Identity Unknown (A Parker & Coe, Love and Bullets Thriller Book 1) (13 page)

"I think I know what this is about," I said. "Thanks for the warning."
 

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly and I thought I'd either been busted or he'd felt a slight twinge of indigestion. I couldn't be sure which.

Not waiting to find out, I turned, moved to the elevators and pressed the
up
button. My stomach muscles were clenched so tight I was probably doing damage to a number of internal organs. I expected the guard to call out to me at any moment, but then the elevator came and I got on and not another word was spoken.

I released a long sigh of relief as I rode up to the tenth floor where Tevis's condo was located. I looked for any sign of closed circuit cameras, but didn't see any, and figured this was probably due to privacy issues.
 

Making my way to a door marked
STAIRS
, I dialed Parker, told him where to meet me, and a couple minutes later I was again on the ground floor, letting him in through the stairwell exit that led to the street.

"Nice work," he said as he slipped inside.

My stomach was still clenched, along with another part of my anatomy. "Don't get too complacent. You were right. The guards are checking up on you."

"Which means Taggart's likely to get wind of this and we won't be able to stick around and wait for Tevis."

Just what I'd been afraid of.

"So what do we do?"

"The only thing we can," he said. "Search her place and try to figure out where to go from there."

After ringing the bell and getting no answer, Parker did a little trick with his lock pick. We slipped silently through the doorway into Tevis's apartment and braced ourselves for the possibility that she might actually be holed up inside.

We were greeted by a stillness that assured us she wasn't. The space felt as if it hadn't been occupied in quite a few hours—although our perception may have been distorted by our near constant state of emotional and physical chaos.
 

Maybe "still" was a relative concept.

Natalie Tevis's apartment looked like a page from an upscale home decor magazine. The sleek, post-modern interior was eclipsed only by the massive bay window that dominated the living room, offering a spectacular view of Hermann Park.

Back in Hunter City, Emily Finn lived in a one bedroom walk-up, an untidy hovel with a view of a brick wall. But this apartment was enough to again have me thinking about career choices. If I were a conniving, backstabbing, sociopathic bitch, I, too, could enjoy the spoils of my crimes and live like royalty.

But not before I finished graduate school.
 

As a precaution, Parker put a finger to his lips, gestured for me to stay by the door, then quickly scanned the room before heading down a hallway toward the bedrooms. He had lost his gun to Taggart, so I wasn't sure how he planned to protect himself in the event our hostess was still around, but he didn't seem concerned, and moved with the confidence of a man who had done this many times before.

Damn, he was hot.

I, on the other hand, felt no confidence at all. Whatever bravado I may have possessed had been used up in the lobby, and with the looming specter of Tevis and Taggart and assorted Ukrainian killers in my life, my heart once again took up residence in my throat.

It was probably premature to be thinking this, but if I had any future with Parker at all (and God help me, I certainly hoped I did—assuming we survived the night), I had a feeling I'd need a lifelong prescription for Ativan.

After an interminable amount of time, Parker returned. "We're clear. Let's take a look around and see what we can find."

"I'm gonna need more than that," I said. "What are we looking for?"

"I didn't see any sign of a desktop computer, so anything that might point to her daily routine, places she regularly goes, pending travel plans, a diary, address book, computer tablet… We won't really know until we find it."

"That's a pretty tall order. Especially when we're worried about Taggart showing up."

"Would you rather be sitting at Buddy Boy's?"

"Why don't you just stick forks in my eyes? Let's get this over with and get out of here."

We split up and started searching, going through drawers and cabinets and closets, all of which were immaculately maintained and orderly. Parker took the living room, while I got the pleasure of going through Emily's bedroom dresser, which seemed to hold half of the Victoria's Secret catalogue.
 

Her closet was a walk-in about the size of a small airport terminal. I flicked on the overheads and looked around and trust me, she didn't do her shopping at Marshall's or TJ Maxx.
 

