“You’re right,” Michael began, hoping to placate the kid. “I didn’t mean any disrespect by that. All I’m saying is that, whatever this is paying, I’m hoping it’s enough.”
The kid lowered his window, flicked the cigarette out. “I’m touched by your concern.” He raised the window. “Now drive the fucking car, and shut the fuck up.”
The kid pulled back the corner of his jacket. The butt of the automatic weapon emerged from the waistband of his jeans. It was on the kid’s right side, furthest from Michael’s reach. The kid might have been a thug, but he wasn’t stupid. The gun was all he had to say.
T
EN MINUTES LATER
they pulled off the road on Hempstead Avenue, near Belmont Racetrack, just east of Hollis, into the parking lot of a somewhat isolated off-brand motel called the Squires Inn.
The motel was L-shaped, tired, with a broken asphalt parking lot, missing shingles. It may have at one time been part of a chain, but had long since fallen into disrepair. They pulled into the lot. Kolya pointed to a space. Michael put the car in park, cut the engine. Kolya reached over, took the keys from the ignition.
“Do not get out of the car,” Kolya said. “Do not do a fucking thing. You move, I make a call, and it starts raining shit.”
Kolya reached into the back seat, grabbed two large grocery bags, exited the car, crossed the walkway. He reached into his pocket, fished out a key, opened the door to room 118. Michael checked his coat pockets, even though he knew that Kolya had frisked him before leaving the office, taking his house keys, car keys, cellphone, and wallet. All he had left was his watch and his wedding ring. He reached over, tried to open the glove compartment. It was locked. He checked the back seats, the console, the pockets on the doors. Nothing. He needed something, something he could use as a weapon, something with which he could get the upper hand. There was nothing.
A minute later Kolya emerged from the room, looked left and right, scanning the parking lot. It was all but empty. He motioned to Michael to get out of the car. Michael emerged, crossed the sidewalk, and entered the room. Kolya closed the door.
The room was standard issue for an off-brand motel – worn teal green carpeting, floral bedspread with matching drapes, laminate writing desk, a nineteen-inch television on a swivel stand. Michael noticed a rusty ring on the ceiling over the bed. There had recently been a leaky roof. He heard the pipes rattle inside the walls. The room smelled of mildew and cigarettes.
Kolya locked the door. He pointed to the chair by the desk. “Sit there.”
Michael hesitated for a moment. He was not used to being given orders, especially by someone the likes of which he put in jail for a living. The fact that this man had both a 9 mm weapon and his family got him moving. He eased himself onto the chair.
Kolya parted the drapes slightly, looked out into the parking lot. He took out his cellphone, punched in a number. After a few moments he spoke into the phone. He closed the phone. He then extracted the weapon from his waistband, held it at his side. He turned to Michael. “Come here.”
Michael stood, walked over to the window. Kolya opened the drapes further, pointed. “You see that car over there? The one parked underneath the sign?”
Michael looked out the window. Under the sign for the motel was a ten-year-old Ford Contour, dark blue, tinted windows. He could not see inside. “Yes.”
“Go back and sit down.”
Michael did as he was told.
“I am going to leave now,” Kolya said. “I want you to listen to me carefully. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t leave this room. You don’t make any phone calls. There’s a man sitting in that Ford over there. He works for me. If you so much as open the door to this room, he will call me, and your family is dead. Do you understand this?”
The words sliced through Michael’s heart. “Yes.”
“I’m going to call you on this room phone every thirty minutes. If you don’t answer within two rings, your family is dead.” Kolya pointed to the wall. “The girl working the front desk here is my cousin. In front of her is a switchboard. If you make an outgoing call, she’ll know. If you even pick up the phone without receiving an incoming call, she’ll know. Do either of these things and I will light up your family. Do you understand this?”
The fear began to crawl around Michael’s stomach. The possibility that he may never see Abby and the girls was real. “Yes.”
“Good.”
Kolya pointed to the two large grocery bags he had brought in with him. “There’s food in there. You’re gonna be here awhile. Eat healthy, counselor.”
Kolya laughed at his joke, then held Michael’s stare for an uncomfortable amount of time, asserting his authority. Michael had met so many men like Kolya over the years. He could not look away. He
would
not.
Finally Kolya backed off. He crossed the room, gave everything one more look, opened the door, and left. Michael slipped up to the window, peered through the curtains. He saw Kolya walk up to the blue Ford. Whoever was inside the Ford rolled down the window. Kolya pointed to the room, to his watch. A few seconds later he slipped into his own car, pulled out of the parking lot and soon disappeared into the traffic on the Hempstead Avenue.
Michael paced around the room.
He had never felt more helpless in his life.
THIRTY-TWO
A
leks looked through the two-drawer file cabinet in the small bedroom Michael and Abigail Roman used for a home office. He scanned the history of their lives, taking in the milestones, the events. He learned many things. He learned that they owned their own home, having paid cash for it. They also owned a commercial space on Ditmars Boulevard. Aleks perused the photographs of the boarded-up building. He recalled it from the story he’d read about Michael. It was the place in which Michael’s parents were killed. The Pikk Street Bakery. Inside the envelope were a pair of keys.
Marriage license, deeds, tax returns, warranties – the residue of modern American life. He soon found the documents he sought. The girls’ adoption decree, forms which would serve as their birth certificates.
Aleks sat down at the computer, conducted a search for the government agency he needed. He soon heard a car door slam. He glanced out the window.
Kolya had returned.
T
HEY STOOD IN THE
kitchen. Aleks smelled the marijuana on Kolya. He decided to say nothing for the moment.
“Any problems?” Aleks asked.
“None.”
“Do you have the license?”
Kolya reached into his pocket, removed an envelope, handed it to Aleks.
