Riptide

by Catherine Coulter

  ***

  She heard them speaking, soft, quiet voices not four feet away from her, talking, talking. Then they were closer, much closer, talking above her, which meant what? She opened her eyes. Blinked. She was flat on her back. The people speaking were on the left, and one of the people was Adam.

  She wet her lips with her tongue. “Adam?”

  He whirled around so fast he nearly lost his balance. Then he was at her side and he lifted her hand and held it hard between his two large ones. She felt the calluses on his palms.

  “What’s going on? Where are we? I dreamed I saw Detective Gordon, you know, that cop who hates me?”

  “Yes, I know. She left just a little while ago. She’ll be back, but later, when you’ve got it together again. You’re going to be all right, Becca. There’s nothing to worry about. Just take it easy and breathe nice shallow, light breaths. That’s right. Does your head hurt?”

  She thought about that. “No, not really, it’s just that I’m all fuzzy. Even you’re kind of fuzzy, Adam. I’m so glad to see you. I thought I was going to die, that I’d never see you again. I couldn’t bear it. Where are we?”

  He lightly touched his fingertip to her cheek. “You’re at New York University Hospital. The guy who took you from your bed in Jacob Marley’s house, the guy who was holding you, he shoved you out of his car right in front of One Police Plaza.”

  “It was Krimakov?”

  “We believe so. At least it’s a strong possibility.”

  She said, “I asked him if he was Krimakov but he wouldn’t answer me. We’re in New York City?”

  “Yes. You did see Detective Gordon. She was one of the cops who came running. It was early in the afternoon, bunches of people around, lots of cops heading out for lunch. Detective Gordon was there because she had some meetings with the Narcotics Division.”

  “My lucky day,” Becca said.

  “Damn, I’m sorry, Becca, so sorry. I really fucked up and just look what happened.”

  She heard the awful guilt in his voice, the fear, and finally, overlaying all of it, the relief that she was alive. He couldn’t be as relieved as she was. “It’s okay, Adam, really.”

  “Hi, Becca.”

  She smiled up at Sherlock and Savich, one on either side of her hospital bed. “We’re sure glad to see you.”

  “Me, too. I thought you were in Riptide.”

  “We can move quickly when we have to,” Sherlock said, lightly patting Becca’s shoulder. “Dillon got a call from Tellie Hawley, the SAC at the New York City office. Tellie told him what happened. We got here three hours later.”

  “What happened to him? Did they get him?”

  Sherlock said, “Unfortunately, no. There was mass confusion. He shoved you out of the car, then jumped out while the car was still rolling and disappeared into the crowd. The car hit three other people before it smashed into a fire hydrant and drenched another fifty people. It was a zoo. We’ve gotten some descriptions, but no one agrees with anyone else so far.”

  He was still out there, free. She felt flattened. “So he got away again,” she said, and wanted to shriek with the helplessness that flooded her.

  Adam was clearing his throat. “We’ll get him, Becca. You’ve got to believe that. Now, there’s someone here for you to meet.”

  Her head came up, fast. “Please, no doctors, Adam. I hate doctors. Oh, God, so did my mother.” And she started crying. She didn’t know where all the tears came from, but they were there, swamping her, and she was sobbing, tears streaming down her face, and she wanted her mother desperately. “My mom died in a hospital, Adam. She hated it, then she just didn’t care because she was in a coma. No one could do anything. She died in a hospital just like this one.” The tears kept coming, she couldn’t stop them.

  Then suddenly someone was holding her, drawing her close, and a man’s dark, smooth voice said next to her ear, “It’s all right, my darling girl. It’s all right.”

  And she stilled. Strong arms were around her. She felt his heart pounding rhythmically, powerful and steady against her cheek. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to carry on like this. I miss my mother. I loved her so much and she died. There isn’t anyone else for me.”

  “I miss your mother, too, Becca. It’s going to be all right. I swear it to you.”

