“She had her chance to cooperate,” Grablowski said. “She could have been in on my book deal.”
Maddocks said, very quietly, rage simmering beneath his skin, “Where did you first get this information that she’s the cradle child and her DNA is a match to the floating foot?”
“A friend.”
“Which friend?”
“I don’t need to reveal my sources to you, Detective. I got a book deal, that’s all, to tell her story. And I’m not the only one with the information. If not me, then someone else would have broken the story.” He paused. “The truth has a way of seeking light.”
It’s well past eleven on Monday night as the man sits nursing a Turkish coffee after his customary late-night meal at this establishment, a small brandy on the side. He comes here whenever he’s in town. He always chooses a quiet alcove near the back where he can watch entrances, exits, and get a good view of the dancers, as well as note the positions of the security cameras.
There is unusual activity in the club tonight. Men arriving, some in suits. He has an idea what’s going down. But it’s not his business. He works for one man alone and does not ask questions. He’s made good on two parts of the new contract from his boss—he utilized his contacts on the inside last night, and he’s been informed that the two inmates are now dead. Two down.
One more to go.
But this remaining one is more complicated, requires some work. He first has to identify Roksana, then locate her. His brief is not to terminate her but to deliver her by floatplane to his boss. The boss wants to take care of this one himself. In a place where the subject’s body will never be found. This one is special to the boss, and the man knows why—he’s put two and two together. He sips his coffee, thinking, watching the dancers.
He’s waiting to see whether intel comes from his contacts inside the institutions. They might be able to tell him what name she used to sign in when she visited Belkin and Zagorsky.
His waitress, long legs, nice breasts, brings him the newspaper he requested of her. He wishes to see whether the story of the convicts’ deaths has broken, whether he’s clean or if suspicions linger. Milo Belkin apparently did not speak to anyone directly about his visitor. He’d been trying to hide the fact she’d come at all. Semy had spoken only to the boss. Now they could not speak at all. Loose ends tied. He’s a cleaner.
He unfolds the paper. The lead is a story on the abandoned angel’s cradle child from 1986. She’s been identified as a Vancouver Island police officer. A sub headline declares that the officer’s DNA also matches the DNA of the child’s foot found on the beach in Tsawwassen.
Intrigued, he leans closer.
Embedded in the article is a photo of the cop—Detective Angie Pallorino, who worked sex crimes for the Metro Victoria Police Department. Red hair. Scarred mouth. His pulse quickens. He reads faster.
The article quotes a forensic profiler who has secured a book deal to write the story on the angel’s cradle child. Dr. Reinhold Grablowski claims that Pallorino is starting to remember her past, and her memories are leading her on a search for her biological parents. Adrenaline whips through him. He glances up.
His boss didn’t give him any background on his latest commission, but he knows the legendary stories behind Big Red and the redheaded twins he tried to sell to a Saudi sheikh along with their mother, Ana, his used whore. That was back in ’86.
It’s all here, he thinks, in the newspaper. Her identity, everything. Thank you, Dr. Reinhold Grablowski. Except . . . He returns his attention to the article and reads further. She’s gone to ground.
He reaches for his cup and takes another small sip of his bitter coffee. But a movement in the corner of his eye—a sense that the atmosphere in the room has subtly altered—distracts his attention. He looks up. A lone woman has entered the establishment. And her arrival has caused an almost imperceptible ripple through the club’s patrons. Only a certain kind of woman does that. The kind who attracts any hot-blooded male’s interest, and thus the attention of rival females, too. The man turns his full focus on her. From this vantage point he can see only the back of the woman. She’s on the tall side. Dark-red hair hangs long and straight and glossy down her back. Dressed all in black. Leather jacket, slim black jeans. Biker-style boots. Yet elegant. She screams sex appeal. Confidence. Danger.
She turns to survey the establishment. Pale complexion. Kohl eyes. Blood-red lips. He goes stone-cold still. Slowly he sets down his coffee cup. His heart slows. He’s a hunter who has just sighted his prey, because it’s her. She has the scar.
She has indeed come looking. For her biological parents. And she’s good.
Because she’s come to the correct place for information—right into this lair.
He watches as she goes to the hostess’s stand and asks the hostess a question. The hostess points to Nadia working behind the bar.
CHAPTER 53
It was close to midnight when Angie entered Club Orange B. The place was classy, white linen tablecloths and napkins, low lighting. A lounge singer in a figure-hugging blue dress at a grand piano crooned into an old-fashioned-looking mike. Topless dancers undulated lazily, evocatively against poles. She went to the bar, where the hostess had told her Nadia was working. She ordered a martini from the woman, who looked to be in her fifties. Short blonde hair. Nice-enough looking but well beyond pole dancing at this place. And she walked with a slight limp—consistent, possibly, with the baseball bat beating she’d received after being raped in the alley outside all those years ago.
“I’m looking for Nadia,” Angie said when the woman delivered her drink.
She glanced up, locked her gaze onto Angie’s. “Who’s asking?”
“I need to ask you about Milo Belkin.”
The woman paled, set the bottle down. She glanced up at a CCTV camera. Caution whispered into Angie.
“I’m Nadia,” she said quietly. “Who are you?”
“I’d like to know why you dropped charges against him.”
“Look, I don’t know who you are, and—”
“I’m someone who wants to make Milo pay for something he did to my family a long, long time ago, Nadia. He hurt me, too. I’m not a threat to you. I just need to know the names of the guys Milo Belkin and his friend Semyon Zagorsky used to hang with back then.”
Two in particular. The ones who evaded the drug bust.
Another nervous glance at the camera. Someone up in headquarters was watching her at the bar.
“I made a mistake,” she whispered, wiping the counter around Angie’s drink in an exaggerated fashion, for the camera no doubt. “It wasn’t him—it wasn’t Milo who hurt me.”
“Are you certain?”
The woman’s gaze ticked up.
“Look, I can help you—”
“I don’t need help. It’s in the past. Over.”
A swarthy male in a polo shirt sidled up behind Nadia. “Everything okay, Nadia?” he said, eyeing Angie.
“Yeah, yeah, cool.”