Flame Out (28 page)

“See,” I said. “She's in the system.”

Tomas leaned close to the screen and then sat back. He needed bifocals. I offered to print him a copy.

“Good idea,” he said, nodding. “That way if we need to still look for her, I can make copies and hang 'em up.”

I had a feeling that there wouldn't be a hunt for Oksana after the DNA tests came in. When we compared the typewriter in the judge's office to Oksana's letters to her brother, they were an exact match—Maxim Medved had been sending those birthday presents to Tomas. When I asked Jake Medved about her during one of our interrogation sessions, he wasn't surprised.

“Those letters didn't start coming until after I reported Oksana missing,” he said. “Before that, all quiet. I thought she'd run away from me, and I hoped maybe if someone found her they'd make her come home.” Jake dropped the belligerent attitude he'd held for all our interviews. “But now I know. Maxim killed her.”

I asked him why.

“You heard all those stories from Natalya, about the girls he ruined.” Jake stared up at the corner of the interrogation room. I was happy to let him do it, since it meant he was being honest. “I don't think it was their age that attracted him. Well, not only their age. My brother, if you told him something was off limits, he grabbed for it. Oksana was mine, the first person to see me as me and not Maxim's brother, the first woman to love me. My brother could not let that stand. Not when she was so very, very lovely.” Jake traced the vein on his left arm from the wrist up, a gentle soothing movement. “He had killed Vera. He knew where to do it, and he knew he was smart enough to pull it off.” His face was grim. “If you don't find Oksana living in Arizona? Look under the rosebushes at his house.”

I gave Tomas a copy of the poster, and he read her details closely—height, weight, and age—and ran his finger over her picture.

“She was so pretty,” he said. “I'm really going to work to find her this time.”

He jumped when my phone rang. Hale. Tomas held his breath as I picked up the phone.

“June?” Hale said. “That blood in the bathroom was a match, or close enough to it. We did a check . . .”

As Hale talked, Tomas watched me, his grip on the poster tightening.

“Let me call you back, Hale.”

I hung up and leaned forward on my knees, making eye contact with Tomas, who stared at the floor. “I have some bad news about Oksana.”

Two days later, Oksana's remains were found under the rosebushes. We added those murder charges to the ones the judge was already facing.

LUISA WOKE UP
.

She didn't stay awake for long, the pain medications sending her slipping in and out of consciousness. By the time we arrived the first day, she was sleeping deeply—not in a coma, but unreachable. On the second we arrived to find a crowd clustered around her, Nate and Darius each holding a hand and Elda perched on the bed, petting the soft gray hair that had grown on Luisa's scalp, almost an inch in length at this point. When we asked Luisa to identify her attacker, she looked at Theo before answering.

“My memories of that time are lost,” she said. “Before, I remember my house, the sun in my backyard in New Mexico. But how I got here? It's gone.” She closed her eyes, drifting off, then woke with a start. “All that's in the past now, right? It doesn't matter.”

It would be quite some time before she could stand up to a questioning. Theo and Nate had nothing to add, and spent much of their time holed up in the first floor lounge talking with Bernie about the new business they were going to start.

“June!” Nate said. “Nana's going to build us a factory.”

So Elda was “Nana” now. Bernie's grin was just as wide, but his comments were more measured. “Possibly.”

Dan Jaleda had offered to swap the Sleep-Tite land for a factory downtown, and Theo and Bernie debated rebuilding versus gutting, taping huge sheets of paper with to-do lists and graphs charted out, as if they planned to move in.

“The retail space would be hard without a more visible storefront,” Theo said, pointing to a place where the graph dipped.

“Retail would be a small part of what we are doing,” Bernie said. “We need super-clean indoors.”

“Going into biotech?” I asked.

“No, no,” Nate said. Outdoor wear.”

“I kept up on all the trade journals while I was away,” Bernie said, pulling out a stack of magazines that had been heavily flagged. “The advances in fabrics are amazing, and I have a few ideas . . . and Nate and Theo will know what our customers will want.”

“I love it already,” Nate said. “We'll be in the perfect location to catch people heading up north to fish or heading to Vermont to ski or climb.”

“Plus we're close to the New York City weekend places,” Theo said. “Those folks who kit out in full gear for a walk around the block. You'll have a huge market.”

“Good luck with your venture,” I said. “I think it would be wonderful to have a new business down here, one with real jobs, not service jobs.”

“Me, too,” Bernie said, and the men returned to their plans.

I WAS ALMOST SORRY TO SEE MY MOTHER GO. I WATCHED HER
pack, her suitcase was only half full. Her cotton shifts didn't take up much room and her crystal collection had been coopted by Lucy, who asked to keep Grandma's “jewels” in Hopewell Falls for safekeeping until she visited again.

Mom held up a sage stick in a plastic bag. “Do you want to keep this? It will help you purify spaces.”

“No thank you, Mom,” I said.

“Perhaps David would like it,” Mom said. “He seems so proud of the house he's rehabilitating and the dark spirits in his life . . . he's probably ready to clean them out.”

“Probably,” I said. The doorbell rang. “That's probably him, coming to say his good-byes.”

