Chasing the Night - Iris Johansen [105]
She took another step. “Why didn’t he go with you?”
“He said I had a chance, but they’d never stop looking for him. He’d tried it before. He had to wait until he could steal enough money from Czadas to help him hide from them.” She moistened her lips. “He lied. I didn’t have a chance. He shouldn’t have told me to go. They found me four days later.”
“Luke was trying to help you. And he was obviously running a risk to do it.”
“But Rakovac found me.” It was clearly the only thing on which she could focus. “And he hurt me again. Worse than before. The boy shouldn’t have made me go.”
“Made?” Kelly repeated. “You were old enough to make the choice. He couldn’t have been more than nine then. And I’d say he had an amazing amount of guts.”
“Kelly,” Eve cautioned. Natalie was in an extremely emotional state, and they didn’t need to throw her into more of a tailspin. Not with that .38 in her hand. “Was Luke punished for it?”
“I don’t know. Rakovac took me away from there after he found me. He said he couldn’t stay at Czadas’s house for more than a couple days at any one time. I’d made him overstay his time.” Her voice was a whimper. “I didn’t care about the boy. Why should I? Rakovac kept hurting me. In all kinds of new ways he hadn’t tried before. It might not have been so bad for me if the boy hadn’t told me to run away.”
She kept calling him “the boy” as if he had no identity, Eve thought with annoyance. It reminded her of the killers who threw their victims into anonymous graves and walked away. Natalie might not be a murderer, but she had the same careless, selfish view as those predators. Eve was beginning to feel any pity she had felt begin to dissipate. But she mustn’t show the anger she was feeling. She moved a step nearer. “How can you be sure Rakovac will keep his word? You want Kelsov to live. Wouldn’t it be better to call and warn him that Rakovac knows where this place is?”
“It’s too late. Rakovac called me right after Kelsov and Catherine left here. He said that it was time to wrap it up. I don’t know what that means, but I don’t think it’s about me.”
She was now only a few yards away. Eve started to take another step.
“Stop! Don’t come any closer.” Natalie was suddenly beside Kelly and pressing the muzzle of the gun to her temple. “I’ll pull the trigger. I swear I will. I can’t let you take the gun away from me.”
Eve froze. If she didn’t press the trigger intentionally, she might do it accidentally. “I’m not moving. Take the gun away from her head.”
“No, I know what you were going to do. I can’t let you—Rakovac said he’d punish me if it didn’t go well.”
“If what didn’t go well?”
“He wants you, too. You and Quinn, but I can’t help it if Joe Quinn went away. It’s not my fault. Maybe he won’t—It’s not my fault.” Her head lifted swiftly. “I hear a car.”
Eve heard it, too. “Maybe it’s Kelsov. Put away the gun. You don’t want him to—”
“It’s not Kelsov. I know the sound of his car. I’ve heard him come home so many times.” She gazed at Eve. “I’m sorry. It’s not my fault.”
“You said that before. I’m sympathetic to your problems, but you have to take responsibility at some point, Natalie.”
“No, she doesn’t.” A brown-haired man with gray flecks in his carefully barbered hair had opened the front door and stood pointing a Magnum revolver at them. “Haven’t you discovered that Natalie is just a puppet? She never had a great amount of brains even before Rakovac took her. To expect her to feel guilt or responsibility isn’t reasonable.”
“Who are you?”
He inclined his head. “Nicholas Russo. I’m Rakovac’s assistant.”
“He’s my father,” Natalie said dully.
Eve’s eyes widened in shock. “What?”
“A state which has been fraught with both benefits and dangers,” Russo said. “All the stupid bitch had to do was shut up and take it. She ran away. I’m lucky Rakovac didn’t take his anger at her out on me.”
“No, he took it out on her. And probably Catherine’s son.”
Russo’s brows lifted. “I