Eddington led me right up to the third floor and down all the way to the end. He left me quickly and I smiled as he retreated, still finding some humor in an old proper British man’s reaction to our lady things. I raised my hand and knocked and after a moment Mandy opened the door. “Is Rick here?” I asked her softly, afraid to use Dutch’s name even in a whisper.
“No.”
I looked anxiously over her shoulder to see if she was lying, but I couldn’t spot Dutch anywhere in the room. “Do you know when he’ll be coming up?”
“No.”
“Do you know if he’s still with Boklovich?”
“No.”
“Gee, Mandy, you’re just a fountain of information, aren’t you?”
“He’s not here, okay?” she snapped.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something rude back and instead said, “Fine. When he does come up, I need you to tell him to meet me in the garden by the tent tomorrow morning at six thirty a.m.”
“Whatever,” she said, looking incredibly bored.
“It’s important,” I insisted.
Mandy stared at me with half-closed lids.
I could feel my frustration mounting, so I turned away, knowing that I was very close to losing it with her. “Just give him the message,” I said tersely, and hurried away.
When I made it back to my room, I took a moment to smooth out my clothes and take a deep breath. In the light of the hallway I saw how dirty my palms were from fussing with the gate, but there wasn’t anything I could do other than try to hide them until I had a chance to visit the restroom.
With a feeling of dread I turned the handle, preparing myself to face the music. On the other side of the door, I came up short and stared in surprise as I took in Maks, reclining on the couch with a book, a pillow from the bedroom, and a thick blanket folded at his feet.
“Abigail,” he said warmly. “I was beginning to worry about you.”
I blinked and tried to collect my thoughts. “I’m fine,” I assured him. “But if you’ll excuse me for one minute, I really must visit the ladies’ room.”
With that, I trotted into the bathroom and scrubbed my hands clean. On the way in, I’d passed the bed and noticed that only one side of it had been turned down. I looked in the mirror after I was done scrubbing my palms, asking my reflection if Grinkov really could be something of a gentleman.
Leaving my purse on the nightstand, I moved back out to the sitting room again and found Maks in the same position, looking relaxed and quite content with his book. “You’re sleeping out here?” I asked, getting right to the point.
Maks laid the book on his chest, a crooked smile on his lips. “Unless you’d prefer I join you in the bedroom?”
I felt relief flood through me right down to my toes. “That would be moving a little fast, wouldn’t it, Maks?”
He sat up and considered me quite seriously. “Abigail Carter,” he said. “You are a riddle wrapped in a mystery, you know?”
I sat down on a nearby chair. “You can’t quite figure me out, is that right?”
He laughed. “That’s right. But I find myself wanting to. I’m very attracted to you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I stayed quiet.
“I realize,” he said next, “that I forced you into staying with me here in my room, but you must understand that I did this for your own protection.”
I had opened up my radar the moment I sat down, and I was studying his energy quite intensely. I could see many of the same things I already knew about him there, but I could also see something I’d missed before. “What happened to your wife, Maks?”
The question had an immediate reaction. His face went quite pale and he stared at me with haunted eyes for a long uneasy moment.
Still, even sensing the danger, I pushed a little more. “I can see that you’re a widower,” I told him, my mind’s eye focusing on the white band that appeared around his left ring finger. “And I’ve heard the rumors, so I just want to make sure I know exactly who I’m getting involved with here before things go any further with us.”
Maks’s lips pressed themselves into a thin line and he tossed his book on the table. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “The story you heard was that I murdered my wife and her lover?”
“It was more that you tortured them to death over the period of several days.”
Maks nodded and there was a sardonic smile at the corner of his lips. “Ah,” he said. “The ‘I shot them in each of their extremities before finally putting them out of their misery’ story?”
“That’s the one. Is it true?”
“No.”
I could have sagged with relief. He wasn’t lying. And that allowed me to thread my way along the energy of his wife’s death. What I found there was like a puzzle with odd-shaped pieces. “She was murdered, though,” I said, and it wasn’t a question. “And it was by someone you both knew and were quite fond of. What’s odd is that I keep sensing heartbreak around her. Like in her final moment there was this shattering feeling around her heart because someone she knew and loved murdered her.”
“She was
not
murdered,” Maks said, his voice bitter and hard.
I ignored him and continued to follow the thread. “It feels like murder,” I said to him. “And I don’t think it was a suicide.”
“Abigail, stop,” he said.
But I was in too deep, and when I could finally find the end of the thread, I gasped. “Oh, my God!”
My eyes grew wide and traveled up to his, which were haunted and pained. “You know?”
I nodded. “Your son,” I whispered, feeling the terrible heartache coming off the man on the couch.
Maks got up and walked over to a credenza across the room. He opened it and pulled out a tall bottle of vodka. Without another word he poured himself a generous portion and swallowed it down in one gulp.
After another moment he began to speak, his voice choked with emotion. “Both of my sons are very clever,” he said. “Too clever. One day when they were six and while I was away, they discovered how to open my gun safe. They figured out the code somehow and retrieved my gun. My wife walked in on them while they were playing with it. The gun went off. My wife died within seconds, shot through the heart.”
I now understood why I’d picked up the heartbreak around his wife and the distance between Maks and his sons, which had formed in the years after their mother’s death. They were both physical and emotional clues. “You don’t know which of your sons pulled the trigger,” I said, still snooping around the energy.
“No,” he said. “And if you know, please do not tell me!”
My radar offered the word
younger
, and I knew that it had been the second twin that had shot his mother. “Do they remember it?”
Maks nodded. “I believe so, yes.”
“You haven’t talked about it?”
Maks poured himself another drink. “No. They’re living far away from me now, and we don’t talk much.”
“So, why the rumors?”
