Ekatarina Rybakov, Feliks Zhirov’s star attorney, spared me a cool smile as I slowly turned around. And she hadn’t come alone.
CHAPTER 6
The tails of Kat’s trench coat fluttered around her black stiletto heels, her dark hair rippling like a curtain in the wind. Two huge men clad in black tactical pants, black beanies, and black leather jackets towered beside her. She folded her arms, her crimson lips quirking as she studied me. “I admit, your methods are effective, Ms. Donovan. Unorthodox,” she said, raising an eyebrow at the tower of cars, “but effective.”
Cam stood on his toes to peek over Kat’s shoulder. His face, which hadn’t looked too terrible last night after our tussle in the yard, had bloomed two black eyes since, and a pronounced knot perched on the bridge of his nose. He paled when he spotted Ike.
“This is not what it looks like,” I said, moving to block their view of him. “This guy … he was—”
“I know who he was,” Kat interrupted, studying her nails. “I have been watching him for some time, and I am aware of his interest in your childcare provider.”
“Accountant,” Vero corrected her.
Kat acknowledged Vero’s interjection with a dubious sideways glance before continuing. “Finding EasyClean is of the utmost importance to Feliks. He felt this man might be hindering your progress, but it seems my client’s concern was unnecessary. He’ll be pleased to know you already had the situation under control, and that you may now focus your full attention on the job you agreed to do for him.”
“Now wait just a minute!” I said, taking two steps toward her, pausing abruptly when her goons stepped forward, too. “I never agreed to anything.”
Kat gestured to Cam. “Cameron mentioned that you’ve expressed some reluctance to complete the job.” I glared at him over her shoulder. He touched the bruised bridge of his nose as he shrank from view. “Which brings us to the reason I am here, Ms. Donovan. Mr. Zhirov sent me to provide you with some incentive.” One of Kat’s men dropped a fat black duffel bag beside her, withdrawing a brick of cash and laying it in her hand. Kat fanned herself with the thick stack of bills, ignoring Vero’s covetous moan. “Feliks instructed me to pay off your nanny’s debt to this unfortunate man’s employer; however, that problem seems to have resolved itself—for the moment.” Kat grimaced at Ike’s legs. “Now it seems you have a more pressing issue to deal with, so this is what I propose.” Vero made a small noise of protest as Kat dropped the money into the open duffel and her goon zipped it closed. “You will complete your task for my client before the commencement of his trial, and in return,” she said, gesturing to her entourage, “Mr. Zhirov’s associates will not contact the police to disclose what they witnessed here tonight.”
“That’s not an offer! That’s blackmail!”
Kat gave a careless shrug. “You call it to-may-to. I call it to-mah-to.”
“Well, I call it bullshit,” Vero interrupted. “Unless your offer includes that stack of cash,” she added in a more tractable tone. “Then you can call it whatever you want. What?” she asked at my cutting look. “Those tomatoes were not small!”
“True,” Kat admitted. “Two hundred thousand dollars is no negligible sum. But, again, this is no small mess to tidy up.” She inclined her chin toward my feet. I glanced down, gasping at the blood trickling from Ike’s remains toward my heels. Vero swore, frantically scraping her sneakers against the dirt.
Kat was right. Concealing Harris’s murder, and even Carl’s, had been as simple as moving a body. But nothing would be easy about moving this one, or cleaning up the mess.
“The answer is simple,” Kat said. “Give me your word that you’ll handle EasyClean before the trial, and Feliks will make sure all of this disappears.”
Vero stirred her finger in the air. “And by all of this, you mean…？”
“No one will ever know what happened here, unless you fail to meet your end of our bargain.”
“There is no bargain,” I reminded her.
“And all we have to do is handle EasyClean. That’s it?” Vero asked.
“Before the trial,” Kat clarified.
“When do we get the tomatoes?”
“We’re not handling anyone’s tomatoes!” I snapped.
“When the job is completed to Mr. Zhirov’s satisfaction, we will discuss the rest of his incentive. By then,” Kat said, gesturing to Ike, “I’m sure this man’s employer will be eager to speak with you.”
The chain-link fence rattled as a fourth member of their group came through the gate. The woman wore a pair of black driving gloves and carried a heavy black case. She nodded once at Kat, then began emptying the contents, placing a neatly folded plastic tarp and a roll of duct tape on the ground. One of the men climbed into the crane.
Kat checked her watch. “Shall I tell Mr. Zhirov we have an agreement?”
“No,” I protested. “We do not have an agree—”
“May I have a moment to confer with my client?” Vero asked, dragging me aside. “Think about this, Finlay,” she hissed.
“We are not putting ourselves further in debt to that man!” I whispered.
“If we say no, they will leave us here alone with the dead dude, and I do not know how to drive one of those,” she said, thrusting a finger toward the crane.
“We have YouTube!”
Vero’s head tilted. For a moment I think she actually considered it. “Even if we could move that stack of cars, do you really want to see what’s under it?” I grimaced. “What that woman is offering is a lot more appealing than a ride in the back of a police car. And I am not talking about the back seat of Nick’s!”
The thought of Nick finding out about this made my stomach turn. In a matter of days, Marco would start looking for his lost muscle and probably track him here. Once he did, what was to stop the loan shark from tipping off the cops to Ike’s last known whereabouts?
“Nick said it himself,” Vero pleaded, gesturing to the corpse. “Feliks can make almost anyone disappear, and I’m betting Flat Stanley here is no exception. You heard Kat. Feliks needs you to find EasyClean before his trial, and he isn’t going to let the police or anyone else get in the way of that.”
“So we find EasyClean and then what? Murder him, too?”
“We did not murder anyone,” she said, pointing at Ike. “That man died at the hands of god. Or maybe gravity. And definitely too many trips through the late-night Wendy’s drive-through. Whatever the reason, it was his own damn fault.”
“So we’re just going to cross our fingers and hope EasyClean chases us into a salvage yard?”
“I swear, I have a solution to the EasyClean problem. Just trust me.” The plea in her eyes felt like a test of my faith in her. And I hated that because it didn’t leave me any choice. “Please,” she begged, “if we agree to Feliks’s terms and leave right now, we can find Javi, make sure he’s okay, and get him out of here before Kat’s people do.”