Tell Me No Lies (30 page)

She leaned forward and took his face in her hands. "And the only idea we've got," she said softly.

Her touch startled him, and his heart took off like a shot He was caught, trapped, and part of him couldn't care less.

Hands cool against his skin, she peered into his eyes so be couldn't look away. "I know you're worried. I understand. I'll make you a promise, all right? I won't call Miki or arrange anything until Edward gets back and our plans are set. If it looks like we can't get our end together, I won't contact him."

Relief burst inside him. Mason wasn't due back for another day, maybe two. If she held off contacting Miki, that meant he'd have time to talk her out of this madness.

"Okay," he said.

"So can we stop arguing about it?" Her fingers were moving now, in his hair, around his neck and back on his face. Everything was rushing inside him, blood, breath, thought. 'There's so much else we could be doing."

Their eyes met. Hers were soft, hungry, blurred with desire. His mouth dried up.

"Not a good idea, Countess."

She traced his lips. He tried not to vibrate with her touch. "Why not?"

A. thousand reasons, all ending in tragedy. "Too distracting. We need to keep our heads clear."

"My head is clear, Detective." She leaned closer. "Clearer than it's been for a long, long time."

Her mouth was close, almost on his.
Christ.
His heart was thudding like a jackhammer.

Don't do it.

The warning was loud as a bullhorn, and he heeded it. He would not touch her, hold her, then watch her die. No, sir. Not again. He wrenched himself away. "I need a shower."

17

Letty Bimbaum frowned as she ran her fingers over the silk-and-lace tap pants at Belle Monde. They were delicately beautiful, skimpy enough to be sexy, but so very, very white. She tsked at the virginal color. And the price! Wickedly expensive. For her money, she'd rather buy something on sale at Macy's, something red or hot pink. Leopard skin was nice.

She sighed. But that's not what A. J. had asked for. In fact the whole morning's shopping had been an exercise in boring taste. She glanced down at the mess of bags at her feet.

Someday, she was going to give her boss a complete makeover. Get her out of those old lady suits and into something that showed a little cleavage and lot of leg.

But right now ... Grumbling, she found the right size, gathered up the panties, a couple of fragile bras that looked as if they'd fall apart if you breathed on them, let alone wore them during hot wild sex and, ignoring the snooty look of the salesgirl, paid for everything with the company credit card.

She added this package to all the others, then hailed a cab to the Marriott Marquis Hotel. The place was a tourist mecca, and the lobby was crowded. She looked around for a bellman, saw one to her left, dashed off to catch his attention, and ran head-on into a large, sexy, and very well muscled man wearing a long, black leather coat. Packages flew out of her hand, but she was too distracted to notice. She loved a man in leather.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. Visions of new plans for the evening flitted through her brain.

"Sorry," the man said. He had a charming accent. She loved foreign men.

"That's okay."

He gathered up her bags and handed them to her.

"Thanks."

He nodded and disappeared into the crowd. She gaped after him, an arrow of disappointment shooting through her.

Oh well.

As instructed, she snagged a passing bellman and told him that the packages were for an E. Mason, a guest who was checking in later that day. She exchanged the purchases for a baggage claim ticket, which she left in an envelope at the front desk.

Job done, she practically raced through the lobby, hoping to run into the leather-clad foreigner. But he had vanished.

***

Petrov stared at the pictures Vassily had taken at Kholodov's funeral. One showed a woman draped in dark clothing whose face was obscured by a veil, but who Petrov suspected was Aleksandra Baklanova. The Sokanan detective who'd paid him an unexpected visit occupied the second photo.

He gazed at a third picture, the one Yuri had liberated from Alex's house. Ivan Baklanov and his daughter. Shortly after her father's death, the daughter disappeared. Years later, she surfaced in the United States. How had that happened?

Petrov picked up a fourth picture, also taken by Vassily at the funeral. Was this man the link between those two events? Only a man like this would have had the contacts and skills to move Baklanov's daughter and bury her deep.

Petrov drummed the table in his office, then punched in the number for the State Department.

"I've just heard an old friend may be close by," he told Jeffrey Greer.

"Oh?"

"He's a colleague. We used to be, shall we say ... business competitors. I want to renew our friendship, and I need you to discover where he is, how to contact him."

"Uh, Mr. Petrov, I... I wouldn't know where to start."

Petrov did. "Try Langley. Discreetly, of course. The name is Edward Mason."

***

Yuri watched the redhead from a safe distance, seeing without being seen. He'd been with her all morning, and the only thing she'd done was shop. He'd suspected she was using the stores as a rendezvous, but she'd met no one. She never even disappeared into a dressing room. And with each store, the packages had added up.

He'd seen what she bought. Underwear mostly. Nothing significant. In his belly he'd felt tailing her was a waste of time.

Until she left the packages at the hotel.

Now he had to choose. Clothes or redhead? No time to linger over a decision. She was leaving, and if he let her go, she'd disappear. For the moment he knew where the packages were. He headed for the exit.

But he didn't want to face the consequences of making the wrong choice. Petrov didn't like independence. Yuri followed the woman out of the hotel, but punched a number on his cell phone's speed dial.

Petrov picked up on the first ring, and Yuri explained what had happened.

"You are sure all she did was shop?"

"Da."

"Why would she shop all morning, then drop the packages at a hotel?"

Yuri told him the only conclusion he could draw. "Maybe she was shopping for someone else."

A long thoughtful silence. "Stay with her. I'll send Vassily to the hotel."

Fifteen minutes later, a foreigner in a black track suit and gold chains appeared in the lobby. He scoured the crowd, trying to match faces to the pictures he'd brought. But none of them showed up. Not in an hour, not all day.

