by Sylvie Kurtz
Snapping her gaze away from her sister’s, Olivia ground her teeth. What am I? A stupid child? “I know what your name is.”
Paula brightened, retracted her claws, clapping her hands close to her chest. “You do? Oh, that’s wonderful!”
“You told me yesterday. And the day before.”
“Oh, yes. I did.” The busy bee took off again, skittering along the tiled floor of the kitchen, displacing pots, pans and dishes as she went.
“Mom,” Cari said in a voice dripping with ennui. “Leave her alone.”
Shoving a spoonful of cereal in her mouth, Cari winked at Olivia. Olivia hid her smile in her cup of tea. Why did this one, who by all outward looks should give her most cause to feel terror, instead put her at ease?
“Here.” Paula dumped a trio of pills in front of Olivia on the table. “Take these.”
“Mo-om.”
“Cari, please. This is important.” Paula bent down and whispered, “She can’t remember things, so we have to do it for her.”
“I think she can handle things just fine,” Cari whispered back.
“Why can’t you take anything seriously?” Paula’s face fractured like the shell of an overcooked hard-boiled egg. Turning toward Olivia, Paula snapped her chin at the pills rolling toward the woven place mat. “Take them.”
“I take things seriously, mother. You just see what you want to see. And you’re going to smother her just like you smother me. I don’t see why I have to be here.”
“Because I said so. It’s for your own good.”
“If it’s for my own good, then I should know why. I’m eighteen and technically on my own.”
“That’s why you’re still living at home, eating the food I buy. Where’s that famous job you were supposed to get?”
“I’ve got feelers out.”
In the past two days, Olivia had discovered that her skin felt things with sharpness. This morning, she’d had to change twice before she found something that didn’t scrape her skin. Though her sister and her niece’s words were couched in forced smiles and underlined with care, each was like a stab with a dull fork. The closer the magnet of their friction brought them, the sharper the stab pierced her skin.
Break the spell, she thought as she swallowed the pills. Make them snap apart. “What do I do?”
Paula spun on her heels and stared at her, blinking like an owl. “What do you mean?”
“What do I do?” She tried to find the words in her mind and stumbled. “Before. What did I do all day?”
“Oh.” Paula sank to a chair, twisting the green-and-white dishtowel she held. “Well, you did all sorts of things. You, you—”
“Tried to avoid your nagging sister’s phone calls,” Cari chimed in.
“Cari! I’m trying to help her.”
“Then treat her like the adult she is.” Cari turned to Olivia. “What you did, Olivia, was make everybody try to feel good. And sometimes, you forgot yourself.”
“Cari, that’s enough.”
Cari pushed the half-finished cereal bowl to the center of the table. “Yeah, Mom, the truth hits too close to home, doesn’t it?” She turned to Olivia. “The truth is that your sister and your husband both wanted you for themselves and stuck you in the middle because you love them both.”
Earlier, Olivia had felt the tug of anger between Paula and her husband. Was that why she’d wanted to leave this home? Had the tension made living here impossible? Was that why she had, as Cari said, forgotten herself? She stared at the smooth mirror of tea in her cup, but there was no answer there—only the reflection of her too-wide eyes. And if she’d wanted to get away from the tug between her husband and her sister, why had she headed toward her sister’s home when she’d left her husband?
Paula stood. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”
“That’s right. The ostrich wins the day. If you pretend it isn’t there, then it can’t be real. Well, some things are real, even if you pretend they aren’t. Like what happened to Dad.”
Paula flitted back to the busyness of the counter. Olivia looked around at the red-birch cabinets, at the sunny yellow of the walls, at the green accents that seemed to wrap around her like vines, and swallowed hard. She was missing something in the thick undercurrent eddying all around the house. But what? She looked at the hands knotted around the mug of tea. Had she been happy here once?
Cari leaned across the table and cupped a hand around her mouth. “Want to blow this pop stand?”
