Eye of the Storm (21 page)

Of course. No one wanted to annoy the great Karl Bömelburg. Especially when he was in possession of a new plaything: Rosa.

She fell into an oblivious stupor until, finally, they pulled off the main highway and onto a rutted lane that strained even the Citroën’s superior suspension. Every bounce cut through Rosa like a knife, but she kept quiet in the dim hopes that her captors had forgotten her. Then they rolled to a stop.

The door opened and hands reached in and slid her free of the back seat with a gentleness that surprised her. She was lowered to the ground onto a blanket that was then wrapped around her. In her confused state, she could have sworn the blanket was her own perina, the one she had entrusted to Padraic.

It was total darkness, not even stars could be seen, only the glowering shadows of the two men above her. They were in the woods. She could hear the rustle of tree branches, smelled decayed leaves.

The car sped away into the darkness, leaving one man behind—Bömelburg, she could tell by his build. Was he going to kill her here and now? No, not so fast. Bömelburg was known as a man who enjoyed prolonging his pleasure and the misery of others.

A faint moan escaped her as he knelt beside her, pulled her into his arms. She felt his breathing coming in choked gasps, smelled the tang of his sweat through the heavy wool clothes that swathed him.

Rosa felt a stir of hope. Maybe she was already dead? Or dreaming?

She raised a hand to his face, her fingers tracing the contours of his jaw and cheek, sliding against silent tears that slid from his eyes.

He drew his breath in with a ragged gasp and held her tighter. “Rosa, my love. I thought I’d lost you. I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.”

Rosa felt giddy with relief, delight, joy—they all combined to steal her voice as her fingers traced Padraic’s face. She ignored her pain as she curled into her lover’s chest, her face pressed against the steady beating of his heart.

Life is hope.

Damned old woman, why did she always have to be right?

“You’re safe now,” Padraic said. “I’m getting you out of this godforsaken country.”

Rosa shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice sounding strange to her. It was raspy, broken from hours of screaming. “We have to go back. We have to go to Paris.”

“You’re feverish. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Listen to me, Padraic,” she urged. “I must go back.”

He pulled her so tightly to his chest that she lost her breath for a moment as bruises came alive with pain. He quickly released her. “Sorry. Let me get you inside. There’s food, medicine. We’ll get you healed up, then you’ll make more sense.”

Rosa let him gather her into his arms and carry her down a path into the woods to a small hunting cabin. She knew as soon as she had her strength back, she’d be returning to Paris, once a city of light and dreams, now the belly of the beast.

She could not abandon her final mission, leave her precious treasure behind.

DRAKE HAD NEVER
felt so off balance. He moved in a surreal world of bright lights and loud men, escorting his mother to the medic’s rig to be checked out.

Muriel clung to him, but insisted she was unharmed. According to her, other than to duct tape her wrists and mouth, no one had touched her. They’d spent the day driving around, Muriel face-down, a bag over her head, on the floor of the back seat. The driver had been a middle-aged woman with a description that matched that of Natasha Mulo, the missing landlady. She’d been accompanied by a man in his late teens.

Several times they’d pulled to the side of the road and she’d heard the woman outside the car screaming, but then she’d get back inside and drive off as if nothing was wrong. Other than that, Muriel knew nothing.

The cop in Drake was frustrated by the lack of actionable details. The son in him was ecstatic beyond words to have his mother back safe and sound. And the man who’d had to choose between his mother and the woman he loved was torn apart, a murder of crows pecking at the entrails of his shredded emotions.

Finally, Drake was able to take Muriel back to his apartment so she could rest from her ordeal while he and Jimmy continued to search for Hart. She protested but also understood that he needed her safe before he could go back out, so she finally settled down in the guest bedroom.

While Jimmy coordinated Muriel’s protective detail, Drake couldn’t resist stealing a few moments of peace before returning to the interminable waiting, all control surrendered to a madman who played with lives like pieces on a chess board.

As he wandered the apartment, the void Hart’s absence created was palpable, a wound he could not ignore.

He ended up in his studio, wishing he had time to sit and sketch. There were so many images of Hart in his mind, he wanted to commit them all to some form of permanence so there was no chance they could ever be lost.

