Heart of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  “Everything back to normal.”

  His hand fingered the chopped lengths of her hair. He buried his nose in the scented curls. Familiar and different. “I’m not sure what’s normal anymore.”

  Olivia before? Liv now? Letting the chase for scum eat up his soul? This mess they were in that seemed to have no doors or windows, only fun house mirrors and carnival lights?

  She was no longer trailing behind him, waiting for him safe in the heart of their home. She was insisting on standing on her own, on her terms.

  “I like you this way.” He liked her strong and assured. He liked the soft iron of her will. But in the wake of that heady aura of self-confidence he had to wonder, did she still find anything of value in him? And when he’d made the world safe for her again, would she be there when he returned?

  SEBASTIAN MADE THE MISTAKE of seeking coffee in the kitchen and telling Liv he’d meet her there. He found himself eye to eye with Paula. After the emotional wringer of last night, the last thing he needed was more drama from his sister-in-law.

  Kingsley was loading the SUV with the equipment they’d need for Kiki’s phone. Liv was dressing the part of deputy marshal. And Paula, who had somehow transformed the comfort of his kitchen into alien territory, was doing her best impression of a leech as she followed him so closely he could smell the salt of her fear. With muffins, coffee and sisterly concern, she’d wrung the day’s plans out of Kingsley and, surprise, she didn’t agree with them.

  “You can’t do this. You can’t have Olivia run all over the state. She’s supposed to be healing.”

  Sebastian grabbed a mug and reached for the coffeepot. He didn’t like Liv’s participation in this operation anymore than Paula did, but he wasn’t about to admit it to her. “This is how she’s chosen to heal.”

  Paula snatched the coffeepot off the machine and poured the dark brew into his mug. “She doesn’t know better. We’re—I’m—responsible for her well-being. You’re being completely irresponsible as usual.”

  He headed for the table, hoping the shield of it would keep Paula at a distance. It didn’t. She dropped down into the chair beside his and tried to stare him down. He put the newspaper up. “I’ll be right there. I won’t let her get hurt.”

  “That’s not the point.” With a fork, she crinkled the paper down until she could spear him with her gaze once more. “The point is that she shouldn’t be there in the first place.” Her hands were flying like debris now, and he leaned back to avoid an errant stab of the fork. “I don’t get you. You say you love her. You say you want the best for her. And then you put her in this kind of situation.”

  “I do love her.” So much it actually burned his chest. So much he couldn’t think straight. So much the very thought of losing her made him shiver. He shook the paper and the crease unfolded. “I do want to keep her safe. I don’t have to explain—”

  “Yes, you do.” Paula snapped up like a jack-in-the box, hands on hips. “She’s my sister. I raised her. I’m responsible for her.”

  With more patience than he felt, Sebastian folded the paper and placed it on the table. “Paula, listen. I understand that you’re worried. I understand that you want Liv to act like the little sister you dressed and played with like a doll—” Paula sputtered, but Sebastian shut her up with a look. “But she’s her own person. We have to let her make her own decisions.” As much as it scared the hell out of him.

  She was pacing now—no zipping—like a crank-up car. “You’re putting all these ideas in her head. She would never have thought to try something like this.”

  He softened his voice, knowing that he, too, had underestimated Olivia. “She did. She signed up for a criminology class before the accident. We were growing apart, and she was trying to find a way to bring us back together.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to play on her weakness.”

  He laughed. Weakness? What weakness? She’d handled Kiki like a pro. She’d handled him even more expertly, taking everything he had, then giving him back even more. “Your sister is the strongest person I know. She doesn’t need me. She doesn’t need you. We’ll be lucky if she wants either of us in her life when she realizes how strong she is.” He jerked the paper open, seeing nothing but wavy lines of print.

  Paula’s jaw dropped. “How can you say something like that? She needs us—”

  “To give her room to find herself.”

  And that, he decided, was the scariest thing of all.