A zing of eagerness flashed through her. The kitchen that a moment ago had seemed to tighten around her like a boa constrictor now loosened its hold. Freedom, she thought, as she pictured the wideness of the sky, the solid strength of the mountain. Olivia nodded and scuttled back the chair.
“Where are you going?” Paula asked, hands on her hips.
“To Olivia’s closet. I’m going to play dress up,” her niece lied.
Paula frowned. “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
“Why not? Afraid she’ll feel like a normal person for a change?”
Paula sighed.
“Want to come?” Olivia asked. Cari kicked her and mouthed, “No!”
Eyebrows scrunched like pirate hats on stick figures, Paula stared from daughter to sister and finally sighed again and turned back to the sink. “You go ahead. I’ll be up in a while.”
Taking Olivia’s hand, Cari slid through the kitchen door. “This way.”
In the mudroom, Cari slipped on a black down coat and Olivia reached for the navy wool coat she’d worn home from the hospital.
“The light-blue one.” Cari pointed her chin to a marsh-mallowlike parka. “Warmer. And those boots.” She pointed to a pair of leather boots that laced up the front and were lined with lamblike fleece. “Here.” Cari launched a dark blue hat and a pair of gloves her way, then opened the door and stuck her head outside. “All clear.”
The coldness of the outside air hit Olivia’s lungs like a broom and swept out all the staleness of the house. Cari crept along the foundation. Olivia followed.
“Where are we going?” Olivia whispered.
“The sugar house.” Cari pointed to a stand of trees over a rise to her left, but Olivia could see no structure there. “I used to go there all the time when I was a kid. No one’s going to bother us there.” She chanced a look around the corner of the house, then started to cut a diagonal toward the trees. “You have watch out for my mom. She latches on and then it’s impossible for her to let go.”
Olivia giggled as the image of a leech wearing Paula’s face popped into her mind. “Why are we sneaking?”
“So Uncle S. won’t see us.”
“You don’t like him.” Olivia thought of the sliding warmth and shrilling alarm that fired through her every time he was near. Did Olivia fear her husband? Was her sister right when she’d said Olivia wanted to leave him? Why?
“I like him fine. Most of the time anyway. It’s just that sometimes he’s hard, you know.”
“How?” The solid sureness of him had felt good. Was she wrong to think so?
“Don’t worry,” Cari said. “He’s hard on everybody but you. He loves you.”
“Oh.” And another snake of uncertainty slithered inside her as her feet sunk through the hard skin of snow, glittering in the sun. Had she loved him in return? She searched the dark corners of her mind and kept tripping over the black hole of her amnesia. If she had loved him, then that love, where had it gone?
Don’t think of it. The past doesn’t matter. Only the future. And she could make anything of the future she wanted. The thought cheered her. She was an artist, they’d told her. She would paint a bright new tomorrow for herself.
Halfway up the rise, Olivia pointed at the tracks in the snow that looked like two half-moons closing in to kiss. “Deer tracks.”
“That’s right.” Cari smiled, as proud as a mother.
Olivia hung on to that smile. And on the wings of that little triumph, her heart flew strai
ght into that wide open blue of sky and soared.
She had not forgotten everything.
“SHE’S GONE.” Paula crashed through the door to his office like a thunderstorm and burst. She grabbed at him and the force of her despair pulled Sebastian out of his chair. “She’s gone. She’s not in the bedroom. She’s not in the studio. She’s not anywhere.”
“Calm down, Paula. Cari has a talent for disappearing.” Why did the woman have to be so hysterical about everything? Why had he invited Olivia’s family here to complicate his life? Stuck in rebellion mode since her father’s death, Cari had gone out of her way to make life difficult for everyone around her. The last thing he needed was one more problem. “She’ll be back. You told her not to go out without—”
“Not just Cari.” Paula’s nails dug into his forearms. “Olivia, too.”
No, not Olivia. Not with Kershaw out there. As his heart pounded, he swore. In one breath, the air in the office went from relaxed to action ready. He’d asked Paula for one thing. One damn thing. Keep an eye on Olivia. He couldn’t be at her side every minute of the day. Flexing his hands, he shook off Paula’s hold. “Stay here. We’ll find them.”
