Page 18 of The Woman By the Lake

“It hit the national news.”

“Again, heard what?” Riggs pressed.

Harry seemed surprised, but knowing when Riggs was on a job, which he had been, nearly back-to-back for six months now, he worked, and then he worked more, and when he couldn’t do it well, he slept. After that, he worked more.

He didn’t tap into the local gossip line.

He didn’t even watch the news.

And when he wasn’t working, he did what he worked to do: enjoy his life.

Every second of it.

So he didn’t bother with catching up on current events when he wasn’t working either.

“You know anything about the Antonovs?” Harry queried.

“I know I like their vodka. And I know it’s top shelf. Other than that…” He shrugged.

“Right, well, quick history lesson. Big daddy Antonov got on Stalin’s hit list. He was a capitalist through and through. As such, no surprise, he wasn’t a big fan of communism. He also wasn’t a big fan of keeping his mouth shut about his feelings. There’s a lot of lore about how he escaped the gulag, and the USSR as a whole, but there’s no denying, the man was tough as nails and a hardass on top of it. He brought his vodka recipe to America and set about living his American dream. Single-minded in that effort. Word is, the dude was cutthroat and bottom line terrifying. But he built his liquor empire, and that empire is expansive, going well beyond vodka, and when he died, he passed it on to his only child, a son, Fyodor.”

“Yeah?” Riggs prompted when Harry stopped talking.

“Fyodor was a chip off the old block. But there were two big, royal-type weddings of that era. Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier, and Fyodor Antonov to Vilma Rayburn.”

Finally, something familiar.

Riggs had heard that last name. “The actress?”

Harry nodded. “Bombshell. Gorgeous. Destined to be another Marilyn Monroe, until she met Fyodor and left Hollywood behind for true love.”

“And money,” Riggs cut in.

“I don’t know,” Harry said thoughtfully. “She gave Antonov a daughter, then, pregnant with his son, irony hits and she and the unborn baby were killed by a drunk driver who reportedly got sloshed on Antonov vodka. Fyodor never married again. Everyone says he was heartbroken. She was the love of his life. He never got over losing her. But when he lost her, he turned all his affection to his daughter, Alyona, and when she came, his granddaughter.”

“Nadia,” Riggs filled in, now understanding what put the princess in his princess.

The woman actually was a princess.

A vodka one, but it was the same thing.

“So I got some rich bitch living close to me,” Riggs noted.

“No, you have a second-grade teacher whose mother was murdered by her father four months ago living next to you.”

Riggs sat back again.

This time, though, he did it like he’d been pushed.

Even after he was back, he felt something pressing hard at his chest.

“Against her father’s wishes, Alyona fell in love with a man named Peter Rogers,” Harry went on. “She had no idea, but her father did, that this guy was a piece of shit. She went all in with her rebellion, married the guy. They had a kid, Nadia, but Alyona starts cottoning on and wastes no time shaking him loose. Divorce papers say emotional and physical abuse. She gets that finalized, but he keeps coming back, threatening to take his infant daughter. Alyona wants him gone. Fyodor wants him gone. But Rogers isn’t about to give up the high life or the direct line he has to their bank accounts. The thing he didn’t factor in is that Fyodor is old school and he’s gonna put up with shit for half a second, but he’s gonna put up with his daughter taking shit for less than that. Somehow, they get rid of him.”

“But he comes back,” Riggs surmised.

Harry nodded. “Yeah, after he became a black widower. He was a conman, Riggs, and that graduated to him becoming a murderer. He’d find some small-time heiress, charm her, marry her, then somehow, she ends up dead, he ends up with her money, then he vanishes. Took the cops decades, but after the last one he killed, they strung together his aliases and how he’d change his appearance. They were onto him. Froze the assets he inherited so he couldn’t get to them and evaporate. He needed money and he needed another disappearing act. He knew how to do the last and where to get the first. Easier for him, he thought, since Fyodor was dead. So he went after Alyona.”

Harry stopped talking when Heidi came and put their plates on the table.

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