  SHE FELT THE UNDERCURRENT eddying in the kitchen before she walked in. It was strong and acrid like brush cleaner, sharp and cutting like scissors. Her husband and her sister were yellow and violet causing afterimages with their opposing hues, even if they both claimed to want the best for her. She loved them both. Paula for her loyalty and care, even though Liv had given her nothing but grief. Sebastian for his willingness to allow Olivia to find her footing.

  “Are we ready?” Liv asked, nerves jittering like popping corn.

  Paula flitted to the counter. “You haven’t eaten breakfast yet.”

  “I had fruit and a muffin earlier.” Her cheeks colored at the memory of Sebastian offering her the plate of cantaloupe slices and blueberry muffins. Breakfast in bed was definitely something she wanted to do again. The smoky look in his eyes told her he would, too.

  “That’s not enough.” Paula slammed a bowl of oatmeal studded with diced kiwi, banana slices, dried cranberries and chopped cashews on the table. “Sit.”

  “We have to go.”

  Paula blinked at her, making her feel as if her cheeks were on fire. Liv glanced at Sebastian. Paula followed her gaze, looked back at Liv and seemed to sense the new intimacy to their relationship. She wrinkled her nose. “I suppose that was inevitable. How could you take advantage of her like that?”

  Before Sebastian could defend himself, Liv said, “Maybe I took advantage of him.”

  Paula processed that, then turned to the counter and twirled amber prescription bottles. “Did you take your medicine?”

  “Yes. And I’ll be fine.” Liv patted her sister on the shoulder, felt it give. A pinch of guilt pricked her for the worry she caused her sister. “We’re not doing anything dangerous.”

  Pale blue eyes shimmering with tears, Paula aimed her anger at Sebastian. “What kind of man asks his wife to take his place and do his job?”

  “The kind who trusts her to do the job right,” Liv said. “Besides, I volunteered.”

  “What’s going on?” A sleepy Cari flopped at the table and rubbed her eyes. “I can hear you all the way upstairs.”

  “Nothing.” Paula rushed to construct another breakfast. To comfort, her sister seemed to feed. And as she watched Paula’s stick-thin figure dart across the kitchen, she wondered where her sister found her nourishment.

  “Oh, you mean you’re not getting your way, so you’re bitching about it.” Cari reached across the table and snatched a muffin from the basket.

  “Carolina Woodruff!”

  “That’s no way to talk to your mother.” Liv wished she could weave all these soft threads of conflict and bind together all the people she cared for. “She’s doing her best.”

  “Whatever.” Cari propped her book on the table and scrunched down, chin on her folded arm. “I’m just saying what everyone is thinking.”

  Paula snagged a sponge from the sink and scoured the countertop. “What do I tell Cecilia when she gets here?”

  “That I’ll be home soon.”

  “Well, I can see I’m not needed here.” Paula launched her sponge into the sink and huffed out of the room.

  “I should go after her,” Liv said with a sigh. Paula’s help had been a godsend after the accident. She needed to know her efforts, if not her interference, were appreciated.

  “We need to get going.” Sebastian drained the last of his coffee. “Paula will be okay. She’s one tough bird.”

  Not as tough as everyone assumed, Liv thought.

  “If you go after her, it’ll just d
rag out the soap opera. I should know. I’ve been through it enough times.” Cari looked up and down at the severe cut of Liv’s suit. “Where are you going?”

  Liv shared a look across the table with Sebastian. “Out to run an errand. We’ll be back by lunch.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be there waiting for you.” Cari gave an absent wave. “Have fun.”

  With one last look through the door where her sister had disappeared, Liv followed her husband.

  HE WATCHED THEM LEAVE. Falconer, his wife and the electronics guru. Giddiness fizzed through him. He could not believe his luck. With the gizmo wizard out of his lair, now was the time to strike. He dropped the binoculars and the cord around his neck caught them. Balancing on the branch, he reached for the phone in his pocket.

  “It’s time,” he said. No introductions were necessary.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You want him to feel what you felt, don’t you?”

