I hadn’t locked the dead bolt because I always liked to do it just before I went to bed. But from now on I planned to keep the door bolted at all times.
There was a sudden pounding at the door and I jolted.
Derek grabbed me from behind and held me, calming me as though I were a scared kitten. “It’s okay. It’s someone at the door. Probably a neighbor. You’re fine.”
I breathed in and out, then shook my head in self-disgust. “Thank you. You’re right; I’m fine. I’ll just get the door now.”
I opened the door and saw Suzie. With one strong hand, she clutched the arm of-Minka LaBoeuf? Wearing a black trench coat and a beret? What in the world was going on?
Minka squirmed and tried to pull away, but Suzie was much more powerful. It took some heavy-duty muscles to operate a chain saw every day.
“Suzie?” I said in a daze. “Why… What… Huh?”
“This one was skulking around your door,” Suzie said, jerking her chin toward Minka. “I asked her what she wanted and she said she knew you. I said, ‘So what’re you doing out in the hall?’ and she tells me to go fuck myself.”
“Minka, what the hell are you doing here? And how did you get inside the building?”
“I followed that big guy in,” she said in a huff. “Then this bitch grabbed me.”
Suzie winked at me. “Just watching out for you.”
“Thanks, Suzie.”
“You know why I’m here, Brooklyn!” Minka cried. “I’m sick of you stealing my jobs. I want that book.”
“And you thought breaking into my building… Wait a minute. Were you standing outside the other day when that crazy screaming woman attacked Robin?”
Minka’s eyes widened. “Uh, that wasn’t me.”
“You’re such a liar. Why do you think I would ever hand the book over to you?”
“I have powers of persuasion,” she said with a toss of her overprocessed hair. “I’m Russian, you know.”
If I thought my life was bizarre before, it had just become seismically weirder. “Okay, first of all, Minka, the book isn’t Russian. There’s nothing Russian about it. You overheard something completely unrelated to the book.”
“Well, the book is French and I’m French, too.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I closed my eyes and prayed for strength, then said, “Look, I got the book from a client of mine. Ian didn’t give me the book. That day you saw me at the Covington, I was just showing it to him. So there was no way he was going to let you work on this book, because it wasn’t a Covington project. If you’d bothered to ask a question or two instead of assuming the worst, you wouldn’t have wasted your time and mine. And Suzie’s.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” she said with a sneer, as though this were all my fault. I’d once likened her curly-lipped sneer to that of a snarling dingo, and the description still fit her.
She wasn’t finished. “You’ve got to be the biggest pain in the-Oh, my God! Is he dead?”
She pushed me out of the way and pulled Suzie along as she charged into my house, then stopped and stared at the big Russian sprawled on my floor.
“Okay, time to go,” I said. I grabbed Minka’s other arm and turned. Suzie helped me yank her out the door. We didn’t bother waiting for the elevator but pulled her down six flights of stairs and out the front door of the building.
She screamed the entire way down, the general theme being that I was either a serial killer or a magnet for murder or just plain cursed.
“Bye-bye,” Suzie said as she pushed her out the door. “Nice meeting you. Not.”
We watched Minka stomp down the sidewalk and get into her funky old rattletrap of a car. As soon as she drove away, I hugged Suzie. “Thank you. I couldn’t have handled that alone.”
“No problemo. Let’s take the elevator up,” she said.
“Good idea,” I said with a laugh.
She left me at my door and ambled back to her place.
I walked inside and stared at Derek, who was holding a bullet up to the light and examining its surface.
“She seems to be back to her old feisty self,” Derek said mildly. “I would’ve stepped in to help, but Suzie appeared to have the situation well in hand.”
“Yeah, she was a rock,” I muttered, then frowned at the man on the floor. “Minka said she followed this guy inside. So how do you think he got a key to my place?”
“Bribed the locksmith?” Derek suggested.
“That’s unacceptable. Aren’t they supposed to be bonded or something? What is wrong with people? I’m going to report him to the police.”
“Good idea.” He put the bullet back in the clip thing and looked at me. “At least your door wasn’t shattered again.”
“You’re right. I’m really happy about that.” Then to prove it, I burst into tears. I wasn’t thrilled to be crying in front of Derek, but I guessed it was better than fainting from the blood that was smeared on my floor.
He hugged me tightly and rubbed my back and said all the right things. I could’ve stayed there in his arms for another few hours or so. Silly, I know. But he was strong and sure of himself and I was so glad he was there. Besides, he smelled so damn good and his cashmere sweater was soft against my cheek. It was as close to nirvana as I was going to get anytime soon.
“I’m just tired,” I explained once my eyes were dry.
“Of course you are,” he said, leading me through the short hall to my living room. “We’ll sit in here and wait for the police.”
I curled up next to him and rested my head on his shoulder. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Everything. I’m starting a list.”
He chuckled and squeezed me closer.
“What did the guy say?” I asked finally. “What language were you speaking?”
“Russian. He wanted the flash drive. I said we didn’t have it, and even if we did, we wouldn’t hand it over to a murderer.”
“Oh, good one.” Sitting up, I tucked my legs up on the couch. “What’d he say to that?”
“He insisted he didn’t kill anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
“Whatever that means.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Derek rubbed his knuckles along his clenched jaw. “He told me he was Russian, working for his government. He knows about the Ukrainian woman, Galina. He thinks she killed Alex.”
I pursed my lips in thought. “I’m not sure I’d agree with that one.”
“No, I have my doubts that she killed him,” Derek said. “From the way you’ve described her, she seems too unbalanced to have pulled off an execution of that precision.”
I grimaced at the unforgettable image of that perfect round bullet hole in Alex’s forehead. What truly concerned me was the audacity of someone who would kill a man right next to a living, sleeping woman. “Did you believe anything he said?”
Derek thought about it. “I believe he was Russian. Other than that, his answers were feeble and confusing. But he did say something odd that makes me wonder what we’re dealing with.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘It’s not what you think. I’m one of the good guys.’ ”
“ ‘One of the good guys’?” I didn’t know what to think of that, so I just shut up and let it sink in for a few minutes.
“Darling.” Derek rubbed my cheek gently. “We must drive back to Dharma tomorrow and talk to Robin.”
My shoulders sagged a bit, but I’d already reached the same conclusion. “I’m afraid you’re right. She’s in this up to her hip bones.”
“It appears she is.” He touched my leg in a comforting gesture. “Now, that doesn’t mean she’s guilty of anything, but I’m convinced she has more knowledge of this affair than she may even realize.”
“I agree,” I said. “I’d like to know more about Shiva’s friend Rajiv, too.”
