Page 126 of Cruel Kiss

Men emerge from the shadows with tarps and start to carry away Lev's body. Poor old Pyotr sits in his folding chair, breathing in relief that his long nightmare is finally over.

I lower the smoking gun.

Cali crosses the small distance between us. She takes my free hand just like her son did at the treeline in the cemetery.

"You're coming home," she whispers. "You have things to answer for."

"I know,kotyonok," I tell her. "I know."

37

CALI

The days after the warehouse are so serene. I don't trust it for a second.

I keep waiting for the floor to drop out. That's a habit I picked up somewhere along the way, bracing for the next bad thing. But it doesn't come. Instead, one by one, all the loose ends start to tie themselves off. I get to sit at my kitchen island and watch it happen with a cup of coffee that somebody else made just the way I like it.

Crosby Hess is the first thread to go.

He doesn't get dragged anywhere. He surrenders, is what Ronan tells me, though the word does a lot of heavy lifting. His lawyer calls Mercer's office and sets it all up ahead of time. A deal, worked out before the man ever set foot in a federal building. He walks in through the front door with his counsel and hands the government everything.

"Everything?" I ask Ronan.

"Every last little bit," he confirms. "Sang like a canary. He handed over Lev's entire network, proof and details of the hit on Todd… Damn near wrote a book with his confession."

"And that clears you. Of Todd."

He nods.

I sink back in my chair and marvel. My engine put Ronan's likelihood of guilt at ninety-eight point one percent. I chose him anyway, against my own math, and it turns out the math was wrong and the man was right.

I don't know what to do with that yet.

Some days, I think it means I got lucky. Other days, I think it means I finally learned that spreadsheets and data and the machinery of your head can tell you a lot about a person—but only your heart can tell you thefullstory.

Mercer comes by on Thursday.

For the first time, I don't feel like I'm holding a lit stick of dynamite when I open the door and find her there. I wouldn't go so far as to call her a friend—Navi, however, might think otherwise, because he has a funny habit of hanging around the FBI's field office in Brooklyn lately. But she's a familiar presence, one I almost kind of like. I believe in her moral compass.

"Ms. Meadows," she says.

"Agent Mercer."

"You going to make me stand out here again?"

I think about all the times I did exactly that. "No," I say. "Come in. Coffee?"

"Alright." She blinks, just barely. "I take it black."

"I kinda figured."

She follows me to the island and sits down on a stool like it's the most natural thing in the world. I pour her coffee and join her.

"Crosby Hess is a hell of a cooperator," she says, finally.

"So I heard."

"He made my job easier. Well, in some ways. I should say that he made itsimpler." She eyes me over the rim of her coffee. "Mostly because he has made it abundantly clear that Ronan had nothing to do with any of this."