No chance he could forget. As if.

Hart’s face and body greeted him from every corner of the studio, nowhere more vibrantly than the canvases that held the early studies of
Steadfast
. He couldn’t pull his gaze away. That tilt of her jaw, set in stone, immutable, stubborn. The ripple of muscles up her arm and into those shoulders hunched with responsibility and strength. And finally, those eyes—fathomless dark pools that cried out their defiance at the darkness trying to blind them.

Drake’s fingers reached out, stroking the painted flesh as if it were real. Then he pulled his hand back. He couldn’t give up. She would be back; she had to return. His hand trembled. He clenched it into a fist, his eyes still riveted by Hart’s image, as if he could borrow some of her strength and courage.

Tears clouded his vision and he slumped against the table. The remnants of Hart’s dress from the unveiling last night brushed against his hand. He clenched it as if reaching for a lifeline and brought it to his face, yearning to find some essence of her, needing to know she was there with him if only in spirit and imagination.

He breathed deep of the soft velvet, inhaling her scent of April showers and springtime blossoms; the smell of rose-tinted sunrises spilling through the window to silhouette her body above his as they made love; the perfume of sweat and exhaled curses as they sparred together, preparing her for her Kempo black belt exam; the laughter he could so seldom coax from her but that was infectious when he could, lightening any task; the crimson of anger when her will and his collided, creating sparks of passion; the silky caress of her hair against his lips.

Drake bowed his head low and let free his tears, his face buried deep in the folds of a ruined dress. He wept without sound, tears hot and furious, burning his face and throat, choking and gagging him until he was empty of everything but the memory of her face.

She was alive. Somehow he knew the words were true—if only because Kasanov hadn’t called to torment him with news of her death.

Hart was alive. And no way in hell was he giving up on her.

He shoved the remnants of the dress aside. Headed out the door, nodding to the uniformed officer who would keep watch over Muriel, he ran down the stairs to where Jimmy waited at the car. Drake tossed him the car keys. “You drive. I need time to think.”

“Where to?” Jimmy asked.

“Anton’s landlady. Did they find her yet?”

“Taylor said even the FBI couldn’t find any trace of her. House isn’t in her name. It’s in the name of an LLC.”

“Let’s go pay Taylor a visit—see if we can help the FBI piece this all together.”

“Federal building it is.” Jimmy put the car in gear and sped away.

Drake got on the phone with Taylor. “Find out what other properties that LLC owns.” He closed his eyes for a moment. There was something else… “Oh, and call the ME, ask them about Anton Lavelle’s autopsy. Any chance he was already dead when Alicia hit him? Or maybe he was drugged, left there to be run over?”

If his hunch was right, he might have something to trade Kasanov after all. And win Hart’s life in return.

AFTER HER SURRENDER,
the boys escorted Cassie back inside the service bay, the children following as if she were the Pied Piper. The younger kids cheered and clapped when the older boys forced Cassie back into the Ford’s trunk and slammed the lid on her.

They left her there a long time, over an hour by her estimate. Since she was unrestrained, she could move and protect her body, unlike before. This time she suffered no panic attacks. There was nothing to panic about. She had gained Muriel’s freedom, which was all that mattered.

Finally, the trunk opened once more. Cassie blinked at the bright lights. Two boys hauled her out. A third, his face bruised and bloody, the guard she had overcome and locked into the bathroom earlier, watched, a submachine gun in his arms and an angry scowl on his face.

This time, they dragged Cassie into what used to be the car dealership’s show room area. Kasanov waited, sitting in another expensive leather chair on top a circular dais used to showcase cars. His people sat on the floor on either side of him. Boys nearest him, then girls, and finally young children. There was now another adult, the middle-aged woman she’d seen last night on the steps of the museum. No sign of Vincent; that had to be good. At least she hoped so.

Her captors forced her onto the dais and then down to the floor. They didn’t bother with restraints but the four of them arranged themselves behind her, leaving her no path to escape. Fine by her. Her feet were too sore to run anywhere. And where would she run that the dogs wouldn’t catch her?

