The Lost (25 page)

“Did your dad ever ask you about it?” Grif asked Mary Margaret.

She shook her head, looking unsettlingly lucid and coherent, as if her past and present always collided in such a way. Who knew? Maybe they did. “Dad didn't even want to think about it.”

“And had Tommy told your uncle what I . . .” Grif licked his lips, but he couldn't say it. Rape a child. He couldn't even
think
through a thing like that. “What he said I did?”

Mary Margaret nodded. “My uncle brought me another Cissy doll to replace the one I lost. He asked me about you. Not outright, but I knew what he was getting at. I told him you were gentle, and you saved me, and you'd never hurt me.” Wonder clouded her gaze. “You really were the only one who didn't hurt me.”

“Did he believe you?”

“He wanted to. He liked you, admired you.” Her nodding stilled. “Now that I think about it, I think he was even a little jealous of you.”

“Jealous? Why?”

“Because you had a normal life. It was something he could never have despite all his money and connections, or probably because of them. You also had honesty and integrity. Clean hands. And that beautiful wife who looked at you like you hung the moon.”

Grif swallowed hard, and didn't dare look at Kit.

“But when you and your wife and Tommy died, Uncle Sal had no choice but believe those rumors. He was sad about it for years.”

It burned. It tore a hole right in his gut that the reputation he'd worked so hard to build had been leveled with one targeted falsehood. Someone had set him up and framed him, but he didn't know who, or why.

“And then what?”

Mary Margaret gave a humorless laugh. “And then nothing. Life went on. Everyone forgot, or pretended they did. Dad stopped speaking about Tommy, but he also stopped looking at me. Then I was sent away to Catholic boarding school, and the reporters went away, too. Life went on.”

For some, Grif thought coolly. “And Sal?”

“I only heard him speak about it once. Thanksgiving, many years later. Isn't that always the happiest family holiday?” She gave the same barking, dry laugh, and shook her head. “He was down, we could all see it, and he excused himself, and his wife, the new one, not my aunt,” she clarified, as if either of them were new any longer, “she followed him, I followed them. Back to the same study. Back where I'd taken that damned doll.”

Grif jerked his head. He didn't have patience for her sentimentality now. “What did he say?”

“That he missed Tommy, and missed the way things used to be. That for all the power he had, he couldn't change the past. That he still couldn't believe Griffin Shaw would do such a thing. Barbara told him to buck up. That it didn't matter anymore, and that Shaw mattered even less.”

“She didn't like him?” Kit asked, forgetting herself again. Again, Mary Margaret didn't notice.

She shook her head slowly, and the intensity of the movement matched her gaze. “She hated you.”

Grif drew back. Why the hell did this woman Barbara, whom he'd never met—or didn't remember meeting—hate him so much?

Mary Margaret shrugged. “You must have done something awful to her. She won't tell me what, but it was bad enough that her hate has lasted all these years.”

For a moment, Grif thought she was getting her past and present mixed up. He didn't even believe in hypnosis, and he was suddenly having a hard time distinguishing the two. Thankfully, Kit was fully present. “What do you mean, all these years?”

“Oh, she still gets plenty riled up over him.” Mary Margaret let loose another of her dark, bitter laughs, then ran a hand over her face. “But at least someone isn't pretending they don't remember.”

Kit and Grif looked at each other.

“You mean you're still in contact with your aunt Barbara?” Kit finally said.

“She's the only one who came to visit after my last big breakdown. We don't talk much, but she sends birthday and Christmas cards.” Mary Margaret sat up in bed suddenly, squinting at the brooch in her hand like she'd forgotten it was there. “She said something strange the last time I talked to her, though. It rolled around in my mind, kinda itchy-like, you know?”

Grif didn't even trust himself to speak.

“We were talking about Vegas, all the changes and the economy and how nobody cares about their community or neighbors anymore, and the conversation shifted to how it used to be. I said that my childhood was idyllic, but then it changed, and it was all my fault. Funny thing was, she didn't disagree. All these years of people telling me that what happened wasn't my fault, and she just sat there, nodding.”

“What a bitch,” Kit said, surprising them all.

Mary Margaret looked at Kit for a long moment, gaze clearer than it'd been since they'd arrived. She finally laughed. “Yes. Yes, she is.”

That seemed to surprise her, and she kept laughing until tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. “After I'd cried a bit, and she just sat there, letting me, she finally said that the past didn't matter anyway. That even though the Salerno gang had tried to use me to get to Uncle Sal, I wasn't a plaything, like a doll. I wasn't used. I was chosen.”

