The man responds in the same language—most likely Russian, I realize dazedly—and then pulls out a sleek smartphone, swiping across the screen with quick, furious gestures. Lifting it to his ear, he spews out more rapid-fire Russian as Peter opens the car door and carefully deposits me on the back seat.
My tormentor wasn’t lying about having a team. This man must be one of his helpers.
“I’ll be right with you, ptichka,” Peter murmurs in English, brushing my hair off my face with that same bizarre tenderness, and then he backs out and closes the door behind him, leaving me alone in the warm interior of the car.
I sit still for a couple of seconds, watching him speak to the bearded man, and then I spring into action.
Scrambling across the backseat, I grab the door handle on the opposite side from where the two men are standing and push the door open, nearly tumbling out of the car in my haste to get away. My thoughts and reactions are still slow from shock, but I’ve recovered enough to comprehend one very important fact.
Two men were killed in front of me, and if I don’t do something about it, I’m an accessory to their murders.
The cold wind bites at me, and my lungs burn as I sprint toward the clinic. Behind me, I hear a shout, followed by rapid footsteps, and I know they’re chasing after me. My only hope is to get inside the clinic before they catch me. As a wanted man, Peter shouldn’t be willing to risk exposure. Once I’m safe inside, I can catch my breath and figure out what to do, how to best inform the police about what happened.
I’m less than a hundred feet away from my destination when a hard arm loops around my ribcage, and a strong hand slaps over my mouth, muffling my scream. “You really like me to chase after you, don’t you?” a familiar voice growls in my ear, and then I hear a car approaching.
I double my efforts to get free, kicking at Peter’s shins and clawing at his hand over my face, but it’s futile. I hear a car door open, and then Peter is stuffing me inside, much less carefully this time.
“Yezhay,” he barks at the bearded driver, and then we’re speeding away, leaving the clinic and the scene of the crime behind.
29
Peter
* * *
“Yan and Ilya are on it,” Anton informs me in Russian as he takes a right onto the street leading to Sara’s house. “They got there before anyone stumbled onto the scene.”
“Good.” I glance at Sara, who’s sitting next to me in the backseat, silent and deathly pale. “Tell them to thoroughly dispose of the remains. We don’t want body parts turning up anywhere. Also, they need to bring her car back to her house.”
“Yeah, they know.” Anton meets my gaze in the mirror. “What are you going to do with her? You really freaked her out.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
I’m glad Sara can’t understand what we’re saying; otherwise, she’d be even more horrified. I shouldn’t have killed those methheads in front of her, but they were threatening her with knives, and I lost it. All I could see was Tamila’s body lying there, broken and bloodied, and the thought that it could’ve been Sara—that if I hadn’t been there, one of those strung-out vagrants could’ve killed her—made my blood turn to volcanic ice. I don’t even remember making a conscious decision; I acted purely on instinct. It took only seconds to disarm them and slice their throats, and by the time their bodies hit the ground, it was too late.
Sara saw them die.
She saw me kill them.
“Can you take Ilya’s shift for the rest of the night?” I ask Anton when we stop in front of Sara’s house. With the big oaks shading the driveway and the nearest neighbors a good distance away, the place is nice and private—great in a situation like this. It’s too bad she’s selling the house; I’ve grown to really like it.
“No problem,” Anton replies. “I’ll be around. You going to be here until morning?”
“Yes.” I glance at Sara, who’s still staring straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to our arrival. “I’ll be with her.”
Taking Sara’s hand, I tell her in English, “We’re here, ptichka. Come on, let’s get you home.”
Her slender fingers are icy in my grip; she’s still in shock. However, as I help her out of the car, she looks up at me and asks hoarsely, “What about the clinic?”
“What about it?”
“They’ll wonder what happened to me.”
“No, they won’t.” I dip my hand into my pocket and pull out her phone, which I got from her bag during our trip. “I sent them this.” I show her the text message about having to see to an emergency at the hospital.