Aleks opened the envelope, slid out the plastic laminated license. He held it up to the light, caught the shimmer of the holographic image. It was good work. He put the license in his wallet.
“Where do you have him?”
Kolya told him the name and address of the motel, along with the room number and phone number. Aleks wrote nothing down. He did not need to.
Aleks glanced at his watch. “I will return within one hour’s time. When I come back you will return to the motel and make sure Michael Roman does not leave. Are we clear on this?”
Kolya mugged. “It’s not that complicated.”
Aleks held the young man’s stare for a few moments. Kolya glanced away.
“You may be there for a while,” Aleks said. “You will need to guard him until I am out of the country.”
“The money is right, bro. No worries.”
Bro
, Aleks thought. The sooner he left this place, the better. “Good.”
“What do you want me to do with him then?” Kolya asked
Aleks glanced down at the butt of the pistol in Kolya’s waistband. Kolya saw the look. Neither man said a word.
A
LEKS LOOKED AT
the photos of the girls. He had taken them against the wall in the kitchen, an off-white background that could have been anywhere. He took a pair of scissors out of the drawer and cut the photographs into 2 × 2-inch squares. He needed two photographs of Anna, and two of Marya. For their passports.
T
HE GIRLS SAT ON THE
couch in front of the television. They were watching an animated film, something about talking fish.
He got down to the girls’ level. “We’re going to go to the post office,” he said. “Is that all right?”
“Is Mommy coming with us?” Marya asked.
“No,” Aleks said. “She has some work to do.”
“At the hospital?”
“Yes, at the hospital. But on the way back we can stop and get something for dinner. Are you hungry?”
Anna and Marya looked apprehensive for a few moments, but then they both nodded.
“What would you like for dinner?”
The girls exchanged a guilty glance, looked back. “McNuggets,” they said.
A
BBY WATCHED THE DOOR
at the top of the stairs, and waited. She had always feared for her daughters, as any mother would. The stranger in the car, the terminal childhood disease. She had also feared the legal ramifications of what they had done. She had even rehearsed what she might say if ever called before a judge or a magistrate, the pleadings of a woman desperate for a child.
But never this.
A few minutes later Aleks came downstairs. Abby had long ago stopped struggling against her restraints. Her limbs had fallen numb.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
Abby Roman just glared at him.
“We are going to leave for a while. We will not be long.” He crossed the room, sat on the edge of the workbench. Abby noticed that he had gelled his hair. What was he getting ready to do?
“Kolya will remain here. You will obey him as you obey me.”
Abby noticed he was carrying a manila envelope. She saw her own handwriting on the front. It was the envelope that had Charlotte and Emily’s adoption papers in them.
Her blood turned to ice water. “You can’t do this.”
“Anna and Marya were stolen from their mother’s bed in the middle of the night. They are mine.”
Abby had to ask. Perhaps, in the answer, she would find something she needed. “Why do you call them Anna and Marya?”
Aleks considered her for a few long moments. “Do you really want to know the answer to this question?”
Abby wasn’t sure. But she knew she needed to keep him talking. If he left an opening, any opening, she would take it. She tried to keep the fear from her voice. “Yes.”
Aleks looked away, then back.
“It is the story of a prince and his three sisters . . .”
O
VER THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES
Aleks told her a story. What Abby had feared – that she was dealing with a dangerous but rational individual – was not true. This man was insane. He believed he was this Koschei. He believed that, with his daughters, he would be immortal. He believed that his soul was in the girls.
The part that stole Abby’s breath, the part that frightened her to the limits of her being, was that the girls
knew
. They had been looking at pictures from the same story in the library.
When he finished telling her the story Aleks stood, watched her for the longest time, perhaps waiting for some sort of reaction. Abby was speechless for a moment. Then:
“You’ll never get them out of the country. Someone is going to catch you.”
“If I cannot have them I will take their essence,” Aleks said.
“What are you talking about?”
Aleks touched the vials around his neck.
My God, Abby thought. The vial filled with blood. The two empties. He was going to kill the girls if he had to.
As Aleks climbed the stairs, Abby felt her heart break.
She would never see Charlotte and Emily again.
THIRTY-THREE
D
esiree Powell was hungry. Whatever was cooking in the kitchen – it smelled like a pork roast with rosemary and garlic, three of her favorite things – was making her salivate. She’d forgotten to eat lunch. It often happened in the tornado of the first twenty-four hours of a homicide investigation.
The ride up to Putnam County had been stop and start, due to construction. Fontova had taken a nap, a skill Powell had never been able to cultivate. She barely slept in her own bed, at night, with a righteous snort and 5 mg of Ambien as a chaser.
But now a question hung in the air.
Powell stared at the woman, tapping her pen on her notebook, waiting for an answer. With her hooded, eyes and unwavering gaze, Detective Desiree Powell knew she was all but impossible to read.
Powell had dealt with many social workers and behavioral therapists in her career. She knew the mindset. She knew that Sondra Arsenault had spent most of her adult life exploring people’s motives, ferreting out their agendas, divining their purpose. She was probably good at these things. Powell knew that she presented Sondra Arsenault with a cipher. By nature, social workers asked the questions. Today, it was Powell’s job.
When Sondra had called the local police department they had sent around a pair of uniformed officers to take down a report regarding the man who had broken into her home. When she told the uniformed officers that there might be a connection between the break-in at her house and the murder of a New York City lawyer named Viktor Harkov, they had wrapped things up quickly. They told her that someone would be contacting them soon.
Powell asked again. “So, the only people in the house were your daughters and yourself.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t hear anything? No breaking glass, no door being kicked in?”
Powell knew that the uniformed officers had looked at all the doors and windows, and written down that there had been no forced entry. It never hurt to cover it again.
“No.”
“You walked into you daughters’ room, and there he was.”
“Yes.”
“What was the man doing?”