by Sylvie Kurtz
She cocked her head and her eyes softened. “How did you know the ice was safe?”
“This time of the year, it’s usually thick enough.”
“What about the warm weather earlier this week?”
“Not warm enough for long enough to melt much of the ice. We’ve had cold days and nights since then.” He pointed to tracks that looked as if a miniature tank had rumbled across the pond. “If it’s strong enough to support a snowmobile, it’s strong enough to hold us.”
“But you didn’t know for sure.” She grabbed on to the collar of his jacket and jerked it impatiently. “There could be a soft spot somewhere.”
“Not likely.”
“What if there was?” Her fists tightened around the nylon of his jacket. “What if the ice just cracked, and we fell in?”
He closed his eyes against the intensity dancing in hers. But the dark gave him no solace. Instead, he saw them plunging into the ice-cold water, saw the dark swallow them, saw him desperately fighting…and coming up empty.
She touched his cheek gently. “What do you think is going to happen?”
He could feel the tear again. It ripped like a limb being torn from his body. He’d been able to come back to Olivia all those years because he’d known she was safe.
But she wasn’t. The safety he’d forged was illusion.
He could build a fortress. He could fortify it with cannons. He could make her a prisoner in her home. But still he couldn’t guarantee all these precautions would spare her harm. The only way he could keep her safe was to let her go.
“I’ll lose you all over again.”
She smiled at him. A big, brilliant smile that put the sun to shame. Then she skated backwards, gouging deep scars into the ice. She extended her hands to him, beckoning him with her fingers. “I’ll leave a trail.”
He couldn’t help it; he threw his head back and laughed. He tasted the bitter edge of resignation. His muscles quivered, and he couldn’t stop their weakness. She was right. He was doomed—had been since he’d first seen her. He would follow because he couldn’t help himself. She was the one thing that kept him from becoming what he chased. He opened his arms, and she rushed toward him.
That left him one option. And he wasn’t quite ready to look at it yet.
She stumbled over one of the gouges she’d made on the ice and tumbled them both into the snowbank at the edge of the pond. Still laughing, he brushed snow from her hair, then helped her up.
That’s when he saw the tracks.
The same tracks that Skyralov had lifted at the cemetery when he’d found the wreath—a wreath that was stolen from a grave near his parents’. The same tracks that Kingsley had photographed in the snow by the Aerie’s front door when the bird was found. The same tracks that had led into and out of the cabin where they’d found Kershaw with his face missing.
The hunt wasn’t over yet. He had to get Olivia home.
THEY WERE SO CLOSE he could smell them. Their laughter drilled into him like a dental pick on a rotted tooth. He squeezed the pillowcase of supplies he’d taken closer to his chest and shrank behind the boulder guarded by thick pines.
Glancing across the stretch of ice, he could not see the camp he’d made on the island. Had they? He’d covered the fire. He’d stowed the sleeping bag. He’d taken his tie to her with him. There was no trace of him. Their laughter bored into him again. No, if they had seen anything, Falconer wouldn’t be laughing.
Back against the cold stone, he made himself small and still—something he’d learned to do well a long time ago. The can of baked beans dug into his sternum, but he didn’t move. Holding his breath, he tuned into them, latched on to their frequencies. He smelled the shift, smelled the sudden spurt of fear tainting the air. The instinct to run flooded him with pins and needles, but he didn’t obey. Patience. It was the power of his survival.
Eyes closed, he heard them skate away. He followed them with his mind’s eye. And when they reached the gates, he stood and headed in the opposite direction.
Time to move.
Chapter Ten
Fort Knox, Liv was sure, couldn’t possibly have as many defenses as Sebastian could put up in the blink of an eye. One second, she’d been staring at his soul, willingly falling into him, the next, vault doors were slamming down and the locks bolting on. She’d held on to his hand as he’d hurriedly led her from the pond. She hadn’t let go—not even when they’d reached the house—and he’d tried to shake her off as if she were a pesky puppy nipping at his heels.
