Into the Flame

by Christina Dodd

  Where had that come from?

  ‘‘How do you figure?’’ Her voice had an odd rasp, as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper.

  ‘‘You’re swearing.’’ His blond hair hung in insolent curls on his forehead. ‘‘It’s good to hear that.’’

  ‘‘You’re weird.’’

  He leaned over, gathered her in his arms, and gently scooted her up onto a cluster of pillows.

  She groaned. Her bad knee. Her bad ankle. Every joint in her body ached. Her skin felt raw. Her head pounded.

  He offered her an open bottle of water with a straw stuck inside, and two white pills resting in his palm. ‘‘Pain reliever,’’ he said. ‘‘Ibuprofen. For that headache.’’

  How did he know?

  Obvious answer—she must look like hell. She took the pills and washed them down with a drink that didn’t stop until the bottle was half-empty. Relaxing back on the bed, she reached up and ran her fingers through her hair—and sat straight up. ‘‘What happened to my hair?’’

  ‘‘I had to cut it with my knife.’’ He braced himself as if he expected an attack.

  He was a smart man.

  ‘‘Give me a mirror.’’

  ‘‘I don’t have one.’’

  She wanted to call him a liar. But he was barefoot. He stood there in jeans slung low on his hips and an old, thin T-shirt that stretched tightly across his shoulders and lovingly molded the ripples of his taut belly. He had a long scratch on one cheek, and a bandage padded one shoulder above his collarbone. Gauze wrapped his right hand, and new wrinkles tightened his mouth.

  Her gaze wandered around his bedroom. He’d dragged one of his comfortable chairs over by the bed and placed it so he could watch her. A tray with a half-eaten meal sat near the chair that faced the muted television. There the Weather Channel showed yet another winter storm wound up and ready to hit the Washington coast.

  On the bedside table, a single yellow rosebud floated in a clean cereal bowl.

  The whole scene had the appearance of a death-watch.

  Which brought her to the thing she’d been avoiding: her fragmented memories. ‘‘The last thing I remember was jumping. Hitting that freaking cold ocean and being glad because it was the water and not a rock. Getting caught on something.’’ She broke into a sweat. ‘‘And struggling until I passed out.’’

  He picked a washcloth off the end table and wiped her forehead and the palms of her hands. The washcloth was cool and damp. His voice was calm and soothing. ‘‘You were caught in the kelp. I almost didn’t find you in time. Luckily, cold water lowers metabolism, allowing the brain to withstand a much longer period of oxygen deprivation. Mostly it happens with children, but . . . well, you were singing.’’

  ‘‘Singing? That’s stupid. Why would I have been . . .’’ Recollection swept through her. ‘‘The rip-tide was carrying us out to sea.’’

  He tossed the washcloth aside and leaned forward, his palms flat on the mattress. ‘‘Tell me what you remember.’’

  ‘‘I had a flash of waves heaving up and down, so rough, and you trying to keep my head above water.’’

  ‘‘You’d swallowed enough of the ocean already.’’

  ‘‘We were headed for China.’’

  ‘‘You kept saying not to worry, we were fine.’’

  ‘‘I figured we’d die of hypothermia before we got there,’’ she said. Hm. She was still a little snappish. ‘‘How did we get back here?’’

  ‘‘There was a boat from up near the Canadian border, filled with Russian immigrants.’’

  I’m going to get you on a slow boat to China . . . Oh, no. She had been singing.

  ‘‘They hauled us on board, and weren’t so happy when they saw the state trooper uniform, since they sure as hell shouldn’t have been out in that weather, and they probably didn’t have fishing licenses.’’ The lines around his mouth deepened. ‘‘Dumb shits.’’

  ‘‘I’m surprised they didn’t throw us back overboard.’’

  ‘‘They thought about it.’’

  ‘‘They talked about it right in front of you?’’

  ‘‘In Russian. They believed I couldn’t understand their language.’’

  ‘‘You speak Russian?’’ Really? ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘I speak Spanish, too, and a little Japanese. Remember, I lived in Las Vegas, and I’m a police officer, and a few different languages go a long way.’’

  She wasn’t satisfied. Not by a long shot.

  He continued, ‘‘Then you spoke Russian to them, and they saw . . .’’

