The Siren's Dance Read online

  Then she’d begun to disappoint him. She’d tried to take each instance as an opportunity to improve her dancing, but in the end, his rejection had proven she would never be truly worthy of love. And Yuchenko seemed to agree.

  Maybe she should tell him how Stas had humiliated her. If she confessed just how worthless she was, she could finally kill her incessant need for approval and stay focused on her mission. Once she’d joined Jerisavlja’s sisterhood of vilas to roam the forests and tundra, it wouldn’t matter if men thought she was a harpy anymore.

  She sucked in an imaginary breath for courage.

  “You really want to know what Stas Demyan did to me?”

  The car glided to a stop under a maple with rippling fire-red leaves. Wordlessly, he’d parked alongside a playground, clearly not their destination. Then he turned and gave her the full force of all his attention. “Yes. I do.”

  That intense gaze inflamed her ghostly body with strange heat, and she glanced away, focusing on the road because she couldn’t bear his stare.

  “He groomed me to be his prima ballerina. He worked me hard, shaped me with a cruel blade, subjected me to humiliations to make me disciplined and strong.”

  “Like what?” he almost growled, angry sparks flaring in his hazel eyes.

  That outrage made him a good cop, the instinct to do right and protect everyone and everything, his indignation over the fate of even a harpy like her. She’d called him a puppy, but he was more like a noble guard dog on the verge of growing into his oversized paws.

  “He controlled what I ate. Planned my meals, measured my portions, ordered for me in restaurants. When he thought I was getting fat, he gave me ipecac or laxatives. He was trying to make me perfect.”

  Yuchenko’s second growl was barely even a word. “Why?”

  She turned to him, puzzled. Wasn’t it obvious? “To make me the best ballerina.”

  “I mean, why did you let him?”

  Wasn’t that obvious too? “To be the best.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “You loved him?”

  “With everything I had.” Though forced to voice it aloud after all these tortuous, angry years, the emotion shattered, its many layers crumbling apart like fragile slivers of shale, each one suddenly clear and distinct. Need, insecurity, loneliness, but not the bonds of loyalty and commitment she shared with her family, even though she’d felt like an outsider with them.

  Maybe she had merely loved the idea of Stas loving her, how it had represented her mastery of herself, and redeemed all those traits everyone considered flaws.

  By simply considering that liberating possibility, the bonds that held her ghost body together relaxed. Not frighteningly loose, just spacious. Yes, she could take a modicum of pride in not actually having loved the cruel man.

  “What happened, Anya?” Yuchenko’s obvious effort to gentle his voice didn’t succeed in hiding his impatience.

  “Finally, when I knew I was ready to be Giselle, knew I’d finally earned his approval, he gave the part to another dancer and announced he planned to marry her.”

  “He used you.” Sergey’s jaw worked, its muscles flexing and relaxing as he gripped the steering wheel.

  “Yes. He pitted me against her, had been grooming her too, holding his love out as a prize. And she won. I was not good enough to be prima or his wife.”

  “Humph.” In the single syllable, guttural and non-committal, she was reminded of everything she loved and hated about Ukrainian men. Too masculine for actual words when it mattered most.

  “Humph?” She wanted to shove him. Unfortunately, she was a ghost. “Humph? What does that even mean?”

  He combed his fingers through his cropped hair. “Among other things, it’s a polite way of calling your bullshit. If you really weren’t good enough, why are you angry at him?”

  “Because he was a jerk.”

  Finally, he turned to look at her, his knowing, green-flecked eyes too wise. “I mean, that wasn’t a tornado of self-pity and inadequacy. It was pure, righteous fury. The ghost inside you believes you were wronged, not that you got what you deserved.”

  “Huh.” It came out almost as a laugh.

  She’d been wracked with vengeful anger for so long, and yet she’d never noticed that. At the time of her death, she’d felt only utter despair from his rejection, but as a vila, she’d been consumed instead by a supernatural longing for freedom from the slipper that bound her to him.

  Ever since Jerisavlja and the vilas had first visited her, she’d known what she had to do to get that freedom. Kill Stas. Not a drop of mercy or pity tainted her determination, though she felt no violence toward anyone else. Killing Stas was her sole reason for being. And the puppy was right--death had already freed her from the obsessive need that had been her love for the man.

  She tossed her head back and, for a moment, actually enjoyed being weightless, free of the compulsive longing. “Not bad, Yuchenko.”

  He grinned and scratched his chin where light brown stubble had begun to grow, making him look older and shaggier and--God, that smile was breathtaking. That is, if she’d had a breath to take away.

  “A compliment from the prima ballerina? A screw must be loose in your ghost brain.”

  She shook her head and banged on her temple with the heel of her hand, a pantomime of motions she couldn’t feel at all. With her other hand, she caught the imaginary screw and held it up for his inspection. “Here it is. Big one. No wonder I was malfunctioning so severely.”

  He plucked the non-existent screw from her fingers and tossed it into the backseat. “I think I’ll let you stay broken for a while. I prefer the occasional kindness.” Then his voice dropped and he flexed his hands on the steering wheel so hard the tendons rose up in relief. “But when we find Demyan, I’ll put this screw back and tighten up the rest, so you can lash him with all your fury.”

