The Stolen Ones (20 page)

IRINA RAN AWAY
from the safe house, through back alleys and dark side streets until she was out of breath and panting and lost, the house and the U.S. Marshals far behind her.

She walked to a busy roadway, passed hotels and restaurants and hundreds of cars, all of them filled with happy Americans with no cares, no fears, nothing at all to worry about. Nobody stopped to threaten her, but nobody offered to help, either. They kept driving along to their cheerful restaurants and their big houses, and all the while, she kept running.

She was foolish, she realized, when she stopped at a railroad crossing to catch her breath. She was alone in America, didn’t speak much English. She had no money and no idea how to get to Pennsylvania, even if she could pay for a ticket. It was dangerous to be out here, in this big, foreign city, surrounded by strange men and utterly alone.

But the traffickers still had Catalina. Was she supposed to sit in that safe house and do nothing?

No.

Irina ducked down the railroad tracks, away from the main road. Took shelter in a ditch and tried to form a plan. If she could find Maria, the translator, she could at least make a start. Maybe Maria would know how to get to Clearfield, Pennsylvania.

And if she couldn’t find Maria?

She would need money. She could steal a car, maybe. She was a pretty girl in a country full of lonely, hungry men. Someone would stop for her. She would outwit him. She would hijack his car and take his money and then she would drive to Pennsylvania and find Catalina. This is what she would do.

It was a dumb plan. Any man who stopped for her was a man who wanted something from her. A predator. He would expect her to do things, and he would be stronger than her.

Still, it was a better plan than sitting in that safe house, waiting for Catalina to die. She would just have to be careful. Cautious. Smart. Irina looked up and down the railroad tracks. In the distance were the skyscrapers of downtown Minneapolis. She pulled herself out of the ditch and began to walk, searching for a man and a car and an opportunity.

MATHERS WAS WAITING
at the airport in Minneapolis. Windermere didn’t say a word to him.

A major break in the case,
she thought, walking to Mathers’s motor pool Tahoe and climbing in the backseat.
Maybe
the
major break in the case. And nobody can keep their eyes on big sister long enough to see the goddamn thing through
.

She’d been steamed all the way home from Reno. Could barely get the words out to explain the thing to Stevens. “Something spooked Irina Milosovici,” she told him. “According to the staff, she was playing on the computer with a friend of hers, and the next thing anyone knows, she just bolted. Told her friend she was going to search for her sister.”

Stevens stared at her. “For Catalina? Jesus. Where is she now?”

“That’s the fucking thing, partner. Nobody knows. The whole city’s looking for her, Minneapolis PD, sheriffs, everybody. The hell if anybody can find her, though.”

“She said she was searching for her sister,” Stevens said. “What prompted that? Do we know what she was doing on the computer?”

“Mathers says the friend told him Irina got a message from Catalina,” Windermere said. “On her Facebook account, of all things. Like a picture or something, but the friend didn’t know from where.”

“So Catalina got her hands on a computer somehow. Can we trace the picture? Find out the IP address and follow it back?”

“Not so far,” Windermere told him. “Irina logged out of her Facebook account before she bolted from the safe house. Mathers is calling Facebook now, but it’s the middle of the night, and anyway, they’re probably going to hold out for a warrant, which is going to take time.”

“Especially since Irina didn’t technically do anything wrong by leaving the safe house, right?” Stevens said. “It’s not Irina’s Facebook account we need. It’s Catalina’s.”

“Exactly. And by the time Mathers gets Facebook that warrant, who knows where Catalina will be.”

“Jesus,” Stevens said. “Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah.” Windermere ran her hands through her hair. “Fuck my life.”

>   >   >

SHE’D CANCELED THE TICKETS
to Newark. Booked new flights to Minneapolis. Flown the whole way home stewing about Mathers, about Irina Milosovici, about the incompetence of everybody in goddamn law enforcement besides herself and, sometimes, Stevens.

Now Stevens slipped into Mathers’s Tahoe beside her. “No sign of Nikolai Kirilenko yet, but LePlavy has eyes on his place in Jersey City,” he told her, pocketing his phone. “They’ll let us know when this guy shows up.”

“If,”
Windermere said. “
If
he shows up, Stevens.”

“You guys don’t have to do this.” This was Mathers from the front seat, the first words he’d said since he’d seen them. “That little girl’s still missing. We’ll find Irina. You guys crack the case.”

“Bullshit,” Windermere said, and all the poison and venom spilled out. “
Bullshit
you will, Derek. I told you to keep an eye on that girl, and where the hell is she?”

Mathers set his jaw. Didn’t say anything.

“Every time I leave this city, someone fucks up my case,” Windermere told him. “Clearly, the only people with their heads on straight are me and Stevens. So we’re going to clean up your mess here, and then we’re going to resume our case, and we’re going to fucking pray, for everyone’s sake, that that little girl and her friends don’t get killed in the meantime. Are we clear?”

