Heart of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  “Let it ring,” she said, running her tongue over his lips.

  “Mercer,” Sebastian mumbled as he scooped up the receiver. “Falconer.”

  “I got a lead on Mercer,” Kingsley said.

  Holding on to Liv, Sebastian punched up the GPS ID beamed from Kingsley’s phone. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the Spiltoir campsite near Harrisville. I found his backpack.”

  “And?” Sebastian asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “Blood. I found blood.”

  Sebastian swore. Another soul on his conscience.

  HE’D HAD A CLOSE CALL with the sneaky one. By the time they found that green-eyed hunter, his bones would be picked clean. While they were scrambling to find his body, he’d take away everything Falconer owned. And by the time Falconer figured it all out, he’d be in Key West sipping margaritas while bikini-clad girls pleasured him.

  Sk8Thor: Tomorrow.

  Okie: When?

  Sk8Thor: As early as U can. He’ll b busy.

  Okie: OK. C U in the a.m.

  Sk8Thor: Don’t forget the Thermos.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Loose ends drove him crazy. Sebastian liked to tidy things quickly and efficiently so that he could put them behind him and move on to the next case. But these loose ends seemed to fray even more every time he tried to tie them. And every time the knot got away from him, Kershaw’s mother was right there in the thick of it. He pushed away from his desk. “I have to go see her.”

  Liv got up, neatening the papers he’d scattered over the conference table. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No, I need you here.” Safe and sound behind these secured walls. Too many of the people under his responsibility were already spread out all over the place. He had no control over them or what happened to them. He wanted this case over. He wanted to go back to hunting alone. He wanted this one measure of peace where Liv was concerned. Besides, this would all go faster if he wasn’t distracted.

  She cocked her head. “Did I get in the way before?”

  “No, you were a great help,” he said, twining his arms around her waist. And a great distraction. Focus would fill that one last hole in the puzzle. “But I need someone here in case Kingsley calls.”

  She wound her arms around his neck. “He has your number.”

  “Skyralov and Reed should be back by lunch, and they’ll need an update of what’s happened to Mercer.”

  “They’ve got your number.”

  He pressed his forehead against hers, trying not to get lost in the blue of her eyes. “But this is where the information is, and you’re the one who filed it all away.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” A satisfied smile curled her lips. “You need me.”

  “I need you.” More than you know.

  THE AFTERGLOW OF SEBASTIAN’S confidence in her didn’t last long. After an hour, she’d run out of things to neaten in the office and boredom set in. Padding her estimates generously, Liv gave him an hour to get to Nashua, an hour with Kershaw’s mother and an hour to get back. She had at least two more hours to wait for Sebastian’s return.

  She wasn’t feeling useful.

  He’d used her need to be part of his life to finesse her into staying at the Aerie, she decided as she put away the label maker. He’d done it as smoothly as if he was an artist and she were clay. Worse, she’d let him. Was that how he’d manipulated Olivia into obedience? Sweet-talked her until she glowed, then left her behind, a pampered prisoner in an ivory tower?

  No wonder she’d grown frustrated.

  “I am not Olivia.” She slammed the door of the supply cabinet. He needed to see that in a real way—not just in the changes in her, but in a way he could separate the two instead of superimposing them.

  Liv cranked up the bell tone on the office phones and headed up the stairs to Olivia’s studio. The promise of snow hung on the eerie yellow light that pooled on the oak floor. In every corner of the room, Liv sensed Olivia’s spirit. But there was also a stillness that spoke of death.

  The finished trunk that had once stood on the black iron stand was gone. On the bottom shelf of the ceiling-to-floor unit that spanned the whole of the back wall were stacked several other trunks. One was half painted. Another sported only a white coating. Several more were still in their unfinished state of naked pine.

  She took down the half-painted one and touched each detail—the maples with red-gold leaves, the calm blue water of the lake, the tiny people picnicking on a red, white and blue windmill quilt. She lifted the brass clasp. Inside were sketches on onionskin paper that showed a Victorian house, a barn and three horses out at pasture. Looking over the supplies stuffed into the shelf unit, Liv found a series of spiral-bound books filled with sketches. She plucked several that reminded her of Olivia from their pages.

  Liv placed the half-finished trunk on the iron stand. With a paintbrush and glue, she layered the sketches with their bold, confident, graphite strokes, making the colored landscape on the trunk appear to fade away—just as Olivia had.

  She grasped tubes of paint and several more brushes from Olivia’s supplies. With red and blue and yellow and green and violet, she painted swirls of rainbows on the bottom-inside half of the trunk. The domed top half, she painted black.

  “What are you doing?” Cari’s voice startled Liv from her concentration.

  “Burying Olivia.”

  “What?”

