“Da, ya govaru pa russki,” he responded absently as he involved himself in returning all trash to the large white bag and carefully folding the top down, once then twice. “Vy gavarite?” So he must have known Misha was short for Michael, not that he’d shared the information.
“A little.” I took the last sip of nearly cold coffee as I steered with one hand. “Probably less than you since you’ve studied it. What I picked up isn’t exactly for use in polite company.” It was a fairly good bet that he knew more proper Russian than I did. I could get my point across, but it would be a hard, ungrammatical road. My fluency was in the language of the job and those were not pretty words. “Our father’s from Russia. Our mom was too.”
“Was?” he repeated neutrally.
“She died.” I crumpled the cup and let it drop from my hand. “A long time ago.”
He considered that with eyes on a distant point; then he shook his head. “Your mother, not mine. I never had a mother or a father.” His gaze moved to fix on me as he went on implacably. “Or a brother.”
Hey, square one . . . How you doing?
It shouldn’t have hit me as hard as it did. Since we’d pulled him out of that place, I’d known it was going to be an uphill battle. I’d known and I still knew, but . . . ah, fuck. “Eyes like yours aren’t a dime a dozen, Misha,” I said quietly. I didn’t know if he was listening to me or not as he sat beside me as still as a stone, but I pushed on as best I could. I was working without a script, flailing in unknown territory. My line of work hadn’t done much to train me in the ways of gentle persuasion. Now I had to learn the hard way, and at a time it had never been more important that I not fail. “They took you when you were seven. We were on a beach riding horses, and this man”—I swallowed against a nightmare that was as fresh now as it had been then—“this goddamn son of a bitch with a gun took you.”
“Horses.” It wasn’t said in a questioning tone, but more in one of contemplation.
I didn’t care how it was said. He was listening. He was hearing me. I grabbed on to the sliver of optimism and refused to give it up. “Yeah, we had horses. They were Christmas presents.” I didn’t think it was necessary to tell him they’d both died the same day he was taken. It was a detail that wouldn’t help him to hear. It wouldn’t do much for me either.
“What kind of horses?” He was curious despite himself, poor damn kid—my poor goddamn brother.
It’d been so long that I couldn’t recall if they’d been Morgans or Quarterhorses. “Harry and Annie. Annie was yours. She was a sorrel mare, a tiny and frisky thing. Harry was a bay gelding, a big lovable guy.” It might’ve been that Harry loved apples like all other horses, but Annie liked only carrots. Could be Annie wanted the soft, sweet velvet between her nostrils rubbed while Harry liked his ears scratched. I never had the opportunity to find out the small details of affection before they lay dying on the sand. “We rode them to the beach. We talked about . . . oh, hell . . . kids’ things. Who was the hero and who was the sidekick.” I flashed him a look of mock annoyance. “Somehow you were always the hero. Go figure.”
He gave me a look of his own—utter and complete dismissal. The curiosity had vanished. “That’s a story you should tell your brother, not me. If he’s alive.” Resting his head back against the seat, he ended without emotion. “If there ever was a brother.”
I didn’t lose my temper, not at him. He was a victim in all of this. I saved my anger for those responsible. “Can you drive?” I asked abruptly.
He straightened, startled by the curt question, then said, “What did you—”
I cut him off. “Can you drive?”
Nodding slowly, he said with a trace of uncertainty, “Theoretically.”
Whatever that meant, it would have to be good enough. “Fine. Take the wheel.” As he hesitated, I took his hand and put it on the steering wheel before twisting around to reach the duffel bag behind my seat. Ignoring the sudden weaving of the car, I searched until I found what I was looking for. Sitting back up, I reclaimed the wheel just in time to keep us from riding up the ass of a semi. “Whoa.” I applied a light foot on the brake and peeled Michael’s hand free of the wheel. “Thanks. I’ve got it now.”
Blinking and a little pale, he said with faint dismay, “It’s harder than it looks.”
“Most things are, kiddo.” And that was perhaps the truest thing I’d ever said. Without any further comment, I dumped the picture frame in his lap. He stared at the back of it for a moment. The crisp black velvet had the sheen of a smugly healthy cat and he ran his fingers along it in a stroking motion. Thanks for the Christmas present, Dad, I thought with grim satisfaction. It’s going to help me after all.