Page 35 of Roma King
“No,Narc. I meant what do you mean about the tarot card. You didn’t tell me she actually read your fortune.”
I groan, stabbing my pasta salad with my fork. Ihaveexplained the tarot card to her. I should be speaking to one of my other co-workers about this. Jerry, or Claire. Kelly’s attention span is that of a goldfish with short term memory loss. “She insisted on having me draw a card. When she saw it, she got all weird and told me I had to leave.”
Kelly’s intrigued. “What card was it?”
“No idea. I don’t know a thing about tarot cards. Very pretty, though. Gold foil. The woman on it looked like a beautiful badass.”
“Ahh. The beautiful badass card. I can see why she freaked out.” Kelly’s raucous bark of laughter attracts the attention of three official looking men in suits, who, up until now, have been grimacing into their cafeteria fare. Kelly doesn’t even notice. “If I were you, I’d find out what the card was and what it means. Then you’ll have a better idea of why she shifted into bitch mode.”
“She was already in bitch mode. And I don’t have time to be researching tarot cards. I did have a reason for going to that fair.”
She rolls her eyes. “Zara, the cops have all the relevant information. Let them do their jobs. If you start losing sleep over this one kid, then you’re going to be well and truly fucked. What happens the next time another kid goes missing or gets hurt? You’re gonna be even more wound up about it. You’re gonna drive yourself fucking crazy with this vigilante detective bullshit.”
“God, Kelly. Haven’t you ever heard of empathy? We need it in order to doourjobs properly.”
The humor drains from her face. Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, she shakes her head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Llewelyn. We don’t need empathy to do our jobs. We need to be as detached as humanly possible. You startfeelingthings when you answer those calls, and it won’t be long before everything starts to unravel. Trust me. I’ve been here longer than you. I’ve seen it happen. If you’re not careful, it’s precisely what’s going to happen to you. And then you won’t be helping anybody.”
My food has turned to dust in my mouth. She might sound like a grade A bitch with her uncaring words, but the sad thing is that Kelly’s right. We were trained to be calm. We were trained to be professional and efficient. And however I might have been acting recently, my behavior has been neither one of those things.
* * *
It’s dark by the end of my shift. It was dark when I arrived, too. During the winter months in Spokane, I usually miss the daylight hours. The wind whips across the parking lot as I hurry toward my car, my skin covered in goose bumps, my hair flying around my face as I hunt inside my purse for my keys.
I stumble, coming to an abrupt halt when I see the dark shape of a man leaning against my Volvo. His trench coat is long, a little too big for him. The suit beneath it is well tailored, though. Expensive. His face is crosshatched with lines—wrinkles that don’t really seem to mark his age, since he doesn’t appear to be that old. He looks like he’s lived a hard life, as though he spends most of his time grimacing in considerable pain. I read all of this on him in the heartbeat it takes to close my hand around the can of pepper spray in my purse.
Hishands are huge, like shovels. Panic surges through me as he takes a step toward me. “Miss Llewleyn.” He has an accent, thick and strong. Nothing like the accents I heard at the fair last night. His is Eastern Block. It dawns on me pretty quickly that he’s Russian.
“What do you want?” I stand still, trying to think over the warning bells blaring inside my head.People don’t lurk in dark parking lots, waiting to surprise you, unless their intentions are bad, Zara.Of all the times to hear my mother’s voice of warning…
The man takes another step forward. “Please don’t be alarmed,” he says. “I didn’t want to disturb you at work. I figured I would wait. I know how it looks.” His accent really is strong, but his English is perfect. Makes me think he was educated here, or in England, perhaps. “I am Yuri Petrov. I believe you’ve been speaking with Detective Holmes. About my son,” he adds on the end, as if I might not have pieced everything together by now.
“Y—yes. I—” ‘Covert’ isnotmy middle name; I sweep the parking lot, searching for another dispatcher leaving work. A friendly face. A motherfucking witness.
“Please. Ms. Llewelyn. I promise, you’ll find no trouble here. I would just like to talk to you, if you have a moment. If this is an inconvenient time…”
It’s three A.M., on a frigid Spokane winter night. He’s speaking as though he just ran into me outside of a coffee shop in the middle of the day by accident. He came here in the dead of night, to find me specifically, knowing I would be alone, and he’s trying to make that sound normal? “I did speak to the detective, yes. But I wasn’t much use to him. I’m very sorry about Corey.” I want this to be over. I want this to be over rightnow.
“Detective Holmes is doing everything he can to help us. He is a good man. But we…my family and I…have asked him to allow us to conduct our own search for my boy. That sounds strange to you?”
“Yes, it does.” The words are out before I can even contemplate stopping them. “I’d have thought any help offered would be beneficial. Especially when the police have the authority to conduct searches and can obtain warrants.”
Yuri Petrov, Russian kingpin of Spokane smiles sadly. “Authority and warrants, in this particular instance, won’t be of any use to us. We know who was responsible for Jamie’s death, and we know who has taken Corey. We have received a video. Look.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone.
Now would be a great time to run. I steel myself, though, holding fast. Running would look bad. Running would be monumentally stupid. Yuri Petrov takes a step toward me and holds out his phone. On the screen, a video of Corey is already cued up and playing. The little boy looks tired, but he’s not visibly hurt. He’s wearing an oversized blue t-shirt that looks like it belongs to someone far bigger than him. He nods at someone off screen, and then he begins to speak. “Hello, Papa. Hello, Mama. I’m…I just…” He pauses, looking to someone off screen again, as if he’s looking for guidance. There’s a low mumble in the background and Corey turns back to the camera. “I’m okay. I’m being looked after. I get to eat ice cream every night if I’m good. I want to come home now, though.”
Yuri withdraws the phone. I don’t know if the video continues to speak or not, because his father silences the phone, putting it back in his pocket. “As you can see, he appears to be well. He will be home soon with us. You have no need to worry, Zara. We are dealing with this situation in our own way. We have experience in these matters.”
Horrified, my knees promising to buckle out from underneath me any second, I try to make sense of what he’s just said. “What? This isn’t the first time Corey’s been taken?”
“No. No one has ever dared before. But…” He holds his hands out, fingers splayed wide. “You’re a smart woman, I think. You read the newspapers. You listen to the news. You know who I am, no?”
This could be some sort of trap. It feels like a trick, even though I can’t see how it would be. Cautiously, I answer. “I hear the same rumors everyone else does, if that’s what you mean.”
“That my family have ties to certain organizations? That we are aninfluentialfamily in our own right, yes?”
Oh, holy shit. “Yes.”
“Then you understand, I think. It is within our capabilities to resolve a matter such as this without involving government agencies. We would like to do that. We’re confident Corey will be home with myself and my wife within the next forty-eight hours.”
