Kir
Evie looks up at the sound of her name and when she spots us, her face horrified at the vision of her sister in hysterics, the cops step aside and let her run to us.
She collapses into Charleigh’s arms, just about matching her sister’s wailing.
“Oh my god,” Charleigh screams, “I thought you might be… I thought you were in the car.”
“I’m sorry, Charleigh, I’m so sorry,” Evie cries. “I’ve put you through so much. I promise to stop, I promise to behave. Please forgive me,” she begs.
I get to my feet. We’re now surrounded by three officers who want to know what the hell is going on.
But first things first.
I step closer to the two men and one woman in uniform and lower my voice. “Are there… is there any chance of… survivors?”
I choke on this last word, so close to the conversation I had when I lost Clara in the accident, words I never thought I’d have to utter again.
The female cop grimaces and shakes her head sadly. “Sorry, sir, I’m afraid not. Do you know the person who was driving? Was she a… friend?”
Ugh. Papa always taught us to share as little as possible with the police. Every little bit of information leads to more and more questions.
So I tread carefully. “That’s my brother’s car. We loaned it to one of our employees who was picking up her little boy at school.”
One of the other cops takes notes. “What did you say her name is, sir? The victim?”
“Um, Stacey. Her name is Stacey. It was Stacey,” I say, the flames now under control thanks to the fire department’s water hoses.
“Stacey what, sir?” he asks.
Shit. I have no idea of her last name.
“Uh, I’m not sure, Officer. I mean, I’m kind of rattled right now, and her last name isn’t coming to me. I’m sorry,” I lie.
Charleigh looks up from her sister huddle and glares at me. She knows I’m full of shit. “Jones. Her last name is Jones,” she calls.
“Right,” I add. “Jones.” Like I actually knew all along.
Jesus Christ. One of our employees just died and I have no freaking idea what her last name was. What a douche I am.
“Do we know how it happened?” I ask, hoping to redirect the conversation.
They gesture toward an older gentleman who pulls off his trucker hat and runs his fingers through his thinning grey hair. He’s talking to another cop.
He looks oddly familiar.
Do I know a truck driver?
The officers and I approach him and the other officer questioning him.
“She ran a light. Officer, she ran the light,” he insists.
His rig is mostly fine, and he’s completely without injury himself, but his hands shake violently, and he keeps looking down, avoiding everyone’s gaze.
I watch quietly as he answers questions with brief yes’s and no’s.
Interesting. He’s not avoiding everyone’s gaze. He’s avoiding mine, I find, as he makes eye contact with the cops.
What the fuck is going on here?
The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, and I discreetly pat the side where my firearm is holstered. The last thing I want to do is alert the cops that I’m carrying, but when my instincts tell me something isn’t right, I can’t help but check.
“Okay, we get that she went through the light, Mr. Michaels, but I don’t think that would cause such an explosion. Are you sure you didn’t see anything else?”
The officer’s right to ask. A car doesn’t explode like that without some sort of help.
“Nope. No, sir,” he insists, glancing my way but looking back down before our eyes meet.
Something here…
No.
No fucking way. No.
Is this the man who…
I can’t even think it.
I squeeze my eyes shut and wander back to the worst day of my life, one I have not willingly revisited in a long, long time.
When Clara and I crashed, we were T-boned by a big rig.
They hit her side of the car and killed her. I was injured but not badly. Not badly at all. But when they pulled me out of the car, there was a man, a truck driver, who kept insisting we’d run a red light…
Holy fuck. It’s the same man.
What are the chances that the same guy driving a big rig T-bones one of the Alekseev cars several years later…
That’s when my phone rings, startling me out of my reverie. I see Charleigh and her sister now sitting on the sidewalk curb, clutching each other. I grab the call, thinking it’s one of our security guys.
“Yeah?” I snap.
I shouldn’t take it out on them. This is beyond their control. And yet, if we can’t avoid what I suspect was a simple car bomb, why are we spending so much on security? Someone’s dead in spite of all our efforts, and that someone could have been any of us. Or Charleigh. And her sister.
For a moment, there is no sound but breathing on the phone and I figure it’s a wrong number or fucking solicitation. But just as I start to hang up, someone finally speaks, slowly and deliberately. “I hear things are getting a little hot in your part of town, Kir. Sorry I didn’t manage to fire up the right people.”
Fucking Dimitri. He tops off his vile joke by cackling like the sick person he is.
I turn away from the crowd and lower my voice. The last thing I need is to give the cops any tips that would lead right back to me or my brothers.
“Dimitri, I have two words for you. You’re dead.”
“Kir,” he says, tsking his tongue. “That’s not really two words. It’s more like two and a half.”
Oh that he were right in front of me at this moment. It would be his last, alive.
“I don’t know where the fuck you are, but you know your days are numbered. You can’t hide forever. And when we do find you, you’ll know a slow, excruciating death, which is probably better than you deserve, but which my brothers and I will enjoy immensely.”
“Challenge accepted, my childhood friend,” he singsongs.
I should have beaten the fucker to death when I had the chance, back when I was ten years old and I could have lied and said he hit his head on the playground and oh well.
But that’s okay. We’re grown-ups now and finishing him off will be much more satisfying than it would have been twenty-plus years earlier.
* * *