  ‘‘Saw what?’’

  ‘‘How pretty you are.’’ He glanced to the left, uncomfortable and embarrassed, and he looked just like Aleksandr when he was lying. ‘‘Once they saw how pretty you were, they decided they would save us.’’

  ‘‘I was pretty? Suffering from hypothermia and covered with kelp, and I was pretty?’’ He needed to work on his lies a little more.

  ‘‘I guess they’d been out there for a while.’’ He seemed to realize how tactless that had been, especially to a woman with her hair hacked half-off, and added hastily, ‘‘You’re always pretty.’’

  ‘‘It sounds like I was almost a really pretty corpse.’’ Something bothered her about this story. Something important. If he would be quiet for merely a moment, she’d be able to concentrate. . . .

  But he seemed oblivious, speaking quickly, filling her in with the details. ‘‘I told them to take us to the cove where Mrs. Burchett lives.’’

  ‘‘Mrs. Burchett?’’ If he’d been trying to distract her, he’d done a good job. Firebird imagined a sweet-faced widow who welcomed the new state policeman in for a cup of coffee and a warm snuggle on a cold day. ‘‘Mrs. Burchett?’’ she asked frostily.

  ‘‘We have a thing,’’ he said, as stone-faced as ever.

  ‘‘I’ll bet.’’ Firebird crossed her arms over her chest.

  Douglas looked her over, and something in his air lightened. ‘‘Mrs. Burchett is ninety-four years old. She lives alone in the next cove over, in the same house where she’s lived since she got married seventy-five years ago. Occasionally she falls down. She calls me and I go over there and get her on her feet.’’

  ‘‘Oh.’’ Firebird felt foolish, suspicious . . . and surprised. Somehow, she’d never pictured Douglas as the kindly officer who helped old ladies up off the floor. ‘‘How did we get there?’’

  ‘‘The fishermen got us into the cove, put us out in their dinghy, and the waves slammed us into the beach.’’ Douglas slithered into the chair as if standing were too much effort. ‘‘You were unconscious. I was . . . My energy was giving out. I got us off the beach and to the bottom of the cliff, where I collapsed.’’

  ‘‘How far was it to Mrs. Burchett’s?’’

  ‘‘Only about thirty steps—straight up the cliff.’’

  No matter how Firebird searched her mind, she couldn’t find a wisp of memory that tied her to that moment. ‘‘How did we get there?’’

  ‘‘Mostly you bossed me until I got up and carried you up the slope.’’

  ‘‘I was still conscious?’’

  ‘‘In and out. Nagging while you were in. Shivering in the fetal position when you were out. But brave. Always brave, always a fighter.’’ His praise warmed her. ‘‘Once you tried to drag me.’’

  Her eyes narrowed as, in her mind, she saw his prone body, and realized that if she didn’t do something he would die. She remembered grabbing his arms to move him, but he was a foot taller than she and fully a hundred pounds heavier, and hypothermia had drained her strength. He was wet, he was limp, and she couldn’t budge him.

  So she nagged.

  Apparently, he had responded.

  ‘‘I only remember . . . bits and pieces, like a DVD with a scratch.’’ She hated that. She wanted to know what had happened, know from her point of view, not through some gauzy filter he used to comfort and divert her.

  ‘‘We made it, but it was one hell of
a climb.’’ He went from stone-faced to grim. ‘‘Mrs. Burchett was in bed. I scared her half to death beating on her door, but once she let us inside, she was wonderful. She saved our lives.’’

  ‘‘God bless Mrs. Burchett.’’ Firebird looked around the room, at the glimmer of light coming through the west-facing windows. ‘‘How long have I been out?’’

  ‘‘We got to Mrs. Burchett’s before midnight. We came home after it got dark last night, around eight. It’s about five in the morning now.’’

  So about thirty hours. Thirty hours since she’d left the restaurant and hit the water. Thirty hours that she didn’t remember. Thirty hours of not communicatingwith her family . . . She never meant to ignore them for so long. Not now. Not in these dangerous times. ‘‘Who knows we’re alive?’’

