Owen didn't like any of it. The file on the Mechanic didn't yield anything new as he read. His stomach rolled as he tried not to imagine what might have been removed if this was what was left.
The Mechanic was apparently a solid businessman. There were instances when he turned on the very people who hired him, but where Owen could piece it together, the employer had held out on him in some way. It turned out it was a very bad idea to not pay the Mechanic. Kelly Gilligan did not give second chances.
Owen could only hope that the Kurevs would think themselves above the mechanic's laws and thus find themselves under his fist. Unfortunately, Kaspar was a good businessman himself and would probably maintain a steady relationship.
That was the crux of it. It seemed pretty clear that Kaspar had hired the hit on the cabin. Though there was no real evidence, there was plenty of circumstantial to go around. Given Kaspar’s history of repeat business with the Mechanic, it seemed Kurev was satisfied with what he received.
Apparently the Kurevs had visited Vani Casazza on more than one occasion. In fact, these occasions lined up such that people the Kurevs disliked turned up dead in Mechanic-like ways in very coincidental time frames. Lastly, the Mechanic seemed to currently hold an apartment in a security building in Chicago.
Owen both wanted to laugh at that and to barf up his lunch. The laughter because the deranged assassin seemed to think he was better off with a security doorman. Barfing because it was way too close to Annika and way too far from where he was.
Nguyen was still finding details from the cabin, holed up in his borrowed lab here in Georgia. He calculated out how much carbon monoxide and GHB might have been administered. He asked for Sin's blood so he could test it, but Owen refused. Who knew how star-struck his friend would become if he met Sin in person? And it was also a felony. Bad enough that Owen had the identity and location of an unknown fugitive. He wouldn't put Nguyen or even Sin in that position. But he couldn't stay and babysit anymore.
Standing abruptly at his decision, he shoved the papers down into his briefcase. No worries about getting permission to take the file; he'd simply say he assumed the copies were his. More importantly, he had to get back to Anni as soon as possible and he headed from the lounge back into the lab, knocking on the open door to alert Nguyen as he came in.
"Are you good here? I have to get back to Chicago." He hoped his voice didn't shake like his heart did.
"I'm fine." The lab geek waved him away, barely looking up from his screen.
It was the best Owen was going to get. Still he lingered for a moment, looking over Nguyen's shoulder at the peaks marching in neat pairs on the page. As he watched, his friend tapped the screen with a blue latex covered finger and a set of peaks lit up. He scratched something in his notes. Then he did it again at another peak. A third time, a phantom peak lit on the screen, but in red.
"What's the red?" Owen almost kicked himself as soon as he asked it. He just opened the door to a three-hour lecture.
"Well, this is a DNA analysis."
Yeah, he wasn't that dumb. He couldn't read the peaks like a book, but he knew what DNA graphs looked like.
For some reason, Nguyen took his eyes off the screen and partially turned in the chair. We collected all the prints, and I matched some of the partials. The DNA looks sound."
Owen didn't even know what that meant. What was unsound DNA?
His confusion must have shown on his face. "Unsound would be that I mixed several peoples DNA instead of making a big batch of one person’s. It was a crapshoot, but I got it."
"How can you be sure?"
This time he grabbed a pen and used it as a pointer to tap at the screen. Owen winced and wondered what the local guys thought of his friend coming in and taking over the lab and touching the computer screens. But they were all neck deep in something of their own.
"Here's the kicker." He pointed to two peaks that meant nothing to Owen. "This is female. Since we could rule out our girl as a match, and our guy, and we matched Gilligan, these are the only prints left. And they are all from one woman."
Well, that was something.
Owen was getting ready to say exactly that, but Nguyen didn't have time for observations other than his own. "Some of these sets of genes indicate things. I mean I can't identify her but I can tell you a few things. Like she doesn't have any genes for obesity."
Clearly the person who snuck into the cabin in the night was not struggling with weight issues. He sighed, but his friend didn't hear it.
"And she has brown eyes."
Oh shit. That was something actually useful.
Maybe.
"She's of some Slavic descent. . . Not like fifth-generation American, like first gen or both parents. Or not American."
Holy shit.
Pulling up a chair before he even realized he was doing it, Owen waited for more information.
"She's negative for BRCA—that breast cancer gene, the bad one. She's not a descendant of Genghis Khan."
Not helpful, not helpful, Owen thought. But the words kept coming. "She likely has curly hair, a high reading ability and is a sprinter."
His head swam, it was a lot of information, but how would it help? Probably the most useful was that it was another female. In that line of work, females were rare. Probably not as rare as most would guess, but it did considerably narrow down his suspect pool.
If he had a suspect pool.
