by Lyn Stone
There had been many questions, but they all seemed related to that one. Variations of it. Repetitions of it. On and on it went. Robin had no earthly idea James even knew a Russian. But then, she had known nothing of his background other than what he had chosen to tell her, until she found the information on the Internet. He could have been an international spy for all she knew. She would not have found that on the Web, even with her resources. How many times must she tell them she had no knowledge of his activities?
The door to Olivetti’s office opened and he beckoned to her. “Ms. Andrews, we have a few more questions.”
Wearily she got up and went in. She plopped down in the chair he indicated, forsaking any attempt to remain aloof and impervious to his badgering. She threw up her hands. “Look, I simply can’t give you what you’re looking for. Arrest me, offer me deals, browbeat me until I collapse, but I cannot give you any more information about James Andrews.”
He tossed a paper onto the desk in front of her chair. “Do you read Russian, Ms. Andrews?”
“For the thousandth time, no!” she exclaimed, exasperated. “A bit of French, enough German to order food, two courses of Spanish to graduate college. That’s it.”
“Look at it. There is what was on the disk you provided. Another page of it in the envelope with the copy of your husband’s will that was in your deposit box. That envelope is addressed to you. Tell me what that means. Why would he leave you something written in Cyrillic if he knew you couldn’t read it?”
A good question—she would grant him that. Robin pushed out of the chair and leaned over the desk until she was almost nose to nose with the creep. And he was a creep. He had short, slicked-back hair that reminded her of a 1930s gangster and beady, black eyes that drilled holes in her nerves. He even wore a pin-striped suit, for crying out loud. And a very ugly tie. After three days of this constant haranguing, she hated the sight of him.
If she had learned anything at all during her little adventure in Nashville, it was to stand up for herself. She was sick of being what everyone ordered her to be, arranged for her to be, expected her to be. Well, no more. She had stood up to killers and survived, hadn’t she? The worst this legalized goon could do was arrest her, and he obviously didn’t have enough proof against her to do that.
“Has it ever occurred to you to get a damned translator, Olivetti? Or is the Bureau so strapped it can’t afford one?”
He didn’t back down an inch, but she’d known he wouldn’t. He was a hardass if she’d ever met one. Robin doubted she’d tell him anything even if she did know something. Mitch Winton should give courses to these guys on how to interrogate people. They could use a little charm.
“We have tried to translate it, Ms. Andrews. It is in Cyrillic, but it’s also in code. The words make no sense. You have to have the key to this. You know his code!” he insisted. “Now look at it.” He pushed it forward with a jab of his finger.
Robin sat back down. She took the page and did as instructed. No one had shown it to her before. Mitch had printed out what had been on the CD, but she’d never really studied it.
All she saw here was a pageful of characters totally unfamiliar to her. Strings of letters that meant nothing. Just strange characters in a peculiar font she’d never have recognized, unless someone told her it was Cyrillic, as Mitch had done.
Suddenly something clicked. Font! Maybe that was the key. She raised her gaze to Olivetti who was still glaring at her. “Get me a computer,” she ordered. “And the disk. I have an idea.”
He led her down the hall into an office equipped with a number of computers. In moments she had the disk, which she slipped into a CD drive. She opened the file with the page in question and paused. If this didn’t work, she could be stuck here in New York forever going round after round with the FBI.
She selected the text and changed the font to Courier.
“Damn.”
“See? Still unreadable,” Olivetti commented.
Robin sat back in the chair, stared at the screen and then at the letter to her that had been left with James’s will. They’re not the same,” she commented.
“Yes, we know that,” he told her, his impatience growing.
Still unwilling to give up, Robin opened a blank document in the word processing program, changed the font to Cyrillic and hunted and pecked the initial line of it, the shortest line, until she had the right characters lined up. . She highlighted and switched to the English Courier font.
The first letters read TSERAEDNIBOR, Robin Dearest, each word spelled backward, all caps, no spaces. Robin whooped and grabbed Olivetti’s sleeve. “There it is! That’s all he did! He reversed the words and ran them together. He changed the font. No punctuation, no spaces.”
Olivetti frowned, shaking his head in disbelief. “But…but that’s too easy! Too simple.”
“Because he thought I was simple. You see, I work with fonts a lot since I do Web pages. He knew that and figured I’d try that first.” She got up from the chair and offered it to him. “Here, you do the grunt work and mail me a translation. I’m out of here.”
“No, you’re not. We’re not done,” he said. “If he implicates you in any way in anything, we have to—”
“All right, all right, don’t waste your energy. I’ll stay.” What could it take him, twenty minutes? An hour, to reverse the spellings and figure out where the spaces went? “I suppose I should see what it says. The one page is obviously personal.”
“Yes, I know, but I have to—”
“Relax, Olivetti. I know you have to translate and analyze it. Go ahead.” She couldn’t resist the dig. “Now that I’ve broken the big bad code for you.”
Robin observed his excitement as he summoned another agent to decipher the disk document on another computer while he doggedly typed in and translated her letter from James. She didn’t even bother to listen while he explained to the other agent what he had discovered.
