An Image of Death (15 page)

Sofiya shook her head.

“What about the others?”

The women shook their heads, but one of them threw a furtive glance at the woman with the tassels. Davis didn’t catch it.

“What about the design? You ever see these stars and flame before? Maybe not on a tattoo, but something else? A paper, a coin, a piece of clothing?”

As Sofiya translated, the woman at the door started to fidget. Her eyes darted around the room, and the rapid rise and fall of her chest made her tassels swish. When her gaze landed on me, she froze for an instant, her eyes wide. Then she edged away from the door, turned around, and hurried down the hall.

A buzz skimmed all the nerves of my body.

Davis was distributing business cards, her back still to the door. “Something comes to you, anything at all, you call me. The girl in this picture was young, you know? Someone should pay for her death.”

She still hadn’t seen the woman in the doorway. I shifted. I wasn’t supposed to get involved; Davis specifically ordered me not to. But this woman appeared to know who I was. Shouldn’t I find out how? What if she had something to do with the tape? A tide of conflicting urges swept through me. Davis didn’t want me to interfere, but if I didn’t follow the woman, we might miss a huge opportunity. I stole another glance at Davis. Her back was to me. I peered down the hall. I slipped out the door.

The woman was working her way to the backstage door.

“Hey, you,” I called. “Wait!”

She whipped around. Panic shot across her face.

“Don’t go!” I raised my hand in the air. “I—I need to talk to you!” She paused and turned around for a moment, like a bird hovering in mid-flight. It occurred to me I had no idea if she spoke English. I thrust my hand into my bag, which was slung over my shoulder. “Look.…”

She recoiled, turned around, and sprinted through the door. Damn. She thought I had a gun. “Wait! It’s just my card. My business card!”

But she didn’t stop. I started after her, but she’d already ducked out of sight. I hurried through the backstage door after her, trying to figure out which direction she’d taken. I guessed left and tentatively started across the stage.

Another door slammed somewhere in back, and a man’s voice cut through the air. Then a woman’s—it had to be her—in low, urgent tones. A second man’s voice followed. Petrovsky? Had he been here the whole time? Before I could think it through, the door slammed again. Moments later the whine of a car engine floated through the air.

I stopped. I should go back to the dressing room. Tell Davis what happened. She’d want to know about the woman—and the men whose voices I’d heard. I started to creep back across the stage, trying to stay in the shadows, hoping no one would see me.

Halfway across, the footlights slammed on, and a deep, male voice bellowed out, “Stop!”

I stopped.

“On your knees!”

I dropped. I tried to make out who was there, but the glare of the lights blinded me. A large, beefy man hurled himself onto the stage. The man who’d taken off in the Blazer. Except this time he wasn’t leaving. He was heading straight toward me, and he was pointing a gun at my head.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

The wind moaned fitfully as it whipped through the walls. I didn’t move. I hardly breathed. But my heart was pounding so loud, I was sure he could hear it above the wind.

The man jammed the gun against my forehead. “Don’t move!”

He had the same accent as Sofiya. I tried to focus on his tone and inflection, thinking I might gauge his mood, but a woman’s voice overrode him. High-pitched. Jittery. I snuck a look. The woman with the tassels stood at the edge of the stage. Our eyes met. She looked away. The man with the gun wedged it farther into my flesh.

“Please. Could I explain—”

“Shut up! Look at floor!”

I bent my head. The man snarled something, all the while keeping up a steady pressure on the gun. The woman closed in and helped herself to my bag. She pawed through it, and made a triumphant exclamation, as she pulled out my wallet. More conversation as she flipped through the plastic sleeves. She stopped at one and squinted. In broken English, she recited, “Eleanor Foreman. Two, four, nine.…” Then she lapsed back into Russian. I recognized the first three digits of my Social Security number. She was reading my driver’s license.

The man with the gun barked out a command. The woman looked doubtfully at me at first, as if she wanted to argue, but then reconsidered. Stuffing the wallet back in my bag, she tossed it on the floor and retreated. A door slammed. It was quiet again.

