The Dark at the End Read online

  A side door opens and the first Jones comes in with a tray of appetizers, stuffed mushrooms and bruschetta. He holds it next to me, and I take as many as I can. Who knows whether he’ll even give us anything else.

  “Dr. Milkovich was the only one working for me in Montauk, of consequence,” Smith says. “A couple other nonessentials. But it was quite profitable for me nonetheless. I was perfectly happy to leave you there, feed you people to tunnel to through Liesel, but you had to go and escape, so then I had to take care of it myself.” He takes precisely one of each appetizer and sets them on his plate, even with each other. Like mismatched eyes. “I wonder…what should I do with you when I’m bored here? Shall I sell you to Russia? Or back to Montauk? Or back to your father once more? He was most willing to pay once. That’s something. You do manage to make me money. Though he’d really have to keep a better hold on you this time…you were there what? An hour?”

  My hands start to tremble, but not from claustrophobia. From fear. Any one of those things would be a nightmare. I stuff a mushroom in my mouth, but it makes me want to puke. I gag, swallow, until it goes down.

  He’s really not going to let me go. I knew it going in, of course. I was willing to make the trade. But he’s not going to let them go either. That I can’t deal with.

  “Leave him alone,” Bunny says, quiet, but firm. “He’s not used to you.”

  “As though I want anyone used to me.” Smith eats his piece of bruschetta, tomatoes tumbling between his manicured fingers, watching me. I kind of want to starve and go back to my room, get away from this Mad Hatter meal. But my gnawing stomach won’t let that happen. I eat a piece too, try to figure out what to say next. If there’s any way I can use this to my advantage.

  It’s delicious. I want about twenty more.

  “How are you, Jake?” Bunny asks, the blush still staining her cheeks.

  I sigh. Small talk. I don’t want any of that. “I was great until he stole my family off the street, and I had to come here to get them back.”

  Her head whips to him. I guess she didn’t know he took Mom and Myka. But how could she not know how evil he is? How could she stand to work for him? I finish my last mushroom just as Jones comes in with a tray of fresh dishes. He takes our appetizer plates and gives us the new ones. Caesar salad. He grinds fresh pepper and shaves fresh parmesan cheese over everyone’s.

  This is surreal. It’s like we’re eating in a good restaurant somewhere, instead of an insane man’s house. But we eat, all three of us, crunching salad. Bunny steals glances at me, and I watch her. I can’t believe she worked for him—spied for him. Still does. Still probably works for DARPA or the CIA and gives him information. No matter what he says, that’s treason. I think you can get shot for doing less than that.

  “How did you get started?” I ask her, curious. “With the CIA and DARPA and everything? You’re, um…very young.” To be a traitor.

  “I’m twenty-three.” She stabs another bite of lettuce with her fork, viciously. “They like to recruit young. They recruited me when I was 12.”

  Twelve. Almost Myka’s age.

  “I was part of a talented kids program—super-smart bunch, you had to test into it—and they had this overnight camp at the Spy Museum? Where you have a cover and all that and pretend to be a spy, crack codes and take on an identity and everything.”

  I set down my fork. Myka went on one of those, last year. She’s part of that group.

  Bunny doesn’t notice. Smith does—I’m sure he doesn’t miss much—but he just raises his eyebrows at me, then turns back to her, chin on his hand, and pretends to be fascinated.

  “I won the game, and at the end the organizer slipped me a card. She said they’d keep an eye on me, and to call the number when I was ‘thinking about colleges’.” She takes the last bite of salad and chews it slowly, thoughtfully. “I called three years later, and Liesel answered. They got me early admission to Yale, and I finished in two years. Then Masters in one year, doctorate the next. I’ve been working for her ever since. Until she left. But I’m still there.” She glances at Smith. “Doing research.”

  Jones comes in and takes our plates. I only ate half the salad before I lost my appetite. I wonder if Myka won that game too, if she got a card. Before all this happened.

  I wonder if that’s why they were looking into our family, and found out about me.

  No, I can’t blame that on Myka.

  “And Smith?” I ask.

