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His phone rang from his pocket. When he looked at the display, the caller was listed as unknown.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Lyonya.” He reorganized the deep, accented voice of Tolya Sakharov.
“Tolya,” Lyon said. “I didn’t expect to hear from you.”
Alek looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Ah yes,” Tolya said smoothly. “I apologize for my hasty exit from Prague. I still have certain… business interests elsewhere. I’m afraid my presence was required.”
“I understand,” Lyon said.
“I’m still digging,” Tolya said. “But I do have a name for you. Something to tide you over.”
“I’m listening,” Lyon said.
“Does the name David Chaban mean anything to you?”
“It does.” Lyon pictured Chaban’s thinning hair, the stomach that pulled at the seams of his cheap shirts when he sat around the warehouse conference table, the hurried manner in which he always seemed to arrive at meetings.
“Start there,” Tolya said. “I’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead.
26
Kira pulled up to the gated entrance off the road and pressed the intercom button on the control panel. She took in the cameras mounted on the stone pillars that flanked the drive, the electronic keypad designed for those who lived and worked on the estate.
“Name?” The impersonal voice sounded tinny coming from the control box.
“Kira Baranov.” She hurried to make a correction. “Kira Baranov Antonov.”
The surnames carried power of differing varieties. She needed them both.
The gates swung open.
Kira drove through and started up a paved drive that meandered through trees on either side. The approach was reminiscent of the home where Lyon had kept her prisoner after he’d brought her back from the island. The Lake Forest neighborhood felt familiar, and she wondered if the house where she’d been held after her return from the island was somewhere in the vicinity.
She’d been too disoriented, too frightened, to pay attention when they’d finally left the house for the apartment downtown.
She emerged from the drive almost two full minutes after pulling through the gates. The pavement led her to a parking area on the left. It would be out of view from inside the house, keeping the focus on a wide lawn at the front, several modern steel sculptures interspersed with mature trees and shrubs that looked they’d been there forever.
But it wasn’t the landscaping that left her speechless. It was the house, not the elegant, historical style she’d expected, but a sleek modern series of interconnected buildings that looked like they’d been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright himself.
She parked the car next to a bottle-green Jag and got out of the car, her gaze taking in the home set on a small hill behind the sweeping front lawn.
Maybe ithadbeen designed by Wright.
She stepped off the paved parking area and onto a gravel path that led her around a towering metal abstract. At its base, boxwood had been left to grow wild. The shrubs clung to the base, adding a natural element to the composition that looked intentional.
The path wound toward the front doors, sheltered by a deep overhang that must have provided shade in the summer. Glass lined the front of the house, and she craned her neck, taking in the second floor, a balcony that ran the length of the house sheltered from view by a solid cedar banister.
There were no steps leading to a porch. The walkway continued all the way up to a set of double doors twice as tall and six times as wide as Kira.
She rang the bell, and a moment later it was opened by a young woman, her blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, a picture book in one hand.
Kira opened her mouth to speak but stopped short when the woman turned to shout behind her.
