Acquainted With the Night (9781101546000) by Piper Maitland Read Free Book Online

outraged about your uncle’s death,” he said. “He’s pressuring the Interior Ministry.” Mr. Hughes pursed his lips as he drove down a narrow concrete incline, steering past a row of taxis into the spitting snow. “I’ve arranged for you to meet one of their officials, Ilya Velikov. Quite bureaucratic but incorruptible. You’re to meet him at your hotel this evening. Around seven-ish. I believe he said the mezzanine bar.”
    â€œThat will be helpful, thanks.”
    â€œNot at all,” he said. “You look a bit peaky. There’s bottled water in the backseat. And a pillow if you wish to nap. It’s two hundred forty kilometers to Kardzhali.”
    She looked out the window. A girl with blue-tipped hair and a nose ring jogged down the sidewalk. When Caro was her age, in a punk phase and longing to get a butterfly tattoo, Uncle Nigel had taken her on a dig near St. Petersburg. He’d bloodied the nose of a KGB agent who’d sold artifacts to black marketers. Uncle Nigel had been arrested, and the British embassy had made a diplomatic protest. The incident had made her uncle an archaeological rock star. She’d been left alone at the Dostoevsky Hotel for two days. Without adult supervision, Caro had entertained herself by hoarding room service rolls and throwing them off the balcony at BBC reporters.
    â€œI don’t want to alarm you,” Mr. Hughes said, “but do be careful while you’re in Bulgaria. It’s not a hotbed of crime, but it’s not exactly bucolic, either.”
    â€œYou aren’t kidding. A man in the airport tried to steal my bag. He was rather peculiar—all covered in a foil poncho.”
    â€œI saw him—he was with another chap, wasn’t he? They were wearing sunglasses. Probably to hide their pupils. I’m sure they were drug addicts.”
    â€œI chased him. And I got my bag.”
    â€œYou were brave.” Mr. Hughes chuckled, and then his lips drew into a frown. “But next time, you might not be so lucky. Not all of the dangers are human. Not too long ago, wild dogs killed a British tourist.”
    Caro thought of her dream and hugged herself.
    â€œNot to scare you,” Mr. Hughes said, looking rather alarmed himself. “But it was frightfully grisly. Of course, we have the mundane, mafia-style killings. The European Union is pressuring Prime Minister Stanishev to deal with organized crime. But the country is steeped in it. People have gone missing, too. Of course, vanishings have always occurred in this part of the world.”
    â€œBut that was when Bulgaria was part of the Eastern Bloc,” she said. “People were defecting like mad, weren’t they?”
    â€œThat accounted for some disappearances. Now, of course, there’s no reason for defection. Last month, a town near the Greek border reported dozens of missing people.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œTo the people? No one knows. The Interior Ministry looked into it. Apparently it’s not a communicable disease, and it’s not the Mafia.” He cast a sidelong glance. “But never mind that. Have you been to Sofia before?”
    â€œTen years ago.” She frowned. All this talk of missing people was making her jumpy.
    â€œBulgaria has joined the European Union since you were here,” Mr. Hughes said. “But the roads haven’t changed.
    They’re paved but pocky. And the Bulgarians don’t believe in marking the lanes. Sometimes it’s slow going. The ruddy drivers don’t signal or observe the speed limit. One could reach Kardzhali sooner on a bicycle, I daresay.”
    She smiled into her hand. Uncle Nigel had disliked the sluggish, rural traffic even more than he hated warp speed on the Autobahn. The summer they’d driven from Sofia to Polovitz, they’d kept stopping for goats and horse-drawn carts.
    Caro leaned closer to the window. The capital was just as she