AFTER HER SURRENDER, the boys escorted Cassie back inside the service bay, the children following as if she were the Pied Piper. The younger kids cheered and clapped when the older boys forced Cassie back into the Ford’s trunk and slammed the lid on her.
They left her there a long time, over an hour by her estimate. Since she was unrestrained, she could move and protect her body, unlike before. This time she suffered no panic attacks. There was nothing to panic about. She had gained Muriel’s freedom, which was all that mattered.
Finally, the trunk opened once more. Cassie blinked at the bright lights. Two boys hauled her out. A third, his face bruised and bloody, the guard she had overcome and locked into the bathroom earlier, watched, a submachine gun in his arms and an angry scowl on his face.
This time, they dragged Cassie into what used to be the car dealership’s show room area. Kasanov waited, sitting in another expensive leather chair on top a circular dais used to showcase cars. His people sat on the floor on either side of him. Boys nearest him, then girls, and finally young children. There was now another adult, the middle-aged woman she’d seen last night on the steps of the museum. No sign of Vincent; that had to be good. At least she hoped so.
Her captors forced her onto the dais and then down to the floor. They didn’t bother with restraints but the four of them arranged themselves behind her, leaving her no path to escape. Fine by her. Her feet were too sore to run anywhere. And where would she run that the dogs wouldn’t catch her?
Easier to sit and wait for Drake. He’d be here soon; she was certain.
Everyone was silent for a long moment, Kasanov’s people glaring at Cassie as if she were responsible for everything wrong in the world. But not Kasanov. He appeared amused—and angry. A dangerous combination in a man like him.
His expression reminded Cassie of the one her ex-husband used to get when he was drunk and baiting her, setting little traps so that anything she said or did would be the wrong answer and it would be her fault when he lashed out at her.
When she left him, Cassie had vowed never to play those games again. Yet, here she was. But who was playing who?
She opened her mouth to spin another tale, but Kasanov silenced her with a raised hand. “Before you tell me more lies, let me tell you what I know to be true.”
The crowd around him leaned forward, as anxious as Cassie to hear what he had to say. All she had to do was keep him talking—or placated enough to listen to her—until the police arrived. To do that, she could use details from his own story and embellish them, twist them to sound like they’d come from the tales Paddy told her.
“My father was Bernard Lavelle of the Lowara,” Kasanov began, his voice echoing through the large, glass-walled room. “My mother, Mandra Kasanov, also Lowara. I never knew my father. He died before I was born. Assassinated by a traitor to the Roma.”
His eyes grew fierce and he raised a finger to point at Cassie. “Your grandmother, Rosa Costello, and her gaje lover. They murdered my father so they could steal the gold for themselves. That gold is my birthright.”
Cassie sat in silence, the weight of Kasanov’s accusations pinning her in place.
“Rosa also betrayed my mother. The Nazis had captured her. That gold was my father’s only bargaining chip to gain her freedom. When he failed to deliver it, they shipped my mother to the camps. First Ravensbrück and then Auschwitz-Birkenau.”
An audible moan of dismay came from the crowd behind him, several of the girls—led by the woman, Natasha—making shrill noises of grieving, slapping their bodies and faces. Once again Cassie thought about this strange family Natasha and Nickolai had created. More cult than family from what Vincent had told her.
“I was born in Birkenau,” Kasanov continued. “Somehow, thanks to my mother, we survived when so many others did not. She raised me to never forget. That no matter where I went or what I did, my heart was Roma. That a blood debt must always be repaid.”
He stood, glaring down at Cassie. “And tonight that debt has come due.”
Two guards held her in place as the other two left and returned, carrying a khaki vest bristling with wires, pockets bulging with what looked like plastic explosives. Cassie tried to struggle, but it was useless.
“What have you done?” Cassie cried out from where she knelt on the floor, hoping to warn the children. As the first two pinned her down, the other two lowered the vest over her head and secured it with chains and a padlock.
The vest was heavy—at least twenty pounds—and she had no idea how the explosives were triggered, but there was a mercury level sitting at the top of the vest’s neckline, forcing her to hold still, barely breathing. “You’ll kill us all.”
