Suddenly Katerina

Suddenly Katerina

PROLOGUE

Sodium Shadows

The city exhaled cold everywhere, as the chilled breeze off Lake Erie wafted endlessly over the cracked asphalt and rusted chain-link.

Eleven forty-three p.m. Cleveland didn't sleep. It bled even harder after darkness fell.

Jack Shaw stood barefoot on the wide-plank floor of his fourth-floor loft, the only finished space in the cavernous brick husk of the old Cleveland Linen Mill building he'd bought. Thirty-six years old, six-one, still carved from the same hard angles the Teams had pressed into him a decade earlier... though the left shoulder no longer rotated past ninety degrees without a grinding protest. The shrapnel scars along his lower back pulled tight when the weather turned mean. The injuries had ended his Navy career faster than he'd hoped. The Teams can't keep limping operators, after all, and that was... fair enough.

He'd bought this ruin of a building with cash at sheriff's auction. He gutted the floors of clutter and turned all the old equipment into scrap cash, then turned a sizeable part of the top floor into what served as his living quarters. Something spare and deliberate: exposed brick, steel I-beams, a row of tall factory windows that looked out over rooftops toward the black mirror of Lake Erie. No photographs. No couch. Just a bed, a futon, a battered heavy bag that hung in the corner like an old friend, a kitchen island made from reclaimed mill timbers, and a gun safe bolted to the floor.

Tonight the Glock 19 sat on that island beside an untouched glass of water and the disassembled pieces of its suppressor. Jack had been cleaning it, more out of habit than necessity when the sound came up through the open window.

It was unmistakable. The choked cry of a female... sounded young.

Then the low, wet smack of a fist against flesh.

Then laughter. Two voices. Deep. Accented.

Jack was already on the move.

He swept the slide back onto the frame, pressed the magazine home, racked the round, thumbed the safety off. No hesitation. No debate. The weapon felt like an extension of the same nerves that still remembered Fallujah and Ramadi. He pulled on boots, no socks, no jacket. Just jeans, a black long-sleeve tee, and the Glock.

Four flights of iron stairs. He took them fast but silent, heel-to-toe, weight on the outside edges so the old metal wouldn't groan. At the ground-floor steel door he paused, ear to the seam. Voices again. Russian. Not conversational Russian. Street Russian. Coarse. Hungry.

"...бери её сумку, быстро... она видела лица..." (grab her bag, quick. She saw our faces)

Jack eased the crash bar down. The door opened onto the narrow service alley behind the mill. Sodium lights buzzed overhead, throwing long, jaundiced shadows across overflowing dumpsters and shattered bottles.

Twenty feet away, two men had a girl pinned against the brick corner where the alley dead-ended. Against a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. She was small. Five-feet at most. Her blonde hair was matted across her face, one sleeve torn off her thin denim jacket. Her lip was bleeding, and one eye was already swelling shut. She wasn't screaming anymore; she was just shaking, arms wrapped around herself like she could disappear into herself.

The bigger of the two men... shaved head, bull neck, black leather jacket, had his boot on her purse, grinding it into the wet pavement. The second man, leaner, tattooed knuckles, stood over her with a folding knife in his right hand, scaring her, lunging it toward her, the blade catching the light every time he gestured.

Jack stepped out of the doorway shadow, Glock low but ready.

"Hey," he said. Voice flat. Calm. Already thinking someone's not walking away from this.

Both men turned.

The big one squinted, sizing him up. "Это кто такой, блядь?" (who the fuck is this?)

Jack didn't understand the Russian. He didn't need to. He lifted the Glock to low-ready, muzzle tracking center mass on the knife man first.

"Hands where I can see them. Both of you. Right now."

The lean one laughed a short, ugly bark. "American cop? You think you're hero?"

"I think you're about three seconds and one wise-crack from being dead," Jack said. "Drop the knife."

The girl whimpered once, tried to crawl sideways along the wall. The big man kicked her in the ribs. Not hard enough to break bone, just hard enough to fold her over. She gasped, curled tighter.

That was the moment the lean one lunged.

Knife hand came up fast, slashing for Jack's throat.

Jack stepped left, outside the arc... but the blade still tagged him. A hot line opened across his left forearm, shallow but stinging, blood welling instantly. He ignored it, and swung the weapon back, locked the muzzle on target and fired once.

The suppressed shot cracked. A sharp pop that pulsed the air.

