Hard Cold Winter (14 page)

The footsteps stopped right outside the Gallison storage room. Two shadowy spots broke the long line of yellow fluorescent light shining under the door. That light was the only bit of extra color in the indigo dark of the room. Even the cutting rod had cooled enough that it no longer glowed.

Had someone spotted the carrying cases on their rope, as I’d lowered them down the side of the building? No. No, if we had been made, they would have gone after Dono first.

The rope suddenly jerked in my hand, five feet of it whipping silently off the coil and out of the window. Frayed threads floated into the air as it whispered over the edge of the cut glass.

Whoever was outside wasn’t coming in. A guard? An employee? He was just standing outside the door. Maybe listening. Behind me, the night breeze moaned across the open hole in the window. Could he hear it? What the fuck was he
doing
?

I heard the squawk of a walkie-talkie again, muffled through the door. Then a man’s voice, slightly more audible.

“—you call them? I don’t have it.” A pause, and another receiver squelch. “No, fourth floor. Just call the number on the damn sheet.”

The code. He didn’t have the entry code for the room. But he would get it. They’d call the designated contact for Gallison, probably a company exec, and that person would know.

He wasn’t speaking quietly. Maybe they thought their burglar had already left. Checking the room just in case anything was missing. That was in my favor. I peered into the blue shadows. No way I could hide anywhere among the shelves. Yank the door open and run for it? That might be my
only chance. Maybe I could even knock the guard on his ass, and give myself a head start.

The rope jerked and a few more feet played out the window. Dono. I could signal him and maybe he could get the guards to come down to the lobby. Somehow.

I stuck my head out of the hole, the whap of the night wind in my ears not quite loud enough to cover the sound of the little truck’s engine starting, four floors below. As I watched, it pulled away from the building, quickly picking up speed.

Oh, shit. I hadn’t replied to Dono’s questions over the microphone. He’d loaded the last of the lenses. He probably thought I was on my way out of the building.

“’Bout damn time.” The guard outside.

“Hang on, this guy’s got me on hold.” A second voice. And more shadows under the door.

Two of them now. Shit shit shit. No way I could just dash right past and hope that they were slow on the draw. Draw. Dammit, did they have guns? I’d seen them in the lobby. Why didn’t I remember that?

Okay. Calm down. You have to get out of here.

As if in answer, the night wind chilled my spine.

No time to think hard about it. The rope was there and I could fit through the hole. I tied the fastest bowline in the world around the nearest anchored shelf leg. Yanked it tight. Lay down on my stomach and shimmied my legs out of the window. I had a death grip on the quarter-inch cotton rope. It would hold. It had to.

My chest was against the edge of the hole, and the cut glass edge was slicing my T-shirt. I squirmed an inch farther before it slashed my skin. Another inch. Just my arms and head inside now, the rest of me dangling. The wind lapped eagerly at my clothes. As I cleared the window, I thought I heard the guards fiddling with the punch code.

Three stories up. The rope swayed, thumping me against the building like it had the cases. I couldn’t feel my fingers. Climbing down hand over hand wasn’t going to work. The rope was too slim to let either hand go for even an instant. I frantically found the dangling length with my foot, and wrapped my leg around it. There. I couldn’t scramble down fast, but at least I could keep the rope from tearing all the skin of my palms.

I started down. Move the leg, then each hand. A couple of feet at a time. What if the guards found the hole, and looked out and saw me? What if they
shot
me?

Climb, dammit. Two stories up now. Maybe thirty feet to go.

And then I fell.

There was no feeling of descent, it was so fast. Just a leap in my gut and a crushing blow on my entire right side that brought blackness with it. The last feeling, far away, was of the long stretch of rope draping itself over my body, like a snake coming to rest.

I inhaled water and coughed. My face was on grass, and the grass was wet. I knew where I was instantly. Lying on the manicured yard of lawn between the office building and its parking lot.

They would be coming. I wasn’t quite conscious of who
they
were, but I knew I had to get away. I pushed up, sat up, stood up. Just that fast. And fell down again.

Dammit. I crawled a few feet, just to feel the ground, then tried standing again. Better. Still in one piece, as Dono would say.

Walking now, lurching farther from the building and toward the street. Real thoughts eased slowly back into my brain.

