Chapter 21
In daylight, Natasha could see that the foliage in the cemetery was fruit trees, a contradiction that struck her abhorrent. That something life-giving—edible—was grown from the rot of the dead….? Her stomach blanched, and as an apple blossom brushed silkily against her cheek this too made her shudder. Apples, the fruit of knowledge. She re-faced Haslom’s marker—
ENDLESS SLEEP
—keenly aware that it was knowledge she’d come for. “Vincent Haslom,” she murmured. “Will you come if I call you today?”
A breeze moved through the graveyard and a distant set of windchimes trilled like the sound of tinkling laughter. Startled, she looked their direction.
No Shadows.
“No matter,” she whispered, but shakily. She had watched Jakob communicate with the Dead many times, not with “Show” like when they commanded their Shadows, but instead—she mimicked him, open palms to the sky “C-come,” she said.
Nothing.
She cleared her throat. “Come.”
Sun beat through the trees, a wash of light and silence. She stared at ENDLESS SLEEP. “Wake up,” she spat. “Come. Come tell me who you killed in Alberta. Come tell me whose body she helped you hide. Come tell me: does that person’s descendants now carry a grudge against…against…” She looked away from the tombstone. “…against your descendants?”
Nothing. Not even windchimes, pealing laughter. Her open palms fell to her sides. What had made her think she could be Jakob? He was stronger, would always be stronger, both her auntie andhis father had been psychic. Her father, though…she kicked the tombstone. “Damn you, then Show!”
Eager Shadows skirled in her ears, a screech making her wince as the landscape grew dark. “V-vince Haslom?” she whispered, but the Shadows formed smaller shapes, feminine, and one—Silva!—strode past her, brusque. Then a second Shadow, Auntie Danieta, Jakob’s matka, rushed, a flurry at Silva’s heels. “Stop!” Danieta panted. “Silva, wait.”
Her mother whirled, silver hair, gold eyes, and majesty as she sneered at her sister. “Why? So I can hear more preaching, Danieta? More of your self-righteous sanctimony?”
Danieta’s jaw went granite. “You would really condone sleeping with a married man, sestra? A married man with a child?”
Silva tossed her head, hair catching light. “Love knows no rules, sestra.” Each word was punctuated by a sharp poke into Danieta’s chest. Natasha grimaced along with her Auntie’s Shadow.
“But that does not mean there are no rules!” Danieta rubbed her chest where Silva had jabbed her. “Please, Silva. Try to understand—”
“Understand what? That people become possessions once they wear a gold band? That’s not love, Danieta! That’s ownership. That’s greed.”
Danieta’s gaze flashed, all entreaty gone. “None of this would be such a mess if you hadn’t helped that…that bastard hide Galinko!”
Galinko? Natasha stopped breathing. The man Haslom had killed had been named Galinko? The teenager who had ambushed her, swiped her with the red brush—and kicked me! He kicked me! He broke my ribs!—he too had been Galinko. “No,” she murmured, but a churn in her belly said yes, and her thread of Shadows became lost as she sank down, shocked and trembling against Haslom’s grave. Galinko. Two dead men named Galinko—and both deaths hidden by two women named Nikoslav. Silva, and…“Me,” she whispered, and memory rushed back with clarity. She had been with a doctor when her assailant (Galinko!) had died—red paint had seeped into her left eye and she’d needed treatment. Later, she’d been wearing an eye patch when the policii arrived, and that, along with her broken ribs, had made it difficult to answer the door at their sharp knock.
The officers had quickly concluded that she could not possibly have been strong enough—or have seen well enough—to have hung and gutted someone in an act of revenge. But—“Where’s your cousin, Ms. Nikoslav? People say he’s awful protective of you.”
Where was Jakob? She hadn’t known. Hadn’t needed to know. Jakob was always with her; she could hear him, in her head, just like he could hear her in his. “I know you get lonely, little sestranek.” Something he’d told her since they were just children. So no matter where I am we can always talk.”
She’d called him then, frantic
—Jakob? Where are you?—
and eternity had slipped by before
—Vancouver—
he answered.
—Tell them I am in Vancouver—
Vancouver. And wasn’t it ironic that he was also there now? Yet….back then, Auntie Danieta, having moved to the coast by that time, had confirmed the same: “Jakob was with me in Vancouver.”
Natasha had wondered ever since if the real reason Danieta had then quickly relocated to Europe was to stay out of the sight and the mind of the policii, lest they reopen the investigation on her son. You would have to really love someone to cover for them if they caused someone to die. When she’d said it this morning she’d no idea what they—all of them, apparently—had done. “But…what about Elayna?” How was she connected to any of this? Could Cory Chandler’s lament to ‘be true’ be nothing more than her Shadows showing unrelated events from the past? Or…a question darkened her gut, made her inch away from ENDLESS SLEEP. What had Elayna’s name been before it was Chandler?
