Firebird

by Helaine Mario

  Worst possible thing for a sailor.

  And yet - it was the only time since his wife died that he’d stopped thinking about her. Admit it. Yesterday morning, on the boat, he’d wanted to hold Alexandra Marik close. To touch his lips to hers. He’d wanted to stop living in the past, to feel again. To believe that the only thing that mattered was this beautiful, alive woman standing in front of him.

  “Can there be a second chance for me?” he said to his Lab. “Is it so damned much to ask?”

  Hoover raised his head and barked, seeming to say it was.

  “You’re right,” muttered Garcia, “she deserves the whole enchilada. The crazy I-would-run-into-a-blazing-building-for-you kind of love. But I don’t have it to give anymore.”

  This time, the Lab kept his opinion to himself.

  You bloody fool, Garcia told himself angrily. You idiot! You can’t go through loving anyone like that again.

  Not that it mattered now. He’d pushed her away, out of the line of fire. Hadn’t he? And she’d just taken it on the chin, and walked away. Out of his life.

  Nothing here to hold me anymore.

  It’s for the best, he told himself. Just focus on the sea. Focus on the job. Don’t think about her.

  He slowed the engines, checked the running lights, eased the Vaya con Dios toward the marina and her slip. He reached for his cell phone, cursed as he realized it was turned off. He’d missed three messages. He fumbled for the buttons, and heard Alexandra’s voice.

  She’d found Ivan! And then - Stratton? Stratton fucking Vermont? Damn the woman! So much for out of the line of fire. You are a whole world of trouble for me, Chica.

  Stratton. So he’d have to break a few more rules. But she was worth it.

  He clicked on the third message. Her voice once more. But this time shaking with shock. Panicked, close to hysteria. The message cut off. Christ.

  Hoover jumped up and began to bark. He raised his eyes, saw a woman running down the dock toward him. His heart leaped. Alexandra? No, too tall. Billie. A terrible coldness gripped his chest as he spun the wheel into the wind.

  CHAPTER 48

  “...in a gondola...”

  As You Like It, Shakespeare

  STRATTON MOUNTAIN, VERMONT

  The night was cold and brilliant with frost. The four-wheel-drive crunched up the steep twisting road, headlamps spearing snowflakes the size of quarters that whirled in a dizzying frenzy against the mountain darkness. Wipers scraped snow from the windshield to expose, for a brief moment, huge white pines that towered over the road like hoary sentinels. Then just as quickly the trees disappeared, swallowed in a blanket of crystals.

  Alexandra hunched forward, gloved hands gripping the steering wheel, every fiber concentrating on the road ahead that appeared and then vanished into the raging storm. A howl of wind sent the snow spinning, and, just for a moment, high up on the mountain, she could see the lights of Stratton, glimmering like frozen stars against the pines. Beyond the village, the lights of the gondolas and scattered lodges wandered like fireflies up the mountainside.

  Ivan was up there somewhere. And so was Juliet.

  Hurry!

  The fear burned in her chest. The text message had been terrifying.

  I have Juliet. Come alone to Stratton Ski Resort in Vermont. Bring the brooch. I will be waiting...

  Her eyes had leaped to the photograph. A close up of Juliet’s face. Eyes closed.

  Dear God in Heaven.

  She’d made good time, considering the snow, reaching the Vermont border just before six. She’d called Billie from the road, stopped at the Bondville gas station for directions and started climbing the Stratton Mountain Road a few miles back. How much farther? Was she lost? She didn’t dare take a hand from the wheel to check her watch or the directions.

  The road was growing steeper. Shifting to low gear, she angled carefully around a sharp bend. A brief flash of light suddenly caught her rear-view mirror. On the road far below her, headlamps flared through the pines. You’re as crazy as I am, she thought.

  She glanced again in the rearview mirror, saw the headlamps closer now, steadily gaining on her. Too fast for this road. A frisson of fear skittered down her spine.

  Snow swirled against the window. Then the glitter of ice caught her headlamps. She gripped the wheel and eased the Jeep forward into the storm.

  Find Ivan, find Juliet.

  Hurry.

