Page 144 of Lethal Obsession

I try not to think about what will happen to her if the police are on Ivan’s payroll. Thinking that far ahead will drive me crazy.

I don’t blame Seline. Maybe, at the beginning, I was a job to her; if I look back now at our first meeting at a college party, I can see that she made a particular effort to befriend me. But it’s clear that since then she’s done all she can, including lying at great danger to herself, to protect me. And after hearing the way Ivan spoke to her, I have a fairly good idea of the kind of pressure she’s been under.

“Your mother’s hospital bills in Atlanta,” he said, “paid in full . . .”

I think of the stark horror on Seline’s face as he spoke, and also of how bravely defiant she was, even in the face of such a heinous threat. I wonder how long they’ve used her mother’s health to hold her hostage.

As I stumble through the darkness, I think back to the day she read cards for me at my house in Granada. The way her expression became oddly introspective, as if she saw something she didn’t want to explain.

She must have known that she was the betrayal in the cards. That’s why she was so concerned about my security and where Teresa was. She could see what was coming.

It’s why Deda Sergei’s remarks upset her so much.

I round a corner and feel a surge of excitement at the dim light falling across the ankle-deep water. It’s coming from my right—south. I wade toward it, then pause to check for anyone following me. But I can’t hear anything other than rushing water and the distant sound of traffic overhead.

I turn into the new tunnel and wait again. When there’s no sound, I grope around with my back to the wall, until finally I find what I’m looking for—a sharp edge in the corner. I scrape the zip tie back and forth over it until finally the plastic snaps.

The relief of blood rushing back into my hands is profound, not to mention the bliss of finally having more balance. I turn down the tunnel with renewed optimism, able to walk much faster now that I can touch the walls on either side to brace myself.

What do I know about what just happened? I think as I walk down the new tunnel.

One: I know that some Russians by the name of Novikov are chasing Alexei.

Two: I know that they targeted me in the hope that I would lead them to him.

The question is why they targeted me in the first place.

No, I realize. That isn’t really the question. The truth is that I was just low-hanging fruit, as the saying goes. They probably didn’t expect to get anything of any use from Seline when they first convinced her to befriend me.

But then I went ahead and told her everything, I think miserably. During our very first reading.

It was only weeks after my twenty-first birthday, and despite my best intentions to forget him, I was an utter mess. Alone in a new city, with no friends and nobody to confide in. I’d gotten so desperate I almost called Zinaida Melikov. But the thought of crying to one of my father’s closest friends about the same teenage obsession she’d witnessed years before was too humiliating for words. I talked a little to Benny and Lourdes, but they’d already offered the same advice too many times: Forget Pirate Boy, Ofelia, and move the fuck on.

So when I found a tarot reader who seemed not only completely underwhelmed by my unusual family and my wealth, but who showed an almost clinically detached interest in my fixation on Alexei Petrovsky, the relief I felt was akin to someone releasing a pressure valve: I opened my mouth, and the entire story just came tumbling right out.

Nobody needed to target me, I think despairingly. I put the target on my own fucking back.

I have no idea if I’m going the right way. The dim light I’d followed earlier came from a narrow gap in the concrete on the roof, too high for me to reach and too small to be of any real use. Once I pass it the inky darkness envelops me, so complete it makes no difference if I have my eyes open or closed. The tunnel hasn’t curved left or right, so I have to assume it’s still leading south. But I’ve no clue how far I’ve come, nor where I might be now.

And I still don’t know if anyone is following me.

What if I’m going the wrong way?

Fear seizes me with cold, stealthy fingers.

What if there’s more of them, and they know I’m down here?

I halt, suddenly horribly unsure of what to do. Water drips around me, the hollow sound oddly sinister in the dim silence, somehow even more disturbing than the stench of mud or the odd creature brushing past my leg.

Look at me.

I hear Alexei’s voice as if I’m back in the Orlovs’ cell and he’s leaning over me, his blue eye gleaming with arctic fire, a blazing light in the darkness of that place.

Trust me, Ofelia.

I feel the cold thrill of his blade against my skin and remember the strange certainty that, despite the pain, somehow he’s going to keep me safe.

Walk.