  “Oh, I was slow,” he says, with a sick little laugh. “I recruited Dr. Milkovich at Yale when she was 17.” He reaches across and pats her hand, like a dad or a kindly uncle, and I am truly creeped out. “Any pick of Liesel’s is a good pick of mine. Like you, Mr. Lukin. And now here we are, a team. Hasn’t it just worked out so well? It’s only a pity I had to twist your arm.”

  I push back my chair and stand up. “I can’t do this. I can’t eat with you and pretend to be…what…co-workers? Colleagues? While you’re holding my mother and sister hostage to make me work.”

  His eyes glitter in the light from the chandelier. Bunny’s face tightens. She shakes her head, but it’s too late now.

  “Oh, I see,” he says, quietly. Dangerous. “So you’d rather starve and be kept in cuffs while I have your mother and sister hostage? You would rather suffer more? I thought I was doing you a favor to ask you to eat with us. To treat you like a human instead of an animal, like you complained about before.” He’s getting louder and louder as he talks. “But you’d rather be treated like an animal?” He stands and slides his arm across the table, sending plates, glasses, and silverware to the floor with a massive crash. Bunny flinches, but doesn’t move. Then he strides to my place, does the same with mine, staring defiantly at me. He looks at Bunny, but she has one hand on the table, on either side of her dishes, head down.

  “JONES,” he bellows. Two come in, from opposite doors. He points to the one nearest me, the skinny one. “Take him back to his…cell. Handcuff him to something uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. I think that’s the only way he’s going to feel at home here.”

  “Don’t do that,” Bunny says, quiet.

  Smith turns to her, incredulous. “What did you say, rabbit?”

  She clenches her fists, and raises her face to him. “His work is voluntary. You can’t force him to do it, and he doesn’t respond well when he’s…mistreated. He needs to be well-rested, not tortured.”

  Smith’s face is thunder, and I can see he’s ready to torture her too. Her cheeks are bright red, but she doesn’t stop.

  “You made a deal with him, right? He works, and no handcuffs and cells? So if there are handcuffs….” She shrugs. “Why would he work?”

  “Because I have his family,” Smith growls, low.

  She raises her eyebrows, pauses. “You made a deal,” she says simply.

  There’s a long moment while he stands there, staring down at her. Then he sighs, and it’s like all the air has gone out of him. “Fine,” he snaps. “I honor my word, when I do promise something. Just get him out of my sight.” He leaves, brushing past me, without looking at me once. Though he stops next to the skinny Jones. “And don’t let him out of yours. He may not be handcuffed, but I don’t trust him.”

  Bunny gives me a small, victorious smile before the Jones takes me back to the room. He slips inside after me and stands by the door, like a sentry.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Orders.”

  No tunneling to Dedushka, then. At least not yet.

  I lie down, thinking I’ll fall asleep in seconds.

  Except as soon as I close my eyes I see Myka, hands tied together, gag in her mouth, staring at me. Tears in her eyes. Mom, blindfolded, lying sideways on a hard cot.

  I sit up. Those weren’t hallucinations. Were they a vision? Something Myk is sending me? I close my eyes again. Now I see Myk on a plane, a knife held to her cheek, as the point digs in.

  Not visions. Imagination. But it’s bad enough. That could be happening, right now.
Because of me. They’re being held by Smith somewhere out there. And my grand plan to save them is a total bust. It just got me stuck too, trapped again. A waste.

  I sit up on the bed, twisting one of the pillows in my fist. Stare at Jones standing by the door. He’s not watching me directly, but he might as well be. My own personal guard.

  I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep at all. Hell, I may not even be able to close my eyes ever again.

  I miss Rachel. She’s the one who helps when I have nightmares, who knows what to say. Who kisses me and runs her fingers through my hair until I calm down. But she’s a long way away, and thoroughly pissed off at me on top of it. I did just walk away from her. I wouldn’t blame her if she was tired of the whole thing, chucked it all to take up normal life at school in Berkeley.

  I may never see her again. And Mom and Myka? Who knows. I grit my teeth against a swell of bile. It’s going to be a long night.

  12

  RACHEL

  Salty Dog by Flogging Molly

  “The Old Salty Dog?” the guy at the comics store says. “Yeah, there’s two of them. Restaurant and bar, both. Which one do you want, Siesta Key or City Island?”