Each of the dresses must have cost my monthly salary, and the shoes lining three entire shelves put my dear-departed Chelsea flats to shame. And I won't lie to you, I was a little envious. But when I thought about the human suffering that had paid for it all, any desire to have what Emily had immediately vanished.

How many people had she killed to get all this?

Was it worth it?

Considering how pristine the place was, I had to wonder how much time she actually spent here. Was it possible that this was just another ruse, another fake identity, designed only to separate her from her enemies? Was it merely another layer to the web she had weaved?

If so, the chances of discovering any revealing information about her seemed…

I heard a noise from the living room.
 

I knew it wasn't likely to be Parker, because I'd just seen him in the hallway, heading into Tevis's bathroom. And if I wasn't mistaken, it sounded like a latch turning. The same latch Parker had turned after picking the lock.

I poked my head out of the closet, and there he was, rushing toward me. He gestured me back inside, then came in after me and quickly closed the closet door.

He held a gun in his hand.

"Where did you get that?" I whispered.

"Drawer in the kitchen," he said, then doused the light. "Be quiet. We don't know who's out there."

I nodded and strained to hear what was going on.

Then a voice rang out: "Ms. Tevis?"

I recognized it. The guard who had narrowed his eyes at me. So it hadn't been indigestion, after all. He'd figured out I wasn't Emily.

I thought it was interesting that he'd chosen to enter the apartment without knocking or ringing the bell—an indication that he was more concerned with catching me by surprise than following protocol.
 

"Ms. Tevis?"

The voice was closer now and Parker nudged me, pushing me deeper into the closet, then cracked the door to peek out.

I pressed up against a row of shelves at the rear of the closet. It was dark back here, but I suddenly realized that it wasn't quite dark enough. Except for the sliver of light coming from the doorway, the place should have been pitch black—especially in the bowels of the closet, where I was now standing.

Then it hit me.
 

The light I saw came from below, near my feet, at the bottom of the shelves.

Crouching down, I inspected the area and saw that it came through a crack beneath it, like the light under a door.

What the hell?

"Ms. Tevis," the voice said again, even closer now. "This is Randy from downstairs. I'm sorry to barge in like this, but I think we need to talk."

Turning, I saw Parker abruptly back away from the closet door and raise his gun, and I knew that Randy the guard was headed in our direction.

I quickly got to my feet and pushed back against the shelves, feeling them give and swing open behind me, the light from beyond it filling the rear of the closet.

As I had suspected, it led to a secret room.
 

A panic room.

I saw a light switch on the wall inside and quickly flicked it off, then rushed forward, grabbed Parker's arm and pulled him backwards through the opening as Randy threw the closet door wide.

I don't think we could have cut it any closer.
 

I managed to get the shelf door closed before Randy found the closet switch and turned on the overhead. I held my breath and prayed that he hadn't heard us or noticed anything amiss.

After a long moment, he said, "Hey, Carlo, this is Randy. It's like a friggin' tomb up here."

I heard the squawk of a radio, but couldn't make out the transmission.

"No," he said in response. "But I'm gonna do a floor to floor. Maybe she's targeting one of the other apartments." He paused. "I should've trusted my instincts and grabbed her before she got on the elevator. I
knew
there was something hinky about that bitch."

Bitch, huh?

Try saying that to my face, you jerk.

Or maybe not.

Parker and I didn't move a muscle as the conversation went on, Randy saying he was too busy staring at my tits to pay close attention to my face. Then we heard the click of the light switch and a moment later he was gone.

I started to speak, but Parker touched a finger to my lips, silencing me. I was pretty sure that Randy was already on his way out of the apartment, but I kept quiet and waited.

A full three minutes later, Parker reached for the wall switch and turned it on.

Then his gaze dropped to my chest and he grinned. "Can't say I blame him."

I rolled my eyes and gestured to the room around us. "Don't get too distracted, smart ass. Looks like I've found what we were looking for."

