1 Hot Scheming Mess (30 page)

Still breathing hard but slowing down, neither one of them spoke, each of them watching the other. Madison couldn’t stand the burning dryness in her eyes any longer and wanted to get rid of the cloudy effect so she could see this woman better. She tilted her head down, using her fingers to gently pull off each contact lens. Relief flooded her eye sockets as she lifted her head, blinking furiously to moisten her eyes. She resumed looking at the red haired woman and watched as the woman looked into Madison’s eyes, back and forth, taking in both. The woman’s own light green eyes filled with tears, great pain in her expression, her hand coming up to her mouth. Then a little laugh escaped her. Joy seemed mingled with her pain as she said, “Malien ‘kaia vnuchka.”

Madison kept staring at her. “I’m sorry,” she said between breaths. “I don’t speak… whatever that was.”

With a mild Russian accent, the woman said, “Forgive me, I am carried away. I said ‘little granddaughter.’”

Madison stared at her. She started to nod, kept nodding, and started to cry. The woman took a tentative step toward her, but Madison took an equal step back, stifling her tears. She didn’t want anyone to take the place of Grandma, who had loved her, maybe a little too much, but nevertheless, loved and raised her.

But she saw instant hurt and embarrassment on the face of the woman as she backed up immediately, smoothing back her dark red hair, ducking her head and apologizing, saying, “I am sorry. I don’t know how… to be.” Their breathing was slowing down and Madison felt her air coming a little easier. But her heart was beating quickly for other reasons now. She didn’t know this stranger and didn’t know the ramifications for herself or for her mother. Would this woman’s presence, her existence, make life even harder for Madison’s family?

The only thing Madison could think to say was, “Please don’t hurt my grandpa.”

“Hurt him?” the woman said, her features taking on confusion at the request. “I would never hurt him,” she said with conviction. “I would sooner kiss his feet.”

“Wow,” said Madison, shocked. Tears and a short laugh burst from her. “You shouldn’t say that. You’ve haven’t seen Grandpa’s feet.”

They each smiled and laughed a little.

*****

On a small sofa in a hotel room, Madison sat up straight, her floppy hat removed and sitting next to her on the sofa along with her fabric beach bag. She kept her elbows tight at her waist, her hands folded neatly in her lap, being the most prim and proper zombie she could possibly be, as she questioned her own sanity. It was one thing to consent to come along with her newly introduced biological grandmother, Veronica Fedora. But it was quite another thing to be introduced to Vladik Sakharovsky.

His Russian accent much heavier than the woman’s accent, he said, “And the eyes. Didn’t I tell you?” He looked at Madison as if marveling. “The moment I saw them, I knew.”

He turned to a wall mirror, looking at the bruise on the side of his face, saying, “You should have seen her, Nika, the fierce look on her face.” He turned away from the mirror. “You would have been proud.”

Veronica Fedora, her nickname Nika, sat on the opposite side of the room from Madison, in a chair by the desk. She said, “I am already proud. She makes people smile, for a living. Few are so gifted.”

He laughed. “All I know is she has the passion of a mama bear protecting those she loves, just like her grandmother.” He said, as he delicately touched the bruise on the side of his head, the discoloration having spread into his short grey hair.

Madison was not used to feeling self-conscious. But these two really knew how to bring it out in her. She cleared her throat and said, “Yeah, about that.” She could hardly bring herself to look in Vladik’s face. “I don’t normally go around hitting people with a drill like that.” She could see him start to smile again. “But you looked like you were trying to kill my grandfather. That’s not cool.”

“No,” he said, “It was not… cool. I would not have killed him, but my temper did escape me. I am sorry for that. I think now that he was right, your grandfather, but at the time I feared he would get us all killed.”

“How so?” asked Madison.

“Because I did not think he understood how powerful Jerry Rosser is. I feared for his life, thinking Vincent Cruz would not arrive in Washington DC. And if Jerry found cause to take one of us out, it could go like the domino.” Vladik pointed his finger as if his hand were a gun shooting each of them, one at a time, including himself. “As it is, your grandfather is lucky that Jerry did not figure out what he was doing.”

