Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [39]
“Would you like some tea?” Milla Tamirova asked. Her face held an expression that might have been tenderness or even solace, that Alli couldn’t quite digest. “Or perhaps something stronger to celebrate your small victory.”
“Where’s my father?” Alli said.
“You said you need his protection. From what—or should I say, from whom?”
“Nothing,” Alli said. “I lied because I was afraid you wouldn’t see me otherwise.”
Milla Tamirova frowned. “You were probably right. Not that it matters, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you—”
“I want to see him.”
“I understand.” Milla Tamirova shook her head. “But your father is a very dangerous man, there’s no telling how he’ll react to the news that he has an illegitimate daughter. Better for you to stay away.”
“Okay, you’ve done your duty, consider me warned.”
Milla Tamirova closed the door to the dungeon behind them as they walked out into the hallway. “You just took a first step, that’s all it was. Don’t mistake it for a silver bullet. You have a long, dark journey ahead of you.”
Alli would not meet her penetrating gaze. She wished she understood; she’d rather bite her tongue than admit she didn’t.
“I wish you’d take my advice, even though you don’t like me.”
“That’s not true,” Alli said, “or, at least, it isn’t now.”
“I appreciate your candor.” Once again, the rueful smile played across Milla Tamirova’s lips. “You still won’t take my advice, will you?”
Alli shook her head. “Where is he holed up?”
“Excellent choice of words.” Milla Tamirova swept them both across the living room to the front door. “That would be his brand-new dacha, just outside the city. Here’s the address.” She pulled the door open. “Go to him, then. Perhaps you’ll be in time for the christening.”
NINE
WHY DOES memory persist, Jack asked himself, long after the details of an event or a person become frayed or indistinct? The core of memory remains like a dream or a stain on a photo that is rapidly growing blank.
Karl Rochev’s dacha, deep in the thick woodlands past the far boundaries of Kiev’s eastern suburbs, blighted with hideous Soviet-era apartment complexes marching to nowhere like the undead, bore the dimensions and hallmarks of an old farmhouse. The wooden frame had been augmented and, in some places, replaced by massive fieldstones, lending it at once a more stolid and more militaristic aspect.
Jack, sitting with Annika and Alli in the car he had rented, could easily imagine the structure the dacha must once have been, because it was eerily similar to his own house. He felt a shiver run through him as the image in memory overlaid the image he stared at now.
The dacha sat at the end of a winding driveway, newly planted with evergreens yet to reach a height sufficient to completely screen the house from the road. It was ablaze with light, every window emitting a cheery butter yellow that held at bay the gloom of the failing afternoon. A cool wind ruffled the feathery tops of the pines, creating a dreamy sound not unlike the surf. Otherwise, the stillness was absolute. Clouds had rolled in with the twilight, obliterating both shadow and birdsong.
Jack rolled the car off the road and into the low overhang of hemlock branches. Rooting around, he found an old toothpick in the glove compartment, which he leaned up against the gearshift. As they got out, he made certain that the vehicle could not be spotted by someone driving by. He had already taken the precaution of switching license plates on the car with one they’d found parked on a suburban side street, so he felt that he’d done all he could to protect them. Then he looked around in all directions. Nothing but close-knit stands of evergreens greeted him. There was not another house in sight, the only vehicle theirs.
As they were about to start down the driveway, Annika said, “This man is dangerous. Maybe we leave the girl with the car.”
“Stop calling me ‘the girl,’ ” Alli said sharply.
“Stop calling me