“Chosen?”

“To bring Griffin Shaw down, she said.” Mary Margaret stared directly at Grif. “And that I was special because of it.”

Grif was clenching his jaw so hard his temples began to throb. Mary Margaret's gaze darted between Grif and Kit, and at last she said, “I'm not sure . . . but I think I've hurt you in some way, Mr. Shaw.” Then confusion overtook her again. “I just don't know how.”

Sighing, Grif stopped short of reaching out to her. He'd held her in his arms once, and told her she was safe, and look where that had got them both.

“You didn't hurt me, Mary Margaret,” he said, and watched as her eyebrows tilted in surprise. Her eyes suddenly shimmered with tears. She seemed to deflate, fifty years of guilt sliding from her shoulders, and for the briefest moment he actually saw the scrawny, freckled kid she used to be—and the woman she
should
have been—all rolled up in one. Shaking his head, Grif offered up his own bittersweet smile. “They did.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Y
ou were sweet with her,” Kit said, as they left the dark, womb-like confines of Mary Margaret's modest home, emerging once again into the sun's blistering heat. “Most people would just see a crazy woman.”

“I see a Lost one,” Grif murmured, knowing that his death long ago was partly to blame. Poor Mary Margaret, having that crime hoisted on her shoulders. And damn Barbara DiMartino for putting it there.

Kit followed his thoughts. “But we got a lead.”

Clearing his throat, Grif tried to do the same with his expression. It wouldn't do to get emotional now. “Yep.”

Barbara DiMartino—now Barbara McCoy. She'd married again at some point in the past fifty years. Grif knew this because Mary Margaret gave Kit the envelope from one of the woman's birthday greetings. It had McCoy's address, handwriting, and—though he hadn't opened it yet—a photo, too. Grif would finally know exactly who this woman was, and why she thought Evie and he deserved to die.

Sliding into the Duetto's passenger seat, Grif's heart beat against his chest, and rang in his ears. Kit's small car seemed to close in around him, not like a womb but a vise. His fingers trembled slightly against the envelope, which Kit surely saw as she keyed the ignition, though she said nothing. Pursing his lips, he glanced down and spied the edges of a photo—greenery, and water—either a lake or the ocean—and a white silk shirt on an arm propped against a hip. The arm of this Barbara, he thought, withdrawing it slowly. The arm of . . .

Kit's phone rang. Buddy Holly's “Oh, Boy.” A tune Grif recognized from both past and present. Gritting his teeth, Grif dropped his hands, slapping the envelope against his thigh. “What does he want now?”

Kit raised her chin in response—he knew that blasted look—and answered the phone. “Hey, Dennis . . .”

Grif rolled his eyes. It was petty, he knew, but it felt intrusive to have another person in this car, in this moment. This was between Grif and Kit. Grif and Barbara. Grif . . . and Evie.

“Grif is here,” Kit continued, flat gaze trained on Grif's face, like she was still reading his thoughts. He swallowed hard, and put the card aside for now. “He says hi.”

Grif pulled a face. Very funny.

Yet Kit quickly grew serious. “Sure. Hold on.”

She pressed a button on her phone Grif didn't even know existed, and static of background noise filled the tiny car. Grif hadn't known the phone could be set to speaker.

“You're on,” Kit told Dennis.

“Do you guys want the good news or the bad news first?” Excitement scored Dennis's tone, which of course decided things for Kit. Sighing, Grif tucked the card and photo into his jacket pocket. He'd have to wait until the future to look into his past.

“Good first. Always,” she answered for them.

“I found Bella.”

Jerking straight in her seat, Kit beaned her head on the Duetto's soft top. “No way. How? When? What did she say?”

“Let the man answer at least one of the questions,” Grif muttered.

“After you gave me Bella's name, I cross-referenced it with the files we have on Marco Baptista and his crew. A Bella Maria Sanchez is the niece of one of Baptista's highest-ranking lieutenants, Manuel Sanchez. Mr. Sanchez has been employed for the last three years in the Sun Valley Care and Rehabilitation Center. He's a P.A.”

“Physician's assistant,” Kit whispered to Grif, then in a normal voice said, “And did you check to see if any large caches of codeine have gone missing under Mr. Sanchez's watch?”

“He's squeaky-clean,” Dennis said, causing Kit to slump. “But a little more poking showed three more of Baptista's men similarly employed at rehab hospitals all over the valley.”

