‘‘Wow. Mrs. Fuller had connections.’’ Firebird mulled that over. ‘‘I’ll bet she raised a few kids who ran the casinos.’’
‘‘Good possibility.’’ He brooded over his coffee. ‘‘I lived with her for four years.’’
‘‘Four years? Why only four years?’’ Firebird stared at him over her cup.
‘‘I had to leave.’’ The memory still hurt.
‘‘Leave? But you must have been . . . what? Twelve? Why’d you leave?’’
Should he tell her? She would understand in a way most women never could. But Firebird was smart, too damned smart. When he told her, she’d realize that their first meeting had been no coincidence. She’d know that he’d stalked her, and she’d figure out why.
He was pretty sure he didn’t want to engage in that conversation in public, because he was pretty sure she was going to get mad. While he signaled for the waiter, he told her, ‘‘It turned out I couldn’t tell her everything. Some things Mrs. Fuller was not ready to hear.’’
‘‘Like what?’’
‘‘It’s not a subject for a public place,’’ Doug said. ‘‘I’ll tell you . . . later.’’
Chapter Sixteen
Later.
Firebird considered Douglas, starting with the top of his tousled blond head, moving across his broad shoulders and muscled arms, and settling on his expressionless face.
Expressionless. When had the man acquired the art of betraying no emotion? He hadn’t been that way before. He used to smile more than once every blue moon, and move more like a man and less like a punched-out cardboard figure.
He also gave the impression of complete and total certainty. Like right now, he acted as if he knew, without a doubt, that she would return with him to his house.
If she did, what would happen? She needed to think very carefully before she agreed, because he had one bed, and she didn’t think he intended to sleep in a chair. In fact, she didn’t think he intended to sleep at all.
Then he said it. The one thing guaranteed to divert her from her worries about her virtue. ‘‘Now it’s my turn to ask the questions.’’
‘‘Okay.’’ She put down her cup, and her hand trembled. ‘‘Go ahead.’’
‘‘You never asked me about myself before. You weren’t curious about my background. Why do you care now?’’
‘‘Because of Aleksandr.’’
‘‘You want to know what kind of a person his father really is.’’
‘‘Right.’’
‘‘Why, after so long, did you decide to tell me about him now?’’
Trust Douglas to see right to the heart of the matter. ‘‘You want the truth?’’
‘‘That would be a novel change.’’
‘‘Okay, I’ll tell you.’’ She smiled, but with a tight edge. ‘‘But I’ll tell you . . . later.’’
Almost without flickering an eyelash, he managed to look amused. ‘‘Later is going to be one long, amazing experience.’’
She retorted, ‘‘Later is going to involve a lot of talking and not a lot of—’’
Mario appeared beside the table. ‘‘You enjoyed your dinner?’’
‘‘It was wonderful. Everything was wonderful, but your crust!’’ Firebird kissed her fingers, tossed them in an extravagant gesture, and realized, in a sensible corner of her mind, that she’d had a little too much wine. ‘‘Such a tangy flavor. The perfect sourdough. My mother would kill for your recipe.’’
Mario beamed and waggled his hand. ‘‘No, no. It is a family secret from my dear old grandmother in Sicily. But you bring your mother, and we’ll talk.’’
‘‘I would love to. We’ve got a few things to finish up, but after that she’ll deserve a vacation.’’ Firebird still smiled, but with a wry edge.
In that deadpan voice that made her want to wallop him, Douglas said, ‘‘I need the check.’’
‘‘Tonight, it is on me.’’ When Douglas would have protested, Mario adamantly shook his head. ‘‘You come-a in every week with your trooper friends or by yourself, and I let-a you pay. But tonight, you have a beau-tee-ful young lady, and I would-a be remiss if I didn’t buy her dinner.’’
Before Douglas could curtly refuse, Firebird thanked him. ‘‘Mario. You are a dear!’’
‘‘I know. And if-a this big galoot did not carry a gun, I would-a take you away from him. But alas.’’ Mario put both hands on his heart. ‘‘I must suffer, or die.’’