  * * * *

  The bar, three stories high in the heart of the Stratton Village, was called Mulligan’s. Alexandra parked the car and made her way through packed snow to the entrance. She stopped for a moment in the doorway, overwhelmed by the crowd, the sudden blast of heat, the smoke and the DJ’s pulsing music. Pulling off her wool hat, Alex began to push her way through the mass of people toward the bar.

  No one had come up to her. No one seemed at all interested in her. Where was he? Had the text been a terrible lie? She couldn’t wait. She had to take matters into her own hands.

  A man in a batman mask leaned toward her and she caught her breath. “Hi, gorgeous, trick or treat?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He tipped the mask above his head. “Sorry. It’s Halloween weekend. And we’re celebrating First Snow. What’ll it be?”

  She looked around the bar, saw for the first time the masks and costumes in the crowd. Halloween… already? Tomorrow, she realized. Ruby’s princess outfit was ready, hanging in her closet. But there was something more, something important lingering on the edge of her mind. What was it about Halloween?

  “How about a glass of char?” The bartender was young and flaxen-haired, in his early twenties. Alexandra dropped her hat on the bar and shook her head, wondering if a resemblance to the young Robert Redford was a Stratton requirement.

  “Black coffee. And information,” she said, passing him a twenty dollar bill and the photo of Ivan that she’d printed from the Internet. “Have you ever seen this man before?”

  He took the money, glanced down. “Sorry, doesn’t look familiar.” He caught the look on her face and signaled the waitress at the end of the bar.

  A cat woman appeared, then slipped off her mask. The female equivalent of Redford, blond ponytail swinging across tanned skin, squinted at the photograph in the smoky darkness. “Hey, I think that’s Stoli,” she said suddenly.

  “Stoli?”

  “You know, the best Russian Vodka. Stolichnaya Gold.” The young woman handed the photograph back to Alexandra. “I call my regulars by their drink of choice. He’s Double Stoli Gold, no rocks. Nice older guy, just lonely, I think. Comes in once, maybe twice a month. I’m almost sure this guy is Stoli - but he usually wears some kind of hat, dark glasses.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  The girl waved a hand vaguely toward the high windows. “One of those chalets up on the mountain somewhere. Nothing but forest and snow, you know? I think he calls his place Eden.” She cocked her head and thought. “No,” she said slowly. “Adeen. That’s it, Adeen. Whatever that means.”

  It means alone, in Russian, thought Alexandra. “How do I get there?”

  The girl shrugged. “Never been. But one night he had one too many, you know, and I said he shouldn’t drive, and he just laughed and said, “I don’t drive, I gondola.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Not a skier, huh?” The girl flung her hand toward the fogged windows. “The gondolas are those huge glass cars that take the skiers to the top of the mountain.”

  Sweet God in Heaven, I have to take a gondola up the mountain?

  “There’s a stop, half-way, at our mountain restaurant,” the girl went on. “Great view from there, you’ll love it.”

  “I doubt it. Isn’t there a road?”

  “Sure. But it starts way back in Bondville.”

  Deep breath. Just get to Juliet. “Okay. What do I do when I get up there?”

  “Go outside, there’s a terrace. Just east of there, red flags mark an old hikers t
rail that leads into the woods, up past a handful of private homes. Big bucks places, you know, perched like eagle nests on the edge of the mountain. You can catch the gondola behind the Lodge.” She gestured to her left. “The cars run until 2 a.m.”

  “Lucky me. Thanks for your time.” Alexandra handed the girl a fifty dollar bill and began to weave her way across the dance floor toward the door.

  Hurry.

  * * * *

  Panov parked the snowmobile behind a stand of thick firs. Snow crunched loudly under his boots as he moved toward the main street of Stratton Village. He’d forgotten how big - and crowded - the village was. He cursed in Russian. She had to be here by now. But where?

  He should have stopped Alexandra Marik when he’d had the chance.

  No matter. He glanced back up the mountain. Everything was in place. Waiting for Alexandra Marik.

  He would take care of them – all of them - tonight.

  I warned you, Prince Ivan.

