In For the Kill (38 page)

“What area? How do you know where I went? I was gone all day. I could have gone hundreds of miles and come back in that amount of time.”

He took a meditative sip of his wine. “Svetlana,” he said. “The intensity of your day is getting to you. The tone of your voice is bordering on offensive. Take a breath.”

They gazed at each other. He was offering her a choice. She could laugh, abashed. Apologize for being a crazy, nervous hag. Smile, simper. Make nice while she frantically planned her escape.

She waited an instant too long.

Hazlett lifted a pistol and pointed it at her face. Still smiling.

“Oops,” he murmured. “My bad.”

C
HAPTER
26

“G
o on to the hotel. Get some rest, Dad. Both of you,” Sam said to his father and sister.
So I can get some, too,
was the pleading subtext, but he could tell neither of them was listening to that.

“We don't want to leave you alone, in this place.” His father's voice was rough with exhaustion. He was past seventy, with a triple bypass and heart valve surgery behind him. His eyes were red, his face puffy and blurred with weariness. Sam found it uncomfortable. He preferred feeling angry at his father to feeling sorry for him. Or worse, worried for him. Enough wrenching revelations about his feelings. He was fried.

“You shouldn't be alone,” his father said. “What happened to that young lady whose honor you were defending so fiercely last week? Did she have no further use for you, now that you're an invalid ?”

“She had some pressing personal business,” he said stiffly.

“More personal than bullet wounds?” Connie jumped in fiercely. “She shouldn't have left you alone here! It's just common decency!”

“There's hospital staff to help me. And I'm feeling much better already. I really am. I'll be fine alone,” Sam assured them.

“Fine? You've got contusions, torn muscle tissue, a bullet that almost severed your femoral artery and came within inches of your genitals, too! What are you trying to tell us? If you'd fucking verbalize it, instead of coding it in bullet wounds, I swear we'd listen!”

Sam closed his eyes. “I did not do all this to myself to upset you,” he said. “And I can't deal with the histrionics.”

“Histrionics?” She snorted. “As if getting yourself regularly shot up by mobsters isn't attention-getting behavior!”

“Lower your voice,” his father hissed. “Don't make a scene!”

“He always gets to,” Connie yelled. “When's my turn? What insane lengths do I have to go to? A sex scandal, a psychotic break?”

“That is enough!” Dad thundered.

Connie's mouth quivered. “Yes, it is.” She grabbed the wheeled suitcases that leaned against the wall and turned toward the door.

“Hey!” Sam called. “The suitcase you brought for me. You're not taking it with you, are you?”

She frowned. “Of course I am. It's much safer at our hotel. What use do you have for it now? I'll bring it when they release you.” Her eyes swept the small, grotty room. “Or when we have you transferred.”

“I want it. It has toiletries, right? Shaving cream, toothpaste, dental floss, fresh underwear? Leave it.”

“But you can't even get out of bed!” she protested.

“I still want it,” he repeated stubbornly.

“Oh, whatever.” She gave it a shove, back against the wall, and turned to her dad. “Shall I tell the car to wait?”

His father looked grimly reluctant.

“A night's sleep will help all of us,” Sam urged. “I'm just going to sleep. There's no point sitting in that hard chair watching me do it.”

His father grunted and got to his feet. “Trying to get rid of me, as usual,” he muttered. “Fine. Tomorrow, then.”

Ten teeth-grinding minutes of lecturing and scolding before they were out the door. When it shut behind them, he almost wept in relief.

He'd been lying, when he said he felt better. Pain was a meat-mallet, hammering with each heartbeat. Face, head, ribs, thigh, balls. Add being dumped by your girlfriend to that, plus a day-long session of scolding familial disapproval, and you had the recipe for exquisitely calibrated pain on every level of the self. A symphony of discomfort. He'd never been so angry, or so hurt, or so scared. Other than the other day, when Sveti had been clamped under the goon's arm, in imminent danger of dismemberment. A caustic stress cocktail zinged through him every time that image flashed through his mind, making him twitch and writhe on his bed. This could drive a guy right over the edge.

But hey. He'd left the edge behind a long while back. Ever since he saw that girl years ago, and promptly lost his mind. Inappropriately young, problematic, complicated, hostile, unattainable. And yet, he'd started courting her. Bugging her.

