Tell Me No Lies by Annie Solomon Page B

if it had killed him, it must be important But what?
    Head down, she wound around as many back streets as possible. Every few minutes, she glanced over her shoulder. No one followed.
    It was a cool spring day, but she was sweating by the time she reached Luka's run-down apartment complex. The units, painted dull turquoise and dirty yellow, crawled around a crescent road. Luka's was in the back, hidden from the street.
    He could have lived better. He could have afforded it on his own, never mind that she'd offered to help a thousand times. But lying low had been a way of life with him. Harvard, the house she'd bought, the public splash she'd made he hadn't been happy with any of it.
    She teared up remembering the arguments. The way he'd sigh in the end, call her Sashka in his own gruff way and pat her head. Kazhdomu rostku svoyo vremya, he'd say. Every seed knows its time.
    She went through the parking area with its series of covered slots and crossed the grass until she was out of sight of the road. Carefully, she jogged to the end, where she climbed a staircase, fished in her tote for the keys, and inserted them in the door.
    She needn't have bothered; it wasn't locked. With the first touch of her fingers, the door creaked open. She paused. Luka would never have left the door unlocked.
    Cautiously, she pushed the door open the rest of the way.
    A cry of dismay escaped her. Every inch of the apartment's front area was covered with overturned furniture, upside-down drawers, papers, clothing, and the remains of a smashed television set.
    Slowly Alex picked her way through the debris. Whoever had done this had been thorough; nothing had been left intact. Every closet, cabinet, and drawer had been emptied. Every cranny pried open. A blast of fury ripped through her. The damage made her angry in a way she hadn't been over the news about Luka. As though the deathitself were something she couldn't face yet, but this, this ...
    She wanted to howl, to screech. Her chest rose and fell as she took in huge gulps of air.
    With ironclad control she forced herself to calm down. No use getting upset; she'd only lose her ability to think.
    Her foot hit something that rolled across the floor and butted up against the edge of a slashed sofa cushion. She stooped to picked it up. A can of vegetable soup. Vegetarian vegetable. She couldn't picture Luka eating anything as bland and ordinary. A hearty meat-and-potatoes dish yes, but vegetarian? The image made her giggle. The giggle turned into a laugh, then she couldn't stop laughing. She laughed so hard, tears pricked her eyes, and suddenly she was sobbing, clutching the can of soup to her chest.
    She was sixteen again, staring down from the sixth floor at the small body below. Her father's body. Someone was screaming, screaming like an unnatural thing, and Luka hit her and the screaming stopped. And then he was wrenching her away from the window, her father's driver and bodyguard pushing her out the office door, down the back stairs.
    They had to escape.
    No one could ever know she'd been there. Heard the argument. Her father's accusations. Thief. Betrayer.
    Luka, Luka. What would she have done without him?
    Now she would find out, she thought as she sank onto the cushionless couch. Just as she'd found out all those years ago what it was like to face a harsh world without the warm security of her father. Then she had Luka, now she had only herself.
    Except this time she wasn't a child.
    She was an adult, with power and resources of her own. Alone, but she'd been alone for a long time. Why cry about it? Emotional scenes were a waste of time.
    Breath unsteady, she sniffed back a sob and ruthlessly searched for the ice deep inside, forcing it to the surface. Feel nothing. Do something.
    When she was in control again, she rose and began to search through the wreckage.
    ***
    Miki Petrov put down the phone at his desk and frowned at the glass case across the way. Inside was a collection of antique