“You might as well get used to me.” She followed him down the stairs. “I’m not leaving.”
He grumbled as he headed into his office, but he didn’t shut the door in her face. Not that it would have stopped her.
As long as he insisted on shutting her out, they would get nowhere. So she had to let him see that her presence in his world would not cause it to crumble.
Trying to decipher the sudden change of mood, she unwound the navy scarf from around her neck. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Coat still on, he shuffled the papers on his desk faster than a collator on a photocopy machine. A brick wall. She’d have more luck getting through a brick wall.
“Is it the kiss?” The kiss that had melted all of her bones and was about to thaw the ice under their skates when he broke it off. She wanted to remember Olivia, give her back to him. But she didn’t want to return to being merely decorative paper on the wall of his life. “Are you afraid of what you feel for me? Because I’m not her?”
He looked up at her and blinked. “It’s not the kiss.”
“Then what?” She wanted the closeness they’d shared at the pond back, the waltz to the music of the wind, the magic of his smile and his gaze that for a moment had made her feel as if she were the center of the universe. All of her fractured parts had come together, and she’d felt whole.
“I don’t want you involved.”
“Well, that’s too bad. I am involved. You’re my husband. Everything you do affects me.” The way you kiss me. The way you hold me. The way you turn your back on me… She wanted to cry for the sheer stubbornness that made him stand alone like a mountain.
“This is work.” He stepped to the desk Kingsley used and scattered the neat piles Kingsley had put together to make her filing task easier.
“It was work before we went skating.” The warmth. She wanted that back, too. Wrapped in his arms, it could have been July. In this cold basement, she wondered if she’d ever feel spring again.
He turned his back to her and headed for the file cabinet.
Like a turtle, she curled into herself. “What changed?” Something had, in the space of a heartbeat.
“He’s still here.”
“Out at the pond. You saw something.” Understanding what he was looking for, she nudged him aside and pulled out a file from the cabinet.
Their gazes met and held. She saw it then, the small fissure in the wall he’d erected to keep her out. But he caulked it as soon as he noticed it and took the file from her hands.
“Tracks.” He spread out a series of photos of boot prints on the oval worktable. “As long as he’s out there, you’re in danger.”
She took her place at his side. “Then I’d say I was involved.”
“Liv—”
“He took away my life.”
He looked at her long and hard, then gave a small nod. And she couldn’t help wondering who had hurt him so much that he’d needed to put up the wall in the first place.
SEBASTIAN WASN’T THE ONLY ONE who didn’t like the way the pieces of this puzzle were being forced to fit. Even knowing the job was officially over, Reed had left for Connecticut that morning to check out Greco’s Blazer. Mercer, Skyralov and Kingsley were notified they were on vacation, but not one of them had packed their bags. Skyralov elected to spend his time off attending Kershaw’s funeral. Mercer didn’t say where he was heading, but mumbled something about scum and tracks. And Kingsley was still yok
ed to his electronics, plowing through information as if it were soil.
Liv helped Sebastian check the whereabouts of escapees he’d put back behind bars. They found each one where he belonged, adding more gaps to their growing puzzle.
At the end of the day, the men returned. The remnants of a greasy pizza now sat on the corner of the oval worktable, congealing. Only a shred of lettuce remained in the teak salad bowl. Cookie crumbs snaked trails across the tabletop. The five men had consumed enough food to stave off world hunger for another week.
Enough testosterone floated in the air to fuel a small nuclear device. They spoke a language she could barely understand. Their logic glided down paths that left her lagging behind. Their sense of humor often tripped down macabre alleys. She should have felt out of place. But she didn’t. Being here in this room with these men, adding to their bits of clues, made her feel as if she was finally sketching lines that made sense on the blank canvas of her life.