Stalking her. Call it what it was.

His eyes rested on her phone, which he had found in his tangled sheets in the night. A gift from a mischievous trickster god, intent on messing him up. A perfect opportunity for an obsessed, irrational ex-boyfriend. Hack into her phone, snoop into her life. Torture himself by listening in on her future love affairs. Feed the beast of his sickness, until it grew and grew, became more feral, more twisted. Less human.

Until they locked him up. That was the trajectory of a man's life, once he picked up the cell phone of a woman who had dumped him and started fucking with it. So why was he still holding on to the thing?

The locked screen wanted a six-digit code. He tried all the obvious ones: her birth date, Rachel's birth date, Irina's. He tried all the kids' names, one after the other, the ones who hung all over her and called her Auntie Sveti. None worked. He tried her parents' names, too.

He moved on to all the adults in the McCloud Crowd, starting with Tam and Val, Nick and Becca. He tried the ass-bite's name, too, just to torture himself, and was relieved when none of the “joshua” or “jcattre” or “cattrell” combos worked, either.

He hesitated for a long time, but since he was on the self-torture kick, why not? He tried PETRIE. Nothing, of course. Then he punched in SAMUEL. The device accepted the code and opened itself to him.

He started to shake. His vision blurred.

He sat there for a long time, unmoving. Pathetically grateful to be alone in the room.

It passed through him. He sponged off his face with a wad of sheet and flung himself into the contents of her phone, ass over head.

Her calendar had no surprises for him. Her contacts were all known to him, and the ones he did not personally know, he'd already investigated. She hadn't posted to her Facebook page, Twitter account, or v-log since before Nina and Aaro's wedding. Busy, busy.

He dug in to the photos. McCloud Crowd kids, all over the place. Rachel, Irina, and Sofia were featured most, but all the McCloud brood were represented extensively. Adults, too. Nick and Becca. Tam and Val, kissing on their veranda with the sunset behind them, Seth and Raine laughing on their yacht. Connor and Erin carving a ham. Davy and Margot, Sean and Liv, Kev and a pregnant, very happy-looking Edie. Lily and Bruno, Aaro and Nina, Miles and Lara. Zia Rosa. Hundreds of photos, from weddings and christenings, birthdays and barbecues.

She had a good eye. People looked good in her photos.

He found a batch that were all from the housewarming party of Lara and Miles. Their beautiful house in the mountains. Cedar paneled, thirty-five-foot vaulted solarium windows, panoramic views. Shots of the newly landscaped patio out back embraced by massive pines and firs, a big barbecue grill loaded with steaks, a big tub of ice full of beers. There was the beautiful waterfall, with a bunch of the kids swimming in the pool under Sean's and Davy's watchful eyes.

There were two more folders, one marked “Mama,” one marked “Misc.” He clicked on the latter.

The picture was out of focus, taken from behind a sliding glass door. Miles and Lara's housewarming party, where she'd never let him talk to her. She'd run away whenever he tried. The picture was Sam talking to Sean, holding a beer. The next one was the same photo, but enlarged, cropped. Everything trimmed out except his face.

He clicked the next one, which was of Kev and Edie's baby Jon's first birthday party, a clan-wide bash. Kev held little Jon up proudly, fat legs waving. Sam laughed at both of them. Next shot, just his own enlarged face, laughing, and a blurred flash of Jon's bare, dimpled foot.

The next one was from Lily and Bruno's wedding, years ago. There were several from that party. Him talking. Him smiling. Him drinking. Him staring moodily into the ballroom at the dancers. All pairs, first the original, then the enlarged, cropped version. On, and on, and on.

He scrolled down. Counted. One hundred and sixty-eight originals, one hundred and sixty-eight edited versions. Three hundred and thirty-six photos. Bigger than his own stalker stash of Sveti photos.

She had him beat. By a country mile.

It should be a balm for his ego, but his ego was past soothing. It was six feet under. All that was left was raw meat, exposed nerves. Pain.

Three hundred and thirty-six fucking jolts of it.

He had to close his eyes and just try to breathe. He was tempted to call the nurse and make a noisy, agitated fuss, until she put him down with some powerful opiate or other. Bring on the cosh.