‘‘Yeah, because your wife would kill you,’’ Douglas said.
‘‘She is a jealous woman. But who-a can blame her? Now.’’ Mario signaled Quentin, who arrived carrying a to-go box and a long paper bag. ‘‘I give-a you two tiramisus and a bottle of wine.’’ Leaning over Douglas, he spoke into his ear, all pretense at an accent gone, and loudly enough for Firebird to hear: ‘‘To enjoy after.’’ He clapped him on the shoulder, then held Firebird’s coat as she slipped into it.
As they walked across the restaurant, Firebird was very aware of Mario babbling romantic compliments in that extravagantly phony accent, of the two construction workers glancing at her and talking to each other, and most of all, of Douglas stalking after her . . . no, herding her toward the door.
When Douglas opened the door, the wind whipped in.
Mario backed away fast enough. ‘‘The storm’s coming.’’
Firebird pulled on her gloves and wrapped her scarf tightly around her head. She took the to-go box.
‘‘There’s a wind advisory on the bay. With the windchill, the temperature is like twenty-five degrees.’’ Doug didn’t want her to freeze up before he got her into bed.
She nodded, and he remembered—he’d insisted it was time for her to ’fess up.
She intended to talk. Crap. When had he become such a stickler for the truth?
‘‘We’ll hurry,’’ he told Mario, and gathered the wine bottle and stashed it in his capacious coat pocket.
They stepped outside.
He heard Firebird gasp as the wind snatched her breath away. Automatically he reached out and tucked her under his arm. She followed him as automatically, her head against his shoulder.
He put her in the car and walked around to the other side.
The restaurant door opened and closed.
He glanced over, but it was dark. Whoever it was had disappeared into the night, probably walking back toward one of the other houses on the hill, or into town toward one of the hotels.
He needed to get Firebird to his house. There they would be safe, wired, protected from intrusion. Once they got there, no one could touch them.
And they could talk.
He grimaced. Yeah, he’d made her promise to tell the truth. But he’d promised to tell the truth, too, and he didn’t look forward to that.
They drove toward his house, the house he had bought . . . for her. He parked in his lousy excuse of a garage—that was next on his list to get fixed—and he went around to get her out. He turned her toward the front door.
She resisted, dragged him toward the oceanfront, staggering as the wind blasted them. She wanted to stand and face the raging storm, and he knew why. She loved the mad tempest, the raging waves, the wild blast of glory from across the seas. It fed her soul, as it fed his.
They had that in common. They’d always had their wild natures in common.
They reached the edge of the cliff and stood looking out toward the horizon, black with the night, yet infinite . . . waiting.
The wind was shredding the clouds, opening patches to the stars, allowing the moonlight to ripple across the ground, across the sea, then disappear once more.
The wind blasted. The waves roared. Yet he heard her clearly when she turned to him. ‘‘That thing that changed you, that made you leave Mrs. Fuller. I understand. I know. And I have to tell you—’’ She stopped. Stiffened.
Another sound, one infinitely more sinister, came to his ears.
Low, pleased chuckles, the sound of men who had stalked and trapped their prey.
; Doug turned.
His eyesight, always good in the night, picked them out. In the lead, the beasts from the restaurant, the two who had insulted Firebird this morning. Beyond them, four more, gathering like vultures to the feast.
Varinskis.
Varinskis.
‘‘What a pretty girl,’’ one of them said. He spoke with a heavy Russian accent, and he lisped. No, not lisped. Hissed. ‘‘Ssshe’s ssstupid, like all women, but how sssweet of her to bring you here where it’s easy to dispose of the bodies.’’
Doug should have realized they had been followed. If he hadn’t been distracted by Firebird’s scent, by the possibility of her love, he would have.
No excuse. He had no excuse.
But he did have his service pistol.
Pulling his nine-millimeter, he slid the safety free.
Behind him, he heard Firebird heft the to-go box.
He had only a moment to frown, to wonder what in the hell she was doing, when the box flew past his ear and exploded on the Varinski in the lead.