Lucky. I’d been very lucky. Another foot and I’d have splattered my head on the parking lot curb. Were the guards
after me? Had they finally gotten into the room? And why had I fallen? I hadn’t lost my grip. The edge of the hole I’d cut in the window had been sharp. Maybe sharp enough to slice the rope until it snapped. One foot in front of the other. That was a song, right? From TV. Couldn’t remember how it went.

Then I realized I was standing in the road. In the middle of the road, having walked to the dashed white line in the center. I looked back. The office building was three hundred yards behind me. And I’d even gone in the right direction, for our backup meeting place. Dono always set one, in case of emergencies. This qualified. The designated spot was a twenty-four-hour convenience store one mile east and one block north. Three hundred yards down, thirteen hundred to go. I limped to the side of the road and kept walking.

We’d made it. Dono had the lenses, and I had escaped. I’d be happy if I never cut it that close again. But there was—Crap, I was still wearing the surgical gloves. I stripped them off and stuffed them down the next sewer grate I passed.

Another hundred yards, and I was walking past a strip mall. I kept pace by marking the shops. Nail salon, hair salon, baby furniture, café. Everything closed and dark. There was a car coming around the corner one block up, turning toward me. A cop car. Sultan County Sheriff.

I kept walking. The cruiser closed the distance between us. It slowed and stopped. A muscled blond cop looked at me from the driver’s window.

“Evening,” he said. Expressionless.

“Hey,” I said, smiling. Keep walking, or stop? A citizen would stop. I stopped.

“You all right?” he said. The cop’s partner leaned forward to get a better look at me. Another youngish guy, Chicano instead of Nordic, with a buzz cut and glasses.

“Yeah, yeah. Just twisted my ankle in”—what month was it?—“football practice.”

“Where are you going?”

I couldn’t say home. He’d ask where it was, and I didn’t have a good answer. “Bus station.”

He stared. Pointed. “It’s that way.”

Shit. “Sorry. I lost my wallet. No money for a cab.”

“You been drinking?”

“No. Not at all.” Maybe if I passed a Breathalyzer, he’d let me go.

The cop looked up the road. Toward the Gallison building. “You came from that way?”

His partner said something quiet to him before I could answer. They both turned and looked at the readout on the onboard computer.

The driver stepped out of the car. Both of the cops had their eyes on me now.

“No ID, huh?” he said. “Hands on your head, please.” He stepped around behind me. “Legs apart.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Hands.”

The Chicano cop had gotten out and was coming around to us. The blond patted me down. My pockets were completely empty, I knew. I’d even lost the cell phone in the fall.

The blond cop finished, gave a nod to his partner. The partner opened the back door. “Inside,” he said.

“Am I under
arrest
?” I tried to sound a little panicked, like a regular kid would be. Since I was pretty freaked out already, it wasn’t hard.

“Call it a ride home. Get in.”

I got in. The cop did the thing of making sure I didn’t bang my head on the roof, accidentally or otherwise. He closed the door. The backseat was cramped. It felt like a dog kennel, with the bars on the windows and the mesh separating the front seat.

“What’s the number?” the blond said to his partner after they’d climbed back in.

“Three-oh-four,” said the Chicano, reading from the computer screen. He gave me a sideways glance over his glasses. The cruiser pulled forward, slowly, as the cops scanned the buildings for addresses. Or maybe for other suspects like me.

I tried to remember what I knew about Ford Taurus police cars. Nothing that could work any magic on the handleless doors of my cage.

What would Dono say? He’d tell me to stay put, play dumb, and wait for the lawyer. But I wasn’t handcuffed. If I could peel back the door’s interior shell somehow, and get to the lock mechanism . . .

A woman screamed. The scream was long, loud, and full of terror. It came from somewhere out behind the strip mall.

“Jesus,” said the blond cop, as he hit the brakes hard. They were already opening their doors. The woman shrieked again, in pain maybe.

“Unit Ten, responding to distress, corner of Wilton—” the Chicano cop hollered into his shoulder mike. They ran across the street and toward the sound.

What could I use to pry at the door? I didn’t even have a belt buckle.

Then, like I had willed it, the door swung open.

Dono was crouched at the rear fender. “Move your ass,” he said.

