Where Evil Waits (4 page)

S
ASHA HAD TO MOVE.
Big night tonight: the final kill. Kara had certainly done her best this week to throw a couple of wrenches into his plans but both of those complications were dealt with now. In the end, all she’d really done was provide a way for him to add an extra dose of horror to her life.

He smiled. She must be scared shitless now, after her front-row seat for Louie Guilford’s murder. For a year, Sasha had been watching her, controlling her, killing for her, and she hadn’t even known it. But now, he wanted her to know. He was almost ready for her; he wanted her to be ready for him, too. Only two more days.

He shook off the daydream and looked at the clock. Time to move. He had a message for Kara and wanted to show it to his father before he sent it. It was late; the staff at the nursing home would give him a hard time, but they’d let him in. They had to, anytime he wanted. He’d already gone around that mulberry bush a few months ago with a crotchety old nurse, presented her with a copy of the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987, and came back in the middle of the night for the next three visits just to watch the biddy turn red with anger.

Tonight, he didn’t have time to argue with the staff. He just wanted to see his father.

So much to share.

He pulled into the parking lot in his 2013 Lexus sports coupe, bleeped the key fob to lock the car, and strolled into the lobby, hands in his pockets. He started out whistling, then stopped himself: too much. He sauntered past the front reception desk as if it were perfectly normal to visit at this hour, keeping an eye out for Nurse Ratched and inwardly daring someone to stop him.

No one did.

He headed down the hall and around the corner to Room 144, pressed the door open. The smell of this place always sickened him: The lobby smelled like cold metal and antiseptic; the room smelled of feces and urine and stale bedsheets, festering beneath a thick layer of Hawaiian Breeze air freshener.

The weak rasp of a snore touched his ears. His father lay in bed sleeping, the skeletal leftovers of a man once hardy and brilliant. Now, he was little more than a vegetable.

Sasha had made him that way. It was one of his fondest memories.

“Hello,
nana
,” he said, and though he’d barely spoken, the rasp changed. His father knew he was there. And couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

“Wake up, I don’t have much time. I have something to show you.”

The skeleton shifted and Sasha turned on the bedside lamp. His father blinked, glancing past Sasha to the door.

“No, no one will come. They wouldn’t intrude on a touching visit between father and son.”

His father’s mouth began to work, like a hungry carp. His hands came to his chest, fingers curved inward with
palsy, breathing labored, eyes still keen and intelligent. What a waste: an IQ of 165 and a terminal degree in mathematics, and yet he’d spent his life mucking stalls and waiting on Willis Montgomery’s family, hoarding stacks of Russian mathematics magazines to feed his brain at night and tutor his sons. One of his sons, anyway. Sasha’s gifts were in challenges of the body, not the brain. Once, his dad had lowered himself enough to come to one of Sasha’s baseball games. Sat in the stadium with a rod up his ass and something on his face that might have been shame. He couldn’t comprehend that a child spawned of the great minds of Dmitri and Darya Rodin would choose baseball over scholarly pursuits. That wasn’t why they’d moved to America.

No, they’d moved to America for Stefan. Stefan, of the brilliant mind. The crown jewel of the Rodin family.

Sasha looked down at his father, whose eyes were glazed with worry. A thin layer of drool dribbled down his chin. Deliberately, Sasha picked up the stack of logic puzzles on the nightstand and moved it two inches, just to remind his father they were there. A little remembrance that a great mind had been deprived of oxygen just long enough to turn his body to Jell-O. And while everyone else thought Dmitri’s mind had gone the same route as his body, Sasha knew better. His father understood everything.

Everything.

“I have something to show you,
nana
,” he said, pulling out his phone. Dmitri’s panic spiked. His body made a series of little twitches. They’d done this before, with every kill. Just a few days ago, Sasha had brought in a picture of Penny Wolff, strangled and propped up against the wheel well of his old beater Dodge van. He’d driven all night to dump Penny’s body out of the way, in a cornfield
in Mississippi. But before he’d sent Kara the picture, he’d brought it in to the nursing home. He knew how his father liked to share in his accomplishments.

Now, he called up the message he would soon send to Kara. Enlarged the screen so his father could make out the details. It was right off the front page of today’s newspaper: A
TLANTA
D
ETECTIVE
G
UNNED
D
OWN AT
B
RAVES
G
AME.

“Did you see this on the news last night? I hope you knew it was my work. I couldn’t get in for a close-up on this one, but I think you’ll still be impressed. I’ll bet you had no idea I could shoot like that, did you?” he said, putting the phone in front of his father’s face. “I’ve been practicing.”

Dmitri’s eyes closed.

“Nyet,”
Sasha said, and slapped him hard. “Read it.”

His father did, the genius eyes staring, the carp-mouth working, the limbs twitching. A small groan came from his throat.

