KATYA PACED BACK and forth in her kitchen. Her feet slapped against the cold limestone tile. Her chest blazed with the hot discomfort of too much acid. Perhaps because of her pregnancy. She feared the real cause might be her breaking heart.
Why hadn’t he stayed with her tonight?
Aleksei claimed he loved her. He barely touched her. They spent almost no time together. Her pregnancy was a minor miracle. She had blamed herself for the distance between them. Maybe if she didn’t work so much. Maybe if she tried a little harder to please him. She had hoped a baby would cement their bond, would provide a way to fix their marriage.
What if she couldn’t fix it?
For a while now, she had suspected he was only going through the motions. Appeasing her. To be fair, concentrating too much on baby making could kill the heat in any relationship, but she was having trouble remembering when there had been any heat in hers. She suspected he was saving his passion for someone else.
Her cell phone rang. Nick was calling her. He had been trying to reach her all day. She couldn’t bring herself to answer his calls. Nick had witnessed an ugliness last night that she would prefer not to remember. Her drunken husband had hit her and made her nose bleed.
She wanted so badly to believe it was an accident. He hadn’t meant it. He loved her, right? It had been the alcohol, that was all.
An affair might be the least of their problems.
She opened the refrigerator. On the door shelf was a tall bottle of Grey Goose, relatively new, now almost empty. In a fit of pique, she yanked the bottle from the shelf, twisted off the top, and poured the remaining liquid down the drain.
She kicked the base cabinet open with her foot and ripped a new garbage bag from the roll under the sink. Snapping it in the air, she returned to the fridge on a mission.
She scouted every last beer bottle and threw it into her trash bag. The bottles made a satisfying clink as one hit the next.
She threw the bag of loot over her shoulder and marched to the den. She threw open the cabinet to the bar. The assorted bottles of liquor with the fine cut glass and oddly shaped tops were nearly empty. Damn it, Aleksei.
With one arm, she scooped the bottles into her garbage bag. Aleksei would complain. He liked the good stuff. She was probably throwing away hundreds of dollars of top-shelf liquor. It might be the only thing she’d done in weeks that he would notice.
She marched out the side door with her haul of bottles and yanked open the top of one of the metal garbage cans. The city wouldn’t haul the trash for a couple of days, but at least the alcohol wouldn’t be in the house.
Would that stop Aleskei or merely slow him down?
The evening air cooled the angry flush in her cheeks. She stood outside her home, forcing herself to take deep breaths. Before she could approximate anything approaching calm, a car she didn’t recognize pulled into her driveway.
Two men in wrinkled suits got out. She recognized one, the detective who had questioned the staff at Troika last night. What was his name? Rodriguez? Ramirez? Rosales? She couldn’t remember now.
She had sat beside him for the better part of last night helping to interview the Troika staff and marveling that a man with such impressive forearms and formidable shoulders could have such a gentle and coaxing demeanor. The waitresses had all been nervous to talk to the authorities, but they had all succumbed to the light in his chocolate-colored eyes and the dimples in his cheeks, subconsciously returning his encouraging smile and playing with their hair.
“Good evening, Mrs. Koslovsky. You might remember me. I’m Detective Rosales, and this is Detective Sharp. Is your husband here? We’d like to ask him a few questions.”
“No, he’s not.”
“Do you know where we can find him?”
“He’s at Troika.”
“We were just at the nightclub. He wasn’t there,” Sharp said. He reminded her of a turtle with his large rounded nose and bulgy eyes.
“Oh,” she said. “Then I don’t know where he is.” Where had Aleksei gone when he sped away from her?
“Are you sure?” Rosales asked, suspicious, perhaps with good reason. He had walked into the bar last night after Aleksei had hit her and heard her make an excuse for him. Shame heated her cheeks. Likely he thought she was covering for Aleksei … again.
“He said he was going to Troika. If he’s not there, I honestly don’t know where he is.” She made herself look him in the eye.
“Then maybe you could help us.”
“Okay,” she said uncertainly. “Do you want to come inside?”
The detectives exchanged what seemed like surprised glances and followed her through the side entrance of the house. “Can I get you anything? I could make some coffee.”
“That’s not necessary,” Rosales said. He had a manilla folder in his hands. He opened it on the kitchen counter and pulled out a photograph. “Do you recognize this man?”
She studied the hazy picture, a shot of a portrait that seemed to have been cropped from a photo and blown up in size. She vaguely recognized the blunt features set in a round face, but the helmet of curly hair was distinctive. “Yes. His name’s Stan. I don’t remember his last name. He works for Aleksei. At the International Pharmacy on Brighton Beach Avenue. He’s one of the pharmacists.”
“He works for your husband?” Sharp asked. Rosales shot him a quelling look.
“Yes. Why?” She didn’t particularly like Stan, but overly unctuous manners and the occasional leering look weren’t crimes that would interest the police.
“The photo was taken last night at Troika,” Rosales said. “We need to ask him a few questions.”
Although she couldn’t see how the pieces fit together, she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was somehow connected and kept circling back to Aleksei—his sister, his friend, his pharmacist, his nightclub. What did it all mean?
Rosales gently pulled the photo from her numb fingers and put it back into his folder. He pressed his card into her hand. “If you need anything, anything at all, please call.”
He was offering her help. She wasn’t sure what kind. The gesture made her nervous. What more was going on beneath the surface? What didn’t she know?
“Do you want me to tell Aleksei you were looking for him?”
Sharp said, “It might be better if you don’t mention we were here.”