<<<>>>
AS JIMMY DROVE, Drake leaned back in his seat and allowed the city streets to blur around him. He felt exhausted, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. Ever since Steadfast went up in flames last night—God, was it only last night?—his mind had been speeding through a maze filled with twists, turns, and dead ends.
“A scavenger hunt,” he muttered.
“More like smoke and mirrors,” Jimmy said. “Sending us in one direction while he moves in another.”
“Herding us like cattle.” Drake sat upright. “I’m not even sure Alicia actually killed Anton or that this is about his death at all. I can’t stop thinking…something Hart used to say about her grandmother…”
“What?” Jimmy scoffed. “Don’t tell me we’re resorting to gypsy fortune telling now? I know Hart acts like she can really hear her grandmother’s ghost, but—”
“Ghost. That’s it. The alias the landlady used, Natasha Mulo. Mulo is the gypsy word for ghost.”
“So? There’s plenty of gypsies in Eastern Europe. No reason why they couldn’t be partnered with Kasanov.”
“The Roma don’t usually partner with outsiders. Gaje, they call us. They stick with their own clans. It’s all about family.” He thought back to Kasanov’s words earlier. “If Anton was Kasanov’s grandson, then Natasha is probably related to him as well. What if they’re all Roma?”
Jimmy shrugged. “Not sure how that would make a difference. Gangsters are gangsters.”
“All those women he killed when he was younger. It’s been bothering me—they all look like Rosa. The way he tortured them, it was like it was personal.”
“Or like he’s a sadistic psycho nut job.”
Drake buried his face in his hands, his fingers raking through his hair as he strained to remember everything Hart had told him about Rosa.
Think, Drake, think. He closed his eyes for a moment. He remembered Hart smoothing his hand over Rosa’s quilt, her voice hypnotic, boring its way into his soul as she told the story of how the quilt saved her grandmother’s life. A warm tingling flowed through him just as it had that night, from Hart’s hand into his heart. But the details—they were vague.
Another memory hit him with jackhammer ferocity. Hart, naked in bed, still flushed with their lovemaking, embarrassed that she’d hurled a Gypsy—no, Roma, she’d called it Roma—curse at him earlier when they’d been arguing. He couldn’t even remember now what the fight was about, it had ended like all of their fights—in bed with no one losing, a satisfying resolution for all parties.
Drake shook his head in frustration. He couldn’t remember the words, just the images—the delicate flush of Hart’s skin as she blushed in embarrassment, the crooked smile she’d given him, the gleam in her eyes as she’d defended her grandmother despite the fact that Rosa’s people had cast her out, shunned her.
What else, what else? There was more, he knew it. He just couldn’t force the memories to the surface right now, not with everything else clouding his mind. Including that last image of Hart, head turned to look over her naked shoulder, smiling at him, making him feel like he was the only man in creation.
“What if this is really about Hart? And her grandmother?” he asked Jimmy. “Nothing to do with me or my being a cop.”
“Then what the hell has Anton’s death or Alicia or the fact that you were named in his case file have to do with anything?”
“I was the detective on call that weekend. Maybe the whole thing was a set up?”
“To what end? If Kasanov wanted Hart, he could have taken her at any time. Ditto for you or Alicia. And why kill his own grandson, the one he was depending on to save the family business? It doesn’t make sense.”
They sped across the Hot Metal Bridge. “You’re right. I just feel like we’re missing something.” He broke off as they pulled into the federal building. A few minutes later, they were back in the situation room with Prescott, Taylor, and Texas.
“Do you have anything?” Drake asked. They all looked up with bleary eyes, each shaking their heads. Even Prescott appeared less than dapper, his suit jacket wrinkled and creased, a coffee stain marring his silk tie.
“Medical examiner wasn’t much help,” Texas started. “Said Anton was definitely alive when he was run over and his tox screen was negative. But there are a ton of things they don’t test for on the routine tox screen that could have incapacitated him. Also, he didn’t have the typical pattern of injuries resulting from being thrown up onto the car on impact, so it is possible that he was already down when struck, but there’s no way to prove it.”
“How about you two?” Prescott asked Drake and Jimmy. “Did you find anything at the warehouse where they left your mother? Has she remembered anything helpful?”
