A Bloody Deal, page 13
Cole nodded. “Stranger danger murders are the worst.”
“Yeah,” he said, voice subdued. “Anyway, the lab found a match to a single cell found on the scene. His DNA was also connected to two unsolved rapes.”
“Excellent!” Cole pounded the desk in contradiction to her voice. “So excellent, in fact, I believe this calls for a commendation.”
He balked. “Ma'am?”
“Don’t get overexcited. I can only recommend you for one. Or—were you expecting something else?”
“I just—I mean, I’ve never…”
“I am capable of showing my officers praise, Detective Yukawa. So long as it’s earned.” The sergeant fixed him with a piercing glare. Eugene tried to maintain eye contact. “You have some slack in your leash, detective. Try not to strangle yourself.”
Eugene swallowed and nodded. He may already have.
“Dismissed.”
The clacking of Cole’s computer keys reached him before he stepped into the bullpen.
He had almost forgotten. “If I may, ma'am—” he turned back “—that article you have opened. Can you send it to me?”
“Hm? Oh. Sure thing.”
A quick scroll through at his desk told him the rest of the story. But that wasn’t what leaped out. Komarov wasn’t alone in the hotel room. No, two bodyguards were there too. One at the window, the other who wore long sleeves despite the A/C not working.
Long sleeves. The trademark of Richard Obolensky.
Eugene was out the door faster than a greyhound out of a kennel.
17
Finally, a contact reached out. Grace muttered a silent thanks as she drove. Digging into Komarov’s finances proved a horrible decision that practically cleaved her brain right down the center. And it wasn’t one, but two days before a body was due. Things were looking up.
According to her contact, a recent crackdown on illegal drugs by Ohio's tough-on-crime governor was pushing the Russian mob to “diversify their portfolios.” Not so unusual really. This kind of crackdown happened all over the world, Grace found. The Mexican cartel had expanded to avocados, the Milwaukee mob gobbled up fish, and the pakhan before Komarov had weaseled into the steel union. But Komarov, he aimed big.
His target? Coffee.
Six independent coffee shop owners were “invited” to a secure location for a deal: twenty percent off the top and the corporate coffee chains in C-town disappeared forever.
Extra security detail was brought in on the day of the meet. But after? The coffee shop owners slunk back to their homes under surveillance to protect them from any “self-aggression.” Satisfied, the pakhan returned to his men, a job well done. That's where Grace came in.
Komarov’s current home was a four-story apartment complex shaped like a grave, an onyx behemoth at the dead end of a short street. One of his shell companies purchased the property a decade ago and conducted heavy remodeling inside.
Try as she might, she found little information outside of rental records, many likely fake. Zero blueprints.
Well, if she couldn’t scope out the architecture, then she’d focus on what she could: guard schedules and security routes. That meant getting eyes on the place. Google Maps helped in part. A boarded-up sheet metal factory sat on the corner at the entrance to the street. Social media posts around that location showed a heavy metal door in the back, partially hidden from nosy neighbors by a tall fence. With that knowledge in hand, all that was left were a few instructional videos, a call to an old friend, and a stop at the hardware store.
Time for an undetectable B&E.
She parked a block away. Despite what meteorologists predicted, the night promised rain. She examined her outfit in the side mirror. The sunglasses looked dumb under the rising moon. What was she, on a mission from God? She took them off, revealing the sickly yellow bruising across the left half of her face. Ugly, but it matched the hue of the streetlights.
Enough stalling. It was midnight on a weeknight for Gods’ sakes. The only ones up were the arthritic old and the beyond drunk. Still, after exiting the car, she kept her focus straight ahead. Any suspicious behavior on her part and the Victorian-style homes teeming with Komarov loyalists would sound the alarm.
She didn’t loosen up until the abandoned factory stood between her and the street. Now for the fun part. She took out her two pokey sticky thingies—technical terms—and set to picking the lock.
After a few seconds, it was abundantly clear the how-to videos were a load of the utmost crap. The urge to chuck the stick thingies as hard as she could mounted. Course if that happened, she’d wake up a neighbor, which was bad, but silver lining: she could stab their mafia-loving butt.
“Mind if I take over?”
Grace spun around. The yard was empty. No detective in sight. It was all in her head. Gods, she was losing it. The God of the Lost must be—
No, she wouldn’t think about Him. Not for a second.
Finally, the back door opened into what must have been the staff break room based on the tacky carpet and stripped kitchenette. Here she waited for her goosebumps to settle, her ears perked for the wail of a siren.
When none came, she continued on. The place was stripped of machinery. Obscured windows on all sides splashed moonlight on rust-colored puddles across a concrete floor. Rotting ceiling tiles hung from rafters thirty feet high. No sign anyone except rodents had been inside for years.
On the second floor, a hallway extended between two offices. It had a narrow window opening that looked out on the street and Komarov’s apartment complex. She set her perch up here.
If her intel was right, Komarov would arrive home four hours before her deadline. It was one a.m. now. The meeting started at two this afternoon. If she gave him a little time to settle in, and subtracted half an hour for travel time to the Quarter, her margin for error neared zero. Add to that, Komarov was a hermit encased in a tank. No matter how much studying or recon she did, hiccups were inevitable.