Hearing Jerry referred to in such a super villain way was terrifying to Madison. He had come and gone at will in her family’s home over the years. To think of him as being that cold-blooded with the power to back it up was hard to fathom. But she was getting to the point where she felt it would be too dangerous not to take this seriously.

“Vladik, do not frighten her,” said Nika.

“She should know,” he said flatly. “She has proven that she will fight back if needed. She would want to know.”

Madison had to admit, yes, she did want to know.

From the desk, Vladik picked up the key card that went to the door to the room. He said, “I should hurry,” and headed for the door.

“Wait,” said Madison. “If you believed Jerry would never let Grandpa make it to DC, then what was your solution? How did you want to handle Jerry?

Vladik shrugged his shoulders. He said, “Kill him.” He looked over at Nika. “Like I should have done many years ago.” He walked out, letting the door close with a heavy thump.

The shock of what Vladik said was still sinking in when Madison looked at Nika, who said, “I am sorry you are hearing such rough words from him.”

Again Madison questioned her own sanity about the company she was keeping right now. “But he also said that now he thinks my grandfather was right. Didn’t he?”

“Yes. I, too, have great hopes that it will finally be over. I am anxious to meet my daughter.”

Your daughter?
Strange to hear someone refer to her mother in such a personal way.

“Why did you break into my car?”

“I was seeking your name on the registration in the glove compartment. That is how I knew you were somehow related to Vincent Cruz. Then when Vladik told me the color of your eyes… well, it was a shock.”

Madison hesitated to speak while her thoughts were still warring within her. She fought the urge to hug, to accuse, to demand answers, to comfort, all of it spiced with burning curiosity about this new person. There was so much as yet unexplained. She took a deep breath, and started with the thing that bothered her the most. “Why did you leave without your baby?”

Nika leaned forward in her chair, seeming to search the floor for the answers she needed, her elbows on the knees of her designer jeans, her hands clasped. Madison vaguely wondered if her clothes came from Russia or the United States. They seemed so fashionable, not like the stereotype that Madison had in her mind of Russian life. Yet this modern woman, so beautiful, strong, and capable, seemed reduced somehow, drawn inward as if better answers might be found in there, if only she would look one more time.

“This is hard to…” Nika seemed to search for words, “…to succeed in understanding, but Vladik had to do all he could to protect us, our group at the exposition, his own family back home… we were all so vulnerable. If word got out that a Soviet student gave birth while on the tour, it would have humiliated our country for all the world to see, sabotaging the image we were there to portray. We were supposed to be the shining example of the proud Soviet dream.” Nika’s face had an urgent tension that Madison couldn’t look away from. “This was no small thing in the days of the Soviet Union. Power struggles never cease. An embarrassment of that magnitude could be used to topple careers in high places, followed by revenge for those who caused it, or failed to prevent it.”

“But,” Madison tried to recall everything she’d read in the old newspaper articles, “the tour was only two months long. Why would you go, knowing you were pregnant?”

“This is part of what is hard to see. I was fourteen, in love with a boy back home, and so naive I didn’t know I was pregnant until I went into labor. I was embarrassed, thinking I was getting fat, so I dressed to hide it.” She looked around the room, sighing like it all sounded so pointless now.

She continued, “Jerry Rosser was assigned as our Seattle docent, but we assumed he was actually FBI, just as they probably knew that Vladik was KGB. The night I went into labor, he was out in the hotel hallway watching everyone panic as they ran in and out of my room. He knew we were in trouble. He told Vladik he would hold off reporting it if Vladik told him what was happening. Vladik thought we were doomed anyway, so he told him. Then Jerry offered to take the baby in exchange for a great deal of money. Vladik agreed, and I hated him for many years. But after working in the KGB myself, watching the struggle within the politburo, I finally understood the danger he was trying to save us from.”

“So how did the baby wind up on the grounds of the University of Washington?”

“Jerry said it was more believable if a newborn was found at the girl’s dormitories. He was supposed to wait and see who found my baby so we could track her, to smuggle her out later.”

Nika lapsed into silence for a while, then stood up, walking over to the long curtains on the wall. She pushed them open, revealing sliding glass doors overlooking a balcony. She said, “He lied. Or perhaps he changed his mind, but he withheld the secret.” The hot Seattle sun reflected off the metal railing surrounding the balcony, an unforgiving light, harsh on the window panes. Restless, Nika turned to walk back across the room, nowhere to go.

