Firebird Page 15

  She held her ground. “I’m done running,” she said quietly. “Understand this, Garcia. My daughter is my world. But she won’t be safe if I do nothing.”

  “Brave thoughts. And your niece?”

  She turned away from him, her hands tightening on the ship railing. “A mother becomes fierce when her child is in danger. There’s nothing I won’t do to keep my niece and my own child safe.”

  “Easy, Mama Bear.” He swore under his breath.

  “I’m not going to break another promise to Eve’s daughter. And I won’t let anyone hurt Ruby ever again.”

  “I should walk away from this,” he murmured.

  “No,” she said simply. “It’s the right thing. You won’t walk.” She turned her face toward the sea. “We’ve got to find the man who attacked me – he’s got to be the monster who murdered my sister.”

  “I’ll find him, count on it. But my gut says he’s just the icing, Chica. And I want the whole damned cake.”

  “We both do.”

  “Then I have conditions,” he said slowly. “No negotiating. No compromises, no regrets.” His eyes locked with hers. “We are not partners. You’ll tell me all you know, and you’ll stay out of my way.” The edge in his voice, very clearly, said ‘or go find yourself someone else.’

  She stared at him. Arrogant as hell. “Two way street,” she murmured.

  “My way street.” His smile was unrepentant. “I’m the best at what I do, Chica. That’s a fact. We’re going to do this by the books. Esta bien. We’ll need to keep your girls out of this.”

  Your girls… I was right about you, she thought. “Juliet’s school is well-guarded. I’ve arranged with the Mother Superior for extra security. Jules has someone with her all the time. I’ll need you to arrange additional protection for her – and for Ruby, too.”

  “Done. I’ve got friends, ex Secret Service. Then what?”

  “I need to fill in the blanks of my sister’s life, especially since the last night she saw Charles Fraser. This is what I’m good at, Garcia. Knowledge, reason, facts - not emotions. Follow a trail step by step, look for the logical connections. Last month I followed the provenance of a questionable Matisse all the way to a filthy basement beneath a fado club in Portugal.”

  “Scholar by day, Indiana Jones by night,” he murmured. “And the trail for your sister begins…?”

  “Right here in Washington, with the three names Eve gave me. You, Ivan, and Charles ‘Jesus’ Fraser.”

  “Me, a faceless Russian, and a dead man. Can my night get any better?”

  “I didn’t say it would be easy.”

  He smiled wryly. “Nothing about you seems easy, Red. And I’m still not convinced that three names on your sister’s recording are so all-damned-important that someone would attack you on the cliffs.”

  Her eyes held his. “Eve went all the way to Maine to hide that information, Garcia. It had to be important.”

  He looked out at the black water. “Okay,” he said at last. “You want Ivan. We need a strategy.”

  “Already have one.” She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a folded envelope and a newspaper clipping. “The envelope holds a transcript of Eve’s recording. And I’ve found this Washington Post article on Fraser’s funeral. There’s a photo of an ‘unidentified family member’ - you see? - the woman in the dark coat. Her face is partly hidden by her hood, but I think I saw her at Eve’s funeral as well.”

  She handed him the clipping. “If we can’t talk to Fraser then we talk to someone close to him. It seems he had a younger half sister. Help me find the woman in this photograph. I’ll take it from there.”

  He gazed at the hooded woman. “You’ve done your research.”

  “You can get lost in research,” she said quietly. “It keeps you from thinking about… other problems.”

  “Esta bien. Can you get me those photographs of Eve in St. Petersburg?”

  She thought of Anthony’s face, gaunt with anguish. “I’ll find a way.”

  Headlamps speared the night air and rolled toward them down the pier.

  “Finally!” he muttered, turning to her. “Get some rest, Red. Tomorrow, we begin to find out what happened to your sister.”

  She shook her head, reached for her sneakers, moved across the deck.

  “Red. Is there anything else you’re hiding?”

  She gazed at him silently. Then, ignoring his outstretched hand, she jumped to the dock and turned. “What made you change your mind, Garcia?”

  “You fight dirty, Chica,” he murmured. “You had me when you played ‘the kids card.’”