My heart kicked in my chest. Where was Davis?

“Now stand,” he ordered.

I struggled to my feet, still unable to see my assailant. But I felt him. A rough hand patted me down, fumbling with my sweater, jeans, even my boots. Apparently satisfied I didn’t have a weapon, he grabbed my arm and shoved me forward. “Move! But keep head down.”

I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought we were heading back across the stage. The important thing was I wasn’t dead, and that fueled me with hope. Then his fingers dug into my arm, and I stopped and looked up. A huge face, too close to register features, leaned into mine. A greasy, almost chalky odor came out of his mouth. Almost as if he’d been eating fries. From McDonald’s.

“Talk now,” he growled. “What you doing here?”

I felt the gun prodding my temple. “We were looking for the man who just—”

He cut me off. “We?”

Shit. Me and my big mouth. I’d just tipped him about Davis. His grip tightened, and the gun inched closer to my skull.

“Who is ‘we’?”

Sweat dripped from my neck. I squeezed my eyes shut, fully expecting a white light to explode any second.

Suddenly, the sounds of a scuffle broke through behind us. Footsteps raced across the stage, and several voices shouted at once. Then a clear female voice rang out. “Police. Drop the gun. Now!”

The gun remained wedged against my temple, but I thought I felt a slight release in pressure. I saw a pair of boots, police issue, on the floor in the middle of the stage. Behind them was a pair of fuzzy pink slippers. Two pairs of socks appeared behind them.

“I said, drop it. Now!” Davis shouted. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

Nothing happened. The gun was still against my forehead. His other hand still clutched my arm. No one moved or spoke. Even the wind was silent. It crossed my mind that the last face I’d ever see might not be Rachel’s or Dad’s or even David’s, but the face of a man with French-fry breath in a strip joint in Des Plaines.

Then the man took in a breath, and blew it out slowly. He grunted, and the gun clattered to the floor.

I sucked in a ragged breath. Davis was crouched in a shooter’s stance, both hands gripping her automatic, which was leveled at my attacker. Sofiya and the other two women huddled behind her. I hurried over. The women opened up a space and let me into their midst. The man’s hands shot up in the air.

“That was a smart decision,” Davis said to him. “Now move away from the gun.”

The man glowered but did what she said. Davis inched forward, and keeping her gun on him, picked his up and stuffed it into her waistband.

“Well, now, it looks like we’re all gonna live another day.” She edged to the back of the stage, where the women formed a tight knot around me. “Let’s go. We’re done here.” Keeping the gun trained on the man, she lifted her chin. “You. Don’t move until we’re gone.”

The man tilted his head, a quizzical expression passing over his face. But whether that was because he didn’t understand English, or because he expected more trouble, an arrest maybe, or a trip to the station, I didn’t know. Frankly, I didn’t care.

Davis motioned for me to move. I crept across the stage, dropped to the floor, and headed for the front door. Davis followed, slowly backing away. When she reached the door, she lowered her gun.

“I’ll be sure to note how cooperative you were in my report.”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

If it wasn’t on the North Shore, Solyst’s, our village watering hole, would be a seedy place. But up here, nothing is “seedy”—it’s “casual.” Solyst’s is further redeemed by a stone chimney and fireplace which, tonight, was blazing cheerfully. Because of the storm we had our pick of tables. Within minutes we were well into a pitcher of beer.

Davis took a long swig. “The asshole’s got to be wondering why I didn’t run him in.”

“Why didn’t you?” I wolfed down a fried mushroom. They were greasy and not at all filling, but I was hungrier than I’d ever been in my life.

She stared into her beer as if the answer to my question was in the hops and foam. “Because I screwed up.”

“How?”

“I shouldn’t have been there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It wasn’t my turf. I barged in like a frigging rookie. No backup. No heads-up to the locals. And with a civilian, for Christ’s sake.” She hunched her shoulders. Worry lines pinched her brow.

“Why didn’t you call for help?”

