For the next few weeks, I exist in a weird state of breathless anticipation. I’m keyed up and jumpy, as if at any moment, a shrieking snake-headed monster is about to pop out from under my bed.
I barely sleep. I pace grooves into the floor. I can’t even look at my drawer of sex toys, much less use one of them. It’s not so much Kage’s command that keeps me from it, but that I’m honestly too anxiety ridden.
The anxiety that is due, in part, to the sheriff’s cruiser that slinks by my house at all hours of the day and night.
Chris keeps his word to keep an eye on me like I keep grudges: religiously.
I don’t know what he’s hoping to achieve. There’s nothing to discover by such commitment.
Kage doesn’t return.
We talk on the phone almost every day, but the conversations are short. He’s always getting pulled away by business, interrupted by the many duties and obligations of his position. I get the sense he rarely has time to himself, even to sleep.
True to his word, though, I get a call from Mr. Santiago at MoraBanc. When he informs me the balance in my new trust account is ten million dollars and asks which currency I’d like to start receiving funds in, I laugh and laugh until he gets uncomfortable and tells me he’ll call me back at a better time.
Sloane gets someone to take over her classes for her at the yoga studio, and she and Stavros sail the Mediterranean. The news coverage of the shooting dies down. I’m dying to discover what the police know about that night at the restaurant, but the only information I can get is from the local paper. It isn’t much.
One thing that’s odd is that none of the four men who were shot were able to be identified. They didn’t carry any ID, and their fingerprints and faces weren’t found in any police database, in the US or abroad. The guns they carried were unregistered. Forensic dental examinations didn’t turn up a match.
Even before they died, all four were ghosts.
I wonder if Kage is a ghost, too, existing only by reputation. The dreaded Kazimir Portnov, able to strike fear in the hearts of hardened killers merely by the mention of his name.
I try not to think of all the terrible things he must’ve done to earn his reputation.
I try not to wonder what a man like him would see in a girl like me. What he thinks a small-town schoolteacher can give him that he can’t get anywhere else.
And despite all my worry, by the time Christmas Eve arrives, Detective Brown hasn’t knocked on my door again.
I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one.
Feeling a little sorry for myself that I’m alone on Christmas Eve, I make a nice dinner. Roast chicken with red potatoes, a salad with champagne vinaigrette. The chicken is my mom’s recipe—the one Kage somehow knew is my favorite—and it tastes delicious.
It also makes me feel worse, sitting there at my kitchen table with only Mojo for company.
Picturing myself five years in the future doing exactly this same thing as Kage traipses all over the globe—who knows where, doing who knows what—I get so depressed, I open a bottle of wine and finish it.
I call my parents in Arizona, but their voicemail picks up. They’re probably over at a friend’s house, toasting with eggnog, eyes bright with holiday cheer.
Even retirees have a better social life than me.
I’d call Sloane, but I can’t figure out the time difference between Tahoe and Rome without looking it up. Plus, she could be in Norway by now. Africa. Brazil. The last time we spoke, several days ago, she and Stavros were mulling over maps.
It sounded like she was having so much fun, she might never come back.
Wondering why Kage hasn’t called yet, I mope around the house until it’s time to let Mojo out for one last pee before bed. As I’m standing shivering on the front porch in my fuzzy slippers and winter coat, watching the dog sniff around in the bushes, a car drives slowly by the house.
It’s a white sedan with lights mounted on the roof and the words Placer County Sherriff painted on the side in gold and green.
Chris pulls to a stop at the curb, parks the car, and gets out, leaving it running.
Wonderful. Exactly what I needed right now. Thanks a lot, universe.
I consider taking the dog and going back inside, but figure Chris would just pound on my door until I opened up anyway. So I wait on the porch as he approaches, hat in hand.
“Evening, Nat,” he says, stopping a respectful distance away. “Merry Christmas.”
His tone is neutral. His expression is unreadable. I have no idea if he’s happy, sad, or about to explode in burning rage.
I say pleasantly, “Merry Christmas, Chris. I’m surprised to see you working tonight. Does your boss not give you holidays off from spying on your ex-girlfriends?”
“I’m not spying on you.”
“How many times a day do you drive by my house?”
“All part of the job. You know, keeping the community safe and whatnot.”
“You think I’m a threat to the community?”
“No. Not you. I do, however, think you’re too good for that piece of shit you’re protecting.”
We gaze at each other. In the porchlight, his eyes behind his glasses glow glacier blue.
Might as well get it out there. We both know why he’s here.
I say softly, “I’ve always liked you, Chris. I think you’re a good person. But this thing you’re doing, stalking me like this, it’s not cool. No matter how many times you drive by my house, it’s still over.”
His jaw works. A crack appears in the smooth façade of his expression. For a moment, he almost looks as if he’s going to start shouting at me.
Instead, he glances away, drawing a slow breath. “I did some digging. Got some friends in the bureau. Showed them the sketch of your neighbor. They kept it off the news, but they know who he is.”