Dave had practically moved into my house. He and my father dumped all their case files related to Vera and Luisa in the shredder, carefully recycling them under my mother's watchful eye. My mother stuffed him with vegetarian dishes whose recipes he wrote down, promising to re-create them later. I'd leave my father and Dave talking as I went to bed at night and wake up to my mother making him coffee.

“Is he living here?” I asked.

“He needs family,” my mother said. “We all do.”

I opened the door. “I don't know why you rang the bell. You know the side door is always unlocked.”

Dave stepped inside, grabbing me into a hug. “Aunt Natalya made her decision.” His breath was hot on my shoulder as he huddled closer. “She's gone.”

We talked about how hard she'd fought to live, always on her own terms, right and wrong clear in her mind, unbreakable laws she applied to herself and everyone around her.

“It made her so strong,” Dave said. “But with what she did to Bernie and even the Judge . . . she was brutal, too. She deserved to go to trial, even go to prison for what she did . . . and she agreed.”

“Does Lucas know?” Mom asked.

The first week, Lucas had stayed by Natalya's bedside nonstop. After that he'd started to go to the bar, keeping it open while Brian was in the hospital. When Dave nagged him about why, he shrugged.
When I asked him, Lucas was more honest. “I can't be around Dave right now. I don't know where I belong.”

“He knows,” Dave said. “Refused to close the bar.”

Mom asked me for my computer, wanting to cancel her flight and stay with Dave, but he refused, telling her to keep her reservation. He'd taken a huge liking to my mother. Oddly, so had I. I found myself sorry that she was leaving and made promises to bring my father, Lucy, and even Dave down once school ended.

“I'd like that,” she said. “I'd like that a lot. Or you could come on your own, June, for a few days. We could have a girls' weekend.”

We burst out laughing. Neither of us were spa day types of people, me because I was too busy, and my mother because she considered nail polish remover an environmental crime.

“Maybe a weekend in the sunshine,” I said. “That would be nice.”

“You, too.” Mom grabbed Dave's hand. “I'm planning to come up more often. Larry's mother is still in a nursing home up here, and it would be nice to see my granddaughter.” She pushed my hair away from my forehead. “And my daughter.”

My father and Dave drove her to the airport. Dad returned alone. I was sitting at the dining room table coming up with a pro and con list.

“What's that you got there?” he asked tentatively. Since our blow up, he had been trying not to pry into my professional life, but it was reaching absurd proportions, with him barely acknowledging I was a cop.

“This column,” I said, pointing to the one on the left, “is all the reasons to not rejoin the FBI.” I listed off the reasons, which included “Lucy,” “danger,” and “not enough black suits.”

He frowned—the “Lucy” item was upsetting him. I moved to the pro column.

“I also have good reasons to rejoin. I could do challenging work, stuff I spent years training for. I could make Kevin proud, since he
always wanted me to be the best—Lucy, too.” I skimmed down the list. “Donnelly has offered to hold my job for six months, which means I have some job security.” Dad moved closer, trying to peek at the list, and I pulled it close. “And I know you will be there for Lucy the same way you were there for me when I was little. The same way you're there for me now.”

Dad smiled. “Sounds like you have a tough decision to make. Maybe you should give Hale a call, hash it through with him.”

“I know what I want,” I said. “I've made up my mind.”

I dialed Hale's number. The phone rang three then four times. I was ready to leave a message when Hale picked up.

“Bascom here,” he said.

“I'm in.”

M
ANY PEOPLE HELPED ME CREATE THIS NOVEL. THANKS TO
everyone at William Morrow: Rachel Kahan, my editor, for her instincts on story, editorial guidance, and expertise in botanicals; Trish Daly, for her attention to detail and unfailing support; and the entire team, including Ashley Marudas, Camille Collins, David Palmer, and Mandy Kain.

Thanks to all the people that lent their expertise in police procedure, legal defense, and the medical treatment of burn victims, including Amy Phillips and Stephen Frum. Any mistakes are all mine.

My writing group continues to challenge me to improve my writing, giving me critiques that are both incisive and kind. Special thanks to Kate Curry, Nita Gill, Tambi Harwood, Maggie King, and Lou Moore.

In addition to my readers, I received so much love and support from friends and family during this whole process: my mother, Maureen, and my sisters, Bridget and Mary; Michelle Ginthner, Kathy Riggins, Deane Shokes, Vicky Baron, and Rik Nicholson.

Finally, special thanks go to my agent, Lisa Gallagher. Her tireless advocacy for the books at every stage has been unmatched, and I really, truly couldn't have done it without her.

M. P. COOLEY
's crime novel
Ice Shear
was named one of
O, The Oprah Magazine'
s Best Books of Summer 2014 and was called “an excellent debut” by
Publishers Weekly
in their starred review. A native of upstate New York, Cooley currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
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.

Ice Shear

Cover design by Amanda Kain

Cover photograph © by Michael Marquand/Getty Images

Art on title page © by Trifonenko Ivan. Orsk

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from “Fancy” by Jehanne Dubrow reproduced from
Prairie Schooner
84.4 (Winter 2010) by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 2010 by the University of Nebraska Press.

FLAME OUT
. Copyright © 2015 by Martha Cooley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN: 978-0-06-230073-7

EPub Edition MAY 2015 ISBN 9780062300751

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