  She nodded. “I think you might be a hero, after all. You won’t regret this, Garcia.”

  “I already do, Alexandra.”

  A brief wave, then she ran toward the taxi and disappeared like a shadow vanishing into the mist.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Her aspect and her eyes...”

  Lord Byron

  The glowing dial on his watch showed almost 3 a.m.

  Garcia sat in the darkness, brooding, while black clouds flew across the night sky.

  He drank. Drank again. Damn, he thought. One moment you’re sitting on your boat in the rain, playing the guitar. And the next moment a woman steps out of the mist into your life and all hell breaks loose!

  Had someone sent her?

  Two bodies already, here in D.C. Before this was over, he had a feeling there’d be more bodies than a Jimmy Cagney movie. And Alexandra Marik still hadn’t told him everything, he was sure of it. What was she hiding?

  Christ, he’d stood there and watched the grief swim behind those bruised eyes. Those damned eyes of hers spoke volumes.

  Fool, he thought. You’ve seriously underestimated her. Don’t you recognize a potential disaster when it’s punching you in the stomach? She’s using you. This one doesn’t begin to pass the smell test.

  He returned his sailor’s gaze to the dark water. She reminded him of the sea... eddying, gleaming. Dangerous. So he had doubts about her. What else was new? Alexandra Marik might be using him. But he could use her, too.

  And yet - he kept coming back to his mother’s words, repeated so many times over the years. “Always do right.”

  Always do right.

  He thought about the name Alexandra given him. Ivan. There had been rumors circling in D.C. for years, hinting that a very highly placed Russian spy had gone underground. So deep that even his handlers had lost track of him. Could it be true? Her attacker had to be searching for something besides that recording. But what? What else did Alexandra Marik know? He reached down to ruffle the coat of the Lab stretched out by his boots.

  This woman was like a room with a half-closed door. Shadows and darkness - but that tantalizing glimpse of light along the edge. Do I walk away? he asked himself. Or do I walk through the door.

  “Did she just draw me in or did I do this to myself, Hoove?” The dog regarded him gravely. “Yeah. And either way I’m the guy bringing a knife to the gunfight.”

  Hoover growled low in this throat. “That bad, huh?” Just walk through the damned door. Before he could change his mind, Garcia drew his cell phone from his jacket and punched in a familiar number.

  “Wake up, Chief,” he said when his ex-boss answered. “It’s me. Si, I’m still alive. You haven’t given my job away yet, have you?” He smiled, listening to the torrent of words. “Bueno. Because we may finally have a real lead in the Charles Fraser case. I think we’ve found ourselves the silver bullet – and my ticket back to the show. Eve Rhodes.”

  He smiled at the shocked response, then said, “Esta bien. I thought that would make your day. I’ll meet you in your office at oh-seven-hundred. Sharp.”

  He nodded, spoke again. “No, not by the books this time. There’s this woman – she could be very valuable to us. But I don’t want her hurt.”

  He held the phone close and chuckled. “Okay, so she’s good looking. But it’s not about that,” he said firmly. “She’s a
curator, could be helpful with the Russian mob pushing into the Upper East Side art scene. But that’s not the ace. You sitting down, Chief? She’s Eve Rhodes’ sister.”

  He held the phone away from his ear, knowing the reaction his news would elicit.

  “Hold on,” he said, stopping the flow of words. “Problem is, she’s turned out to be a force to be reckoned with. Too smart for her own good, fiercely independent, intensely private. Not the best combination for us. Maybe too damned outside the box to give us what we need. ” He pictured her standing in the rain with those huge wild eyes, breathing hard, trying to tuck that too-short, oddly sexy hair behind her ears. Determination radiating from the slender frame. Refusing to show hurt.

  And then, “I know, I know. There’s always a fine line between loyalty and betrayal, isn’t there?”

  The voice on the other end spoke at length.