“I know,” Sasha said, deliberately misinterpreting his father’s horror. “He was a surprise to me, too. Kara forced me to make a change in plans. It’s okay, though. The girl I told you was next—Megan?—well, don’t worry. I’m on my way to get her now.” He looked at his watch and feigned surprise. “Oh, my, I’d better get going. She’ll be getting off work soon.”

His father’s breathing hitched. His head rolled back and forth.

“Oh, don’t be upset,
nana
. I’ll come back and show you Megan when I’m finished with her. I know how much you like to share in my accompli—”

A knock sounded. Sasha pocketed the phone and the door pressed open.

“Mr. Rodin?”

A nurse’s aide peeked in. Sasha stood, a finger of anger pressing on the back of his neck.

“I was just leaving,” he said. He tried to sound casual but the finger began tapping. He studied the girl. She was thin, with brown hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing the requisite smock and sensible shoes. Couldn’t be more than twenty years old. He glanced at the plastic tag pinned to her pocket: Sarah Fogt.

“I was checking on Mr. Rodin,” she said. Sasha glared at her and she took an involuntary step back. “He had a cough today, so I just wanted—”

“If he had a cough, why wasn’t I notified?”

She swallowed. “Well, it wasn’t that bad, but—”

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” Sasha asked, bearing down on her a bit.

“Y-yes,” she said, her gaze darting back and forth between him and the bed. His father’s breaths came quick and shallow. Sarah looked concerned.

“Well, let me introduce myself,” he said, turning on the charm. Sasha wasn’t bad looking and had a physique that impressed women. He could play the games. “I’m Sasha. Dmitri is my father.” He held out his hand and she gave him a limp-wristed shake. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, but a cough—that sounds bad. He developed pneumonia once.”

She withdrew her hand and started back-pedaling. “It wasn’t too bad… I’ve just been checking on him every once in a while, that’s all.”

A black spot appeared in Sasha’s vision.
Liar
. His body went tight. Sarah Fogt was a lying little bitch.

But he couldn’t do anything about that now. He closed his eyes on the black spot and forced himself to breathe. It
was more important to send his message to Kara than to worry about some nurse’s aide here.

So leave Sarah be. She wasn’t worth the trouble.

He patted the phone in his pocket and glanced back at his father. “Well, if he hasn’t been feeling well, I’d better not keep him up. I just hadn’t been here for a couple of days, that’s all. I know it’s late.”

He bent over his father to kiss both cheeks the way Russians did.
“Do svidaniya, papa,”
he said aloud, but when he touched the second cheek, he lowered his voice to a whisper:
“Ya vernus.”

I’ll be back.

He held the girl’s pale eyes as he walked past her, memorizing them. Sarah Fogt, his mind repeated, making sure to remember.
Don’t get in my way.

K
ARA TIGHTENED BOTH HANDS
on the gun. “Freeze,” she said again.

The intruder didn’t, but slipped from behind the drapes. Tall and heavy-shouldered, with jet hair and eyes the color of black coffee.

“You,” Kara breathed. “Damn you,” she said, but at the same time, relief shivered through her limbs. She bent her elbows and then chided herself for that bit of foolishness. Relief was illogical. Luke Varón was a criminal. He’d broken into her home. Aidan was here.

She leveled her aim. “What are you doing here?”

“I had second thoughts so I came to discuss the terms of your offer,” he said, and his gaze dipped to the gun. “But this isn’t a good way to foster a trusting employer-employee relationship.”

“As opposed to breaking into my home and hiding like a criminal?”

“I
am
a criminal. I thought you were counting on that. And because of that, I thought it wise not to be seen ringing your front doorbell.”

Her fingers tightened on the gun, so hard cramps screamed up the tendons in her arms.

“Ms. Chandler,” he said, his voice stern, “I’m getting a little tired of having to talk you down from a gun. The way you’re shaking, you’re going to shoot me by accident.”

“It won’t be by accident. And I didn’t think I was unclear when I explained the job to you,” she said, keeping her voice down for Aidan’s sake. “I want people to think we’re dead—my son and I. I want the news to report it and show footage. You’ve proved that you have the means to make something like that happen. Without going to jail,” she added with poor sportsmanship.

“I do,” Varón agreed. “But the price has to be right. Do I recall that you told me to name it?”

Kara’s courage faltered. Despite her bravado in the alley, here in her bedroom, with her son downstairs and not another soul within shouting distance, a shiver rippled across her breasts.

Varón’s gaze dipped. “I wasn’t thinking about
that
,” he said. “Well, in the spirit of honesty, I’ll admit it does cross my mind. After all, here I am, alone with you for the second time in one night, the first time with you nearly naked and now, with you backed up against a bed and your limbs already quivering.”

“My son is here. Even you aren’t so vile as to try to rape me in front of my son.”

