The Devil's Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

the stairs, and Michael would immediately get back to his studies.
    “What do you mean?” he asked.
    Charlotte and Emily looked at each other, shrugged, slipped under the covers. Michael took a moment, still a bit bewildered. He tucked the girls in, planted kisses on their foreheads.
    On the way out of the bedroom he stood at the door for a moment, thinking.
    Ta tuleb was an Estonian phrase.
    His daughters did not speak Estonian.
    M ICHAEL WALKED INTO the small room on the first floor that served as his office, flipped on a light, opened his briefcase. He studied the photograph of Falynn Harris. She was only fourteen.
    Falynn was the daughter of Colin Harris, a Long Island City florist who had been gunned down two years ago in April, murdered in cold blood by one Patrick Sean Ghegan. Ghegan, along with his younger brother Liam, were the demon spawn of Jack Ghegan, a former mid-level Queens mobster currently doing life-plus in Dannemora.
    Falynn, who was sneaking a cigarette behind the store, saw the whole thing go down through the back window. She was so traumatized by the horror of the crime she had not said a single word since. And she was the state’s star witness.
    Michael Roman had won RICO cases, had prosecuted some of the most hardened career criminals ever to pass through the New York state legal system, had successfully tried two death penalty cases, including the infamous Astrology Killer, had more than once reached for something that far exceeded his grasp, only to thrive. But this one was special. And he knew why. He had lobbied long and hard to get it.
    The question was: Could he get Falynn to talk to him? In the next forty-eight hours, with the specter of Colin Harris standing over them, could he get her to remember?
    If we will be alive, we will not die.
    Coffee. He needed coffee. This was going to be a long night.
    On the way to the kitchen he stopped at the foot of the stairs and glanced up at the slightly ajar door to his daughters’ room.
    Ta tuleb , he thought.
    It was an Estonian phrase that meant: He is coming.
    As Michael Roman entered the kitchen and took the French press out of the cupboard, a question flitted around his mind like a gypsy moth drawn to a light bulb.
    Who is coming?

FOUR
    T ALLINN , E STONIA
    A leksander savisaar stood in the center of the bustling square. It was an unseasonably warm evening, the lilies were pregnant in bloom, and Viru Tänav Street was a carnival of the senses.
    He walked a few blocks, sat at a small outdoor café, ordered tea, watched the girls walk by in their springtime dresses, each a long-petalled flower. He had been in many ports in his time, from Kabul to Moscow to a brief tour in Shanghai. His business affairs had taken him many times to Helsinki to Riga to St Petersburg and beyond, yet he was never happy in a city, any city. He could tolerate it all for a few days. Perhaps a week. Sometimes, if his needs were met, he found himself flourishing. But he was not, nor ever would be, at home in any urban setting. His place was the forest, the valley, the hills.
    The city of Tallinn sat on the northern coast of Estonia, on the Gulf of Finland. As the capital, it was one of the most completely preserved medieval cities in the world. Since the fall of communism in 1991 it had become one of the more cosmopolitan destinations in the Baltics, with its world class symphony, its thriving tourist business, and even a burgeoning fashion market.
    Aleks had driven the E20 route to Narva, in central Estonia, past the rusting relics of Soviet occupation, past the ramshackle buildings, failed collectives, the rusting cars and farm machinery, the slag heaps and stilled conveyor belts.
    He then took a small commuter plane from Narva to Tallinn, which meant he’d had to leave a good many things behind. These days, even in small airports, on small airlines, security was quite rigorous.
    It was not a problem. He had connections all over Estonia. And he had business. A business