Books by Nadya Frank

  Zoya Volkova Crime Thrillers

  #0 The Girl from Moscow’s Edge

  #1 The Boy on the Highway

  #2 The Man by Her Door

  #3 The Woman in the Shallow Grave

  Snow Merry Red, a holiday novella

  All books can be enjoyed as standalones

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  HER FIRST MISTAKE

  First edition. November 16, 2022.

  Copyright © 2022 Nadya Frank.

  Written by Nadya Frank.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  One

  Two

  Meanwhile...

  Books by Nadya Frank

  About Author

  One

  The Nissan rammed the back of Zoya’s Mercedes, its shiny bumper colliding with a sound of a crushed soda can.

  As the car jolted forward, the inertia pressed her into the driver seat, the back of her head bumping against the headrest.

  Zoya straightened up, breathing and blinking. Her vision blurred on impact. Her neck ached from whiplash.

  They were on an empty two-lane suburban road that cut between rolling fields of Moscow Vegetable Company and fenced storage.

  In the side-view mirror, Zoya saw a middle-aged man stepping out of the Nissan. He slammed the door shut. He was dressed in the standard office worker’s uniform: a dress-shirt rumpled after sitting all day, buttons undone around a meaty neck, and pressed slacks she guessed were let out around the waist. A gust of October wind plastered the shirt against his belly. A literal white collar.

  The man walked around to the front of his car and examined the point of contact.

  Zoya exhaled before tugging at the door handle. She walked up to the man, her knees shaking.

  “Oh my god.” She stared down at the damage. The Nissan had a dent to the bumper while her Mers’s rear now resembled a hollowed-out soccer ball. “Oh my god,” she repeated.

  “The fuck happened, lady?” White Collar was shaking his left wrist, the steel band of his watch glistening in the streetlamp.

  The smell of sharp cologne entered Zoya’s nose. She wondered if he had been rushing to a date. Who was he wanting to impress with his fancy watch and department store scents?

  “You overtook me, then stopped dead like, like—”

  “I’m sorry." She responded quickly, on instinct. "I just—I realized the speed limit—I didn’t want to go too fast. I didn’t look.”

  “Yeah, I can see as much.” White Collar scanned her up and down. She wondered if he was calculating the cost of her retail outfit and rumpled pixie cut. His lips thinned and Zoya knew he had written her off as a brainless twenty-something-year old.

  Crouching next to the Nissan, he touched the dent, then licked his thumb and rubbed at the scratch. “The car is less than a year old—damn! I don’t have time for this.”

  “I’m sorry, so sorry,” Zoya muttered. “Are you in a hurry?” She winced as the words came out. Dumb question.

  “Well, if I was, you’ve ruined my evening.” He shook his wrist again. Zoya wondered if it was the weight of his watch or a nervous tick. He pulled out his phone and unlocked the screen.

  Zoya glanced at the road behind them. The sky was a thickening twilight, with all the light of the sun dipping below the horizon. Moscow cast a yellow glow extending the dirty orange color longer into the night. She could see a car coming their way, just a pair of lights beaming at them from the distance.

  “You have an emergency sign?” Zoya asked. “Mine is in the trunk. I don’t think I can get it open.”

  With righteous annoyance in his every move, White Collar tucked his phone away and retrieved a reflective sign from his trunk.

  “Thank you.” Zoya shivered in the wind, her jacket forgotten in the backseat. “Basic safety. It’s getting dark.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t drive at night. Maybe they shouldn’t issue driver’s licenses to people without balls—Jesus!” He shook his head and started counting thirty meters from the back of his car to mark out the accident as manuals intend.

  Zoya ignored the insult and watched as the car with white-blue headlights—a Ford Explorer—reached the accident site and stopped. A truck was coming from the opposite direction.

  “It looks like we’re blocking the traffic,” she pointed out nervously.

  White Collar stopped mid-step and glanced at the Ford.

  The Ford’s driver, a big scruffy man with a massive double chin, lifted his palms up as if asking, “So?” When neither of them responded, he rolled down his window.

