The Witness Read online

  them, mudak. Betray your family for your freedom, for your fine life. Do you know what happens to thieves and traitors, Alexi?”

  “I’ll talk to Sergei. I’ll explain. I had to give them something, but it was bullshit. Just bullshit. I played them.”

  “No, Alexi, they played you. And you lost.”

  “I’ll talk to Sergei.” When he backed up, the second man moved—fast for his girth—trapped Alexi’s arms behind his back.

  Fear lived on his face, and in fear he spoke in Russian. “Don’t do this. Yakov, we’re cousins. Our mothers are sisters. We share blood.”

  “You’re a disgrace to your mother, to your blood. On your knees.”

  “No. Don’t.”

  The second man shoved Alexi to the ground.

  “Don’t. Please. We’re blood. Give me a chance.”

  “Yes, beg. Beg for your worthless life. I would let Yegor break you to pieces, but your uncle said to show mercy, for his sister’s sake.”

  “Please. Have mercy.”

  “This is your mercy.” Korotkii drew a gun from the small of his back, pressed the barrel to Alexi’s forehead and fired.

  Elizabeth’s legs gave way. She fell to her knees, her hand clamped over her mouth to trap the scream.

  Korotkii spoke softly as he put the gun to Alexi’s temple, fired twice more.

  His expression never changed, held like a mask as he murdered. Then it sharpened as he looked up and toward the kitchen.

  “I don’t feel good, Alex. I need to lie down, or maybe we should—Who are you?”

  “Ah, fuck your mother,” he muttered, and shot Julie twice, where she stood. “Why didn’t we know he had his whore with him?”

  The second man walked over to Julie, shook his head. “This is a new one. Very young.”

  “She won’t be older.”

  Elizabeth’s vision grayed. It was a dream. A nightmare. Because of the drinking and being sick. She’d wake up any second. Huddled in the dark, she stared at Alex. There was hardly any blood, she noted. If it was real, wouldn’t there be more blood?

  Wake up, wake up, wake up.

  But the terror only spiked when she saw Ilya come in.

  They’d kill him, too. The man would shoot him. She had to help. She had to—

  “God damn it, what have you done?”

  “What I was ordered to do.”

  “Your orders were to break his arms and to do it tomorrow night.”

  “The orders changed. Our informant got us word. Alexi went to bed with the cops.”

  “Christ. Motherfucker.”

  Elizabeth watched in horror as Ilya kicked the dead Alex, once, twice, three times.

  One of them, she thought. He was one of them.

  Ilya stopped, pushed at his hair, then saw Julie’s body. “Ah, fuck. Was that necessary?”

  “She saw us. We were told his whore left with another man.”

  “It was this one’s bad luck he was looking for fresh meat. Where’s the other one?”

  “Other?”

  The beautiful dark eyes went to ice. “There were two. This one and another—short, black hair, red dress.”

  “Yegor.”

  With a nod, the big man drew a knife and started up the stairs. Ilya gestured, and, following orders, Korotkii moved toward the kitchen while Ilya walked to the terrace doors.

  “Liz,” he murmured. “It’s all right, Liz. I’ll take care of you.”

  He slid a knife out of his boot, held it behind his back, flipped on the outside lights.

  He saw her shoes, scanned the terrace, rushed to the rail.

  “There’s no one here,” Korotkii told him from the doorway.

  “There was. Find her.”

  4

  SHE RAN BLINDLY, EYES WIDE AND GLAZED, BREATH RIPPING out of her lungs in sobs and gasps. She couldn’t release the scream clawing at her throat. They might hear. If they heard, if they caught her, they’d kill her.

  Like Julie.

  She fought her instinct to run for the street. There could be more of them, more like Ilya. How could she know the car she flagged down wasn’t one of them? How could she know if she beat her fists on the door of a house, one of them wouldn’t answer?

  She had to run, get away as far and as fast as she could. She had to hide.

  If there was a fence, she climbed it. If there was a hedge, she pushed and fought her way through. When the ground scraped and tore at her bare feet, she choked back the cries of pain. She hid from the moonlight, scrabbling like a mole for the dark places.

  A dog barked madly as she raced across someone’s yard.

  Don’t let them hear, don’t let them come.

  Don’t look back.