There are panic rooms and then there are panic rooms.

Most have the rudimentary necessities to keep the average upscale housewife safe for a few hours while hiding out from burglars or murderers or, in some cases, misogynistic husbands on rage fueled benders.

Natalie Tevis was not the average upscale housewife, however, and this was not your run of the mill panic room. It looked more like a military bunker, complete with a tiny but functioning bathroom and kitchen.
 

It seemed to be the only part of the apartment that had ever been lived in.

"Jesus," Parker said as he looked around. "This woman is all business."

What this really was, was a war room.
 

A tactical planning center showing proof of an obsession.

A bulletin board, decorated with multi-colored push pins holding newspaper clippings, police reports and photographs, took up an entire wall. A map of Houston was spread out on top of a table at the center of the room. A white board, full of notes scribbled in Emily's hand, took up another wall, and written on the left side was a list of names:

Andrei Pasternack

Valentin Sokolov

Anton Papanov

Dmitry Alkaev

Oleg Markovic

Grigory Ivanov

"Must be the leaders of the Brotherhood," Parker said. "That's who Taggart's working for."
 

"I see Anton Papanov is on the list."

He nodded. "What do you bet these men ran the prostitution ring Tevis was part of, back when she was still Anastasia Brantov?"

"Makes sense to me. And if these lines mean what I think they do…"

"She's executed all but one of them. Grigory Ivanov. And for some reason that name sounds familiar to me…"
 

Parker scanned the bulletin board and pointed to one of the newspaper clippings.
 

"Here's the hit on Oleg Markovic. 'Odessa businessman killed in car bomb.' " He pointed to another clipping. "And here's the one on Sokolov. 'Ukrainian embassy official shot dead in Paris subway.'"

"She's been tracking them all over the world," I said. "These clippings are like her trophies. No wonder the Ukrainians want her so badly."
 

Parker nodded. "Here's one for Dmitry Alkaev. A Ukrainian judge killed by an unknown sniper in Kiev. They all seem to be men of power and influence."

"Built on the backs of girls like Emily."

"That's what it looks like."

"So this is a revenge thing."

"Yeah, but why?" Parker asked. "I know that most of these girls are sex slaves—and that might be enough to make Tevis fake her death. But then she starts whacking guys? You'd think she'd just want to get as far away as possible. Instead she sets up shop and starts stalking them."

My gaze was drawn to a photograph pinned to the bulletin board. "Maybe it's even more personal than that. Maybe it isn't about just her."

I stepped up for a closer look. The photo was a low resolution selfie, printed out on computer paper, showing a much younger version of Emily, maybe 14 or 15-years-old, cheek to cheek with a girl sporting wild black curls.

Was this girl yet another victim of Emily's deceit?
 

I didn't think so. They looked happy, full of the cocky innocence of youth. And there was some text written on the narrow white border with a ballpoint pen. Ukrainian from the looks of it, but the words were punctuated with a tiny, hand-drawn heart.

No, these two girls were
real
friends. And this photo had been taken before Anastasia Brantov was overcome by whatever darkness plagued her. Long before that same darkness forced her to take on so many identities… Natalie, Mia, Emily…

How many more were there?

As I turned this over in my mind, my gaze was drawn to another newspaper clipping, this one from the
Austin Gazette
, and I knew I'd discovered the reason for it all.

The headline read:

PROSTITUTE FOUND BUTCHERED IN ALLEY

The accompanying text put a lid on it:
 

A prostitute known in the trade as Kitty Kat, aka Kateryna Yevtsye, was found with her throat cut in an alley this morning. The janitor who discovered the body said he saw someone fleeing the scene, but his description was incomplete and has led to no arrests.

The inset photo was a mug shot of the wild-haired girl, looking considerably older, her eyes flat. Dead. Abused.
 

The article was dated three weeks before the motel fire that had covered Anastasia Brantov's escape.