One Wrong Move (15 page)

She choked on her giggles. “I don’t think I should find that statement comforting, Aaro. Yet strangely enough, I do.”

He was taken aback. “Treasure the moment,” he advised her.

“I don’t do comfort very often. Blink, and you’ll miss it.”

That earned him another giggle, one he hadn’t known he was fishing for, but he liked it. And he’d better stomp that shit right now, and hard. He could not let himself be entertained by this freakfest. That way lay disaster. An unsettling thought occurred to him, all at once.

“Are you reading my mind right now?” he demanded.

“Um, no.” She looked nervous and defensive. “I, um, can’t seem to read yours. Maybe it comes or goes. Or it depends on the person.”

“Huh,” he said slowly. “Is that so. Just me.”

Her face tightened. “Please, drop it.”

He shook his head. “Go over it again. In sequence. And don’t leave out any of the weird stuff this time.”

To her credit, stressed out as she was, she gave him a detailed and yet cogent debrief, starting that morning with Helga’s attack on the street. He listened without comment, up to the part where he pulled her from the closet. There she stopped, and waited.

“So?” she said. “Any blinding insights, Aaro?”

He ignored the sarcasm, too busy feeling the bars of an invisible cage materializing around him. Dismay, weighing him down like a ton of cold lead. This felt like some heavy shit. These bad guys weren’t going to be scared off easily.

“You heard the zombie guy say that the cops were on their way,” he repeated slowly. “That was before I shot out the lock.

You were smart not to wait for the police. They got tipped off when Lily called nine one one. This is something big, well organized. Lots of resources, if they have an informant with the cops.

What did zombie dude say, exactly? That he should’ve been able to pick you up from this range?”

“Yes, he said, um . . .” Nina squeezed her eyes shut. “He said it was something like . . . simax. He said, ‘the bitch is totally blocking us.’ ”

“You know what he was talking about?” Aaro prodded. “A blocked radio frequency, maybe? Could someone have planted a trace on you?”

“Not unless it was in that syringe,” she said. “No one else has touched me, except for the doctors at the hospital. The real ones.”

“Simax,” he repeated to himself.

She shook her head. “I don’t have any idea what simax could be. Nor do I have a stash of it hidden in my closet.”

“I believe you,” he said. And surprisingly enough, he did. The asshole stepfather, the closet hiding place story, it rang true.

He screeched to a stop at the red light. There was an entrance to a gas station near at hand. He yanked the car over onto it, and braked. He could not process all this information and drive at the same time.

“Son of a bitch,” he murmured.

“Yeah. Tell me about it.” Nina was swiping at her eyes with her knuckles. “What am I going to do with this, Aaro?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

It was the exact wrong thing to say. Her face crumpled.
Shit.

What a dickbrain. “I’ll tell you what you do.” The words popped out before his brain could put on the brakes. “We find someplace safe. We’ll listen to the recording. We call Bruno. That’s the plan.

You like that plan?”

She sniffed, and nodded. “OK.” She gave him a wobbly, brave little smile. “I like that plan.”

Her smile was what did it. It was a bad idea, the worst, but she got sucked into the tractor beam of his body, or maybe it was her body that generated the beam, but before he knew it, his ass was poised between the seats, and she was fitting perfectly, right under his arm, like when he’d pulled her out of the closet. Except that she wasn’t naked this time.

Naked was better. His body throbbed, remembering how that had been. Her amazing, fragrant softness.

She went tense, and arched away. And what the fuck was he doing, coming on to a woman who had already said no? He retreated to his own seat, embarrassed. Started up the car.

Her mouth was bloodless and flat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Try to understand. I only met you a little over an hour ago.”

“During which time I killed two men, and saved your ass twice,” he felt compelled to point out, and immediately hated himself for doing so. What, like she owed him sex for that? Was he that desperate?

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I know,” she said softly. “We’ve definitely cut through the small talk. And speaking of small talk. Where are we going?”

Deft change of subject. The woman was slicker than she appeared. “Brighton Beach,” he said.

She stared, astonished. “Excuse me?”

“Did Lily tell you where I came from?” he asked.

“She said something about your family background being, um, checkered,” she said delicately.

