Take Me for a Ride

by Karen Kendall

  Catatonic. Weird word, that one . . . Made her think of cats and tonic water, gin and limes. She wondered vaguely what the etymology of catatonic was—her mother would know. Probably wouldn’t even have to look it up.

  Her father would know how to say it in Greek. The word had been on an old vocabulary list they’d made up for her to study. She remembered the words before and after it.

  Cataplexy, catatonic, catastrophic. She couldn’t remember what cataplexy meant . . .

  She’d committed an act of violence today, her first ever. Nat looked down at her hands, still unable to believe that she’d pressed a hot iron to a man’s flesh and smelled it burn. Heard him scream.

  It didn’t really matter that he would have hurt her and had been on the verge of killing Eric. She was horrified at her own actions. Her perception of herself had changed forever. She wanted to be sick, but sheer exhaustion overrode even that basic urge, and while all the uniforms chattered away and fired their questions at Eric, she simply curled into a fetal position on the bed.

  A report was filled out. Someone came and taped a tarp over the broken window. Eric picked her up like a baby and moved her into another room while hotel staff followed with their belongings. A bottle of Scotch, an ice bucket, and two glasses magically appeared.

  She gazed down at her hands again, seeing the familiar shape of them. They were practical and capable, the skin over them a little dry, the nails short and unpolished. She wore only a simple silver ring on the index finger of her left hand, a gift from a friend.

  She used her hands to create art, to restore old treasures. She used them to give, not to punish . . . until today. This afternoon she had grabbed and twisted a man’s testicles in self-defense, and seared his flesh in defense of someone else.

  With sudden clarity, she understood the cautionary statement that everyone is capable of violence. She’d always rejected that before. Now she had to accept it.

  McDougal finally got rid of all the people surrounding them. He came over, sat on the bed, and said, “You all right?”

  She shook her head.

  He looked like hell. Mottled bruises rode over his collarbones like an obscene necklace. He was bleeding from a cut to his cheekbone; his shirt was ripped at the collar; his pants were filthy. Adrenaline still pulsed off his body, and his eyes had deepened to an electric shade of blue. His reddish mop stood wildly on end, making him look literally as if his hair were on fire.

  He got up and tossed a few ice cubes into each of the two glasses. Then he drowned them in Scotch and handed one of the tumblers to her. “Drink,” he ordered.

  She didn’t need to be told twice. It had been one horrible morning. Natalie sat up and drank deeply, feeling the whiskey burn her throat. She downed half the stuff in a single, needy gulp. Then she closed her eyes, thought about the iron on human flesh again, and finished off the rest.

  When she opened her eyes again, she found McDougal watching her, no doubt trying to predict whether she’d start bawling.

  She wanted to. It got the pressure out, somehow. The ugly, helpless sounds drained the ugly, helpless feelings. But she found herself dry-eyed and dazed.

  Eric took the glass out of her numb fingers and poured her another drink. “Take the second one slower,” he advised.

  She looked at his own glass, which he’d emptied in record time as well.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I will, too.”

  They sat for a moment in silence. Then he said, shaking his head in a kind of wonder, “Do you know how brave you were today?”

  She held up a hand and shook her head.

  “Yes, you were,” he insisted.

  The horror rose up in her again. “I burned a man with an iron, Eric. I smelled his skin frying. It was . . .” She shook her head again. “I have no words.”

  “You did it in self-defense and in my defense, Natalie. You didn’t do it for fun, okay?”

  Perspiration broke out at her hairline, and her stomach heaved. She sprinted for the bathroom and inglori ously upchucked the whiskey.

  She got to her feet to find Eric holding out a damp washcloth with an expression of sympathy. “How long have you been there?” she croaked.

  He shrugged.

  She took the washcloth, mortified. “You watched me puke?”

  His lips twitched. “Yeah. You looked hot.”

  “You’re a sick twist, McDougal. You know that?”

  “I do. It’s part of my raw animal charm.”