“A very healthy bunch, these gangsters,” Kit observed, easing from Mary Margaret's driveway.

Dennis hummed his agreement. “Yet they were clean as well.”

“So what good is it to us?” Grif said, cutting to the chase.

Kit shot him a hard look as she left the cul-de-sac, but Dennis seemed pleased he'd asked. “Listen, my grandmother had a stroke a few years back and ended up in one of these places. She was so out of it she had no idea what year it was, never mind what drugs she was on. She certainly wouldn't know if they
weren't
giving them to her. One call to the narcs confirmed it . . . it happens all the time.”

“So you think Baptista's crew has been pilfering from their patients? Stockpiling codeine for . . . what? Years?” Kit said, now thoughtful.

“A good three years, if my math holds up.”

“That's about a year after the Kolyadenkos started coming on strong,” Kit replied.

“Exactly.”

“It would fit,” Kit mused, biting her lower lip, slipping the Duetto through a yellow light.

“Sounds like you need to pay the Sanchezes a little visit,” Grif told Dennis, intrigued despite himself.

“I'm here now.”

“They actually spoke with you?” Kit said.

“That's the bad news,” Dennis said. “I'm waiting for backup, along with the coroner to confirm, but the front door was slightly open so I knocked. When there was no answer I entered and found Bella, Manuel, and three others with point-blank shots to the head.”

“Recent?” Grif asked.

“Very.”

“And the rest of the joint?”

“Untouched.”

Quick. Brutal. Passionless. A worry moved through Grif's belly. “So someone just came in, calmly shot them, and left?”

“Came in,
lined them up,
calmly shot them, and left.”

Five homicides related to a case he was working on, and Sarge hadn't called him in for one of the Takes. Grif's worry intensified.

“Give me the address,” Kit said, as they sped past the park where they'd encountered Mary Margaret.

“Well, that's why I called.” Dennis's voice grew strange, and he grunted like he was picking something up. “I thought you might already know it.”

Kit stomped the brakes, nearly bringing the car to a stop in the middle of the street before winging to the side. A horn blared as the car behind them sped past. Tilting her head, she said, “Why would you say that?”

“Because Grif's hat is here.”

Kit and Grif turned to stare at each other. Then they both looked back at the phone in Kit's hand.

“His hat . . . ?” Kit began, but Grif cut her off.

“Get out of there,” he said. His voice came out quieter than he'd intended, so he repeated himself. “Get out now.”

“Sure. I haven't touched anything else, but the analysts will be here soon,” Dennis responded, with more authority and less urgency than was needed.
Get out!
Grif wanted to scream. “You should probably come to—”

Come to?

Nothing.

Kit and Grif leaned forward. “Dennis?”

“What the hell is—?” Dennis mumbled.

Then a scuffle, the sound of the phone dropping, and the connection went dead.

“Oh God.” Kit fumbled the phone as she redialed. “God. It's her, isn't it?”

Grif's voice came out hoarse. “She had my hat.”

And now Yulyia Kolyadenko had Dennis.

I
t was all Kit's fault.

“Damn!” She hung up as Dennis's voice message sounded on the line, then punched redial. She wished he'd given her the address to Manuel Sanchez's home. Then she'd be driving there instead of sitting roadside, stymied and useless. Then she could do something.

“You need to call the cops,” Grif said, as the phone continued ringing throughout the car. Kit was so focused that she actually jumped when he put his hand on her arm. “Call the cops,” he said, when she looked up and met his eyes.

But the ringing stopped abruptly, replaced a moment later by the sound of a steady, insistent beep. Then the beeping faded and a voice came through the speakerphone, melodious but short, and utterly devoid of emotion. “Put Mr. Shaw on the line.”

Holding the phone out to Grif, Kit closed her eyes and tried not to weep.

“I'm here.” He held the phone crooked for Kit to hear.

“Good,” Yulyia Kolyadenko said. “I thought it was you. I thought . . . you must want your hat back.”

“Keep it,” Grif said shortly. “I'll take the man.”

“You will take what I am giving you, Mr. Shaw,” Yulyia responded, accent severely clipped. “Just like everyone else. Do you understand?”

Kit watched Grif's jaw clenched as he swallowed. “Yes.”

“So this reporter, this woman slandering my name in the papers, the one in bed with the Baptistas, she is the one you are with now?”

“She's not in bed—”

“I am asking for a simple yes or no only.”

Kit nodded at Grif's troubled glance. “Yes.”

“And did you tell her what I said?”

Grif shook his head, though the woman couldn't see it. “About?”

