Page 58 of Never Without You
“Love you, Ter.”
She hangs up, and I go to my new favoritewebsite: Marguerite Sells Mendon. Every day, I scroll through thelistings, and so far she hasn’t added any new houses, but I knowour home is out there.
Holy shit.She’s added a new house.Set back from the road. Not in the woods, but there are lots oftrees. It’s stone, and it’s older, not from colonial times, butwith that look. It has a wide front porch with thick white columns.I zip through the photos of the interior and go to the ones of theback of the house. There it is. A traditional conservatory withmultipaned windows and an angled glass ceiling. I jump up, run outof the room, turn around, go back, grab my bag, run out again, andnearly skip down the hall to Ethan’s room.
I stand in the doorway wagging my phone backand forth, and Ethan stops telling Omar the Yankees are going tosuck next season.
“Babe?”
“I found it.”
“Found what?”
“Our home.” I dash over to the bed and shovethe phone in his face. He takes it from me and starts scrollingwith his thumb.
“It’s a money pit.”
“It has a conservatory.”
“Babe. Have you looked at the inside of thehouse?”
“Not yet. It has a conservatory.”
“Theresa. The kitchen and bathrooms need tobe updated. The floors need to be stripped, sanded, andre-varnished, and the driveway needs to be repaved. And that’s whatI can see from looking at these tiny-ass pictures.”
Omar looks like he’s about to bust outlaughing.
“Shut it,” I tell Omar. “Don’t encouragehim.” I grab my phone. “I’ll call her. We’ll go see it thisweekend.”
He shakes his head. “Okay, baby.”
I know he figures once I see how much needsto be done to the place, I’ll relent. Little does he know. It’s onan acre and a half of land. It has mature trees, and it has afabulous conservatory.
“Great.”
I leave the room and call Marguerite.
Dutchford
Ethan
No Loose Threads
There’ll be a lot of things that cross thedoorstep of the twenty-four-hundred-square-foot never-ending homeimprovement project we bought, but fear and evil won’t be includedon that list.
Skip had brought unbelievable news that dayhe came to see me in the hospital. The guy who’d gotten winged bythe chopper sniper turned out to be a songbird. As luck would haveit, the asshole is a U.S citizen, born in Brighton Beach to Russianparents. The family is all tied up with the LebedevskyBratva. The guy was in the Jacob Javits Federal building toapply for a new passport, but he had the wrong building. He saw mein the lobby and called hisVoryin Brighton Beach to tellthem Alexei Berenikoff was in New York. It seems Alexei and I couldbe brothers, if not twins.
Apparently, my distant relatives in Russiawho live in and around St. Petersburg are not the kind of familyI’d want to claim. NotBratva, but small-time crooks,thieves, and murders nonetheless. Alexei, a contract killer, wasallegedly in New York to knock off one of the LebedevskyVory. Skip and I opined whoever sent him wanted someoneunknown on the job. It seems he’s more known than his contractorthought.
As I’d surmised, the three gunmen had beensitting on my hotel because the songbird was ordered to follow me.They thought they were taking out Alexei.
They had the wrong Berenikoff.
Since the one gunman who hadn’t been shot sawme collapse in a pool of blood, he told anyone who would carry themessage back to theVorythat Alexei was dead. Somehow, thethree morons thought the NYPD was trying to arrest Alexei and thathe was running after the gunmen to kill them before the NYPD gothim.
Included in the tune the songbird had sungwas the name of theVoryin New York who’s the mastermindfor the dope-and-rope operation going on predominantly in NewEngland. While the JTTFs don’t have intel on the extent of thenetwork, they now know it exists and are taking measures to bringit down at the same time they intend to chop off the head of thesnake.
I’m out of that now. When I returned to workin light duty status, I was desk bound and assigned toIntelligence. The work is interesting and is a bit SherlockHolmes-esque in that we piece clues together to understand thepicture. Mostly though, knowing what’s at stake if I went back tothe JTTF, my life with my Flower takes precedence over getting theadrenaline rush from field work.