But that made him think of Sasha. He'd given his life for Sam's. Sasha had done the hard thing, the brave thing. Out of respect, he'd do the same. No more morphine derivatives were going into his veins today.

He clicked on the folder “Mama.” Childhood photos of Sveti and her parents. Sveti got the cheekbones and the dark coloring from her father. Sergei Ardova had been a severe-looking man. A sharp, measuring look in his eyes. He'd have been an ass-kicking, terror-inducing father-in-law, in some happy parallel universe.

Baby pics of Sveti were hard to look at, and equally impossible to look away from. It hurt, to imagine her that small, that defenseless. Pictures of her as a beautiful six- or eight- or ten-year-old had the same effect. He shrank from looking at that hopeful, delicate face, those big, innocent eyes, knowing what was in store for her.

Oh, fuck this. He was indulging in pure, distilled masochism, but he just couldn't stop himself. His crush on Sveti was his first experience of helplessly compulsive behavior. He was strung out on her scent, her touch, her glance. The caress of her breath against his chest, her slender limbs twined around his body. Warm and relaxed and trusting.

He covered his eyes for a while. Then clicked onward into the “Mama” file, just for something to do. Anything at all.

There it was, the fateful photo of her mom that had started all this. Her eyes were so compelling. They gazed out of the photo at him with haunting urgency. Begging him to do something, now, please, fast.

He was working himself into a state. Stress hormones messing with his head. He clicked off Sonia's silent plea. Opened another.

This one wasn't much better. It was that shot of Sergei, complete with Zhoglo's smirk behind his shoulder. About which he'd made those arrogant, butthead pronouncements about choosing your thoughts, choosing who got into the frame. Trimming out the undesirable.

Like he knew what the fuck he was talking about. Like he had even the most basic, elemental clue how to choose his own thoughts.

He recognized Sveti's heart-stopping smile in her father's grin. He was raising his glass, toasting that scum Zhoglo, and the other guy, the mystery dude, who—

What the
fuck?

He stared at the phone, looked closer. He rubbed his eyes. Blinked furiously. No way. Oh, no fucking way. Not possible.

He used the camera's zoom function, clicked in closer.

The third man was Hazlett. Much younger, hair darker, but it was him, no question, complete with the dimples, the whitened teeth, the charming smile. He was not aware that he was being photographed. The picture had been taken from an interior, focusing out the window to where the three men stood on an outdoor veranda.

He had no idea what the hell this meant, but Sveti was in danger, more than he'd ever dreamed. And he'd ordered her to walk away from him and straight out into it, just because she wouldn't be a good little girl and toe his line. He couldn't even call and warn her. She was naked, incommunicado, in the mouth of the beast. Holy flipping
shit.

He searched through Sveti's phone until he found a number for the Villa Rosalba, the one Renato had given her the day of the gala. Renato Torregrossa was probably dirty, too, but whatever. He had to try.

He dialed the number, waited while it rang.
“Pronto?”
a man said.

“Have I reached the Villa Rosalba?” he asked in Italian.

“Si. E lei chi è?”
Yes, and you are?

“I'm Sam Petrie. I'm looking for Svetlana Ardova. Is she there?”

“
Mi dispiace,
but the Signorina Ardova left late last night and has not been back.”

His heart thumped, hard. “Did she leave alone?”

“I do not know, signore.”

“Do you know where she—”

“No, I do not. No one knows.
Buona sera, signore
—”

“No! Wait! How about Hazlett? Is he there? Or Torregrossa?”

“Neither of them are here.” The voice was frigid with distrust.
“Buona sera, signore.”
The connection broke.

Sam cursed viciously into the dead phone. It could be true, or it could be a brush-off. He tried the hotel where they were still checked in. They informed him she hadn't been back.

If only she'd taken one of Simone's minions with her to Villa Rosalba. If only he'd had the presence of mind to give her back her phone. He could have warned her, or even traced her, with the help of her family. No way would that crowd send off their precious damsel fair to Europe without a trace in her phone. They protected what they loved.

Unlike himself. He ripped out the surgical tape and the IV needle, letting the tube dangle and fluid drip forlornly out onto the floor.

He struggled to sit up. Had to roll to his side, strangling a groan. Fiery bolts of pain ripped through him with every hitching breath. His groin was swollen like someone had stomped his balls with a giant boot.