“None,” I reply and watch in fascination as his fingers fly across the keys. When he taps out a series of numbers and letters in a formula I recognize, my eyebrows climb. “Oh, I never thought to do that.”
“Why would you?” Cameron asks.
“Ivie’s something of a computer hacker,” Shane says with a proud grin. “It’s a sight to behold.”
“Really?” Cameron smiles at me. “That’s pretty cool.”
“How are things with that woman you were telling me about?” Shane asks him, making conversation. “Maggie?”
“Slow,” Cameron mutters with a frown. “If anyone in the world is more stubborn than Mary Margaret O’Callaghan, I haven’t met them. But I’m working on it. Okay, I’ve got it back.”
“That was fast. Holy crap,” I mutter.
“I’m good, sweetheart.” He looks up at the screen. “Would you like me to translate this for you?”
“Absolutely.” I drop into a chair beside him as he continues tapping the keyboard. Finally, words written in English fill the screen.
“Whoa,” Cameron breathes. “This is some deep shit.”
He clicks through some files and then turns to Shane.
“What is it?” Shane asks.
Cameron glances at me, but Shane just shakes his head. “It’s her drive, man. She should know what it says.”
Cameron blows out a breath and then starts in. “Okay, so this is all about a dude named Ivan Pavlov. I’ve heard of him. He died about a decade ago, in a really, really gnarly way. Anyway, this guy was a true piece of shit.”
He stands to pace the room, and Shane and I turn to watch him. Shane’s standing, his arms crossed over his chest. And all I can do is sit and listen to every single word.
“He was a European operative in the nineties. Ruthless. This man killed hundreds if not thousands of men, women, and children. Here.”
He moves back to the computer and taps some keys. Suddenly, a folder with photographs opens.
“All of these photos are of people he killed, supposedly under the direction of his government. Although many think he was a mercenary and not tied to the government at all. Anyway, all of these people are dead because of him.
“Then, about twenty-five years ago or so, he got in with some extra-bad people. He pissed them off. Big time. And they said the only way to get back into their good graces—i.e., not get dead—was for him to kill his own family.”
I feel Shane’s eyes shift to me, but I can’t take my eyes off of Cameron. How did I not know any of this?
He taps the keys, then stands to pace once more. Suddenly, I’m staring at a photo of my mother.
Murdered.
“He killed the wife,” Cameron continues. “And as you can see, he wasn’t nice about it. But I heard that he spared the kid because he decided he could get them—I don’t know if it was a boy or a girl—to do his bidding. No one suspects a kid getting in and out of places. After he came to the US, Pavlov was mostly into selling information. As far as I know, he didn’t kill here in the States like he did in Europe. Maybe he was getting older and wanted a new gig, who knows?”
“How do you know all of this?” Shane asks.
“I had to research him right before he died.” Cameron turns to look at Shane. “I was on a team that had been given the order to find and terminate him, but someone beat us to it. It looks to me like every single sin this guy ever committed is documented on this drive, along with what looks like account numbers. Now, my question is, why do you have it?”
I can’t stop staring at my mother. In the photo, her throat is slashed, her mouth open, her eyes staring in shock.
He killed her.
“They’re my parents,” I manage to say and then turn to look Cameron in the eyes. “I was the kid. And, yes, he used me. Ruthlessly. But I got away from the son of a bitch.” I feel my blood boiling, running through my veins faster than ever before. And then I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stay here.
I stand and flee, running up the stairs and through the house, then out the back door, just in time to lose whatever’s in my stomach in the bushes beside the porch.
Someone comes up beside me, rubbing my back and holding my hair out of the way.
When it seems I have nothing left in me, I straighten, and Shane pulls me to him for a tight hug.
I don’t even know how to process what I just saw. How do I deal with this?
“Hey, man, I have to get back to Seattle.”
I clear my throat and turn to Cameron. “Thank you. Really. I appreciate your help. I’m going to let you two say goodbye. I’ll be inside.”
Cameron nods, and I hurry into the house and to the guest room, making a beeline for the bathroom so I can brush my teeth and wash my face.
But when I’m done, the anger and grief swamp me again.
My poor mama. My God, why did he do that to her?
“Here, drink this,” Shane says as he sets a cup of tea near my elbow. After Cameron left, Shane came inside, built a fire in the woodstove, and then set to work making me some tea. I just wrapped myself in a blanket and sat by the fire, staring at the pretty, orange flames.
“How could I not know?” I wonder aloud before taking a sip of the tea. “All of these years, I never knew the cause of my mother’s death. He just came home one day and said she was dead and wasn’t coming back.”
I shake my head and wipe at a tear.
“I knew he was bad. I guess I didn’t want to see that he was pure evil. He must have had that drive and wanted me to take it to someone to decrypt it for him. I don’t know how he got it.”
“But you never delivered it where he wanted it to go?”
“No.” I shake my head and sip the tea. “I was so over it at that point, I hid it instead. I don’t know why he would even have that. Basically, his resume of all the killing he did. Why would he have that?”
“I don’t know how it came to be in his possession,” Shane says, thinking it over. “Maybe they used it to blackmail him. If it got into the wrong hands, he could have been arrested and prosecuted. Maybe even deported to Bulgaria and executed.”
“Oh my God,” I gasp and stare at Shane in horror. “I should have called the police. All I did was run away. I should have called the police. It didn’t even occur to me. How could I be so stupid?”
“Stop.” Shane stands and joins me on the couch, pulling me to him. “You were a child.”
“I was never really a child.”
“Yes, you were. Despite what he made you do, you were still young, Ivie. You were just trying to survive. And I’d say you did a damn good job of that.”
“He killed my mama.” I feel the tears falling again and lean my head on his shoulder. “She was a good person. So funny. And she made the best breads and desserts. She would let me help her in the kitchen. Because he was gone so much, it was mostly just the two of us, hanging out together. We were already in the US when she died. She told me once that she was afraid of New York. It was so big, so noisy, and she didn’t know the language very well.”
“Do you speak Bulgarian?” he asks as he kisses my forehead.