  She leaned her elbows on the sink vanity and turned on the tap, rinsing the vile taste out of her mouth and then splashing more water onto her face. Then she realized that tears were pouring down her cheeks.

  Eric turned off the tap and scooped her into his arms. He walked with her to the bed and sat down with Natalie still curled against his chest. “Shhhhhh, sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

  “Nothing’s okay.We have to find Nonnie,” she sobbed. “I don’t want her hurt.”

  “We’ll find her. I promise we’ll find her.” Eric stroked her hair and her back, his heartbeat strong and steady. He kissed her forehead. She felt cared for, safe, soothed. There was nothing sexual about his tenderness with her as he peeled back the covers on the bed and climbed under them with her still in his arms. He simply held her, his arms tight and secure around her waist, and she eventually slid into a troubled sleep.

  McDougal lay wide-awake for two hours with his arms around Natalie, the one underneath her cramped and then eventually numb. He wanted a hot shower, but he wanted to hold her more. He wanted to be there for her. Physically and mentally present. Emotionally present.

  He didn’t need to ask whether he was doing things right, because this wasn’t about him. She had relaxed and found some kind of peace in his embrace, and that was all he cared about.

  Except for telling the truth.

  McDougal let his fantasy fishing boat sail away, past downtown Miami, under the Rickenbacker Causeway, past Key Biscayne, and toward Elliot Key until it vanished. He had to come clean with this woman in his arms. He wasn’t sure what he felt for her, but he did feel. And he couldn’t lie to her any longer, even though he came up with great arguments for doing so.

  She’d be furious with him, refuse to have anything to do with him, and he couldn’t blame her. But she was still in great danger, and he had a responsibility to protect her.

  Scratch that. It wasn’t an obligation; it was something different, something stronger. It had nothing to do with duty. He couldn’t define it. But he would keep her safe, and that became much harder if she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him. He would keep her safe, even if it cost him his job, his pride, his silly bachelor dreams. He’d keep her safe if it cost him his life.

  He was appalled. McDougal had always been quite comfortable in his selfishness—it fit him like a second skin. Where all of this self-sacrificing garbage had come from, he didn’t know. Frankly, he didn’t want to give a damn.

  But here he was, with his arms around a girl who shouldn’t be anything but another pretty little patsy, inhaling the scent of her shampoo and her sleep-warmed skin. She smelled clean and pure, and he wanted to confess everything so that he could smear some of the sludge off his soul.

  As if she could sense the struggle going on inside of him, Natalie opened her eyes.

  He kissed her shoulder. “How you doing, kiddo?”

  “Okay. You?”

  “Me, I’m a hundred percent man. I juggle Russian thugs every morning before breakfast.”

  “Stop,” she said. “Don’t make light of what you did.” She rolled over to face him, and he was able to extract his numb arm.

  “It’s so odd . . .” she whispered. “All of these terrible things have happened in my life recently, but the best thing in my life has come along at the same time: you.”

  He stilled. “I’m—I’m just a guy, Natalie.”

  She tilted her head back and looked up at him. She touched his bruised ja
w, the marks around his neck. “Always so self-deprecating, Eric. Always so honest.”

  He sucked in a breath. “No . . . no, I’m not.”

  She laid a finger across his lips. “I don’t care what you do for the government, okay? That’s just your job. I’m talking about you, personally. Your character. It’s sterling.”

  “Natalie, honey, you’ve known me for less than a week—”

  “And it’s been an illuminating one. You’re kind and intelligent and funny and strong and protective and tender—”

  He looked down at her, his eyes troubled. “Don’t do this.”

  “Do what? Fall for you?”

  He swallowed and looked away.

  “It’s too late, you know.” She smiled up at him. “I fell in love with you that night in Reif’s.”

  For such a small woman, she sure could wield a wrecking ball. It hit him square in the stomach, and he said absolutely nothing. He couldn’t, even though he knew that it hurt her. He was about to hurt her a lot worse.