  “You gotta move this wreck, guys!” He pointed a thumb behind him. More cars were coming.

  White Collar returned to the wheel, dropped the sign on the passenger seat and pulled his Nissan onto the shoulder. Zoya did the same and watched the Ford pass, then walked up to the Nissan’s window.

  “What?” The man snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m... I just... what are we supposed to do? Like—”

  “For fuck’s sake, lady!” He grabbed the emergency sign and marched out of the car. “I don’t know what you are going to do, but I am going to call my insurance. Be ready to shell out whatever it would cost me to fix that mess.” He placed the sign onto the gravel, not caring about the correct distance now. “That’ll teach you not to brake so abruptly.”

  “What’s going on?”

  The Ford driver was walking their way, his car parked on the shoulder ten meters ahead—headlights on, engine running.

  “I let you pass, didn’t I?" White Collar had his phone back out. “Move on.” He waved the Ford driver away. The back light from the screen made his face oil and sweat shine.

  The big man gave Zoya a once over. “This lady is about to faint, friend. Can’t just leave you alone. You’re okay?”

  She nodded, shivering visibly. “Just nervous.”

  “Well you should be,” White Collar said.

  Zoya mumbled another apology, the words making her dizzy. “I didn’t mean... I just slowed down—”

  “Slowed down?” White Collar barked. “You stopped right in front of me!”

  “I was going too fast and there was a dip in the road, I—”

  “Wait, wait.” The big man’s index finger pointed at her. “You were in the front.” He pointed his thumb at White Collar. “And this guy hit you from behind. Correct?”

  She nodded.

  White Collar crossed his arms. “Why do you care?”

  “Because you pushed me to move on, man. Something about that ain’t right. You don’t even ask for a hand. I don’t like it. A guy like you, yelling at a woman on an empty road at night? Blaming her when you were the one that rammed into her car? It doesn’t look good.”

  Another man walked over from the Ford. Younger and thinner, he listened to his friend talking, then stood in-between the Nissan and Mercedes studying the damage.

  Zoya was so cold, she couldn’t think of anything beyond her jacket. Hugging herself, she rubbed her upper arms and tried to focus on what the big man was saying.

  “You know whoever hits from behind is always at fault, right?” The Ford driver scrubbed his round face, the stubble making the sound of a shoe brush. “Ever heard of a safe distance? You were behind her, friend, you had to keep safe distance. You’re not the one to talk tough here.”

  “Really?” Zoya’s voice pitched high.

  The big man patted his chest and spoke with a patronizing sort of calm, “Lady, I’m thirty years on the road, believe me, no one will say it’s your fault. Don’t you let this guy scare you into paying for his mistakes.”

  Zoya almost lost it, the character nearly sliding right off her.

  Goddamn Chisel. Didn’t he realize how comical he looked? The man’s ego was to blame for this con playing again and again. He liked scenarios where he could feel grand, playing a savior to a dumb, helpless chick.

  Zoya hated this. But White Collar was flushing with rage seeing the tables turn on him. She stayed in the character, the worried frown back on her face, her glance bouncing between the men.

  “Besides, she drives a Mercedes,” Yozh spoke. He still was pretending to examine the cars and Zoya hoped he’d noticed the fine job she did: a dent that appeared scary but would take a skilled body man half-an-hour to fix. “You drive a Nissan. Your price ranges are way different.” He moved his palms like a scale.

  Chisel addressed the mark. “I mean, go on, call the insurance and see what they say. Who do you have? AlphaSure? Renaissance? Doesn’t matter, they all work the same. Each time you deal with them, they look for ways to suck you dry. Like, you have these small scratches from the key around the handle?” He pointed at Nissan’s driver door. “Surface damage. Your payment goes up. Your benefits go down. You end up with a big pain in the ass and the money...” He pursed his lips and scratched at his cheek again.

  “They’ll raise your monthly payment,” Yozh said.