Mathers said nothing. Didn’t make eye contact in the rearview mirror. Windermere sat back, watched the city lights through tinted windows.
Goddamn it,
she thought.
We don’t have time for this shit
.

IRINA FOUND HER MARK
outside a convenience store. She watched him from the shadows.

He was about her age. Pale, his skin pockmarked with acne. He was alone, and he appeared to Irina as though he were used to it. He had sad eyes and a slight frame. He did not look threatening.

She’d been in her hiding place for ten minutes, watching customers pass in and out, trying to work up her nerve. A group of swaggering young men in baseball caps lingered by the front door, smoking cigarettes, laughing, swatting at flies. There were five of them, cocky and brash. Irina shied away from them, stuck to the darkness. Prayed they wouldn’t look in her direction.

The men finished their cigarettes and disappeared inside the store. Irina let herself breathe. Inched out of the shadows a little bit. Within a minute or two, her mark showed up.

His car was old, but it was clean. It ran okay. The young man parked and fiddled with his radio, and then he climbed out of the car and started for the store. Irina pushed herself off the wall. Now or never.

“Hey,”
she said, stepping out of the shadows. Her voice came out harsh, too urgent. The young man flinched. Irina tried again. “Hey,” she said. “You.”

The young man turned around this time, his expression guarded, his body tense. He didn’t look interested in her; he looked wary, as though he could read her intentions already.

“You,” she said again. She put a smile on her face, approached him slowly. “Do you want to have me?”

The young man shifted his weight. “Um,” he said. “I don’t—”

“I want
you
.” Irina tried to sound seductive. Put her hand on her hip, dared the young man to admire her legs. “Will you take me somewhere?”

“Um.” The young man looked around again. “I just need some milk, lady. Whatever you’re selling, I don’t really—”

“Forget the milk,” Irina said. “Take
me
.”

The young man laughed, a childish burst, surprised. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t—this is too weird.”

He started toward the store. Irina followed him.
“Wait,”
she said.
“Please.”

The young man ignored her. Reached the front of the store just as the gang of men emerged from the front doors. The young man nearly collided with them. Ducked aside as they came out, pushing and shoving each other. Then the men saw Irina and stopped, nudged each other. Their eyes roved up her legs to her hips and the swell of her breasts. One of them, the tallest, said something to his friends. They all laughed.

“What’s up, cutie?” the tallest one asked her. “What are you doing tonight?”

Irina didn’t answer. Didn’t move, just stood frozen in place. Felt a tightness in her chest. Behind the men, the young acne-faced man slipped into the store. Irina, desperate, watched him go. Wanted to call to him, but he was gone. She was alone out here, now, with these terrifying men.

“What’s the matter?” the tallest one said. “You don’t like me? Why you acting so scared?”

One of his friends called out something, and all the men laughed. The tall one spun around, faked a punch at his friend. Then he smiled at Irina, his teeth gleaming, his eyes narrowed.

“You don’t want to be friendly?” he said. “You want to be mean?”

He took a step toward Irina, then another. Not cautious steps; he was coming for her. He would take her if he wanted, and he knew that she knew it. His friends followed close behind him. They spoke to Irina. She didn’t know what they said, but their voices were mocking, singsong. They swaggered toward her. Irina ran before they could catch her.

She could hear the men’s voices as she fled the parking lot, away from the convenience store and into the darkness, the night, through an industrial neighborhood, the men’s laughter echoing off the vast warehouse walls. She ignored them, kept running until she was far away from the store and the men were gone.

She crawled into an alcove and huddled in the darkness. She didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare close her eyes, afraid she’d see the tall man leering at her. Or worse, she’d see Catalina. Instead, she huddled there, wide-awake and hungry and scared, cursing her failure, her ineptitude, her fear, waiting for the morning.

STEVENS HUNG AROUND
the FBI office just long enough to get the full story from Mathers. Then Windermere kicked him out.

“Get some sleep,” she told him. “Kiss your wife and say hi to your kids. Harris is going to want a full briefing tomorrow, so you might as well be well-rested.”

“Yeah?” he said. “What about you?”

“You know me, Stevens,” she replied. “I never sleep.”

But there were circles under her eyes, and a flatness to her voice, and Stevens knew she was exhausted. Knew she was pissed off, too, and knew she’d sleep an hour or two in her office tonight, if at all. No way she was leaving anyone else in charge, not now.

“Go,”
she said, pushing him out the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She signed out a Crown Vic from the motor pool for him, flung him the keys, and waved good-bye. Then she climbed back on the elevator, and Stevens couldn’t do anything but find the car she’d picked out for him and drive home.