I scrambled out and ran after him, limp and all. The nearest business was an outlet store for cheap leather goods—
HALF OFF ALL DAY EVERY DAY
—and I followed Dono’s big silhouette around its corner and through the alley between it and a boarded-up travel store. We stopped in a trash-strewn lot behind the travel agent.

“That woman—” I said.

“Shut up.” He was listening. I didn’t hear anything, not even the sound of the cop car’s engine. But I spotted our white pickup truck parked at the curb half a block away.

Dono was furious. Not just your everyday pissed off. That was common enough. I could gauge his black moods like a barometer, and right now the needle was pegged all the way to the left.

Shit, it wasn’t my fault the guards had showed up at Gallison. If he hadn’t have taken off so quick, maybe he could have
helped
.

“Come on,” he said, and we jogged to the truck.

Instead of driving directly away from the cops, Dono turned and headed east, on a parallel street to the one on which I’d been walking. He drove very slowly. I almost asked why, but it was pretty damn clear he wasn’t handing out answers tonight.

He stopped. Turned off the lights. We sat. Five silent and excruciatingly slow minutes passed.

Elana Coll, dressed all in black, dashed from around the corner of a consignment store and up to our truck.

“Scoot over,” she said, pulling open the passenger door. I shifted sideways and Elana squeezed in next to me. Her dark hair was in one long braid, and it flapped against me as she yanked hard on the door to close it. Dono hit the gas and we were suddenly flying toward the freeway entrance.

Elana bounced around to face us. “Man, you owe me big,” she said to me. “I saved your whole
life
.”

Dono said nothing. Even his big hands on the wheel were relaxed. But I could feel the fury vibrating off of him. The remainder of my whole life might not be worth saving.

Elana caught the mood in the air and settled back in her seat. But pressed up against each other, I could feel each sidelong glance she sent my way. When I finally shifted my eyes to look, she gave me a grin that could have melted that window’s glass all by itself.

S
HE WAS ALIVE.
The shock of it froze me in place.

Elana reacted first, stomping the gas. The Ford pitched forward, suspension squealing with the abrupt turn.

I shouted “Wait!” and chased her. She kept her foot on the pedal. An oncoming car braked so hard it skidded, fender missing both of us by inches. It honked wrathfully, but Elana was already half a block away and accelerating.

I was left standing in the street, staring at the Ford until it vanished.

One of the Brothers of Scandinavia hollered to ask if I was all right, and another mentioned it might be a good idea to get my butt off the road. The driver who had just missed us roared past.

She was alive.

So who was dead?

My phone browser was still on Trudy Dobb’s Facebook account, with Trudy’s shyly smiling headshot pulled up. I’d been looking for pictures of her face before. Not her body.

One of her online photos albums was named Trip to Baja. Lots of pictures on various beaches. The fifth picture in the album showed
Trudy, almost in the background, turned toward a flight of blindingly white stone steps while the couple at the center smiled for the camera. She was caught in motion, her left foot up on the high step, weight forward and ready to push off, her leg extended behind.

Her right leg, with its tattoo of tumbling roses in faded red and black. The same tattoo I’d seen in the Jefferson County morgue.

Trudy Dobbs had died at the cabin, with Kend. Two bullets to the face. It had been her black wings of blood I’d been dreaming of, not Elana’s. Elana had used her best friend’s identity to hide.

But why? Had she been responsible for the murders at the cabin? The Elana I knew was gorgeous, and knew it. Used it. She would hustle or steal. But kill?

Willard. He had realized Elana wasn’t the dead girl at the cabin, the moment he had seen that ink. He’d lied to the cops. To me.

Did he know if his niece had murdered her friends?

Christ, had Willard been in on their murders from the start?

It was noon. If Willard had held one of his traveling casinos last night, he was probably dismantling it somewhere right now. I wanted to see him in person, and watch his eyes as I asked him about his dear, sweet niece.

I called him. No answer. I looked up another number. It was a public business, technically, but nobody off the street just wandered into the North Asian Association for Trade. Their version of commerce benefited a narrow group.

One Russian family, specifically.

I let it ring. I was reasonably sure that someone would be at the NAAT offices around the clock, but less positive that the phones were working.

“Yes?” a voice answered after a dozen rings.

“Van Shaw. I want to talk to Reuben.”

“No Reuben here.”

“Take a message.” I gave him my name again, and my cell number. “He wants to talk to me.”

