“I had nothing to do with her death.”
I take the glove off my right hand and pull the fillet knife from my boot. Then I wrap the glove around the knife handle.
“Please, no. I swear. Don’t you see? It was—”
I use the knife handle to shove the glove into Mikhail’s mouth before he thinks to close it. He bites down and growls his rage and pain.
“I told you not to talk. You’ve had your chance. Now you’re going to listen.”
I pull the knife back out and put my left hand over the glove to keep it in place. In my right hand I brandish the knife, swiveling it slightly to catch the glint of the moon as I continue my story.
“Jenni sounded out some of those words to Reece Whitton, who understood full well what Jenni was saying—what Zoya was saying. Zoya was not being the good soldier, so Whitton called you. You needed Zoya out of that hospital and you needed to burn those notes. You, Mikhail Vetrov, ordered Reece Whitton and Ray Kroll to kill my wife.”
Mikhail begins slinging his head back and forth, the muffled “no” barely making it past the glove in his mouth.
“You told them to make it look like an accident—a hit-and-run. Make sure Jenni had the notes with her in the parking ramp. Kill her. Bring the notes back to you.”
I lay down the knife so my hand is free.
“When the time came to kill her, Kroll sped down the ramp where Whitton had lured Jenni. Whitton shoved her into the path of the car. Then he collected the notebook and walked away.”
I climb onto Mikhail’s stomach. I can feel his body tremble against my thighs.
“Ana told me something else this morning, something that I’d missed completely.”
I reach for the zipper of his snowsuit, my fingers too cold to grasp it, so I hack at the zipper with the side of my hand until I work it open.
Mikhail starts to twist and flail. Beneath his coat, he’s wearing a winter cycling jacket. He’d dressed well for his journey to Canada. I try to unzip the jacket, but the zipper is too small and my fingers are useless, so I bend down and grip the zipper in my teeth. He’s bucking and trying to dig his chin into the top of my head. He knows what I’m looking for. I lower the zipper as far as I can.
“Kroll said something in that conversation with Whitton that I didn’t pick up on. He said ‘another drop of blood and we do all the work.’ I thought he was just trying to sound cold, like he’s killed before, and this is no big deal.”
Under his cycling jacket, Mikhail’s wearing a thermal undershirt. I pick up the knife and cut it down the front.
“But that’s not the case, is it Mikhail? He wasn’t just playing at being a stone-cold killer. He was talking about you, about the tattoo on your chest.”
I rip open his shirt to expose a dagger tattoo in the middle of his torso, the handle up and the blade pointing down.
“This is the salute you give to your bosses in the old country—your record of accomplishment. Ana told me all about it.”
Mikhail is yanking his head from side to side, trying to spit out the glove, but I hold it in place with my left hand as I trace the tattoo’s blade with the point of the fillet knife. At the bottom of the dagger on his chest are four drops of blood inked to look as if they are dripping down his abdomen.
“Ana said this first drop of blood, your first kill, is for a rival that you had to dispose of for your bosses. Kind of a good-faith initiation.”
I slide the blade of the fillet knife down his skin until the point rests on the second droplet tattoo.
“But this one . . . this one is for my wife. That’s the drop of blood that Kroll mentions in the recording—your mark of achievement. He was complaining that he and Whitton would do the murder, but you would take the credit.”
I move the point of the blade to the next drop of blood.
“This . . . is for Zoya, I presume. And this,” I touch the fourth drop, “I’m betting this is Kroll.”
I move the tip of the knife back up and rest it on the skin beside Jenni’s mark.
“But you made a mistake,” I say. “You didn’t just kill my wife that day.”
I move my left hand from the glove in his mouth and instead use it to hold the knife upright and in place.
“You also killed my child.”
I raise my right hand above the handle of the knife, the heel of my palm exposed like a hammer head.
“You’re missing a drop.”
I start to bring my palm down on the knife handle with all the force I can muster. I envision the blade punching though his stomach and spine, embedding itself into the ice beneath him. His eyes go wide as he screams through my glove. But at the last second, I hold up. Then I smile, and with two fingers I tap the knife just enough to break the skin with the tip. A single drop of blood seeps out of the wound.
I look in his eyes and whisper, “I don’t want you going to your grave with an incorrect body count.”
CHAPTER 41
“Please, God, I’m sorry!” Mikhail yells. “I didn’t know she was your wife. I swear. Don’t kill me—not like this.”
I should have left my glove in his mouth, but my fingers were turning brittle from exposure. With both hands safely ensconced in the tattered gloves, I climb off of Mikhail’s chest and kneel beside the bundle of stones.
“You can’t do this. Stop! Please!”
I’m too weak to pick the bundle up, so I shove it toward the hole with my feet, pausing the stones at the edge of the precipice. I clear my head of all his pleading, and I listen, waiting for some argument against what I am about to do. I expect to hear Nancy in my head, or maybe even Jenni’s voice, but all I hear is the wind. I push the stones into the water.
The bundle isn’t heavy enough to drag Mikhail across the ice. I didn’t expect that it would be. I know that I will have to feed the man into the lake. He’s on his back, twisting from side to side, trying to work the ax handle out of his pant leg. He’s yanking at the cord that binds his wrist. He is helpless, and has no choice but to fight like hell.
I sit down in the snow above his head, put my boots on his shoulders, and shove. He slides a foot closer to the hole.
“For God’s sake, stop!” he screams.
I think about Jenni on the table in the medical examiner’s lab—the day I had to identify her body. I think about the bracelet in my pocket and the baby who never got the chance to take a breath. I shove again. His feet are now over the hole.
“I killed her,” he says in a flurry of panic. “Okay? I admit it. I ordered Whitton and Kroll to kill her. I’m sorry. I swear I’m sorry.” He sounds like he’s crying. Giving the performance of his life.
I won’t be able to get him into the hole while he’s on his back. I move to his side and try to turn him over, but he’s bucking and twisting too much and I can’t get a good grip. I take off my gloves to get ahold of the man’s snowsuit. My fingers don’t want to obey. They’re too frozen. I zip my coat down and shove my hands under my arm pits, keeping the wind at my back.