“You’re alive!” Georgia breathed. “Are you hurt? How long have you been here?”
Savannah giggled through the vent. At least Georgia thought it was a giggle. “I can’t believe it! Is it really you?”
“It is.” Georgia felt her throat get thick. She blinked rapidly. “Tell me everything.”
Savannah breathed in through her nose, and Georgia realized what she’d thought was a giggle was actually a sob. “It won’t do any good.”
“Don’t say that.” Georgia felt her eyes fill. She wished she could wipe her eyes with her sleeve but her hands were tied. “Tell me what you look like.”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m pretty. Blond. Blue eyes. But I’m too thin.”
“I wish I could see you. How old are you?”
“Almost sixteen.”
“How long have you been in Chicago?”
“Since last March.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Denver.”
“I never knew about you, you know.”
“I just found out about you, too. Mom told me.”
Long-buried memories surfaced for Georgia. Her mother holding her hand in the supermarket. Taking her to school on her first day of kindergarten. Watching her rip open Christmas presents. And then the long days and nights after she’d gone and Georgia waited for her to come back. She wanted to ask Savannah what her mother was like, but now wasn’t the time. “Why’d you leave?”
Savannah hesitated. “Long story.”
“We’ve got time.”
Savannah explained how she’d run away, how she’d ended up in Chicago, how she’d met Lazlo, which led to trafficking and heroin, which led to Vlad. Then she stopped. “Wait. Why are you here? Didn’t Sergei warn you?”
Surprised, Georgia sat back on her haunches. “About what? I got your note a while ago. I’ve been looking for you ever since.”
“But I told you not to.”
Georgia frowned. “No, you told me to find you. That you were pregnant and you needed me.”
“Oh fuck. I told Sergei to tell you to ignore it. He forced me to write it. I— ”
“Sergei?”
“No. Vlad.”
“You know Vlad?”
“Of course I know Vlad. I’m pregnant with his baby. He and I—hey, wait. How do you know Vlad?”
“Hold on. Are you saying that Vlad forced you to write me that note?”
“Yes. Exactly. It was a trap. I even tried to call you. But the guard snatched the phone away.”
The call she’d gotten while she was investigating the flash rob. It hadn’t been a butt dial. She frowned, remembering something else. “But your DNA was on the napkin. I had it tested.”
“He pricked my finger and made me smear it on the wrapper. He knew you’d do that. He’s been trying to reel you in.”
Georgia remembered Boris talking about Vlad playing cat and mouse. Leaving bread crumbs to trap his prey.
“The next day I begged Sergei to set you straight. Instead he was killed. Vlad must have found out I’d sent him and had him killed.” Vanna let out a strangled sob. “Oh fuck. Now he’s going to kill me, too.”
“Stop. Sergei’s murder wasn’t your fault, Savannah. Sergei was a double. A stoolie. He was working for someone else in the Russian mob. One of Vlad’s enemies. Vlad killed him to send that guy a message.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been trying to find you for a few weeks. In the process, I’ve discovered a lot of things.”
“How did you know it was Vlad?’
“I saw him in a car two nights ago.” She ran her tongue around her lips. There was one piece of the puzzle she still didn’t understand. “But how did he figure out you were my sister?”
Savannah hesitated. “It was my fault,” she said. “When I first met him, I bragged. I told him you’d get me out of here.”
“You told him my name?”
Her voice cracked. “I—I told him I had a sister here and he asked your name. Then…” This time her voice broke. “…he asked if you were a cop.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I didn’t know. But then I remembered Mom saying she’d been married to a cop in Chicago, and I figured…well, it was possible.”
A cold weight settled in Georgia’s chest. “I was. A cop.”
“I thought so. As soon as he heard your name, he began to plan. And then later, when he was fucking me, he started talking all this crazy shit. About dangling bait on a hook. Figuring out how to get you to come to him.” She was sobbing now. “I’m sorry, Georgia.”
With a rush of comprehension, the scale of it all became clear to Georgia. She’d told Boris she suspected she’d been played. She had. Set up from the beginning. Everything she’d done or discovered about Zoya, Chad Coe, Lotwin, and the baby-breeding and organ businesses had been orchestrated by him. The DNA, the note, Claudia Nyquist, too. It was an elaborate trap set by a vindictive thug. The irony was that against all odds, it had worked. Her jaw clenched.
She was about to ask Savannah more when someone with leather soles on their boots clattered up the stairs. Seconds later a key twisted the doorknob of her room.