The Romanov Legacy by Jenni Wiltz

was
out.”
    “Why did you leave?”
    “We needed supplies.  It was safer for me to go alone.”
    She shook her wrist, rattling the cuffs.  “I have to go
to the bathroom.”
    He nodded, setting down the coffee and pulling a key from
his pants pocket.  As he bent to insert the key in the lock, she caught a
whiff of soap and alcoholic aftershave.  “We can’t stay here much longer,”
he said.  “There are fresh clothes for you in the bathroom.”
    She looked down at her stretched-out white t-shirt.  How
the hell did I get this?   Bits of memory shook loose from her fogged brain
as the full impact of the previous night settled over her.  “You killed
two people,” she said.  “And I distinctly remember wearing pants at some
point.” 
    He looked at the floor and tightened his grip on the key
until his knuckles shone white.  “That was wrong.  I’m sorry.” 
    She’d meant it as a joke, but he was genuinely
uncomfortable.  She waited for him to look up but he didn’t; he remained
crouched before her like a Taliban prisoner about to be beheaded.  “You’re
serious,” she said and watched his head dip even lower.  Then it hit
her:  he was ashamed of himself for having almost slept with her.
    Natalie flung back the covers and stalked into the bathroom,
slamming the door behind her.  In the mirror, she watched her cheeks and
throat explode in bright red splotches that looked like poison oak. 
Against her will, her eyes clouded with tears.  Even kidnappers are
ashamed of me , she thought. 
    She took a deep breath and repeated the meditation mantra
Beth had given her as a child:  “God grant me the serenity to accept the
things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know
the difference.”  It was years before she realized Beth had cribbed it
from AA.  She thought of all the elementary and middle school teachers who
must have wondered what the hell went on in the Brandon household after
school.  Still, Beth’s intuition had been right—sometimes, if she caught
it early, a moment of concentrated thought centered on this phrase could force
Belial to lie back down and be quiet.
    She repeated the mantra until the bathtub faucet ran hot,
then slipped the stopper into the drain and waited.  Behind the wall,
pipes clanged like an out-of-tune organ.  Just thinking of her sister made
her feel homesick.  She’d missed the start of Shark Week with Seth because
she’d been too proud to apologize to Beth.  Now two men were dead and
Nicholas’s money was behind it all—even her argument with Beth.  This
is all a dream , she thought.  It has to be.
    She tossed away her t-shirt and underwear and slipped into
the steaming water.  Affixed to the wall, a rusted metal rectangle held
out a bar of soap.  The letters on its surface were sharp and crisp, with
no water erosion or divots.  She frowned and straightened up in the tub,
looking over to the plastic garbage can.  She spotted a barely used bar of
soap and two paper wrappers. 
    “I had it all wrong,” she said, turning the soap over in her
hands.  Constantine hadn’t been ashamed of her—he’d been ashamed of
himself.  So much so that he’d given her a fresh bar of soap so that
nothing that had touched his bare skin need touch hers.    
    A fluttery feeling tickled her pit of her stomach.  It
was one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for her, anticipating her
reaction to something so small.  For a moment, she felt human.  A
wave of longing crushed her when she realized she couldn’t tell Beth, the only
person who would understand what it meant.
    She wondered if the police had found the dead men in the
alley yet.  Once they realized her apartment was all shot up, they’d
connect the dead men with her disappearance and start looking for her. 
They’d tell Beth and probably scare the hell out her in the process.  How
long could she and Constantine evade the police?  Surely in a city so