Free By Any Means by Chris Culver

it while you finish college, or you can sell it. Mr. Evans, the lawyer we met with yesterday, will assist you with whatever you want.”
    Kara’s back stiffened, but she didn’t get out of the car. “What do I have to do for it?”
    â€œNothing. Just please try to be happy.”
    She put one leg out of the car but didn’t try to leave. “I don’t think we need to see each other again.”
    â€œIf that’s what you want,” said Kostya.
    â€œIt is,” she said, standing. Kostya watched his daughter walk into her house. She lived up to her word. He never saw her again.
    *  *  *
    Despite having written its address on letters twice a year, Kostya hadn’t set foot in front of the small, redbrick home in well over ten years. Little had changed. The yellow mums in the front lawn had been swapped with azaleas, and someone had painted the trim around the windows gray. A hose snaked across the front lawn to a crab apple tree. Somewhere along the way, it appeared her mother’s house had become Kara’s home. He wished he had been part of it.
    â€œPark out front instead of the drive. I want to be able to leave quickly.”
    Kostya’s nephew Michael nodded and slowed their paneled van. Kostya owned two such vehicles, and both had magnetic panels that could be affixed to the sides to disguise the vehicle’s ownership. Tonight, they had attached panels with the logo of a local HVAC company on the outside; that should keep them from arousing the attention of the neighbors.
    As soon as Michael brought their van to a stop, Kostya stepped out and walked toward the home, stopping only to bend and pick up a decorative rock from a flowerbed to the right of the door. His knees and back creaked with the strain of the motion as he bent farther to retrieve the tarnished brass key underneath. Alicia had placed that rock on the porch to hide a house key fifteen years ago when Kara went to high school. Seeing it again made Kostya smile.
    Within thirty seconds of arriving, four men stood in what had once been Kara’s entryway. Lev and his two sons, James and Michael, immediately began searching the home for information about Kara’s life, while Kostya stayed in the entryway and looked around. He saw his daughter in every corner of the room and wished he had seen it while she was still alive.
    The entryway opened into an open-concept living room with attached kitchen and stairway to the second floor. When he bought the home for Alicia, cheap oak paneling had covered the walls, but Kara had pulled all that down and replaced it with drywall painted a cheery yellow. The hardwood floor creaked as he walked around. She had dusted the wooden coffee table, end tables, and fireplace mantel. Vacuum lines crisscrossed the rug in the center of the floor. When he knew her, Kara didn’t even seem to understand how a vacuum worked. He missed watching her grow up.
    While his nephews searched the bedrooms, Kostya walked toward the mantel above the fireplace and picked up a black-and-white picture of a wedding. Kara smiled as her new husband fed her a piece of cake at the reception. She looked happy. He hadn’t planned to take anything from the house, but he tucked the picture beneath his arm and walked to the kitchen, feeling a dull hollowness build inside him.If Kara had kept the home’s original layout, the upstairs had three bedrooms and two bathrooms; he doubted anyone would find anything there, though. Assuming it still existed, he wanted to find the home office.
    He passed a small powder room beside the kitchen before stopping at the last door on the left. The office had been a large corner bedroom at one time, but upon buying the house, Alicia had hired a contractor to refinish the hardwood floors and install built-in bookshelves along two of the walls. Kara hadn’t changed it much except to fill those bookshelves with legal textbooks. Her diploma hung on the