  ‘‘Mrs. Burchett knows you’re alive. My boss knows I’m alive. Most of the town probably thinks we’ve gone off to have an affair. The only people who know we’re missing are the Varinskis, and as far as I can tell, they’ve left town.’’

  ‘‘How do you know that?’’

  ‘‘I went out and looked.’’

  ‘‘Okay. That’s good. So essentially, we’re alive because the Varinskis believe that we’re dead.’’

  ‘‘That’s right.’’ He struggled, as if deciding how much to say. ‘‘According to my alarm system, while we were gone, the Varinskis visited the house.’’

  Anxious for him, for that part of the house he had so lovingly remodeled, she lifted herself onto one elbow. ‘‘What did those pigs do?’’

  ‘‘Nothing.’’

  ‘‘Nothing? They did nothing? The Varinskis?’’ Her disbelief climbed with each question.

  ‘‘Things were moved, especially in my office.’’

  ‘‘What were they looking for?’’ The question had to be asked, although she feared the answer. If they’d come here for the icon, then they had expanded their search to include every place a Wilder had been or would be.

  He picked up the remote and switched off the television. ‘‘I don’t know.’’

  No, of course he didn’t. Yet he knew a lot, more than he’d let on. It was time for a talk, because in this case, what he didn’t know could hurt him.

  She removed the remote from his tightly clenched fist, then tugged at him. ‘‘Come and sit with me.’’

  He did, lowering himself onto the mattress with such care, it seemed he was afraid he would break her.

  ‘‘We need to talk about the Varinskis,’’ she said.

  The man had fine-tuned the art of hiding his emotions, but now she saw the sheen of moisture on his brow. ‘‘I already know a lot about Varinskis.’’

  ‘‘I realize that, and I know why.’’

  ‘‘You do.’’ It wasn’t a question. More like a statement of disbelief.

  ‘‘You know, because you’re a Varinski, too.’’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Doug’s heart thumped hard, once, then settled into a steady, rapid rhythm. ‘‘Why do you say I’m a Varinski?’’

  ‘‘Because I saw you. When you followed me. At the university.’’

  Everything he knew, everything he thought about the last two and a half years, changed in that instant. ‘‘You saw me.’’

  ‘‘I knew I was followed. I knew it was a Varinski. I saw the cougar. The golden cougar.’’ Firebird’s words were jerky, pried from her by sheer force of will. ‘‘I simply didn’t realize it was you. I figured the Varinskis were after me, coming to abduct me, so I did what my father taught me to do.’’

  ‘‘Which was . . . ?’’

  ‘‘I got to safety, and I watched. I saw you change back to . . .’’ She waved her hand up and down his body. ‘‘I realized you were one of them. I realized it wasn’t a coincidence that I’d met you. I realized you’d romanced me not because you’d fallen in love at first sight, but because you wanted something from me.’’

  She knew who he was. What he was. And that he had, from the first moment, lied to her.

  No wonder she had run. ‘‘What did you think I wanted?’’ he asked carefully.

  ‘‘My parents’ location. The Varinskis have a thing about killing them, and everyone in my family. I figured you were the one Varinski who’d finally tracked us—or, rather, me. I thought you seduced me, made me fall in love with you, for a joke.’’ Her voice rose, then wobbled. ‘‘I thought you were laughing at me.’’

  ‘‘So you left.’’ And had crushed his last hope.

  ‘‘But now I realize you weren’t a Varinski, or even working for the Varinskis. You were looking for your family.’’

  He felt as if he were balanced on the sharp edge of a razor blade, and the wrong word would slice him in half. ‘‘What brought you to that realization?’’

  ‘‘I understood about the change you went through. I really did. None better. I’m one of the only women who actually could understand, you know.’’ She smiled at him, but her fingers gathered a handful of Mrs. Burchett’s flannel nightgown into a crumpled ball. ‘‘You haven’t asked why I know about the Varinskis, or why they’re after my family.’’

  ‘‘Tell me.’’

  ‘‘Because my father is—or rather, was—a Varinski. He changed his name.’’

  That, Doug had figured out on his own.

  ‘‘He was the Varinski leader until he met my mother, fell in love, and got married. For that, Papa had to go into exile. They had three sons one after another.’’ She smiled caustically, as if she’d bitten into a peppercorn. ‘‘Then, ten years later, they had a daughter.’’