The sheer volume of what Nguyen was spouting off from information obtained from poor quality fingerprints was head-spinning. The utter uselessness of most of it was disturbing.
He had to get his brain back in the game. Had to leave the building, book a flight, and get his butt to Chicago where his wife was doing insane things all in the name of helping a friend.
His friend.
And “friend” was a loose term.
"I gotta go." He clapped Nguyen on the shoulder, pushing the chair back and wondering why he'd even sat down in the first place. "Let me know what else you get."
It was a formality that he said it. But he got a hollered out, "Looks like she's cilantro averse!" as he passed through the doors and back out the lobby.
He nodded to the guard and headed into the glaring sun, hoping there was still a flight to O'Hare that he could find a seat on. As light hit him, so did a disturbing sense of foreboding.
Sin glanced around the room. More lush paintings abounded. The fireplace was marble, the tables and couches antique. A mahogany pool table stood in one corner, getting use now that a party had grown up from their initial visit. It seemed the Kurev boys knew Ann Evalyn as a good-time girl. At a soft request she had called friends, Roman had pulled out his phone, and moment by moment the party had grown.
Even Nick showed up, drank some amber colored alcohol and talked shop with Kaspar and Roman. No eye contact was made until they were introduced. Nick not recognizing any of them would help solidify the idea that Sin was "Hayley"—friend of Ann Evalyn, party girl, and basic idiot.
She shook Nick’s hand without the usual firmness of her grip. A good handshake had been solidified by her time as an officer and the need to assert herself as a strong presence from hello. Now, the limp, soft, almost offering-for-a-kiss handshake of "Hayley" felt uncomfortable, but Sin didn't let it show.
"Nicolay?" She drew out the ending of his full name. Kaspar had not given him the title of family in any way. Simply, "This is Nicolae."
The resultant cringe all three men involuntarily offered up at her mangling of the olde world name was fun to watch.
"Just Nick is fine." Even his hand didn't know what to do with her dangling fingers waiting almost for a blessing to the back of her hand.
Kaspar had only nodded to her, but Roman had given her a "Ya vamee ocharovan." Which she didn't have to pretend to not understand. When she shrugged helplessly, he winked. "Enchanted."
She smiled instead of shuddering.
Annika had been introduced as "Annie" and had given solid handshakes and polite but firm looks in the eye to each of the men. She was being billed as the smart one. Thus no one would be surprised that she spoke several languages fluently, had an advanced degree, or a calculating gaze. With the newbie, it was better to stick to the truth.
Aside from seeing him across the room a few times, that was all she had interacted with Nick, or either of the Kurev boys. She'd lingered around the room, making inane comments, getting herself the most complex mixed drink she could, chugging just enough to make it look like she was partying, then warming it in her hands until she could claim the ice melted, making it undrinkable. By the time she'd claimed the vodka tonic, she was pretty sure her reputation as an idiot and a flirt was solidified.
An eclectic mix of people had shown up surprisingly quickly. Somehow she'd thought the Kurevs would draw a mostly Russian crowd, but that was likely her embedded ideas of their father's family, ruled by tradition. These boys were running things differently. While the percentage of Russians was greater than in the general population, she learned that one man was from Ukraine, another from Estonia. Two men very recently from Spain, judging by thick accents, tried to hit on her in tandem. Two Irish men and an Irish woman were at the party—though one man was standoffish and cold, the other two plied her with drinks and dancing.
The crowd was amazingly diverse in heritage, though seemingly single-minded in their ability to come at the beck and call of a known mafia associate. Probably drawn by the lure of open Kurev gates and free drugs and alcohol. Some had spilled out into the hallway, and some had spilled yet more mixed drinks onto the priceless furniture. Sin reminded herself that she didn't care.
She giggled like a schoolgirl, smiling almost shyly as Kaspar had once turned his attention on her. Roman had been a second test, since he had looked directly at her as she pulled the trigger on him just a week ago. Either she had passed with flying colors or the Kurev boys were remarkable actors. In a fair estimate, Roman looked far too stoned to be good at much of anything tonight, leaving Kaspar as her only worry.
Walking up to the bartender who materialized as the party guests had, she held out her glass of vodka tonic. With a shrug and a side glance, asked him, "Is it déclassé to get more ice in this?"
Smiling, he simply scooped nearly perfect cubes into the tall thin glass, bringing the clear liquid to the top with only a few telling bubbles.
It wasn't like she was going to drink it anyway. Like the blond hair, green contacts, and the clothing, the drink was nothing more than a prop. The thought that she might be in the same building as Lee had kept her senses sharp. Though she hadn't heard any telltale thumping coming from stray parts of the mansion, the growing population of the party was a good cover for her to sneak away if she could. She hadn't planned it, but the opportunity had sprung up.