“I didn’t think we would need it. I mean, hell. There was a blizzard outside. Who’s gonna be out in that? And then, well, things happened so fast.…” She shook her head.

“You’re forgetting one thing. You saved my life. That was no screwup.”

She poured more beer into her glass. “I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but that’s not the way it works.”

I tilted my glass toward her. She refilled it. “How does it work?”

“If it gets out, Olson might not let me out on patrol. Hell, I’ll probably be bounced back to the desk.”

“But don’t you have to write some kind of report?”

She nodded. “I have to send his gun in to property, too.”

“Huh?”

“Every gun we recover gets checked to see if it’s been used in other crimes.” She sighed. “The problem is explaining how I got it. Once I lay it out, they’ll—”

“Do you have to—lay it out for them?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you have to tell them exactly what happened out there?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I was the one who forced you into the situation. I should never have followed the girl in the first place. I should have told you about her. Let you handle it.”

“Yeah. But I should never have had you with me in the first place.”

“Well, then,” I said, “I guess we both screwed up.”

She eyed me curiously. “You have every right to tell Olson what happened, you know. Even if I get suspended.”

“I’ll remember that. But I think I lost his number.”

She shot me another look, then went to the bar. I wondered what she was going to say on her report. I decided not to ask.

“I gotta hand it to you.” She came back with another pitcher. “You were pretty cool in there.”

I laughed, grateful that I could. “It was an act.”

“Yeah?”

“I was paralyzed. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to.” I picked the crust off another mushroom and pushed the plate toward her. She took a bite of one, then screwed up her face. I pushed them away. “But I am concerned about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The woman with the tassels took the license out of my wallet. She knows where I live.”

She frowned. Then, “They don’t have any reason to come after you.”

“How do you know?”

“There’s no guarantee, but, don’t forget, we know where to find them. They know that. They’d be crazy to try anything.”

“I wish I were as confident.” I paused. “So, what is your take on Natasha and Boris and the others?”

“Natasha and…?” Her face clouded for a moment, then cleared. “Oh.” She shrugged. “What I’d like to know is what happened to Petrovsky.”

“I heard a door slam and a car start right before it all happened,” I said. “I was thinking he might have been making a break for it.”

Davis shrugged again.

“They could have been protecting him.”

“Who?”

“The women. Or some of them. The Buick was gone when we left.”

“Why would they need to protect him?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Because he dropped off the tape at your house?”

It was my turn to shrug. It did seem flimsy. I changed the subject. “Does that mean you think Petrovsky did drop it off?”

“Hard to say.”

“Rachel said it was a van. And he was staring at my house a few days later, like he was wondering who I was and what had happened to the tape. And then, when we followed him—well.…”

“Logic isn’t evidence.”

“Not even circumstantial?”

“Not even close.”

I studied my glass. “I’d sure like to know who Tassel Woman is. The way she looked at me—it was as if she knew me.”

Davis grimaced. “You sure? The shit they’re on, some of those women wouldn’t recognize themselves in the mirror.”

“She was straight. I could tell.”

Davis didn’t say anything.

“So what happens now?”

“I’ll file my report. Talk to Olson. With any luck, he’ll send me back out there with another cop. Or maybe he’ll have the Des Plaines cops check it out. Or maybe he’ll tell me to call it a day.”

“Take you off the case?”

“You gotta admit it’s looking thin. All we have is a weird look from a guy driving a van. And another weird look from a woman in a strip joint.”

“And the tattoo. And the location.”

“Neither of which we know a damn thing about.”

I scooted my chair closer to the table. “What about the tattoo? You making any headway on that?”

“I talked to our guys who do gang work, and they told me to call downtown. I have a call in to them. I called the Bureau, too. A guy over there’s looking into it.”

“The FBI?”

“Yeah.”

I recalled my dealings with an FBI agent last fall. I poured more beer into my glass.

“The guy doesn’t know when he can get to it, though. Other priorities.”

“Do you think anyone at Celestial Bodies knew the woman on the tape?”