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Resisting the urge to cover my breasts, I approach him and reach for the IDs.
I don’t know how long it’s been since the last woman was taken or how any of them died. I won’t find those answers in the plastic cards in his hand. But I’ll have their names, addresses, and birthdays. It’s something.
As my fingers clamp onto them, he doesn’t let go. Nostrils flaring, he pulls the licenses back as if trying to pull me in, wrench me closer.
“Leo,” I whisper. “Please.”
“This is a bad idea.” His eyes shut, and he inhales sharply. “Don’t make me regret it.” He releases the IDs with a conflicted glare.
I retreat to the far corner and quickly flip through them, looking for something recognizable. Something that might connect them to me.
Three have Alaska addresses. One is California. I pause on the fifth one.
Gretchen Stolz. Wolf’s mother. The woman who stabbed Leonid. She’s from Iowa?
So many questions.
Some of these appear so old I decide to start there, sorting them by expiration date from oldest to newest.
Helena Weiss
Kaya Knowles
Gretchen Stolz
Jasmine Noel
Alyssa Yang
Helena Weiss’s license expired twenty-five years ago. The newest one, Alyssa Yang, expired only two years ago.
“He’s been doing this a long time.” I try not to fall apart in their icy silence, but my voice breaks. “Will the next woman stand here topless, too, holding six IDs, asking the same questions? Is that how this goes?”
“You’re the only one who’s ever seen those,” Leonid says.
My head snaps up. “Why?”
When he doesn’t respond, I return to the IDs. None of the names are familiar. None lived near Sitka. The photos show young, beautiful faces in their mid-twenties. Maybe thirties. Hard to determine their ages at the time of the abductions, but their birthdays…whoa. If they were alive today, some of them would be in their forties and fifties.
Like Helena Weiss.
I glance between Leonid and her photo, the latter blurry and yellow. It looks like her hair may have been red? She has some of Leonid’s traits, the same face shape and strong nose.
“Is this your mother?” I hold up her license.
“Show me your cunt.”
My body temperature spikes, burning with shock, anger, and something else.
“No.” I point at the photo. “You look just like her.” That’s not exactly true. I might be bluffing a little. “But tell me this. Why does she have a California address when you were born in Fairbanks?”
“Take off your pants.” His jaw stiffens.
“We’re on the same team. Stop being a dick.”
“There’s something so goddamn appealing about hearing that word on your lips. Say it again. Say dick, and I’ll give it to you.”
He’ll give me his dick but not the answers I seek?
Pressing my lips together, I search for a good reason not to ram my foot up his ass.
“Playing hard to get.” He sucks on his bottom lip. “Just like all the women I’ve killed.”
My blood turns to ice.
“Enough.” Kodiak shoves off the floor, rising to his full, dangerous height. He looks livid, his eyes feral, staring at his brother like he wants to rearrange his face. “Get out.”
“You’re siding with her?” Slowly, threateningly, Leonid edges toward me.
If they start throwing punches, I’m not sticking around for it. I snatch the hoodie from the floor and tug it on without the bra. In my haste, I don’t notice Kodiak reaching for me until the IDs are ripped from my hand.
“Wait!” I scramble to reclaim them.
He holds me back with a stiff arm as the licenses are returned to the crate. The lid goes back on, and with a hard kick, he sends the gruesome time capsule to its dusty home beneath the workbench.
“I’m not finished with that.” Leonid charges toward the crate. “Frankie, take off your fucking top. We had a deal, and you’ll see it through.”
That cruel male promise makes me bare my teeth.
I can come back for the crate later. Besides, those IDs will only lead to more assumptions and more questions. To learn who those women are and what happened to them, I must hear it from the demons standing before me.
What was their involvement with the women? Are they their murderers? Sons? Lovers?
“You’re not thinking clearly, asshole.” Kodiak blocks his path. “Frankie, go upstairs.”
I should. I really should. But…
“I want answers.” I glance back and forth between their rigid stances, desperate to know what they’re hiding. “Why all the secrecy? We’re in this together. I can help you—”
“You can help me,” Leonid snarls, “by sitting on my dick and proving how together we are.”
“No.” Anger fires through my veins. “I’m not having sex with you.”
“You stand there demanding my secrets, yet you’re holding the dirtiest secret between your legs. What are you hiding, Frankie? Are you mangled and hideous down there? Did that fetus chew its way out before you killed it on the hillside?”