  “Si. I promised her answers if she would help me.” He shrugged. “No. Of course I didn’t tell her, I’m not a fool… She thinks I’m still in the Criminal Division. No, you don’t have to remind me of how critical this election is. We’ve got one week to take care of this. But Charles Fraser and Eve Rhodes are dead. And now there’s another Russian in the mix. No, not Yuri Belankov. A guy named Ivan, no last name. Something bad is coming down, Chief -”

  His boss interrupted with a question.

  “David Rossinski? No, she has no idea that our Vice Presidential nominee could be involved. But whoever is calling the shots - they won’t let anyone stop them. And now it’s Alexandra Marik who’s standing directly in harm’s way.”

  Another low question in his ear.

  “She’s given us the smoking gun. Eve Rhodes is the missing link we’ve been looking for. I just read the official report on her death. Sounds like a snow job. Alexandra Marik is going to help us learn her sister’s secrets.”

  One final demand from the voice in his ear.

  “No, you can’t have her,” said Garcia. “She’s mine. I’m on this. She’s a means to an end, and I’ll find out what she’s hiding. I’ve got to involve her now, I have no choice.” He pictured her, narrow shoulders squared, defiant. “She can handle it.”

  But can I?

  His employer spoke once more.

  “My thoughts exactly, Chief,” murmured Garcia. “This isn’t going to end well.”

  He severed the connection.

  I think you might be a hero afterall, she’d said. But sometimes heroes had to do terrible things. He looked down at the Lab. “Fitzgerald said, ‘Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.’”

  Curled on the gently rocking deck, Hoover raised his silky head as if he agreed with Fitzgerald. “Yeah. We’ve got trouble, Hoove. I need advice. Got anything?”

  The Lab shook the rain off his fur, his single eye bright with thought. Then he offered a low bark. “Si,” murmured Garcia, nodding. “She’s got more secrets than Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. Alexandra Marik is at the center of this storm, she’s the common thread linking everyone else together.”

  But did she know it?

  He closed his eyes, but all he could see was the silhouette of a beautiful, secretive woman, her hair sparking in the lantern’s light. Wearing her grief like armor. She disturbed the intelligence, damn her.

  Garcia stared toward the horizon for a long time, watching the dawn sky stain the river red as blood.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Let us look for the woman.”

  Alexandre Dumas

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27

  “You’re sure this is the address you want, Lady?” The young cab driver shook his head with disbelief.

  Alexandra looked out at the landscape of Minnesota Avenue in Southeast D.C., bleak and depressing in the morning light. Only a twenty minute taxi ride from Anthony Rhodes’ home on Q Street, the neighborhood was worlds away from the aristocratic townhouses of Georgetown.

  This section of Minnesota Avenue resembled a war zone. She gazed at the grimed buildings crowded together on cracked asphalt, windows broken, garbage piled in doorways. What possible connection could Eve have with this place?

  Garcia had given her the lead, calling still-in-bed-before-coffee-early.

  “I’ve tracked down the woman from Fraser’s funeral,” he’d told her, his low voice intimate and unsettling against her ear. “You were right. Charles Fraser had one surviving relative - a much younger half-sister. Her name is Billie Jordan. No personal details available, but her business address is Good Samaritan Church basement, on Minnesota in Southeast D.C.”

  “A basement?”

  “That’s the only address my source had. Just be careful.”

  “It’s a church, Garcia.”

  “In that neighborhood, Red, even the padres carry guns!”

  She grinned. “I’ll be sure to steer clear of all gun-toting priests. I owe you, Garcia.”

  “I always collect what I’m owed, Alexandra,” he warned. “With interest.” She could hear the amusement, and something more, in the deep voice.

  “Meter’s runnin’, Lady!” The driver’s impatience drew her back to Minnesota Avenue. He handed her a card with the taxi company’s number. “Call us when you’re ready to leave.”

  Something whispered in her head, disappeared before she could catch it.

  Okay. It was time to find Billie Jordan. Alexandra thrust several bills into the driver’s hand and stepped onto the broken sidewalk.

  Even the pale autumn sunlight that bathed Good Samaritan Church could not disguise the stained, crumbling stone. She heard the music softly at first, carried on the breeze, from the south side of the church, and she moved down the littered alley, stepping with care over empty beer cans and broken glass, following the sound.