A dark brow lifted. “You credit me with a conscience, Ms. Chandler? In my business, it would be a weighty thing to lug around.”

“I credit you for not wanting to be shot dead.”

The ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “There is that. But no matter. I prefer my women willing and eager.” His eyes smoldered. “I’ll wait.”

A frisson of sensation shuddered through Kara’s limbs. It came from nowhere and curled low in her belly, while Varón strolled around the room, dragging a finger across her dresser, picking up and setting down a hairbrush, a mirror—laying claim to the space. Kara half expected him to open a drawer and fondle a pair of underwear just to show that he could. And would.

Bastard.

But she needed him. Dear God, she needed him to help her put an end to this madness.

He propped his hip against the dresser and crossed his arms. In the mirror behind him, Kara saw the seams of his designer suit pull across his upper back and a tremor of fear rattled in her chest. He was six-three and outweighed her by probably a hundred pounds—every ounce muscle. She hadn’t seen a gun this time, but knew it was there.

Then again, he’d had his opportunity to rape her in the alley and instead, he’d lobbed her clothes at her and sent her on her way. There was something else he wanted.

“I won’t give you the evidence against Montiel until you deliver your part of the bargain,” she said. “Don’t ask.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“What, then? If not Montiel’s safety, not money, and not sex, what do you want?”

Varón looked her straight in the eyes. “I want to know
why
.”

“Excuse me?”

“Contrary to what you may believe, I generally require a good reason to commit a felony. I want to know what happened to make you think your husband’s death wasn’t an accident, and why you’re running now.”

She blinked. She hadn’t told him anything about Andrew’s death. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit. You went to Louie Guilford yesterday and asked him to re-examine your husband’s death. You weren’t crying ‘murder’ a year ago. What changed your mind?”

Her brain stalled. Louie wouldn’t have told anyone about their conversation. “How do you know about that?” But a second later, an answer jammed in her throat. “You?”

Varón cursed. “Christ, I didn’t shoot a man down in front of his kid. As soon as your prosecutor’s mind starts working, you’ll find I was out of the country until this afternoon.”

She eyed him, surprised that he seemed genuinely insulted by the idea. She studied the hard features of his face, the depth of his eyes, and for a second couldn’t help wondering what he might be if he weren’t a drug cartel’s henchman. If his jaw had been less angular, his gaze less intense, his smile less cold.

But none of that was the case. He was a murderer, with a well-documented history of hits. If Ben Archer was right, the only reason Varón had surfaced in Atlanta was to help Gene Montiel launder money for a surviving splinter of the defunct Rojàs cartel. And while the billionaire developer Montiel stayed clean through savvy politics and by sponsoring a share of well-publicized programs for the downtrodden, Varón had no such redeeming qualities. He was just a well-dressed thug, and as far as Kara could tell from her unsuccessful case against him, he was as untouchable as he was ruthless. An entire Federal murder case had toppled like a house of cards.

So she shouldn’t give a damn that talking to him now might put him in danger.

“I believe that whoever killed Louie also killed a
woman earlier this week and murdered my husband a year ago,” she said. “And maybe others.”

Varón blinked. For a split second, his face registered something that might have been shock, but in the next heartbeat his expression showed nothing. “The man who killed your husband was John Wolff. He confessed.”

“But he was innocent.”

Varón looked at her, his eyes like a glacier. “Convince me.”

Kara took a deep breath. She had to do it. “A year ago, on the day of my husband’s funeral, I received a message on my phone. It was a picture of Andrew in his coffin and it said, ‘Look what you’ve done.’ I didn’t know who it was from and no one answered when I called the number back. After a while, I chalked it up to a vindictive defendant or maybe a lover of Andrew’s.”

“Lover?”

“There were several,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “A month later, after John Wolff had confessed to running Andrew down while drunk, Wolff was transferred from jail to a minimum security prison to await trial. He was killed in a riot the next day. I received another text. It had a picture of Wolff from the newspaper and the message said, ‘Look what you’ve done.’ ” She swallowed. She’d had no love for the man who accidentally killed Andrew and had every intention of seeing him prosecuted. But she hadn’t wished him dead. Wolff had taken a shank to the throat in the melée at the prison.

“And the phone number?”

“I had deleted the first one a month earlier, so I don’t know if the second was the same. But I had the police check this one. It was a prepaid cell. I got no more text
messages like that until this week.” She paused. “After I went to see John Wolff’s wife, Penny.”

Varón looked at her like she was crazy. “Why would you do that?”

Kara knew it made no sense. She went to a drawer and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “For the past year, since Andrew died, I’ve been receiving strange gifts and notes. Anonymously. On Monday, the anniversary of Andrew’s death, I received these.” Her voice dropped. “They were his.”