  She pulled back just a bit and looked up at an older man who looked oddly familiar to her, but that was impossible, wasn’t it? She was sure she’d never seen him before in her life. The drugs were still affecting her, holding her brain back, scrambling things, making her cry. “I’m nobody’s darling girl,” she whispered, and raised her hand to lightly touch her fingers to the man’s cheek. He was so handsome, his face lean, his nose thin, straight, his eyes a soft light blue, dreamy eyes. Now that was strange. Her mother had told her that she had dreamy eyes, summer dreamy eyes. “I don’t understand,” she said, frowning up at the man’s face. “Who are you?”

  The man looked as if he would cry with her, but he swallowed, several times, and cleared his throat. “I’m your father, Becca. I’m Thomas Matlock. I can’t bring your mother back, but I’m here now, and I’ll stay.”

  “You’re Thomas? You’re the man Adam and Savich are working for?”

  “Well, let’s say they’re helping me out.”

  She didn’t say anything then, just frowned a bit, trying to assemble things in her mind, in her memory, to make some sense of them, realizing suddenly that she recognized his eyes because he’d given them to her, realizing—“When he slipped the needle into my arm that second time,” she whispered, looking directly into his eyes, “just before I went under, he said right against my ear, ‘Tell your daddy hello for me.’ ”

  His face paled and he grew vague, indistinct, his arms loosening. She grabbed his shirt with her fist, trying to pull him closer. “No, don’t leave me, please.”

  “Oh, God, I won’t.” Thomas looked up at Adam. “I guess that says it all.”

  “Yes,” Adam said. “At least now we know for bloody sure.”

  “Amen to that,” Sherlock said. Then she added, “Why don’t we all go out to get a cup of coffee while Thomas gets to know Becca a bit better?”

  When she was alone with the man who’d said he was her father, she looked up at him and said, “Why did you leave us? I don’t even remember what you looked like I was so young when you left. There is this old photograph of you and Mom, and you looked so young and so handsome. Carefree. It’s a wonderful picture.”

  He held her very close for a long time, then slowly he said, “You were all of three years old when it happened. I was a CIA operative, Becca, and I was very good. There was this other KGB spy—”

  “Krimakov.”

  “Yes. I was sent over to what is now Belarus, to stop him from killing a visiting German industrialist. Krimakov had brought his wife, as if they were there on some sort of vacation. It was in the mountains. There was a gunfight and she tried to save him. I hadn’t seen her, hadn’t even known she was there.” He paused a moment, memory stark and alive in his eyes. He said simply, “I shot her in the head and killed her. Krimakov promised me he would kill not only me but my family. He vowed it. I believed him.

  “He managed to escape me. I decided that I would have to kill him to protect you. When I tried, I found out that he’d simply disappeared. There was no trace of him. The KGB helped him, obviously, and he stayed buried until very recently, when I was told he was killed in an auto accident in Crete. You know the rest.”

  “You left us to protect us?”

  “Yes. Your mother and I discussed it. Matlock is a common name. She took you and moved to New York. I saw her four, maybe five times a year. We were always very, very careful. We couldn’t tell you. We couldn’t put you in danger. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, Becca. Believe me.”

  All of a sudden she had a father. She stared at his face, seeing herself in him, seeing also a stranger. It was too much. She heard him say something, heard A
dam arguing with someone just inside the door, sharp and loud, then she didn’t hear anything at all. That was a good thing, she thought as she slipped away, back where there were no dreams, just seamless darkness, without him, no worries or voices to tear her apart. Her father was dead, dead since she was very young. It was impossible that he was here, there was just no way. Maybe she was dead, too, and had seen what she wanted to see. Dead. It wasn’t bad, truly it wasn’t. She heard a sound, like a wounded animal. It had come from her, she realized, but then there was nothing at all.

  When she awoke, it was dark in her room except for a small bedside lamp that was turned to its lowest setting. The small hospital room was filled with shadows and quiet voices. There were needles in both of her arms connected to bags of liquid beside both sides of her bed. There were two men sitting in chairs next to the window, in low conversation. One was Adam. The other was her father—oh yes, she believed him now, perhaps even understood a bit—and he’d called her his darling girl. She blinked several times. He didn’t fade back into her mind. He remained exactly where he was. She saw him very clearly now, and she could do nothing but stare, breathe him in, settle his face, his features, his expressions, into her mind. He used his hands while he spoke to Adam, just like she did when she was trying to make a point, to convince someone to come around to her way of thinking. He was her father.