Working her way back through the crowd, she found Annika talking to someone she didn't recognize. From a distance, Sin raised her eyebrows, silently asking if she could interrupt. A return smile, a little too broad and excellently drunk looking, returned her answer.
Sin was proud of herself. She'd learned all these signals by watching, never having had need of them before recently. She'd only worked with Lee, and his codes had been logical, logistical, and far more discrete. The standard party fare had taken some coursework on her part, not having a chance to develop it through normal means.
Reaching out, she snagged Annika's free hand. "Annie! I must find the ladies room. Come with me." Then she turned to the man, apology on her face while her brain cataloged everything she could about him. She'd flip through files and mugshots with Owen later to see who she could identify.
"Sorry, have to go with my bestie!" 'Annie' shrugged. "Hayley? We'll come right back, won't we?" Annika kept her eyes on the man she was speaking to, even as he looked her up and down, her wedding ring not a hurdle to his conscience.
"Of course." Sin dragged her away, chatting with their heads together, speaking of inane party things until they were out of earshot.
They found a nearby restroom with relative ease, though they hadn't asked directions. It provided an excuse for Sin's absence later.
She didn't put bugging the guest bathroom above the Kurev brothers. Standing in close to Annika, she washed her hands, using the water to cover any sounds, and moved her head, shifting her long hair to keep cameras from catching sight of her mouth moving. Getting her lips read could get her killed.
"I need to explore as best I can. I'm going to disappear for a little while if that's okay with you?" Her words were at odds with the slight shrugging motion and the tilt of her head. All of which was designed to suggest she was whispering party secrets to her best friend.
"Yes. What's my plan if you don't come back?" Annika offered a perfect mimic of Sin's safety strategies. Thank god. She was a disturbingly quick study and Sin loved the woman a little bit more every day.
"Go home with Ann Evalyn any time after two a.m. if I'm not back." That would give her an almost two hour window, and she'd either get back, get herself out—which she was perfectly capable of—or get Lee out. She prayed as much as she was capable of for option number three. "Don't wait around. As soon as you get the opportunity after that, just go. And if you feel threatened in any way, get out. I can take care of myself. I need you to get back to Owen."
A small nod confirmed the plan and Sin went on quickly before they ran out of handwashing time. As it was, they were already a little too clinical for a party. "Are you getting anything?"
Annika turned off the water and began to chat openly. Her speech could be interpreted any number of ways, but the message was clear to Sin. "Oh, Hayley! I met this guy, Sergei, and he's totally . . . up there. Like, making bank." She giggled, "Says he's doing secret work and can't tell me about it. He loved that I speak Russian!"
"That's amazing. We'd better get you back in to him then." Holy shit. Annika had landed a decent sized fish. They left the rest room hand-in-hand only because Sin had seen a few of the other party girls doing it. Blending in was essential.
Annika beelined back for Sergei, finding him on a couch and squeezing in next to him. It was brilliant, and could conceivably get her friend in trouble, Sin thought. But she pushed the thought aside. Trouble for the three of them here tonight was a more than fair exchange for Lee's life. Though honestly, she and Nick had Kurev troubles long before now.
It was another fifteen minutes before she managed to beg out of the conversation, claiming to see someone down the hall that she absolutely must speak to. Being a mental midget was great cover, but holding back retorts and fawning over ridiculous statements by puffed up macho men was harder than most anything else. But she'd done it and she was down the hall, past the partiers and around the corner before anyone noticed.
Quietly opening and closing doors, she checked out room after room. She passed two offices, a guest suite, and a library that surely was just for show. There was a den, a sort of private playroom, different from the obvious room for entertainment that the others occupied. The house seemed even disturbingly larger from the inside.
Though Nick had told her what he knew of the place, he hadn't been able to give her much info about the back. He'd not been further back than the party room they were crowding into and spilling out of tonight. He told her the Kurev boys were welcoming to after-parties, that they liked to have people in the house, particularly drunk women. While he’d not fully handed her the keys to the kingdom, he had given her the lock picking kit for it.
Her heart pounded slightly less after she turned the corner and found herself in another back hallway. Back here, there was less chance of being caught, greater likelihood she would find what she needed. Better odds that she could take someone out without shutting down the whole party.
When she hit a back staircase, Sin examined it for a moment, deciding to go down. The narrow staircase was tread in wood planks worn in the middles from many feet going up and down them over time. A servants’ staircase, it likely led to tucked away places off the main portion of the house.
Going with the theory that Lee would make a lot of noise if he could, he was more likely down than up and she hoped she didn’t run into anyone coming the other way.