“Go home. I don’t need you.”

Landry went down the spiral stairs and left the stable. Lights were on in Elena’s house but not in the main house. Sean was probably with her. They were probably having a drink. Avadon would be asking questions. Elena would give him the play-by-play. They would share their disbelief, their shock, their grief.

He knew he wasn’t invited. She would be pissed as hell if he tried to join them. He hadn’t known Irina more than in passing. He would have been a stranger intruding. Elena didn’t want him there anyway. She had made that decision. She didn’t want a relationship, didn’t need him. He was surprised she had allowed him to stroke the back of her head as they sat on the park bench. A weak moment. He wished it had lasted longer.

Pushing the thought aside, he got into his car and started the engine. He had a job to do, and the night was young.

Alexi Kulak went out the back door of the bar and began to pace. Back and forth, back and forth, the same four strides over and over, like a caged animal. He couldn’t hear the noise from the bar for the pounding inside his brain. He was unaware of his surroundings, except for knowing that it was night and the only light came from a bulb over the door to the bar.

Irina dead. That couldn’t be. That could not have happened. He wasn’t going to believe it. There had to be some kind of mistake.

He felt sick and angry and… and lost. Things like this did not happen to him. He was the one always in control. The world around him ran according to his rules, by his permission. It was inconceivable that some person had come into his world and done this terrible thing. It just couldn’t be.

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket with trembling hands and pressed the number for her cell phone. It didn’t matter that he had already called that number twice and had been passed immediately to voice mail.

“This is Irina. Please leave message. ”

He waited impatiently for the beep. “Irina? Irina, answer the goddamn phone. Answer me! Answer me!”

He screamed into the phone, still pacing. Sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes. His hair was wet with it. His heart was pounding.

“Irina? Irina!”

He called her name over and over, until finally the only sound that came out of him was a wild animal cry of pain.

Alexi Kulak was well-known for his mastery over his emotions. Most people would have said he didn’t have any, but that was not true. In that moment he knew the kind of grief from which the only escape is death. In that moment he knew the kind of fury that could scorch the earth and everything on it. In that moment he knew the kind of hopelessness that crushed the spirit.

Irina was dead. He knew it now. He felt the absence of her life force. The emptiness was like an anvil pressing down on him.

His phone fell from his hand and bounced on the cracked pavement. He put his hands to his face, feeling the heat of his tears, and he dropped to his knees and slumped forward, heedless of the impeccably tailored suit he wore.

What did it matter, a suit? It meant nothing. Nothing meant anything. Irina was gone, dead, murdered, her life torn from her and crushed. Her body was cast aside like the carcass of an animal, thrown into a filthy canal.

What mattered now was that someone would have to pay for her death. He would find that person. He would find that person, and that person would suffer in every conceivable way until they begged and prayed for death.

This Alexi Kulak promised, and all knew that Alexi Kulak was a man of his word.

Chapter 11

The cell phone was encrusted with pink crystals. Very girlish, which surprised him. Irina had been in no other way a child. Old far beyond her years, he thought. Jaded in a way one didn’t expect. An old soul, some would say.

He didn’t believe in souls.

The ring tone the phone played when it was being called was classical, melancholy.

The thing had been ringing all evening. He waited for several moments after the song had played, then opened the phone. The screen told him there was voice mail. He touched the call button and listened.

There were three messages, all of them in Russian, all from the same man. The tone of the first message was casual. Tension crept into the second one. Tension and impatience. The third call was desperate, panicked.

He saved the messages, then scrolled through the menu to settings and to voice message.

“This is Irina. Please leave message. ”

He hit the button again.

“This is Irina. Please leave message… This is Irina. Please leave message… This is Irina. Please leave message… This is Irina. Please leave message…”

Chapter 12

I had the shower and the drink, but as exhausted as I was, I didn’t go to bed after Sean left. What would have been the point of it? I would have slept fitfully for a couple of hours, if I slept at all. I would have been up prowling the house at two in the morning, avoiding even making an effort to go back to sleep, because I knew that nightmares were lying in wait for me.

A little wax to spike up the hair a bit. A pair of slim dark jeans, a simple black top, sexy sandals. Mascara, lip gloss, and a pair of diamond earrings. At least I looked presentable, even if I didn’t feel fit for public interaction.

Landry’s car turned into the drive, and he parked and stood beside it for several moments, looking my way. I watched through the barely opened plantation shutters in my bedroom. Then he turned and went to Sean’s house.

I waited for a couple of minutes, then left, driving at a crawl, hoping no one would hear me leave.

Players was relatively tame on Monday nights. Everyone who had to have a job had to be at that job bright and early Tuesday morning. Hangovers were not a good idea for people who had to muck stalls and ride horses all day in the South Florida sun. Those who didn’t have to have jobs were free to do as they pleased, but with a shortage of twenty-something girls looking for a good time, the club didn’t hold the appeal it did on the weekend.

The entertainment for the evening was a Jimmy Buffett wannabe with a guitar, a harmonica, and a bad-looking aloha shirt (as if there is some other kind). He had a guy on keyboard who wore a captain’s hat and a double-breasted blue blazer with shiny brass buttons, and a drummer who was young enough, and looked bored and embarrassed enough, to be the son of one of them.

I walked into the bar and skirted the dance floor, where a dozen people were drunk enough to have lost their inhibitions. I’ve always thought there should be a public-service ad showing video of middle-aged drunk people dancing. The rate of alcoholism would surely plummet, simply from the humiliation factor.

The bartender, a hunky young fellow with dark eyes and five o’clock shadow, came over as I took a seat toward the end of the bar.

“What can I get for you, ma’am?”

“For starters, you can not call me ma’am, you darling boy,” I said with a wry smile tucking up the right corner of my mouth. “How do you ever expect to have a mad hot affair with an older woman if you treat them like your old aunt Biddie?”

He grinned. Excellent orthodontia. “What was I thinking?”

“I can’t imagine. Next, you can bring me Ketel One vodka with tonic and a big squeeze of lemon.”

“You got it.”

He turned away to see to it. Someone had abandoned a pack of cigarettes on the bar. I helped myself to one, feeling vaguely guilty, not that I had stolen it but that I was smoking at all. Filthy habit. When he came back with the drink, I asked him his name.

“Kayne Jackson.”

“Kayne Jackson. My God, you’re a soap star waiting to happen,” I said. “Kayne Jackson, I’m Elena Estes.” I took a sip of the drink, savored it, and sighed. “It’s a wonderful pleasure to meet you. Were you working here Saturday night?”