The windchimes, trilled again, said Galinko.
She jumped up. She needed to get to the gallery.
***
Owen needed to get to Sondra’s treatment center. He’d prodded Jessalyn to spill everything to Cory: the storybooks, the threats, and the connections to Echo Creek and Vince Haslom—and as she ’fessed up, he watched his old teaching Lieutenant.
Cory’s face remained impassive, an expression Owen had worn himself back on the streets. Yet seeing it on Jessalyn’s dad made him wonder: did civilians have any clue how many times cops were just as unnerved by things seen and heard as the public was?
And Cory was disquieted. After hearing it all he said he’d take Jessalyn back to the Okanagan in his vehicle—he had more questions he wanted to ask—and that left Owen on his own with her truck. So now he cruised the Downtown East Side, eyes scanning the streets for anyone he once knew. The informants. The junkies he’d busted. The junkies he’d trusted.
The junkies who’d trusted him.
No one looked familiar, and he’d texted the last number Sondra had called from but got no reply. But then again, she was in rehab—and the facility she’d been mandated to was miles away from here in Vancouver’s East Hastings.
Didn’t matter. Something had made him need to touch base here anyway, the pit of despair where his brother said the ‘shit of society’ lived. “Not be choice, Steve,” he murmured and slowed to a crawl, lingering until the Downtown East Side had no choice but to be a reflection in his rear view. Still, he wondered: would someone like Steve, with his absolute definitions of right and wrong, ever believe that wrecked lives led to this place, not the reverse? The people here…every one of them had been broken beyond repair well before their feet ever hit the grime of these streets.
Well…almost every one of them. Before Hastings Street, he and Sondra had both been the clean-cut cuties Sabrina had teased him about. But then they’d been assigned here, and…he glanced into the mirror again and the compulsion to crank the wheel, turn around, was so strong he began shaking.
He hit the gas.
The shakes lifted as soon as he crossed into West Van, yet his breath still rattled as he parked in the visitor’s lot of Solstice Treatment For Women, a sixty-bed facility bumped up against what he supposed was its greatest selling feature—an ocean view here on B.C.’s ever-coveted Sunshine Coast.
He hated it suddenly, and longed for the cocoon of the Okanagan Valley, for its fragrant orchards and Vestemere’s sleepy streets, the endless Pacific nowhere in sight.
He tucked his collar up, entered Solstice. Inside, the foyer of quiet colors and dim lights could not quite cloak the undercurrent of detox gripping his nostrils—and memory. Dope smelled different when it left the body than it did going in, became a stench foul albeit faint. He lifted his knuckles to nose and breathed in the blank scent of his skin as he approached reception. “Evening.” He dialed up his billion-watt smile. “I’d like to leave a note for one of your residents, Sondra Mitchell.”
Reception, a woman who looked hard enough to have once been a client, said “I’m afraid I can’t help you. We can’t confirm or deny anyone’s enrollment here.”
He sustained wattage. “Yeah, but I already know she’s here. I just want to pass on a mess—”
“I’m sorry. No.”
He chewed back the urge to bark but then, through the foyer, a straggling group of addicts made a beeline for the door, cigs rolling between their fingers, the one vice they couldn’t break. He cleared his throat and, loud enough for them to hear, said “Really? You can’t even tell me if Sondra Mitchell’s here or not?”
Reception glared, fully aware of what he’d just done, and he felt his big smile become cheeky. “Thanks anyway,” he said, then trooped out after the smokers.
They’d scattered, the flick of their lighters clicking like a chorus. He bopped a look around for any who might talk and—“Hey Romeo,” said a voice at his back.
A human rail leaned against the outside wall, thin hair and skin like a puddle of milk. Methamphetamine. He knew it the way anyone who’d ever hung out on the street could tell a meth head from a crack freak. A needle popper from a garden variety drunk. “Hey.” He gave her a billion watts.
“You talkin’’bout that little redheaded cop who gots her ass tossed here to clean up?”
“Yeah.” He dug in his pockets. Did he have any cash? “Want to pass on a message?”
“I’d loves to, Romeo, but I can’ts. She’s gone.”
Gone? His gut dropped. Milk-skin read his face. “Not dead, Romeo. Jesus.” She took a drag and exhaled a few ghostly rings with a round, ruined mouth. Yep, definitely methamphetamine. “Just gone. Took off late last night.”
Fuck, Sondra! She’d blow any hope at a more lenient sentence.
Milk-Skin smiled every addict’s sly smile. “You knows she shoulda stayed.” She took another drag, blew more rings. “I knows it too, but…” A philosophical shrug. “When you got the jones, you got the jones.”
