Gregg Hurwitz - The Survivor

“No,” Nate said.

“I hit no one.” Her voice trembled. “I–I was at…” The long cigarette held an inch-long tube of ash that defied physics, refusing to fall.

“Look at you,” Nate said. “Can’t keep your face straight here. Think what they’ll do to you in court.”

She sucked an inhale, fingers trembling around the cigarette.

“You fucked up horribly,” he continued. “And it cost people their lives. I can promise you: You’ll live with that the rest of your life. But I can also promise you: You can move on from this. You can figure out how to live again.”

A tear clung to her mascara-dense lashes. “How do you know?”

“Because I know. But it’s not over. Your father, he’s ordered the killing of everyone who witnessed you in the Jaguar that night.”

To gauge her reaction, he watched her closely, but he needn’t have. Her eyes widened with surprise; she jerked in a half breath and then another, as if choking. “It’s not true.”

“It is. The first witness, Patrice McKenna, was already stabbed to death. He’s trying to find the names of the other witnesses.”

“There’s no way. It can’t be true.”

“He is willing to murder more people to protect you. I have a daughter your age.” Just saying the words made his chest burn, brought the whole flammable scenario roaring back to life. He fought away emotion, leveled out his voice. “And if your father isn’t stopped, he’s gonna kill her. In front of me.”

Her lips parted to suck in another clump of air.

“He holds me responsible,” Nate said. “He holds the witnesses responsible. He will do anything. To protect you. Which means you’re the only one who can stop it. Talk to him. Get him to tell you what he’s done.”

Her radiant skin suddenly looked sallow. “He wouldn’t do something like that. What you said. He just wouldn’t. ”

“Wouldn’t he?”

She looked anywhere but at him.

“If the lives of those people, my daughter, matter to you, get your father to talk to you. And take what he tells you to the cops. They’ll make it stop. If you do this, they’ll probably be able to keep you out of prison-”

“Everyone is so concerned about prison, prison, prison. I don’t care about going to prison.”

“You’re looking at a life sentence,” Nate said.

The dance beat throbbed like something living, rumbling the booth, the floor, the cushion in the small of Nate’s back. The ash fell, scattering across Nastya’s knuckles. She took no note.

“Your daughter,” she said. “Does she have a boyfriend?”

“If you can call him that.”

“You don’t like him?”

“No.”

“Did you have someone threaten him? Bolt cutter around his knuckle. Like this?” She encircled one delicate forefinger with another.

Nate felt the shift in conversation as something physical, a rise in the temperature around the booth. “No,” he said.

“It works well,” Nastya said. She studied him a touch drunkenly, her head lolling. “And this daughter, she has friends? Real friends? Who like her for who she is, not just for”-she spread her arms, indicating the bright drinks, the canvas drapes, the VIP view- “this.”

Nate nodded.

Her gaze pinned him to the bench. “A mother?”

“Yes,” he said. “She has a mother.”

“And this mother takes her to lunch. They talk. She gives her advice.”

Nate said nothing. The music thumped deadeningly.

“He is the only thing I have ever had,” Nastya said. “You tell me I’m looking at a life sentence? I’m already serving one.”

She blinked hard, stabbed her cigarette into the ashtray, and slid from the booth. By the time Nate rose, she’d vanished into the crowd.

Bloody, crusted, and stitched up like an American baseball, Yuri’s face resembled a Halloween mask. The cool basement gym smelled of the blue rubber mats on which Yuri, on better days, practiced Olympic lifts. The doctor checked his circulation in various places, poking his capped pen at the swollen flesh, then stepped away from the bench press he’d been using as an examination table. Pavlo handed him an envelope, which disappeared into the white coat.

The doctor said in Ukrainian, “I will return in the morning.”

He exited.

Pavlo flexed his hands and stared down at his inked knuckles-crosses and diamonds, asterisks and bars. How many times had a needle stabbed his flesh while he’d gazed up at a prison ceiling? He’d gathered the pain prick by prick, swallowed it whole, stored it for future use.

Across the space, Dima and Valerik sat on the mats, smoking and playing their cards. Misha did push-ups, one after another, his lithe body plank-straight. He was shirtless, a Fila terry headband holding his swept-to-the-side blond hair at bay.

Dima glanced at Yuri’s face. “Does it hurt?”

Yuri stood with a grumble. “No.”

Contemplating Nate Overbay’s escape, Pavlo ground his teeth. “He has the list still. Now we must chase. You are to call in more favors. I don’t care how much you spend. Every flight, border, bus station. Understand?”

Yuri nodded. “We are.”

“More,” Pavlo said.

“He failed you,” Misha offered. Not the least bit winded, he continued with his push-ups. “He was beaten by a dog.”

“You did not see this dog,” Yuri said. He walked over to Misha and glowered down. “Perhaps you think you could do better than me.”

Misha did a few more push-ups, bouncing up to clap his hands between reps, then rose to confront Yuri. “That is why I am here. To do better than you.” His shell of swoop-around hair remained perfect, unruffled from the exercise.

“No,” Pavlo said. “Not yet. Let Yuri search through our channels. There are ways to locate someone here, many ways. Not just force.”

“And if you don’t find him?” Misha asked.

“We will find him,” Yuri said.

“And if not in time for Anastasia’s trial?”

“If I must, I will send an army of men with semiautomatics into DA’s office a week before that trial,” Pavlo said.

“This,” Misha said, “sounds like a better plan.”

He walked out to the balcony, knocking Yuri’s shoulder. Though Yuri outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds, the bigger man did nothing. Misha stretched his muscles in the darkness, steam rising from his shoulders.

Pavlo heard the front door open upstairs, and a jangle of keys struck the wooden table. “Papa? Papa! ”

He hurried up to the main floor and immediately knew something was wrong. Nastya stood in the open doorway, makeup smeared down her cheeks. Behind her the Town Car glided silently away.

“Come in from the cold,” he said.

Her chest was heaving, her ribs faint outlines beneath her dress. “Is it true?”

“Is what?”

“That you’re killing them. The people who saw me in the Jag.” She held out her phone with a news story up on the little screen.

He caught a flash of the name-Patrice McKenna-and his blood ceased moving for an instant, his insides turning to concrete. “Who told you this?”

“Is it true?”

He tugged her arm gently, forcing her a half step into the foyer, then closed the front door. “Do not raise your voice to me.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care! Answer me. Are you doing this? Are you killing them?”

He took her slender hand and led her into the sitting room, where he sat beside her on the recamier with its ridiculous scrolled cherry-veneer arms. The admission froze in his throat. He backed up, came in from a different angle. “You will not survive in prison,” he said.