This soft, pretty young woman had been taught to use every resource, no matter how flimsy, as a defense.
The moon chose that moment to blast out from behind a cloud, lighting the pale cream and mascarpone cheese that smeared the guy’s mean, pissed-off face. He roared with fury and wiped ladyfingers out of his eyes.
The other Varinskis laughed.
Doug laughed. He couldn’t help it. This was a Charlie Chaplin fight—a Charlie Chaplin fight ending in real death, in blood and despair.
He’d brought this on himself. It was his fault Firebird was in jeopardy.
So without a qualm, he shot the son of a bitch right through the heart.
The Varinski dropped like a rock. That would have almost evened the odds, if the remaining Varinskis were normal size, instead of hulking monsters, dark blots in the moonlight, and if Firebird were a man instead of a soft, pretty young woman—a young woman who pulled a switchblade out of her coat pocket and flipped the two-inch blade out. She held it, point up, and braced her feet like a street fighter.
Soft? Pretty? It was true. Firebird was both of those things. But she would fight, and fight well, until the end.
And the end was near. They faced certain slaughter.
The Varinski who wore the tiramisu pulled his pistol and aimed at Doug.
Firebird threw her knife, piercing his throat.
The Varinski jerked the blade free and tried to speak, but he could do no more than squeak. She had pierced his voice box. As his blood spurted down his front, a dark stain in the perilous night, he lifted his pistol again.
Twisting swiftly, Doug lifted Firebird over and behind one of the boulders that lined the edge of the cliff. They crouched low on the ground, barely protected by a rock two feet in diameter.
The shot whistled over their heads.
Hands on the boulder, he leapfrogged up and into the Varinski’s belly. He lifted him over his head— and over the cliff.
The Varinski screamed in satisfying terror until he hit the rocks . . . with a dull crunch audible even over the sounds of wind and waves.
The remaining Varinskis circled them, and as they did, they changed . . . into predatory beasts. They were a wolf pack, deadly killers, intent on their prey. A deep growl broke from the great wolf throats.
This was not how Doug had envisioned the night ending.
The one with the hiss in his voice stood back, still human, watching, warning. . . . ‘‘Don’t hurt the pretty girl too much. Ssshe ssshould sssuffer, and we all want a turn, don’t we?’’
That one was in charge. He was the one to kill.
Doug groped for his pistol.
It was gone. In the charge, he’d lost it.
‘‘We’ve got only one chance,’’ Firebird said. She rose off the ground to stand beside him. ‘‘We’ve got to jump.’’
‘‘We can’t. That water is forty-five degrees.’’ He knew this stuff. In his job, he’d seen more than one person go into the drink and come out dead. ‘‘We’d have maybe thirty minutes before hypothermia sets in. Then we’d drown.’’
‘‘We’ll survive.’’ Pulling the wine bottle out of Doug’s pocket, she broke it across the lead wolf’s snout, driving him down and back.
Wine splashed. Blood spurted. The smells mixed.
Desperation and terror mixed in Doug’s mind.
The wolf recovered too quickly, and with a whine and then a snarl, it leaped for her throat.
With the strength of a Russian weightlifter, Doug heaved one of the boulders out of the ground and smashed it into the wolf’s side.
The beast turned on him, and as it did, another leaped at her.
Moving with the lightness and skill of a matador, she stepped aside and dragged the sharp, jagged remains of the glass bottle across the wolf’s face, ripping into its eye.
What a woman.
The wolves slunk back, snarling, regrouping, preparing for the final assault.
She moved close to Doug. ‘‘I’d rather chance the ocean than them.’’
‘‘Can you swim?’’ he asked.
She glanced at him incredulously. ‘‘What difference does that make? We’ll be lucky to live through the jump.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ They’d be lucky to hit the water instead of the rocks, and if they did hit the water, they’d be lucky to survive the impact.
But the wolves were advancing again, growling, and the one she’d slashed had his remaining eye fixed on her. It glowed red, and foam speckled its lips and dripped off its teeth.
