Leverage (5 page)

Conner wasn’t allowed any phone calls the first two weeks. When he finally earned the privilege, he called home, but listening on speaker, he didn’t sound any calmer or like he’d pulled himself together in the last fourteen days. His impatient tone distressed Hannah, so I motioned for her to hand me the phone. She did so with tears in her eyes and her brow knit together. I wrapped one arm around her shoulder and kissed her forehead.

“It’s okay. I’ll handle this,” I said, then stepped away from Hannah and turned my attention to the call. “Conner, you’re off speaker now. How are you, son?”

“How the hell do you think I am?” he returned. “I’m freaking out. Where the hell is Katy? Have you heard from her at all?”

“No, nothing.”

“Well, have you even tried? I mean, have you gone to the school or to her hall? Have you looked around at all?”

“Yeah. Your mum and I made an appointment with your academic advisor first thing after you checked in. She suspended your classes, but said you’d have the opportunity to retake them next quarter under academic probation.”

“I don’t fucking care about that!” he snapped. “Did she say anything about Katy?”

“Hey, come on, Conner. I’m trying to help you here.”

He huffed into the phone and made a noise that sounded like he was close to tears. “I know, I...I’m sorry.” He paused. “So…did she say anything helpful, anything at all?”

“Yes, she’d already set up an appointment with your resident advisor. We were able to get into your room and straighten things out. I wanted to see if I could find anything on Katy.”

“Oh,” he replied, even more nervous. “And did you? Find anything, I mean?”

“Just a rather disturbing mess, as you can imagine,” I said, and he groaned into the phone. “Don’t worry. Your mum just gathered your clothes and bedding and brought everything home to wash. I threw away all the trash and…you know, paraphernalia. I didn’t want your RA to see it and snitch.”

Conner snickered. “They already know about my problems. I doubt him snitching would have much more impact.”

“They could kick you out for drinking and using drugs on campus, let alone in your dorm. I didn’t think they needed to know that.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He paused with a long sigh. “Thanks,” he added, like he hated having to show any gratitude at all.

“Look, Conner, I asked your RA about Katy, and he said he knew who I was talking about, but that he hadn’t seen her around since you’d left. He sent me over to McCarty Hall, where you said she lived, so I asked around there, too.”

“And?”

“And nothing. No one’s seen or heard from her. In fact, I couldn’t even find any of her friends. No one seemed to know much about her, though they knew who I was talking about. They knew you, too. Quite a few said to say hi and they hoped you were feeling better.”

“Great. Fuckin’ awesome.” He paused again, and I let him have his space. “So, what’s next then? Did you call the number I gave you, her cell? ’Cause I did. I’ve called like a thousand times today already. Nothing. Not even her regular voicemail message. I’m scared she’s gone off and done something stupid.”

“Yeah, I called, too. Same thing.” It was my turn to sigh. “Look, there’s no one left at school right now. Everyone’s gone for the holidays. No one will be back ‘til after New Years. So I called a…well...an old friend, someone who might be able to help us find her, or at least get a bit more information.”

“A friend,” he said, more a statement than a question. “Like who? A cop or something?”

“Well, no, but I did talk to the police. I did a little investigating and found the officers who responded to…you know, Leo’s fall or whatever.”

“And?”

“They wouldn’t give me any info, but they called the number they had for Katy and got back to us, saying the number she’d given them was incorrect.”

“Incorrect? What does that mean?”

“Means she gave them a bogus number—on purpose—some Chinese restaurant or something. Anyway, they couldn’t help, but like I said, I know someone who can. If there’s anything out there to be found, he’ll find it. He’s with the FBI,” I admitted.

Conner snorted into the phone. “No fucking way,” he said, amused and unconvinced.

“Yeah, fucking way,” I replied.

Another snort. “How do
you
know anyone in the FBI?”

“Long story—”

“One I’ll probably never hear, right?”

“Probably not.” I waited for another snide comment, imagining him rolling his eyes, as was normal with any interaction with me, but there was nothing. Just silence. So I continued. “So, my friend, Aaron, he said he’d look into it and get back to me.”

“How long will we have to wait, then, a few days, a week?”

“Not long at all. I’m meeting him tomorrow night at my office. Said he’d give me everything he’s found out so far.”