Before Paula could open her mouth, he was racing up the stairs, his team close behind. “Kingsley, take the upstairs. Reed, the downstairs.” The two men branched off. Sebastian went by the front door and saw it was still locked, so he continued to the mudroom off the kitchen. Both Olivia’s and Cari’s parkas were missing. Outside, tracks on the ice-crusted snow wound around the edge of the house. “Mercer, cover the back. Skyralov, the front.”
His leather shoes slipping now and then on the icy crust of snow, wind biting through the cotton of his shirt, Sebastian followed the tracks and soon spotted them. They bobbed like children as they weaved through some sort of game. Sun bounded off the snow, making them look as if they shone. Their laughter echoed over the mountain like crystal bells, clear and melodic. And for a second, the sound froze Sebastian. Playing like that with Cari, she was Olivia, and something in his heart sighed with relief. He knew that smile. He knew that laugh. He knew that unself-conscious grace of movement. She was back.
He whistled, calling to Mercer and Skyralov to cover him and swept down on Olivia and Cari who’d frozen like ice sculptures at the sound of his arrival. Left arm wound protectively around Olivia to shield her, he scanned the nearby shadows of trees. “Let’s go.”
“No!” Olivia fought his hold, stuttering his concentration. Olivia never opposed him.
Cari got into the action and tried to pull Olivia from his arms. “Let her go!”
“It’s dangerous out here.” Kershaw could be anywhere. On the limb of a tree, the rifle he’d stolen from the marshals pointed right at them. How could Cari lead Olivia into danger like this? “Your mother warned you—”
Cari snorted. “My mother’s not too big on truth.”
“Let me spell it out for you, then,” he said, holding on to the squirming Olivia. “Out here, you’re a target. Get back to the house. Now.”
“Why?” Hand on hip, she copped a pose that reminded him too much of Paula on one of her rampages against him.
“Now’s not the time, Cari.” He tried to force Olivia forward, but she dug in her heels.
“No, let me go.”
She wriggled out of his hold and raced away from him toward the trees. He whirled after her. “Olivia!”
A white cloud scuttled over the sun, deepening the shadows along the ridge Olivia climbed. The writhing casts of limbs seemed to snatch at her. The wave of wind surfing through the trees seemed to carry her name on its moan, Kershaw’s laugh in its wake. Cari’s shouts behind them added a macabre counterpoint. “Olivia!”
He grabbed at her coat, unbalanced her. With the cry of caught prey, she twisted, leaving him holding the empty shell of her parka. Damn it! Why was she fighting him so hard? What was wrong with her? Couldn’t she see he was trying to protect her?
Of course not. She couldn’t remember him. She didn’t know about Kershaw. She wasn’t herself.
He lunged at her, slamming them both to the ground. The skin of ice on the snow cracked. Her cry of anguish echoed all around them, silencing the creatures in the woods. “Olivia,” he said gently, “stop fighting me.”
But she didn’t. She writhed and kicked. A punch connected with his face, radiating pain through his jaw. The soft wool of her navy sweater slipped in his grip. They moved over and under each other in an awkward dance as he tried to still her without hurting her. Finally, he pinned her beneath him.
He captured her chin and forced her to look at him. He knew then that what he’d seen earlier was an illusion. The blue of her eyes still held that hollow look of fear. Olivia wasn’t back; she was still lost. “We have to go in.”
“I can’t…breathe in there.” Her voice was a whisper, brittle and thready. Her hands fisted into the material of his shirt. Her tear-bright eyes widened as if to take in the sky. “I need to breathe.”
Because he couldn’t help himself, he kissed the top of her head and hugged her close. He’d thought he could keep the truth from her, that he could hold her in the safety of the house while he took care of the problem and never add the burden of his failure to her recovery. He saw now that that was impossible. To keep her safe, he would have to confess his sins. “I know, sweetheart, but right now, there’s someone out there who wants to hurt you.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” Cari said, panting behind him. “And I was just supposed to guess?”