  Ugh, I miss having a cell phone. Dedushka won’t let them anywhere near us. He claims they’re too easy to track. If I had my phone, I could’ve Googled “old salty dog,” found the two bars, looked at them, and decided which one. And then had it mapped for me. Instead we had to find someone Dedushka thinks is acceptable and ask, while he complains about how there aren’t pay phones and phone books anymore. He’s ridiculously old school. It’s taken us hours to find someone acceptable who has any idea. It’s 5 o’clock now. This guy’s about to close up.

  I look the question at Dedushka. Why would Vladimir pick a place that had two locations? Better cover?

  “Which is oldest?” he asks, his accent almost undetectable. He’s trying not to stand out.

  “Siesta Key,” the guy answers. He’s short, with dark hair and a straggling beard. He’s been leering at me since the moment we stepped in the door. I almost wave to get him to look up at my face. “Been there almost 30 years or something.” He smiles down at my breasts, and I want to punch him, right there under his chin. Pig. Dedushka does a hacking old-man cough until the guy turns to him.

  Good distraction. I still want to punch him. Why do guys do that?

  He gives us directions, and we get out of there. The bar is way out on an island, so thank God we have a car now. As long as the police aren’t looking for it…but I doubt it. It’s an ancient Volvo Dedushka took from a long-term parking lot at a bus station. We should have a couple days, fingers crossed.

  Sometimes I step back and think how weird all this is. How quickly I got used to stealing cars and hiding out and sleeping rough. How quickly I got used to Jake being there all the time.

  I miss him. There’s a permanent ache in my chest, a Jake-sized emptiness. We got close in a short time, running away together. Even though I was mad at him for leaving, most of the mad has dissolved into worry and missing.

  Dedushka misses him too—all of them, probably. He hasn’t heard from Jake. He droops. We haven’t been talking to each other much. With just us, almost-strangers, there’s not much to say.

  He drives west, over a bridge to an island. Once we’re on the island, It’s funny how we can barely see the ocean even though we’re surrounded by it. From the road it’s just all trees and houses, on and on and on. It smells like ocean, though. A saltiness in the air I’m not used to.

  It makes me think of my dad, living his life in Hawaii now. Coward. I wonder how he’d like it, knowing what I’ve been doing. What I’ve experienced in the last couple months. I don’t think he’d like it at all. Mom either.

  Good.

  He thinks I’m this sweet little girl, working at the library, getting ready for college. That I was fine, on-track, so he was free to go off on his glamorous dream life surfing or eating poi or whatever, and leave me with Mom.

  I thought at least he felt bad, that he missed me terribly. He was the only one who knew what Mom was like with me. I imagined him wracked with guilt. Until Jake tunneled to him that first time, at Caitlyn Timmerman’s party, and proved that Dad didn’t miss me at all. All he was thinking about was waxing his surfboard and getting out on the waves. He was happy.

  Yeah, he wouldn’t be happy with me stealing cars and running all over the country. But I am. For now.

  We see it at last, the parking lot almost full: The Old Salty Dog.

  I try to figure out why Vladimir would’ve come here, picked this place out of all the bars and restaurants in Sarasota. It’s nice, bright and airy, full of people who don’t pay any attention to us. There’s baseball on the TV. It smells like beer. But there’s nothing Russian or spy-like or even that remarkable about it. I guess I was expecting a place like a TV show would use for a Russian spy, dark, with booths. I follow Dedushka and sit at the bar, keeping an eye on the exit. Just in case.

  “I would like a beer,” Dedushka says to the bartender, a big white guy with a crinkly bald head, both arms covered with full sleeves of tattoos. Dedushka lets his full accent out. “My friend Vladimir sent us here.”

  “Vladimir?” The bartender raises his almost-nonexistent eyebrows and points to the corner by the window. A woman sits there alone, a shot glass in front of her, staring morosely out the window. “I think you want a visit with Doreen. I’ll bring your beer over.” He looks at me in that judging way bartenders have. “You?”

