Dead Spaces: The Big Uneasy 2.0 (20 page)

D
imitri Afoniki found
the note before he got the call that Aleksi was dead.

The ring is safe. Don’t look for it.

He’d known and still he went. Had to admire the old goat.

He’d even planned his own exit. Dimitri frowned, wondering who had the ring? He would have to ask some questions. As far as he knew, no one but his personal bodyguard had visited his uncle in days. He’d visited him just long enough for Aleksi to suggest the meeting with Guido. Interesting timing? The old man must plot to the very end.

And really, it didn’t matter, since neither Guido or Claude had a ring. It was an old symbol, as dead as the three men who’d worn them. Would he have worn it? Only out of respect, he decided. Hideous thing that would always have reminded him of the twisted old hand every time he looked at it.

He paced to the window of the office he’d coveted for so very long and looked out on the garden that was now his, too. All his. Unlike his uncle, he did not think he would live here alone. Aleksi’s matrimonial maneuvering had annoyed him, but now that all choices were his alone, he found the idea of a wife—and an heir—appealing. For a few seconds, the face of Hannah Baker came into his mind. That was odd, since she wasn’t his type. Now, Sarah Burland, Nell’s friend and roommate, was very much his type, but she might as well be a Baker. He doubted very much she’d be open to an extramarital offer. A pity.

But he would not replicate the mistakes of Phineas or Bettino. He would not marry an iceberg or outside his…class. He did not have to settle for Cinzia or Mirabelle, but as his uncle had believed, he could see that there was merit in a local, dynastic marriage.

Mirabelle would give him an in with the St. Cyrs. He doubted Claude would or could marry, so if he couldn’t eliminate the clod, well, he’d need an heir. What woman would have him, even one of their kind? Mirabelle, unlike Helenne, was not cold. She was a blonde, his personal preference and she’d been raised to know her place. The problem? He was not sure he’d dare turn his back on her. It would not make for the most comfortable home life.

And Cinzia? Not his type, but she was dark, passionate, generously endowed. There was intelligence in her eyes, but she didn’t push it in his face like Mirabelle did. She would know her place. It was possible that Guido would marry, have an heir, but if one were close…friendly…there were ways to slowly bring the two empires together. Particularly when they shared the same goal.

They both had a deep desire to crush Claude into tiny bits of dust.

He would wait a decent interval, then let Cinzia know he’d picked her. Mirabelle would be disappointed, but one could also come to a…separate arrangement with her.

“
Y
ou’re bleeding
.” Ferris’s voice was low, anxious, his touch light on her arm.

“Am I?” Distantly she wondered how he could tell. Her hands were covered with her sister’s blood. She’d been a doctor before she became a cutter. Still a bit surprised it had come back to her. She’d worked on her sister, done it automatically, her focus on stopping the bleeding and saving her sister’s life. She’d only stepped back when they were ready to lift Ingrid into the ambulance. One of the paramedics who’d worked with her looked back to say, “She’ll be okay.”

Hannah had nodded. The bullet hadn’t found her heart. Hannah didn’t know if Ingrid had moved at the last minute. Or it was her knocking her sister down that saved her. She would live. She would be okay. She knew this with her mind. But her heart was still thumping like she’d just run a marathon. Her heart was sending “might-have-beens” to her brain. Running the “not all right” scenario over and over.

She looked down at her arm, trying to stop the reel or at least change it. “It’s a scratch.” And then as the first shudder rattled her teeth, “I’m getting shocky.”

Ferris cast a worried look around. It was a scene of chaos. He sat beside her and pulled her close. He smelled of hot sun and comfort. She burrowed her hands in between their bodies to get them warm, too. And because the tremble was betraying. He seemed to understand she wasn’t pushing him away and rubbed her back with brisk comfort.

Over his shoulder, she saw Alex talking to a woman. Hannah blinked. She must be really shocked. Kind of looked like Miz Cookie. She closed her eyes, but the reel started to play again, so she gave up. The woman tipped her head to the side, her chin angling in a familiar way….