But what other options did she have? So for the next several hours, she watched. The guard patrols outside the apartment complex were like clockwork: seamless with lots of moving parts she didn’t understand. Who knew the mob would be so good at complicated security techniques? Despite this, she found minuscule gaps where she might wriggle in.
Grace leaned back and stretched as the sun crested the horizon. It was too soon for her muscles to be so stiff. She thought the soreness was over, her last serious ache days ago.
Maybe it was this place. She hadn’t noticed before, but the air carried the faint whiff of tangy ass. She could even smell it through her shirt.
She pulled out her thermos and took a swig—then spit the contents onto the floor. It tasted disgusting, worse than disgusting. Like the place had somehow seeped through her metal lined thermos.
This seemed like an omen. But which God sent it?
Rather than dwell, she swapped the drink out for one of three doorknobs from her bag and busied herself picking its lock. She timed herself, then spent the rest of the early morning trying to beat that time. Soon, she called it quits and tried to sleep on the carpet in the better smelling office.
In twelve hours, Komarov would return and she’d be free of this hell hole.
***
Eugene stretched. The vinyl of his car’s back seat had melded into his back an hour ago. Besides that and an urge to pee, he was exhilarated.
Grace leaned forward in her surveillance nest, binoculars aimed at the apartment building down the street. Eugene snapped a few shots with his telephoto lens.
He’d been following her for almost a day at this point, though he hadn’t meant to. Tended to happen when a person hangs outside another’s apartment building, trying to get the courage to walk up, and she just happens to come out. She carried a massive plastic shopping bag. Sure, it could have been for a story, but Eugene made out a couple doorknobs through the semi-opaque plastic.
So Richard Obolensky went missing a few days after an exclusive interview, the same event Grace is abducted from. Maybe a rival witnessed the exchange, wanted information from the players involved. No matter the motive, Grace needed placed under protected custody.
However—and this was a big-bag-of-doorknobs-sized however—there was another way of looking at it: Richard went missing less than a week after Grace returned. Her selective amnesia cover story was garbage. None of her coworkers knew anything about her except that she knew how to get to the bottom of things.
So which was it? Victim or perpetrator? Well, here she was, staking out one of Komarov’s known residences from an abandoned warehouse. Guess he’d take door number two.
The urge from Yukawa’s bladder grew too large to ignore. But stepping out or turning his car on would alert Grace. So, he rummaged around for an empty bottle. As he went, he played with the idea of arresting her now and ending this charade. He could pull Cole in on the interrogation. She loved those.
But he shook his head. Grace was up to something. Last night, she had headed into the woods behind Komarov’s building. He tried following, but the place was littered with sticks that would give him away. Before he found a silent way through, she was coming back out, hands caked with dirt.
Zipping his fly, he sipped at the last of his lunch from yesterday, a cup of cold roasted garlic potato soup. He took tiny sips, a poor attempt to trick his brain into thinking it was more.
Another knot formed in his back. He prayed Grace would get on with it soon.
***
Night shuffled its way in, draping the street in darker and darker blankets of umber. Komarov returned hours ago. A quick meeting. Guess coffee makers didn’t have spines when their families were concerned. Hard to risk death over pastries.
Grace picked up the thermos, sipped, and set it down. Still tasted terrible, but she was getting used to it. After a moment, she took another sip. Full dark was coming soon. Komarov snuggled up in his castle, safe in his stronghold. For now.
Bottle empty, she shook herself and focused on the tranquilizer gun. Yep, the safety was set–no more accidental self-doses. Unfortunately, she needed her good hand for the lock picking, which left the gun to her bad arm.
She tested the weapon. It was a nice fit, lightweight. The muzzle ended just shy of the end of her sling. Moment of truth. She squeezed the handle and gasped as shooting pain crackled up her forearm. Useless. The sling would have to do most of the holding. She could at least appear threatening without wincing.
Cautious, she tested the trigger with a slight pinch. No pain. Silver lining.
Grace tucked her ski mask in a back pocket, then smoothed out her all-black outfit. When the moon slipped behind a cloud, she set out.
A strange woman strutting with the wrath of hell at her heels would set off every alarm Komarov had. So instead of heading north toward the apartments, Grace exited the factory and headed west.
The trek took nineteen minutes, through backyards and overgrown trails. She had walked this path before, but tonight felt different. Like the universe was on to her. Every cricket chirp made her heart lurch. But nothing stopped her. Not yet, at least.
Soon, the safe covering of the overgrown forest behind Komarov’s estate engulfed her. The fifty-foot-tall dirt ridge stood right where she left it, handholds chiseled into its face. She climbed up with relative ease. However, at the top, the coverage from the trees was sparse. From below, the forest always looked a lot thicker.
It couldn’t be helped. She crouched and hurried forward. If her timing was correct, the first patrol should pass by in three…two…
A pair of guards strolled out from around the corner to the right. Wait, why were there two of them? Grace knelt. That wasn’t right. There had only been one last night.
The guard on the left shivered. The night carried a chill that brushed Grace’s cheeks. Her cheeks? Crap! She clutched at her back pocket, ski mask still tucked inside.
