All the Secrets We Keep (Quarry Book 2) Read online

  His brow furrowed. “Yeah. You got that right.”

  They dug in to the food, eating in silence for a few moments. Theresa chewed slowly, savoring it, enjoying the flavors and also filling her stomach gradually. This meal could last her until dinner, if she ate enough. She could save her stock of granola bars and the giant jar of peanut butter for another time.

  Niko pushed back from the table with a satisfied groan and rubbed his belly. “That was good. I’m stuffed. So, hey, what happened last night?”

  “Hmm?” She paused to show him that her mouth was full, hoping to avoid this conversation, but Niko seemed happy enough to wait until she’d finished chewing and swallowing to get an answer. “Oh, I was meeting with your brother to see if I could convince him to just sign the damned deal already. Get him out of the dive shop before they really start getting to work. I tried to tell him that it’s not going to go well for him. They’re totally capable of making his business completely fail.”

  She used to think Wayne’s ability to destroy other people’s lives in the pursuit of his own goals was his worst character trait, until she’d learned how easy it could be, when it came down to self-preservation.

  “Shit.” Niko looked stricken. “You think so?”

  “They’re planning to break ground on the hotel in a couple weeks, and the condos before that. Ilya is asking for more money and guarantees about the shop, which there’s no way they’re going to honor. I tried to tell him. He wouldn’t listen.” She took her last swig of coffee and sat back from the table to admit defeat in the face of all that food.

  “More money,” Niko said. “Figures.”

  “All I can say is that he’s got three weeks to take their offer or they’re no longer going to honor it, and I fought to extend it that long. If he doesn’t take the deal, they move on with construction, and it’s not going to work out very well for him.”

  “He’s going to hold on to his forty percent,” Niko said. “He’s stubborn.”

  “That forty percent gives him the shop, the parking lot, and access to the docks and underwater fixtures but doesn’t prevent them from making it impossible for anyone to get to the shop, or if they start tearing things down or removing them and not replacing them . . .” Theresa shrugged. “There won’t be any customers to take lessons.”

  The ceiling creaked overhead. Both of them looked up. Niko smiled, and after a few seconds, she did, too, even though she didn’t much feel like it.

  “In three weeks,” Theresa said, “none of this will be my problem anymore. But I sure wish he’d change his mind before then.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Then

  In the Stern house, Theresa had a room all to herself. There was a bed with a fluffy comforter and soft sheets. A dresser for her clothes, only hers—no sharing with her dad, three drawers for her and three for him. The bathroom situation wasn’t the greatest—one for the entire household, including two teenage boys who made a big mess and never cleaned up after themselves. Aside from that, she loved living there. She was grateful for it; that was the truth. Every day.

  She’d come home from school to find Babulya in the kitchen slicing red beets and boiling chicken bones to make stock. The fact that there was someone at home to make any kind of meal on a regular basis was also one of those things Theresa appreciated. Homemade soup, even the weird kind that Babulya made, was a luxury compared to the days of canned soup and stale saltines. Off-brand cereals. Soured milk.

  It was one of the things, back in the first days when her dad had started seeing Galina, that Theresa had clung to. Whatever might have been happening at home, and it was usually on the verge of awful, she could look forward to the weekend and spending time at the Sterns’. Even if she had to sleep on the couch and deal with teenage boys who either teased or ignored her.

  “Like this?” she asked now, slicing the beets and onions carefully, the way Babulya had demonstrated.

  “Doesn’t have to be so fancy.” Babulya smiled. Her reading glasses were pushed on top of her head, the chain connected to the stems dangling around her neck. “But is good to know how to make good cutting. How to . . . be clean with it.”

  The old lady’s thick Russian accent sometimes made it hard to understand her, but Theresa nodded like she understood. She went back to slicing, trying her best to keep the beet slices all the same thickness. Pretty. Why? Why not, she thought as her fingertips stained red from the juice. If you could make something nicer than it had to be, what was wrong with that?

  “Borscht? Ugh.” Ilya came into the kitchen to snag a cookie from the jar, ducking away from Babulya’s flapping hands. “Can’t you make, like, chicken noodle or something?”

  Theresa finished the last of her slicing. “Maybe you should learn how to cook it yourself, if you’re going to complain.”

  “Pfft.” Typically, Ilya could barely be bothered to pay her any attention.

  It could have been worse. When Theresa’s father married Ilya’s mother over the summer, Niko’d been kicked out of his bedroom so Theresa could have it. He’d moved into the attic. The brothers had fought about that—each had wanted the space with its slanting ceiling and cobwebs. They both could’ve been nasty to her about it instead of each other, but they hadn’t. Sure, they teased her sometimes, but they were brutal to each other.

  Babulya chased him out of the kitchen, scolding, but fondly. She caught sight of what must’ve been a weird look on Theresa’s face, because she wiped her hands on her apron and pulled a cookie from the jar to hand over. Theresa took it with her pink-stained fingers. It was chocolate chip, and it was delicious.

  “I teach you to make these,” Babulya said. Later, as they measured and sifted and laughed while they made the dough, she said, “Boys are good, but a girl . . . a girl in the kitchen makes my heart happy.”

  Together, they made dinner. Borscht. Bread. Cookies. The cooking gave Theresa a sense of satisfaction and of settling in that nothing else had since she and her dad had moved in. Sitting at the dinner table with everyone around, a family, she began to think it was all going to be okay.

  Until one day, it wasn’t.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sound of voices woke him, but the smell of food was what brought him downstairs. The sight of Theresa sitting across the table from his brother took Ilya by surprise. For a moment, he wondered if he was still dreaming or had somehow slipped backward in time to just after Babulya died, when Theresa had ended up staying with them.

  “Hey,” she said when she saw him. “Umm . . . it was late last night. I crashed here. Better than falling asleep at the wheel and crashing my car.”

  “Don’t look at me. It’s not my house, as my mother’s been so kind to point out over and over the past couple months.” Ilya scratched at his bare chest idly, narrowing his eyes at her. “Coffee?”

  Niko pointed wordlessly to the counter. Ilya helped himself, then fixed a plate from the veritable feast someone had made. He took a seat at the table, looking up only when he felt the weight of two sets of eyes on him.

  “What?”

  “You look like shit,” Niko said.

  Theresa pressed her lips together against a smile. “You look better than I thought you would, to be honest. You were sort of wrecked last night.”

  Frowning, Ilya raised his mug in one hand and his middle finger on the other. When Theresa and Niko burst into laughter, he managed a grin. The coffee was hot, fragrant, delicious. Not that it mattered. He’d have guzzled gas-station swill, if that was all there was.

  “Could get used to this,” he said around a mouthful of eggs and bacon. He gave Theresa an eye. “You do it?”

  “Some. Mostly it was Niko.” She sat back in her chair, her plate almost empty, and rubbed her belly. “I won’t be hungry for hours.”

  Niko also pushed his plate away with a sigh. “I need a nap.”

  “It’s not even noon,” Theresa said.

  Niko grinned. “Yeah, so what? That’s why it’s a nap.”