“He’s close.” Like smoke, Mercer detached from the shadows. His dark looks reminded her of a storm filled with lightning and thunder, but his eyes held an eerie calm that made her think she could trust him with her life. The tracks Sebastian had found at the pond had led Mercer to the island. There he’d found a sleeping bag, the remnants of a fire and the buried refuse of a week of stolen meals. The ice had given whoever camped there easy access to the island. The low winter occupancy gave him the privacy he needed. The freshest set of tracks led to the road and didn’t return.
“I’ll try again in the morning.” With that, Mercer melted back into the shadows as if staying in the open would leave him too vulnerable.
Liv could empathize. Any minute now, Sebastian would ask her to leave. She’d seen the hint of it every time he glanced up from his work and saw her there. And every chance she got, she inoculated him to her presence with a touch, with the sound of her voice, with another scrap of information he needed and she’d filed away. If she left, she was afraid he wouldn’t let her back in. Without him, the canvas that was her life would remain black and white. She was lost enough without having to give up that small sense of belonging.
Skyralov reached for the last cold slice of pizza. “Kershaw’s mother’s all shook up. Nearly fell into the grave with grief. The priest had to pull her off so they could lower the coffin. She was the only one there. Neither the brother nor the sister showed up to pay their respects.”
He chomped on the pizza and chewed. “I got curious and looked up the sister. Seems Mother Dearest didn’t bother telling sis her brother was dead. Not that she’d have gone to the funeral anyway. Seems there’s no love lost between them. She blames her glamorous life on him. Bernie got her hooked on heroin.”
“Yeah, it’s always somebody else’s fault,” Reed said. When he shook his head, not a hair moved.
“Sometimes you can’t do anything about the circumstances you’re in,” Liv said. A second. That’s all it had taken to change her life completely. She reached for her teacup and found it empty.
“Still.” Kingsley leaned back in his chair and hooked both thumbs around his suspenders. “It’s a decision. You can fall into circumstances, but you don’t have to let them bury you alive.”
“Heroin’s a bitch of a mistress.” Skyralov’s easy face clouded over, making her wonder if he’d lost someone to that demanding mistress. “Once she’s in you, it’s hard to shake her off. This girl can’t hear another tune.”
“That’s sad.” Liv twirled the teacup round and round in her hands. What tune was she listening to? Her own or someone else’s? Her fingers gave an odd spasm and knocked over the cup. Good thing it was empty.
“What about the brother?” Sebastian frowned as he stared at her hands. She picked up the teapot and carefully poured another cup. He was not going to use an act of everyday clumsiness to ditch her. See, she said silently as she raised her cup. Everything is fine.
“The brother’s still M.I.A.” Skyralov rose and stretched. The ease of his move seemed odd on such a big man. But then, she’d noticed that of all Sebastian’s men. There was more to them than they allowed anyone to see. Something sad, she was sure, had led them to this life. “Hasn’t shown up at the halfway house in Nashua for nearly a week. Broke parole conditions, so now he’s officially a fugitive.”
“How lucky for the state of New Hampshire that we’re on the case!” Reed’s smile was toothpaste-commercial bright. He craned his neck toward Kingsley. “Got anything on that number yet?”
Reed’s search of Greco’s car had earned him a credit-card receipt missed by the FBI’s team of specialists. The wadded-up, water-stained receipt had taken Kingsley a while to decipher, and he was now letting the computer do its thing.
“Coming right up,” Kingsley said, hitting the print command with a flourish. “Belongs to one Nelson Weld. His rap sheet is taller than he is. Finished serving eighteen months for fencing stolen goods. Got out early six months ago for good behavior. Guess where our ODC spent the night last Monday?”
“ODC?” she asked. Her hand spasmed again, so she tucked it into her lap.
“Ordinary Decent Criminal.” Sebastian scrubbed a hand over his face. Five o’clock shadow gave a wild edge to his good looks. One she liked. “Connecticut?”
“Give the man a cigar.” Kingsley tapped out a drumroll with two pencils on the desktop. “A quaint little place called the Doze Inn—right down the highway from where they found the wreck.”
