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A human skull stuck out of the new muddy wall of the pit. It was held in place by plant rootlets and thick clods of earth. It looked at him sideways, grinning around a mouth full of dirt and stones.
As Bruno watched, it detached itself from the mud wall, and rolled gently down the muddy slope, right into his hand.
He lifted it up, took a look. The jaw was no longer attached, but there was no mistaking that missing left eyetooth, and the gold in the top molars. He’d seen those gold teeth a lot, when the guy had been screaming his beery breath into Bruno’s face.
There was a hole in the forehead, between the brow protrusions.
“Hey, Rudy,” he said quietly.
* * *
“No way.”Lily breathed the words out, horrified. “Your heart?”
Sveti, the waiflike girl who was hosted by Tam and Val to go to school in America, nodded from her perch on one of Tam’s sofas. “Yes, my heart, my liver, my kidneys, and corneas, and other things.” Her lilting voice had a faint Ukrainian accent. “They saved me just in time. Nick, Tam, the McClouds, and Alex, too. There was big fight. The heart transplant patient was in next room, waiting for her new heart.”
Lily noticed the butter cookie in her hand. Heart-shaped. She put it down on her napkin, her appetite gone. “So, ah, what happened to her? The heart transplant patient? Did they prosecute her?”
Sveti’s dark lashes swept down over the violet shadows around her dark eyes. “No. She died. She was only fifteen. She couldn’t wait anymore. She was gone by the time police came.”
Lily’s belly contracted. “That’s awful.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Sveti said quietly. “She could barely speak. It was her parents who would have killed me to save her. And the people who took me, and Rachel and the others.”
“Rachel?” Lily’s eyes widened, and she looked at Tam. “You mean, your Rachel? Your little girl? She was…”
“Held captive by organ traffickers, yes.” Tam’s voice was hard. “Rachel was two, three. Bought from an orphanage like a pound of meat. An orphanage which has since closed, its operators nowhere to be found, or else they would be dead. I would see to it. Personally.”
“Most of children were like me, though,” Sveti added. “Children of people who had offended the Vor.”
Lily shivered, in spite of the warm sweater and the hot tea. “Are the people who did this all in jail?”
“Some are dead. Nick and Becca killed the Vor, and some of his people. The others are in jail, and I hope they stay there forever.”
“Me, too,” Lily said, with feeling. “What about the parents of the girl who needed the heart?”
Sveti’s mouth flattened. “They got off free. They pretended they did not know organ donor was still alive. They were very, very rich.”
Lily considered that. “They’ll pay,” she said.
Sveti shrugged. “By having lost their daughter? They would have lost her anyway. But never mind. I try not to think about them. I work, I study, I plan my future. I take an exam tomorrow, to test out of first year in university if I am lucky. I have better things to think about now.”
Lily gazed at Sveti, who was staring out at the ocean. Two entire walls of the huge room were floor to ceiling window looking out miles of desolately beautiful shoreline in both directions and a sea of tossing conifers. Sveti stared at it without seeing it. The girl seemed both so young and so old. Slaving at two different jobs in Seattle to save money for school. Studying all night long. A shadow hung over her, in spite of her youth and beauty. Lily knew all about shadows, and hard work.
She glanced around at the others. Liv was there, Sean’s wife, stretched out on a chaise lounge, and Tam, sipping a mug of tea, a cross-legged pregnant madonna holding court in the middle of one of the couches. Edie sprawled on the floor by a big, low wooden coffee table, her head propped on her elbow, doodling in a sketchbook, head propped on her elbow. Her dark hair made a pool of swirling waves on the sand-colored carpet beneath her head.
The sun was low in the sky, and she’d heard stories from each one of those women that would have curled her hair, if it had not already been frizzed by coastal humidity. Evil geniuses wielding horrific mind control devices, slavering mafiya vors, organ thieves, mysterious psychic powers, stolen babies, whee haw. It was hard to take it all in.
She blew out a breath. “If you guys were trying to make me feel like my problems are trivial, you have almost,almostsucceeded. The difference is that your horror stories are all behind you. I can’t tell you how much I envy you all that small but important detail.”
Tam nodded. “Can’t blame you. But look at us. All in one piece. Living proof that you can get through your horror story, too.”
A chill shuddered through her, in spite of the fire on the hearth. Afternoon was winding down to evening. Still no word from Bruno. Just texts from Kev, saying that the excavation was proceeding, and no attacks yet. Bruno had no time to hold her hand while he dug up the skeletons of his mother’s killer. Give the guy a flipping break, already.
Val appeared in the doorway, holding Liv’s squirming son Eamon in his arms. He cuddled the baby as he strode in, nuzzling the blond curls as he approached Liv’s chaise lounge.
“He’s showing off,” Tam said. “The non-verbal message is, look what a real man I am, in touch with my feminine side. Look and drool.”
A dimple quivered in Val’s lean cheek as he passed the baby to Liv. “He woke up from his nap, and wanted that substance which only you can provide,” he said.
