"Don't do anything stupid," Jonas warned Lev and escorted Blythe back to the car.
Rikki was silent, swinging gently, moving her bare foot up and down.
"Laskovaya moya, I want to talk about this Russian coming to talk with you. I know you're worried about Pratt, but he is nowhere near as dangerous as this man. He will be conducting an interrogation, not a discussion," Lev said, taking her hand, his thumb stroking little caressing circles over the center of her palm. "You don't have to do this."
She turned the full power of her dark, beautiful eyes on him. His heart contracted. There was courage there. Determination. "Of course I do. If you're going to be rid of them, I have to be the one to do it. He knows I was out on the water that day."
"I don't like it," Lev said.
She shrugged. "You don't have to like it. I'm a grown woman and I've been making my own decisions for a long time. We're in this together, right?" She looked at him. Challenging him. "Right? Or did you think I wouldn't assert myself because you think I have a disability?"
His eyes glittered fiercely and he swung around, squatting in front of her, one hand spanning her throat, his thumb tipping her chin back. "Where the hell did that come from? We're not fighting about this, Rikki. I'm stating my opinion, that it's dangerous and you should have enough respect for me that you trust that I'd know. I respect your abilities in the water."
She flushed and her gaze slid away from his. "I'm sorry. I have a hard time with arguments. Discussions," she corrected. "Quite often, because I'm different, people think I have a low IQ and can't grasp the situation. They want to make my decisions for me."
"That's not me," he countered, then wiped his hand over his face. "Okay. Maybe it is me, but not because I think you aren't smart enough to see a situation. I don't like you in danger. When a man finds the only person of worth to him, that one person who matters more than anything and makes everything he's ever seen or done or gone through worthwhile, believe me, Rikki, the urge to protect her is overwhelming. If that bothers you, then I'm sorry, because it's going to be happening over and over throughout our years together."
She touched his face gently. "I can accept that. Just don't ever treat me like I'm not intelligent"
He caught her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. "I'm not that stupid, Rikki. So if you're really going to do this, I'm going into the house and remove any evidence that I've been there. Your man, Levi Hammond, comes around when he isn't running up and down the coast diving. He crashes here sometimes. Be vague."
"I'm not letting him into the house."
"You'll have to if this is going to work. He's going to find a way to get into the house. Don't make it easy, but let him in. It's the only way he'll be satisfied. While he's on the porch, I can cover him, but once he's inside, it will be more difficult. Don't go in with him." When she looked at him, he sighed. "For me. Stay out where I can see you."
"You stay away, Lev," she dictated. "Leave this one to me." She sent him a mysterious, mischievous smirk. "I'm actually a good actress. And I have a lot of experience to draw on. That state facility I was in provided all kinds of wonderful practice for me."
He tasted fear in his mouth. "Listen to me, lubov moya, hear what I'm saying. This man is the most dangerous man you will ever run across. He kills without feeling. He's like a robot. He cares nothing for anyone. He doesn't work with a purpose to save governments or to try to stop gun running or human trafficking. He cares nothing about drugs. He kills. That is his only purpose in life. Once set on a target, he never stops until he has completed the assignment. That is his one joy, the victory of winning. His win is the kill."
She frowned. "And this man is after you?"
Lev nodded. "It is his job to make certain I am dead. If I kill him and he doesn't return to those who sent him, they will know I'm alive and they'll send another and then another until one day I make a mistake. If this one goes home, he will tell them I'm dead and they'll believe him."
"Then that's what he has to do," Rikki said.
Lev shook his head. "It isn't that easy. He's interrogated hundreds of people. He can sense a lie. He knows body language. He knows the little things that give people away when they're lying."
Rikki smiled at him. "He should come here when I'm alone then."
His gut reacted, protesting. The thought of Rikki alone with the cleaner was absolutely terrifying. "No way. That isn't going to happen. He can bring the sheriff with him. That's the only way he gets close to you. If you make a mistake, he'll come back alone without Harrington and I'll kill him. We'll decide what to do after that."