She didn’t look over his shoulder while he slowly keyed it in. Truth was, she was too antsy to stand still. Pacing, glancing out the window, counting the minutes until she could get out of there, Robin thought about what she would do when they said she could go.
Would Mitch want her to come back to Nashville? She could call his family again, as she’d been doing several times a day, and get updates on his recovery. Did she have any right to read anything serious into the intimate encounter she’d had with him? He had admitted an attraction. She had acted on it and initiated the sex herself. Maybe he had only been accommodating?
No, Mitch hadn’t taken it that lightly. Had he? How could she be certain? She had so little experience with men, it was impossible to tell.
A little voice inside her whispered. He said he loved you. He was willing to have a child with you. He risked his job for you. He took a bullet for you. What more could you ask?
Robin hugged herself as she stared out the window into the rain and thought of the sunny days that could have been idyllic if not for the threat imposed by Somers. It was autumn here already. She missed the heat. That wonderful, steamy Southern heat, not all of it due to the weather. She missed Mitch.
“Here, read it,” Olivetti said. Robin turned, walked over and took the printout from his hand. His gaze met hers and fell away, but not before she noted the glint of apology. “I added the spaces and punctuation,” he said.
Dearest Robin.
There is a disk in the box that you must deliver anonymously to the authorities in the event of my death. Let them figure out the simple code, as you will have done with this letter. I have used code only to discourage those with a cursory interest who might inadvertently see it. The disk contains detailed information that will blow apart a very widespread and lucrative enterprise involving insurance fraud.
You need not know the details, only that the others involved were most likely instrumental in my death if I succumb other than to natural causes. I will warn these individuals that this hidden disk is my insurance and if I am kill
ed, it will go to the appropriate agencies. Deliver it for me as a final favor to one who loved you. Be well and happy and please accept my apologies for all the pain I caused you during our marriage. The separation I forced was to protect you. J.
Robin dropped the letter and turned away from Olivetti.
The other agent began a whispered conference.
A few moments later she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Ms. Andrews? Robin. I’m satisfied you had nothing to do with this. You’re free to go. I’ll have Johnson drive you to your apartment.”
She nodded, not even curious about what the other document had contained. She didn’t want to know and didn’t think Olivetti would share that information even if she did. At least she knew now that it wasn’t dealing with international espionage.
James must have been truly desperate to have asked her to bring that disk to Nashville. Clearly Somers had called his bluff. With the other men on the list dead, James would have known Somers meant business. She would always wonder whether James might have turned the disk over in time to save himself if her plane had not been late. Probably not. She would have met the same fate as James. Almost had.
No mention had been made of James’s uncle, so Robin felt certain this enterprise was one James had entered into, perhaps to prove his initiative to the Family, or to make his own way without their involvement. That can of worms she would not open.
If the FBI discovered his connection to the Andrienis, she could plan on a very long stay in New York while they inundated her with a whole new set of questions.
It was then Robin realized that she had made her decision to leave New York days ago. And that it had nothing whatsoever to do with any investigation and everything to do with a certain detective who might or might not need her.
“So, you’ll be around if we need to ask you further questions?” Olivetti asked, when Robin was almost out the door.
“Absolutely not. I’m leaving as soon as I pack.”
“Where are you off to?” he questioned, offering the first real smile since she first met him. “We need to know.”
“Nashville,” she admitted.
“Nashville?” He actually made a face.
“Yeah,” she answered, drawling the word as Mitch always did. “Y’all come on down one of these days and I’ll take ya fishin’.”
He laughed. “That is undoubtedly the worst Southern accent I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Robin winked. “Improves with practice, so I heah. ’Bye, now.”
Mitch plunked his glass of iced tea on the end table and pushed the crocheted afghan off his legs. “Hell, it must be ninety degrees in here and you’re trying to cover me up? Get out of here and get a life, Susie. I can take care of myself.”
His sister was driving him nuts hovering. Granted, he was not a good patient. The nurses had probably uncorked champagne the minute the elevator door closed and they knew he was gone.
Despite that, he couldn’t seem to make anybody mad at him. They immediately excused any bad behavior as resulting from his wounds. A rousing good cussin’ match was what he needed, but Susie could get the best of him, and he refused to give her the satisfaction.
“Please, Sue, go home, huh? Leave me to suffer in peace?”
She walked behind the sofa and ruffled his hair. “Ohh, Mitchie’s in a baaad mood! Whassa matter, baby?”
He knew very well what was wrong with him and so did she. Robin had been gone for more than a week. Eight days, to be precise, and he wasn’t yet able to go after her. That was what was wrong.
Mitch clenched his eyes shut and prayed for patience. There was none to be had. “Get out of my house, Susan,” he ordered.
She stayed at a safe distance and smiled sweetly. “Soon as my shift’s over.”
The doorbell chimed. “God, more company, just what I need.”
Susan skipped across to the door. “Might be my relief now,” she said happily.
Everyone he knew had been here, taking turns at force-feeding him chicken soup and trying to keep him wrapped up to his eyebrows and sweltering. His price to pay for coming directly to his house instead of recuperating at his mom and dad’s where the treatment would have been even more intense.
