Page 34 of The Beast of Moscow

Igor scratched at the side of his neck, muttering, “The man’s about half insane, and if not, there’s a good damn chance Vaslav Pashkov has already lost his mind, and he’s gotten really good at hiding it. I’ve learned over the years not to ask a question more than once, and you don’t get many answers about a person that way, you see. If you expect me to know why he looked into you, the answer is yes, because you saw him fall and tried to help. That is what I know.”

She appreciated his bluntness.

“Vera?” Mr. Anatoly called again.

“Everything’s fine,” she told her neighbor.

“You’re sure?”

“Da.”

She had to repeat it one more time before Mr. Anatoly finally headed back inside his villa. She bet he watched her from the shaded windows framing his entrance, though.

“Who is he?” she asked Igor.

That was the real question.

The important one, likely.

“I can’t tell you that, nobody could,” Igor replied. “But this evening, he’s just a man in a large house, practically alone, who would like to have tea with a woman who showed him kindness. Or that was what he barked at me when I asked. I am not in the business of asking my boss to repeat himself, frankly.”

Vera eyed her own villa, and even thought about the phone in her hand. “Is it stupid that I’m actually considering saying yes?”

“I’m not here to offer a personal opinion about with whom you spend your time, although if it counts, I can’t say Vas means you any harm.”

Now he was Vas?

Vera shifted the messenger bag hanging off her shoulder to relieve a bit of the weight, deciding her choice as fast as it took to give Igor a nod. “Lucky for him, I have nothing better to do at the moment.”

And she really did want to find out if he was okay.

Igor was already reaching for the rear passenger door of his SUV. “I’ll drive.”

She liked his dry humor already.

11.

“You’ve arrived at—”

“See, I didn’t lie about the address,” Igor boomed over the feminine, but still robotic, voice of the stereo’s GPS system.

Vera rolled her eyes in response, but still saved a drafted text that she had typed out just in case. It had taken her twice as long to type the three-word text to her father; the address in both Russian and English because she was sure he would want both. She would only send it if she needed to, but so far, nothing seemed amiss.

Igor kept her laughing on the drive.

In his own special way.

In the backseat, Vera’s gaze turned away from the gated-driveway Igor had parked in. It didn’t matter because she could still see the view of the three-level Federal Colonial up the long drive where the landscape inclined just enough to make the house appear like it waited on the top of a hill. The cracked, but paved, driveway winded right, and then left. But it was what hugged the driveway on either side just beyond the gate that made Vera smile.

Even though they weren’t in bloom, she recognized the two adult lilac trees by their shape and greenery.

“You’re lucky, no?” Igor asked her.

“Why’s that?”

Igor replied as he opened his door and jumped out. “Most guests have to walk from here.”

“He makes people walk four hundred feet just to visit him?”