Soldier's Redemption (11 page)

“I beg you not to concern yourself with these tawdry matters,” he said as he moved back toward his desk. “Is there anything else I can do for you? It’s growing late, and I have a few calls to make yet tonight.”

“No. Good night, Uncle Luca.”

“Good night, my dear,” he said. “And, Skylar, just be warned that I will look after you any way I must. To do less would be negligent.”

She started to protest again, but what was the use? He was a proud and stubborn man, and as long as she was a guest in his house, he would demand she play by his rules. Perhaps not out-and-out verbally, but the pressure was there. He was warning her that she wouldn’t see Cole again as long as she was in Kanistan.

That was okay, right? Hadn’t she as much as told Cole the same thing a few hours earlier? So why did it annoy her now? Her uncle was picking up the phone as she left the office, and she heard the first few words he spoke as she closed the door. “Send someone to my place—”

Someone to his place.
Within a half-dozen steps, the impact of those words hit her. She’d bet money he was arranging for someone to come keep an eye on her.

She hurried to her room and threw a few things in a large carryall, then took the time to write a note that she subsequently sealed in an envelope addressed to her aunt. She propped it on her untouched pillow, then went down the servant’s stairs, exiting into the kitchen that was blissfully empty.

But all that had taken time, and her uncle’s office was very close by.

She let herself out the door without turning on any lights and stood in the deepest shadows for a few moments, allowing her vision to adapt to the darkness. Then, keeping to the edge of the driveway, she approached the gatehouse, well aware of the security cameras and that she was probably being watched.

The truth was she felt melodramatic and yet nervous. She did not want to alarm her uncle or her aunt, but she wasn’t content to sit in her room, either, not with her aunt’s pleas still ringing in her ears. She’d lived alone for several years back home, and this feeling that she was being watched—even if it was done out of concern for her—was getting old. When she got to the street, she kept walking, using the internet access on her phone to look up Svetlana Dacho’s address.

It was too late for a social call, but as this visit could hardly be labeled social, she hailed a cab and felt tucked away from curious eyes as she scooted into the warm interior. She told the driver to take a circuitous route, just in case, to the general area of the city in which Svetlana lived.

At least the late hour would probably guarantee she would be home. Skylar told the driver to let her out a couple of blocks further on, exited the cab and paid him, waiting until his taillights disappeared before turning around and hurrying back to the right address.

Svetlana had a mailbox in the lobby like Aneta had had, and Skylar couldn’t help wishing Cole was there to climb those dark stairs with her. She sidled past a group of teenagers who whistled after her, past a couple making out on a landing, erupting at last on the fourth floor. She hurried down the hall, the feeling of oppression that had started in the hallway outside her uncle’s den still with her.

She knocked rapidly. The whole thing was eerily reminiscent of knocking on Aneta’s door and she shivered. But this time, it was answered almost immediately by the woman Skylar had last seen in her uncle’s driveway. Though she appeared worn out and exhausted, it was the first time Skylar had seen her when she wasn’t a complete emotional wreck, and she appeared a generation younger, surely not much over forty.

It was obvious from Svetlana’s expression that she recognized Skylar, as well, and she immediately clutched her throat and backed away.

Skylar stepped into Svetlana’s apartment and closed the door after her. “I’m not here to harm you,” she said softly. “I just want some information.”

“You are the niece of Luca Futura,” Svetlana said.

“Yes, I am.”

“He is a bad man.”

“Why do you say that?” Skylar asked.

“Because he employs Ian Banderas,” she said.

“May we sit down for a moment?” Skylar asked.

Svetlana cleared a chair of what appeared to be clean clothes in the process of being folded after washing. As spartan as Aneta’s apartment had been, this one was cluttered, crammed with cast-off furniture and worn carpets. As Skylar sat, Svetlana perched on a corner of a sofa, twisting her hands in her lap.

“First of all, my uncle isn’t a bad man. He is kind and loving to his family and very concerned about the people whose lives he touches.”
He’s also turning out to be something of a control freak,
she thought to herself. “Svetlana, have you ever heard of a woman named Aneta Cazo?”

“The name is familiar,” Svetlana said.