  He moved beneath the Austrian-like spire of the Stratton Village Lodge, searching the bright faces of the skiers who jostled past him. Just ahead was the sign for the gondola - Starship XII. Skiers were piling on, their tangle of skis and snowboards spearing the cobalt sky. The car could only take twenty or so, but it looked like -

  There! A flash of sweet copper fire, shining under the gondola lights.

  You should have worn your hat, Shura.

  And you’d better have that brooch with you.

  He began to run.

  * * * *

  Alexandra stood frozen at the sliding door of the Gondola. Other cars were snaking up the mountainside, their lights blinking uncertainly in the wind. Lord. Steep beyond imagination. And so blasted high above the ground.

  You can do this, she told herself. You have to.

  Ivan is up there somewhere. With Juliet.

  She forced her body to the center of the car as cheerful twenty-somethings, many in masks, poured in after her, surrounding her with broad shoulders and ski poles.

  She was pinned in by Batman, Barack Obama, Donald Duck. I’ve fallen into a Fellini movie, she thought.

  The small car was almost all glass. Somewhere up on the mountain, Ivan was waiting. With Juliet? Her mind whirled with questions. Something about the text message was wrong. Very wrong. What was –

  The gondola jerked. Lord!

  With a high whine of motors, the car slid out over the snow, rocking upward. A sudden jolt threw her off balance and her heart slammed in her chest. The first stanchion, she remembered. And only two more to go.

  Higher and higher. The car swung back and forth, creaking, steel on steel, wind whooshing past the glass. She closed her eyes tightly. Dizzy and sick, she gripped the handrail and hung on. The things you do for love, she thought.

  The second stanchion jolted the gondola, and her eyes flew open. As the passengers shifted she saw the bright flash of blue eyes behind a black ski-mask at the far end of the car.

  Fear struck like a spear of ice in her chest. It couldn’t be! She had to be wrong. How could he have known she was here?

  She shrank down behind a tall man dressed as the Green Hornet and dragged a hand through her hair in confusion. Her hair! God, that was it. She’d left her hat on the bar at Mulligan’s. The bright hair was a damned torch.

  I’m here, it shouted, come get me.

  “Over my dead body,” she muttered, and then looked around the crowded car in panic. He could be anywhere. By the door, over there, just behind her. Was she wrong? All she had glimpsed were those eyes. But eyes that seemed so familiar...

  Shura.

  She grabbed her phone, scrolled down the text, found the final words in the message. And the truth slammed into her mind with a hammer’s blow. “I will be waiting for you, Shura.” In her terror, she’d missed those last words. It was the man who had attacked her in Maine, the monster with blue ice cubes for eyes… he was the one who had Juliet!

  Not Ivan.

  Staring down at the text, she turned off the phone to conserve the battery. Maybe if she just - A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and she cried out.

  “Are you okay?” asked Green Hornet. He smiled down at her. “Windy tonight, but good snow. We’re almost there.”

  “Don’t like heights,” she murmured. “Thanks.”

  He nodded and turned back to his friends. Once more she crouched against his broad back. You can do this. Think.

  What would you have done, Eve?

  A soft breath against her cheek, a sudden image of a youthful Eve on a crowded beach, slipping a pair of expensive sunglasses from a stranger’s back pocket with a naughty grin.

  Of course. Easing forward, hidden by the broad shoulders of the green jacketed skier pressing against her, she reached out and pulled his ski hat from his unzipped pocket.

  Piece of cake. Thank you, Eve.

  They jolted past the third stanchion just as she folded the woolen hat into her hand. Now the car was slowing down. She bent and pulled the dark ski cap down over her head to the eyebrows, covering every strand of her bright hair. Sorry, Green Hornet, she thought, but I need this hat more than you do.

  With her back to the rear of the car, she raised her eyes and saw the lights of the mid-mountain restaurant - finally! - just above them. There, off to the right, the terrace described by the Mulligan’s bartender, lit by strings of swaying white lights. And beyond, the mountain, a hulking black shape against a snow-filled night sky.

  Except for the lights of those scattered chalets winking through the pines on the far ridge.

  That’s where I’ve got to go.