Another snicker. “If he had news, why didn’t he just tell you over the phone?”

“He doesn’t work that way, Conner. This is the FBI we’re talking about.”

“And you’d know all about that, I’m sure.”

“More than you,” I shot back, then instantly regretted stooping to his level.

“Yeah, and we’re gonna have to have a long talk about that someday, you and me.”

“Maybe, maybe not. For now, just hold tight. I’ll let you know what Aaron says next time you’re allowed to call. All right?”

“No, that’s not good enough. I need to know immediately. You call me tomorrow. Or better yet, come by. I’m allowed visitors now, just family, every other day.”

“All right. We’ll see how it goes.” I returned to the kitchen and smiled at Hannah. “I’ll let your mum know about the family visits.” She smiled back and brought her hands to her mouth like she was praying. “She’ll be thrilled and will want to come by as soon as she can. You hang tough, Conner. Work on yourself. That’s what you’re there for, remember?”

“Like I could forget,” he replied, and I totally understood where he was coming from.

I’d been there once. It was a cold, dark, lonely place, but one he’d have to make peace with before he moved on. I’d done that, too, and it was hell.

“All right, son—Conner. We’ll talk soon. G’bye.”

There was no reply, just the click of the line as he disconnected the call.

The wall clock said it was already six-thirty, ninety minutes past when Special Agent Aaron Moody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said he’d be here. I cursed his hide and paced around my small office. I’d tried studying the latest set of plans for the home I was currently remodeling, but that proved futile. I couldn’t concentrate at all. It didn’t help that Conner had called twice in the last hour, begging to know what Moody had found out. I stood behind my desk, my fingers perched atop the edge, and my eyes trained on the dark storefront windows outside the empty reception area.

“Damn you, Moody,” I cursed toward my open office door.

It wasn’t like him to be late, at least not without calling. He was a punctual man, and proud of it, one of the many things I’d learned about him a few years ago while we’d been holed up together, first in Chicago, then in Melbourne, Australia, after word got out that my old Russian nemesis, Dmitri Chernov, and his crew had somehow figured out where I was hiding.

The FBI had invested a lot of time and resources into me, keeping me safe while preparing me for my testimony against Chernov, the former head of San Francisco’s
Solntsevskaya Bratva
or Brotherhood, more commonly known as the Russian Mafia. It was a hard-struck deal, one I’d not been given much choice in. But at the time, it was the only way to stay alive and bring down the last remaining man behind my brother Nick’s death and Hannah’s kidnapping and assault, neither of which I ever spoke of anymore, yet found hard to forget.

Having Aaron over tonight—hell, just talking to him on the phone—had brought all the old memories back. My brother’s car accident and our parents’ and sister’s deaths, Nick’s subsequent addictions and the robbery he screwed up trying to fuel them, my first wife’s identity theft case and my refusal to help Jillian seek justice, and her death as a result. Then the shitstorm that came after, my inability to deal with the bitterness and grief, the alcohol, the absolute need for revenge, and Nick’s sadistic plan to attain it.

In the end, I’d taken responsibility for all their deaths, for involving Hannah after mistaking her for Erin Anderson, her husband’s mistress and the woman I’d believed responsible for my wife’s death, and for the deal I’d made with the Russians—Erin as a sex-slave in exchange for paying off my brother’s debt, for his very life. Turns out, it wasn’t solely the repayment of Nick’s debt the Russians had been interested in. It went way beyond him, back to our father, back to London, when his own testimony had sent Chernov’s older brother, Mikhail, off to prison, where he’d met his maker at the end of a rival’s shiv.

That was the incident that had set the whole thing off, yet I never knew, not until Nick was dead and the FBI had me in custody. They offered me a deal, my testimony for my freedom, perhaps even my life. The feds told me I owed it to Nick, to his memory and the efforts he’d made to keep me out of the Russians’ hands.

After he’d knocked over a liquor store under the Russians’ protection, Nick had fallen under their scrutiny and became a target once they determined who he was, who his father had been, and that Nick, too, had an older brother—me. Then
I
became Chernov’s target. So Nick saved me by offering his life in service to the man who’d see me dead as retribution for his own brother’s demise. All this after I’d tried so hard to push Nick out of my life, to create distance between us, though all he’d ever done was look up to me as his older brother.

