“Yeah, well I performed mouth-to-mouth on Harris Mickler’s corpse!”
“That doesn’t count. He was probably still warm.”
“He’d been eating blue cheese olives, Vero!”
She shuddered. “Fine, I’ll go. But I’m not going alone.” She took my hand, leading us to the end of the row and looping us around, until we were back on the other side of the wall of cars we’d crawled under. Vero slowed, creeping toward the flattened station wagon. A pair of denim-clad legs protruded from under the frame.
Vero toed one of Ike’s sneakers, grimacing when he didn’t move.
I covered my eyes, peeking through my fingers. “Is he dead?”
“Remember that day we went shopping for snow shovels, and I told you we should get garden shovels instead? I take it back. This is definitely a snow shovel kind of job.”
“An interesting choice.” The rich purr of the woman’s voice came from behind us. Vero jumped back from the dead man’s legs. I stiffened as I recognized the familiar trace of the woman’s accent.
Ekatarina Rybakov, Feliks Zhirov’s star attorney, spared me a cool smile as I slowly turned around. And she hadn’t come alone.
CHAPTER 6
The tails of Kat’s trench coat fluttered around her black stiletto heels, her dark hair rippling like a curtain in the wind. Two huge men clad in black tactical pants, black beanies, and black leather jackets towered beside her. She folded her arms, her crimson lips quirking as she studied me. “I admit, your methods are effective, Ms. Donovan. Unorthodox,” she said, raising an eyebrow at the tower of cars, “but effective.”
Cam stood on his toes to peek over Kat’s shoulder. His face, which hadn’t looked too terrible last night after our tussle in the yard, had bloomed two black eyes since, and a pronounced knot perched on the bridge of his nose. He paled when he spotted Ike.
“This is not what it looks like,” I said, moving to block their view of him. “This guy… he was—”
“I know who he was,” Kat interrupted, studying her nails. “I have been watching him for some time, and I am aware of his interest in your childcare provider.”
“Accountant,” Vero corrected her.
Kat acknowledged Vero’s interjection with a dubious sideways glance before continuing. “FindingEasyCleanis of the utmost importance to Feliks. He felt this man might be hindering your progress, but it seems my client’s concern was unnecessary. He’ll be pleased to know you already had the situation under control, and that you may now focus your full attention on the job you agreed to do for him.”
“Now wait just a minute!” I said, taking two steps toward her, pausing abruptly when her goons stepped forward, too. “I never agreed to anything.”
Kat gestured to Cam. “Cameron mentioned that you’ve expressed some reluctance to complete the job.” I glared at him over her shoulder. He touched the bruised bridge of his nose as he shrank from view. “Which brings us to the reason I am here, Ms. Donovan. Mr. Zhirov sent me to provide you with some incentive.” One of Kat’s men dropped a fat black duffel bag beside her, withdrawing a brick of cash and laying it in her hand. Kat fanned herself with the thick stack of bills, ignoring Vero’s covetous moan. “Feliks instructed me to pay off your nanny’s debt to this unfortunate man’s employer; however, that problem seems to have resolved itself—for the moment.” Kat grimaced at Ike’s legs. “Now it seems you have a more pressing issue to deal with, so this is what I propose.” Vero made a small noise of protest as Kat dropped the money into the open duffel and her goon zipped it closed. “You will complete your task for my client before the commencement of his trial, and in return,” she said, gesturing to her entourage, “Mr. Zhirov’s associates will not contact the police to disclose what they witnessed here tonight.”
“That’s not an offer! That’s blackmail!”
Kat gave a careless shrug. “You call itto-may-to. I call itto-mah-to.”
“Well,Icall it bullshit,” Vero interrupted. “Unless your offer includes that stack of cash,” she added in a more tractable tone. “Then you can call it whatever you want. What?” she asked at my cutting look. “Those tomatoes were not small!”
“True,” Kat admitted. “Two hundred thousand dollars is no negligible sum. But, again, this is no small mess to tidy up.” She inclined her chin toward my feet. I glanced down, gasping at the blood trickling from Ike’s remains toward my heels. Vero swore, frantically scraping her sneakers against the dirt.
Kat was right. Concealing Harris’s murder, and even Carl’s, hadbeen as simple as moving a body. But nothing would be easy about moving this one, or cleaning up the mess.
“The answer is simple,” Kat said. “Give me your word that you’ll handleEasyCleanbefore the trial, and Feliks will make sure all of this disappears.”
Vero stirred her finger in the air. “And byall of this, you mean…?”
“No one will ever know what happened here, unless you fail to meet your end of our bargain.”
“There is no bargain,” I reminded her.
“And all we have to do ishandle EasyClean. That’s it?” Vero asked.
“Before the trial,” Kat clarified.
“When do we get the tomatoes?”