“No, but I might have. Those women Kasanov killed when he was younger, were any of them gypsy? Roma?” Drake asked.
Prescott frowned at him as if he’d begun speaking in tongues, but Taylor jerked his head up from his computer. “How’d you know that? They all were—and so were some other deaths I found attributed to Kasanov. They weren’t all women, some were men. Signs of torture as well as signs of someone searching for something at their crime scenes.”
Drake exchanged glances with Jimmy. “Rosa Costello Hart—Cassie’s grandmother,” he began, his voice gaining breakneck speed as he tried to tell them everything he could remember. “She was a Kalderasha gypsy. Hart told me when she was young, in—” he searched his memory, listened for her voice in his memory, “1936, there was a meeting of the gypsy families. They were going to travel together, protect each other, and escape from Hitler. But their camp was attacked. Rosa and a few other women—no one else from her clan,” he frowned, that wasn’t the word Hart had used, but close enough, “survived. They took Rosa to a work farm but she escaped to,” he stumbled, “Budapest. Then she travelled across Europe and eventually joined the French Resistance. She met her husband, Padraic Hart, when she rescued him after his ship was sunk by a U-boat off the French coast.”
Texas held up a hand, scribbling furiously. Drake noted that the agent also had a tape recorder going.
Prescott rocked forward with anticipation. “Good, what else? Any mention of Kasanov?”
“None that I heard of. They got married, moved to Pennsylvania after the war and lived happily ever after.” He frowned. “Hart told me once that Rosa was shunned, declared unclean, by her people because she married an outsider.”
“Did she give you any details? Names? Places? Dates?”
“No—to her it was ancient family history—stories to pass on to her own kids someday…” His voice trailed off as he finished that thought to its logical conclusion.
To Hart’s conclusion—dead and buried, no kids. She would have made a wonderful mother. He had to swallow hard before he could face the others.
“Does Hart have anything of her grandmother’s?” Prescott persisted, unwilling to drop any investigative thread, no matter how flimsy. “Journals? Photos?”
“No.” The single syllable was all Drake could manage.
“Cassie lost everything when her house burned down this summer,” Jimmy finished for him.
Prescott looked up at that. “Arson?” he asked, an eager gleam in his eye.
“Yes, but the actor wasn’t Kasanov,” Jimmy assured him.
“So we need to find friends of Rosa Costello, people she may have confided in. Somewhere she and Kasanov must have crossed paths. He’s looking for something, something important enough to keep him searching for all these years.”
“A quest,” Drake whispered.
Jimmy nodded eagerly. “Maybe not one of his own choosing either. Maybe something passed down generations, even.”
“Like a blood feud? Until it found the twisted, sick sonofabitch willing to see it through to the bitter end.”
Prescott was nodding in unison with them. “God help us, it makes sense in a warped sort of way.”
“How does this help us find him now? And Hart?” Drake asked, feeling more frustrated than ever.
“Maybe it doesn’t, but this might,” Taylor said. “Here’s a list of properties held by the same LLC as the house Anton Lavelle lived in.” Several photos and satellite imagery popped up on the screen. All businesses that would make it easy to launder cash the old-fashioned way, without computer manipulation: a dry cleaner, convenience store, used car dealership turned salvage yard, and a fast food restaurant.
“There. Where’s that one at?” Drake said, pointing to the salvage operation. It was perfect. Secluded, off the main highway, fenced in with security that wouldn’t draw any undue attention. Perfect location to hide vehicles—or a hostage.
“Off Noblestown Road, southwest of Carnegie,” Taylor answered.
“Out of our jurisdiction,” Jimmy said.
“But not ours,” Prescott put in. “Taylor, start working on warrants. Call the locals, arrange for a drive by of each of these properties.”
“Call the sheriff’s department,” Drake added. “They have FLIR on their helicopter, can use the infrared to see if anyone is inside any of those buildings. It will be faster and safer than sending patrol cars.” He headed toward the door. No more sitting and watching while others did the work of saving Hart.
“Wait,” Prescott called after him. “Hart could be at any one of them. If we can’t pinpoint which one, then the only way to make sure they don’t know we’re coming is to arrange to hit them simultaneously.”
Drake ignored him. Done with waiting, he was already out the door, Jimmy hard on his heels.