  Women’s voices, singing Blues. One voice, a pure and beautiful soprano, soared above the rest. She pushed open the door and followed the voices down the narrow basement stairs.

  The room at the end of the hallway was big and threadbare, smelling of stale donuts, coffee, and pine cleanser. Metal folding tables and chairs clustered at one end in front of a narrow cluttered kitchen. Ancient posters of mournful saints and bingo-supper announcements plastered the white-washed walls.

  In the center of the room, a dozen women stood in a semi-circle, singing. Mostly African American and Hispanic, they were young and old, dressed in jeans and drab loose sweaters, with lined, tired faces. But their eyes shone with the joy of the music.

  The choir director stood in the center of the group, with her back to Alexandra. Very tall, slender and dark, with silver-tipped coal hair cropped close to her head, she stood out from the dull colors in a long African dress of crimson and vibrant blue. Huge silver earrings brushed against her smooth blue-black skin and caught the light as she moved her head.

  “The river is deep and the river is wide,” sang the women, “Alleluia...”

  Sad, soulful, and haunting. It was glorious music, and Alexandra stood very still in the doorway, transfixed.

  “Lay-dees!” cried the choral director in exasperation. “Milk and honey. Huh-huh-honey, not money. E-nun-cee-ate. Now, again.”

  They sang again, smiling. “Milk and huh-ney on the other side...” Then, as the women saw Alexandra step into the room, one by one they stopped singing.

  “Charise, girl, what is your damage?” cried the director suddenly. She caught their expressions and turned. The eyes that fixed on Alexandra were chocolate brown, brilliant and filled with distrust.

  And familiar. It was the face from the newspaper clipping of Charles Fraser’s funeral.

  “If you’re looking for the set of Sister Act, it’s down the hall,” said the choir director. “No nuns in this room.” The other women chuckled.

  “I’m looking for Billie Jordan. And I believe I’ve found her?”

  The woman raised a queenly brow. “Only Billie Jordan I know.” She gestured toward a metal folding chair. “Have a seat. We’ll talk when practice is over.”
>
  She turned and clapped her hands. “Attention, my Lay-dees...”

  * * * *

  “I run a tight ship here,” said Billie Jordan in her velvety voice as she chopped carrots skillfully at a long counter. “No ebonics, no cussing, no spandex or nail polish, no substances of any kind - and absolutely no butt-high skirts on anybody!”

  Behind Alexandra, huge pots on a commercial stove bubbled with vegetable stew while the smell of hot bread drifted from the oven.

  “Will you arrange those flowers, Lavonda?” called Billie to a small young woman who moved slowly from table to table, head down, setting soup-spoons on clean white cloths. “My lay-dees will be here in twenty minutes.”

  “Lavonda is fifteen,” Billie said quietly. “Abused all her life. Pregnant at fourteen, and now she has a crack baby in foster care. She hasn’t spoken since she came to us last month. Maybe she never will.”

  As the two women watched the girl set bright flowers into glass jars, Billie caught Alexandra staring at the purple bruises on the girl’s stick-thin arms.

  “She’s been beaten,” whispered Alexandra. “She’s just a child…”

  Hearing something in Alexandra’s voice, Billie Jordan stared down at her. “We’re a shelter, Ms. - Alexandra, did you say? Our shelters are full of battered women. Every nine seconds, another woman is a victim of violence. And more than one-third of the women in ERs, like Lavonda, are damaged by husbands or boyfriends.” She shook her head back and forth. “By men who insist they love them!”

  Alexandra willed herself not to flinch. “I know,” said Jordan quietly. “They come in all colors and sizes. Rich, poor, black, white. They live in a world of rape and abuse – and, often as not, crack, poverty, homelessness. Beaten down by life as well as fists!”

  Angrily, she waved the sharp paring knife in the air. “I bargain for wilted flowers every morning, from a florist on Benning Road. I fight for every limp stick of celery, sing Hallelujah if someone donates fresh chickens! I’ll do whatever it takes. It’s a damned tough world out there, with no money to make the problems disappear.”