“Because she was the only one in the house at the time? You have other staff. Miriam could have taken it.”
“Nonsense.” Her veiny hands clenched on the cane. “She wouldn’t dare. Besides: the maid disappeared the same night the ring did. Thatcan’tbe a coincidence.”
Tenny made a noncommittal noise. “Tell me about the week leading up to the ring’s disappearance. Any unusual activity? Anyone peeking in the windows? New neighbor move in?”
Toly left them to it; let the conversation fade to a dull murmur behind him as he eased his way to the windows to peer out at the garden again.
The wall that bordered it was stone, at least ten feet, and topped with anti-pigeon spikes. (Given what they’d learned of Alicia Newsome, she probably considered them anti-humanspikes.) Not unscalable, for someone who knew what he was doing – Toly could have done it, easy, and no doubt Tenny and Reese could have made it look as simple as breathing. But he had a hard time imagining a maid getting it done. Likewise, anyone wanting to kidnap her would have found a way through a gate, rather that wrestle a struggling girl – or a dead one – up and over.
There was, however, a conveniently placed tree: a big, very old cherry, its bark shiny and striped, bare limbs reaching nearly to the ground on the inside of the wall, and up over it in one place. Strong enough to hold the weight of a person? Maybe. A light one, he supposed.
A glimpse up in the corner of the room revealed both a motion detector, and a glass-break alarm. If anyone broke in, they’d either wake the neighborhood, or have to know the codes…which pointed at staff. Antonina? Miriam? A gardener? Butler? Whatever sort of poor bastard this woman employed?
If not for his accent, Toly would have turned and asked for a list of the staff. As it was, he had to have faith that Tenny would ask all the right questions.
He turned, hands linked behind his back, scanning the walls, the décor…and a vicious, energetic outburst from Newsome snagged his attention.
“Thatforeigner.” She spat the word, as though it tasted foul.
The maid, Toly thought.
Newsome’s hands had gone white-knuckled on the top of her cane, eyes flashing, papery skin trembling along her jaw as she clenched it tight.
“He was Polish, too?” Tenny asked, unimpressed.
“No,Russian. Dirty, tattooed,disgustingyoung man.”
Toly couldn’t get out of here fast enough.
Tenny popped a single brow. “This disgusting young man have a name?”
“I don’t know. She called him ‘Nikolai.’ What she saw in him…” Her loud sniff was elegant of further disgust. “I think he must have been in some sort of mob. A gang or something. I only saw him a few times, waiting for Antonina by her car, talking on the phone in Russian, smoking cigarettes. He was twitchy. On drugs, probably.”
Tenny’s voice had the air of a withheld sigh about it. “Could you describe him for me? Anything you can think of, even if it doesn’t seem helpful.”
They left a painful half-hour later, having gained nothing but a long diatribe about the mysterious Nikolai, and a thankfully detailed description of his appearance, including of the mermaid tattoo on his neck.
“I’ll get in contact with this Kat fellow you all rely on,” Tenny said, half-insult, as they headed down the sidewalk, cold wind tugging at their ties. “And see about going around to the Russian bars and restaurants, try to find Nikolai.” Toly felt his gaze, but didn’t turn his head to meet it; instead, dodged a blue mailbox. “Not to agree with the old bat,” Tenny continued, “because there’s a chance this ‘horrible foreigner’ of Antonina’s is wholly innocent, sits staring morosely out windows pining after his disappeared girlfriend. Or–”
“Yeah,” Toly said, tightly. “He could be bratva.”
“He could have been using Antonina to get to the old woman’s jewels. When Antonina caught on to what was happening, she got spooked, tried to bolt, andshhhlick.” In Toly’s periphery, he saw him draw a finger across his throat.
“Yeah,” he agreed, with reluctance.
It was the simplest explanation. A young girl, immigrant, homesick and struggling to adapt to a new country, new city, daily routine. Along comes a handsome, tattooed Russian boy with a hint of danger lifting off him like steam, an immigrant himself, a wicked grin; a bit of comfort, of commiseration, of heat – and before she knew it, Antonina found herself caught in a snare, over her head, terrified, and a liability.
But from there, things grew murky.
Toly understood the finger in Raven’s inbox: the warning, the means to strike fear…but why the ring? Why hadn’t it been pawned, sold, broken apart and reformed, or slipped on a bratva mistress’s finger?
The more they learned, the less sense it all made. He had the sense they were only glimpsing ripples on the surface, a flash of scales, a dart of fin, fractions of something massive that lurked in the depths.
After all the Abacus bullshit, he was deeply tired ofmassive.
“Hey.”
They’d reached the street corner – a much nicer one than the corners in his neighborhood – and Tenny pointed across the street, where Reese was headed toward them, dressed as a house painter, bright hair tucked up into a hat and features disguised with the black-framed, fake glasses he’d shown up to the café wearing.