  “Bullshit.” White Collar rotated his wrist so violently his watch clanked like belly dancer’s bangles. “It’s not my fault.”

  But his voice wasn’t that confident anymore. He squinted at the Mercedes’s trunk as if seeing it for the first time. The car was strategically painted dark green, the glossy finish playing tricks on the eyes, masking the dents and scratches from the previous crashes, making it impossible to evaluate the true damage.

&nbs p; Still, the mark tried. Zoya knew this searching glance, glistening with doubt. The fold of the brow. The restless fingers drumming on the trunk. He was nearing the tipping point. The moment that would decide whether the man would fall for their con.

  “How fast was he going?” Chisel asked her. In reality, he was prompting the mark to react.

  Don’t let them think. Don’t let them focus. Confuse them. Piss them off. Make them irritated, angry, frustrated—anything to screen out the rational mind telling them to just settle with insurance.

  “What are you talking about? It’s her fault!” White Collar aimed his index finger at Zoya. “She stopped in the middle of the road!”

  Chisel gently pushed the man’s arm down. “I didn’t see anyone in the middle of the road.”

  White Collar exhaled, convinced he was talking to idiots. “We moved to the shoulder to let other cars pass.”

  “You’re not supposed to move cars if you want to do it the right way,” Yozh chimed in. “I mean the cops, the insurance.”

  “Are you kidding me?” White Collar pulled out his phone again. “I’m calling the police.”

  The mark landed on the wrong side.

  “Fine.” Chisel turned to Zoya. “Lady, I think you should do the same. Where’s your papers?”

  Zoya swallowed. It was a sign for her to return to the car and stay there until Chisel and Yozh settled things—with their fists.

  Or boots, or brass knuckles, or whatever they had. It had never come to this before, and she couldn’t allow it to happen now.

  Not because she cared about the poor bastard, but because assault and battery were a whole different set of charges.

  “My papers?” she asked Chisel.

  He glowered at her, mad that she didn’t follow the plan. “Your insurance document. It’s probably in your glove box.”

  “It’s my grandpa’s car.” She glanced at Yozh.

  It took him another second to recognize the trigger words.

  “Fuck my balls!” He straightened up and scooted around the Mercedes, his eyes glued to the car. “Are you kidding me?”

  Chisel almost dropped character. “What?”

  White Collar watched them. His phone hadn’t made it to his ear.

  Yozh hunched next to the grill, unlocked his phone, typed frantically, then scrolled and typed again.

  “What is that?” Chisel walked over to him.

  Yozh ignored their boss and whipped his head at her. “Where did you get this car?”

  “I just said, it’s my grandpa’s. It’s really old.”

  “You have no idea.” He turned to Chisel. “Remember when we watched that thing about a batch of Mercedes made in East Germany in the ’80s?”

  Chisel finally realized what they were going at. “No fucking way!”

  “Yes fucking way.” Yozh gave him an exaggerated nod and patted the back fender. “Americans pay through the nose for these babes. The auction numbers alone make me feel faint.”

  “What’s going on?” Zoya used her best dumb-chick voice.

  White Collar stepped closer to them, frowning. “What are you talking about? What does that mean?”

  Yozh looked at him in this gleeful bro-like way that guys often use to deliver devastating news to their friends. “You’re fucked. You’ve wrecked a collector’s item.”

  Chisel shook his head. “That bumper alone must cost a zillion.”

  Watching the change on White Collar’s face, Zoya knew they had him.

  Two

  Half an hour later, they settled.

  White Collar offered Zoya cash as a compensation for the damage to her "antique" car. The two good Samaritans insisted she could get a better pay out if she took the official route through her insurance. Zoya, maintaining her gullible woman act, wanted to wrap things up as soon as possible and didn’t care so long as she wouldn’t have to stand out in cold a second longer.

  She agreed on 27 thousand rubles.

  They could have gotten more from the mark than 27 thou. The guy’s shirt had been professionally pressed and starched, his shoes were genuine leather, and he carried an iPhone 11. Most of all, White Collar was stressed, not thinking beyond the inflated liability Yozh and Chisel had created. Of course he could’ve shelled out more than an average Moscow salary.