A nine-millimeter hollow-point punched through the man's open mouth and exited the back of his skull in a fist-sized spray. He dropped like a marionette with every string severed at once.

The big man let out a furious roar and charged, yanking a stubby Makarov from his waistband as he came.

Jack pivoted to fire, but the big bastard was faster than he looked. He slammed into Jack shoulder-first, and drove him back against the dumpster. The clang of Metal mixed with crunching bone and Jack's breath exploded out. The man's pistol came up wild.

Jack jammed his bloody forearm under his chin, forcing the Makarov high, and pulled up his right hand, still holding his trusted Glock and rapped off two rounds, point blank, center mass. The big man's eyes widened in stupid surprise. He staggered, knees buckling. The Makarov dropped to the asphalt, he followed it with a dull crack. Jack kicked the pistol away. The body jerked once, twice, and went still.

Silence rushed back in. Only the girl's ragged breathing, the hiss of traffic on Carnegie, and the slow drip of Jack's blood hitting the wet pavement from his sliced forearm.

He safetied the Glock, tucked it into his waistband, pressed his right palm over the cut on his left arm to slow the bleeding, and scanned the alley mouth, then the fire escapes above. No witnesses. No cameras back here. He'd made sure of that when he bought the building.

Then he turned to the girl.

"Hey. You."

She was pressed so hard against the brick her knuckles were white. Blood trickled from her nose, mixing with tears. One shoe missing. Her whole body trembled in violent waves.

Jack crouched slowly, staying about ten feet away, left arm held away from his body so she could see the blood.

"Hey," he said again, softer. "Look at me."

Her good eye flicked up. Huge. Sparkling blue. Wet. Terrified.

"Are you okay?"

The question hung there, absurd against her own battered body and the two dead men bleeding dry onto the alley floor.

She opened her mouth, tried to speak, couldn't. Just a small, broken sound.

Jack glanced at the bodies, then back at her.

"I need you to breathe," he said. "Slow. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Can you do that?"

She tried. Failed. Tried again. A tiny nod.

"Good. That's good."

He stayed crouched, giving her space, letting the adrenaline bleed off her the way he'd once been taught to let it bleed off hostages.

After a long moment she whispered, voice cracked and shaky, thick with an Eastern European accent.

"They... they were going to kill me."

Jack's jaw tightened. He looked at the men again. Really looked. Expensive boots. Matching black leather jackets. Matching cheap burner phones clipped to their belts. The kind of careful, practiced matching that belonged to professionals.

He looked back at her.

"What's your name?"

She wiped the blood from her lip. "Katerina."

"Okay, Katerina." Jack kept his voice low, steady. "My name is Jack. I live upstairs. You're out of danger right now. But we can't stay here."

Her gaze darted to the bodies, then back to him. "You... you killed both?"

"Yeah."

She didn't flinch. She just stared at him like she was trying to decide whether he was the next monster or the first person who'd ever actually kept one away from her.

Jack offered his left hand. The bloody one, slowly, palm up, no sudden moves.

"Come on. Let's get you inside. We'll clean you up. Then we can decide... what's next."

Katerina looked at his blood-smeared hand for a long beat, then at his face.

Then, trembling, she reached out and took it.

Her fingers were ice.

Jack helped her stand, kept his body between her and the dead men as he guided her toward the steel door.

Behind them, the sodium light flickered once, then steadied.

Jack moved Katerina quickly into the building and closed the door as he reached for his cell phone. He scrolled through the contacts list and hit the second district icon. "This is detective Shaw. There's been a shooting at the old Cleveland Linen Mill. Off duty officer involved. Two suspects down. Connect me with Captain Loch." The sound of sirens was already heard in the distance. Someone heard the shots and made a call. Loch, Jack's immediate superior, gathered the details from Jack and told him to stay put, that he was on his way personally. Jack hung up and moved Katerina quickly into the building and up the four flights of iron stairs. She leaned heavily on him, limping, one arm wrapped around her ribs where the kick had landed. He kept his body between her and the open stairwell, Glock back in hand until they reached the loft door.

Inside, he locked the steel door behind them, engaged the deadbolt, then the secondary bar. Only then did he engage the safety on the pistol and set it on the kitchen island.

She stood in the middle of the open space, shivering, looking small against the exposed brick and steel beams.

Jack grabbed a clean dish towel from a drawer, pressed it to the cut on his forearm to stop the bleeding, then turned to her.