“Got an address on him?” Sebastian crossed his arms over his chest. His forehead furrowed and his eyebrows flattened. Like rock under pressure, he was squeezing the soft coal of frustration into a diamond-hard barrier.
Not just me, she thought, he shuts out everyone. She wanted to go over and uncross his arms, rub the furrow between his eyes and somehow make him understand that he didn’t have to fight all alone. Instead, she settled for a hand on his shoulder and a squeeze as she passed by him to neaten the dinner mess.
“Nashua. French Hill section,” Kingsley said. “Seems Weld and Kershaw were practically neighbors.”
“Worth checking into,” Mercer’s voice floated from the shadows.
“Won’t find him there. According to the history I pulled up on his credit card, he started heading west last Wednesday. There’s a charge for the night at the Sleep Chalet outside of Cincinnati.”
Skyralov reached across the table for the last of the chocolate chip cookies Paula had baked. “Don’t you just love it when they make it easy?”
“Haven’t been to Cincinnati in a while,” Reed said. “How about you?”
“I hear the steaks are fine out that way,” Skyralov said.
Reed cocked his head and adjusted his shades. “That’s right, we’re on vacation.”
“Or is it the barbecue?”
“You’re thinking of Kansas City.”
“So I’ve got two for Cincinnati?” Kingsley typed. “Your flight leaves at 6:05 in the a.m.”
Skyralov snatched the itinerary Kingsley handed him. “Good thing we’re on vacation.”
“Yeah, I’d hate to have to get up that early to go to work.”
There was a rhythm here, an ease that seemed as smooth as watercolor flowing on paper. Not that these men would appreciate her thinking of their teamwork as art. And Sebastian, as artist-in-residence, watched them color the sketch he’d started. “Sutton gets wind of this and it could be your careers.”
“Careers?” Skyralov laughed. “We ain’t got no stinking careers. This is how we breathe.”
One by one, they left, talking and laughing.
Sebastian shifted his attention to her. This is my life, his gaze seemed to say.
“I want to be a part of it.”
“It never ends.”
“That’s why.”
His gaze went from her hands cradling the teak salad bowl close to her belly to her eyes, and seemed to penetrate every corner of her brain. It was as if he’d taken an MRI and found that the lesions of her amnesia were too
dark to allow her to add lines to this already well-sketched design. She would scratch a wayward mark and make him reach for an eraser.
He reached for the salad bowl. “Let me.”
“No, I can do it.”
She held his gaze without blinking. Don’t shut me out. Don’t shut me out. I don’t know where else I belong. Any minute now she was going to start to lose her color again, and the thought brushed a streak of panic through her.
“I want to.”
She let go of the bowl. He’d protected Olivia for ten years. Give him a chance to adjust.
“It gets dirty,” he said, his eyes growing darker, the light in them getting farther as if she’d mixed too much water with the paint.
“I wash clean.” There was a desperation to her words—as if she couldn’t draw fast enough to keep the picture whole.
Her answer was a weight he added to the burden on his shoulders. She hadn’t meant for that to happen.
“Sebastian…”
“Shh. Let me sleep on it.”
Silently, he took her hand and led her upstairs. He didn’t say another word as they dropped off the dirty dishes in the kitchen or as he went through his nighttime routine. He didn’t speak as he climbed between the flannel sheets of their bed. He didn’t kiss her good-night. He simply spooned his body around hers.
“Sebastian?”
“Shh.”
She didn’t let herself fall asleep until his breath shallowed and his hand relaxed against her ribs—until she was sure he would stay pasted at her side.
THE FIRST THING SEBASTIAN did the next morning was try to leave Liv at home. That didn’t work. Now that she was here in the SUV beside him, he might as well have painted a bull’s-eye on the windshield. Every car that passed them suddenly seemed suspicious. Every pedestrian who glanced their way made him feel like a target. Every red light had him sensing the bead of a sniper’s rifle.
Never before had he felt so vulnerable on the road. Always before it had been hunter and prey. Alone. Now his attention was divided and it took away the strong edge he needed to corner and capture.