That’s what she had to do right now. She knew what she wanted – for all of this to be over, for she and the girls and Michael to be safe – but that was the end of things. She had to figure a way to get there.

She had to prioritize.

The horrors were compounding. First Kolya, then Detective Powell. Then the police officers on the street. She had heard the sirens before they had gone a block. She envisioned the next few minutes, the image of the police surrounding them, guns drawn. There was the possibility that none of them – Aleks, Emily or herself – were going to survive.

Barreling down the street, running both stop signs and red lights, sending cars careening, Abby could smell the brute rage coming off Aleks. The steering wheel was sticky with drying blood. He drove quickly but expertly through traffic on 94th Street toward Lamont Avenue.

Abby heard the sirens closing in. Just a few blocks away. When they reached Lamont Avenue Aleks pulled the SUV down an alley, behind a four-story apartment building. He cut the engine.

The police cars passed the alley, the sound reverberating between the brick walls. Aleks got out of the SUV, left the door open, began to pace. His eyes were manic, crazed.

“Where is he going?” he screamed.

Emily started at the sound. Abby put her arm around her daughter. “I don’t know,” Abby said.

“Where is he taking her?”

Aleks swarmed to the front of the SUV. He stared up at the sky for a moment, thinking. The sound of a slamming door behind the building made him spin on his heels. Abby tried to see what was happening, but because of the handcuffs she could not turn all the way.

“He will not take my daughter!” he yelled.

Abby now saw someone walking up the alley. There were two other cars parked in the back. A delivery van for the auto parts store on the corner, and a late-model Lincoln.

As the man approached, Abby saw that he was middle-aged man carrying a bag of groceries. He stopped and stared at Aleks, perhaps debating about stepping in and speaking to this demented man yelling at the woman and child.

In an instant Aleks was across the alleyway. The man went pale. He dropped his groceries.

“What are you looking at?” Aleks screamed. “Do you have business with me?”

“I’m not . . . I don’t –”

“No you do not.” Aleks looked up the alley, toward the street, back at the man. He pointed at the Lincoln. “Is this your vehicle?”

The man just stared. Aleks drew his knife. He held the tip beneath the man’s chin. Abby could see a slight trickle of blood.

“No!” Abby screamed.

“Last time. Is this your vehicle?”

The man’s eyes rolled back. Abby knew the signs. She feared the man might be going into shock. “Yes,” he said softly.

“Give me the keys.”

The man slowly reached into his pocket. He pulled a few things out: a handkerchief, a pack of gum, a few dollars in cash. No keys.

Aleks spun on his heel, swung his leg around, kicking the man in his chest. The man slammed against the brick wall, and folded to the ground. Aleks took the knife, sliced open the man’s pockets. He soon found the keys, then dragged the man behind the dumpster. He returned to the SUV, pulled all the bags from the back and put them in the Lincoln. He unlocked Abby’s handcuffs, picked up Emily. They got in the Lincoln.

Aleks cuffed Abby to the door handle, then jumped in the vehicle. He started the car, studied the GPS screen on the console. Something seemed to register. He tore open the bag on the seat, pulled out the files he had taken from the house. Abby saw the phases of her life flash by. The deed to the house, her nursing certificate, her marriage license. Soon Aleks took out a photo. He scanned the document, then punched numbers into the GPS.

He pulled into traffic.

Abby knew where they were going. Aleks was not going to give up. Neither was she. She would find her moment.

FORTY-SEVEN

They took the subway to the 82nd Street station, where Michael flagged a cab. When they arrived at their destination, in Ozone Park, Michael paid the fare, looking up and down the street. They had not been followed.

He took Charlotte’s hand in his. Before she got out of the cab, she put something in the pocket of her pink fleece jacket, something she had been holding.

“What do you have there?” Michael asked.

Charlotte took the item back out of her pocket, handed it to her father. It was a carved marble egg. Michael angled it to the sun to get a better look at the intaglio. It was a bizarre tableau – chickens, ducks, rabbits, and a needle.

“Where did you get this?” Michael asked, although a dark feeling inside gave him his answer. She had gotten it from Aleks.

Charlotte just shrugged.

“I’ll keep it for a little while, okay?”

Charlotte nodded. Michael closed the car door.

Michael and Charlotte approached the side door of the house on 101st Street– a two-story 1920s colonial, maroon siding over beige stone. Michael pressed the doorbell next to the casing. There was a small camera overhead watching them, along with a pair of heavily built men leaning against a car across the street. The men were smoking, chatting softly, watching Michael and his daughter.

After a few seconds the door opened, and Solomon Kaasik welcomed them inside.

MICHAEL HAD NOT SEEN Solomon in almost a year. He had been in Chicago attending a five-day conference the day Solomon was released from Attica.

On the occasion of his release, Michael had sent Solomon a case of Türi – the exquisite Estonian vodka – along with a gift basket from La Guli’s. They had spoken on the phone twice, both times ending the conversation with Michael’s promise see the man soon and resume their monthly chess game. One day led to the next, months passed, and Michael had still not seen his father’s oldest friend, the man who had avenged the murder of his parents when society could not.

He was not prepared for what he saw when Solomon Kaasik opened the door.

Solomon was dying.

THE TWO MEN WORDLESSLY embraced. To Michael, Solomon felt like dry kindling. Michael had been meaning to call, to come by. Life takes over, he thought. Now it had taken everything.

He looked at Solomon. What had once been robustness and health was now the pall of the grave. He had lost seventy-five pounds. His face was thin and pallid, gaunt. In the corner of the room, next to an easy chair blanketed in an afghan – an afghan Michael remembered his mother knitting for Solomon when he was sentenced to Attica – sat an oxygen tank.

“Mischa,” Solomon said. “Minu poeg.”

My son.

“This is my daughter Charlotte,” Michael said.

With great effort Solomon got down onto one knee, holding Michael’s arm to steady himself. Charlotte did not shy away from the old man.

“Say hello to Mr Kaasik,” Michael said.

“Hi,” Charlotte said.

Solomon considered the girl for a few moments. He put a knotted finger to her cheek, then stood up again. It took three attempts. Summoning all available strength and dignity, Solomon moved, ghostlike, unaided, across the room to his kitchen. He turned to Charlotte. “Would you like some juice?”

Charlotte looked at her father. Michael nodded.

“Yes, please,” she said.

Solomon opened the fridge, removed some freshly squeezed orange juice. He poured a glass with a trembling hand.

WHILE CHARLOTTE SAT AT the dining-room table, crayon in hand, a sheaf of blank paper before her, Michael spoke to Solomon. Beginning with the murder of Viktor Harkov, continuing to the horror he had found at his house, and ending with the bloody confrontation on the street.

Solomon looked out the window, at the traffic on 101st Street. He glanced back at Michael. “The man from the motel,” he said softly. “This Omar. Where is he?”