  “It’s okay, Eric. I know that guys like you don’t end up with girls like me.” She kissed his cheek before rolling away and curling up against the pillows at the head of the bed.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  She yawned and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She smiled sadly. “Just that I’m not your type.”

  “Really. And what do you imagine to be my type?”

  “Oh . . . curvy, scantily clad party girls. Not too bright, because then you might have to engage instead of maintaining a cool distance.”

  Heat rose in his cheeks. He slid out of bed and went to pour himself a Scotch. “Party girls—interesting theory. So I like a lot of makeup?”

  “No, because you don’t want it smeared on your pillows in the morning.”

  His hand froze in midpour. Then he set the bottle down with more force than necessary. “Do I like my women easy, or do I like a challenge?”

  She considered the question for a moment. “Depends on your mood. You like them easy, because there’s no guilt involved. But you get bored with that, so alternately, you like a challenge. The only thing that scares you is nice girls. My theory is that you don’t like to like your dates, Eric.”

  The burn of the Scotch served only to accelerate the burn of recognition, of shock, of sudden shame. “Excuse me? What kind of thing is that to say?”

  She shrugged. “It’s that distance thing again. Plus liking a woman probably ruins the sexual tension for you.”

  He stared at her and shook his head.

  “It’s related to the guilt,” she explained kindly. “What’s the matter, Eric? You look like you just swallowed a fish.”

  He held up a hand, wordlessly asking her to shut up.

  “Okay, but let me just say one more thing.”

  “Do I have a choice?” he muttered.

  “Women love your bad-boy attitude and that callous edge of yours—”

  “Callous edge,” he repeated, nodding. “That’s me.”

  “But they can also smell the guilt on you. And that’s how you reel them in and make them truly desperate to own you: that faint chance that your conscience might let them into your heart.”

  “My conscience,” he said, nodding again. “You know what? You are one scary girl. In fact, I think you’re a witch.”

  But unbelievably, she wasn’t done. She had to summarize. “It’s kind of like putting a Scooby Snack inside one of those rubber toys and watching a dog go crazy trying to get it out.”

  “Not another word!” McDougal snapped, before tossing back the contents of his glass. “Thank you for the unsolicited psychological analysis, but I have to tell you something, Natalie. When we met that evening in Reif’s—”

  The phone rang, the volume so loud that he jumped and almost dropped the glass to the floor.

  Natalie leaned over and plucked the receiver from the cradle of the phone on the nightstand. “Hello?” Her mouth dropped open. “Nonnie? Nonnie, where are you?”

  Twenty-eight

  Avy and Liam were gratified to find that Oleg Litsky lived on the ground floor of his building in Moscow. The fewer the stairs, the fewer the complications.

  Not only had Avy put her panties back on, but she’d encased her legs in black stockings and high-heeled boots, which did absolutely nothing to keep her warm but at least didn’t look as ridiculous as bare Miami legs in a cold Moscow March.

  She’d also donned a dark wig, dark brown contact lenses, and pancake makeup that made her look fifteen years older. She’d affixed a faux mole to her neck that drew attention away from her face, and she deliberately hunched so that her posture was that of an older woman.

  Liam wore a dapper mustache and goatee along with spectacles and a three-piece suit. He’d darkened his teeth several shades and adopted a worried, academic look.

  “You look like Sigmund Freud as his mother admits to him that she has penis envy,” Avy said.

  “Thank you, love. You’re too kind.”

  The apartment building was located a few blocks from the Tretyakov Gallery, in the Zamoskvoreche district. The Tretyakov, founded in 1856, housed the largest collection of Russian art in the world.

  They’d had a taxi drop them right in front of the gallery itself, and they walked the rest of the way. Liam chuckled as they took in the facade of the gallery. “That frieze, my darling? Designed by Viktor Vasnetsov. Notice anything familiar?”

  Avy glanced over at it. St. George and the dragon fought their legendary battle right in the center of the bas relief, and once again, the dragon was having a very bad day. “That poor reptile never wins, does he?”