  The thought of him putting a screw inside her sent a blast of that desert wind through her ghost body. But there had been no flirtation in those menacing words. He most certainly hadn’t intended the double entendre she’d heard.

  “Aw, thanks, puppy. That would be the nicest thing anyone ever did for me.”

  Not strictly true. Her parents had granted her plenty of kindness, gifts, treats, efforts to indulge her. Sonya had sewn her beautiful clothing, generous with the scraps she collected, making Anya the best-dressed dancer in the national company. But she’d always thought those acts on her family’s part had been obligatory, as if they were trying to be devoted and to live up to their expectations of themselves. From her earliest memories, she’d felt like the wrong puzzle piece, forced into her family with a bad fit, leaving gaps here and rubbing uncomfortably there.

  Yuchenko’s outrage on her behalf didn’t feel forced at all, but like a natural kindness, like something true. Gratitude washed through her.

  “Seriously, Anya. I know you said that you just want to talk to him, but that tornado didn’t look like the invitation to a friendly chat.”

  It was hard to argue with the observation, but to her relief, he wasn’t freaking out or threatening to turn around and head back to Kiev. “What are you getting at?”

  “Promise me you’ll let me talk to him first. I have some questions of my own I’d like to ask.”

  “Why?”

  “What if he’s a serial predator? What if he hurt other girls too?”

  “Then they were as foolish as me to let him get close.”

  “No.” He banged on the steering wheel, the first flash of temper she’d ever seen from him. “You were a victim, and there were probably more. They deserve justice.”

  The sudden wind rose up from inside her, so cold it numbed her before it broke free, ruffling his hair and forming ice crystals on his eyelashes. He shivered, batting them away.

  “Jesus, Anya, knock it off.”

  She crossed her arms, but she did try to calm the anger. “I’m not a victim, just a fool
.”

  “Fine.” He threw up his hands in surrender. “But still, let me talk to him first, okay?”

  After what had happened in Lyubashivka, she wasn’t entirely sure she could. But still, because he had been kind, she said, “Yes.”

  He pulled the car away from the curb with clear purpose, and for the first time, she thought to wonder, “Where are we going?”

  “Lisko’s putting us up at the Hotel Bristol.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “How could you have been to Odessa and not seen it? It’s in Center City, with the statues on either side of the front door.”

  “Isn’t that the Hotel Krasnaya?”

  He turned his face toward her with a quick flash of his grin. “Stupid communists, naming everything red this and red that. When I was still in school, they changed the name back to its original. Hotel Bristol.”

  “Oh.” It was a lovely building of pink stucco with an ornate facade that had made her think of Kiev’s finest old theaters. “I always wanted to see inside.”

  “No kidding. It’s probably costing a month of my salary per night.” Meaning the Liskos were as wealthy as she’d suspected.

  For the first time, she thought to wonder about her sister’s husband. “Is Dmitri a good man?”

  Yuchenko faced the street, but he cocked his head, as if pondering the question. His delay in replying somehow assured Anya he understood what she was really asking.

  “Before, I would have said he was a man of honor, with a code, but one that didn’t always meet my standards of goodness.”

  “Before?”

  “Rumor is, since he came back with your sister and took over for his uncle, he’s making big changes. Sounds like he’s well on his way to being good.”

  She would never admit it to her sister, but Anya was glad to hear it. Sweet Sonya deserved another chance at happiness, even if she was still supremely patronizing to her younger sibling.

  “Where’d you stay when you were here before?” Yuchenko asked.

  “In the room in the back of Demyan’s dance studio. There was an office there, with a musty sofa.”

  “God. What a pig. Didn’t he bother to make you a cozy little love nest?”

  “Nope,” she chirped. If she’d been prone to blush, she might have, even in her ghost body. The humiliation swirled up within her again, churning up her anger. She’d offered herself, begged Stas to take her to bed, and he’d rejected her advances over and over again.

  “Where was this studio?” Sergey asked.

  “I can picture it, but the name of the street escapes me. It was down the block from a big church…” She sagged even though she was weightless. “It’s the names that get me. I can picture everything, but… I’m probably lucky to remember my own name after so long.” She made a noise like a sigh, even though she wasn’t actually breathing.

  “All right. Just tell me what you remember.”

  “It was down the street from an abandoned Lutheran Church--St. Paul’s. And right next door there was a clock shop.”

  “Like old cuckoo clocks?”

  “Yes, and the grandfather type, and watches too. Anything, really. The owner was a very nice man. Mr.…ugh.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I can picture the gold letters painted on the window pane, but I can’t remember the words.”

  “Plotkin. Plotkin’s Timepieces. I think the third Mr. Plotkin runs it now, and I went to school with his son.”

  “Yes! Mr. Plotkin, and his wife made the most wonderful cookies.” At least they’d smelled wonderful. Ever obedient to Stas, she’d never eaten one.

  “I know exactly where it is. On Pidzemnyy Street. We’ll go straight there.”

  Chapter 8

  Sergey had only been to Plotkin’s Timepieces once, when he’d been assigned to work with Antonin Plotkin on a physics project. He pictured it, trying to recall the storefront to the right. Had it been a ballet studio?

