out of that cold, dark neighborhood. She talks about the loss of her mother and then later her father, and how it felt to be sent to a strange, new country. These are stories I never heard before." She took a breath. "Have you heard them?"
"Maybe a long time ago; I've forgotten."
"I'm trying to understand your point of view, Dad. I know she hurt you, and you're angry with her. But she was your mother. Don't you want to know—"
"Stop. Just stop. Do whatever the hell you're going to do, Maya. Just leave me out of it and go."
"I just have one question."
"I'm not going to talk about her. You'll have to get your information from someone else," he said tightly.
"I wasn't going to ask you about her, but about Sylvia Graham."
"Who?"
"Sylvia. She's the club manager at the Firebird now. She said she knew you when you were a kid and when you were in your twenties, she caught you spray-painting graffiti on the door of the Russia House."
His face paled. "That was a long time ago."
"It doesn't sound like something you would do."
"That's because I changed right after that. I'd jeopardized my future because of my anger with my mother and her Russian friends. I could have been arrested. I wasn't hurting my mom; I was hurting myself. I never went back there. And I never saw Sylvia again."
"She said she'd promised not to tell anyone, and she'd kept that promise until tonight, when she told me."
"I'm ashamed of what I did. I'm sorry she told you."
"I'm not. It made me realize you haven't always been perfect."
"Don't let what I did be an excuse for you to do something crazy. I'm not perfect, but I try to do the right thing. And so should you. My mother destroyed my life once. Now you're going to use her to do it again."
"I'm not trying to do that, Dad."
He shook his head, giving her that hopeless look that seemed to be reserved just for her. "My offer to fund a movie project for you is only good until tomorrow. Think about it tonight. Think about what you really want. And whether the past is worth risking your future for. Now, go home."
He turned his back on her, and she walked to the door, slipping out of the house without running into her mom, who she was quite sure had been listening to every word. But like always, she preferred to stay far away from any unpleasant tension. It was just as well; she didn't need another fight, another person telling her to stop doing what she needed to do.
As she drove across town to the small two-bedroom house she rented from her grandfather, which coincidentally, had once belonged to Natasha, she clung to the thought that the truth would not hurt her father any more than he'd already been hurt. In fact, perhaps it would set him free. He could only see his mother through a very narrow lens, but perhaps that lens wasn't giving him the whole picture.
Or…she thought with a sigh, she might be overly optimistic and a little naïve.
Was she wrong to dig up the past? Would it be better to take his offer and come up with a script and a movie idea that had nothing to do with her family?
But her gut told her this was the story she needed to tell. She could stop at any point. If things got too bad, that's what she would do. But for now, she would push forward. Hopefully, Wallace would call her tomorrow. Or Sylvia would pass her message on to Constantine or Alexander. She'd really just started. She couldn't end this yet.
A few minutes later, she turned down her street and pulled into the short driveway in front of her garage. She took her keys out of her bag, stepped out of the car, and walked up to her porch. She was about to open the door when a car came down the street and pulled in behind her vehicle, the headlights illuminating her in a bright light.
Her nerves jangled with alarm. It was after eleven. Who the hell was this?
A man got out of the car. "Maya?" he said.
She started, squinting as he moved out of the shadows. It was the blond bartender from the club. "What are you doing here? How did you know where I lived?" She dug around in her purse, pulling out her phone. "Stop right there. I'm calling 911."
"You don't need