the speculation surrounding Natasha's death was just tabloid fodder and not based on any fact. He could be right, Grandpa."
"Natasha wouldn't have killed herself," Phillip Ashton said with a stubborn glint in his eyes. "I might not have known everything about her, but I am sure of that."
"It could have been an accidental overdose."
"I've always felt in my bones that someone else played a role in her death. Maybe they just fed her the drugs, played on her insecurities, or perhaps they did more. But as I near the end of my own life, Maya, I can't help feeling that I let Natasha down. Linda is dead now; I can't hurt her anymore. But I can still hurt you and your father, and I don't want that." He frowned. "Perhaps it was a mistake to give you the journals."
"It wasn't a mistake, but I am curious—how did you get the journals? You and Natasha had been divorced for years before her death and during that time she wrote in the journals. How did they end up with you?"
"Oh, I didn't tell you that?" he asked, a gleam entering his eyes. "It was the strangest thing. She put them in a safe-deposit box she had opened during our marriage. I had forgotten all about it. I never put anything in there myself. She had a few pieces of jewelry that she got early on in her career that she wanted to safeguard. Anyway, it was about ten years after her death that I went to close my account at that bank, and they told me the safe deposit box was still there. The journals were the only thing in the box. I took them, thinking one day Rex might want to read through them. Of course, he never did. When I had to move in here, I saw them again and I got nostalgic for the past. I read some of her words, and they almost made me cry. That's when I knew you were the one who would know what to do with them."
"I want to tell her story, Grandpa. I want to get to the truth. I just don't know that I can."
He smiled. "If there is a truth to find, I believe you will find it. And I think Natasha left those journals in a place that only I could get to, because she trusted me to honor her words."
"I think so, too. I will definitely do my best."
"I have no doubt. You're as headstrong and impulsive as Natasha was."
She actually liked hearing the comparison, because there was certainly no one else in the family who she shared any traits with. She'd often felt like the odd man out: the flaky, imaginative, creative girl, who couldn't quite get it together in a family of overachievers.
"Natasha didn't quit when she wanted something," her grandfather continued. "Neither do you."
"My parents and my siblings think I quit everything."
He gave a careless shrug. "You quit those jobs because you didn't care about them. But when you care about something, you go after it. You want to make movies, and this is your movie."
"I know it is. So, tonight, I'm going to the Firebird Club."
Confusion entered his eyes. "What is that place?"
"It used to be called the Russia House."
"Oh, that damn club. I hated that place. I only went once, but it felt like a den of evil to me. I told Natasha she should get out of there, but she just laughed and said I didn't understand Russians. Their darkness was just a cover for their great hearts." He paused, his gaze reflective. "I thought the place burned down years ago."
"It did, but Constantine's nephew, Alexander Dimitrov, rebuilt it and reopened it six months ago."
"I'm sure this Alexander Dimitrov isn't old enough to know much about Natasha."
"He's about Dad's age," she said. "He would have been fourteen or fifteen when Natasha died. But the people I really want to talk to are Constantine Dimitrov and Wallace Jagger. I've been trying to get in touch with them, but I can't get past either one's housekeeper. I've done a little digging and they both spend time at the club, especially during chess tournaments, and there is one starting tonight and running all weekend."
"Wallace was quite the chess fanatic," Phillip conceded, his voice growing cool at the mention of Natasha's second husband. "I can't believe Wallace and Constantine spend time together. I think Natasha slept with both of them. How are they friends?"