“Sounds like she had her fingers in lots of little pies,” I mused. “Tell me, was she ever a footnote in her brother’s dossier?”
Naomi cleared her throat. “There may have been a mention of her as a possible business associate.”
My fingers tightened around the phone. “And nobody made the connection between Galina Dashkova and Pasha Lazarov, whose dead sister was named Galina and whose mother was a Dashkova?”
“Somehow that detail slipped past whoever was following up on the Lazarov kids. Our mistake.”
“The kind of mistake that gets people killed,” I reminded her. There was silence for a minute and I sighed into it. “Never mind. Just tell me you know something helpful now. We need to find her.”
“She’s almost as elusive as her brother,” Naomi said. “I can tell you the city where she lives. It’s—”
“Venice,” I cut in.
“Stop doing that! How—”
There was no point in concealing the truth. “I have PashaLazarov’s planner. There’s a phone number in it, and we think it’s hers. We’ve identified it as Venetian. That doesn’t tell us if she’s still there or where to find her if she is.”
Naomi’s voice was cool. “You have Pasha Lazarov’s planner. A planner I assume he didn’t just hand you out of the goodness of his heart.”
“No, I took it from his nightstand after I killed him.”
“You should have sent that directly to us,” Naomi said.
“You mean toyou. This mission is off the books, remember? You can’t send us into the field with half-assed intel for a job that doesn’t even officially exist and then come at me for not following protocol,” I shot back. Then I stopped talking and waited. Technically, Naomi was right. I should never have lifted the planner, and the first thing I should have done after reaching England was arrange for it to be couriered to her. But Naomi had committed her fair share of missteps in this little fandango and I wasn’t about to be hung out to dry when mistakes in the Provenance files had nearly gotten us killed.
Naomi must have decided to pick her battles, because she let the subject go. Temporarily, no doubt. I was sure she was just filing the subject of the planner away for a come-to-Jesus meeting down the road.
“I do have something else that might help,” Naomi said. “It’s not much, but she’s an opera fan.”
“I know that too,” I told her.
“Well, do you know she has a thing for baritones? She works hard to keep her name and photo out of the papers andpress releases, but I found a few discreet mentions. Fundraisers, opening nights. She takes on protégés, usually young men. Her latest is named Wolfgang Praetorius, a Bavarian baritone. Say that three times fast.” She was clearly trying to lighten the mood, but I wasn’t having it.
“Naomi,” I said in a warning tone.
“Sorry. Bottom line is, the baritone is your best lead. Galina likes to pave the way for her little opera babies, so she’s probably got something lined up for this one.”
“Thanks for almost nothing,” I told her as I hung up. I was certain I was going to feel bad about being short with her later. But she was a handy punching bag, and I made a note to send her something—maybe a muffin basket—as I went to join the others. I brought them up to speed and Minka started tapping away on her laptop.
She pulled up a profile of Wolfgang Praetorius and showed us a photo of a beefy blond youth. “He won a prize in Germany.” The piece was from a newspaper in Erlangen, confirming what Naomi had said about him being Bavarian.
“There’s no way his name is really Wolfgang Praetorius,” I said.
“Stage name,” Minka confirmed. “His real name is Walter Krebs.” She snickered.
“Definitely not a name you’d want to see up in lights,” Helen put in.
“There’s a Mr. Krabs joke in there somewhere,” Nat added.
“Where is he now?” I asked Minka.
She shrugged. “He has not updated his personal websiterecently and his social media game is weak. He should work on that if he wants to be famous. Maybe TikTok reels.”
Natalie took the phone and squinted at the picture. It was slightly blurred, as if emphasizing how youthful he was, how unformed. “Damn, Galina likes them young.” Nat studied the picture some more and raised her brows approvingly. “He’s a little Teutonic for my taste, but good for her.”
“You’re missing the point,” I said, plucking the phone out of her hand and giving it back to Minka.
“Which is?”