Madison hated herself for pushing on, making this stranger relive and regret. She asked, “What happened after that?”

“Jerry had a taste of money. He demanded more. But the only way Vladik could get his hands on that kind of money was if he could convince the KGB that Jerry was a valuable informant. Jerry agreed and became a double agent.”

Madison’s eyes went wide. A double agent? And all while being promoted through the ranks of the FBI.

“Vladik was his handler, but no one truly understood that it was Jerry who was handling Vladik. Even after the KGB was disbanded and the FSB took over, he and Vladik each had secrets against each other. They used those secrets to keep each other in line all these years. To keep
me
in line.” She turned around, facing Madison. “But I am not going to stay in line any longer.”

Comprehension hit. “It’s Jerry’s retirement, isn’t it?” Madison asked. She brought a hand up to her stomach. “That’s what made you guys start searching,” she said. “He’s going to retire and no longer have access to the information. No more information, no more money, no more protection. All he has is my mother. And she doesn’t know.”

She stood up from the sofa with an anxious reach for the fabric beach bag that held her cell phone. Her frantic hands dug through it. “That’s why Vladik was going to kill him. Once you two located my mother and told her the truth, you knew she would have to turn him in. But not if he killed her first!” Her hand wrapped around her cell phone as Nika came over and grabbed Madison’s wrists, bringing them upward out of the bag.

“Madison, no—”

Madison flinched at this sudden physical intervention, her face a foot away from Nika’s face, eyes so much like Madison’s own but with many years on them, pain within them, but coolly determined nonetheless.

Madison froze, uncertain of what was at play. She pleaded, “I have to warn my mother. Please! You can’t just—”

The door opened, and Madison’s head turned sharply to plead with Vladik as well. But although Vladik was indeed walking in, he had company.

In walked the two zombie fairies.

Chapter Thirty

Madison thrust both of her elbows upward, slamming Nika’s chin as her wrists yanked free of Nika’s half-hearted grip.
“Uhh!”
Nika’s breath cut off as her teeth clicked. She doubled over, holding her chin. Madison ran for the balcony and tore the sliding glass door open as a big hand from the shorter zombie fairy came down on her shoulder. He was the first one she had seen in the elevator. He said, “I’m Special Agent Riley—”

With a flood of adrenaline, she shoved her elbow backward and made contact with something hard that produced a growl. She tried to run out onto the balcony but felt arms go around her waist. She pulled at his iridescent hands, trying to pry his fingers open, seeing an FBI badge in his hand fall to the floor while she bucked and rocked.

“Stop it!” his deep voice ordered, as he pulled her back in. Holding her so her feet couldn’t touch the ground, he turned around, facing Madison into the room. “You need to listen, young—”

She reached behind her head trying to scratch his face. He whipped his head back and forth avoiding her fingernails.

As the second zombie fairy in the Edwardian tailcoat approached the scuffle, she lifted her feet in the air and kicked, grazing his groin.

Vladik laughed in the corner as the second zombie fairy dropped his badge, too, and a wand, and held his groin for a second. His face reddened and he snatched for her feet. She screamed.

Nika grabbed Agent Riley’s arms, releasing Madison, yelling, “Get away from her! You have no finesse!”

Madison couldn’t see what Nika did behind her to produce a shout of pain from him, but he let go.

Nika yelled, “Vnuchka! It’s all right! Do not be afraid!”

Vladik’s laughter got louder as the second zombie fairy put his arms up to fend off a windmill of slaps from Madison. He grunted out, “I’m Special Agent Cole. Jesus!”

“You don’t have to get rough!” said Agent Riley, turning to face Nika as he pulled his leather tunic back down, the redness in his face coming through the iridescent makeup. “We’re being gentle with her. Let us handle—” His back was to Madison as she kicked out again, making contact with the gossamer wings on his back.

“Hey!” he said turning around, his deep voice saying, “Don’t hurt my little wings.” He winked. “I’m sure you don’t want them broken when I give them back to you.”