Page 69 of The Lies Between Lovers

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Vera didn’t expect the deep yawn to crawl out of her lungs as Igor unloaded the rear of the SUV. Once her luggage sat on the sidewalk in front of her villa, the man gestured between her and the items.

“You want any help?”

“I think I’ve got it,” she replied.

“All right—lady’s choice.”

Igor slammed the rear door shut while Vera faced the Noble Row villas. Her gaze darted between the front stoop belonging to her home, and the one just a few feet away where she almost expected Mr. Anatoly to come out and stand. He’d probably ask something to suggest he was nosing into her business, but she’d know that he meant no harm.

Except he didn’t come out.

And his stoop remained lonely.

“I’ll have to water his plants,” she told herself, eyeing the garden of shrubbery and drying flowers that had seen the better part of their season along the fence line at the front of the house. “The ones inside, too.”

Igor cleared his throat. “Didn’t the old man have any family or—”

“His wife died a while ago, and they didn’t have kids. I think he has family in the Ukraine, but I’ll have to find their contacts in his stuff.”

Wherever it was.

That would be the hardest part of the responsibility she had decided to take on. Despite being inside Mr. Anatoly’s home many times—the layout matched hers perfectly and other than decoration and perhaps some pain, there really wasn’t a significant difference between the row of attached villas—she was sure it wouldn’t be the same knowing he was gone and wouldn’t be coming back. After his wife died, she remembered Mr. Anatoly being particularly difficult about going through the woman’s belongings and getting rid of what he might not want. Apparently, he’d wanted all of it.

How would he feel now?

Vera couldn’t really bear to think about it.

“You got keys for the old man’s place?” Igor asked. “If not, I can call a guy that’s good with a lock and a pick.”

She gave him a look. “I have a spare for emergencies, but thanks.”

Mr. Anatoly had one for hers, too, but—

“It’s a complicated thing, da?” Igor asked, interrupting her thoughts.

That was fine.

She needed the distraction from her returning cycle of unapologetic grief. Especially when she couldn’t do anything to change what had already happened here.

“What is?” Vera returned.

Igor nodded toward the matching villas, and then tilted his head her way. Despite the vehicle still running on the side of the road, and the mid-day sun telling them half the day was over, he didn’t seem like he had anywhere better to be. Maybe she should ask him to haul the luggage up to her front door. To save her the energy if anything.

“Everything,” Igor said, lifting one shoulder under the weight of his leather jacket. “The things that happen in your life because of whose presence you allow in—the questions you constantly seem to have for me, and anyone else you can ask them to. It’s like you expect things to be just black and white, Vera, but it’s all colored in shades of gray.”

It took her a minute.

“You mean Vaslav?”

Igor sighed. “It’s not simple. Nothing about him is simple, and no one except him can give you clear cut answers. If you manage to get them out of him, I mean.”

“Right, it’s complicated. I heard that bit.”

“Exactly. Like when you ask me if he’s sick—Vera, you tell me. If I already had that answer, do you think I’d be standing here sharing it with you?”

Would he?