Nikki rarely saw a person with more elegance and self-confidence in a prison cell. Fyodor Sokolov sat on his uncomfortable-looking chair as if it were a wing chair. Although the Russian, usually dressed so strikingly and expensively, only wore orange prison overalls in the detention center, his entire appearance was still how Nikki imagined a tsar would look when you visited him in his palace.

"I knew you'd be back." Sokolov sounded friendly as if the detective and he were old acquaintances.

"Your lawyer is outstanding; I'll give him that." Nikki stopped before the open cell door and leaned against the cold wall with her arms crossed. "But your hit squads are even better. How did you find Boris Grigorenko's safe house?"

Sokolov made an innocent face. "I don't know what you're talking about. But if the police can plant people on the bad guys, maybe the other way around is possible, too. I'm not familiar with that, though."

Nikki looked into Sokolov's piercing blue eyes, which seemed to hide what this man really was, like a cloak of invisibility. "You'll probably get out of here soon." She gestured ironic applause. "And yes, it seems I'm responsible for that."

Sokolov rose from his chair and pushed backward against the wall with a creak. He smoothed his overalls and took a small step towards the detective. "You're here because you want to accept my offer, right? Before I change my mind."

How low had she sunk? Begging her mother for help and getting a telling off twice was not something Nikki could be proud of. But now, appearing before an international criminal like a fifteen-year-old girl before her school internship was below even the lowest line she had previously been able to imagine.

"It's about seven innocent guys. That's the only reason I'm talking to you."

"There are far worse reasons to grovel. And besides, what I told you last time was meant seriously. Without you, I'd be in big trouble. So, how can I help you?" Now, the Russian had his arms crossed over his chest.

Nikki looked at Sokolov as if she had some bad news to tell him. "This conversation never took place, I hope that's clear?"

"Of course, the conversation took place; after all, it's documented that you came to see me today. Unfortunately, you didn't inform my defense counsel of your interview in time, so I unfortunately had to send you away empty-handed."

Nikki looked him straight in the eye. There seemed to be nothing evil in it, even though Fyodor Sokolov was undoubtedly one of the most ruthless people she had ever encountered. She wondered if the man's sociopathy was so pronounced that he didn't actually see himself as evil. It was quite possible that in his own world, he was actually a friendly person who wanted to express his gratitude to a woman who had helped him by doing something for her in return.

"We know that all the parents who were murdered by the man I'm looking for were somehow connected to your people. None of them are talking to us, and nobody mentions your name. So I probably won't get to you; that's the sad truth."

Sokolov stepped very close to the detective. "No one from the scene of your series of murders will actually talk about the victims with your people. With my people, however, they do."

Nikki was silent for a moment before finally getting to her request. "Can you find out what the victims had to do with it? Why did the one I'm looking for choose these people of all people? Did the victims say anything before or after the abduction of their sons that could help me? The selection of the victims seems so arbitrary. There has to be a connection."

Now, it was quiet in the holding cell. Nikki looked at Sokolov as if he were something of an oracle. Strangely enough, she noticed that her guilty conscience was gradually giving way to the feeling she had always had as a child after the dentist had finished drilling, and she had survived the worst. She noticed that Sokolov had reached into his pocket and taken something out. She recognized a crumpled piece of paper when he held it in front of the detective's face.

"I gave that to you during our last conversation. At that time, you were even less inclined to help me. So, call the number on this piece of paper and tell the man who answers what you told me. You will be called back very soon."

Nikki hesitated briefly before reluctantly grabbing the paper and putting it in her pocket. "Do I have to say thank you now, too?"

Sokolov smiled at her boyishly and took a big step back from the detective. "It is I who should be thanking you! Don't waste any more time on me, but try to find these children."

xxx

"What was wrong with the bridge today? It only exploded halfway." Lennox gave the stunt crew chief a questioning look.