  The gondola motor whirred, slowed. Keeping well down, Alexandra squeezed through the crowd toward the gondola doors. Think, Alexandra, think! Stay with this party of giants. It’s dark out there. As soon as you reach the restaurant, run for the terrace. You can disappear in the shadows.

  A sharp ski pole spiked against her leg, and she looked down.

  Her fingers moved until they curled around the pole. A weapon. Just in case.

  With a loud bang and sickening lurch, the gondola ground to a halt and the glass doors whirred open.

  She ducked low and spilled out into the cold dark night.

  Hurry.

  CHAPTER 49

  “I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell shall bar the way...”

  The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes”

  Dammit, where was she?

  Jon Garcia pushed his way through the crowd searching for a wild cap of spiky red hair. And where the hell were the Feds?

  He’d been running on sheer adrenaline since Billie had found him at the marina. Told him that Ivan had taken Juliet. And that Alexandra had run off to Vermont in search of her niece.

  Of course she had.

  A DOJ helicopter had gotten him to Manchester. Now he’d been searching the village for over half an hour, since her damned cell phone was off.

  Garcia squinted up at the snow-blown sky. Where the devil were they?

  “Dios,” he murmured, “it’s as if the storm has swallowed them up. Necisito ayuda, pronto!”

  He ran to the parked SUV and started the engine. He’d search every inch of this damned resort if he had to.

  He had to find them.

  * * * *

  Alexandra stood in the shadow of a high pine, searching the snow-laden forest behind her, watching, listening.

  She didn’t think she’d been followed. Had she been mistaken on the gondola? Millions of men had blue eyes. Especially here in Robert Redford land. She shook her head bleakly and turned toward the lights.

  Three huge chalets dotted the ridge. Her eyes moved over them, searching, finally settling on the lodge set furthest from the trail. One whole wall was an arched window flickering with light. Against the winter sky, the house seemed cantilevered out over the mountain on wooden beams.

  Far out. Over a black void. My cup runneth over, she thought. She tightened her scarf, turned toward the lights and climbed for twenty mi
nutes.

  Snow drifts across the driveway, booted prints barely discernible. An iron gate, an old mailbox with the word Adeen fading on the side. And a forbidding red sign posted on a birch tree. Private Property, No Trespassing.

  “The hell I won’t,” murmured Alexandra. Squaring her shoulders, she dug the ski-pole into the snow and pushed past the gate. The pines thinned and she stopped in the shelter of a tall fir, jogging up and down for warmth as she peered through the skittering shadows.

  The clearing was black and white, like a painting in chiaroscuro. There, on the edge of the snow, a dark shape reared against the sky.

  Up close, except for the huge window, the chalet bore no resemblance to the other wood and glass ski homes. Ivan’s chalet was straight out of a Russian legend from her childhood. Four gabled stories, turrets, a rounded tower with cantilevered balconies, an old carriage house toward the rear. The steep snow-covered roof. A place for hunters and Czars, sorcerers and princes.

  She watched, and waited in the deep white silence. When several minutes had passed and she saw no one, she eased forward across the clearing, keeping to the shadows. A small lamp illuminated the carved double doors on the porch. Inside, through the curtained windows, she could see the barest glimmer of light.

  The meadow and lodge were surreally quiet, blanketed by the hush of snow. Silent night, she thought, mounting the porch steps as quietly as possible. The huge oak door waited for her, guarding its secrets.

  Ivan is in there! God, let me be wrong. Let Juliet be with him. Not – the other man. Let her be okay. She willed her body to move forward. Open the next Matryoska doll...

  Holding the ski-pole like a weapon, she moved across the porch, swept clear of snow. She reached out to grip the brass doorknob. It was unlocked. She twisted, and the door swung open, just the way it had in the old fairytales.

  She stepped over the threshold.

  The music of Stravinsky and the strong scent of coal in the air drew her forward through a long, dark hallway. She came to an arched doorway and hesitated. From where she stood, she could see a cavernous, dark fireplace before a long sofa. Where was the light coming from? She moved, saw the glow of the small stove, and then, in the light of the single lamp, the shifting black silhouette of a seated man.