  She cleared her throat and said, “I know I’m not dead because I would kill for some water. And I don’t believe that if someone is dead, she’s particularly thirsty. May I please have some water?”

  Adam was on his feet in an instant. When he bent the straw into her mouth, she closed her eyes in bliss. She drank nearly the entire glass. She was panting when she finished. “Oh goodness, that was delicious.”

  He didn’t straighten, just placed one large hand on either side of her face on that hard hospital pillow. He was studying her face, her eyes. “You okay?”

  “Yes. I realize I’m not dead, so you must be real. I remember you told me that he threw me out of the car. Is there anything bad wrong with me?”

  “No, nothing bad. When he shoved you out of the car yesterday right there at Police Plaza, you were still wearing your nightgown. You got a lot of scrapes, a bruised elbow, but that’s it. Now it’s just a matter of getting the drug out of your system. They pumped your stomach. Nobody seems to know what the drug was, but it was potent. You should be just about clear of it now.” He had to close his eyes a moment. He’d never been so afraid in his life, never. But she would live. She would be fine. He said, “Do the scrapes hurt? Would you like a couple of aspirin?”

  “No, I’m all right.” She licked her lips, looked over into the shadows, clutched his hand, and whispered, “Adam, he really is my father, isn’t he? That story he told me, it’s the truth? It happened that way?”

  “Yes, all of it is true. His name is Thomas Matlock. He never died, Becca. There is probably a whole lot more to tell you—”

  “Yes,” Thomas said, “a lot more. So many stories to tell you about your mother, Becca.”

  “My mom said I had dreamy eyes. You do, too. I have your eyes.”

  Thomas smiled and his eyes twinkled. “Yes, I guess maybe you do have my eyes.”

  Adam said, stroking his chin, “I’m not sure about that. The thing is, Becca, I’ve never before looked at his eyes in quite the same way I look at yours.”

  Suddenly, all her attention was on Adam. She said, “Why not?”

  “Because—” Adam stopped dead in his tracks. She was actually coming on to him, teasing him. He loved it. He cleared his throat. “Now’s not the time. We’ll talk about that later, you can count on it. Now, are you up to telling us about this guy who took you?”

  “You mean Krimakov.”

  “Yes.”

  “Just a moment, Adam. Sir, you sent Adam to protect me, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, he did, but I screwed up, big-time.”

  Becca said, “Sorry, Adam, but you can’t take all the credit. What that monster did was very clever. None of us would have ever guessed that he came back to the house while we were out looking for him. How’d he get me out of the house without being seen?”

  “Sherlock figured that one out really fast. Also he knocked out Chuck and tied him up. That’s how he escaped with you.” He saw the worry in her eyes and quickly added, “He’s okay—just a headache for a while. I’m sorry, Becca, so sorry. Did he hurt you?” God, it hurt to say it, but he did: “Did he rape you?”

  “No. He licked my face. I told him not to do it again because it was creepy. That made him really mad, but you see, that drug he shot into me, it also calmed me, made me all loose, so when I woke up that first time I wasn’t afraid of him. I don’t think I was afraid of anything. It was a side effect of the drug, he said, and he didn’t like it. He wanted me to be real afraid, he wanted me to beg and plead, just like Linda Cartwright did.” She shuddered as she said the name. “He said she didn’t matter. She was just his present to me.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  She shook her head. She said to her father, “I can’t even describe him. He never let me see him. When he had me tied down to a bed, he always stood in the shadows, just beyond what I could make out. I don’t think he was old, but I can’t be one hundred percent certain. Was he young? I just don’t know. But when he cursed, he used a mixture, some American, some British, and some in a language I didn’t recognize. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Yes, but we’ll figure it out.”