  “Coke, please.” I don’t feel like having a beer, even if he’d give me one. Which he clearly wouldn’t.

  “What kind?” he asks.

  I laugh. “Um, Coke.” I always forget that Deep South thing, where they call all soda Coke.

  Dedushka is already almost to the table, so I scramble after. He walks fast. He stops in front of the woman, and waits until she looks up. “Vladimir sent me,” he says, quietly.

  The woman drops her head and starts to cry, big loud sobs, like he pushed a button and set her off. Dedushka takes a step back, frowning. His hand goes to his beard.

  Because that’s the best way to deal with tears.

  I sit in the chair next to her and touch her hand. “It’s okay,” I say, my voice soft. “It’ll be okay, Doreen. What’s the matter?”

  She cries for another couple minutes, while Dedushka brings up a chair and sits down, looking like he wants to be a thousand miles away. I rub her back and talk, low, soothing. She’s a bit drunk, which isn’t helping with the crying, but I have a lot of experience with sad drunks…Mom. Low and soothing works.

  Doreen looks up, her face blotchy, when the bartender brings our drinks. She swipes at her cheeks.

  She’s pretty. Probably a little older than Mom, with thin gray streaks in her straight brown hair. But her skin is mostly clear and unlined, and her eyes are bright, if puffy right now.

  “He’s alive, then?” she says. Her accent is southern, soft and slow. “I thought he must be dead.” She looks from Dedushka to me, and then her eyes change, and her mouth goes tight and hard. She must have seen it in our faces. “Oh. Oh no.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I realize my hand is still on her back, and it suddenly feels awkward. I pull it away.

  I expect her to cry again, but instead she nods, drunkenly, staring out towards the ocean. I wrap my hands around the cool Coke. It’s warm in here, the doors open to the air, a big fan circling overhead. Of course it’s warm everywhere here. That ocean tang blows in again, salt and seaweed.

  “He said it might happen,” she says, still looking out, far away from us. Then her gaze sharpens, and she turns to Dedushka. “Monday he said if he didn’t call to say goodnight, I was supposed to head to this place the next day, and the next. For a week, and you might come any time. His friend, right?” She smiles, small, through tears. “He described you well.” Her voice catches, but she pushes through. “I’m supposed to give you a message.”

  Vladimir w
as good at this trail-leaving thing.

  “Da?” Dedushka asks. “He was a good friend.”

  He looks terribly sad sitting there, stroking his beard. Old. I wonder suddenly if he ever cries.

  I want to cry for Vladimir, for Doreen.

  Doreen rubs one finger around the rim of her shot glass, then licks it. She has a mole right in the corner of her mouth, like a movie star. “He said to tell you—and only you—to go to the place you love most, where you spend all your time. Go with Sara.” She looks at me. “Are you Sara?” I shrug in answer, and she continues. “Number 56, he said.” She rubs a hand across her eyes, and suddenly she looks old and tired too. “Does that make sense to you?”

  “Da, of course,” Dedushka says, his voice smooth. “That is all?”

  She nods, sure.

  He lifts the beer. “To Vladimir.”

  “To Vladimir,” we echo, with our drinks.

  He downs it in one go, though I’ve never seen him drink beer before, and wipes his mouth. “We must go, Sara and I. Spasiba.”

  He holds out a hand, and Doreen takes it, squeezes. Her eyes fill up again.

  I shake too. Her hand is warm, damp. “Thank you. You really helped us. I’m so sorry for…for your loss.”

  “He was a good person, wasn’t he?” Her voice shakes.

  “A great person,” Dedushka answers. The faraway look again. “He will be missed.”

  She nods again, biting her lip, and we stand and go, leaving her alone. Dedushka leaves a twenty on the bar for our drinks, and hers. We don’t speak until we’re back in the car, side by side, looking out the window. I don’t know what to say about her, about Vladimir. In the end I don’t say anything. I don’t think he’d like talking about it.

  “Did that really make sense to you?” I ask. It didn’t make any sense to me, but I figure it had to be some kind of code.

  “No,” he says, shortly. He sighs. “But it is the next step. We will have to unravel it, da?”

  We will have to unravel it. Not as easy as I thought.