Page 43 of Wyatt

He tried out her name, and she smiled. “You remembered.”

She was wearing a pair of black jeans that might have been painted on and a T-shirt printed with some Russian band on the front.

“You’re traveling with the team?” he asked, andobviously, but he didn’t know how else to account for her presence.

“A girl’s gotta make a living.”

He didn’t know what to say to that except…

“Wait. Are you really a reporter?”

She made a face, looked away. “Yeah, sure.”

Oh.

He stared out the window. “Have you ever heard of Belogorsk?”

She nodded. “It’s a village west of Khabarovsk. About a six-hour train ride, the other direction.”

In the distance, another tiny town rose from the horizon. “Are we stopping here?”

“Probably. Not long, but long enough to get something to eat and—”

“Wanna make some money?”

She looked at him, raised an eyebrow.

He held up a hand. “No. Not like that. I mean…”

And the crazy thought appeared out of nowhere, formed, and took possession. “I need to get off this train. And on a train to Belogorsk. And…I could use a translator.”

She made a little noise that sounded like disbelief.

“Really. That’s all.”

She considered him. Glanced down the hall. “How much?”

“I have five hundred dollars, cash—”

“Not rubles.”

“Dollars.”

“Vso. Done. Get your stuff.”

And now he was back in a le Carré novel. But he wasn’t leaving Russia without one more shot at saving the girl he loved.

Even if he ended up in gulag.

She couldn’t leave this child.

Coco stood in the play yard of Orphanage 23 at the end of the slide, watching as Mikka climbed to the top, his teeth gritted.

He was a charmer, this boy of hers. She’d stayed with him all day, through his morning classes—read aloud time, crafts, some gymnasium time—took tea with Lana and the other teachers during nap time, and now, as the sun began its slide into the far horizon, she followed him around the play yard, pushing him on the merry-go-round and swing and digging tunnels with him in the dirt.

“Is it my birthday?” he’d asked when she gave him the stuffed lion this morning, and the question had made her want to weep.

What kind of mother only showed up for her child on his birthdays or holidays or…

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