  Thomas was standing beside her bed, opposite Adam. He was wearing a dark suit, the dark-red tie loosened. He looked tired and worried and, oddly enough, happy. Because of her? Evidently so, and that pleased her very much. He picked up her left hand and held it. His hand was strong, lightly tanned. He was wearing a wedding ring. She stared at that ring, just stared and stared, touched her fingers to it, then said finally, “My mother gave you that ring?”

  “Yes, when we got married. I wore it all our married lives. I plan to wear it until it finally dissolves off my finger sometime in the distant future. I loved your mother very much, Becca. Like I said, I had to leave both of you so you wouldn’t be killed. I know it’s all still very confusing. There are lots of facts and details, but the bottom line is exactly what I already told you. I accidentally killed a man’s wife and he swore he would kill my family, and then he would kill me, but only after I saw, firsthand, how he had killed everyone I loved. I had no choice. I had to leave my family in order to protect them.”

  Adam said, “We believe this man who is stalking you, who murdered that old bag lady, who shot the governor, we believe it’s Krimakov and somehow he found you and began terrorizing you.” He paused for a moment, nodding to Thomas.

  Thomas was looking down at this lovely young woman who was his only child. It took him a moment before he said, “Vasili Krimakov was one of the KGB’s top agents back in the seventies, as I was for the CIA. Again, there’s a whole lot more, but it can wait for a while. Right now, what’s important is that we find him, that we neutralize him once and for all.”

  “You’re sure it’s Krimakov.”

  He smiled then. “Oh yes, I’m very sure, particularly after what he told you.”

  “‘Say hello to your daddy.’”

  “Yes. No one else would know that.”

  “My mom wore a ring just like yours. When she died—” She couldn’t speak, the tears clogged her throat, burned her eyes. He said nothing at all, just held her hand, squeezed it a bit more tightly. She swallowed, looked away from him toward the window. It was black out there, no sign of stars from her vantage point. “—I wanted desperately to have something to connect me to her and I almost took that ring, but then I remembered how much she loved you, and I just couldn’t take it from her.

  “Sometimes when she spoke to me of you, she would start crying and I hated you for leaving us, for leaving her, for dying. I remember when I was a teenager I told her she should get married again, that I
would be going off to college, and she needed to put you in the past. She needed to find someone else. She was so young and beautiful, I didn’t want her to be alone. I remember she’d only smile at me and say she was just fine.” Then, suddenly, Becca said, “Oh God, he came after me so he could get to you.”

  “Yes,” Adam said. “That’s exactly right. But he didn’t know where Thomas was, so he came up with a way to flush Thomas out. He dumped you right in front of One Police Plaza.”

  “What I don’t understand,” Thomas said, “is why he didn’t simply announce all over the media that he had her, threaten to kill her if I didn’t show myself in Times Square. He must have known that I would be there. But he didn’t.”

  Adam said, “Who knows? Maybe a cop saw him, saw an unconscious woman in the backseat, and he was forced to dump Becca in order to escape. However, it’s far more likely that he planned this down to the exact spot he’d leave her. I think it’s gamesmanship. He wants to prove he’s better than you, smarter than all of us, and he wants you to suffer big-time in the process.”

  “He’s succeeded admirably,” Thomas said. “He has flushed me out. I guess maybe that’s why he didn’t let you see him, Becca. He wants to keep playing this insane game. He wants to terrorize you and now he can continue the terror, with me squarely in the game with you.”

  “And only he knows the rules,” Becca said.

  “Yes,” Adam said. “I wonder if he’s been living on Crete all this time.”

  “Probably so,” Thomas said.

  “Wait,” Becca said, chewing on her bottom lip. “Now I recognize those curses—they were Greek.”

  “That settles that,” Thomas said. “We’ve got all the proof we need that the ashes in that urn in the Greek morgue aren’t Krimakov’s.”

  He leaned down and kissed Becca’s forehead. “I won’t leave you again. Now we’ll find Krimakov, and then you and I have a lot of catching up to do.”