  ‘‘You.’’

  She paused as if gathering her strength. ‘‘All my life, that’s what I’ve thought. But it seems I was wrong. In fact, Varinskis produce only sons, and the child my mother bore wasn’t me. It was a boy.’’

  Doug’s ears hummed. Red spots swam before his eyes. Lack of oxygen, he realized. He was holding his breath.

  ‘‘The woman who assisted in the birth substituted me for that baby. Then Miss Joyce—that Judas, that bitch—took him into the Nevada desert and abandoned the baby boy to die.’’

  At last Doug could breathe. He could breathe because . . . all his childhood wishes had just been fulfilled.

  He had a mother. He had a father. He had brothers. He had a son, and the mother of his son sat there, her wide blue eyes fixed on him, waiting for him to say something that expressed his feelings.

  And his predominant feeling was . . . horror.

  He had been stupid beyond belief and, for a man who prided himself on his clear thinking and decisive action, pitifully immature.

  He had been a weasel, a snake, the Judas she’d accused Miss Joyce of being.

  He leaped to his feet. He walked away.

  But he didn’t have to admit to anything. If he was crafty, and if he moved swiftly to erase his mistake, his new family would never know.

  Firebird would never know.

  He could fix what he had done. He had to.

  He came back and sat down.

  ‘‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’’ She took his hand and squeezed his fingers a little too hard. ‘‘You’re the baby boy.’’

  ‘‘I understand.’’ One question had to be answered before he knew what to do. ‘‘Are they good to you?’’

  ‘‘Who?’’

  ‘‘Your . . . the family. The Wilders. Are they good to you?’’

  ‘‘You mean, were they angry at me because I wasn’t really their daughter?’’ She was getting huffy. ‘‘Because they weren’t. I know you don’t know them, but that’s not the kind of people they are.’’

  Huffy or not, he needed to know. ‘‘Your whole life. Have they been good parents and taken care of you?’’

  ‘‘Are you worried about what you’re getting into? They’re really good people. The whole family. I promise. I love them dearly, and they love me, and I just wish—’’ She stopped.

  ‘‘What do you wish?’’

  ‘‘I wish I we
re still their child. You don’t know—’’ She stopped again.

  ‘‘What don’t I know?’’

  ‘‘Look. If you don’t want them, I do.’’ She bounced up on her knees. ‘‘I know you’ve had a rough life. I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been for you, going through your first transformation and not knowing what was happening, having to grow up in an orphanage and on the streets, and getting a job at the police force when you were so young, so you could find your parents. It must have been awful. I’m not discounting that.’’

  ‘‘It was okay.’’ He didn’t know what else to say, how to ease her increasing agitation. He didn’t even understand what she was agitated about.

  ‘‘But here you are at last. Your dream is coming true. You’ve found your family. Papa and Mama, Jasha, Rurik, and Adrik.’’

  ‘‘And Aleksandr,’’ he reminded her.

  ‘‘And Aleksandr. How could I forget Aleksandr?’’ Her hands were shaking. Her voice was rising. ‘‘You’re stepping into this spot ready-made for you, and you know what? For you to do that, I have to step out. All my life, I’ve been the miraculous girl child. I’ve been the baby. I’ve been spoiled. Now it’s you. And like I said, I know you’ve had it tougher than me, I know I’m being selfish, but this is what I feel, and I have the right to my feelings.’’

  ‘‘Wow. No wonder you were so angry at me for being mad about Aleksandr.’’

  ‘‘You have the right to your feelings, too.’’ But she spoke quickly and without an ounce of sincerity. ‘‘Just don’t act like it’s a job offer and you’re not sure you want the position. You take it and be grateful, and I’ll stand on the outside and try to be gracious.’’

  He thought hard, trying to say the right thing. Instead he said, ‘‘So that’s what the DNA test was really for.’’

  ‘‘Yes, but the test isn’t necessary now. Once you told me about being found in Nevada, I knew you were that baby.’’ A tear slipped down her cheek, and angrily she dashed it away. ‘‘Once I discovered my parents weren’t my biological parents, it was easy to make the connection between the golden cougar who stalked me and the child my parents had lost. You are my parents’ son.’’