Kingston flung himself down on the bed across from mine. “Dude, I’m so sore.”
“I’d be worried if you weren’t,” I said as Henry finally picked up.
“Mav, hey,” Henry’s smooth voice greeted me. “I was just about to give you a call.”
“You completed your research on Sergei already?” I asked in surprise.
I’d given Henry the business card that Ryan had so kindly handed over to us. I wasn’t willing to leave any stones unturned, and Sergei was the only link to Nina’s real past that I’d uncovered so far. Sergei was involved with a lot of unsavory characters, and we needed to be careful with how we proceeded with this investigation. He couldn’t find out that we knew about his connection with Nina.
“No,” Henry answered. “But we found something that’s going to lead this case in an entirely different direction.”
“I don’t think anything could surprise me right now,” I said drily.
“There’s more to Svetlana Kotova’s death than we previously thought. The initial reports on her autopsy and toxicology report were deleted from the system and replaced several days later.”
“Shit,” Kingston said from beside me.
I shot him a glare to tell him to shut up.
“You think there was foul play?” I asked Henry. I kept my voice even, not willing to reveal how important this was to me.
“Definitely,” he stated without hesitation. “I have a contact at the coroner’s office who is going to look for a paper copy of the originals while my tech guy searches for the deleted files.”
“Do you suspect Sergei had some involvement?” I asked curiously. “Or Nina?”
“It’s too early to say at this point,” Henry said cautiously.
“Keep me updated,” I said with a sigh.
“There’s more,” Henry added.
“You found something else?”
“Maybe,” Henry said reluctantly. “But not what I expected. I need more time to put it all in context.”
I rolled my eyes. “What context? Either you caught Nina getting her hands dirty, or you didn’t.”
“It wasn’t Nina,” Henry said quietly.
My body stiffened. “Who?”
There was a pause on the other side of the line, but he didn’t need to answer. I already knew the name that was on the tip of his tongue. It could have only been one other person.
My heart dropped down to my stomach when I realized the truth. Katya had played us the entire time. I’d fallen for her lies despite my best efforts to keep my objectivity.
“A week ago, Katya met with a woman with known ties to the Russian Mafia,” Henry revealed hesitantly. “But we’re still trying to enhance the audio. It’s possible that she didn’t realize who she was speaking with.”
“Possible, but not likely,” I said tonelessly.
There was silence on the other end of the line. I knew Henry liked Katya, everyone did. On the outside, she was sweet and innocent with a fierceness that came out when she was threatened. But who was she on the inside?
What was she hiding beneath all the layers? Was she a spy for the Russian Mafia? Was she intent on taking my father down? Scamming us out of money? Or was she a helpless pawn in all of this?
“Why are we talking about it now if it happened a week ago?” I asked sharply.
Henry sighed. “From where Alex was standing, it looked like a chance meeting with a random woman. However, Bedford security later identified the Russian woman through facial recognition software during a shoplifting investigation. They contacted me when they realized she might have had access to Katya.”
“A week ago,” I said flatly. “And since then?”
“I’ll let you know when I have more information,” Henry finally said.
I hung up after an abrupt goodbye and threw my phone on the bed. Henry didn’t give me the news I wanted to hear - he told me the opposite.
Katya’s interactions with King and I weren’t what I expected from a girl in her position. Abby’s interrogation of a drunk Katya had ended in disaster when Kash decided to give Abby something extra to put in Katya’s drink. However, it did seem to reveal that Katya was just a ballerina in mourning for her grandmother and craving a return to her normal life. I had relaxed a little when all the evidence pointed to Katya being innocent, and I’d even gone so far as to protect her.
Had I made a mistake? Did I put my family in danger by trusting her?
Katya was one of the very few people who have ever stepped into the inner sanctum of the Wilders. My dad seemed to trust her, but that just made Katya more dangerous. I had caught her searching Nina’s things, maybe after she finished searching through my dad’s stuff, and she wouldn’t admit to what she was looking for. At the time, I believed she was looking for something she could use against Nina, but now? Everything she’d ever done or said was suddenly thrown into question again.
However, the most dangerous thing about Ekaterina Kotova was the spell she had over me. My cold, rational brain didn’t operate properly when it came to her. She had the power to bring up all kinds of warm feelings inside of me.
“Kitty Kat’s going to be devastated when she hears about her grandmother,” Kingston said quietly.
“She’s going to be out for blood,” I corrected. “But no one can know about this until we have solid evidence.”
Kingston opened one eye to look at me. “If you didn’t want anyone else to hear your conversation with Henry, you should have probably turned the volume down on your phone.”
“If I didn’t want you in the conversation, I would’ve had it while you weren’t