He looks back at me, and now his blue eyes are fierce. “Do you know who he is, Natalie?”
“Chris, please.”
“Do you know what he is?”
“This is ridiculous.”
He takes a step toward me, eyes blazing. “No, it’s not. It’s actually a matter of life or death.”
I’ve had too much wine to deal with this shit calmly any longer. I demand, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chris raises his voice. “It means your next-door neighbor is the second-highest-ranking member of the Russian mafia, Nat. It means this guy you’re sleeping with—”
“I never said that.”
“—is a liar, a career criminal, and a murderer. He kills people, Nat. For a living. That’s his job. That’s what they call him: Reaper. You know, as in the grim reaper? As in the skeleton in the cloak with the scythe who comes to get your soul?”
Reaper.
My boyfriend is named after a mythical personification of death?
A mental image of Kage with glowing red eyes peering out from under the hood of a black cloak gives me chills.
Trying to keep my voice even, I say, “None of that has anything to do with me. Now it’s time to say good night and for you to leave. Mojo!”
I whistle for him. He trots up, ignoring Chris, and heads back inside, going into the house through the open door behind me.
Chris takes another step forward. I take a step back. The anger in his gaze makes my heartbeat tick up a notch and my eyes widen.
Then I get a whiff of the alcohol on his breath, and my pulse ticks up higher.
Alarmed, I say, “You’ve been drinking.”
“So have you. Your cheeks always flush after a few glasses of wine.”
It’s true. I’m prone to flushing. I’m also prone to conspiracy theories and worst-case-scenario thinking, impressively demonstrated by my brain, which is howling that Chris is about to kill me.
He says, “You know how I knew you were sleeping with him? You do this thing when you’re not telling the truth. You glance up and to the right. Just for a second. When I asked you if you were fucking him, that’s what you did.”
That he noticed such a minor tic about me frightens me deeply.
It makes me wonder what else he noticed.
And why he was looking so closely in the first place.
“You’ll notice that I’m not glancing up and to the right now when I tell you that you’re starting to scare me.”
He was about to take another step forward, but stops dead.
He says vehemently, “I’d never hurt you. Proven by the fact that I didn’t tell the feds I thought you and this Reaper character were involved.” His eyes darken. “Because if I did, you’d be sitting in a black site military cell right now, in handcuffs, being questioned by a guy named Snakebite who gets off on the sight of blood and the sound of a woman screaming.”
It’s official. Chris has gone off the rails.
“And it’s not me you should be afraid of. I’m just a guy who wants what’s best for you. I can tell you, Nat, with one hundred percent certainty, that what’s best for you is not Kazimir Portnov.”
So he knows Kage’s real name. He has found out about him.
That makes my anxiety explode into panic.
If Kage finds out that Chris went to the feds, and the feds now have eyes on him…maybe he won’t come around here anymore.
Maybe I’ll never see him again.
I’m panicked for the space of a few heartbeats, then I’m consumed by anger.
How dare this guy—who I barely spent a few months with, who I never even screwed—pull this petty, territorial, caveman bullshit.
I step back across the threshold of the open door, grab the shotgun propped up against the wall in the corner, and stand facing Chris with the barrel of the rifle gripped in my left hand, the buttstock resting on the floor.
I say firmly, “This is private property. My property. I’ve already asked you to leave, but you haven’t. So not only are you harassing me and scaring me, you’re trespassing. And considering our past relationship, your obsession with my neighbor, and your history of stalkerish behavior with the constant drive-bys—which I’m sure your boss could track from your phone or the equipment in your squad car if he needed to—it would look very bad for you in front of a jury if I felt compelled to use this weapon.”
His eyes bulge. His face turns red. He sputters, “A-are you th-threatening to shoot me?”
“I don’t know, Chris. Check to see if I’m glancing up and to the right.”
After a moment of stunned silence, he says loudly, “You bitch!”
That almost makes me smile. If nothing else, it makes me feel better for going all Rambo on him. “Charming. Now get off my porch before I put a hole in your chest big enough to see daylight through.”
He clenches his fists. Steam billows from his ears. He stands there shaking in rage until he spins on his heel and stalks off, cursing.
I’ve never been much of a gun enthusiast before. I only have the thing because my dad left it behind when he and my mom moved. But right now, I’m feeling all sorts of Clint Eastwood tough, and all it took was resting my hand on this weapon.
This weapon that couldn’t blow a hole through anything, human or otherwise, because it isn’t loaded.
As Chris peels off down the street in a cloud of smoke, I stand in the open doorway, unsure if I want to laugh or cry.
I go to bed depressed.
When I wake up sometime later, it’s still dark. The room is silent and still. For a moment, I’m disoriented, listening hard into the darkness and wondering with a little flutter of panic inside my chest what made me wake up.
Then my heart starts to pound, because I realize I’m not alone.
Someone else is in the room with me.