Hannah wanted to rub her eyes. Rub away the grit and the fear and the shock and see and think. Figure out what her brain was trying to tell her. So much noise. She missed the morgue, which was not just crazy. It was bat crap crazy.

“Do they…know who…?”

“Looks like it was Roger Dunstead.” Ferris kept rubbing her back, and her shudders began to ease some. “We should get that looked at.”

“You looked at it. So did I. Did they catch him?”

Ferris hesitated, so Hannah looked up.

“What?”

“He’s dead. They found the gun on the roof of that building. But someone shot him. Woman saw someone running away but was too shocked to notice much. I suspect it was one of the wise boys who were tired of the heat he was bringing down on them and took him out. Not sure I mind if they did do it.”

Dunstead had caused their family a lot of trouble, one way or another. “Do you think he planted the bomb in my car?”

Ferris hesitated. “It’s not his MO, but he might have tried to get clever.”

Or someone had given him the idea. Had he worked alone? That was what she wanted to believe. It fit most of the facts, even if her gut was uneasy. And that stupid clock was still ticking inside her head. She’d been making some thinking headway until all this. Now it felt like the bullet had shattered her thoughts, too….

“With Aleksi Afoniki dead,” she lowered her voice, “does that mean Charlie and Ellie can come out of the shadows?”

Ferris stiffened. “So you did find them.”

Hannah nodded, only the occasional shudder shaking her now.

“How did you end up with Zach?”

“He was there when I got there.”

Ferris whistled softly. “That must have been an interesting meeting. I’m kind of glad I missed it.”

She managed something that resembled a chuckle. “Oh yeah.”

She watched Alex shake the woman’s hand, then turn away with his usual impatience. His face looked lined, older, and his eyes were hard. She opened her mouth to say something about him needing better closure, but the words got lost when her gaze met that woman’s. It was Miz Cookie. She stared across the gap, seeing the sweetness stripped from her like veil pulled back, then she turned and disappeared in the crowd.

Something had just happened, and she had no clue if it was important or just weird. As if it had been waiting for just the right moment for maximum effect, the pain from the graze hit, taking her breath away.

“I probably need to get that looked at,” she said, easing reluctantly out of Ferris’s hold to study her arm.

“Now why didn’t I think of that?”

His smile was so normal, so ordinary and so not any of those things that it took her breath away. Luckily she was still too shell-shocked—literally—to embrace the elephant-sized realization waiting for her to get a clue.

“Hannah?” The smile faded to concern.

“I’m okay.” Probably. Maybe. Or not. But probably. Eventually.

W
hen she went
, she wanted a jazz funeral, Gladys decided. Not that she planned to die anytime soon. But it had been so emotionally satisfying. She’d truly, finally gotten closure for Harold. So much, she hadn’t minded Belinda showing up. In fact, she was glad Belinda came. Gladys had enjoyed seeing her pain, now that it was certain Belinda would never get Harold.

She sighed. She’d have to do something about the business. Hopefully there would be no more unpleasant surprises when his lawyer went over Harold’s will with her later.

Part of her still feared that somehow one of those donated organs would cause a heart attack, but really, bodies rejected organs, didn’t they? Sometimes? It was so like Harold not to tell her something so key, so really it was his fault if one of them died.

And she could be thankful she’d had so much on her mind, she hadn’t had time to worry about it too much. It was one of those things that came to her when she woke in the night. And now she had a new one. That morgue doctor had been a shock
again.
Did the way she’d looked at Gladys mean something? It was too late to wish she’d stayed away from the morgue, hadn’t tried to get control of Harold’s body. If she could have, she’d have buried him or cremated him.

Oops.

But science had beat her to the corpse.

Science sucked. Though it had helped her ease Harold out of her life. And now she’d use his money to take what should have been hers.

And she hadn’t completely given up on finding the ring. Someone was bound to flaunt it now that the old man was gone. If it had been easy to fool two wily old men, how much easier would it be to get to a green-around-the-gills wise boy.

She lifted the hat and long black veil off her head and set it on her dressing table, then headed down, confident that dear Sarah would have cleared the remains of the wake away by now. A tidy check against everything on her list, well, once she was through with the lawyer. Then her day would be complete. Not perfect, but better than expected.