Varón stepped closer, apparently unconcerned that she still had a gun in her hand. “Just because someone was in possession of your husband’s sunglasses doesn’t mean he killed him. John Wolff confessed to that.”

“John Wolff lied.” Kara felt like a child trying to get an adult to believe there really were monsters under the bed. “It had never seemed right, about John Wolff driving drunk and killing Andrew. Wolff wasn’t a drinker. He worked hard; he had a newborn baby daughter with cerebral palsy.”

“He
confessed.
”

“As part of a deal,” Kara insisted, still half in shock herself. “Penny Wolff told me. John sold out for money and took the blame for killing Andrew.”

Varón was incredulous. “A payoff in exchange for a double murder rap?”

“Not murder and not double. Not at first, anyway. It was second-degree Homicide by Vehicle. In the state of Georgia, that carries as little as three years and at the time, Elisa Moran—the woman walking with Andrew when he was hit—was still alive. So Wolff turned himself in, two days after the accident. He was contrite and remorseful, and had no history, not even a parking ticket. If Elisa Moran hadn’t later died of her injuries, he would
have gotten three years, or five at the most. It must have seemed like a good deal for what he would get in return.”

“Which was what?”

“Ten thousand dollars a month, for the duration of his prison sentence. Enough to get their baby the medical care she needed.”

Varón’s tension was a palpable thing. “Who? Who would offer him a deal like that?”

“His wife didn’t know. John gave the first payment to Penny the morning he turned himself in to the police. But then, a few days later, Elisa Moran died. Additional charges were filed, and Wolff was held, then transferred to prison. He was killed right after he got there. Penny Wolff never got a second payment.”

“And she just came clean with you about this?” Varón sounded skeptical. More than skeptical. Astonished. “After all this time, you want me to believe that all you did was walk in and ask for the truth about your husband, and Penny Wolff spilled a year’s worth of lies?”

Not quite, Kara acknowledged, with a twist in her belly. She’d walked in with Andrew’s sunglasses and the certainty that whoever killed him was coming back, fired a salvo of accusations and threatened Penny Wolff with prosecution—including complicity in Andrew’s death. She’d told Penny she’d be separated from her daughter, and intimidated her as thoroughly as she would have intimidated a lying defendant on the stand.

She might as well have painted a target on Penny’s back.
Look what you’ve done.

“Ms. Chandler?” Varón touched her arm. She snapped back as if she’d been scalded. “If this is true, why didn’t Penny Wolff come forward before now?”

“Because she was afraid of the man who struck the
deal with her husband.” She looked up at Varón. “And she was right to be.” Kara went back to the drawer. With shaking fingers, she withdrew a purple striped scarf and spread it on the bed. “Penny was wearing this on Tuesday night when we talked. The next morning, my son Aidan found it tied to his bike handles.”

Varón’s brows drew together and he picked up the scarf. Tiny holes pierced the fabric, with a dark stain around each.

“Blood,” he said.

“Yes. She’s dead.”

“How do you know?”

Bile rose to her throat and she pulled out her iPhone. “A few hours after Aidan found this scarf, I received a text message.” She showed him the message. And the picture that came with it. It was the one Louie hadn’t lived to see.

“Jesus Christ,” Varón said, looking at the picture. It was Penny Wolff, dead. The purple scarf sat on her lap, along with what looked like a wire garrote. The text message said, “Look what you’ve done.”

“You got this on Wednesday?” he asked.

“Yes. The day after I’d spoken with her. I didn’t know what to do. I realized that I was probably the last person to have seen Penny. I was scared. I called in an anonymous tip and the police found Penny’s front door broken in. Her living room was ransacked. Her toddler was in a playpen where Penny had put her while we talked. They didn’t find Penny.”

“So you went to Louie Guilford. You told him about the sunglasses and your conversation with Penny Wolff, about the scarf. Everything you just told me?”

Tears bloomed in her eyes. “Almost. He died before he
saw it all.” She looked up at him, the talons of fear clawing at her heart. Varón didn’t deserve her concern. He was a criminal through and through and had broken in here demanding the truth. Still, the idea that tomorrow she might get a picture of him on her cell phone, dead, stuck in her mind like a tick.

Varón took two steps away, then spun back to her. “So you decided to disappear?” His voice was harsh. “Change your identities, get some fake IDs, and hire yourself a thug to double as a bodyguard and babysitter. Is that it?”

She steeled her spine. Yes, that was about the size of it.

“That’s crazy,” he went on. “You’re not a cop. Even with your background, what makes you think you can track someone like this down—especially from underground, when you can’t talk to anyone?”

“That’s why I need you.” She paused, feeling as if every slim chance she had of finding this killer was tied up in Luke Varón’s cooperation. He was right: She couldn’t do this alone. “Your part in this is strictly grunt labor, Mr. Varón. The rest has nothing to do with you.”