Maks came back and sat down heavily on the couch. “I would rather the world believe that I murdered my wife than have everyone know that one of my sons killed his own mother.”
I got up and moved over to the couch to sit next to him. His energy and his posture were so sad that my heart went out to him and I reached over to take his hand and hold it.
We sat like that for a long time and all the while my radar kept making a suggestion that I was really fighting against, but finally my crew’s insistence couldn’t be ignored. “Do you have a pen, Maks?”
Numbly he reached into his shirt pocket and handed me a gold Cross pen. I reached for his book and opened it to the last page, which was blank. Ripping it carefully out, I tore the page in half and scribbled a name and a phone number on it, which I then handed to him. “Here,” I said, and while he was distracted by the paper, I tucked his pen into my pocket.
“What’s this?”
“It’s the phone number to a really good friend of mine. She’s a psychic medium out in L.A., someone who specializes in talking to the dead, and she’s one of the best in the world. Call the number and her assistant will schedule you an appointment. Don’t mention my name, though, because when Theresa reads for you, I want you to believe that I had nothing to do with the information that comes through.”
Maks studied the paper like it held a secret code and I got up, discreetly taking the other half of the paper with me and moving to the bedroom. Turning back to him, I said, “You need to hear from your wife, Maks. You need to know that she doesn’t blame you, and that it’s not your fault. It was an accident, and you need to move forward and begin to forgive both yourself and your sons.”
I left him still staring down at the paper and hurried into the bathroom, where I immediately turned on the shower. As the bathroom filled up with steam, I scribbled Dutch a note about what Grinkov had told me: that there was a hit out on Des Vries’s life and that he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the premises, and that I’d seen the drone and Intuit out in the garden, which meant the thief was actually here, and I thought I knew of a way out if Dutch could figure out how to steal back Intuit. On the other side of the paper I drew a map of the gate at the back of the garden, and told him that we needed to hightail it out of there during the party when all the other guests were busy, which might be the best time to steal Intuit.
Satisfied, I folded the note, tucked it into the pocket of my dress slacks, hurried into the shower simply to get wet, then got out and wore a towel around myself just in case Maks was still awake and watching for me from the sitting room.
When I came out of the bathroom, he appeared to be sleeping, and I noticed that the piece of paper I’d scribbled my friend Theresa’s name on was neatly tucked next to his date book. On tiptoes I walked out and placed his pen beside them on the table before going to bed myself.
T
he next morning I crept out of the room at five thirty. I didn’t know what time Maks would be up, and I didn’t want to get stuck in the room with him, so I made sure to be up and out well before he woke.
I found a quiet corner near the patio doors to sit, huddled in my sweater because Boklovich’s house was still cold; then around six I slipped out of the house and onto the back terrace.
I was surprised to find several workers out back, up early and preparing for the afternoon’s festivities. So much hustle-bustle would provide good cover and I moved over to the tent to make it look like I was only checking things out. The drone was fully put together now, displayed on a pedestal with two armed guards beside it. One focused his beady eyes at me and I moved off quickly.
It was cozier out here than it had been in the house—the warm front had definitely moved into the area, for which I was immensely grateful. If Dutch and I were going to make our escape that evening, it would be nice not to freeze to death while we did it.
I glanced at my watch every few minutes and eyed the French doors, waiting for my fiancé, but as six twenty-nine became six thirty, no sign of him appeared.
My heart sank. Dutch was nothing if not prompt.
I waited another fifteen minutes before deciding that I needed to risk sneaking up to his room to deliver the note. I moved quickly back up the stone stairs leading to the garden doors, but immediately had to duck out of sight again because Maks was inside, his back to me, accepting a cup of coffee from one of the servants.
Grumbling to myself, I edged down the wall nearly to the end of the house and tried a door. It was locked.
I glanced back the way I’d come, looking for any sign of Dutch. He was nowhere around. There was also no other easy way to access the house.
Out of options, I moved back to the French doors and took a deep breath, peeking through the panes before going in. Maks was sitting in a chair reading the paper. I opened the door and moved inside, offering him a warm greeting. “Good morning!”
Maks turned and glanced over his shoulder. “Abigail,” he said, setting down the paper. “You were up very early this morning.”
I felt my heart beat a little faster. “Did I wake you?”
“I’m a light sleeper,” he said.
“Ah. Sorry about that. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to check out the preparations.”
Maks’s knowing gaze traveled to the large tent outside. “You saw the drone,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
I smiled, knowing that if I tried to deny it, he’d see right through me. “Yes.”
Maks nodded and he seemed to relax into his chair again. He was about to say something else when a maid came into the room and curtsied. She asked me something in Russian and I shrugged my shoulders to show her that I didn’t understand her. “She’s asking if you would like coffee,” Grinkov said.
“Oh, yes, please,” I told her, pumping my head up and down, and the servant trotted away, only to return a moment later with a steaming cup of the good stuff. I took a seat and attempted some small talk. I had little doubt that Maks was suspicious of my comings and goings, and I didn’t want to give the appearance of being anxious to be off again. “Have all the guests arrived?”
Maks folded the paper and turned his wrist to check the time. “Some have already trickled in,” he said. “But most will be arriving shortly.”
I took another sip of coffee. “And have you met the other dealer? The one offering the drone for sale.” Maks looked sharply at me, so I added, “I know that Rick is anxious to meet his competition.”
“Why would he be anxious to do that?”
Again I detected the hint of suspicion in Grinkov’s voice and I knew I was treading on thin ice here, but I also knew it could work to our benefit to stir the pot a little. “Because Rick has the better product,” I told him. “Remember the rumors that the device on the drone is defective? It will work only a few times and needs to be reverse engineered, at that. Rick’s disk is ready to roll with no bugs or system flaws.”
“You’ve heard a lot of rumors,” Grinkov said with more than a bit of mirth.