At the first landing, her phone indicated a text had arrived. She almost ignored it. But the only person who would text her was her snitch. She extracted the phone and read the text.

Frank Baker requested the Zafiro file this morning.

Her hands tightened around the phone, and she had to breathe several times before she could respond.

Did he say why?

The morgue doctor asked for it.

She was about to send thanks, but the last text came:

Burning this phone.

She replaced her phone in her pocket. Was her informant getting uneasy? Well, she’d add that to her to-do list. She wasn’t done with them yet.

She frowned. Should she be worried? Even if that stupid doctor looked at the file, she couldn’t know, wouldn’t connect her to Zafiro. The only person who’d known was Leblanc and Afoniki and they were both dead. But just to be on the safe side, she’d look up the good doctors credentials.

Not because she was worried, exactly. But she did look like him. For the first time, she wasn’t that happy about it.

H
annah remembered
this from her intern days, the peculiar non-silent silence of a hospital at night. The almost eerie hush. All the sounds were distant, and nothing to look at but Zach in the other chair, or the machine monitoring Ingrid’s vitals. And those were so good it was boring. It was finally quiet. Which should have been good for contemplation and mulling, but every time her sister’s heart rate did its little bump up, her thoughts did, too. She wanted to rub her face, but couldn’t. Not in front of Zach. He’d already ignored all suggestions that he go home, but he had the power to order her home.

“That chair extends into a bed. You should try to sleep.” Got a look. “You’ve had a tough few days, daddy.” The word slipped out, leaving her unsure if it was for her she’d used it or a manipulation of him. His expression softened some. “What’s the point of having thirteen kids if you don’t let them help you every now and again?”

Instead of responding to that, he said, “Been thinking about the day she was born.” He glanced around. “Spent a few hours in hospitals waiting for kids to be born.”

Not to mention waiting for two wives to pass, she realized. She had a few memories of her mother, but the images were fixed, like photos, so she wasn’t sure they were real memories or memories of photos. Love and loss ran through their family as sure as the river passed through New Orleans. And her dad had had more than his fair share of losing.

“I used to think I couldn’t miss what I don’t remember that well,” she said, leaning back and keeping her voice low, “and then I get surprised when it hits me.” Her gaze shifted to her sister. “Like now.”

“She’d be here, that’s for sure,” Zach said gruffly. “Twice I married women too good for me. Still surprises me that they fell for my line of bull.”

She supposed she should ask about the current lady in his life, but couldn’t quite manage it. Instead, she tried to imagine him as that young man talking her mom into taking on seven boys and him.

“She loved you,” Hannah said, surprised by the intensity of this sudden memory of her mom saying, “Your dad’s a good man. A real good man.” She hesitated, as her brain did a bounce, wondering how to segue to Charlie and Ellie.

“I—she was a good woman.”

Was it, she wondered, his fault she was almost inarticulate around Ferris? Logan. She needed to learn to call him Logan. She bit her lip, eyeing her dad uncertainly.

“Do you think it’s safe for…them…to…you know. Meet the family.”

He sighed and rubbed his face. “I wish I knew. Depends on the new Calvino, I suppose. The others have no reason to care.”

Hannah considered her brief encounters with Guido Calvino. “I don’t think he would care. It’s not like he’s the abandoned son. Or the stepson.” He was the guy with all the new goodies to play with.

Zach’s brows shot up. “You’ve met him?”

Hannah stared at him. “Well…yeah…it’s Alex’s fault.”

He half grinned, half scowled. “Those coffins. More trouble than they are worth.” He was quiet for a moment, then he surprised her by asking, “Why are you interested in Zafiro?” She must have showed surprise, because he added, “I was there when you asked Frank for his file?”

“Oh, right.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and considered the question. “There’s been a couple of weird things that happened.”

“Weird things?”

She almost told him about being with Guido when he got shot at, but managed to catch herself in time. “Well, some strange shootings, like someone was trying to start a mob war. And there was that brick? The one Charlie didn’t take?”