Page 21

Brenner was gone by then.

Whoever sold this package had the July rotation. That means someone had access to this house after Brenner disappeared. Someone who could walk into Yaroslav’s study, or into the gatehouse, or into the security office, without anybody looking twice.

Someone inside.

I sit back in Yaroslav’s chair and stare at the screens. The gate. The driveway. Leo’s SUV at the end of the road. My men, Garick’s men, and the old guard of Yaroslav’s who have worked this property for twenty years.

Twelve names on twelve sandwiches.

My phone buzzes.

I think it’s Galana again. Texting me from upstairs, because she’s being cooperative.

It isn’t.

It’s a number I don’t know. There’s no message, just a photograph.

It’s grainy, taken at night with a long lens from somewhere outside the fence, through the trees. But I can see it perfectly well. A small figure in a cardigan, crossing a dark lawn with a tray in her hands. A big man in a black jacket walking two paces behind her.

The timestamp says 3:18 a.m.

That’s this morning. Eight hours ago. While I stood right here at these screens and watched her do it.

The photograph was taken from the northeast corner. It’s a blind spot I closed yesterday. Or thought I’d closed.

A second message comes through while I’m still staring at the first.

Walk away, Reznikov. Or next time she won’t come back inside.

GALANA

He told me first.

That’s what I’m holding onto to keep my sanity from crumbling. Not the photograph, though now I’ve seen it, I can’t stop seeing it. Me, small and gray on the lawn at three in the morning, with no idea anybody was out there in the trees.

He told me first.

He came upstairs yesterday while I was stripping Milana’s bed. He shut the door and sat down on the bare mattress and held his phone out to me. He didn’t soften it. He didn’t decide on my behalf how much I could take. He just showed me, and told me what it meant, and then he waited while I sat down beside him because my knees had stopped holding me up.

Only after that did he go downstairs and tell Arina.

She doubled the guard. Garick brought four more men. Zhenya started going through every man who’s worked the gate in the last six months, looking for anything that doesn’t add up.

I made a decision of my own.

“I’m not going out to the gatehouse at night,” I told Caleb at dinner. “Not until this is over.”

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me.

“I’m not stupid,” I said. “And I’m not going to make it easy for them. But somebody still needs to feed those men. So I’ll make the food and Leo can take it.”

“Leo will be thrilled,” Caleb said.

Leo, from the back step, said, “Leo is thrilled.”

This morning, Caleb asks if I’ll come and see a house.

He’s quiet in the car. There are two SUVs following us, one in front and one behind. I watch the city thin out into the North Shore. Bare trees, big gates, glimpses of gray lake between the houses.