“But when you got here, it wasn’t modeling?”
They shook their heads.“Stella’s,” Tatiana said.“Dancing.And taking care of the customers.”
She glanced up at the other two and back at me.“They told us after three years, we can stop working.But we don’t think we believe them.”
I wouldn’t believe them, either.“What happened to Anastasia?”
One of the girls on the top bunk said something, and Tatiana nodded.“She said she would get away,” she told me.“That she would escape, and then she’d come back and help us.But she hasn’t.”
“How long ago did she escape?”
They conferred for a moment.“Three days,” Tatiana said.
So probably the night before I’d seen her in Crieve Hall.“How?”
The glanced at each other again.“Her father helped her,” Tatiana said.
“Excuse me?”
It probably wasn’t a smart thing to say, because it made Tatiana think she’d pronounced something wrong.She said it again, more slowly and clearly.“Her father helped her.”
“I heard you,” I said.“She had a father?Here?”
She nodded.“She sent a letter to him.We distracted Yuri and Konstantin and she pretended to run away, but all she really wanted was to put a letter in the mailbox.”Her face darkened.“They hit her when they got her back, but they didn’t realize the letter was there.”
“And Anastasia’s father got it?And came to the club?”
“Two times,” Tatiana said.“First to meet her.To make sure she was...”She trailed off, searching for the words.
I nodded.“To make sure she was who she said she was.”
She lit up.“Yes.”
“And he believed her?”This had to be Steven.I had no idea how he’d ended up with a Russian daughter that it seemed neither he nor Diana had known about.Or maybe he hadn’t.Maybe he’d helped her just because she needed help, whether she was his daughter or not.But we had to be talking about Steven.
“He helped her,” Tatiana said.“He came back.He paid for thirty minutes with Anastasia.Olga,” she glanced up above her head at the two girls perched there, “broke the fire alarm in the club.There was water pouring down, and people screaming and running.Anastasia and her father got away.”
Good for Steven.Although it might have done more good if he’d gone to the police when he first met Anastasia and heard her story.That might have saved all the girls, and not just one.
But it explained a lot of what was going on.“I guess when Zachary—my… um… son—came to the club asking about Anastasia, the two goons—” What had she called them?“—Yuri and Konstantin probably thought he knew more than he did?”
“He had seen Anastasia,” Tatiana said.“They wanted to know where she was.”
Of course they did.Having her on the loose would be a threat to them.
And Zachary had probably told them what they wanted to know.Given that they were beating him up, I wouldn’t blame him.
Had they then gone back to Araminta’s house, where Zachary had seen Anastasia, and found her and Steven there?
If they had, they had stashed them somewhere else.Anastasia and Steven were nowhere in this house.Unless there was a part of it I hadn’t seen yet.And I didn’t think there was.
Of course, they could both be dead.But then Yuri and Konstantin would be looking at a much bigger mess than they were looking at now.They hadn’t killed anyone yet.Not as far as I knew.
Next to me, Rachel groaned, and I turned to her.“Finally.”
She blinked, her eyes unfocused.It took several seconds for her to recognize me.Or put my name with my face.Or process that I was there.Something.“Gina?”
I nodded.“We’re in the basement of the split level.Yuri and Konstantin knocked you out and dragged you inside.”