I’d done all of this and more. My actions had nearly cost Hannah her life, too, but in the end, that was the one thing I’d managed to do right. I saved her. Then I left her to face everything, alone, while I sat warm and cozy under the FBI’s protection, an armed and well-trained Agent Moody at my side.

“Shit,” I whispered to myself then turned and leaned back against my desk, staring out the dark office window, not even seeing the city lights beyond. All I could see was how Hannah had cried when I’d told her I was leaving and she’d never see me again. She had nothing to offer the FBI, and I was being whisked away into witness protection, to start a new life after my testimony.

I smiled then, recalling how it had all turned out. Chernov had died of a stroke during trial, and, with most of the
Bratva
either dead or disbanded, I was free to live my life however I saw fit. So, after Moody had tracked her down, I found my way back to Hannah. My smile broadened, and I chuckled as my chin dropped to my chest, the memory of our reconciliation filling me with the sweetest joy.

“What the hell are you grinning at, you mad fuck?” roared a voice from behind.

Startled, I spun around, my old instincts taking hold in the heat of all the memories. “You bloody asshole!” I threw back.

“What? You’re the schmuck with the shit-grin on your face!”

I stepped out from behind my desk and stretched my hand out. “Aaron,” I said as we shook hands and did the whole man-hug bit with sharp slaps on the back. “You’re late.”

“Working your case, Karras, and you’ll be glad I did.” He stepped back and surveyed me, head to toe. “Married life’s treating you well, I see. You look good, bud. Damn good!”

I smiled. “Thanks, and yes, it does agree, most definitely. How about you?”

He shrugged out of his raincoat and hung it on the rack behind the door then took a seat opposite my desk. I settled into my chair, my hands folded on my desk.

“The wife’s good, but the kids are driving me batshit-crazy,” he said with a genuine smile that told me he wouldn’t trade it for the world. Family meant everything to him. He’d lost his parents in a bank robbery shooting while he was away at law school. That was why he’d chosen the FBI, and also why family was so important to him. He knew what it was like to be without.

“I actually look forward to being driven crazy by a houseful of kids. Hannah is due in four months, you know—a girl.”

“Ah, you’re in for the ride of your life. Headstrong, opinionated, impulsive. Girls’ll keep you on your toes, let me tell ya.”

“You’re scaring me, Aaron.”

He laughed and slapped his hands against his knees. “Just take care of yourself, Karras. Girls have been known to give their daddies a heart attack.” He chuckled again, then calmed and turned serious. “I suppose Hannah’s boy is doing the same these days, huh?” he asked, and I nodded. “How is Conner, anyway?”

“Panicked mostly, freaked out over the girl, Katy. What can you tell me about her?”

Moody sat back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest as he shook his head and raised his shaggy eyebrows toward his receding hairline.

“Not much, I’m afraid. And I don’t think you’re going to like what I do have.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Weird is what it is,” he said as he looked me in the eye. “Tyler, there is no Katy Holender enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle. She’s not registered for any classes, nor does she have a room at McCarty Hall, and I couldn’t find anyone who even knew her, except by sight. She didn’t have any friends on campus that I could find, and I looked, believe me. But that’s not what bothers me most.”

“What then?” I asked, concern wriggling in the pit of my stomach.

“Before I go there, I want to let you know that I also looked into Conner’s friend, Leo.”

“Don’t tell me he wasn’t a student either.”

Aaron shook his head. “No, no, he was. He checks out. It’s just that…”

“What? Come on, you’re starting to freak me out here.”

He sighed and shook his head again. “Well, this kid, Leo, he was born at Coney Island Hospital, Brighton Beach, New York.” He stopped and stared at me, like that should all make sense somehow.

I shrugged. “And?”

“Well, now his parents live here in Seattle, in the U District, in fact.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, you don’t find it strange that this Leo character would pay the twelve grand for room and board at the U-Dub when his primary residence is four blocks away? It’s not like his old man is made of money, and Leo didn’t have any scholarships or anything, nor did he have any outstanding student loans. Yet his tuition, residence hall, and meal plan were all paid in full before the fall quarter even started.”