He thought about Irina Milosovici as he drove. Wondered what she planned to do. It was dark up in Brooklyn Center, away from the lights of the city, and he wondered if she was safe somewhere. If she even
had
a plan.

He thought about Catalina Milosovici, too, and couldn’t even comfort himself with hope. She was most likely still out there, still alive somewhere, but Stevens felt only helplessness as he contemplated what she must be enduring. It was no wonder Irina had run away. She must have felt like she had to do
something
.

>   >   >

THE HOUSE WAS DARK
when Stevens pulled up. He parked behind Nancy’s Taurus in the narrow driveway and entered through the side door, quiet as he could.

He felt his way into the kitchen in the dark, fumbled with the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. Then he stopped. Something was moving in the living room.

His senses heightened, his nerves on edge, Stevens felt around for the light switch on the kitchen wall. Found it and flipped on blinding light. Someone gasped from the living room. Someone else swore.

Stevens looked in through the doorway. Saw his daughter on the couch, framed in the light from the kitchen and bare from the waist up aside from her bra, which she was clutching to her chest in a panic. Beneath her lay Calvin, still as a log, as if Stevens wouldn’t notice him if he just didn’t move.

“Oh my
God
.” Andrea fumbled with her shirt. “Get
out
of here, Dad.”

Stevens ducked away, gave his daughter a little dignity, the image ingrained in his head. He saw Andrea, half-naked, still a child, on the couch, her boyfriend’s hands on her. He saw the girl in the Blue Room, battered and bruised, could still feel the impact wound where her attacker had shot him. And he saw Catalina Milosovici, her flat stare in the photograph, Andrea’s age herself and a prisoner, a victim. He stepped back into the room and fixed his eyes on Calvin.

“Son,” he said, his anger rising, “you need to find your way home now.”

“THIS IS
BULLSHIT
.”

Andrea, now fully clothed, sat on the couch. Triceratops lay beside her, blissfully oblivious. Nancy sat in the easy chair opposite, and Stevens stood by the window, too angry to sit still.

“It’s not bullshit,” Stevens said. “And you’ll watch your language, young lady.”

“We weren’t even—
Ugh
.” Andrea flounced back against the couch cushions. “It’s not like that. I’m practically grown up anyway.”

“You are not,” Stevens told her. “You are nowhere near an adult yet, and you continue to prove it.”

Calvin was gone. Stevens realized he could have offered the kid a ride home, made him call his folks or something, instead of just letting him run off into the dark. At that moment, though, he’d been furious. Couldn’t trust himself not to strangle the kid.

“I am
too
,” Andrea said. “I’m practically seventeen, Dad. I’m allowed to have friends.”

“Is that what you call tonight?” Stevens asked. “‘Friends’?”

Andrea colored. “He’s a good guy, Dad,” she said. “He’s not some criminal. Just because everybody you know is a piece of shit doesn’t mean the world’s full of them.”

“Andrea.”
Nancy glared at her. “Watch your mouth.”

“So, what, Dad?” Andrea said. “You think Calvin’s, like, some rapist?”

Stevens felt his anger mounting again. “I think tonight’s behavior is entirely inappropriate, is what I think.”

“So you want me to be some kind of nun?”

That doesn’t sound so bad,
Stevens thought.
Christ, where did my little girl go?

“You
cannot
just let guys take what they want,” Nancy was saying. “Andrea, you have to be smarter than that.”

Andrea flung around to face her mother. “You think I don’t know that? My God, it’s like I’m out turning tricks or something.”

Stevens and his wife swapped a glance. “You’re not to see him, Andrea,” Nancy said. “Not alone in the dark. Not like this.”

Not at all,
Stevens thought, but he didn’t say it. “This is bullshit,” Andrea said again. Then she stomped up the stairs and was gone.

For a moment, neither Stevens nor Nancy said anything. Then Nancy sat up. “We can’t keep her from growing up,” she said. “Not forever, Kirk.”

“That’s not growing up, Nancy,” Stevens told her. “Fooling around on the couch, letting some guy take her clothes off because he told her she’s pretty, it’s not—”

“It is, though,” Nancy said. “We all did it.”

“Irina’s sister is the same age as Andrea,” Stevens said. “That little girl in Billings, I can’t even guess what those men did to her.” He looked at his wife. “The world’s a tough place for girls like Andrea. I don’t want her getting hurt.”

Nancy rose, crossed the room to him. Took him in her arms. “She’s a smart girl, Kirk. She’s not going to do anything stupid.”

“She’s naive,” Stevens said. “She’s too trusting. She thinks the whole world’s as kindhearted as she is.”

Nancy hugged him. Rested her head on his shoulder. “We can’t keep her locked up forever.”

“I know, Nance,” Stevens said. “But maybe just until she’s thirty.”