car and get out with your hands up,” they say over a loudspeaker.
I look around to find cop cars swarming the garage. Dima, Nikolai, Pavel and Oleg are in handcuffs, being put into the backs of them.
Ravil twists around to glare at me, the betrayal in his eyes nearly burning me alive.
I want to deny it. Tell him I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I can’t find my voice, and the cops are dragging open the doors, guns pointed, everyone yelling.
I’m dragged out and hustled into the back of a car.
Adrian and Ravil are put face down on the filthy concrete, their hands cuffed behind their backs.
“No,” I finally manage to say. “Wait. This is a mistake. What’s happening?”
My phone rings again.
Gretchen.
Fuck!
With a trembling hand, I bring the phone to my ear. “What’s happening?” I warble into the mouthpiece.
“Lucy! Where are you? Can you talk?”
A sob wells up and lets loose. “Gretchen,” choke on the next breath I can manage. “You made a mistake.”
Chapter 17
Lucy
“Honey, they say you’re not cooperating. What’s going on?” Gretchen says.
I shake my head, tears spilling down my cheeks. I’ve been at the police station for hours. I’m so tired I want to pass out, and I’m hungry enough to eat my own hand.
“I’m hungry,” I complain.
“I’ll be right back.”
She leaves and returns with a granola bar and a mini-pack of Oreos, obviously from a vending machine.
I rip into the cookies because God knows, I need a blood sugar fix.
She sits beside me and squeezes my shoulders in a side hug. “Hey. Talk to me.”
I just shake my head and drain the Dixie cup of water they gave me last time I whined about food and water. I haven’t answered any of their questions. As an attorney, I know better than to say anything at all that might be incriminating. Even if I don’t press charges, they can still build a case if they want to.
“You know about Stockholm Syndrome,” she says gently.
“Yes, I know about Stockholm Syndrome,” I snap. Dammit. Do I have Stockholm Syndrome? Why am I protecting Ravil? He did kidnap me, afterall.
More tears spring to my eyes. Every thought I have just makes me cry. I can’t seem to shut off the waterworks to save my life.
“What did you do?” I finally manage to ask. “How did you find me?”
“I called your mom to ask about the bed rest thing. Just to make sure you’re really all right and didn’t need anything. And she told me you weren’t on bedrest that she knew of because you’d shown up to your dad’s rehab with a Russian. And I put it together. I flew out here and checked your apartment and, of course, you weren’t there on bedrest.
“That’s when I called the cops. Your mom told me the Russian was a client, so they got his name and address from the file and, guess what? He’s on the FBI’s watch list for smuggling.”
I bury my head in my hands. Smuggling. Yes, I’d guessed that match.
“Smuggling what?” I mumble to the table.
“Russian antiquities. It’s illegal to take them out of Russia, but he’s got some kind of direct line for them. Probably going through that diplomat he came to Black Light with.”
“Gretchen. You have to get me out of here.”
“They really want a statement from you, Luce. They’ve been looking to get something on these guys for a long time. You could be their ticket.”
Up until now, I’d been lost. Like I got thrown off the boat and was flailing around, trying to find a buoy to hang onto. I didn’t know which shore to swim to.
But the moment Gretchen tells me that, I pick my side.
I crumple the empty Oreo wrapper and throw it at the observation window. “Not going to happen,” I say, glaring at the one-way glass. “I’ve been on bed rest, and I moved in with the father of my child, so he could take care of me. End of story.”
Gretchen’s eyes narrow. She knows it’s not true.
“Now get me out of here.”
She covers my hand. “You’re sure? That’s your statement?”
“Get me out of here.”
Gretchen gets up. “Yep. I will get you out of here right away.” She strides out of the room, every inch the barracuda lawyer, herself, when she wants to be.
It takes twenty minutes. I give the statement I gave Gretchen, and then she hustles me out by the elbow to a cab outside.
Chapter 18
Lucy
It’s not until after I’ve eaten a meal and cried my