"Don't start; it's something to do with the gas pipe again. Since the renovation, everything here only works when it feels like it."

Despite his sixty years, Paul Moore was big, brawny, more athletic, and agile than most of the others Lennox knew. Even the members of his stunt team, consisting of a course of course, course specialists, motocross professionals, and martial artists, admired him for his fitness. Paul had been a stuntman himself in the past and liked to talk about it often. About the times before, digital technology had significantly changed his job. Back when stunt people were still seen as tough guys and tough women who were trusted to jump over the roofs of burning buildings. In times when his profession still sparked excitement in children's eyes and when no one asked how serious, risk-minimized, and accurate the work of stunt people actually was. Lennox didn't tend to spend more time with his colleagues in the studios than necessary. Still, he and Paul had a relationship that could be described as friendly. Of course, only if you didn't know that Lennox had no friends.

"You mean the conversion from a water basin to a race track?" Lennox let his gaze glide over the stunt area.

It was strange how meaningless the terrain seemed as soon as the spectators had left. When the tiers of thousands of seats were deserted, the flames on the playing field had gone out, and the dramatic music had stopped. Just fifteen minutes before, stuntmen in martial-looking costumes had raced across the grounds on cars and motorcycles, plunged from burning debris, or fought complex, choreographed battles with each other. The pyrotechnicians had set off explosions and flames at the push of a button, and the sound engineers had not only played the appropriate music but also the sounds to match the movements of the stunt people. And all this after Lennox had warmed up the audience for several minutes. The people who looked at him from the stands and then not. By the thousands, day after day. And even though it was business as usual, following the same routine over and over again, it felt new to Lennox every day. Because he didn't see what he presented with his own eyes but with those of the audience.

"Do you still remember the water tank?" Paul took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.

"Just from photos. I've only been here since the race track was built."

Paul let his eyes wander over the concrete and pointed to the center of the stage. "We used to have a show about sharks. It was called Shark Attack, and it was pretty funny. Half the stage was a huge water tank from which shark dummies could shoot. It was a big hit, but at some point, more and more complaints came in. Parents who thought their children would be scared of it. Environmentalists complained that we were depicting sharks as man-eaters and stigmatizing them as monsters. A woman actually wrote that complaint to the management! Five people died in the story of the show, and nobody cared. Except for the shark, which was obviously made of rubber."

"At some point, everything just sucked. The insecure took over and have been suppressing the mature ever since."

"Excuse me?" Paul took a drag on his cigarette.

"There are two types of people: the insecure and the mature. Insecure people worry, for example, that a show with artificial sharks might cause others to start hunting sharks. Mature people laugh at a funny show, understand what it means, and don't hunt sharks afterward."

"You mean, like how insecure people fear that they would be harmed if they didn't check every piece of crap that someone does to see if it was politically correct? If they don't judge everyone for everything, deciding who's good and bad?"

Lennox nodded. "Adults also let things slide sometimes, as long as it's clear from the context that someone didn't mean harm. What do you think? What kind of trivial jokes do viewers sometimes complain about with me --"

Paul laughed, approached Lennox, and patted him on the shoulder. "You should come among normal people for a few days. Why don't you come with my stunt crew on a shoot sometime? Next month, we're doing a thriller adaptation by a Boston author. I'm telling you, a few days with my crew is like traveling back in time to a world before the fear-mongers crawled out of their holes. Beer, dirty jokes, cigarettes!"

Lennox smiled like he did when the candidates on the animal quiz show got one of his questions right. "That sounds extremely tempting. Let's keep that in mind!"

Paul quickly checked his cell phone, threw his cigarette butts on the ground, stubbed out the embers, and looked back at Lennox. "Well, I have to go. I'm doing a stunt workshop later. Today, it's about burning; that's always funny."