***

Alex heard the water in the shower, the sound crisp and clear even through the closed bathroom door. But everything was clear now. Dear and bright, with knife-sharp edges.

She knelt on Edward's bed and gazed out the window at the deepening twilight. She knew Hank thought her crazy. But that was only his concern speaking. It was natural for him to worry, for worry to make him pull away from her. But he didn't understand how everything had changed. What it meant to be released after long imprisonment, what it meant to be herself. The self she was born to be: Aleksan-dra Ivanonva Baklanova. Sasha. Sashka. Sashenka.

She had nothing left to hide. Or almost nothing. Instinctively, she reached for the matryoshka necklace, her hand clasping the pendant.

Are you happy for me, little sisters?

She looked toward the closed door, fixing on the sound of water streaming in the shower. She imagined the drops glistening on Hank's body, each one a diamond, precious, beautiful.

Hurry. Please, hurry.

She didn't want to spend the day waiting for him. She felt as though she'd been waiting for him all her life.

But the water streamed on as though he were drowning himself in it.

To keep busy, she bounded off the bed and attacked the living room, stacking magazines, clearing the clutter, making it into something halfway decent for when she brought Miki inside. Her hand brushed against the fishing rod with its secret switch, and all the while, her ears were tuned to the whoosh of water.

When the shower finally stopped, she stopped, too. Slowly she straightened, arms around one of the coolers to move it.

He was finished. Any moment, he would come out.

***

Hank jerked on a pair of Mason's old khakis. The man didn't seem to own much else. He ran a towel over his wet head. The shower had felt good, but had done little to lighten his spirits. Alex was determined to throw herself in front of a speeding train, and he was helping her do it.

A sliver of fear split him down the middle. What if his luck held and hers didn't?

All the more reason to forget that look on her face and the touch of her hands. Mason was right, he was already too involved; any more, and he'd be paralyzed with it.

He scraped the towel over himself, letting the harshness burn away whatever soft feelings he might be harboring. Yet when he was finished and dressed, with his gun at his back, he stepped into the living area and found that the sight of her undermined all his good intentions.

She'd straightened the cabin, gathered the fishing magazines and stacked them neatly in a corner. The rod Kiley had rigged now stood a little apart from the others and within easy reach of the recliner. When he came in she was struggling with a cooler, trying to move it against the wall.

He ran to help, grateful for something to do beside stare at her. "Here, let me get that."

Their hands touched as she transferred the bulky object to his arms. An electric jolt leaped from his fingers into his chest. At this rate, he would never make it through the next two hours, let alone the next two days.

Talk. Keep talking. He lowered the cooler to the floor, ransacking his brain for something to say. Rising, he looked around the room.

"This place will never look Martha Stewart good."

She followed his glance. "It has to look better than this. If I bring Miki in here, he has to believe it could belong to me."

Miki. Christ, he was sick of that man's name.

"If you have any chance of making this work, at least map out a plan."

She shook her head and moved closer. She was taut with emotion, a filly at the starting gate straining at the bit "I don't want to plan."

Whatever state she was in, it wasn't calm, cool, or collected. And he needed her thinking, needed the old, cold Alex back. He stopped her with outstretched arms when she was a foot away. 'Too bad. You're going to." He turned her around and pushed her into the chair. "So, I'm Petrov, and yotr're "

She looked at him through lowered lids. "If you're going to be Miki, at least say his name correctly."

"What Petrov, how hard is that?"

"It's Petrov." She put the emphasis on the last syllable, rolling the "r".

He frowned. "Petrov, Petrov, either way he's still the snake that's going to bite you."

"Not unless I bite first."

"And how do you plan on doing that, Countess?"

She gazed at him, eyes narrowed in a feline pout. "First, maybe I'll do this." She rose from the chair and slunk toward him. Even in the baggy clothes he saw the hips sway, the legs glide, imagined the curves melding. He suppressed a groan and backed away, but she kept coming.

"Then maybe I'll do this." She slung an arm over his shoulder and pulled herself right up against him. Her breast brushed his chest, her face tilted toward his, her mouth pink and moist. He started to sweat.

"Do you think that will get his attention?'

Reaching behind, he locked his fingers on the weapon stowed at his back. "Maybe. But this should definitely get yours."

She froze when the muzzle touched her rib.

"Bang, you're dead."

Her mouth tilted in the barest hint of a smile. Ignoring the gun, she pressed closer, crushing her breasts against him. "Do you really think he'll waste the moment on violence?" She gazed right into his eyes, deep and penetrating. "Would you?"

Then her mouth was on his, and he was lost.

He tumbled so fast it was laughable, if he could have laughed. If he could have thought at all, he would have. But all he could do was feel her. She melted against him, no iceberg now, but pure heat and fire. She was everywhere, his mouth, his arms, his chest, his heart She was his. Every piece of her. Alex Sasha Jane Ivanovna Baker Baklanova. They were all his, each a flame in a bonfire of secrets. He plunged into the heat and was consumed.

First taste, first touch. Alex trembled with it, her whole being awash in sensation. He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her jaw. He whispered her name, a spell, an incantation.

Sashaaa.

Every sliver of ice inside her melted. She was liquid, a creature without form or shape.

And yet he held her. His arms came around her, embracing what was left of her. His hands traced her shoulder, caressed her breast. She shuddered with his touch, with the slick wetness of his mouth and tongue.

"God, Sasha." He breathed, chest heaving, and pulled away. "I can't. We c "

"Da, miliy.
We can." She stroked his face, the word she'd used dear one sinking in as she kissed him. He was dear. Basic as air. Vital as water. All she had and all she needed.