  The street spanned a few blocks near the outer edge of the Center City district, in an area he didn’t know well. It looked outright unfamiliar as he approached from the north. He drove up in front of the clock shop. It occupied one of the four storefronts on the ground floor of an enormous apartment building. Painters worked on scaffolding to apply a fresh coat of ivory paint to the building’s exterior.

  Sure enough, all these years later, there was still an Académie de Ballet next door. The afternoon had grown dark in the canyon between the five and six story apartment buildings, but the studio glowed warmly, with its mirrors and natural oak-colored floors brightly lit and inviting.

  “Is this it?” His body suddenly thrummed with excitement, the way he sometimes felt when he stumbled across a detail that promised it might just crack a case.

  The ghost worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Yes. The awning is different, and the name. But, yes.”

  Could this be the moment he’d been waiting for? Could his father be in there, lounging on a musty sofa and reading a newspaper in the back office where he’d stowed Anya? Sergey could barely suck in a breath.

  Cars had parked bumper to bumper on the street, but a red curb in front of a fire hydrant stood vacant. Why the hell not? He could make some excuse to get out of a parking ticket, or better yet, just let Lisko pay for it.

  Hand on the door handle, he said, “Be right back.” But then he remembered her fear outside his apartment, her post-cyclone sheepishness, and turned to look at her.

  She stared, eyes wide, at the facade of the Académie, her mouth pressed into a grim line. He gripped the steering wheel hard at the thought of what she must be remembering, of what a monster like Demyan might have done to her and countless others in this place--might have done to his mother.

  He inhaled through his nose, taking a moment to pause and get it together so he could offer her a credible bit of reassurance. “Anya.”

  She looked at him. Set in her beautiful face, diamond-dusted and translucent, her dark eyes swirled ever darker with emotion. Her fear came to him in the space between them like a crackle of static electricity.

  “I’ll come back. No matter what I find in there, I won’t leave you alone for long.”

  Her lips pulled wider, not quite a smile, but it was something. “Thanks.”

  He patted the console firmly, the way he might give his partner, Pavel, a reassuring thump on the back, and then he slid out of the car. At the glass door of the studio, he got a clear view of the interior, where a woman sat on the floor, one leg angled outward, straight and long, the other bent at the knee. She’d folded herself over a clipboard on the floor, as if she were planning a class and stretching at the same time, and she glanced up when he opened the door.

  “Hello?” Her auburn hair was pulled into a bun and strands of gray streaked it at the temples.

  “Hi.” He stuck his thumbs into his pockets. “I’m Inspector Sergey Yuchenko, Kiev Politsiya.”

  “How can I help you?” She sat up straight and then rose gracefully to her feet, clearly fit even if she was easily forty-five or fifty.

  “I’m looking for a man who may have owned this studio in nineteen sixty-eight. Stas Demyan.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down, and she shook her head. “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Do you rent the space?”

  “No, I own it, for ten years. And I bought it from another dancer Madam Smirovski, not someone named Demyan.”

  “I see.” Maybe he would head down to the city archives and pull a list of previous owners. Good chance those old property records were never turned into electronic data. Maybe he’d even find Demyan listed there. He tried another tack. “Did you study dance in Odessa? My mother was a ballerina here--she danced in the early eighties, probably a little before your time.”

  She smiled at that. “Not so long before. But, no, I’m from Minsk, and I studied there. Does she still dance, your mother? I’m always looking for experienced teachers.”

 
“No, I’m afraid she gave it up completely. But I understand this Demyan fellow was quite important at one time. He directed the National Ballet for several years. Would you mind asking around?” Sergey pulled out his wallet and handed her a business card.

  Her long, thin fingers were cool as they slid over his to accept the slip of paper.

  A hinge creaked in the back hallway, and a man came through the opening door. Younger than the dance teacher, he wore slacks and a sweater, though when he crossed the room with an elegant saunter instead of the beefy strut of most men, Sergey could well imagine the man was a dancer. He came to stand at her side and wrapped an arm around her waist, cupping her hip. His nostrils flared when he looked at Sergey.

  Sergey was not especially into older women, and he inched back a little, hoping to signal to the man he had no designs on the teacher.

  “Alexei, this is Inspector Yuchenko from Kiev. He’s searching for someone named Stas Demyan, who might have operated a dance school here back in the sixties.”

  “Demyan? Never heard of him.” Alexei crossed his arms over his chest. “Leyna, isn’t your class about to begin? I’ll show the inspector out.”

  She smiled at Alexei as if he hung the moon before bending to retrieve her clipboard. “Yes. It’s time to open the door.” She waved toward the street.

  On the sidewalk outside, girls of nine or ten had begun to line up, their mothers exchanging greetings.

  “If you will.” Alexei extended his arm toward the exit and took a step as if he expected Sergey to follow immediately. He must have been awfully worried his lady might exchange him for an even younger model. A pulse of pure masculine rivalry rose up in Sergey, and he wanted to punch the guy, wanted to prove himself better, stronger, like a peacock showing its feathers, or a walrus ready to lock tusks to win a mate.