“And that’s when you called me,” said Toby.
“Yeah.” She watched him hang the camera on his shoulder. “You sounded like you were asleep.”
He shook his head. “I just didn’t expect a call.”
“I almost didn’t call.”
“Anything not to blow that cover, huh?”
She shrugged.
“Well, I’m glad you did.”
They let that sit a moment, then Rachel asked, “Did you get anything from the name?”
He rocked his head. “I knew about Grigory Orlov already. Until he was forced out two years ago, Orlov was a CEO of MirGaz, Russia’s third-largest natural gas producer. Things had gone bad with Putin, and then came the fraud charges. He fled the country with his wife Jelena and daughter Marina. Got a place in Nob Hill.” He looked around at the high walls. “This must’ve been a vacation rental. What’s the name of Kožul’s agency?”
“Veritude Properties. Out of Oakland.”
“We can check on that,” he said. “Anyway, rumors around the Russian community are that Grigory Orlov’s been helping Human Rights Watch prepare a report on the government-sponsored murders of journalists in Russia. It’s supposed to come out next month.”
“That would explain the business card.”
He nodded, but didn’t press her to go downstairs, which she appreciated. Then she connected a few obvious dots. “You’re thinking this was a Russian hit job?”
“I’m just telling you what I know,” he said, then wondered aloud: “But if so, then why all of this? Why bring all of you up here? Why all the partying? You want to kill someone, you do it alone. He didn’t say anything to you?”
“Just lies,” she said. Then: “And my name.”
“What?”
“At the end, he said my real name.”
“How the hell did he learn that?”
“That’s a question.”
Toby smiled grimly, then wandered into the next room, which was filled with a long, twenty-seater dining table and a chandelier. The bright paintings on the wall reminded her of David Hockney, and very well might have been. “What happened next?” he asked, his restless fingertips marking staccato smears on the oak surface of the table.
“I can admit to being freaked out,” she said. “But they were okay. Drugged, yes, but each pulse was steady, and they were breathing. For the moment, they were safe, and you were on your way. I had a decision to make.” She pulled out a high-backed chair and settled at the table, rested her hands on her knees, thinking back to that moment. “To speak or not to speak? Maybe, if I said nothing, nothing would happen. We would have our little party while they slept, and then leave. Maybe that was all he’d done—knock out a family so that we could use their place for some fun.” She looked up at Toby, who was frowning. “Psychotic, yes, but maybe that was it. They wake to a trashed house—freaked out but unharmed. But then … why? Why go so far just for a little fun?” As she remembered that moment of decision in the musty basement, her mouth filled with saliva, and she swallowed. “Alternately, I go at him. Confront him. Why did you knock out a whole family? How would he react? I couldn’t imagine he’d wanted us to discover the family—he’d hidden them for a reason. He’d dragged the father down the stairs and scratched the guy’s head on the way down; that had taken a lot of effort.” She scratched her brow, thinking of that cut. “Maybe drawing attention to them would put them in harm’s way. I didn’t know.”
“But you decided on something.”
An involuntary smile shivered across her face. “To wait for you. But then … then I heard something that forced me to move.”
“What did you hear?”
“Gunshots.”