But I did the math.
Her father stole this list from the Russian mob, and Lev was looking for it that night. Lev killed her family for this list, and my guess is it’s a list of informants, of people in Vasily Stanislov’s pocket.
“There you are,” Janet, the older teacher with whom I work, says, startling me as she sets a piece of cake on the corner of my desk.
I fumble to close the file, and I’m sure I look guilty as sin.
If she notices, she doesn’t remark, but her eyes flicker over my screen. “Isn’t he growing up fast?” she says. My screensaver is a photo of Josh and me last Christmas.
“Too fast,” I say.
“I snatched the last piece of cake for you,” she says with a wink and sips from her mug of coffee.
“Thank you, that was thoughtful. I’ll share it with Josh after lunch.”
The bell rings then, and she looks up. “Well, we’d better get in there.” Our classroom is connected to this office, so she goes ahead as I stand and follow her.
“Can you grab Mr. Noodle?” she asks.
“Sure.”
I go back to my desk and open the bottom drawer where I keep Mr. Noodle, a sock puppet we use during story time, and my heart stops. My knees give out, and I drop into my chair. The wheels roll it slightly backward, away from the fading pink with its splatters of dark red.
I don’t scream only because I can’t.
Because my throat is dry, and I have no voice.
“Katie?”
I turn to find Janet peeking her head back into the office.
“Are you coming?”
I nod, touching a clammy hand to my damp forehead.
“Are you all right, dear?” she asks after seeing my face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I…I don’t feel well.”
She comes over, reaches into the drawer and pushes my scarf over to take the sock puppet. Does she notice the splatters of red? I’d left it in Nina’s room that night. On her bed. It’s her blood. And I’m going to be sick.
“Go lie down in the nurse’s office. I’ll be fine. We have a small room today,” Janet says, and I don’t answer. I just sit there staring at my scarf. The one Lev must have recognized that night. The one that he put here.
He’s found me. He’s here.
And my time’s up.
13
Kat
As soon as the door between the office and the classroom closes, I force myself to move. To grab the scarf and shove it into my purse.
It smells like smoke. Like smoke from the fire that killed Nina. I hope to God they didn’t burn her alive.
My legs tremble as I make my way out of the office, not bothering to pick up my coat as I walk out. As I concentrate on not running.
I don’t pass by Josh’s classroom. I’ll come back for him. He’s safest here with so many people around, not alone with me.
A realization comes over me then. Does Lev know about Josh? Has he seen him? Does he understand?
God.
Fuck.
Icy air forces me into the present when I open the front door and step outside. The parking lot is empty. Wind blows powder snow around. In the sunlight, it sparkles like diamond dust.
I’m going to miss it here.
I can’t help but glance toward the empty woods as I make my way to my Jeep. I go to unlock the door but realize I’d never locked it this morning. I’d been too distracted with what Josh said about seeing the man.
Lev.
It has to be Lev.
But what if it’s not? What if it’s one of the others I saw at the club or someone else.
No. It’s Lev. The scarf is proof of that.
I climb into the Jeep and start the engine, kicking myself for not having taken it to the garage yet when it takes two tries for the engine to turn over. Cold air blows at me from the vents, and I rub my hands together, freezing without my coat as I drive out of the lot and turn onto the road.
Glancing into the rearview mirror from time to time, I drive home on autopilot.
I’m going to miss our little cabin in the woods, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. I have to keep us safe.
Driving faster than usual, I make it home in twenty-five minutes. I park the Jeep and look around, peering into the wooded area behind the cabin before climbing out.
He won’t be hiding in the woods. Why would he?
If he’s anywhere, he’ll be inside.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
I grab my purse, look inside for the pocketknife, and hold it in the palm of my hand. But the road is clear, and there isn’t another house for a mile so unless he walked, which he can’t have done with the snowfall of last week still knee-deep in the woods, he’s not here.
I leave my purse in the car, just sliding my phone into my back pocket and walking toward the kitchen entrance. I peer in from the window on the door. Sunlight pours into the cozy, if a little messy, space. Josh’s bowl is still sitting on the table with the blue milk from his cereal. I hate giving him that artificial stuff, but he’s such a picky eater, it’s just easier some mornings. I’ll do better at our next place. When we start again.
Unlocking the door, I push it open to go inside, and goose bumps rise every hair on my body.
He’s been here. Inside our house. I feel it now. Feel him. Smell him?
No, that’s my imagination.
I quietly close the door and lean my back against it, feeling the pocketknife in my hand. I decide to switch it out for a real one and set it on the counter. My hand is trembling as I pick up another knife, a sharper one, and I don’t allow myself to think about Lev. To wonder if I’ll be able to do it. To kill him.
Kill him?
I grip the lip of the sink as a wave of nausea overwhelms me.
I’ve done it before. I know what it feels like to plunge your knife into someone’s gut. I know how warm blood is when it pours over your hand. And I know how much blood there is.
But Lev?
I wipe my eyes and steel my spine. I need to get packed. I need to get our things and go.
But just then, I hear it.
Footsteps.
Fuck.
My inhale is an audible tremble matching the slow steps. He’s not trying to sneak up on me.
The footsteps stop, and the hair on the back of my neck rises, the air in the room shifting, becoming heavier, making it harder to breathe.
There’s a crunching sound.
“Hope you don’t mind I helped myself,” he says, and his voice makes my spine go rigid, makes me grip the knife so hard my knuckles go white. “And I took a shower. Fixed the leak, too.”
The leaky shower drips for an hour after every shower. It drives me nuts.
“Turn around, Katie. Let me see you.”
I’m going to be sick. I shake my head and make some strange, involuntary sound from inside my throat.
Footsteps warn me he’s coming closer, then he’s right behind me. I feel him, feel the warmth of his big body when he stops so close that another inch and we’d be touching, and I remember the last time he touched me.
But it’s on purpose that he doesn’t touch me. I know it when he brings his arms around me and brushes the crumbs off his hands in the sink and all I can do is look down at them, so big. They’ve been gentle, and they’ve been rough, but I haven’t seen them be violent. Not yet. Not to me.