Rikki sighed. "You know, Levi, you have to get over the whole, 'I'll just kill him' thing. That might work for Lev, but not Levi. People don't solve their problems that way."
He clenched his teeth. "This might have to be an exception."
He turned his back on her and went into the house, carefully cleaning up all the dishes and putting them away. Only Rikki's coffee cup remained. There wasn't much food in the house. Blythe had already taken away the remains of their dinner from the previous night. He examined the contents of the refrigerator. Very sparse, it definitely looked as if only one person was living there.
Quickly and efficiently he stripped the bed, remade it with fresh sheets and placed the others in the washing machine. The bathrooms were next. Rikki was very particular about the bathrooms so there wasn't much evidence of him there either. He erased all proof of his existence in her home. It wasn't hard. He had a habit of making certain he touched few things wherever he was living. And he wiped every surface fast. His briefcase was packed and went with him, along with the weapons, when he left the house.
He didn't go to Rikki, he couldn't. If he did, he doubted he would have gone through with the plan. He still was considering just shooting the bastard.
Rikki watched Lev stalk across the yard and disappear into the trees. A bird called. Another answered. He was carrying his briefcase, and she knew he would be up in a tree somewhere, covering the house, but this was her world, and no one, not even some big-shot cleaner everyone was afraid of, was going to come onto her property and take what was hers. She was captain of her boat and she'd pulled Lev out of the ocean. That meant he was hers. She took the law of the sea seriously. She was responsible for him. She'd told him he would be safe with her, and he would be.
She swung her foot back and forth, was slightly mesmerized by the small circles she made, deliberately allowing her mind to concentrate on the way the early morning sun poured like gold into the small puddles of water standing in the yard. The water seemed to gleam, diamond bright. She blinked to bring it into focus, or more precisely, out of focus, so the edges of the pool seemed to spread out like rays.
At once she was lost in the beauty of the symmetry, those perfect crystalline streaks radiating from the center of the pool. The colors grew deep and vivid, and small waves sent ripples skimming over the surface as the breeze gently blew across it. The water dazzled her, so that little colored lights burst behind her eyes and she could see the puddle taking on its own life, growing into a three-dimensional image. A world had come alive in that small puddle.
Living insects played above the water, and shadows swam below, patient and deadly, waiting for one of those fragile-winged gossamer creatures to make a mistake. The buzz of the bugs grew until they were musicians playing in time to the breeze blowing ripples in the puddle, driving the shadows into a frenzy of movement. Crevices and cracks held a myriad of creatures of bright colors wiggling arms and legs and tentacles in the search for food.
"Rikki!" Jonas's voice dragged her back from the edge of her fascinating world.
She looked up a little vaguely, blinking rapidly. Her gaze avoided his and she kept her head down, looking past him, studying the second man out of the corner of her eye. She began to rock ever so gently. The official-looking man beside Jonas was carefully quartering the yard and surrounding grounds. As he walked past her truck, he looked inside and she had the feeling even in
that quick glance, he'd noted every item.
Jonas crouched in front of her, his voice very gentle. "Rikki, this is the man I told you about, the one who wants to ask a couple of questions about the yacht sinking. His name is Petr Ivanov. He's with the Russian government and is investigating one of their people who had been aboard the yacht. I've explained that you're autistic and you don't like people around your house. He won't touch anything and we won't be here long. Okay?"
She nodded her head repeatedly, increasing the rocking just a little more. Already her brain was very close to that place, her own world, where she was safe and no one could touch her--not even a master interrogator.
Petr Ivanov studied her face for a long time. Her fingers were continually moving, spinning in strange little circles, and occasionally she'd lift them to her mouth to blow on them. Spin, one, two, three times, and then blow.
"You're a diver?"
She nodded.
"Sea urchin diver? And you were diving the day the yacht sank off the coast here?"
She nodded again. The fingers continued to spin and she blew on them every third time, as if she was blowing out candles. Her gaze fixed on the puddle just past the stairs leading to the porch.