“Your mother was supposed to tell you.” He helped Olivia up, holding her securely against another burst of flight. “This guy’s dangerous. He’ll go through anyone and anything to destroy what I care for the most. Do you understand, Cari?”
Mutely, she nodded, then handed the discarded parka to Olivia. “He’s ruined the fun anyway. Let’s just go back.”
Meeting his gaze as she draped the parka around her shoulders, Olivia asked, “When do I get to breathe again?”
And through the mirror of her eyes, he could feel the straw-thin constriction of her chest, feel the skintight closing of the walls of the house around her, feel the ocean-deep pull of her fear.
What had he done to her?
“Soon.” He tucked her in the shield of his body. He hoped this wasn’t another promise he’d have to break. Scanning their path, he led her toward the house. Mercer and Skyralov joined the odd formation, flanking them.
When they reached the house, Skyralov pulled him aside. “There’s something you have to see.”
Reluctantly, he surrendered Olivia to a weeping Paula’s care and followed Skyralov to the front gates. There, hanging backwards on the iron lances, was a dried funeral wreath with a wind-shredded ribbon. Probably stolen from the cemetery on Mountain Road. Gold lettering spelled out, “We’ll miss you, Sam.” And beneath, letters cut out of magazines and glued to the ribbon said, “Welcome home, Falconer.”
Kershaw was here, and he was playing with him.
“Have Kingsley go over the security tapes.” After unlocking the security box, Sebastian entered a code and the gates opened. He took down the wreath and handed it to Skyralov.
Crouching, he searched the hard pack of snow for evidence of footprints or tire prints he didn’t recognize. He was about to close the gates again when Skyralov handed him the wreath. “I’ll handle that. You’re needed at the house. Your wife, she’ll want an explanation.”
She’d want more than that. And he had no idea how to lay out the whole wicked story so she would understand and not hate him.
The shiver that wracked through him had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with letting someone else do his work. He needed to be out here. He needed to hunt. But he also needed to protect Olivia.
Reluctantly, he took the wreath and headed back toward the house. Why did it feel as if cuffs jangled between his wrists?
Chapter Six
Cecilia Okindo’s arrival that afternoon was a welcome bre
ak from her sister’s hawklike supervision of her every move. Olivia gladly closed the door to the studio and let out a sigh as she took in the view of the mountains through the wall of windows. Shapes defined themselves in the granite. Space between mountain and clouds engaged. Colors mixed in a palette in her mind. And the stir of something known pulsed through her until her fingers tingled.
“I want to paint,” she said before the therapist, who smelled like brown sugar and cinnamon and spoke with the slow heat of summer, could open the case she carried.
“Well, now, love, that sounds like a terrific idea. Today, we will work on small motor skills.”
Olivia strode to the shelf unit packed with art palettes, paints and paper. Where to start?
“Where is that handsome husband of yours today?” Cecilia asked, joining her.
The choices on the shelf before her blurred and the image of Sebastian’s face floated there for a moment. The deep frown when he’d returned to the house had held an equal measure of anger and determination. He’d stalked past them like a man with a purpose and disappeared in the dark bowels of the house. Because of her? Because she’d gone out? Because she’d wanted to breathe? “I don’t know.”
“Ah, well, maybe he’ll join us later. Let’s start with a sketch.” Cecilia reached for a large pad bound with a silver coil. She snatched a pencil from a cup with a cracked lip and a fat wad of gray eraser from a blue ceramic tray.
Olivia sat cross-legged on the large canvas cushion on the floor and propped the pad of paper against her knees. Closing her eyes, she visualized the picture she wanted to draw. As she saw the elements of design drift apart and come together, she smiled. This, she remembered.
Drawing in a long breath, she opened her eyes and poised the pencil over the clean, white page. The first line swished across the page, not in a straight road, but in one filled with ruts. She frowned and tried again. She could see each tiny detail in her mind, understood how to form each one with the pencil, but her fingers were acting like toddlers just learning to walk. With a roar, she pitched the pencil across the room.