"Sit," he said gently, pointing to one of the two bar stools at the island.

She obeyed, movements jerky.

He wet a clean cloth under the tap, wrung it out, and approached slowly.

"I'm going to clean the blood off your face. Okay?"

She nodded once.

He worked carefully, wiping her lip, her nose, the cut above her eyebrow. There was nothing deep enough for stitches. Lucky.

When he finished he stepped back to give her some space. He walked over to the couch and grabbed a throw blanket. He brought it back over to her and draped it over her shoulders.

"I think you're gonna be ok," he said. "But I'm no doctor. If you think I should take you to the E.D. for that kick to the stomach..." "I be ok," she interrupted. Her eyes flicked to the gun on the island, then to him.

"You are... police?" she asked, voice cracking.

He nodded. "Detective. I'm off duty. This time the bad guys came to me." trying to joke a little, lighten the mood.

Her face crumpled. Fresh tears welled. She hugged herself tighter, rocking slightly.

"He owns police," she whispered, almost to herself. "They all... belong to him."

Jack's jaw tightened. He crouched so he was eye-level with her, keeping distance.

"Nobody owns me, sweetheart," he said quietly. "Nobody."

She stared at him for a long beat, searching his face like she was looking for the lie.

Then she looked down at her hands, at the blood still under her nails.

"You... you killed them. For me."

"I killed them because they were an imminent threat, not just to you, but to me too. They were warned, they still came. That threat had to be neutralized."

She swallowed. Nodded once, small.

Jack stood, went to the closet, pulled out a large flannel button-down. Dark gray, soft from years of washing.

"Here." He set it on the island beside her. "Take this. Go into the bathroom. Take yourself a long, soaking, hot shower. Clean up, warm up. You'll feel better. I'll be right out here."

She looked at the shirt, then at him.

"You not... turn me in?"

"No. I'm not turning you in," he said. "You're safe here with me until we figure out what to do next. Okay?"

She searched his face again. Then, slowly, she nodded.

Sirens were getting louder outside. They're almost here. Flashing lights danced on the loft ceiling.

He looked back at Katerina. She had picked up the shirt and was clutching it to her chest like armor.

"I have to take care of this business downstairs," he told her. "Stay up here, inside the loft. Don't come down. Stay away from the door and windows. If you hear anyone coming upstairs, keep out of sight until you know it's me. Best if no one knows anyone else is here right now. Got it?"

She nodded, nervous, eyes wide.

Jack headed for the door, pausing just long enough to say one more time:

"You're safe, Katerina. I promise."

Then he stepped out, pulling the door closed behind him.

