Page 43 of Frozen Heart

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Page 43 of Frozen Heart

I fumbled for a story, my heart crashing against my ribs.We stayed in and watched a movie. No, then she’ll ask which movie. He was working late at the office. He’s a workaholic, that fits.I opened my mouth.No, idiot, I said he was with me and why would I be at his office?I clamped my mouth shut again.

“In your own time,” said Detective Winwick sweetly.

Oh shit, I can’t do this.Nothing I came up with sounded remotely convincing. “Uh…” I saw Winwick’s lips twitch in victory?—

“We were in his car,” I blurted.

Everyone stared at me. “In his car?” asked Winwick.

“Yeah. I’d been to visit my grandmother at the care facility she’s in. A little before ten, I was walking home and... Radimir drove up beside me and offered me a ride home. Except he didn’t take me home. He parked in a side street and fucked me in the back seat.”

Winwick stared at me, not even trying to hide her disbelief. “You and Mr. Aristov were...making love at the time of the murder?”

“I mean…” I swallowed. “I wouldn’t call itmaking love.”I knew my face was red, but I just went for it, letting the memories spill out. “He ripped my bra off. Licked my breasts. Shoved my jeans and panties down and started fucking me. Hard and deep. But we didn’t stay like that. After a while he turned me over onto my hands and knees—well, just my knees, really, because he was holding my wrists behind my back. By the time we gotour clothes back on, it must have been more than an hour.” I stared right into her eyes. “Is that okay, or do you need a blow-by-blow?”

Nowshewas blushing. “No, that’s...um…” Her eyes searched my face, confused, as if she was convinced by my lie but knew something was off. At last, she sighed. “I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”

The two detectives filed out. When the door closed, I shut my eyes and flopped back on the couch, a limp jellyfish. The couch creaked as Radimir twisted around and I felt him glaring down at me. I grudgingly opened one eye.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he told me.

“If I hadn’t, you’d be in handcuffs right now.”

He cocked his head to one side. “How did you lie like that?”

“I wasn’t lying, exactly…” I avoided his eyes. “It was a fantasy. I had a fantasy about you, the night we met.”

His voice roughened with lust. “A fantasy with all those details? Me ripping your bra off?”

I got up and stomped over to the kitchen area. “Yes.”

I heard him get up and follow me. “You on your hands and knees and?—”

“Yes,okay?”

The room went very quiet. I didn’t look at him, but I could feel the glow of pride and lust coming from him. Then: “I had fantasies about you, too.”

My feet turned me around without me willing them to. I looked up at him and his gray eyes were scalding, melting me…

And then suddenly, Ishook,a whole-body shiver that left my stomach churning. My whole life, with my folks and then with Baba, I’d always been raised to stay out of trouble. The police only chased the bad people, the criminals, and now suddenly I was one of them, an accessory to fuckingmurder,I could go tojail,foryearsand?—

Radimir rushed forward and grabbed me, and I slumped against him. My heart was going faster and faster, out of control, and the shaking wouldn’t stop. “What’s—Why am I…?”

Radimir crushed me against him. “It’s the adrenaline,” he told me. I could hear the pain in his voice, the guilt that he’d put me through this. “It’ll pass.” And he began to stroke his palms up and down my back. It wasn’t sexual, it was calming. Caring. He pressed his chin against the top of my head and cursed in Russian. Then, “I’m sorry I got you into all this,” he muttered.

He held me like that for a long time and I gradually felt my heart slow. I moved back from him, looking up in wonder. There was another side to him, one nobody saw. I thought back to what we’d been talking about, just before the police arrived. What happened to him and his parents...and was that why he was so cold? I wanted to help him, but he’d made it clear the subject was off limits. I’d have to wait until he chose to go there.

“How did they know?” I asked in a small voice. “The police. How did they know it wasn’t an accident?”

He squeezed my shoulders. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

30

RADIMIR

An hour later,Valentin, Gennadiy, Mikhail and I sat down at the big table in Gennadiy’s dining room. “What’s going on?” I asked.

Gennadiy sighed and leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “According to our guy in the police, they know it was foul play. They found a partial footprint in the bathroom: someone wearing shoes, and Borislav was naked.”




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