Moore laughed out loud, patted Lennox on the shoulder, and left the show area. Lennox watched him until he had finally disappeared behind the exit of the tunnel through which the stunt people entered the show area with their vehicles. He lowered his eyes and looked at the concrete floor under his feet. It would hold, definitely.

xxx

"So that's her final word?" Mike sounded worried through the phone. "Liz definitely won't help you?"

"That's the way it looks, yeah. I'm pretty screwed, Mike." Nikki was restlessly squeezing through the aisles of the supermarket, where she had to run a few urgent errands between appointments that she couldn't put off any longer despite all her work. "I can't blame Ma either; this case is a real nightmare. Nothing you'd want to deal with voluntarily, Mike. I'm barely sleeping more than a few hours, not eating enough, and I feel like losing more hair. I can't take much more of this."

Nikki hadn't told her husband about her visit to Fyodor Sokolov. What was she thinking? Yes, she owed it to the boys to grasp at any straw. But this criminal would likely leave the country utterly unmolested in a few days, and she would probably be indebted to him forever. After all, what would she do if he or one of his people suddenly stood before her and demanded a favor? She could already count herself lucky that Sokolov's killers had only killed the key witness Boris, not her or Mike as well.

Nikki would keep this more than inglorious pact with the devil to herself.

"So my sexy wife is going bald?" Mike laughed. "That's bound to look really hot!"

Nikki bit her lower lip while she grinned and rolled her eyes.

Mike took a deep breath and regained his composure. "But seriously, is there anything I can do to help?"

She stopped in the middle of the aisle. She had finally found the shelf where the salt was. They had been seasoning everything they ate with pepper for days because they had repeatedly forgotten to buy the most essential spices. Her eyes scanned the selection. "You could explain to me why there are a hundred different types of salt here. Surely, it's the only product on the entire planet that always tastes the same, no matter who offers it or how it's packaged. How can the same amount of salt cost between a few cents and several dollars?"

"You're pretty exhausted, aren't you?" Mike spoke as gently as he always did before falling asleep when he held Nikki in his arms for a while. 'Should I reserve a table for us at Sapphire tonight? Or we can just talk about salt.'

Finally, a smile flitted across Nikki's face again. "But please include background information about location, expansion, and maturation."

She reached for a package of salt in the color she liked while a stately older lady laboriously squeezed past her with her empty shopping cart.

"Do you have to make yourself so wide?" The woman looked at the detective as if she were the devil incarnate.

"I'm just trying to keep you from entering the vegetable section with full physical exertion." She looked at the woman with great seriousness. "I have information that the root vegetables are planning an attack on us humans."

While the woman was still staring at her in confusion, Mike's amused laughter could be heard briefly.

She bit her lower lip again to stop herself from laughing.

He cleared his throat. "So, shall I reserve a table at the Sapphire?"

Nikki hesitated to answer. Did she really want to go out with her husband tonight? He was the only person in her life who could give her joy and make her feel valuable. And who really managed to separate the professional from the private. But in her current state, she just couldn't give him the affection and attention he deserved. What if she scared him off with her worries and constant absent-mindedness? A grumpy, sleep-deprived wife, preoccupied around the clock with terrible thoughts of kidnapped children and slaughtered parents, would probably not be considered a perfect catch in the eyes of a man who placed so much value on togetherness and mutual care. On the other hand, when could she use the closeness and affection of her husband more than now?

A little breather in Mike's arms would be really great.

She took a deep breath and pursed her lips. "Just surprise me. But please don't spring another surprise like the Dodge on me!"

"Didn't you like it?"

"Of course I did; it was absolutely awesome. But I feel bad when you always have so much trouble for me after work, and I can only think about work the whole time."

Mike was silent for a few seconds. Finally, his voice sounded through the phone again. "All right, then, for once, I won't organize an 800-horsepower car today. Just a cozy evening with a bottle of red wine. Or three."

Nikki smiled again. 'Deal.'

"Deal," Mike repeated. 'I love you.'

"I love you, too," Nikki replied, ending the call.