Oceans of Fire (22 page)

“What was he like?”

Aleksandr was silent for a long time. The ocean boomed against the rocks as the waves washed in and out endlessly. He sighed. “I worked with him, Abbey. I didn’t socialize with him. I wish I could have gotten past that part of me, the kid raised by the state to work for the state and never trust anyone, but I’ve only done that one time.” He pushed his hand through his hair, a sign of agitation she had rarely seen him make. “I should have talked with him more. He had a family, people he was close with.” Aleksandr swore in his own language and looked away from her.

Abigail thought back to all the time she’d spent in his company. They had been so wrapped up in one another she hadn’t considered that he’d never introduced her to friends. Coworkers, many times, but never friends. “You were so wonderful with Joley, Sasha, you knew exactly the right thing to say to her.”

“I’ve had a lot of training, Abbey. I read people.”

“Were you ever really in love with me?” The moment the words slipped out she wanted to stuff them back down her throat. Her throat was raw with pain and it came through in her voice.

He swore again. “How can you ask me that?”

“You just told me our meeting wasn’t an accident, that you knew about my abilities before you ever met me. I may have been naive, Aleksandr, but I’m a thinking person again. You arranged that meeting with me and you pretended to enjoy my company so I’d help you with your case.”

“Damn it, Abbey. Children were dying. Do you want me to apologize because I wanted to use every tool available to me? I was fighting red tape, my superiors, parents, other agencies. He’d been killing for over two years. Do you want to know what my nightmares were like?”

For a moment his chest burned and his stomach knotted and churned. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to drag her off where they could be alone and she couldn’t get away and would have to listen to him. It was a dark, primitive urge and he was slightly ashamed of it, but he wasn’t going to apologize for the things he had to do. She hadn’t been the one to examine the little bodies. And she wasn’t the one to tell the parents their child wasn’t coming home because a sick and twisted monster had taken them. And she wasn’t the one fighting day and night to get assistance,
any
assistance, when no one wanted to admit it was happening. Or even that it
could
happen.

She studied his face. His anger turned his eyes a dark blue and put small white lines around his mouth. “Why didn’t you just ask me to help you?”

“I didn’t know you. I didn’t know what you were like. You were from another country and you had a talent I didn’t really understand. If I had it to do over again, Abbey, I’d have told you the truth from the start, but even if I wasn’t truthful about having prior knowledge of your abilities, believe that my feelings for you were—and are—genuine. You didn’t just change my life, you changed
me
. Something inside me is different. I thought I could exist without you, but I can’t. I can’t and it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Aleksandr.” She tried to stop him but he shook his head.

“No, you did this. You made it impossible for me to be alive without you. The work doesn’t matter the way it did. I go through the motions and I get the job done, but it isn’t the same. I had purpose and drive and you took that away with you. I’ve thought a lot about this. God knows I’ve had enough time to think about it. You’re angry and you’re hurt and I accept that you have a right to be, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re supposed to be together. I’m not willing to just throw away what we had.”

A strong wave crashed through the chamber, booming and spraying water high. “We’d better get out of here,” Abigail cautioned. There was no talking to him. If what he said was the truth, it broke her heart. If what he said was a lie, it was broken anyway. She wanted to go home and be comforted by the warmth and love of her sisters. “We still have to get to the harbor, Sasha. It’s getting late. At least you know this is where they hid that night.”

“It isn’t where they keep the boat. We have to find the boat.” Abigail frowned, trying to remember every detail of the coastline she’d traveled. She snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute. I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before, but there is a place south of here. It’s a distance, but if I were going to hide a boat from everyone, that’s where I’d hide it. It isn’t a cave, Sasha, but you see how the tide comes in and the waves can be rough. This is calm for this coastline. Hiding a boat in a cave is dangerous even for a short time. I’ll bet they hid here and then moved the boat as soon as they thought it safe.”

“They’d want someplace not easily seen from either a beach or the sea.”

“There’s a cove just north of the town of Elk. It sits between two fingers of Cuffeys Cove. The beach is sandy and stays dry at high tides unless there’s a storm. A boat could be hauled back up into the brush and trees. Sport fishermen might see it, but a coast guard cutter wouldn’t because the cove faces south. Even the highway curves away from the shore and that would make it possible to hide it there. Normally they have a caretaker who runs anyone off when they try to go through private property, but Inez told me a couple of weeks ago that they found him injured and he’s in the hospital.”

“Let’s go check it out.”

“You know we can’t do it today. Look at the swells.” She gestured out to sea. “This coastline can be very rough. Let’s head in and we’ll do it another day.”

“I still need you tonight. I’m heading over to the Caspar Inn and will need you to go with me.”