A jones. Right. The jones that had always been more important than anything—their operation, her badge…him. Why the hell wouldn’t it also be more important than going to prison? Goddammit! He dug deep in his jeans, pulled out a five dollar bill. “Here,” he said, and flicked it at Milk-Skin.
She cackled. “What the hells I’m gonna do with five bucks, Romeo?”
“Go buy some junk from the vending machine,” he told her and memory flashed, the Tsarina with her shopping cart full of potato chips. Surprisingly, it made him smile.
“Aw,” said Milk-Skin, watching him. “You’s thinkin’ ’bout your sweetheart.”
The smile drained off his face. Sondra had cut and run and, like so many times before, he wanted to throttle her.
Hold her.
Tell her to screw herself once and for all.
Race back to Hastings Street to be with her.
Rain began spitting as he climbed back into Jessalyn’s truck, and when he leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, the increasingly heavy patter created a rhythm to drift on.
When he lifted his head Natasha Nikoslav stood up the street, hair plastered to her cheeks and clothes soaked from the rain. “Tsarina?” He squinted, shocked when she looked his direction, appearing to hear him even though he sat, warm and dry, in the cab of the truck.
Then she flinched as something propelled through the rain and hit her. Shit! A rock! And that downpour she stood in—that wasn’t rain.
She lifted one hand, touched her collarbone where the rock had struck. Her fingers came away pink, blood diluted into watercolor from the rain.
That’s not rain. “Tsarina!” he called, for he knew then, what the rain really was. He bolted out of the truck. “Tsarina!”
Hearing the nickname made hurt cut ’cross her face and “Natasha,” he amended, gently, and held out a hand. “Come. Come out of this.”
She winced as another rock hit her. He raised his arms like a shield. “Run. Hurry. My truck is right there. Just ru—”
“I can’t.”
Jesus, her eyes. All red anguish and that, more than the rocks now pelting his back, made him reach out, cup her face. “Natasha,” he said tenderly. “You’re crying. All this rain…it’s from you.”
Her brow knit, uncomprehending.
“Tsarina, what’s happenedto you? Who’s doing this to you?”
“I…” Her gaze clung to his. “I’m afraid,” she whispered, so soft he had to lean in close to hear. “I’m afraid.”
“And sad.” On impulse, he caressed her wet cheeks. “So sad you’re drowning in your own tears.” He reached down then, for her hand.
She ripped back in horror. “Don’t…not my hand! Don’t touch my hand! You…you’ll hate me!” She tore away then, running.
“Natasha!”
Her feet splotched through tears. Puddle after puddle of her tears. His chest hurt as he watched her, and he drew back to gather momentum and give chase.
His head smacked the backrest in Jessalyn’s truck, and as his hand shot out it tapped the horn, making it blare, waking him. Still he stared out the windshield—was she there?—memory now repeating what that Alberta cop said: “Grab Natasha Nikoslav’s hand, Officer Brophy. Then call me back. Tell me why you think people are prickly.”
***
The gallery was a haven of earth colors, hushed music and Antonio the Pirate at the front counter. “Bella Nikoslav!” His wide, welcoming smile was such sweet sincerity that tears pricked her eyes, and when he delivered a rapid peck onto her each of her cheeks, the greeting was so familiar, so European, she felt…
Home. The now-familiar Shadow floated through the foyer.
“Would you like a guided tour today? Or…” His artist’s eye read her face with every bit as much accuracy as she with her Shadows. Everyone is psychic, Jakob was so fond of saying. Sometimes she believed he was right.
“You would like solitude,” Antonio said.
No, she’d actually love company. She always wanted company. But—“Today, yes, thank you.” Today, she needed to reach Elayna alone.
In the portrait gallery, Elayna’s canvas still struck her as a cherubic contradiction of innocence and femme fatale. “Show,,” she murmured, and discreetly cupped her hands. “Was your maiden name Galinko?”
‘Galinko?’
The voice came from behind her.
‘We’ll find him, kamarád.’
Kamarád? “That’s Czechky,” she whispered, and spun to face the speaker.Cory Chandler’s portrait hung on the wall, a circus of red hair and merry freckles. His Shadow stood beside it, speaking to another that she could not see. ‘I believe in you,’ he said, and thrust a hand out, braced it on somebody’s shoulder. ‘We’ll nail this bastard. He put that body somewhere.’
“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s in a field. Silva helped Haslom hide it in a field.”
A voice replied but indistinct, like it spoke through water. ‘Something’s blocked me. I can’t see. I try to bring light in but it drizzles away, leaves me blind.’