“Our burden as women. About how we must choose fate before it is chosen for us?”

Grif's eyes moved to Kit's. “I'll tell her now.”

“But too late,” Yulyia said. “Because now I am making choices for us all. For the dirty Cubans who are setting me up. For this stupid policeman who dares question me about my world, my business. And for you, who are working with him.”

“We just want to stop the killing,” Grif tried.

“If that were true? You would have never threatened me.” Silence loomed on the line, and Kit and Grif waited. “No, the problem is, you think you know who I am. You sat across from me in my own car and called me calculated and driven and a realist. Realist. That is funny. But if you really knew me?”

A pause.

“Yes?” Grif said, because they all knew she wanted him to ask.

“You'd never come near me at all.” The sound muffled as she snapped instructions in Russian that Kit couldn't understand. Despite that, an image of Dennis being dragged from a dingy, blood-splattered room flashed in her mind. She shut her eyes.

The sound cleared and Yulyia said, “You came to me with question. You wanted to know who hurt your newswoman friend. Then you said you respect women.”

“I do.”

“But Marco Baptista does not.”

“We already know he's the one who attacked Marin Wilson,” Grif assured her. “And we know he was setting you up.”

“We also know that he introduced
krokodil
into this city to put the heat on your
bratva,
” Kit added, thinking it would help.

“Yet you do so little, you two people who know so much,” Yulyia snapped back, unappeased. “That is main difference between us, I think. You know Baptista is dealing this disgusting drug, and you have nerve to question me. But I see it . . . and I make it stop.”

“How?” Grif asked.

“That's what you need to figure out now, isn't it?” Yulyia said. “But know this: a viper's poison does not show on the outside. Not like Baptista's
krokodil
. Instead, it roils inside, hot like a fever, until it strikes you down. This is how I will attack Baptista. I will burn him from inside out.”

That didn't sound different from Baptista's
krokodil
at all, but Kit wasn't going to say so to Yulyia. She couldn't put Dennis at risk.

“I hope you listened when I told you to keep looking forward,” Yulyia continued, as if reading Kit's thoughts on Dennis. “Detective Carlisle is counting on you. Understand?”

It sounded final. It sounded like she was going to hang up.

“Wait—” Kit tried . . . because she had to try.

“No police,” Yulyia barked over her, and the line went dead.

“Dammit.” Kit looked at her phone, then slapped the steering wheel. “Dammit! She didn't give us anything!”

“Sure she did.”

Kit glanced at Grif like he was crazy. “What?”

“She just told us she's going after Marco Baptista. The warning was to stay away and keep quiet. No paper. No police. Then Marco is gone and the whole issue of
krokodil
in the valley goes away, too.”

Kit shook her head. “What about Dennis?”

Grif said nothing.

Kit searched his face, but his features were carefully blank. “Grif?”

He finally shook his head. “Let's hope she's just using him as bait.”

Subtext: let's hope the Viper hadn't yet struck.

Forcing air through her nose, into her lungs, Kit sat and breathed and thought. Then she swung the car around in a sharp U-turn.

“Where are you going?” Grif's expression wasn't so blank now.

Kit didn't answer.

“Kit? What are you thinking?”

She felt so stupid for not having seen it or thought of it before. “Little Havana.”

“What about it?”

She shook her head as she said, “It's under renovation, Grif. It has been for weeks.”

“A perfect place to hide chemicals like paint thinner and propane.”

“Not just hide them,” Kit said. “It's their kitchen.”

This is how I will attack Baptista. I will burn him from inside out.

“Stop the car,” Grif ordered, his voice emanating from a deeper place in his throat than before.

Kit kept going.

“Stop the car, Kit,” he repeated, clipping his words this time. “Because wherever you're going, whatever you're thinking, plasma is suddenly thickening around you.”

Kit double-glanced at him. “Plasma? Like when you first met me? Like when . . . ?”

“When you were destined to die.”

Kit eased up on the gas. Maybe Grif was right. Maybe they should leave Yulyia alone, and Marco to his fate, and hope she would let Dennis live. Just hope.

“That's better,” Grif said, studying the air around her with squinted eyes. “Yes. That's just fine.”

But Dennis was a friend, a good one. She could see him now: the way he carried his beer, Pabst dangling between two fingers, a lopsided grin on his face, pomade thick in his blunt-cut hair. Yulyia had him, this man who wore creepers and cuffed jeans, a comb in his back pocket, ciggies rolled in his T. He was a good man. The Viper had him.