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“Since we’re around and you’re around, maybe the four of us can get together again. Take the kids somewhere.”
“Uh…sure.” He’s still holding me, so I make a point of checking my watch. “I’m going to be late.”
“Oh, sorry,” he says, releasing me and stepping backward.
I give an awkward wave and rush past, bypassing the teachers’ lounge and heading to my office, which I share with four other teacher’s aides. Our desks are divided by low partitions, and I slip my coat off, hang it on the rack by the door, and walk to the back corner where my desk is.
I’m glad no one’s here yet and I can be alone. Sinking into my chair, I take a deep breath in and count as I slowly exhale, then repeat.
Josh may have been imagining seeing someone in the woods. It’s not like I actually saw anyone; it was just a feeling. But then there was the feeling of being followed when I went to Daniel’s Point. And all those other times this past week.
The door opens, and two of the other aides enter, talking loudly.
I force a smile and look up to find them each carrying a piece of cake and a cup of coffee.
“Good morning,” I say.
“Morning, Katie,” Maria and Hannah say almost simultaneously. “You’d better hurry if you want cake. It’s Mr. Barnaby’s birthday.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“I know.” Hannah giggles. “We’re just as shocked as you are that he brought cake.”
Mr. Barnaby is the principal and must be a hundred years old at least. And for as friendly as most of the teachers are, he’s a bit of a grump.
“I’ll go grab some in a minute. I just have to finish something up.” I tap the keyboard to bring my computer to life and punch in my passcode. I don’t have anything to finish, but I need to think. To plan. Because if it is Lev, if he’s found me or if they’ve found me, I don’t have an exit plan.
I find the folder labeled Kindie Notes and open it. Within that, I click through two more innocuously named folders before I get to the one with just a year on it. It’s the year I met Lev Antonov.
Opening it, I click through into the single file there. It’s password protected, and I punch in the code. The date Nina was killed. Figured I’d never forget that.
I don’t know what I expect to find. Do I think it’s someone from Lev’s world come to take back what they wanted that night? It’s not like they’d know I have it or know anything about me at all. The only person who knows I even exist is Lev, but that does little to comfort me. I know how dangerous he is. I know what he’s capable of.
The day after I left, I talked to Rachel. I needed to tell her I was all right. That I was sorry for leaving like I did and that she could find the cash I’d stashed to cover my share of the rent and groceries for two months.
She told me what had happened. That Lev had turned up at the apartment soon after I left. He’d looked disheveled and smelled like fire. His clothes were dirty and spotted, and although I knew what those spots were, if she realized it, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
She told me he took my things and left and gave her money to get lost.
I haven’t talked to her since, but I call her number now and again just to hear her voice and know she’s safe. Know he hasn’t gone after her. I never leave a message or even say hello. I don’t want to put her in any danger.
I punch in the last digit of the password, and the file fills my screen.
It’s a list about three pages long. A list of names. I recognize some. All have at least one date beside them. Some have a second.
Government officials, federal agents, retired and active politicians, among others. Most are powerful, connected men. Some are dead. Most of the dead men have that second date entered. The ones without that second date are mostly still living.
The dead share one thing in common. They all died tragically in some sort of accident—a car wreck, skiing accident, something random.
So, I did the math. I remember how much Nina used that term. I hated when she did. It was usually when she was annoyed with something or found something stupid.
But I did the math.
Her father stole this list from the Russian mob, and Lev was looking for it that night. Lev killed her family for this list, and my guess is it’s a list of informants, of people in Vasily Stanislov’s pocket.
“There you are,” Janet, the older teacher with whom I work, says, startling me as she sets a piece of cake on the corner of my desk.