Skylar sat foreword. “Really? In what context?”

Svetlana frowned in concentration. “I read it. In the newspaper. She’s the woman who was murdered in her apartment a few days ago, isn’t she?”

“Yes. But had you heard of her before that?”

Svetlana shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Was she a friend to my Malina?”

“I don’t know,” Skylar admitted. “Listen, will you tell me again what you believe Ian Banderas did to your daughter?”

The woman popped to her feet and grabbed a framed photograph off a shelf, pushing it into Skylar’s hands. It showed a girl of about fifteen sitting in the chair Skylar currently occupied. “She’s lovely.”

“That was taken just a few months ago. She worked at a café. That’s where she met Ian Banderas. She doesn’t know I know about him, but I do. The dishwasher there is a friend, and he warned me. Banderas is way too old for my Malina, too sophisticated. The next thing I know, Malina is gone, leaving me money, promising more, telling me not to tell anyone, not to worry. Where would she get money, and why would she disappear?”

“Did you ask Banderas about your daughter?”

“Not at first. I went to his apartment right after she left. I knew Banderas was at work, so I talked to the man who stands at the door. I showed him that picture of Malina, and he said he had never seen her.”

“Did you believe him?”

The tears were back, running unheeded down Svetlana’s cheeks. “I do not know what or who to believe, but I do know Ian was with Malina the night she disappeared.”

“How do you know that?”

“Malina’s friend at the café, Katerina, told me.”

“Has she heard from Malina?”

“I don’t think so. She is being friendly to Banderas, waiting to see what he does. We stay in touch. She has no family, and I worry for her.” Svetlana dabbed at watery eyes. “I finally pretended to bump into this Ian and ask about Malina, but he said he had never heard of her. That’s a lie. That was months ago. Malina’s note told me to be patient. I try, but time keeps passing. The other night I decided to corner Ian in a public place and try to scare him into telling me the truth. Not one word do I hear from my girl. But he does not scare, that one. I am sorry about hitting your friend. If Banderas knew I tried to attack him, I think he might kill me. He is evil. I am so grateful he doesn’t know what I did, but what do I do now?”

Skylar sat very still. She’d told her uncle this woman’s name. He would innocently mention it to Ian when they spoke. What would Ian do? “Svetlana, do you have anywhere you can go for a few nights?”

The panic was back in the woman’s eyes. “I must stay here in case Malina returns.”

“No, you must disappear for a while.” She gestured at the cell phone on the coffee table. “She can always call you, right?”

The worried frown softened a bit. “Yes, she can call.”

Skylar dug in her purse and came up with most of the euros she carried. “Take this, and get a room or pay a friend for space. Something. Leave now, tonight. Right now.”

Svetlana apparently grasped the urgency in Skylar’s voice and gathered a clean change of clothes from the basket on the floor, shoving them into a paper sack. She picked up her phone to call her friend, and Skylar stopped her. “Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Just surprise your friend.”

Svetlana nodded, eyes solemn, dropping her phone into her coat pocket, but she refused to take money from Skylar. “Money is what Malina left me, but what good is money without my girl?”

Skylar called another cab, and the two women took it to Svetlana’s friend’s place on the outskirts of Traterg. “You will try to find what happened?” Svetlana asked as she got out of the cab. “Maybe you could ask your uncle. But don’t say my name, please.”

“Yes, I promise.” She was making lots of promises tonight. This was one she had no right to make as it had been broken before she even got here. But reflected in Svetlana’s voice was the same longing to know what was really going on that Skylar had heard in her aunt’s. “It may take a couple of days,” she added. “What was the name of the café Malina worked at? I take it Katerina is still there?”

“Yes, yes, for now. It’s called Pushki’s,” Svetlana said. She grabbed Skylar’s hands and squeezed them, then hurried into her friend’s house.

It was very late by now, well after two in the morning, and Skylar wasn’t sure what to do. If her suspicions about her uncle’s intentions were correct—that he had engaged someone to follow her—they might find the note she’d left in her room. She would bet money they would settle on Cole’s hotel as her likely escape.

