Richard Montanari - The Devil_s Garden

“No,” Aleks said. “She has some work to do.”

“At the hospital?”

“Yes, at the hospital. But on the way back we can stop and get something for dinner. Are you hungry?”

Anna and Marya looked apprehensive for a few moments, but then they both nodded.

“What would you like for dinner?”

The girls exchanged a guilty glance, looked back. “McNuggets,” they said.

Abby watched the door at the top of the stairs, and waited. She had always feared for her daughters, as any mother would. The stranger in the car, the terminal childhood disease. She had also feared the legal ramifications of what they had done. She had even rehearsed what she might say if ever called before a judge or a magistrate, the pleadings of a woman desperate for a child.

But never this.

A few minutes later Aleks came downstairs. Abby had long ago stopped struggling against her restraints. Her limbs had fallen numb.

“Do you need anything?” he asked.

Abby Roman just glared at him.

“We are going to leave for a while. We will not be long.” He crossed the room, sat on the edge of the workbench. Abby noticed that he had gelled his hair. What was he getting ready to do?

“Kolya will remain here. You will obey him as you obey me.”

Abby noticed he was carrying a manila envelope. She saw her own handwriting on the front. It was the envelope that had Charlotte and Emily’s adoption papers in them.

Her blood turned to ice water. “You can’t do this.”

“Anna and Marya were stolen from their mother’s bed in the middle of the night. They are mine.”

Abby had to ask. Perhaps, in the answer, she would find something she needed. “Why do you call them Anna and Marya?”

Aleks considered her for a few long moments. “Do you really want to know the answer to this question?”

Abby wasn’t sure. But she knew she needed to keep him talking. If he left an opening, any opening, she would take it. She tried to keep the fear from her voice. “Yes.”

Aleks looked away, then back.

“It is the story of a prince and his three sisters…”

Over the next five minutes Aleks told her a story. What Abby had feared – that she was dealing with a dangerous but rational individual – was not true. This man was insane. He believed he was this Koschei. He believed that, with his daughters, he would be immortal. He believed that his soul was in the girls.

The part that stole Abby’s breath, the part that frightened her to the limits of her being, was that the girls knew. They had been looking at pictures from the same story in the library.

When he finished telling her the story Aleks stood, watched her for the longest time, perhaps waiting for some sort of reaction. Abby was speechless for a moment. Then:

“You’ll never get them out of the country. Someone is going to catch you.”

“If I cannot have them I will take their essence,” Aleks said.

“What are you talking about?”

Aleks touched the vials around his neck.

My God, Abby thought. The vial filled with blood. The two empties. He was going to kill the girls if he had to.

As Aleks climbed the stairs, Abby felt her heart break.

She would never see Charlotte and Emily again.

Desiree Powell was hungry. Whatever was cooking in the kitchen – it smelled like a pork roast with rosemary and garlic, three of her favorite things – was making her salivate. She’d forgotten to eat lunch. It often happened in the tornado of the first twenty-four hours of a homicide investigation.

The ride up to Putnam County had been stop and start, due to construction. Fontova had taken a nap, a skill Powell had never been able to cultivate. She barely slept in her own bed, at night, with a righteous snort and 5 mg of Ambien as a chaser.

But now a question hung in the air.

Powell stared at the woman, tapping her pen on her notebook, waiting for an answer. With her hooded, eyes and unwavering gaze, Detective Desiree Powell knew she was all but impossible to read.

Powell had dealt with many social workers and behavioral therapists in her career. She knew the mindset. She knew that Sondra Arsenault had spent most of her adult life exploring people’s motives, ferreting out their agendas, divining their purpose. She was probably good at these things. Powell knew that she presented Sondra Arsenault with a cipher. By nature, social workers asked the questions. Today, it was Powell’s job.

When Sondra had called the local police department they had sent around a pair of uniformed officers to take down a report regarding the man who had broken into her home. When she told the uniformed officers that there might be a connection between the break-in at her house and the murder of a New York City lawyer named Viktor Harkov, they had wrapped things up quickly. They told her that someone would be contacting them soon.

Powell asked again. “So, the only people in the house were your daughters and yourself.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t hear anything? No breaking glass, no door being kicked in?”

Powell knew that the uniformed officers had looked at all the doors and windows, and written down that there had been no forced entry. It never hurt to cover it again.

“No.”

“You walked into you daughters’ room, and there he was.”

“Yes.”

“What was the man doing?”

“He was just standing there, at the foot of the bed,” Sondra said. “He was… he was watching them.”

“Watching them?”

“Watching them sleep.”

Powell made a note. “Was the light on in the bedroom?”

“No. Just a night light.”

“I know you described this man to the officers, but I need you to tell me. Once again, I’m sorry to put you through this. It’s just routine.”

Sondra didn’t hesitate. “He was tall, Caucasian, broad shouldered. He had close-cropped sandy hair, almost blond. He wore a black leather coat, dark jeans, white shirt, black vest. He had a small scar under his left cheekbone, a few days of stubble, light-blue eyes. He was in his thirties.”

Powell stared at her again, unblinking. “This is a remarkably precise description, Mrs Arsenault.”

Sondra remained silent.

“And you saw all this with just a night light?”

“No,” Sondra replied. “After I entered the room he turned on the overhead light.”

Powell scribbled another note, asked another question, one to which she already had the answer. “May I ask if you work outside the home?”

“Yes. I am a social worker. Part of my job is to observe people.”

Powell nodded. “Here in Putnam County?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “It’s not only people in the city who need counseling.”

Attitude, Powell thought. She left it unchallenged. “You said he spoke to you?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He said: This is not Anna and Marya. I have made a mistake. If I have frightened you, you have my deepest apologies. You are in no danger.”

She pronounced the name Ma-RYE-a. Powell glanced at the photograph of the twins on the mantel, back. “Your daughter’s names are Lisa and Katherine?”

“Yes.”

“Who are Anna and Marya?”

Sondra said she had no idea. The look on her face, along with the way she worried one finger around another, told Powell that deep inside, where fear makes its nest, she probably had the feeling she was going to find out.

“After this you say he slipped out the window, and you never saw him again.”

“That’s correct.”

“Did you watch where he went? Did you see if he got into a car?”

“No,” Sondra said. “I did not.”

“What did you do?”

“I closed the window, drew the blinds, and turned off the light. Then I held my daughters.”