“Yeah.” Unconvinced. He hung up.

Reuben K liked the card games. Liked the action, liked the girls. Mostly he liked feeling like a big shot. If there had been a game around Seattle last night, he would have been there, representing, letting Willard manage the tables while he preened for the players.

Elana had fled at the sight of me. Had she known who I was? It had been a lot of years, and God knew a good chunk of my face had been scrambled and pieced back together in that time.

But from my stunned expression, Elana would have known that I had recognized
her
. And that fact had been enough to spook her. If she wasn’t afraid of me specifically, she was sure as hell afraid of someone.

She wouldn’t be coming back to the studio space again, and she’d probably already trashed the Amex. Maybe she was out of the city altogether. I’d blown an excellent chance to corner her and figure out what the hell was going on. The hard truth was enough to turn my mouth bitter.

My phone rang.

“Up and at them, soldier! Time to squeeze this new day by the balls!” Reuben, still hyper from his Saturday night. Maybe with a little pharma help.

“It’s afternoon, Reuben. And I called you, remember?”

“You did, you did, and it makes me very happy. You’ve thought about my offer.”

I had forgotten about Reuben’s proposal to have me work for him. Between the Kuznetsovs and Maurice Haymes, I had a world of career opportunities.

“That’s not why I called,” I said.

“No? Hang on.” I heard a car door close. When he came back on, his voice echoed slightly in the smaller confines of the vehicle. “Van, my man. Really. Why would you call me so early and start my day with bad news? This is not what colleagues do.”

“I need to find our other friend. The big man.”

“He’s such a friend, you don’t have his number?” Reuben was petulant now. From manic to downcast in a heartbeat.

“I have his number. He might be where there’s no reception.” The cell phone jammers they used for the game.

“Huh. Maybe.” Reuben exchanged a few words in Russian with someone next to him. “Our friend is working. Better if you talk to him later.”

“I need him now.”

“Now, always now. What if I want an answer from
you
now, Van? You thinking about the future or not?”

“Reuben—”

“Yes or no?”

I wanted to find Willard. But not enough to make promises I couldn’t keep to a Bratva captain, however junior he was.

“No.”

I heard the car’s engine start, simultaneous with Reuben’s exaggerated sigh. “Okay,” he said. “I think it’s the wrong decision, a man with your talent. But to show you no hard feelings, I’ll let you talk to your big friend. You know Double-X Motorsports? In Tacoma?”

“I’ll find it,” I said.

“Better move your ass. He’s got to have a thousand miles behind him by tomorrow night.”

A thousand miles meant L.A., or maybe Vegas. Cities well out of the Kuznetsov territory, last I knew. Maybe Reuben wasn’t bullshitting about his big plans.

I was on I-5 South in less than ten minutes. As I drove, the navigation app on my phone read off the directions to Double-X Motorsports in that female voice that always sounded to me like she was speaking to a mental patient. Chipper but soothing tones.

DOUBLE-X WAS PART OF
a large two-story garage in the South End. Its sheet metal walls were painted a bright, clean ivory, while a sign above the big rolling door spelled out the name in purple and black, graffiti style, the X formed by crossed pistons. A good place for Willard’s temporary casino. Nobody would think twice at seeing a parking lot full of tricked-out cars inside its heavy iron fence.

The lot was mostly empty now, the gate open. Coasting past, I saw a twenty-foot moving truck, backed up to the garage door. And Willard’s Escalade, parked off to the side.

Gotcha, you big son of a bitch.

The industrial neighborhood was dead quiet on a Sunday afternoon. I parked half a block away, just as the moving truck turned out of the lot and passed by my pickup. Two men were in the cab of the truck. Neither of them was nearly large enough to be Willard.

I walked to the gate. Willard’s black Escalade was still there. The two movers had left the rolling door open, the gap making a tall black rectangle in the stark exterior. A two-foot crowbar was wedged in the track under the door to hold it in place. I could hear the sound of movement and a radio playing be-bop jazz from far inside the open shop.

The music clicked off. I quietly picked up the crowbar and faded back to hide behind the Escalade.

Willard came out of the garage. He wore one of his usual brown suits with a green knit tie. The tie was loosened and his white shirt wrinkled. A long night. He set down a leather gym bag—the night’s receipts, maybe—and turned to shut the garage door.

