Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

“I was out of my mind with rage and anguish, all I could think of was how to revenge myself on him, so much so that I lost sight of her, I failed to realize just how deeply in the grip of her depression she had sunk. That night I stayed with her and with you, and that night she slit her wrists, silently, on the bathroom tiles, while you slept and I plotted revenge.”

“There you have it,” Batchuk said, triumph creeping into his voice, “the anatomy of true evil.”

Annika put the machine pistol to the side of his head. “Move away, Jack,” she said.

“Annika.” Alli had moved from Gourdjiev’s side to Annika’s. “Don’t, he’s your father.”

“You don’t know what he did to me, the years I was with him.”

“I did what you wanted me to do, nothing more.”

“Liar! It was what you wanted.”

“You’re wrong, I kept you safe,” Batchuk said, “safe from him .” He glanced at Gourdjiev.

“I didn’t need you to keep me safe.”

“Annika, no matter what he did in the past, no matter what he is now, he helped bring you into the world,” Alli said. “Without him you wouldn’t exist.”

“At this moment,” Annika said, “I wish I didn’t exist.”

“You don’t mean that,” Alli said.

There were tears in Annika’s eyes. “I’m going to blast his goddamned skull open.”

“Don’t, Annika, don’t. You’ll never be able to live with yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter, I want to die, but before I do I will see his blood spattered all over this room.”

“I hate my father, too.” Alli was pleading with her. “But I couldn’t bear the thought of him dying.”

“Whatever he did, it couldn’t be anything like what this man—”

“Your father.”

“—did to me.”

“Crimes are crimes,” Alli said. “Whether they’re of cruelty or of neglect what matter does it make, they’ve changed us, and they can’t be taken back or absolved or forgotten, but the cycle has to end somewhere, so why not here, why not now, with you?”

“You’re right.” Annika smiled at her, a slow, sad, rueful smile. “It has to end.” Then she pulled the trigger. Batchuk’s blood, brains, and bits of bone flew outward in a hail of red and pink, an explosion so violent its human shrapnel covered them all, so massive it seemed as if he had detonated from the inside out.

BENEATH A gauzy and indistinct sky Dennis Paull stood with his daughter and grandson at Louise’s grave site just across the Chesapeake in Virginia. He and Claire had each dropped a shovelful of dirt onto the lowered coffin.

“Mom, why did you and Grandpa put earth in the hole with Grandma?”

Tears glittered in Claire’s eyes. “So part of us can stay with her and love her always.”

To Paull’s surprise and immense pleasure Aaron stepped forward, stooped down to grab a handful of earth, and dropped it on top of theirs.

Even though they had come here to bury his wife his thoughts weren’t diminished by her death and loss, rather they were filled with the return of his family. How, he wondered now, had he deserved this miracle? Had he been a good man, righteous, strong in his convictions, repentant for his sins? And what did the answers matter, the universe didn’t care, every event was random, chaos ruled, there was no answer for any question, large or small, only compromises and, perhaps, if one was as lucky as he was, sacrifices.

His arm was around Claire’s shoulders, his eyes were on Aaron, who was perhaps dreaming of the promised celebration later this afternoon, but for Dennis Paull the celebration had already begun.

_____

A DEAFENING silence now engulfed them all, made their legs numb, their hearts thud in their chests, numbed their minds. What remained of Oriel Jovovich Batchuk lay half in, half out of the drawing room, his blood was all over, but not a single drop of Vasily Andreyev’s had been spilled.

“So, it’s over at last,” Gourdjiev said, breaking the awkward silence. “Annika, I’m so terribly sorry you had to hear that.” He went to her, tried to put his arm around her, but she shrugged it off.

“Don’t,” she said, moving away from him.

Jack gingerly unwound Annika’s fingers from the machine pistol. When he took it from her she made no protest, instead she took Alli’s hand and held it tight.

“I knew you were right, I wanted to . . . but I couldn’t.”

“It’s all right,” Alli assured her, “it’s all right.”

Annika stood staring down at her grandfather’s nemesis—her father—with a kind of terrified disbelief. She was holding Alli’s hand so tightly their fingers were white. Jack knew it wasn’t healthy for any of them to remain in this abattoir.

“We need to clean up,” he said.

Annika nodded, but she didn’t move. There were bits of bone stuck to her cheeks and nose, oblique smears of blood elsewhere on her chest and face, including her lips. Gourdjiev stepped agilely over the body and stood in the hallway waiting for them, silent, wrapped in his own enigmatic thoughts. He did not look at his bloody hands.

“How are you?” Jack asked Annika.

Her carnelian eyes were pale and bleak, as if all the mineral quality had leached out of them. “I haven’t the faintest notion, my mind is numb, I feel lost and alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Jack said. “Come on, you and Alli need to clean up.”

He nodded to Alli, and she guided Annika out of the drawing room, past Gourdjiev, stoop-shouldered and gray, and into the bathroom. Jack led the way into the kitchen, where he and Gourdjiev cleaned up as best they could, using the kitchen sink.

Jack watched warm water sluice the muck off his hands. “It’s true, isn’t it, everything Batchuk said.”

Gourdjiev stared out the window over the sink. “Most of it, anyway.”

“So for years you knew he was her father.”

“Yes.”

“But she didn’t.”

“Not until a few minutes ago when you heard about it yourself.”

“It’s no wonder she killed him.”

“To be shot to death by your own child.” Gourdjiev turned back into the kitchen, slowly washed his hands as if reluctant to part with the tangible evidence of Batchuk’s death. “I wish I could say that I felt satisfied, but I fear that revenge is not all it’s cracked up to be; in fact I’m finding it’s rather meaningless. His death won’t bring my Nikki back, it can’t mitigate her pain, and now I think it’s very possible that Annika is lost to me as well. If that happens I’ll have nothing.”

Jack, aware that Annika and Alli had come into the kitchen, their faces and hands clean if not their clothes, said, “Not to worry, you still have Alizarin Group.”

“What, I didn’t hear you.”

“You heard me well enough,” Jack said. “I know you own Alizarin Group. There are six other partners, but you’re Alizarin’s guiding hand.”

“I’m afraid you’re sadly mistaken, young man.”

Jack hefted Batchuk’s machine pistol. “The only thing you should be afraid of is me.”

“I don’t understand.”

During this exchange Gourdjiev was gradually transformed from an old beaten-down grandfather to a stern, ramrod-backed businessman with the keen, knowing eyes of an expert poker player. No wonder he had outsmarted Batchuk, Jack thought. And he knew that he had to guard against succumbing to the same fate.

“The man who poisoned me was employed by Alizarin Group, your company.”

Annika stared at him. “Dyadya, is this true?”

“What nonsense, of course it isn’t.”

“He’s lying,” Alli said. “I was with Jack when he interrogated Vlad. He works for Alizarin Group.” She and Annika stood close together, as if they were sisters standing up to their parents. “Anyway, when Ivan Gurov delivers him to the FSB the truth will come out.”