Behind them, the hissing one repeated over and over, ‘‘Be sssweet with the pretty girl. Ssshe’s our dessert.’’
Doug and Firebird had no choice.
Grabbing her hand, he said, ‘‘Run and jump as hard as you can.’’
‘‘Right.’’ She kissed him right on the lips.
Together, they turned.
Together, they took a breath.
Together, they raced for the edge of the cliff—and jumped into the darkness.
Chapter Seventeen
The wind whistled in Doug’s ears. The ocean thrashed below them, the waves rolling in the moonlight. Doug and Firebird hurtled through the air, toward the sea, toward the rocks that protruded from the water like strong, giant black teeth.
He wanted to hit squarely, not glance off and live for another ten agonizing minutes. But . . .
Please, God, let her live.
Right before they hit, Firebird squeezed his hand. Salt water blasted through his nostrils. Cold scoured his skin like sandpaper. The pressure ripped her hand away from his.
Please, God, let her live.
And he was under, plunging so far down he didn’t know which direction was up. Desperately he reached out, wanting, needing to help Firebird to the surface.
She was gone. Vanished in the black sea.
Please, God, let her live.
He groped, flailed, trying to catch a hand, a foot, a tendril of hair . . . and he had her! He kicked strongly toward the surface, dragging her after him. He broke into air that felt warm after the frigid sea and gasped in a huge lungful of oxygen. He turned to face her.
He held a handful of seaweed.
The waves lifted him on their swells. The moon shone on the black water.
Firebird was nowhere in sight.
Taking a huge breath, he dove and swam in ever-increasing circles, desperate, searching. . . . He’d had her hand until the water blasted them apart. She couldn’t be too far away.
He ran out of breath. Necessity sent him to the surface. Once again, he treaded water, gasping, looking around for a blond head, a bright smile.
Nothing. She wasn’t here.
Something stung his shoulder above the collarbone.
A swell lifted him, and he glanced down. Somehow he’d wounded himself, ripped his skin open.
Something plunked in the water beside him, lifting a small geyser, and distantly he realized . . . No, those Varinski bast
ards up above were shooting at him.
He dove again, swam in circles again—and this time, he saw a glow. Something white and bright in the water, like a light shining in the distance. He swam toward it, reached out his hand, and something brushed it.
A forest of kelp, tangled, alive. In its midst, the thing glowed, a beacon about three inches square.
What was it? Where had it come from? Was it some strange sea creature?
He plunged his hand through the gelatinous stems and gritty blades and grabbed for the light.
The flat, hard iridescent tile fit in his hand—and seared his skin.
But his fingers brushed flesh beneath the light, so he held on, groped, found Firebird’s body floating only a few feet below the surface. He grabbed her waist and tried to drag her upward.
She barely twitched; the spark of life was almost gone, vanquished by the bone-biting cold and her lack of air.
Working blind, he ran his hands up her until he came to her head. Seaweed. Giant kelp wrapped itself around her, holding her prisoner, stealing her life. A sticky blade had insinuated itself in her hair. A rubbery strand grasped her around the neck. There by her throat, the strange glow pulsed, then faded, like some indicator of her life force.
No. He wouldn’t allow her to go.
Frantically, he ripped at the seaweed, fighting the currents, the blistering iciness.
A huge swell lifted him out of the water.
The kelp held her without mercy, uncaring.
He held the seaweed, caught his breath, and dove down again, fumbling with the knife he carried at his belt. His fingers were clumsy, his skin burning, his nerves frozen.
He wouldn’t go up again without her. If he couldn’t free her, they would die together.
Desperately, he hacked at her hair, at the seaweed that carelessly tangled the seaborne beacon and Firebird’s throat in its cruel, inhuman grasp.
Another wave caught him. He held tightly to her— and with the strength of that mighty current, she was free.
Hanging her over his shoulder, he shot to the surface.
Gasping, he held her against his body and pressed on her chest.
Nothing.
He did it again. Come on, princess. Come on!