Petr glanced at Jonas. The sheriff shrugged. "She doesn't talk to people much, rarely to strangers, and she has a thing about people entering her house or going on her boat."
"I told you it was necessary," Ivanov said. "This man uses women. He's dangerous. I'll know if he was near her."
"I doubt she'd let a stranger close to her, and I can't imagine she'd let him in her home. She's been here nearly five years and I've entered her house once. Surely the other divers told you about her."
The conversation flowed around her. Rikki was immune to it, the words a vague whisper in the background as the insects and frogs took up the chorus of her song. The ripples in the puddle grew into waves.
"I need to know what you saw out there," Petr said, and snapped his fingers under her nose.
Rikki's rocking increased in strength. Her hands began to flap, fingers spinning and then she'd blow on the tips as if putting out a flame.
"You have to ask her a yes or no question," Jonas said. "And step back away from her."
"Did you see a man in the water that day? Someone alive?"
Rikki shook her head violently. "A wave. Big wave." She let herself slide away, down into the gleaming waters of the puddle where the ripples had come to life.
There was a silence as Ivanov studied her growing agitation. He sighed. "I'm not going to get anything out of her. I have to see the house."
The flapping increased. So did the rocking.
Jonas was extremely gentle. "Can we look around, Rikki? We won't touch anything."
She rocked for a full minute then nodded, her eyes glued to the puddle.
The Russian swore and pushed past her to the door of her kitchen. The moment he touched the door handle, she began to make a strangled sound in the back of her throat, her only protest. Jonas, clearly torn between Rikki and the Russian, followed him inside.
"Don't touch anything," Jonas asserted. "She gave permission for you to look around, that's all. She..." his voice faded, leaving her fully in her own mind.
She didn't see them leave. She was too far into her mind. She didn't hear them anymore, only the sound of her own world where she retreated when the noise and pain became too much. The Russian could never find her there, and he couldn't find Lev either. He couldn't follow them into her mind, no matter what training he had. She could keep Lev safe until he came to get her. She didn't like anyone to witness her "breakdowns" but this time, she allowed it to happen. It had been her choice and she wasn't ashamed.
Come back to me, laskovaya moya, Lev's voice shimmered in her mind, penetrating the rippling waves. You kept me safe, but now I need you back with me.
It was a wrench to return to a place where the colors and detail seemed so dull at first, after the fascinating, mesmerizing underwater realm.
"He won't be back," Lev greeted her, pulling her into his arms. "That was a very brave thing to do, and I won't forget it. Not ever."
She smiled up at him, blinking, a little disoriented. "He'll never believe that I would let you anywhere near me, my boat, or my house."
"Why did you?" Lev asked, and plucked her out of the hammock, to take her into the house. "Why did you choose me?"
She traced his strong jaw beneath the smooth beard. "Your eyes. I see right into you, and I know you in a way I could never know anyone else."
They made love all afternoon. Jonas called asking af ter Rikki, obviously worried that they had pushed her too far. He assured her that she had convinced Petr Ivanov that his last hope that Lev was alive had faded. No one had seen a stranger. No one believed anyone could have survived in the cold water and there was no trace of a survivor. Ivanov had left for the San Francisco airport, to fly home.
Lev cooked dinner, a careful preparation of salad, which she nibbled at as if she were a rabbit, picking through it to discard anything she thought looked scary; a baked potato, which she liked; and a small piece of a steak. He had to take every bit of fat off of it, and she pushed it around for a long time before she actually ate any of it, but she did eat it and he felt as if he'd scored a huge victory.
Late at night, they lay on the bed together, lights off, his head in her lap while he brought up a subject he'd wanted to broach for a while. "You know, laskovaya moya, I've been thinking. We should plan our wedding. A little civil service right here. With just your sisters. Nothing fancy, just us." Lev watched her face carefully. "I'm good at pushing paperwork through fast."
Her fingers stilled in his hair, her dark eyes going black. For a moment it was silent enough in the room that he could hear her heart pound. He took her arm, sliding his hand down to her wrist where her pulse beat into his palm.