  “How do you know he’s a reptile? Reptiles don’t have wings. They don’t breathe fire, either.”

  “Liam, I’m not going to argue with you over the biological classification of a mythical creature,” Avy said, unable to help laughing.

  “Oh, very well. Speaking of breathing fire, did you hear that a drunken electrician actually fell asleep on the premises of the Tretyakov recently? With a lit cigarette in his mouth, no less. He ignited the bloody place. Fortunately, none of the art was damaged . . .”

  Avy shook her head. “Vodka for breakfast?”

  “It’s entirely possible.” Liam ruminated for a moment. “You know, it’s quite odd, if you think about it: Give an Englishman a potato and he boils it. Give a Russian a potato, and he ingeniously turns it into vodka.”

  “You should write an anthropological study,” Avy suggested, tongue in cheek.

  “I believe I shall,” he mused. “After all, I’ll need something to do in my retirement.”

  The sky was gray and moody today, sulking behind the clouds, and a light snowfall covered the ground. Despite the fact that she was wearing impossibly high heels, Avy easily outpaced Liam’s casual British amble. She kept having to stop and wait impatiently for him to catch up. He merely smiled that sin-grin of his, the flash of wicked teeth that let her know that he was amused at her expense.

  “In a hurry, my love?” he asked. “Nervous, perhaps?”

  “I’m never nervous,” she retorted. “You should know that by now. I’m simply freezing my Florida ass off.”

  “No, no, my darling. Your lovely tropical arse is still in place, I assure you, and very comely, too.”

  They had arrived at Litsky’s building. “You have the men and the ambulance waiting?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “You have the syringe?”

  “We’re all set, my darling. Really, you must trust me.”

  “I’m sorry, Liam, if I still have a difficult time trusting a career thief. And I’ve never repossessed a person before!”

  “Person, painting—it’s very much the same.”

  “No, Liam, it isn’t. Paintings don’t kick, scream, or attempt escape. Paintings don’t have to be fed, or use facilities. Paintings can’t prosecute the people who snatch them.”

  He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, dea
r.”

  She shot him a dirty look, and he returned her gaze blandly. Then they strolled up the steps and pressed an intercom button along with Litsky’s code. He buzzed them in.

  Litsky had the demeanor and posture of a general, a weathered gray face like cracked tarmac, and the clear blue eyes of a choirboy. “Welcome,” he said with a businesslike smile.

  He ushered them into his study, which was lined with leather-bound volumes in German and Russian. His built-in shelves were polished mahogany, as was his desk. A fire burned in a stone fireplace, and a fully stocked bar took up the far corner. Paintings in gilt frames filled various spaces on the walls, but Avy saw nothing that jumped out at her from the Art Loss Register.

  “Mr. Litsky, I’m Vera Rockwell of ARTemis, Inc. And this is my associate Trenton Smathers.”

  Trenton Smathers was among Liam’s many aliases, one of the four who had schizophrenically asked Avy’s father for her hand in marriage. She shuddered at the memory—her father hadn’t found it funny at all.

  “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms. Rockwell, Mr. Smathers. Please sit down. Whiskey? Vodka? Cognac?” Litsky offered. His accent was continental but with a definite edge of German.

  “No, thank you,” said Avy.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Liam. “Just a snifter of cognac, if you please.”

  “But of course, Mr. Smathers.” Litsky poured and handed him the drink in a very fine Bavarian crystal glass. He poured himself a potent two fingers of Scotch and joined them. He sat in one of two comfortable-looking wing chairs on either side of the fireplace, while Liam and Avy positioned themselves on a sofa that faced the hearth.

  On a side table were several framed photographs, and one in particular caught Liam’s eye. Two lovely little fair-haired girls, aged maybe four and six, played dolls on a deep green lawn. They wore white cotton eyelet dresses and had Litsky’s wide, angelic eyes.

  “Your granddaughters?” Liam asked.

  “Yes.” Their host stared at the picture fondly; then his mouth tightened and he averted his gaze.