Avery went in after her, his senses making the switch to combat mode. His hand instinctively reached for the Glock, until he realized he’d left it at the motel. He stood just beyond the doorjamb, but the darkness and unfamiliar environment made it difficult to find anything out of place, and he waited, to allow his eyes to acclimate.
A second later, a light went on, and Aleksa stood near a lamp, seven feet away. Her mouth was agape, and the color was gone from her face.
Yuri Dzubenko was sprawled across the hardwood floor of the living room, on his stomach and chest. His hands were tied behind his back. A plastic bag covered his head, with duct tape forming an airtight seal around his neck. The plastic was pressed against the contours of his face, some of it sucked into his mouth, while he had struggled for air. His eyes were wide open.
Aleksa backed up against a wall, staring down at her friend. Tears welled in her eyes. She opened her mouth, but whatever she was going to say became caught in her throat.
Avery stepped around the body, ignoring Aleksa for now, and swept the apartment, mostly to make sure no one else was here and also because he wanted to avoid the tidal wave of emotions from Aleksa, uncertain if he was expected to provide comfort or reassurance and having no desire to do so.
The desk and dresser drawers and closets were all opened, with their contents now strewn about everywhere. Articles of clothing and pieces of paper littered the floor, scattered around overturned furniture. Avery checked the bathroom and kitchen, looked behind doors, and out the windows. Black footprints had dried on the floor, the path ultimately heading out the front door. Avery was satisfied that the apartment was empty.
He returned to the living room.
Aleksa was where he’d left her.
He crouched to examine the body on the floor. He didn’t need to check for a pulse. Early stages of rigor mortis had set in. The body had already emptied its bowels and bladder, and its temperature had dropped. He estimated that Yuri Dzubenko was three, four hours dead. Aleksa may have just missed the killers, when she’d gone to the airport to meet Avery. Given her reaction, he thought that this realization wasn’t lost on her.
Avery got up and stepped in front of Aleksa, intentionally obscuring her view of the body. The longer she stared at it, the worst off she’d be, not that it made much difference at this point.
“Aleksa, listen to me. Take a deep breath. You need to look around and see if anything is missing. I need you to focus, okay? Then, we need to leave here immediately.”
“What about Yuri? We can’t leave him here like this.” Her voice was nearly a whimper. She tilted her heard to look over Avery’s shoulder. He sidestepped a bit, to obstruct her view once more. Her vulnerability made him uncomfortable, and he had little patience for this sort of thing.
“Yes, we can. There’s nothing we can do for him now, and the people that did this may still be outside watching this place.” He allowed that to sink in, letting her know that they were both in danger every second they stayed here. “Take a look around. See what they took, and grab whatever you can carry, anything important, especially anything that can be used by the police to identify you. We’re not coming back.”
Aleksa finally looked up and met his glare for the first time but didn’t speak.
“Do you understand me, Aleksa?”
She finally nodded and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. The focus and drive returned to her eyes, replacing the distant, faraway stare, and Avery was grateful for that and hoped it lasted. She stepped away from him and walked around, appraising the ransacked apartment, rummaging through the closets, and moving between the two bedrooms.
While he waited, Avery walked along the walls and peered through the windows at the streets below. There wasn’t a view of the building’s front entrance from up here, but from what he could see, there was nothing unusual outside, and no activity. He kept his ears open for the sounds of anyone coming up those stairs outside the apartment. They’d be finished if two, three men with guns came through the front door. He regretted his decision to leave the Glock behind.
When Aleksa returned to the living room, she had a stuffed backpack slung over her shoulder. “Our computers are missing. All of our work, everything was on them. They took Yuri’s cell phone, too. But I always keep everything backed up on this.” She held up a USB key she’d taken from her jeans pocket. “They would kill for this.”
“Yeah,” Avery said. He took a knife from the kitchen. “That’s why we need to get away from here. Come on.”
He started for the door, and when she wasn’t moving quickly enough, he reached back to grab her by the wrist and gave a pull. He took the lead this time and instructed her to stay three steps behind him and keep her eyes open and mouth shut. He closed the door.
If an attacker was indeed waiting, then stairs were a deathtrap, so Avery descended them quickly and kept his eyes trained on the bottom. He paused in the foyer to look through the window. The street and sidewalk were empty.
Avery opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. He swept his eyes immediately left and then right, looking down over the railing. The dark spaces on either side of the porch were clear, as was the street. There was no activity in the windows or on the rooftops of nearby buildings. The silence stood out most to Avery. There was barely a sound, not even an occasional passing car somewhere nearby. The neighborhood was completely lifeless. He walked down the stairs and at the bottom, without turning, raised a hand and motioned for Aleksa to come out.
She stayed close to his side as they walked back to the Siena. The three short blocks suddenly felt like miles, and the rain abruptly picked up again, drenching them. As they walked, Aleksa looked frantically around. When they turned the corner, she jumped at the presence of a shadowy figure, and Avery tensed, too, but it was only an old woman with an umbrella walking her dog, and they moved past her.
“You said the Siena was Yuri’s car, right?” Avery asked.
“Yes,” Aleksa said, having the same realization as Avery.
“Then they probably know what car to look for. We can use it to get away from here, but we need to switch vehicles soon as we can.”
Half a block away, Avery could see the Siena now.
They walked down the center of the street, not on the sidewalk. Problem was there were other vehicles parallel parked in front of and behind the Siena, including a large carpenter’s van that hadn’t been there before, making plenty of good hiding spots.
Avery tried to look for any unnatural shapes or shadows in the darkness through his peripheral vision, because in the dark human eyes can more easily make out objects off to the side than directly in front of them, but he saw nothing to raise alarm.
It was darker now than when they’d parked here twenty-five minutes ago. Searching his surroundings, Avery realized that the corner streetlight was now out.
“Give me the keys,” he commanded Aleksa, looking around once more.
“What-”
“Quick. Just do it, and get in the car.”
Aleksa produced the keys and held them out for Avery, but it was too late. A looming figure sidestepped onto the street in front of them from behind the large van. He wore a ski mask, black pants, gloves, and a black sweatshirt.
Startled, Aleksa jumped and stepped back, right into another black-clad assailant. She screamed as an arm wrapped around her and pulled her close, but Avery didn’t turn around to look. He’d already launched himself at the first attacker, throwing his shoulder, with his full weight behind it, into the man’s chest, knocking him off his feet and against the van.
As they grappled, Avery caught a glimpse of the pistol, a silenced Makarov, in the man’s hand. He rammed an elbow into his opponent’s solar plexus and grabbed his left hand onto the attacker’s gun hand and directed the barrel away and off to the side just as it spat a muffled shot into the sidewalk. Avery’s right hand lashed out with the kitchen knife, burying every inch of the serrated blade through the man’s throat. Eyes bulged behind the ski mask, and the grip on the Makarov loosened. Avery ripped the pistol out of the man’s hand and spun around.