"Did I frighten you, lubov moya, because I didn't mean to. We spoke of marriage."
"Speaking isn't the same thing as planning."
"Why should we wait?"
She moistened her lips. "You have to think about that, Lev. Really think about it. There're so many things I can't do. This is my world, right here, but it's very narrow. I don't travel--not at all. This is my home. I plan to live my life here. The farm and my diving. I work outside, sometimes with Lexi, but I rarely have company. I live a solitary life on purpose. I need routine. I have a difficult time accepting changes in my life. I can't go into stores where there's fluorescent lighting--which is just about everywhere."
He smiled up at her. "That's a long list. Let me see. I've traveled my entire life and I'm ready for a home--a permanent one. I like working with my hands and diving suits me just fine. I prefer a solitary life. I'm uncomfortable around a lot of people. I don't mind routine in the house, outside may be more difficult, but we've gotten good at compromise. You let me into your bathroom for showers."
"Only because there are one or two perks."
She did flash a smile at him, but it was strained. He'd definitely frightened her. Lev brought her hand to his mouth and nibbled gently. "Do you think I'll leave you?"
She frowned and he had the mad desire to bring her head down to his and kiss that look right off her face. He caught the nape of her neck and did just that, his mouth moving over hers, kissing her again and again, indulging his need to taste her, getting lost in the beauty of her response.
"Laskovaya moya, I'll do the shopping in the stores for us. I'm asking you to believe in me the way I believe in you."
"You've only just gotten a taste of freedom, Lev. You can go anywhere now. Everyone thinks you're dead. You can have any life you want. Any woman." She forced a small smile and her fingers bunched in his hair. "One that can have children."
He went still inside. There it was. The problem as she saw it. "The life I want is right here. The woman I want is right here. As for children, I never considered having any, so if we don't, I won't miss anything I never thought about in the first pl
ace."
"If we had a child, I'd be afraid it would turn out like me," she admitted in a low voice.
He kissed her again, aching inside. "A woman of courage? One who makes her own way in the world? One who succeeds no matter the odds?"
"It's difficult growing up abnormal in a world where different is not accepted. A small thing like changing the lighting in the schools might have helped, but it was easier to get rid of me rather than spend the money. Teaching children understanding and tolerance might have helped as well. I don't want my life for my child. Don't think I'm complaining, Lev, because I'm not. I just think the odds are greater that any child I have would have to struggle every day of her life just for acceptance."
"I'm fine with getting all of your attention," he said. "I want to grow old with you, Rikki. I'm asking you to give yourself to me all the way."
Her eyes went soft and tender. "Then yes. Absolutely yes."
Outside, an owl shrieked, then a second. Lev rolled off the bed, leaping to his feet, reaching for his gun and slamming it into the harness he'd laid on the table. He slipped the harness on, jerked a jacket on and took off running.
"Call Jonas. Pratt's here. He's damned close too. I don't know how he slipped past the sentries. And get the hell out of here, go up to the highway and wait."
He didn't wait to see if she'd comply, he was already streaking out the door. A determined killer with a lot of experience could do major damage. The arsonist had to be stopped now. He moved fast, this time following the images the owl projected back to him. Gerald Pratt was in the garden area on the slope leading to Rikki's house.
Swearing, Lev raced across the uneven terrain. Pratt had come in through the back entrance. As with many unbalanced people, he was cunning, and he came in downwind, taking care not to alert the birds. He had laid his fire lines like a general. The ground was wet, but not soaked, and with enough fuel, it would burn hot and fast and run uphill right to Rikki's house.
As Lev sprinted through the trees, he could smell the kerosene, thick and strong, and knew Pratt had been at work for some time. Tree trunks surrounding him had been splashed with the flammable liquid. The arsonist was working his way slowly and very carefully around Rikki's house to trap her inside. Pratt had been so overcome with the need to destroy Rikki that he hadn't waited until they had lowered their guard. He'd come up with another plan of attack and implemented it immediately.
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