“I—” Korovin fell silent as the doddering old waitress approached. She said something to him in a quiet voice.

“You will please excuse me,” Korovin said, rising from the table, his knees cracking. “There is a call for me on the house phone.”

Ruslan Korovin followed the waitress across the dining room and into the small antechamber next to the kitchen. There, in an antique wooden booth, an old black phone was mounted on the wall. Korovin picked up the phone, heard nothing. He depressed the plunger a few times, then turned to the waitress and said, “The line is dead.”

“Yes,” the waitress said. Her voice sounded strangely deeper, stronger. “It is dead.” She slid a latch on the kitchen door, locking it.

Suddenly she lunged at him, vising his neck in the muscled crook of her elbow. Korovin struggled, gasped, but this woman—who was surely not an old woman, he now knew—had overpowered him. She twisted his head one way, his torso another.

There was a terrible loud snap and Korovin sank to the floor, and the last thing he saw was the copper bracelet on his attacker’s left wrist, barely visible under the dainty ruffle of her sleeve.

7 - LISA SCOTTOLINE

7

LISA SCOTTOLINE

Devras Sikari needed time to think, and when, as now, he wasn’t in his beloved Kashmir, he would come here to his second favorite place in the world—his colonial farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania.

Specifically, to the chicken coop.

Sikari was sitting in his director’s chair in the pasture, watching his chickens enjoy the sun. He loved his little farm, some ninety acres, with its backyard quarter horses and tiny flock of pullets, and though he was Indian by-way-of Belgravia, he felt his most relaxed in this unlikely spot. Here he could shed his dinner jackets and Hermés ties, take off his clothes like so much costuming, and finally become himself. It made little sense, even to him. Sikari wasn’t raised in the country, but to him, this farm was home away from home.

The air had a raw October nip, but his baggy jeans and old flannel shirt kept him warm, with a waxed jacket still dusty from the morning’s ride. When he crossed one leg over the other, a red cashmere sock peeked from the top of his scuffed Blundstones. In his hand was a Phillies mug with bad coffee, which he had brewed himself. His housekeeper could make coffee the way he liked it, but it was her day off, so Sikari was stuck with his own swill. He took a sip and it tasted bitter and now, cold. He shook his head at the irony. He had patented a formula that would stump most nuclear physicists, yet he was defeated by Dunkin’ Donuts.

SQUAWK! went one of the hens, startling Sikari from his thoughts. His attention shifted back to the brood.