Easier to sit and wait for Drake. He’d be here soon; she was certain.

Everyone was silent for a long moment, Kasanov’s people glaring at Cassie as if she were responsible for everything wrong in the world. But not Kasanov. He appeared amused—and angry. A dangerous combination in a man like him.

His expression reminded Cassie of the one her ex-husband used to get when he was drunk and baiting her, setting little traps so that anything she said or did would be the wrong answer and it would be her fault when he lashed out at her.

When she left him, Cassie had vowed never to play those games again. Yet, here she was. But who was playing who?

She opened her mouth to spin another tale, but Kasanov silenced her with a raised hand. “Before you tell me more lies, let me tell you what I know to be true.”

The crowd around him leaned forward, as anxious as Cassie to hear what he had to say. All she had to do was keep him talking—or placated enough to listen to her—until the police arrived. To do that, she could use details from his own story and embellish them, twist them to sound like they’d come from the tales Paddy told her.

“My father was Bernard Lavelle of the Lowara,” Kasanov began, his voice echoing through the large, glass-walled room. “My mother, Mandra Kasanov, also Lowara. I never knew my father. He died before I was born. Assassinated by a traitor to the Roma.”

His eyes grew fierce and he raised a finger to point at Cassie. “Your grandmother, Rosa Costello, and her
gaje
lover. They murdered my father so they could steal the gold for themselves. That gold is my birthright.”

Cassie sat in silence, the weight of Kasanov’s accusations pinning her in place.

“Rosa also betrayed my mother. The Nazis had captured her. That gold was my father’s only bargaining chip to gain her freedom. When he failed to deliver it, they shipped my mother to the camps. First Ravensbrück and then Auschwitz-Birkenau.”

An audible moan of dismay came from the crowd behind him, several of the girls—led by the woman, Natasha—making shrill noises of grieving, slapping their bodies and faces. Once again Cassie thought about this strange family Natasha and Nickolai had created. More cult than family from what Vincent had told her.

“I was born in Birkenau,” Kasanov continued. “Somehow, thanks to my mother, we survived when so many others did not. She raised me to never forget. That no matter where I went or what I did, my heart was Roma. That a blood debt must always be repaid.”

He stood, glaring down at Cassie. “And tonight that debt has come due.”

Two guards held her in place as the other two left and returned, carrying a khaki vest bristling with wires, pockets bulging with what looked like plastic explosives. Cassie tried to struggle, but it was useless.

“What have you done?” Cassie cried out from where she knelt on the floor, hoping to warn the children. As the first two pinned her down, the other two lowered the vest over her head and secured it with chains and a padlock.

The vest was heavy—at least twenty pounds—and she had no idea how the explosives were triggered, but there was a mercury level sitting at the top of the vest’s neckline, forcing her to hold still, barely breathing. “You’ll kill us all.”

<<<>>>

AS JIMMY DROVE
, Drake leaned back in his seat and allowed the city streets to blur around him. He felt exhausted, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. Ever since
Steadfast
went up in flames last night—God, was it only last night?—his mind had been speeding through a maze filled with twists, turns, and dead ends.

“A scavenger hunt,” he muttered.

“More like smoke and mirrors,” Jimmy said. “Sending us in one direction while he moves in another.”

“Herding us like cattle.” Drake sat upright. “I’m not even sure Alicia actually killed Anton or that this is about his death at all. I can’t stop thinking…something Hart used to say about her grandmother…”

“What?” Jimmy scoffed. “Don’t tell me we’re resorting to gypsy fortune telling now? I know Hart acts like she can really hear her grandmother’s ghost, but—”

“Ghost. That’s it. The alias the landlady used, Natasha Mulo.
Mulo
is the gypsy word for ghost.”

“So? There’s plenty of gypsies in Eastern Europe. No reason why they couldn’t be partnered with Kasanov.”

“The Roma don’t usually partner with outsiders.
Gaje
, they call us. They stick with their own clans. It’s all about family.” He thought back to Kasanov’s words earlier. “If Anton was Kasanov’s grandson, then Natasha is probably related to him as well. What if they’re all Roma?”