CHAPTER ONE

Two Bodies, One Lie

Jack stepped back through the steel door to the alley and slammed it shut behind him with a decisive thud. The near-blinding medley of dancing red and blue lights illuminated the scene. There were two patrol units already in the alley, a third at the end, controlling entry and exit. He immediately took a quick scan of the ground, all around the bodies and blood pools, all along the path he had led Katerina on to the door. To his relief, no small footprints. She was clear. Seconds later another car, unmarked, cherry spinning on the dashboard rolls up with a squeal and stops next to the cruiser blocking the alley. A hulk of a man steps from the vehicle. Flat-top haircut, suit that didn't fit quite right. "SHAW!" his voice, low and gruff bellowed in Jack's direction. "What the hell happened here?" Jack turned to glare directly into the wrinkled face of Capt. Eliot Loch. His commanding officer, who came to investigate this shooting himself when Jack called it in. "Rescued an abducted victim" Jack replied. "These two had a girl pinned down, ready to do... who knows what to her. She was beat up pretty bad already, so the situation was pretty straight forward. I intervened, confronted them, they got nasty, in Russian. Then they attacked, I stopped them." the sound of another siren blaring and more red lights signal the arrival of a fire/rescue paramedic unit "This is your place, isn't it?" Loch asked "Yeah, remember, I bought this building at the sheriff's auction last year. I built a small apartment in the loft. I heard the commotion in the alley and came down to check it out." "Fucking wonderful" Loch groaned. "Two dead. Russian nationals. In an off-duty detective's back alley. IA will be all over this. A complete investigation. Looks like I have to give you two weeks administrative, until that's done." "Go for it" Jack replied. "It was a clean shoot... and they weren't ambassadors or anything, Cap. These pricks were with the gangs. Look at the tats." Loch gazed down, and nodded, confirming Jack's observation. "This is our case, Cap." "Correction" Loch retorted. "My case. Your part is over." "Fine." Jack snorted back. "Hey, I could use some time off anyhow. As a matter of fact, I have a boatload of vacation time saved up. How about I take two more weeks and let's make it four. I'll go to Florida, hit the beach." "What about the girl?" Loch asked. Jack gave a nervous twitch "Where is she?" "Don't know" Jack replied "She bolted during the shooting. Didn't see which way she went... I was a little distracted." Loch gave him a guarded nod mixed with a wondering look and a slighly suspicious "uh-huh". "What did she look like?" Jack give him a description, accurate, no sense in lying about that part. He related everything accurately except the fact the girl was upstairs, safe and sound, in the loft. "OK, Shaw, I know you. If that's your account, I believe you. We're gonna clean this scene up. Get over to that rescue squad and get that taken care of" pointing to the slash on Jack's arm. Just then another vehicle rounds the corner "Crime Scene Investigation Unit" stenciled on the door. Loch sees them and says to Jack, more urgently, "Then I want you to give your report to these guys and then get the hell lost. The crime scene team will probably be here until morning. Go ahead and take your four weeks. Just... if you decide to ghost, don't ghost me. If I call, you answer. I'll put in your vacation time in the morning. IA will be pissed, but fuck them. You being gone will keep them out of my ass for awhile. Just know that they'll probably be all over you as soon as you get back. Oh, and hey, thanks a ton for the fifteen hours of paperwork, Shaw!" Jack complied with Loch's orders, then lumbered back inside and up the stairs to the loft. He looked around the room for Katerina, no sign of her. He started looking around, wondering if maybe she'd slipped out the back fire escape and took off. He moved into his small bedroom and flipped on the light. There on his bed, covered to her neck and fast asleep, was Katerina. He stopped to look at her, peaceful and quiet now, compared to the trembling, frightened presence before him just hours before. The swelling around her eye, her bruises and cuts could not hide how strikingly lovely she was. He wondered how such a small, precious beauty could have ended up in such a predicament. Running from Russian thugs. Battered and alone, fearful of help, fearful of the police. But all these were questions for the morning. Jack walked over to and opened his closet, and pulled a large blanket off the top shelf. He walked over to the bed by the nightstand. Another quick glance at Katerina, he said "Sleep well, kiddo. We'll get you squared away tomorrow." Then he switched off the light. He took the blanket over to the nearby futon, grabbed a pillow and hunkered down himself for sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

Blue Eyes, Open Wounds

The soft gray light of dawn filtered through the tall factory windows. Morning had come without fanfare... no birds chirping, no traffic roar, just the low empty hum of the large open room and the distant sigh of Lake Erie breathing against the breakwall.

Jack stirred awake. He didn't move at first. He simply lay on the futon, blanket half-kicked off, and let his gaze travel across the open loft until it found her.

Katerina was awake. She lay on her side in the middle of his bed, facing him, cheek pressed into the pillow he'd given her. The borrowed flannel shirt swallowed her small frame; one sleeve had slipped down to bare a thin shoulder still mottled with yesterday's bruises. Her blonde hair fanned across the white case in tangled strands. But it wasn't the injuries or the borrowed clothes that held his attention.

It was her eyes.

They were open, wide, unblinking, fixed on him across the twelve feet of bare floorboards that separated the futon from the bed. Not frightened... not exactly. She was... studying. Measuring. Like someone who had spent years learning to read faces.

For a long moment neither of them spoke.

Jack broke the silence first, voice rough from sleep and low enough not to startle her.

"Good morning."

She didn't answer right away. Just kept looking. Her good eye... the one that wasn't swollen, searched his face feature by feature.

Finally she spoke, so softly he almost missed it.

"You no sleep."

It wasn't a question, but an observation. A small piece of data she was adding to whatever mental file she kept on him.

Jack exhaled through his nose. "Not much. Adrenaline's a bastard that way. How about you?"

She shifted slightly, wincing as the movement tugged at her ribs. "I was running long time. So tired." Her gaze dropped to the blanket bunched around his waist, then back to his face. "But I wake. You still here."

The words hung between them like smoke.

Jack sat up slowly, elbows on his knees, keeping his movements deliberate. "I said you were safe. I meant it."

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Men say many things."