He laughed. “Nice euphemism.”

“Well, not to say anything against your family, but—”

“Feel free. They won’t hold back when it’s their turn to weigh in.”

“Shut up and let me finish,” she snapped. “Those guys in my house. Some of them spoke Russian. I heard them.”

“So you say. Couldn’t vouch for it. I didn’t hear them talk.”

“Is not all of Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay a hotbed of expat Russian immigrants?”

“It is,” he affirmed.

“So, aren’t our chances of meeting people who might have an interest in ripping my head and limbs off statistically higher in Brighton Beach than it would be in, say, Peekskill, or Bridge-port?”

“They are,” he admitted. “Theoretically.”

“Then why in holy hell are we going there?” She was yelling again.

He thought of ten different replies to that in the space of a fraction of a second, but what actually came out surprised him.

Just the truth. Dull, flat, miserable. “My aunt’s dying,” he said.

She was startled into silence, but it couldn’t last long. Sure enough, she coughed delicately. “I’m sorry. And your aunt is . . . ?”

“Tonya Arbatov. She’s in a hospice. Ovarian cancer. End stage.

Dying any time now. She might be dead already.”

“Ah,” she murmured. “You were close?”

Close?
For a second, he thought he’d have to pull over and throw up. Close? She was only a fucking million miles away. Like that star they’d seen on the Jersey Shore, forever out of reach.

The memory of those weeks with Tonya and Julie, in the shabby motel. Those card games, movies. Seagulls on the pebbly beach.

Close, his ass. He wasn’t close to anything on earth. He’d cut all ties. He was out there in fucking orbit. “Haven’t seen her in twenty-one years,” he said.

“Oh. And yet, you—”

“I’m going to the hospice. Now. I was heading there from the airport when I got your call. That was why I blew you off. She’s dying. I didn’t want to miss my chance to say good-bye.”

“Oh, God, Aaro.” She sounded pained. “You could have said something. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have—”

“Told me to fuck off? I didn’t take it personally. Why should I tell you? It wasn’t your problem.”

“Would you stop being such a hard-ass?” she snapped.

“No,” he said.

She made a frustrated sound. “So you’re heading there now?”

“
We’re
heading there,” he told her. “You’re stuck to me, until I hand you over to Bruno’s bodyguard. Afterward, we’ll listen to the file, call Bruno, meet up with the bodyguard, whatever you want. But now, now, we go to the hospice. Clear?”

“Crystal.” She glanced at the car clock. “Can’t imagine it’ll still be visiting hours when we get there. It’s late.”

“They’ll let me in,” he said. “They have no choice. I’m armed.”

She gave him the big-eye. “Aaro? You’re making me nervous.”

“How about we both just shut up, then?” he suggested.

But she just couldn’t resist. “Will I meet the rest of your family?”

“Doubt it,” he said.

“No? If she’s dying, I imagine that—”

“They ignored and neglected her her whole life, when she wasn’t locked in the nuthouse. They didn’t give a shit about her before. They’ll give even less now. She has no money to leave, no power or status to pass down. She’ll be alone. Like she always was.”

Nina looked down. “That’s so sad,” she whispered.

He snorted. Sad? Hah. That didn’t come close to describing the sucking black hole that was the Arbatov clan’s collective emotional vibe. God grant he could just slide in, say good-bye to Tonya without attracting any attention. Attention from Arbatovs tended to be toxic.

It wasn’t a very hopeful thought. Hard as he tried to keep his head down, if there was a shitstorm to be caught in, his natural trajectory would always swing him through the middle of it.

He sped past the hospice, circled the block. Checking for Arbatovs and other unspecified dangers. It looked quiet.

Nina cleared her throat. “So. If you haven’t seen her in so long, then why are you so—”

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

She flinched back, stung. He stopped, maneuvered into a parking space. “I’m not happy about that,” he said stiffly. “That I haven’t seen her in twenty-one years. And that now she’s dying.

That bums me out.”