  Only he didn’t have any more cash. He offered to drive to an ATM, but that was a risky undertaking. It gave the mark time to calm down and think. Plus, Zoya didn’t need to be caught on camera. Those goddamn bank cards had been ruining their business for years.

  With the cash tucked into her fanny pack, Zoya pulled out from the shoulder and left the three men behind. Easing onto a side road that took her back to the Volokolamskoye Highway, she turned the heating on maximum, her skin pale and hard from the icy wind. Freezing was a part of the act. The cold made her look miserable and gave her whole body realistic shivers. The mark had to believe she didn’t want to take this any further than he did once insurance was ruled out of the question.

  Zoya kicked the Mercedes into the higher gear and zipped around the staggering cars. To the left of her, the lights of the Moscow metro area—Podmoskovie—blurred into a twilight.

  As always, she played with the idea of going straight home and keeping all the money for herself. Her partners didn’t know where she lived.

  But no. She needed a steady income, not a onetime score. She needed Chisel with his old cars and his shabby garage.

  She took the exit to Dedovsk.

  Chisel’s car shop smelled of motor oil and rubber. The light was on by the far wall where the mechanics hung out between projects. Chisel and Yozh were waiting for her. Zoya walked past the cars, their insides spilling, tubes and wires glistening, and stopped by the plastic table. This corner of the garage stunk of rehydrated ramen noodles and packet spice.

  Zoya unbuckled her fanny pack and threw it at Chisel. 58,500 rubles, she’d counted it back in the car. The total sum of White Collar and a mark they had worked before him. Not bad for a Tuesday night, when most Muscovites preferred to sleep in their beds instead of venturing down forlorn country roads.

  Chisel divided the money into three piles on the plastic tabletop, then slid one pile off the table, folded it in half, and shoved it inside his chest pocket. Yozh grabbed his share without taking his eyes off his phone.

  Zoya counted hers and held up the bills. “12 thou? That’s less than a third.”

  “Here we go.” Chisel rolled his eyes. “Don’t you dare complain.”

  “I’m not complaining. I’m asking where’s the rest of it?”

  He groaned. “I chip in a whole goddamn car into this, and you?”

  “My goddamn life? I almost broke my neck in your rusty can when that jackass hit me.”

  “You weren’t careful.” Chisel shrugged.

  “I was!”

  “Where did I tell you to get him? By the factory. Where did you get him?"

  Zoya rolled her eyes.

  “Five kay-ems past the damn factory.” Chisel pronounced kilometers like a fifth grader in a Math class. “Next time stick to the spot.” He patted the wad of cash in his pocket. “I don’t want to drive half-way to Smolensk for a con.”

  Zoya kicked the table from below, knocking off an empty water bottle. Caution had been the reason she drove way past the spot. White Collar had been doing over a hundred in his Nissan. After overtaking him, she gradually reduced the speed, forcing him to slow down, making sure the collision wouldn’t kill her.

  “And what was that new stunt about? A rare Mercedes from East Germany!” Looking at Yozh, Chisel mocked the excitement the other man had faked in front of the mark. “What kind of bullshit is that?”

  “The kind of bullshit that keeps you from going to jail,” Zoya mumbled.

  “Yeah, boss.” Yozh held up his fist. “I have enough scabs already. How am I supposed to work with bloody knuckles?”

  Chisel pointed at the yard where Zoya parked. “Did you see that car? It looks nothing like how they made them in the ’80s. If that son of a bitch had any idea about cars, we’d be screwed, and you'd wish you had bloody knuckles. Jesus, do you even know what East Germany was?”

  Well, they hadn’t discussed the legend in detail, and Yozh wasn’t a prodigy of history. Chisel wasn’t an intellectual either, but he was much older than them. He must have been a grown-ass man in the 80s, back when East Germany still existed. If it existed then. Zoya didn’t know for sure.

 

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