Page 24

I’m swearing up a storm as I stand.

The guy ran all the way around his car, and now he’s hiding on the road side of it, his head barely visible.

Freaking Quicksilver. Every time I think maybe he’s a genius, he does something idiotic. “Look, moron. He was about to let me call my sister, Mirdza.” I shake my head. “I’m so sorry. Racehorses are sometimes total lunatics.”

“Maybe you should come over here,” the guy says. “He looks dangerous.”

“He’s dangerously irritating,” I say in Russian. “But he won’t really hurt me.”

“Still.”

I walk toward the car, careful to stay on the forest side of it. “If I can borrow your phone to make that call, I’ll take my idiot horse and get away from you, I swear.”

He doesn’t look too keen to pass me his phone this time.

“Please?” I use my best damsel-in-distress eye-batting, and he finally relents. He doesn’t stand up all the way, and his hand shakes as he hands me his phone, but he does pass it across in front of the windshield.

Thank goodness.

I dial Mirdza without thinking, but she doesn’t answer. I decide to leave her a voicemail. “Hey, M, it’s me.” I don’t want to alarm the guy who’s loaned me his phone, so I keep things pretty neutral, just in case he speaks Latvian. “I’m outside of St. Petersburg right now, near the Ropsha Racetrack. I’m kind of stranded, truth be told, and I could use some help. If you get this, maybe try to marshal a little help. I’ll try and call again.”

I hang up.

Nervous guy holds out his hand.

I cringe a little. “Can I try one other number? My sister didn’t answer.”

He frowns, but nods. “Okay, sure. Yeah. Go ahead.”

It’s funny that people who really want to say no usually wind up saying yes a dozen different ways when they finally do. It’s like they have to say it over and over to reassure themselves it’s their choice and not foisted upon them by the social pressure they feel.

I dial Kristiana. She picks up.

“Allo,” she says.

She must have realized it’s a Russian number. “Kris, it’s me,” I say in Latvian, pretty confident this guy doesn’t speak it.

She inhales sharply. “Are you alright?”

“So far,” I say. “I’m alive. But I’m outside St. Petersburg, and I have no way to get—”

“Are you safe?”

“No. I’m near the Ropsha Racetrack, and I’m broke.”

“If you can find someplace to hide, anywhere, and tell me where you’ll be, we can come to you.”

“The thing is, other than this big idiotic horse that’s kind of following me, I don’t have—”

“Did you say a horse is following you?” Her tone’s urgent—like she’s more concerned now than she was before.

“Yes, but—”

“A smart horse?”

“Sure,” I say. “But also very, very stupid sometimes.

Behind me, Quicksilver snorts.