  Something tore into her side. For a terrifying moment as she pitched forward, she thought she’d been shot. But she lay on the ground, drawing her knees in, the harsh whoops of her breath scoring her throat.

  A cramp, just a cramp. But with it came a powerful surge of nausea. Pushing to her hands and knees, she gagged, wept, gagged, racked by dry heaves.

  Shock, she told herself as her teeth chattered. Sweating and shivering at the same time, dizzy, nauseated, rapid pulse. She was in shock, and she needed to think.

  To warm herself, she rubbed her hands rapidly over her arms as she struggled to slow her breathing. She crawled over to retrieve the purse that had flown out of her hand when she’d fallen. She’d managed to hold on to it during the flight, so she comforted herself that she had been thinking on some level.

  She needed to call the police; she needed help.

  “Take out the phone,” she whispered, coaching herself. “Push memory one. Tell them … tell them…”

  “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  “Help me. Can you help me?”

  “What is the nature of your emergency?

  “He shot them.” Tears flooded her eyes, all but drowned her voice. “He shot them, and I ran.”

  “Ma’am, are you reporting a shooting?”

  “He killed them. He killed Julie. I ran away.”

  “I’m going to send help. Give me your location.”

  “I don’t know where I am.” She covered her mouth with her hand, struggled not to break down. “I ran. I just ran. I think I’m near Lake Shore Drive. Wait. Will you wait? Don’t go.”

  “I’m right here. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Elizabeth. I’m Elizabeth Fitch.”

  “Elizabeth, do you recognize anything? A landmark, an address?”

  “I’m going to find one. I’m behind a house. A gray stone house with turrets.” She limped toward the house, shaking violently when she stepped into the glow of security lights. “It has—it has a paved driveway, and a big garage. Decks, and—and gardens.”

  “Can you walk to the street?”

  “I am. I can see it. There are streetlights. If I go where it’s light and they come, they’ll see me.”

  “Just keep talking. Keep your phone on, Elizabeth. We’re using your signal to find you.”

  “I see an address. I see the numbers.” She read them off.

  “The police are on their way. Help is coming, Elizabeth. Are you hurt?”

  “No. No, I ran. I was outside when they came in. I was on the terrace. They didn’t know. They didn’t see me. He shot them. He shot them. He killed Julie.”

  “I’m sorry. Where did this happen?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get the address. It was on Lake Shore Drive. We shouldn’t have gone there. We shouldn’t have gone to that house. Julie’s dead.”

  “Who is Julie, Elizabeth?”

  “Ju— Julie Masters. My friend Julie. A car’s coming. I have to hide.”

  “It’s the patrol car. It’s help.”

  “Are you sure?” Panic crushed her chest, shut off her air. “Are you sure?”

  “They’re on the radio right now, approaching the address. I’m going to tell them to turn on the bubble light. You’ll see it.”

&n
bsp; “Yes. Yes. Oh, God. I see it.” She stumbled forward, into the light. “Thank you.”

  “You’re safe now, Elizabeth.”

  They wanted to take her to the hospital, but when she grew only more anxious, they took her to the station. She huddled under the blanket one of the officers wrapped around her shoulders, and continued to shiver in the back of the patrol car.

  They took her to a room with a table and chairs. One of the officers stayed with her while the other went to get her coffee.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  He’d given her his name, she remembered. Officer Blakley. He had a stern face and tired eyes, but he’d given her a blanket.

  “We went to the club. Julie and I, we went to the club.”

  “Julie Masters.”

  “Yes.”

  “What club?”

  “Warehouse 12. I …” She had to tell the truth. No more lies. “I made fake IDs for us.”

  His face barely registered surprise as he wrote in his little book. “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen in September.”

  “Sixteen,” he repeated, studying her, voice and eyes flat. “Where are your parents?”

  “It’s just my mother. She’s out of town at a medical convention.”

  “She’ll need to be notified.”

  Elizabeth only shut her eyes. “Yes. She’s Dr. Susan L. Fitch. She’s registered at the Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel, in Atlanta.”

  “All right. And you forged identification to gain entrance to Warehouse 12.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. You can arrest me, but you have to find the men who killed Julie.”

  “You said you were in a house, not a club.”

