I pull out a card and write my private number on the back. “Don’t repeat this information to anybody else. If anybody else comes asking after him, call us.” I hand him the card. “We’ll make it worth your while.”
“And it will be not worth your while,” Viktor says, “to repeat these things.”
“I hear you.” Karl puts the card in his pocket.
We get out of there and into the daylight, stunned.
“Beautiful, brilliant, and completely violent,” Viktor says proudly.
We get back in the car and head up north to find the social worker. We’re halfway there already, and this is the kind of thing you want to do in person. Nothing like dealing with a man in person for showing what good friends we can be…or what dangerous enemies.
I make a call to Tito. Things are good at the house. He’s psyched to hear about Kiro. I ask him how Mira seems. He tells me she’s good.
“Don’t crowd her,” I say. He gets my meaning—I want him watching her, but not obviously.
Tito tells me she’s about to take a nap. I get him to put her on.
“Aleksio,” she says.
I feel like I left a part of myself back there with her unfinished. Like there are so many things still to say to her. I tell her what Karl said about the professor, and that it’s definitely Kiro out there. She laughs at his description of Kiro. “Not in cop school then,” she says.
Something’s off.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
“I just want you to find him.”
“We need to get to this social worker snitch first.” It’ll take a little doing. He’s in northern Minnesota. More fucking driving.
And the person driving will be me. I look over at Viktor, back on the Valhalla feed. What does he see there that has him so riveted?
I hold the phone tight, feeling a rush of affection for her. And hope like I’ve never felt. It feels good to talk to her, like this strange surge of happiness in my heart. It’s stupid, because things are so twisted between us.
“We’re going to make everything right,” I say.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mira
Tito is trying to make it seem like we’re just hanging out, like he’s just around, but he doesn’t get who he’s dealing with.
Men watching me and controlling me and keeping secrets from me is old news. And guys trying to not seem like they were watching me? I’ve slipped away from the best of them. And I’ll slip away from Tito.
And grab that file on my mom.
We make pizza. We all watch a movie. I’m the sleepy, compliant girl. I wait until Tito is snuggled in under a blanket with a nice, hot, buttery bowl of popcorn to announce I’m going to grab a sweater and then I just do it. Guards are most likely to ease up when they have fresh food—that’s the voice of experience. Instead of heading to my room, I slip into the study and grab the folder and a Taser I spotted in Aleksio’s drawer. I put it in my room and grab a sweater and come back out.
It’s a fuck of a thing to sit there and watch the rest of the movie, but this is about keeping things looking right. Again, experience. When the movie ends I go back into my room. They’ve fixed the door, of course. Tito locks me in there, and I dive into the file.
The file is the coroner’s report from 11 years ago—it’s clearly genuine. It even smells genuine. Like an old library book.
I go through the sheets. It’s an autopsy report. That doesn’t make sense—there was never an autopsy of my mother. You don’t autopsy a cancer victim. But according to this document, there was an autopsy. The cause of death is listed as poisoning by a substance I can’t pronounce.
Poisoned.
I stare at it, trying to make sense of it. The doctors said she died of a rare form of cancer. The doctors told me that. But somebody ordered an autopsy the day she died.
Little things from that time flow together. Doctors arguing. The speed with which she was whisked off to that hospice. My father’s strange reluctance for me to raise money for the research for the rare cancer. But I wanted to do it. I needed to do something.
This file says she didn’t have cancer at all.
This file says my mother was murdered.
I sit there, shaken to the core.
Why does Aleksio have this? And why keep it from me? Was Dad covering for somebody? Was Dad involved? Were Aleksio’s people involved?
I try the door and find it locked. When they fixed the door, they reinforced it. My face heats. I’m so done being a prisoner. I need to get out and find the truth. I’m not so stupid as to think Dad’ll give me the answers. There’s a name on the report. I need a phone and a vehicle.
I sleep fitfully. There’s a soft knock at the door around seven in the morning.
“Yeah?” I say.
“You awake?” It’s Tito.
“I’m awake,” I say. “You guys have coffee out there? What’ll it take to get some brought in here?”
“No problem,” Tito says. The footsteps recede.
I have on shoes this time, and the stun gun. I’ve ripped up the sheets into strips, braided them into ropes and hidden them.
Some fifteen minutes later there’s another knock. “Coffee delivery.”
“Please,” I say. “Come in.”
The door opens, and Tito appears. He smiles. He has a tray with kafe turke and a warm scone. “Aleksio and Viktor should be back in a few.”
“Thank you.” I motion to the dresser where I want him to put it. I feel bad for what I’m going to do.
As soon as he sets it down, I jab the stun gun right into his flank. He falls heavily, much as I try to prevent it. I grab my makeshift ropes and bind his hands and ankles. When he rouses I jab him again. I gag him and then tie him to the radiator.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, taking his phone, his revolver, and his money. He looks mad. Aleksio will have a fit.
I slip out and steal through the house. I avoid the back where they’re all smoking; instead I go out the side door. I run up the driveway and hit the fob. The lights on a BMW flash on.
I start it up and drive like hell. When I get a few miles away, I pull over, heart pounding, and call the medical examiner’s office. I ask for Fazli Jashari—that’s the name at the upper right-hand corner of the file. Albanian. The man who signed off. They tell me he’s not in until the afternoon. No, I won’t leave a message.
I Google and get a home address.
Jashari lives in a low flat rambler in a near suburb. Nobody answers at the door, but the car is there. I go around to the back, a sliding door by the kitchen, and I see an older man with thick silver hair and a thick beard. “Hey!” I pound on the glass with my piece, nearly breaking it.
He rushes over and opens it. Every molecule in him seems to freeze. “Mira Nikolla.”
“You’re Fazli Jashari?”
“You know how many people are looking for you? There are rumors…about Aleksio Dragusha…” He searches my face like a man who really wants to know whether it’s true.
“We need to talk. Inside.”
“Does your father know you’re free?”
“Don’t worry about my father. I’m here to talk about my mother.”