, but our history had given me a place to start.
I made the first call.
Two hours later I gave up for the night. I was on day two of no sleep and even punching in numbers on the cell became a drunken fumble. Walking back to the car, I tripped twice and only once was from navigating the darkness. If I didn’t get some rest, Michael’s theoretical driving would be the only thing getting us around. Blissfully unaware of his potential chauffeuring duties, he slept on in the backseat. He was curled up all knees and elbows under the muffling blanket, and his brown hair shone in the overhead light. Deceptively pale, it looked almost as blond as I remembered it.
Sliding clumsily into the driver’s seat, I closed the door with quiet care. The huddled form in the back shifted but didn’t wake. I reclined the seat and folded arms against the raw breeze drifting through the empty windshield frame. It was in the fifties, unseasonably cold as it had been all the month of January. I let Michael keep both blankets. With exhaustion dragging me down with every heartbeat, a little cool air wasn’t going to keep me awake. It didn’t. I fell asleep between one breath and the next. It was as swift as a stumble and fall into a chasm. Slick fake leather grazed my cheek as I exhaled, and then I was gone.
Dreams of Konstantin followed me every step of the way. With a bloody hand resting on a seven-year-old Lukas’s shoulder, he smiled at me coldly through scarlet-stained teeth. Unaware of the crimson fingerprints that marred the white of his Spider-Man T-shirt, Lukas waved solemnly.
The chill that chased me through the night had nothing to do with the cold.
Chapter 13
It was raining when I woke up. I could hear it drumming steadily against the window glass. I luxuriated in it for a moment. There was nothing more satisfying in the world than to lie in a tangle of warm blankets and hide from a wet and dreary morning. I turned over on my side, moving my hand to tuck it under the pillow, when I realized something. There was no pillow, there were no blankets, and the rain wasn’t spattering on the window of my condo. It was hitting the roof of the car, and it was hitting me.
With a groan I straightened stiffly and rubbed a hand over my wet face. Through the tops of the trees I could see a sky the cloudy white of a freshwater pearl. The sun was the same color only a shade brighter . . . milky glass held to a fire. The rain, a warm drizzle, apparently had been drifting in for some time; my shirt was nearly soaked. At least it had warmed up to a more normal temperature for southern Florida. When I turned my head to check on Michael, I saw that he’d tossed his blankets aside. He was dry as a bone, the back windows still being intact. Shuttered eyes met mine as he pillowed his head on a folded arm. “You snore,” he said in the hush.
“And you like to point out the obvious. I guess that makes us even.” I ran a hand through snarled hair. The ponytail holder had disappeared sometime during the night. The first opportunity that came along I’d get it all cut off anyway. New car, new look; it was all part of the plan—the one I was making up as I went along. Disappearing wasn’t as easy a trick as my father had made it seem, not with this guy Jericho sniffing the trail. I was going to pull out all the stops. Drastically changing our appearance was the first step. Maybe I’d scrounge a dress and wig and change Michael to Michelle.
“So,” I said with a grin, “how do you feel about the color pink?”
Suspicion ripe in the narrowing of his eyes, he sat up and began to neatly fold the blankets. “In exactly the same way I think of making a bathroom of a tree.”
He was back in his “old man” phase. The child was bound to resurface at the next fast-food joint. The thought sobered me, not because I didn’t enjoy his amazement at experiencing things that I took for granted, but because it reminded me. I couldn’t begin to imagine the life that had produced such an odd dichotomy in what had once been a normal if precocious kid.
“Misha,” I started, ignoring the clammy sensation of the wet shirt sticking to my chest. “About this Jericho . . .”
“No.” The flat denial sliced knife sharp through the air as Michael doggedly doubled the second blanket.
I didn’t want to push him. I didn’t want to do anything but make things as easy as they could be for the rest of his life. Making up for the past ten years wasn’t practical or even possible, but it was an instinct difficult to fight. “Okay,” I said exhaling with wry self-deprecation, “I know I look like some kind of superhero here, but I need all the help I can get. I need to know who this Jericho is. What he’s capable of.”
He kept his eyes on the cloth in his lap, hands smoothing the material. Just as I thought he would ignore me entirely, he said without emotion, “Anything. He’s capable of anything.”
Progress, but it was a progress that made my stomach tighten into a fist. He didn’t look up as I reached over the seat and took the blanket. Shaking it back out, I used it to dry the passenger seat before inviting lightly, “Why don’t you hop on up here, kiddo? You’re giving me neck strain.”
Silently he obeyed. The rain had halted except for the occasional drop, and he was mostly dry when he sat beside me. I started the car and cranked up the fan anyway. “I’m sorry to push you on this. I wish it could come out in your own time, Michael, I do. But we’re in trouble here. I need to know anything that could help us.” Tapping a finger on the wheel, I spoke more to myself than to my brother. “Such as why didn’t they wait until we’d stopped for the night. It wouldn’t have been nearly as public as the shit they pulled yesterday.”
“They didn’t want to take a chance that someone might see what I . . . that someone might see me.” A
