Sixteen minutes.That’s all it took for him to pull me apart until I couldn’t even walk.
He doesn’t give me the chance to try again. His hands slide under my legs and he lifts me easily.
“You don’t have to walk, Kitten,” he says. “I can fuck you and carry you around every day.”
Nineteen
THE CALLER
The night is slowly falling, and we are standing in front of a tent, waiting for the woman Dasha wanted me to find four months ago. She is an older Russian lady who runs The Morozov Traveling Circus.
Masha Morozov lives a double life.
Most days, she is a mother and grandmother in a respected family. But for four nights at the end of each month, she travels across the states with her circus family, painting her face so no one recognizes her.
I have to see her because I left her the insurance documents Daniel and Aurelia’s father signed, the same ones she needed to look through and figure out how we can make them answer for fraud, how William Grant can finally go to jail, and how Aureliacan get her life back, and the memories of her parents that were taken with it.
A short man with a long beard invites us inside. The deeper we go into the tent, the more the lights fade. And when we reach the mid way I spot her at the table, sitting beneath a low hanging light, flipping through the papers I brought her.
Before we can get any closer, the man steps in front of us.
“Just you,” he says. “She has to wait here.”
Aurelia looks at me, confused. I haven’t told her a word of this yet. I need her to remember a little more if this ever goes to court. I can’t let her lose because the Grants decided to paint her as delusional and crazy.
I lean down and kiss her forehead before lowering her into the chair.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
I turn and walk toward Masha.
I promised I would give her everything I know about Dasha, not knowing Dasha had asked the same of her. I wanted to give them the ending I never got to have. But now that I know I might still have mine, I need something in return.
The second she hands me those documents and we step out of this tent, Victor will bring Dasha to her. She doesn’t know it. She thinks she is coming to see Aurelia.
I move closer to the table and sit down across from her, watching her eyes travel over the papers.
“Is Dasha here?”
I nod.
“Good,” she says, placing the document down. “These documents are all fake. Bring them to the police and you have a strong case against them.”
“The girl,” she adds, pointing toward Aurelia, “is she the daughter of the man from the contact?”
“Yes.”
She moves past me, quiet, almost gliding. “We found something else. She has a death certificate.” A pause. “She is very much alive?”
I blink at her. “What do you mean?”
She slides her glasses down her nose and looks back at the paper. “Here it says she died when she was six years old.”
“How did she die?” My voice comes out low, my eyes fixed on the paper in her hands.
“She drowned,” she says. “Maybe you should ask her what happened before you take this to the police.”
I turn my head, looking back at Aurelia. She is still sitting where I left her, hands folded in her lap, unaware that she might not be who she is.
