Hotel Moscow by Talia Carner Read Free Book Online Page A

how could she drive away from these women? How had the Holocaust righteous done it? Those non-Jews who had rescued people from torture and death had risked not only their own lives, but also the lives of their entire families—to save even one Jew. Brooke had been powerless during the attack, but now the danger was over. Or was it? The “protecting” gang might still show up.
    “Amanda, I’m going back in.” Not waiting for her friend’s response, Brooke snapped her fingers to get Jenny’s attention. “Take care of Svetlana.”
    Once inside the building, Brooke dashed up the stairs two at a time, Amanda and some others at her heels. In the second floor loft, the fetid smell of sweat, gasoline, and blood hung in the air. The economist, the supervisor, and another seamstress lay on the ground, crumpled white cotton fabric tucked under their heads. A few women surrounded each of the injured. One pressed a wad of cotton against the economist’s bleeding abdomen wound. Wearing only one shoe, another worker hobbled about as though trying to figure out where she was. “ Slozhno, ” she wept. “ Slozhno. ”
    Slozhno. The hair on Brooke’s arms stood. Her mother had used that word. It meant “complicated, exhausting,” and whenever her mother uttered it, little Bertha had felt powerless to ease her suffering.
    Brooke caught the woman’s hands to stop her pacing. “Are you okay?”
    As though awakened, the woman startled.
    “Telephone. Taxi. Hospital.” Brooke gave the woman a few single dollars and pointed toward the injured.
    Amanda knelt next to the gray-haired woman on the floor and took her pulse, then began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
    Brooke scanned the devastated factory, the broken sewing machines, and the damaged rolls of raw material. All that cotton could have been cut in new designs that better served the market. In Brooke’s years as an investment manager, she had devised funding for river dams in China and had worked with experts to build a desalination plant in Saudi Arabia. But this? Nothing had prepared her for the reality of the Russian women’s business environment.
    She breathed in gasoline fumes and stared at the broken windows. She couldn’t muster a single spiritual, comforting thought. She had been delusional, thinking she could fix any of this. In her head, Brooke could hear her mother’s horrified reaction if she found out her only child had joined a mission to help the hated Russians, of all people.
    Brooke sagged against the rough cinder block wall and covered her face.
    When she looked up again, the flock of ravens circled above the fence, made a sudden dip, then flapped upward again, screeching.
     

Chapter Six
    D URING THE HOUR-LONG drive to the hotel through traffic, gloom settled in the bus like smoke. Even Jenny, suffering from what she called the heebie-jeebies, was quiet. Brooke tightened her coat and sank deeper into her seat. She didn’t realize how thirsty she was until Amanda, seated next to her, twisted the cap off an Evian bottle, and offered it to her. Brooke took a big gulp, then another. The lump in her throat remained lodged.
    I’m alive. The gruesome fifteen-minute event was only one brief scene from the nightmare her parents had experienced day after day, month after month, year after year. No wonder their well of emotions had dried up.
    Brooke turned to Amanda. “The mobsters saw the bus. They knew we were there. Why didn’t they put off their attack until a more opportune time?”
    Amanda shook her head. “I didn’t see when it happened, butI saw the aftermath. It’s horrible. I’d never expected anything like this.”
    “There are no laws and no police here,” Brooke said. “What if the mobsters want to get rid of the witnesses?”
    Amanda gave her a strange look.
    “We need security,” Brooke pushed on. “Aleksandr saw these guys enter the building but he didn’t even come looking for us. Can we replace him, get another escort?”
    “I’ll