  “I’m thinking that—”

  “There’s no time.” The last thing he needed was a loose cannon blowing up his careful plans. “If you get there soon, you can get the information we need and this can all be over. We’ll both have what we want.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Smoke rose from the chimney at the Aerie. So close. Maybe he should handle this himself. He’d trusted too much already. Except that he couldn’t risk being seen by the witch in the kitchen. Not when he could smell the sweet scent of success. So he tightened the clamp. “Not sure about what? That he didn’t screw you over? That he wouldn’t do it again in a second?”

  “You’re right.”

  The words defused a grenade of fury and hot shrapnel peppered his brain. “Like you said. Too late now. You can get what you want or you can lose it all. The choice is yours.”

  Not that there really was a choice. They both had too much to lose. And he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice this dupe to get his new life. Bernie owed it to him.

  “But—”

  “Your secret won’t be safe…”

  A beat of silence, then resignation. “Okay, but it’s the last thing.”

  For now. He smiled. “Here’s what I want you to do.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Kiki’s entire apartment could have fit inside the kitchen at the Aerie. The interior was surprisingly cozy, given the neglected state of the exterior. A lace doily and a glass bowl of rose-scented potpourri sat on top of the thirty-six-inch television set that crowded the corner. Covered with floral slipcovers and accented with peach-and-powder-blue pillows, the sofa and chair looked comfortable enough to hug whoever sat on them. The cream-colored afghan, the braided rug and the plants made the small area inviting.

  Dressed in black stretch pants that had black daisies embroidered along the sides and a black crochet lace-up tunic that showed off her push-up bra, Kiki invited them in. Her hair, a froth of pale apricot, was piled into a brittle cloud on top of her head. Her face, even with its artful makeup, looked as if it had seen many miles of rough road. A rose quartz butterfly on a suede string fluttered madly at her neck as she offered them coffee and a piece of grocery-store cinnamon pastry. Sebastian and Kingsley refused, opting instead to get down to work. Liv accepted and sat down with Kiki to try to alleviate her fears.

  Kiki watched Kingsley and Sebastian work, paying only scant attention to the conversation Liv tried to keep moving forward.

  “How does it work?” Kiki asked, flicking the short painted nails of one hand against those of the other.

  “When someone calls, the machine traces the place of origin of the call.”

  Kiki glanced from Sebastian to Kingsley. “They’ll have to be here?”

  “No, the information’ll go straight to a computer at our local office.” Technically not a lie. She had said “our”, not the USMS’s, office.

  “Every call?”

  Liv nodded.

  Kiki cleared her throat and studied her coral nails. “For how long?”

  “Just until Nelson calls.”

  She nodded slowly, her mouth becoming a thin line.

  Kingsley pointed at the closed door Liv assumed was a bedroom. “I’m going to need to get in that room to run some wires.”

  The click of Kiki’s nails suddenly sounded like insects eating their way through a closet. “That’s Nelson’s office. I’m not allowed in there.”

  “I won’t touch anything. I just need to run some wire.”

  “It’s locked.” She squeezed her legs tighter together. “I don’t have a key.”

  Kingsley smiled, showing his boyish dimples. “No problem.”

  He turned and bent over the doorknob. Kiki sprang up. Her high-heeled shoes clacked on the beige linoleum separating the living room from the rest of the apartment. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  By the time she reached Kingsley, the door was open. She stopped and stood so still that Liv held her own breath in sympathy.

  Kingsley whistled. Sebastian looked up from his huddled position on the floor and unfolded himself like a hawk riding a thermal. He looked over Kingsley’s shoulder. Liv followed, drawn to the spectacle that had them all so entranced.

  The room held one battered black metal desk. On the desk sat a phone with enough lines to serve a telemarketing firm. The rest of the room was filled with so many boxes that she couldn’t tell what color the walls were painted or where the window was located. And each of the boxes was stamped “USMS.”

