Twenty-Nine

In the apartment, I shake Roxanne awake and show her the photo of the uninvited guest at Izmaylovsky’s funeral.

“Is this your father?” I ask.

Roxanne snarls at me and pushes the photo away. She tries to bury herself beneath the sheets again, but I yank them away.

“I’ve had enough of this,” I yell. “Look at you. You’re killing yourself with this junk and you don’t give a damn. People want to help—let them.”

Roxanne glares at me, her pupils enlarging and dilating as though attempting to journey back from a dark pit, until her throat suddenly bulges, then she grabs the bucket I left by the side of her bed and vomits into it.

“Charming,” I say before heading into the bathroom and retrieving a cold, wet cloth.

When I return to the bedroom, I press the cloth against her forehead as she dry heaves into the bucket. When she’s done, I use a corner of it to wipe the sticky edges of her eyes and mouth.

“How is this helping?” I ask. “Your sister is being held by a Russian mobster and you’re shooting poison into your veins.”

“Don’t fucking judge me,” Roxanne croaks.

“Somebody has to. And better it’s someone who gives a damn.”

“Why?” she snarls. “What the fuck do you care what happens to me or my sister? You’re nobody to us.”

“I’m involved.”

“Who asked you to be?”

I shake my head. “No one.”

“Exactly.”

She sits up and attempts to swing her legs over the side of the bed, but her lower body doesn’t cooperate and she ends up flopping back onto the pillows.

“What I do,” she continues in frustration, “is none of your damn business.”

“So you like being a whore and a junkie and a waste of space?” I growl.

“Maybe I do.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, too bad, because you don’t know me from spit on the ground.”

“And yet I want to help you.”

“That’s your problem.”

I sigh and show her the photo again. “Is this your father?”

This time she studies it. “Yeah. So what?”

“Do you know when he went missing? Was it before or after Alimzhan Izmaylovsky’s funeral?”

“Who? I wasn’t even born yet, how would I know?”

“Bailey never talked about it?”

Roxanne shrugs and looks away. “Yeah, OK, she did.”

“Did she mention a date?”

Roxanne’s lips curl with the full intent of telling a lie, but then relax as though deciding the truth is easier.

“June twenty-first,” she says. “Bailey baked these chocolate cupcakes on the anniversary every year. They were supposedly dad’s favorite and she thought if he smelled them baking, he would come home.” She wipes at her eyes. “For a while she even had me believing it, too.”

I flip the photo over to reveal the date of the funeral. June 28.

“He was alive when this photo was taken,” I say. “That’s seven days after he left the apartment.”

“So?”

“If he was alive a week after his disappearance, there’s no reason to think he isn’t still.”

Roxanne’s laugh is soft, dark, and laced with bile. “Maybe you should bake some cupcakes, then,” she says snarkily. “He might smell them and come running.”

When Pinch arrives, he’s dressed in pristine head-to-toe black and sporting a fashionable pair of Winklepicker boots with pointed toes so sharp they look dangerous.

His eyes are hard as he steps through the door and takes in the room, and I worry that I’ve pissed him off by asking for yet another favor. Without saying a word, he brushes his hand over the shotgun-shell damage to the left of the door, his index finger flicking off traces of dried blood. My attacker’s blood. Mikhail’s blood.

Next, he glances up at the bullet hole in the ceiling as though calculating the angle, and finally he fixes his gaze on Roxanne, who’s sitting on the couch nervously chewing her nails. I can read the same concern on his face that crossed mine when I wondered how Mikhail knew where to find us.

“The fresh air isn’t doing you much good, darling,” he says. “You looked better with a three-hundred-pound sailor on your back instead of this monkey.”

Roxanne flashes him the finger.

Pinch turns to me. “Never trust a junkie, Dix. Ever. They’ll take your good intentions and sharpen them into knives to throw back in your face. If she’s involved, I’m not.”

“She’s not involved,” I say, making the decision on the spot.

“Like hell I’m not! You’re going after my sister. I need to be there.”

Pinch glares at me. “Have you told her what you’re planning?”

“None of the details.”

“What about the address?”

I shake my head.

“I am still here,” Roxanne shouts.

“That’s a problem we need to fix,” says Pinch.

“Hey, fuck you, shorty!”

I grab Roxanne’s arm and yank her to her feet. “I need you to go next door—”

“Fuck you, too,” Roxanne snarls. “It’s my sister.”

“But Pinch is right. You can’t be trusted.” My voice breaks slightly, but I batten down the hatches and lock them tight. “I should have known better. I wanted to believe that nobody could possibly choose to live like you do. But you never wanted to leave, did you? That’s why Bailey had such a difficult time finding you. The sister she remembers died a long time ago.”

“You have no right to keep me here.”

“I know,” I say. “But I can’t risk you roaming free. Not yet. Once Bailey is back, you can choose your life. I won’t stop you.”

I march her across the hall and knock on the door. When Kristy answers, I push Roxanne inside.

“Sorry,” I say, “but I need a favor. You still keep a set of handcuffs? Good ones?”

Kristy nods and Roxanne’s eyes widen as I relate what needs to be done.