The man turned to face Nadia.
CHAPTER 50
Johnny couldn’t remember when an alleged perpetrator had left him speechless, or when a cop had done so, for that matter. But the sound of Nadia’s name rolling off the cop’s tongue left him in a momentary state of shock. He sat dumbfounded for ten seconds, staring at Clark’s grin before he realized the truth. His appetite vanished immediately. It was replaced by a sense of utter hopelessness and despair. He wanted so desperately to be wrong, but he was certain he was right.
“Tell me about the pending charges,” Johnny said.
Clark cleared his throat. “They say I tampered with evidence.”
Johnny cringed. It was the answer he was hoping not to hear. The only question left was how they’d put the squeeze on Clark.
“Are you in debt to someone, Richie?” Johnny said.
Johnny’s deduction wiped the smile from Clark’s face.
“Let me guess. You borrowed money.”
Clark remained silent.
“What was it? Gambling?” Johnny studied him. He looked like a former athlete, probably a high school star, maybe even college. “Sports gambling.”
The cop took a sharp breath through his nose.
Johnny nodded. “You bet on games, it got away from you. Who put the squeeze on you? What did he look like?”
Clark frowned slightly, suggesting Johnny should have known better than to even ask the question.
“It’s simple,” Johnny said. “You answer my questions, I’m going to represent you. If you don’t, I’m walking out of here and whatever leverage you think you have over me you can go ahead and use it. I honestly don’t care.”
Johnny wasn’t sure himself if he was bluffing or not, but he was so angry at the turn of events that he was certain he’d delivered his threat with conviction. They sat staring at each other for a bit longer.
Clark looked both ways, cleared his throat, and leaned in. “There were two of them. In their twenties. Russian.”
“Did they tell you to call me? Were they the ones who gave you the magic word?”
“Yeah.”
“What was the evidence they told you to get rid of?”
“Five ounces of heroin.”
“Where was this heroin found?”
“Under a Lincoln Town Car.”
Of course that’s where it was found. Johnny had paid the James brothers to plant it there to put Nadia’s nemesis away. To put him away for good.
“The owner of the Town Car,” Johnny said. “The man who was charged with intent to sell…”
“They dropped the charges.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
Johnny ran outside to call Nadia, unable to shake the sensation that he was too late.
Once again he’d tried to help her. Once again he’d come up short. As the call went through he couldn’t help but think that in the real world, good intentions didn’t pay the rent. In the courtroom, he was formidable. But with this man, even when he thought he was in control, it was a delusion.
With this man, he was perpetually out of his depth.
CHAPTER 51
Nadia recognized him immediately. He was the ancient weed in the garden, the immortal vine that couldn’t be eradicated with any poison.
There was just one problem. The man she was looking at was locked up on Rikers Island. Prisoners didn’t escape from Rikers. And the man standing in front of her wasn’t a member of the Zaroff Seven. Not only wasn’t he a former Soviet apparatchik turned oligarch, he’d fled their strict laws for America where a career criminal could ply his trade more freely and successfully.
“Victor Bodnar,” Nadia said. “It looks like you, but it can’t really be you.”
“Were you hoping it were someone else?” Victor said.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Anyone.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought there was a strange sense of honor about you, even though you’re a career criminal. I wouldn’t have imagined you’d hunt children.”
“A thief must go where opportunity takes him. And this so-called child,” he said, glancing at Bobby, “was the one responsible for my arrest. You didn’t expect such an action to go unanswered, did you?”
“Yes,” Nadia said. “I did. I’m an optimist, and you were behind bars.”
“There’s much space between the bars of your American jails. If a thin man stands at the proper angle…” He turned ninety degrees to the left. “He might disappear, like a pick into a keyhole.”
Ice clinked against glass. Milanovich stood at a server along the wall. He poured three inches of amber liquid from a crystal decanter into a glass. He didn’t offer anyone else a drink.
Two beefy men in suits occupied opposite corners of the room. Simmy stood beside Nadia. He’d stuffed his hands in his pockets while Victor was speaking. One pocket contained his cell phone, the other a pager with a direct link to the driver of the other SUV.
Nadia eyed the ring on Victor’s finger. His left lip curled upward a smidge, the closest thing to a smile Nadia had ever seen from him.
“This old thing?” Victor said. “An obvious thought. The boy Adam killed in New York? We looked into his background. Discovered his father’s identity. As I’m sure you did when you proved Adam innocent of the murder charge last month. He was a member of a hunting society called the Zaroff Seven. My colleagues made some inquiries about them. When we learned two more vanished mysteriously during the exact same time you were here, we knew who your antagonists had been.”
“And the ring?”
Victor slipped the ring off his finger. “Saw them wearing it in a book on hunting clubs. Old book, like me. Seems they’re famous for it, if you know who to ask. And the boss and I have a few connections, don’t we Maxim?”
“It’s not who you know, Victor,” Milanovich said. “It’s who you know that owes you.”
“A jeweler made us a dozen knockoffs,” Victor said. “We had our men wear them in case they were seen. By you. By anyone.”
“To make it look like the Zaroff Seven were doing the killing,” Simmy said. “Ksenia Melnik. I bet the babushka is dead, too.”
A moment of silence confirmed Simmy’s theory. Victor glared at Milanovich as though the murders were his doing, and Victor didn’t even know about them.
Nadia remembered the babushka and the story of the pet hunters, her rifle, and the root cellar. But mostly she remembered the old woman saving her life.
Victor tossed the ring to Bobby. “Keep it,” he said. “As a memento. They should make you an honorary member. After all, you are the prey that got away, aren’t you?”
Bobby studied the ring and did what any teenager would have done. He put it in his pocket.
“I knew you would come,” Victor said. “I knew you would come for your girl. And I knew you had enough brains, guts, and strength to succeed. I didn’t know how you would do it, but I told them to expect you.”
Bobby remained stone-faced.
“How did you find Eva?” Nadia glanced at the girl after speaking her name. She didn’t seem frightened. Instead she acted like Bobby’s female clone. Calm, cool, and calculating.
“The babushka led us to Ksenia Melnik,” Victor said. “She knew of the legend of the formula. Said Dr. Arkady loved the boy and the girl like they were his own. He called them Genesis II because they would carry the knowledge to change the human race for the better, but they could only achieve that goal as one. Ksenia Melnik knew the girl’s death had been staged to protect her from the Zaroff Seven. She knew she was a student at a university in Japan, one of the last places anyone would ever look for her.”
That didn’t explain how Eva knew to send Bobby an e-mail. How she knew her locket contained half the formula, and how she knew where the second half was. Dr. Arkady must have told her, Nadia thought. He must have deemed her the primary beneficiary of the inheritance he bestowed upon them, if there was one. Given she was older — and her relative maturity would have been much more palpable three years ago — that made sense.