She nodded. He took that to mean she accepted his half-assed, oblique apology. Which was the only kind he could manage.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

It didn’t take a degree in psychology, or even a seminar in people management, to see that Aaro was going to have problems getting in to see his aunt. Nina watched him antagonize the receptionist with his brusque tone, his sharp imperatives. He repeated the performance with the woman’s supervisor. A few more minutes of that, and his fate was sealed. They weren’t going to let him in. He kept making the situation worse. As it es-calated, she was nervously aware of his firearms.

She didn’t think for one second that Aaro would hurt those women, but they wouldn’t know that, if he lost his temper.

“You don’t understand,” he repeated. “I
am
immediate family.

I have a different surname, but I was like her son, for years! Just tell her Sasha is here. She’ll tell you!”

The supervisor’s head kept shaking, arms folded tight across her chest. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Visiting hours were over hours ago, and her family has requested that access be limited to a preapproved list.”

“I just bet they have,” Aaro growled. “What about what Tonya wants? She’ll want to see me. I guarantee it. Just . . . go . . .
ask
her.
”

“She is
resting
. Please, go, sir. Or I will call the police.”

“I need to see her now.” Aaro’s voice was getting louder.

“She’s dying! She could die tonight! You know that!”

“I’m sorry, but you’re not on the list Mr. Arbatov gave us, and I—”

“Listen to me, lady.” He leaned over the desk ’til the woman jerked back, eyes wide. “Do not try to tangle with me.”

“Aaro!” Nina grabbed his arm.

He shot her a fulminating glance. “What?” he barked.

“Shhh. Calm down,” she whispered. “This isn’t helping.”

“But she . . . is . . .
dying!
” The words punched out of him. “I am not going to let a fucking list keep me from seeing my—”

“Shhhh.” She tightened her fingers around his arm, which was very thick and solid and sinewy. She dug her nails in, hard, and pulled.

He finally let her drag him away from the scowling hospice personnel. “Outside,” she murmured. “Where we can talk.”

She nudged him to go out first, and slid a folded square of paper into the door to block the lock as she exited.

It was chilly. Nina shivered in her thin rayon layers.

“So?” he rapped out. “What are we doing out here, wasting time? Those cast-iron bitches aren’t—”

“Shhh,” she soothed again. She patted his shoulders, awkwardly. “You’re going about this all wrong.”

“Wrong how? I want to see her! I explain the situation, I ask permission, and those hags both stonewall me! She could be dead tomorrow! I am going in, whether they like it or—”

“Be quiet!” She dug her fingernails into his arm again. “You do not want those women to call security. Or the police. Do you?”

“Of course not,” he muttered. “But I can’t—”

“Shut up and listen, you stubborn lout,” she whispered. “Stop banging your head against the wall! There are better uses for it!”

He looked away, mouth tight, then pulled his smartphone out of his pocket, and tapped at the touch screen. She peered over to see.

It was a building diagram. She stifled a hoot of laughter. How classically Aaro, to come to his aunt’s deathbed armed with a blueprint of the building, as if going on a black-ops mission. He angled it so she could see, and pointed. “Second floor. Room twenty-four twenty-five, unless they’ve moved her since this morning. End of the second corridor, on the right.”

“You’ve done your homework,” she said.

“I’d be an asshole if I didn’t.” He caught her gaze, narrowed his eyes, defensive. “Go on,” he said. “Say it.”

“Say what?”

“That I’m an asshole anyway. I saw it in your face.”

“If you want the title so badly, just take it,” she said coolly.

“Don’t ask me to participate in your weird little mind games.”

He dismissed the interchange with an impatient flick of his hand. “There’s an entrance on the other side,” he said, pointing.

“Another emergency exit, here. This one, I’m less likely to meet anyone coming out. Maybe I can pick the lock. Or I could shoot it out, like yours.”

“Shoot . . . ? Good God! Are you nuts?”

“Not at all,” he said. “It’s not like I need a long-term entry strategy. A breaching round would make a lot of noise. But I could—”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You don’t have to go to such obscene lengths. I’ll open the door for you. From the inside.”

His brows knit. There was a baffled silence. “What the fuck?”

he said. “How do you propose to get in there? We just tried that.”

She shook her head. “No.
You
just tried that.”

“If they said no to me, they’ll say no to you.”

“No, they won’t,” she said. “Because they won’t see me.”