The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [145]
Henning patted her hand but he turned back to the TV and said nothing. Stevie thought she might leave him alone with his thoughts for a moment and stepped into the corridor.
With the tip of her nail, she dialled David Rice and hoped he wouldn’t answer.
‘Stevie.’
He always answered.
‘Where the hell are you? Dovetail told me you were poisoned—’
Trust Dovetail. He had eyes and ears everywhere.
‘—next I hear, Josie tells me you’ve vanished to some sanatorium. What the devil are you playing at?’
‘I’m fine now,’ Stevie tried to soothe the savage beast. ‘Someone slipped a little poison into my coffee. They sugared it to mask the taste but—’
‘You hate sugar in your coffee. Thank God for your fussiness, Stevie Duveen.’
‘By the time I came to, it was too late for the chopper.’
‘There are other ways down the mountain.’ Rice separated each word for emphasis. ‘You think your Russians can’t find you at a sanatorium?’
‘They can find me in London, too. And in Zurich,’ Stevie said quietly, voicing her fears at last.
‘We’ll find a way for you to disappear.’
Stevie looked down at her feet. ‘It wouldn’t work, David, even if I wanted it to. How am I supposed to live in fear for the rest of my life, watching over my shoulder for Russian assassins? Trust me, I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought there was another way out. And then there’s the chance of getting Anya back . . .’
‘Ah. Anya.’
Rice knew the story of Stevie’s parents—and of little Stevie—only too well and he had guessed the impact Kozkov’s assassination might have on her.
‘It’s not the same thing, Stevie.’
‘I know.’
Neither said a word for what seemed like a long time.
Stevie stood in the corridor of the east wing of the sanatorium and stared out of the window. Lights were burning through the small windows in the west wing. Dragoman’s quarters. The windows were too narrow to get a good view, but she saw shapes—people—passing to and fro.
‘You don’t have faith in me, do you, David.’
‘It’s not a matter of faith, Stevie. I promised your mother and father—in that godforsaken mudslide—that I would keep a hand on your shoulder if anything should happen to them.’ There was a pause. David continued, his voice hoarse now. ‘When something did, I tried to keep you safe without crowding you. It’s not been easy, especially not in this line of work. But either you worked for me, where I could keep an eye on you, or you worked for some other firm, where I could not.’
Stevie was touched. He felt the bond, just as she did.
‘I can’t be responsible for losing you, too.’
‘David,’ tears pricked in Stevie’s eyes, ‘what happened to my parents wasn’t your fault. One day I will find the people responsible, count on that, but you are not one of them.’
David coughed. ‘I could say the same to you about Valery Kozkov, about Anya . . . How much difference would that make to how you feel, Stevie? I loved your mother and father. And now I . . .’
The silence of unspoken thoughts buzzed between them, faint static on the line.
Stevie wished Rice would finish his sentence the way her heart wanted him to. Instead, she said, ‘Then let me make my own decision. Trust me enough, David.’
There was another long pause.
‘Can I do anything from here?’
Stevie’s heart flipped with gratitude. ‘Yes. Rosie’s trying to plant a story on Felix Dragoman for me at the paper—can you make sure it does get in and gets a lot of attention?’
‘Done.’
‘David . . . thank you.’
‘I’ll never forgive you if you get yourself killed.’
He rang off.
Stevie, buoyed by her conversation, pulled out her mini-binoculars. The shapes at Dragoman’s windows were definitely people. She could see the backs of their heads. Was Dragoman among them?
Stevie ran from window to window, trying to see more. Looking down, she saw the massive skylight that hung over what was once the castle courtyard and was now the main room of the sanatorium. It was made of glass