The steel door was twenty feet tall and fifteen wide. Even Willard had to tug hard at it with both hands to get it moving. He walked slowly backward, half in and half out of the garage, glancing behind him as he went.

I decided to give him a little help. Sprinting from behind the Escalade, I put all my weight into pushing the rolling door. It covered the last five feet in a rush. Too fast for Willard to get his suddenly stumbling bulk completely out of the way. He fell back against the doorjamb. The door’s edge slammed on his right arm, just below the shoulder. He shouted and tried to get his feet back underneath him. I reached down and jammed the end of the crowbar into the crack between the door and its roller track, and pulled up. The door closed another inch. Willard yelled again, a higher pitch.

“Van, what the fuck?” he said. He yanked at his trapped arm,
but he had no leverage. I hauled up on the crowbar, harder, until he stopped.

“You’re breaking my arm,” he said. His broad face was red and already sweating.

“Yeah,” I said. “Tell me about Elana.”

Willard started to push back against the door. His strength was massive. The sheet metal groaned. But even Willard wasn’t stronger than high-carbon steel. This time I pulled on the crowbar for a slow count of thirty. There are a lot of sensitive nerve endings in the bicep muscle. The metal edge of the heavy door was pressing hard enough to stretch the fabric of Willard’s suit jacket taut. When I stopped he looked like he might vomit.

“Next time I’ll put my back into it,” I said.

“What do you want?” he said between gasps. He saw me adjust my grip on the bar and changed tack quickly. “Okay, stop. I knew it wasn’t her. The body, at the hospital.”

“But you lied to the cops. And me.”

Willard’s breath hissed out of his teeth. “Ease off, for fuck’s sake. Yes, I told everybody it was Elana. Even Hollis. I needed to buy some time. To find her.”

“Did you know who the dead woman was?”

“No. But her body looked so fucking horrible, it gave me the idea. I figured playing stupid would buy me a day or two. If Elana was alive, maybe she’d get in touch. But she never did.”

“Did she shoot Kend? And the woman?” I said.

“I don’t know.” His face was dripping, the usual stone expression replaced by a pain that might be more than physical.

“Bullshit.”

“It’s like I told you. She never showed for work, she didn’t answer my calls. She still doesn’t. I tried a hundred times. I even called the phone company and used a cop ID to get them to trace her phone. It’s been off for days. Shit, my arm. I can’t feel my fingers.”

“Probably for the best.”

“Did she call you? Did you see her?”

“I got a glimpse of her, before she rabbited. Why wouldn’t she tell you if she was in danger?”

“I’ve been wondering that since I saw that girl on the slab.”

What couldn’t big, bad Uncle Willard handle?

Or maybe he was part of whatever had Elana on the run.

“She’s not a killer,” Willard said.

“You are.”

“This isn’t on me. I swear I don’t know what happened.”

I was angry enough with Willard to tear a few of his tendons, and enjoy doing it. But I’d seen his reaction to seeing Trudy. It hadn’t been anguish after all. It had been relief.

“The cops, I don’t give a damn about,” I said. “You should have trusted me.”

“I told you to let it go.”

He slumped against the steel doorjamb. His shirt was soaked through so much that I could see the gray hairs on his chest, and his jowls sagged. He looked old. But he could still break my neck, if he got those dinner plate hands on me.

“Don’t move.” I hefted the crowbar to make my point. Willard stayed put as I walked a wide circle to come up behind him. I took the small carry piece over his right kidney out of its holster. A Kahr .38.

“Come on,” he growled. “If I was gonna draw on you, I would have done it.”

“Except that you’re right-handed. Call me paranoid.” I ejected the magazine and pocketed it, and did the same for the round in the chamber. The pistol I threw far into the garage, through the opening left by Willard’s bulk.

“What now?” he said.

“Now you take your family drama and go fuck yourself,” I said. “I’m done.”

He pushed the door wider and gingerly lowered his arm, caveman brow crushed tight in pain. His hand was the same bleached color as the garage walls.

“I need to find her,” he said.

“Tell it to the dead girl who’s paying for her vacation.” I started backing away toward the gate.

“Your grandfather would have helped.” He turned around. His face was back to its usual stolid mask. Almost. “Dono understood family.”

“My grandfather would have taken your money,” I replied.