But that’s exactly where she needed to go. She needed to talk to Aneta’s family to gather more information with which to get her uncle to open his eyes to his assistant’s escapades. And she needed Cole’s help to do that.

But she’d told him to back off. How did she go back on that a mere twelve hours later?

The night staff was sparse at the hotel, but someone eventually noticed Skylar lurking behind the plants and came to see if there was something wrong. She made up a story about a jealous boyfriend and heaven knows what else until the poor clerk took pity on her and allowed her to rent a room for the remainder of the night without formally registering. She paid in cash and went to her room, which wasn’t half as plush as Cole’s room.

She sat on the bed and wondered what she was doing there. When her uncle found out she’d left the way she did, his feelings would be hurt, and that wasn’t her goal. Maybe she should just go back to the house, try talking to him again, maybe borrow her aunt’s car and drive to see Aneta’s family by herself.

What had happened to her? Her whole life, she’d been the sunny girl who never seemed to have trouble with anything or anyone. She’d trusted everyone she knew and loved and thought she understood exactly who they were and what they wanted.

And now she felt as if she’d lost her way, that the map she’d been following had somehow been torn in half and she was missing the directions she needed to make wise decisions.

She left a wake-up call for early in the morning and doubted she would need it. Sleep seemed like something she’d done in a past life when her brain knew how to relax. Tonight, it just raced....

* * *

C
OLE SAT DOWN AT
the counter in the hotel coffee shop as he had most mornings since arriving in Traterg. He wasn’t looking forward to the three-hour-or-more drive to Slovo and was still trying to decide if he should try to look up Aneta’s family. Without Skylar to bridge the language barrier, what was the point?

The waitress set a cup of strong coffee down in front of him, and he nodded at her. He pointed at the picture on the menu that illustrated a stack of toasted bread. She apparently got the drift of his meaning because she walked off to give his order to the kitchen.

The sugar was on the other side of the person sitting next to him, who was buried in a newspaper. He tapped his neighbor on the arm. The paper shifted slightly, and he found himself looking into an alpine lake, or rather two eyes the color of one.

“Skylar?”

“Shh.” She was dressed simply in jeans and a bulky sweater and wore a wool knit cap pulled down over her hair. Keeping the newspaper high, she added, “I think someone may be following me.”

“Who?” he asked, although the bigger question was why.

“No idea. I don’t want to go into it all right this second, but can I change my mind and go with you to Slovo?”

He was still getting over the shock of her presence. He’d written off his chances of ever seeing her again; yesterday’s conversation had revealed she sensed he wasn’t being forthright and he’d admired her for putting her foot down and drawing a line. Regretted it, sure, but admired it, too. Skylar Pope might look like an ingenue with her china-blue eyes and perfect skin, but she was no one’s fool.

Yet here she was. “Why the change of heart?” he said knowing he should shut up and enjoy providence or whatever had caused it.

Him, maybe? Was it possible she’d regretted not coming back to the hotel with him? He knew he had missed her horribly and had spent a good part of the night waiting for a tentative knock on his door, a soft voice. Dare he hope against all reason that she felt the same way?

“Can’t a woman be fickle on occasion?” she said.

He looked deep into her eyes. “Hell, yes.”

“I hear a
but
in your voice,” she said softly.

“But I really didn’t expect to see you again.”

She looked hard at him and then away. “I see.”

“You see what?”

“You’ve found someone else.”

“Now wait a second. You’ve got it all wrong.”

She glanced back at him again. “I need to talk to Aneta’s family in Chiaro. I would rather not go alone, but if you’ve made other plans, I can borrow my aunt’s car.”

He rested his hand lightly on her thigh. “I haven’t made other plans. Of course, you can come.”

She sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

“I have to be in Slovo by four.”

“Then we’d better leave pretty soon, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “Have you eaten?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“And you refuse to tell me what’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you when we get away from here.” She folded the newspaper back around her face as the waitress delivered a plate of crusty toast along with a glass bowl of the tart fruit spread he’d grown to appreciate. But now his appetite was off, too, as though Skylar’s anxiety had transferred itself to him. He took a cautious glance around the café, but no one was looking at him or Skylar.