“Whoever it is, tell ’em to go away. And you go with ’em,” he called to Susan.
The stairs creaked as she hurried down them, and Mitch heard the front door open. Then, silence. No voices to indicate who it was. Maybe just a delivery. He heard her return up the stairs, her tread slow, measured.
“Susie?” he asked, afraid something was wrong.
“Susan’s gone.”
Mitch’s eyes widened. “Robin?” The name tumbled out in a disbelieving whisper as she appeared in the open doorway.
He struggled to rise, but she ran to him, preventing it. She sank to her knees in front of him and looked up. “I had to come.”
Mitch reached out, touching her hair, her stubborn chin. “I wasn’t sure you would. You didn’t call me.”
“I called every day and spoke with your parents or Susan. Didn’t they tell you?”
“That you asked about me,” he replied, “but you didn’t call me, Robin. Why?”
“I didn’t want to talk to you,” she admitted. “Not until we could do it face-to-face. I needed to see what you were thinking.”
Mitch raised an eyebrow. “Why does every woman in the universe think she can read a man’s mind?”
“You don’t exactly have what you’d call a poker face,” she told him. “Do you want me here, Mitch?” She looked at him then, examining his eyes as if she was looking for a lie.
Mitch took her hand in his. “What are you talking about, do I want you here? You make me love you like crazy, then skip out? You think I’d let you get away with that? Hell, no. I was coming after you.”
“You’re sure about the love thing, Mitch?”
“Come up here and kiss me. I’ll show you how sure I am about the love thing.”
“No. As much as I’d like that, you aren’t up to it and we have some issues to settle.”
He rolled his eyes and nodded. “Ah, issues. Well. We could settle them all if you’d climb on up here with me.” He dropped his voice an octave and made her promises with his eyes. “I want to taste you, Robin. I want to breathe you in, fill you up, hear those little sounds you make when I do. Kneeling at my feet is not how I want you right now.”
Her smile was slow and seductive. “No?”
Now he wasn’t so sure. “You’re teasing, right?”
The smile grew wider, and her palms slid slowly over his bare legs, caressing muscles that grew tenser by the second. “The issues first, all right?” she said, sitting back on her heels and removing her hands.
Well, damn. “I love you. That one’s settled,” he declared, trying to focus on what he was saying and not the sensations she’d just discontinued. “I want to marry you, if you’ll have me.”
Her swift intake of breath and wide eyes told him she hadn’t been ready for that. Maybe hadn’t even considered it. She swallowed hard and looked away, staring out his window at nothing. “Marriage is a huge step.”
“Right, one I’ve never taken. See, all my life I was waiting for you. Now you’re here. What’s the problem?”
“I don’t know, Mitch. We’re so different.”
“Ah, playing devil’s advocate now, aren’t you? You really want to. You just want me to convince you. How’s this? I’ll move to New York. They could use another cop up there in the Big, Bad Apple, don’t you think?”
“You’d do that?”
“Absolutely. Hunford’s about ready to fire me, anyway. Says I can’t take orders worth a damn.”
“What about your family? I can’t believe you’d leave them just like that for a woman you scarcely know.”
He lost the smile and told her seriously, “Oh, I know you, Robin. And they’ll understand. They’re well aware that I love you. That I would do anything, go anywhere, just to be wi
th you. If marriage scares you, we can delay it, bypass it altogether, whatever. I just don’t think I can be without you.”
Her silence drew out interminably. “What is it, hon?” he asked, reaching for her hand, needing the contact more than anything. “Something’s in the way. Let’s have it.”
“Trust,” she said simply, the word hardly audible. “Love is important. Essential,” she admitted, “but so it trust. I’ve worried so much about you, Mitch. About Kick’s betrayal and how you would take it. You were such a trusting man before and I am so afraid you might have lost that. I saw him shoot you point-blank. That had to affect you. Will you be able to trust people ever again? It’s one of the things I…I love most about you.”
She loved him. Mitch wanted to do cartwheels, drink a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, kiss everybody on the planet, take Robin to bed. But now was not the time to celebrate. She was seriously worried.
“What you’re asking is if I’ll trust you, right? I trust you with my life, Robin. You saved it, remember?”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “What I’m really saying is that I don’t want you to be like me, Mitch. It’s a horrible way to live, without trust.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Well, yes, I trust you, and I know you won’t hurt me, but—”
“What about my parents? Susan? Trust them?”
“Of course, but—”
“Damien?”
“Yes.”
“But no one else? Not yet, anyway, right?”
She nodded, looking so sad it made his heart hurt.
“Then why the hell are we going to New York to live?” he asked. “Your friends are all right here! You want a fancier house, we can find one. Of course, you might have to help foot the bill. I’m not wealthy like you are. I do, however, have a pretty good retirement fund and almost five hundred in savings.”
Suddenly she laughed. “You poor man, you are after my money!” And she didn’t seem at all worried about it. “But we do have to go to New York.”
He nodded, trying hard to look enthusiastic about the move. “Whatever you want.”
“Not to live,” she told him, her grin impish and provocative. “But there’s this small shop in the Village where they sell antiques? Well, the last time I was there they had this lovely oak cradle….”