Too late to put it on now. The guards now faced her direction. Even as far back as she was, any movement would alert them to her presence. But they might spot her regardless if she remained exposed. The choice pumped ice into her veins, freezing her in place. Their gazes pierced the darkness, pierced her. One reached toward his belt…
And scratched his hip. Then they turned as one, their path running parallel with the apartment wall until they turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
The thunder in her chest steadied to a thrum. A quick tap started the forty-five-second countdown on her smartwatch. She dug out her mask and charged forward. Two guards were more than she planned, but she could handle them. They weren’t all that different from one, really. She repeated that thought until she believed it.
The service entrance lay directly ahead, a big concrete slab of a door. This entry was her best bet to get inside undetected–hidden enough by the corner of the building to block her from the street, yet open enough to hear any guards’ approach.
The lock looked like the smattering of knobs she had practiced on from the hardware store. That was good. Ninety-nine percent of locks were identical. So said the internet, anyway.
Grace readied her comb pick. Its long metal handle and five short teeth shone copper in the yellow light. Thirty seconds until next patrol, seven to make it back to the safety of the forest. Time enough for a quick test. As she worked, she tried to keep her thoughts from what awaited her on the other side. One task at a time.
Almost immediately, the doorknob made a clicking noise. Her comb pick popped out. Tightness clutched her chest. Ninety-nine percent of all locks were identical; the other one percent were rare, expensive, and only available by special order…and also, on this door.
She wrung the tiny comb pick handle in frustration. Of all the times to have one and a half hands. She took a deep breath. Patience. She hadn’t had a clue how to write an article when she started at the paper–
Voices. She checked her watch. That couldn’t be; they were almost fifteen seconds early. Either the guards were sprinting around the front or…
She dashed toward the woods. A fallen log a few feet in might be enough cover. She dove headfirst, arms splayed. The ground rose up faster than expected and she landed with a thud. Her whole body seemed to vibrate from the impact. She wheezed for air as quietly as she could while listening for the clomp of soft earth under heavy boots.
The guards were early. Why? All the time she had observed them, they kept to a rigid pace. Why change now? Maybe Komarov brought in new guys from out of town? Trainees walking too fast without realizing. Still, it could be fortunate. This might mean a larger gap between them and the next patrol.
Like before, the guards’ footsteps continued past then faded. But rather than risk another attempt, she stayed where she was, catching her breath. She kept her eye on the time, testing her theory.
Sure enough, the next patrol arrived early too. Instead of forty-five seconds, she was down to thirty-three. There were only supposed to be three guards out, but instead, there were eight, working in pairs. Who brought in more guards after a meeting with middle-aged baristas?
Coast clear and stopwatch adjusted, she jogged back to the strange lock to examine it. Seemed ordinary. She sunk the comb pick in and tried again, more cautious. The allotted time passed before she could do much of anything.
Spinning to hide once more, a hitching yank pulled her back. The comb pick stuck. She grabbed it with both hands and wrenched. It didn’t budge. If she left it here, the guards might spot it. However if she stayed, the guards would definitely see her. Cursing under her breath, she abandoned the tool and sprinted for cover in the nearby brush.
As she rolled, her mask rose up. She struck something soft and pillowy. Bitter air and tiny particles flooded her mouth and nostrils. The urge to cough was immediate and dire. She clamped her mouth shut.
She glanced back. The two guards seemed to loll, their steps slowing. Her pin comb nearly glowed under the lone wall light.
moveassholesmoveassholesMOVE
Unfazed by her telepathic urging, the guards stopped. One bent down to tie his shoe as the other lazily glanced about.
A gremlin was clawing its way up her throat. After all this running, she could barely keep it contained.
Maybe if she let out a small cough? Just a tiny one? She lowered herself to the ground, buried her face in the mask an inch from the dirt and opened her mouth a crack.
Something primal tore loose inside her. Coughs barreled out, great hacking ones that commandeered her whole body, contorting it, folding it in on itself. She wrestled to regain her composure but failed. Whatever dust or spore she struck, it now had control.
Eventually, the hacking relented. She rolled over, spent. No possible way the guards hadn’t heard that. She turned to check if they approached and barked. It came out on its own, reverberating through the silent woods.
But the men were gone.
More would come. She traveled as deep into the woods as she could and coughed freely into her mask. Once she was sure everything was out of her system, she returned.
Rather than return to the lock, she timed the patrols from the shadows. If any so much as turned in the comb pick’s direction, she was ready to haul ass.
But when it became clear the guards would do no such thing, she gave in. She wasn't getting inside, not tonight. Of that she was sure. But if they found her comb pick, Komarov would change location and she'd lose any shot of catching him in the future. If Diavolo let her live. She’d have to retreat and figure out some other victim. She had a few hours. Although the thought was enough to cause her to hyperventilate through her raw throat.
No dignity left now. She walked up and smacked the stupid pick, soothed it, stroked it, everything short of worshipping the damn thing and bowing prone before it. But still, it wouldn't come out.
Voices murmured from around the corner. She’d lost track of the time. The next patrol was seconds away. She set her hand on the comb pick one last time.
