Chapter 7 - The Man Who Refused to Call It Fear
Peter Halden’s room was empty.
His uniform remained in the closet.
His personal phone lay charging beside the bed.
His passport was gone.
So was fifteen thousand dollars from the emergency cash locker in the staff security office.
“He planned this,” Dmitri said.
Nikolai stood in the center of Peter’s room.
“Or someone wants it to look planned.”
Vera looked at him.
“You don’t think he’s the mole?”
“I think convenient answers are dangerous.”
She remembered Emmett Shaw.
“So somebody could be framing Peter too.”
“Yes.”
Dmitri opened a drawer.
“Except Peter has disappeared.”
Nikolai’s gaze stayed hard.
“Find him.”
By afternoon, every employee had been interviewed.
Nobody had seen Peter after midnight.
Security footage showed him entering the west corridor.
Then nothing.
A camera had failed for eleven minutes.
That failure bothered Vera.
Not the timing.
The location.
“What is behind the west corridor?”
Dmitri answered.
“Service rooms.”
“Which ones?”
“Electrical. Storage. Laundry.”
“Water controls?”
Dmitri looked at her.
“Basement level.”
Vera stood.
“Nikolai.”
He understood.
They found the water-control room locked.
Inside, one access panel had been opened.
A cable ran into a device no larger than a deck of cards.
The estate network had been compromised from inside.
Again.
Peter’s badge history had passed through that system.
Which meant the record implicating him could have been fabricated.
Dmitri swore.
Nikolai said nothing.
That was worse.
Vera watched him walk away.
She found him later on the terrace overlooking the lake.
Cold wind pulled at his coat.
“You’re doing it again.”
He didn’t turn.
“Doing what?”
“Standing somewhere dramatic instead of talking.”
“It is my terrace.”
“Unfortunately.”
She joined him.
For several minutes they watched dark water move beneath the winter sky.
Then Vera asked, “Who did Helian take before?”
Nikolai became completely still.
She knew immediately that she had found the wound.
“Someone,” she said. “There was someone.”
He looked toward the horizon.
“My brother.”
Vera had never heard him mention a brother.
“He was nineteen.”
Her anger disappeared.
“What happened?”
“Men associated with Helian’s previous leadership believed my father would cooperate if they took someone he loved.”
Vera swallowed.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“They killed Anton anyway.”
The words were flat.
That made them worse.
“I’m sorry.”
“I was twenty-three.”
“You were there?”
“I was the one who found him.”
Vera looked away.
Now she understood the guards.
The tracking phone.
The waiting until two in the morning.
The fury when her truck broke down.
It was not control for its own sake.
It was memory.
“I promised myself,” Nikolai said, “that nobody would ever again become a weapon because of me.”
“Nikolai—”
“And then you came here.”
Vera’s heart beat harder.
He finally looked at her.
“You argued about roses during your job interview.”
“You wanted them planted in shade.”
“They would have survived.”
“They would have been miserable.”
“They’re flowers.”
“That attitude was exactly the problem.”
A faint smile crossed his face.
Then disappeared.
“You treated me like a man who knew nothing about roses.”
“You are a man who knows nothing about roses.”
“I own several thousand.”
“That does not make you qualified.”
The wind moved around them.
Something softened.
“You were the first person in years,” Nikolai said, “who wanted nothing from me.”
“I wanted a paycheck.”
“You demanded a raise after six months.”
“I deserved it.”
“You did.”
He looked toward the lake.
“You didn’t care about my companies. You weren’t impressed by the cars. You called my marble fountain an architectural crime.”
“It is.”
“You made this house feel…”
He stopped.
Vera waited.
“Normal,” he finished.
The word carried more emotion than any declaration could have.
Vera’s throat tightened.
“So when you disappeared last night…”
“I did not disappear. My truck broke down.”
“I knew that eventually.”
“But before you knew?”
He looked at her.
There was the answer.
Fear.
“I imagined every mistake I had made with Anton repeating itself.”
Vera stepped closer.
“You cannot protect me by keeping me ignorant.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m learning.”
“Slowly.”
“I am not accustomed to being corrected this frequently.”
“You should surround yourself with better people.”
He actually laughed.
Quietly.
It was the first time Vera had heard the sound without sarcasm.
She liked it too much.
Her satellite phone beeped.
Both looked down.
A message.
Unknown sender.
One photograph attached.
Vera opened it.
Peter Halden.
Alive.
Sitting in what appeared to be a warehouse.
A newspaper beside him showed that morning’s date.
Text beneath the image read:
YOUR TRAITOR ISN’T THE TRAITOR.
Then another message arrived.
ASK DMITRI WHAT HAPPENED IN PRAGUE.
Vera slowly raised her eyes.
Nikolai’s face had changed.
“What happened in Prague?”
He said nothing.
“Nikolai?”
His silence was answer enough.
May you like
Whatever had happened in Prague involved Dmitri.
And for the first time, the man Nikolai trusted more than anyone had become part of the mystery.