  “Where did those come from?” The hard edge of Sebastian’s voice shredded the tension in the room like talons across a yard of silk. When he was working, he seemed to have no give.

  “I—I don’t know.” Eyes round, Kiki stepped back. Like Bluebeard’s curious wife, she seemed afraid of her inevitable punishment.

  Liv took her elbow and led her to the sofa where she sat her down. “It’s okay.”

  Sebastian leaned over the side of the sofa and spoke directly into Kiki’s ear. “Where did those boxes come from?”

  Kiki flinched as if he’d hit her.

  Liv punched his shoulder, pushing him off. “You’re scaring her.”

  Sebastian leaned in again. “You know. I know you know. If you don’t tell me, I’ll take you in as an accessory to theft.”

  Kiki’s hands snapped into fists and she banged them against her thighs. “I don’t know. I don’t know where the boxes came from. I don’t know who brought them here. I don’t know where they’re going.”

  “Not good enough.”

  Kiki’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know.”

  Liv moved too fast and the room swam for a moment. She stepped between Sebastian and the sofa’s edge, half-twisting her ankle in the process. The glacial cold of his eyes made her shiver. As close as they had been last night, this facet of her husband reminded her that he was still a stranger. She could not guess at the chaos rioting in his mind, but this state was not conducive to getting Kiki to talk. “Why don’t you go see exactly what’s in those boxes while I talk to Mrs. Weld?”

  His nostrils flared as he glared at her. She didn’t like the thinness of the line that separated predator and prey, how it wavered so gray against the sharp contrast of what she’d thought of as black and white. Right now, it seemed that only a flick of that thread would turn him into one of the outlaws he hunted.

  “Sebastian, please,” she whispered, her heart full of a heaviness she couldn’t explain.

  A splinter of life returned to the dead of his eyes, and she let out her caged breath. With a sharp nod, he relented and strode back to the office.

  “Mrs. Weld.” Liv crouched next to Kiki. She took Kiki’s hands in hers and gave an encouraging squeeze. Here was a woman who dreamed of a better life and so had turned a blind eye to what she didn’t want to see—as if what she didn’t acknowledge couldn’t hurt her. “Where did those boxes come from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you see Nelson bring them in?” Only six months out of jail. He’d worked fast. />
  Kiki took in a shaky breath and studied the ceiling as if the water stains would spell out the right answer. “I work at the shop five days a week. He could have brought them in when I’m at work.” She shrugged, unwilling, it seemed, to admit she’d seen the contents of the office before Kingsley opened the forbidden door. “That door’s always locked.”

  “Did he bring people home?”

  She shrugged. “All the time. I don’t pay much attention to them. They’re messy and rude. I usually go out when he brings his clients home.”

  “Did you hear him mention any names?”

  Kiki let her head fall to her chest. “I try not to listen, you know. It’s his business, and he doesn’t want me involved.”

  “But even when you don’t try, sometimes something slips through.” How else could she have stepped so easily into Sebastian’s role?

  Kiki shook her head. Her amber eyes swam with tears. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Sebastian came out of Nelson’s office with determined strides. He sat on the glass-and-chrome coffee table and faced Kiki. His control was leashed, but the predator’s purposefulness shimmered through the superficial calm. “Do you know anyone named Sean Greco?”

  Kiki shrank back from the force of Sebastian’s voice and shook her head.

  “Built like a heavyweight boxer, crew cut, wears gray ostrich cowboy boots.”

  Kiki perked up. “Yeah. He’s got a bulldog named Buster. I take Buster for walks when he comes over.”

  “When was the last time he was here?”

  As she tapped a coral nail on a front tooth, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “I guess it was almost two weeks ago. I was pissed because it was freezing cold and Nelson made me take Buster out anyway.”

  “Did you see any of those boxes that day?”

  “No. He didn’t stay long. But Nelson was gone the next day. He came back while I was at work and tracked mud all over the place.” Her hand drew an imaginary line from the front door to the office door.