“Why would I have to go with you? The inn is perfectly safe. Everyone goes there just to hang out.”

“I need you to go with me. I don’t have a partner, remember?”

“Take Jonas,” she hissed through her teeth, paddling furiously to try to get away from him.

He easily kept pace. “Everyone knows Jonas. I think I’ve located Ilya Prakenskii. He works for a man named Sergei Nikitin and I told you, he’s a very dangerous man. If you’re with me, it might be a peaceful meeting. Without you there, they’ll think I’ve come hunting them and someone could get hurt.”

She scowled at him with open suspicion. “I cannot imagine you wanting me with you if there’s the least chance of danger.”

“Ordinarily, that would be true, but I think your presence will deter violence and there are too many innocents there.”

“Do you think Prakenskii and Nikitin are involved in the theft of artifacts?”

“That’s what I intend to find out.”

Abigail sighed. She should just say no. It should be easy, but instead she shrugged, trying to still her pounding heart. “What time?”

Chapter 9

ABIGAIL could hear a loud chorus of giggles as she walked down the stairs. Her aunt’s voice said something and then a solemn chant followed. Her sisters were definitely casting and not one of them had called her in on the fun. Irritated, she stomped into the living room.

Hundreds of candles flickered, throwing dancing shadows on the walls. Her sisters and her aunt formed a circle in the middle of the floor where seven red candles were arranged, one in front of each of them. Abigail gasped. “Oh, no! What are you doing?” She took a step closer and to her horror a pair of red lace panties lay in the exact center of the circle. “Those had better not be mine!” They looked like hers. They looked
exactly
like hers. “You wouldn’t
dare
!”

The women looked up, grinning from ear to ear, dissolving into laughter at her outraged expression.

“I
know
you didn’t steal my underwear out of my drawer!”

“Of course not,” Hannah said righteously. “We’d never go into your room.”

Abigail put her hands on her hips and glared. “I’ve never worn them. I bought them months ago when I was determined to get over Aleksandr, but I decided I wasn’t ready. You can’t claim you found them in the laundry.”

“We’re almost finished.” Hannah held up her finger and turned back to the circle. Six of the seven red candles were lit. Only the one in front of Hannah remained. The women intoned the ritual words solemnly.

Scarlet lace fans passion’s flame

Summons the man of studly fame

Lusty love on floor and chair

Tabletop and vixen’s lair

The fires engulf, set senses aflame

With pulsing desire, he calls your name

As their voices rose in harmonic accord, Hannah lit the last red candle so that seven flames burned around the sexy lace underwear.

Abigail briefly covered her face with her hands. “I don’t believe this. I really don’t believe this.” She glowered at her youngest sister. “I can understand the others—Hannah and Joley especially and even Aunt Carol—but Elle, you?”

Elle grinned, clearly unrepentant. “You don’t have to wear them, Abbey, but just in case, you have them.”

Hannah completed the ceremony by rolling a scroll containing the words and symbols of the chant around the red panties and sealing the scroll with a drop of wax from each of the red candles. “Here you go, Abbey,” she said brightly. “Just remember to be
very
careful when you wear them. Anything can happen.”

Abigail put her hands behind her back. “All of you are in so much trouble. I intend to retaliate. This is so wrong! How did you get my brand-new underwear when I
hid
them even from myself?”

Hannah shrugged. “They floated down the stairs right into the circle.”

Abigail scowled at Joley. “
You
! You treacherous witch. You did this with your spell singing. Those things”—she indicated Hannah’s outstretched hand—“are lethal
especially
since I’m going out with him tonight.”

Hannah dropped her arm to her side, retaining possession of the lace underwear. Laughter faded from her eyes. “What do you mean you’re going out with him? Him? Aleksandr? The rotter who made you cry?
That
him? The ceremony was for when you go on a date with someone else. Not for
him
.”

“It isn’t exactly a date,” Abigail corrected her. “He needs me to go with him to the Caspar Inn.”

“Really? Dancing is; always fun.” Joley raised her eyebrow and glanced at Hannah. “I feel like a night out, what about you?”

“You can’t go,” Abigail said. “None of you. It might be dangerous. Joley, you were already shot at and forced to swim through an underwater cave.”

“I’m totally with Aunt Carol. Memories are great. I’m taking pictures of the cove and journaling the experience,” Joley said, winking at her aunt. “I told you I think scrap-booking is the best way to go.”

“I’m
forbidding
any of you to go to the Caspar Inn.”

“They do have great music there,” Sarah pointed out.

“You’re supposed to be helping me,” Abigail wailed. “What’s wrong with all of you? This could be really, really dangerous.”