Becoming Rain: A Novel

“I’ll pick something up on the way. Just heading home to have a shower and grab Licks.” I need my dog with me. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“You know what you should get? A giant bucket of fried chicken. Uncle Rust would love that.” Ana’s laughter carries over my car’s speaker.

“One bucket, coming up.” I smile, thinking about how Rust would show up to our house with a bucket on Sundays and the four of us would play Monopoly. He’d never let anyone win. Said that wouldn’t help us in the long run. It’s been a long time since I’ve spent any real time with Ana, or my mom. I think I need to change that. They seemed to really like Rain, but I wonder if that was just circumstance. Rust had warned me that my mom would be a hard one to win over for any woman.

My mind is so wrapped up in thoughts of Rain and my family that I don’t notice the black sedan pulling up next to my private garage. Time seems to just hang in the moments that I stare at my reflection in the tinted windows. Waiting.

When the sound of an automatic window opening hits my ear, my heart slows, each hard beat bringing with it increasing dread. Expecting to see the nozzle of a gun pointed at me. Maybe the same one that killed Rust.

In those few seconds, I see Rain’s face flash before my eyes.

But the person behind the glass isn’t Vlad or Andrei or anyone with a semiautomatic. It’s a salt-and-pepper-haired guy with silver streaks along his temples and a sharp black suit.

Holding up an FBI badge. “Get in.”

I assume there’s protocol for what the FBI is supposed to say—introductions, at least. But I get the impression this guy doesn’t give a shit about any of that.

“But my dog—”

He cuts me off. “We’ll make sure Licks is fine.”

A sinking feeling hits my stomach. The FBI knows the name of my damn dog.

This can’t be good.

“So you’re telling me you have no idea who this guy is?” demands Special Agent Joshua Sinclair, jabbing at the black-and-white picture taken at the funeral today.

The fucking Feds were at Rust’s funeral.

“His name is Vlad,” I say calmly.

“Yes, we’ve already established that. Now I want you to tell me how he knew Rust.”

I shrug. “He did business with him.”

“What kind of business?”

“You’ll have to ask Vlad that.”

Air hisses through Sinclair’s gritted teeth as he inhales sharply. We’ve been playing this game—where he lays out pictures of every Russian mobster who shook my hand only hours earlier and asks me about them—for nearly an hour, three times over. The two hours before that they left me sitting in this FBI interrogation room to stew in my own terror, a giant wall-to-wall mirror across from me and countless faces hidden behind it.

And they still won’t tell me what this is about.

The three times I’ve asked if I need a lawyer, Sinclair’s asked me if I’ve done something that deserves a lawyer. I think I’ve held up well, given I’m ready to piss my pants.

“Don’t you want to help us find your uncle’s killers? The people who did this to him?” A new set of pictures is tossed down in front of me. Of Rust, hunched over the steering wheel of a black SUV, wearing the exact same burgundy shirt he was wearing the night Rain and I met him at The Cellar. No wonder he wasn’t answering any of my calls the next day. They must have got to him on his way home.

I look away from the image, but not before it is firmly emblazoned in my mind, tears stinging the back of my eyes, threatening to spill. This guy’s a fucking dick.

Tap, tap, tap over Vlad’s face again. “What do you know about him?”

Rain’s words of warning echoing in my ears. “I’ve already told you everything that I know.”

“What about him?” A glossy shot of Aref lands in front of me.

And that confirms that this is about more than catching Rust’s murderer. I shut right down. “A friend of Rust’s. That’s all I know.”

“I think you’re lying.” He sits back, folding his arms over his chest. He’s a big guy, probably about my size, and yet I feel small in this room with him. “I think you know exactly who Vladimir and Andrei Bragin are. I think you know that your uncle’s been selling stolen cars to them to be exported overseas, by Aref Hamidi.” He leans in. “And I think you’ve been helping him do it.”

I focus on my gold watch, trying to hide the panic. How the hell do they know all of this? “I own Rust’s Garage, and I work in the office. That’s all I do.” I hope he can’t hear the shakiness in my voice.

“Oh, I think you do plenty more. Helping us now will make things easier for you later. The way I see it, there are all kinds of things we could pin on you. You could see ten . . . fifteen years locked up. I think they’d like a guy like you in there. And I’m guessing your friends won’t be helping you out.”

If he’s trying to scare me, it’s working.

Suddenly, he switches directions. “What do you know about Alexandria Petrova’s disappearance?”

I hear her name and my head snaps up before I can control myself. He lays down an older picture of Alex, back when she was still driving a Z8 and wearing Versace.

“Nothing.”

“You sure?”

I shrug. “I used to see her around.”

He nods slowly. “I’ve launched an official investigation into her disappearance.”

“She’s been missing for over a year and now you’re investigating?”

“So you know she’s missing?”

I clench my jaw and he smiles. Sneaky bastard.

“So you don’t know anything about where she is or what may have happened to her?”

Where the hell is this coming from? “No.” I pause, feeling like this asshole just slipped an invisible noose around my neck and it’s tightening with each word out of my mouth. “I think I need a lawyer.” The firm Rust retained for his estate stuff also has a criminal law division.

Sinclair stands, leaving all the pictures on the table. “For the record, I believe Vlad killed your uncle and we have evidence that may help us prove it.”

Hope sparks inside my chest.

“But I’m less inclined to pursue that while a car theft ring that’s hurting innocent people is still in operation. One that I think Vlad killed your uncle in order to take over. Chew on that while we get you a phone to call your lawyer from.” He takes a few steps but then stops, waving at someone behind the glass to come through. “But first, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand, his tone suddenly lighter than the one he’s used for the last hour.

The wait for the door to open feels like forever, and when it does—when I see the face that appears, her light blue eyes zeroing in on mine to hold them—I feel like someone’s punched me square in the chest.

“Luke, this is Officer Clara Bertelli.”