Chandler winced. ‘Please try harder. The family is angry. And I’m trying to do damage control but they’re raging. Call my constables incompetent dogs.’
‘I’m trying, kámoš.’ The reply, more Czechky, meant ‘friend’, and “Who are you?” Natasha squinted, but the Shadows were fog.
‘I’ll show you, Cory,’ said the stranger. ‘Show you what I see.’ A hand, a man’s hand, emerged from the fog, extended the way she and Jakob did when they wanted to connect, to read.
‘Your nose, Kamarád,’ cautioned Cory, but the hand waved this off and Cory touched then, palm-to-palm. ‘Ink,’ he said.
‘Ja. A psychic,’ said the stranger. ‘Another psychic helped Haslom kill Galinko.’
“No,” she whispered, sounding plaintive to her own ears. “She didn’t kill him.”
Yet her own words rushed back, scolding her. You would have to really love someone to cover for them if they caused someone to die.
“Natasha?”
She whirled.
“Antonio said you were here.” Sabrina Danini wore a business suit, tall boots, and a cajoling sort of smile. “I come begging a favor.”
“Ah.” A rapid Shadow—her massage table—unleashed her voice. “You would like a massage.”
Sabrina’s smile became sheepish. “You probably get solicited a lot.”
Solicited? Well, according to Owen Brophy, yes she certainly did. But for actual massages? In Echo Creek? Never. All her clients were city doctor referrals. And now here was irony: a local asking for help and—“I can’t. I haven’t a table.”
Sabrina looked so distressed that she frowned. “Is something going on that you need a doctor?”
A jacked brow. “You’re awful intuitive, newcomer.”
Natasha bit her lip. “I-I’ve just come to know my audience.”
Skepticism. Only for a moment, and then—“I actually have been to the doc.” Sabrina set a hand on her belly. Natasha’s mouth made an ‘O’. “But I’m not through the twelve-week danger zone yet, so…” She raised a silencing finger to her lips.
Natasha blinked. “Not even Antonio?”
“Definitely not Antonio. He’d be crushed for the rest of his mortal days if this baby doesn’t become…well, a baby. And as for me…God, my boobs feel like they’ve grown six cup sizes in six days and my back is so sore. And I’m tired. Even sleeping makes me sleepy and yes, I’m whining. That’s one of pregnancy’s many charming side effects, alongside heartburn and ill-timed farting.”
Natasha laughed. “Well in that case I can help you without a massage table—it’s better when ladies in the family way do not lay flat on their backs.”
“Cause that’s what got them into their mess in the first place?” Sabrina grinned.
“No, Miss Lippy. It’s so they do not cut off blood supply to the placenta. Come to my-er-the cottage tomorrow? Noon?”
“I’ll be there. With my Little Bird, though.”
Robyn. Natasha felt herself glow.
Sabrina grinned. “You two have quite a mutual admiration society going on.” Then she sobered. “But don’t worry. She’s a good girl. She won’t distract you—”
“Sabrina, you know I adore her.”
“Okay. It’s just…not everyone likes kids.”
Vincent Haslom’s Shadow stepped between them, foul and frowning. Natasha glared at it. Go away. I didn’t call you. “Well, I do,” she said, deliberately. “Robyn is always welcome with me. And you are too.” She tossed a sneer at Haslom’s Shadow. You should have wanted her near you, too, Huntsman.
he Shadow reached out like it would stroke her cheek. She recoiled.
“You okay?” asked Sabrina.
Yes. There…was an insect.” Her pulse galloped. That was a coincidence. Just a coincidence. I cannot call the Dead. I tried.
Sabrina said “I thought maybe you shivered ’cause of him.” She cocked her head toward the portrait of Cory Chandler. “Show me a cop who isn’t hunted or haunted,” she mused. “Steve and I—that’s badass Owen’s brother, have you met him?”
“Ja. Yes.”
“Him and I have dissected Chandler six ways from Sunday.”
“And you think he’s a bad man?” ‘Be true’ rang in her head.
“Bad? No. But...let’s just say Cory’s always got an agenda. He never exactly lies, but he never exactly shares, either. It’s like…like he’s always gathering intel.”
Like Owen Brophy. “Ulterior motives,” Natasha murmured.
“Exactly! And knows all sorts of shit he doesn’t reveal. Talking to Cory Chandler is like playing a game with someone who knows rules that you don’t. And don’t ask me how I know all this. I just—”
“You’re intuitive, too.”
“Yeah,” Sabrina answered, but softly, and only after several long seconds. “I guess I am. I…I guess I learned to be.”
Vincent Haslom’s Shadow grinned. Natasha wanted to slap it.
Then it spoke. ‘I never loved her,’ it said. ‘But I would have loved you. Milacek.’
©bonnie randall 2005