  “We met Alex at the club. We went to his house. We shouldn’t have. We’d been drinking. We shouldn’t have. I got sick, then I went outside because …” Tears slid down her cheeks again. “I went outside, and two men came in. They shot Alex, then when Julie came into the room, they shot her. I ran.”

  “You don’t know where this house is?”

  “I could find it. I could take you, or draw you a map. But I didn’t look at the address. It was stupid. I was stupid. Please, we can’t just leave her there.”

  “Do you have this Alex’s full name?”

  “I … Yes!” Thank God. “Alex, but the man who killed him called him Alexi. Alexi Gurevich.”

  Blakley went very still, and his eyes sharpened. “You’re telling me that you were in Alexi Gurevich’s house, and witnessed a double murder?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes. Please.”

  “Just a minute.” He rose as the second officer came in with the coffee. Blakley murmured to him. Whatever he said had his partner shooting Elizabeth a quick look before he hurried out of the room.

  “Given your age,” Blakley told her, “we’re notifying Child Services. A detective will be in to speak with you.”

  “But Julie. Can I take you to the house first? I left her. I just left her there.”

  “We know where Gurevich lives.”

  He left her alone, but within fifteen minutes someone came in and gave her a vending machine cup of chicken soup. She hadn’t thought she could eat, but at the first sip her abused stomach begged for more.

  Despite the food and the coffee, reaction set in with dragging fatigue. Surrendering, Elizabeth laid her head on the table, closed her eyes.

  Outside the room, Detective Sean Riley stepped up to the two-way glass beside his partner. “So that’s our wit.”

  “Elizabeth Fitch, age sixteen, daughter of Dr. Susan L. Fitch, chief of surgery, Silva Memorial.” Brenda Griffith took a long drink of her Starbucks coffee. She’d been a cop for fifteen years, so calls in the middle of the night were routine. But coffee helped ease the blow. “CPS is coming in.”

  “Have we verified?”

  “Gurevich took one to the forehead, two behind the ear. Low-caliber, close-range. Female vic—her ID says Julie Masters—age twenty-one, but according to the wit, the age is bogus. Officers on scene report she took two head shots.”

  “Fucking sixteen.” Riley, a twenty-year vet with chronic back pain and thinning brown hair, shook his head. “She’s lucky to be alive.”

  “Since she is, let’s find out what she knows.” Brenda stepped out. “Let me take the lead; go soft. If half of what she said in her statement’s true, she’s had a hell of a night. Here comes CPS.”

  “I’ll get the kid a Coke or something,” Riley said. “We’ll both start soft.”

  Elizabeth woke with a jolt of terror, stared at the woman with the pretty face and black hair hauled back in an explosive ponytail.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Detective Griffith. This is Ms. Petrie from Child Services. My partner will be right in. He thought you might want a pop.”

  “I fell asleep. How long …” She looked at her watch. “Oh, God. It’s nearly morning. Julie—”

  “I’m very sorry about your friend.”

  “It’s my fault. We shouldn’t have gone. I knew it was wrong. I just wanted to … I forged driver’s licenses.”

  “So I hear. Can I see yours?”

  “All right.” Elizabeth took the license out of her purse.

  Griffith studied it, turned it over, lifted her eyebrows, glanced at Elizabeth. “You’re telling me you made this yourself?”

  “Yes. I’d been experimenting on how it’s done. And Julie wanted to go to Warehouse 12, so I made them. I know it’s illegal. There’s no excuse. Am I under arrest?”

  Griffith glanced at Petrie, then back to Elizabeth. “I think we’ll hold off on that. Were you acquainted with Alexi Gurevich prior to last night?”

  “No. He came over to our table. We had Cosmos.” She pressed her hands to her face. “God, did it really happen? I looked the club up on the Internet before we went. I’d never been to a nightclub. I read some articles that said it was suspected that the owners were part of the Russian Mafia. But I never thought—when he came over, then Ilya—”

  “Ilya? Is that Ilya Volkov?”

  “Yes. We danced with them, and sat in a booth, and he kissed me. Nobody ever kissed me before. I wanted to know what it was like. He was so nice to me, and then—”

  She broke off, that glint of fear back in her eyes when the door opened.

  “Elizabeth, this is my partner, Detective Riley.”

  “Got you a Coke. My daughter can’t live without a Coke in the mornings.”