  Liv shook her head. “It’s just an idea.”

  “Oh.” Cari plunked down the plate she carried on the flat utility table and circled around Liv’s project.

  Cari’s protective layers of dark makeup were painted on thick. The dog collar was back at her throat. Chains jangled from her black leather jacket. The thick soles of her boots made her appear to move like an astronaut on a moonwalk. “Mom sent me to feed you. I’m supposed to make sure you have at least one of those fruit bars.”

  “Later.” Her mind could barely stay in the room now that she’d entered willingly again into the folds of Olivia’s life. A frantic need pulsed in her. Do it, do it, do it. Do what? Bury her. Bury Olivia. Olivia’s dead.

  Liv’s gaze swept across those full shelves, each holding a piece of Olivia—her paints, her brushes, her treasures. She chose a tube of gold paint, a brush with fine bristles that came to a perfect point, a fresh pad of paper and a sharpened pencil. She grabbed the brass looking glass, a fat nut shaped like a crooked heart, a snow globe that housed Cinderella’s blue-and-white castle on top of a snow-covered mountain.

  “Liv?”

  “Mmm.” A ribbon caught Liv’s attention, and she pulled it from its hiding place—violet with silver speckles. Sky and stars. She imagined those were Olivia’s last sight on the night of her accident.

  “Don’t you think maybe you should wait?” Cari asked.

  “For what?”

  “For Sebastian.”

  “This is for Sebastian.”

  “What do you say we take a break? Go outside? I never did show you the sugar house.”

  “Can’t.” Liv stirred a finger in a pewter candy dish filled with coins and a Canadian quarter with the word “creativity” stamped on one side fell out. The branches of the tree etched on the coin whipped about a boatload of people in a canoe. The mountains in the background made the trunk of the tree appear to become a totem pole. Were totems for the living or the dead? Liv couldn’t remember—or maybe she never knew. She added the quarter to her growing pile.

  Cari stood in Liv’s path, forcing her to look up. “Why not? Why can’t you go?”

  Liv slid around Cari, her gaze already focused on a small silver frame on a high shelf. “I have to stay here in case Kingsley calls.”

  “Mom’ll get the phone.”

  “I know where the information is filed.” That suddenly seemed silly and she laughed. She of the blank mind could find the needle in the haystack of files in Sebastian’s office. Crazy.

  With fingertips, she swept at the frame until
it fell on top of the pile in her arm. The frame held the print of a wild horse galloping across an open prairie, making the words “Dreams need hope to run free” seem as if they were part of the wind. Liv started to add it to her stack, then placed it back on the shelf. Dreams still needed hope. And, if nothing else, Liv was filled with hope. Hopes for herself, for Sebastian, for the life they could create together. She may not have a past, but she definitely could make a future.

  Cari grabbed Liv’s arms and the load they held fell to the polished oak floor. “Okay, that’s enough, Liv.”

  “No, I need to fill the trunk with all the pieces that made her.” Liv crouched to the floor and picked up the fallen fragments of Olivia, plucking the castle out of the shattered shell of its glass globe.

  “A change of scenery. That’s what you need.” Cari tugged on Liv’s sleeve.

  “Later.” Liv’s gaze swept the room, but nothing else caught her eye. As she rushed out of the studio, she said, “Listen for the phones, will you?”

  “This is crazy.”

  “This is necessary. You’re all hanging on to Olivia as if she was coming back. I don’t want her back.”

  “What?” Cari trotted behind Liv. “What are you talking about? Where are you going?”

  Liv climbed the stairs. “Closet.”

  Cari followed, shifting from side to side as if trying to find a way to divert Liv’s straight track. “Are you leaving?”

  “No. I’m just making room for me.” The master-bedroom door bounced against the wall, but Liv didn’t notice. She headed straight for the closet. She pulled a suitcase from the top shelf and filled it with all the navy pants and pastel sweaters she would never wear.

  “Sebastian isn’t going to like this.” Cari glanced nervously at the clothes crammed into the suitcase. “You know how he is.”

  Liv moved on to the dresser. “I know that he wants what’s best for me.”

  “You’re wrong.” Cari rubbed the wide band of her watch back and forth across her wrist. “He wants what’s best, what’s easiest for him. He likes the way things are. Can’t you tell how hard this is on him?”

  Liv knew this situation was hard on Sebastian. This would help. She plucked out a sheer scarf from a drawer. The swirls in shades of blue were so Olivia, soft and ephemeral. Liv placed it on the bed. “He can adapt, Cari. That’s what he does.”

  “No, don’t you see?” One arm waved as if Cari were a wounded bird trying to take off. “He can adapt out there because things stay the same here.”

  Liv added the teal vase from the dresser’s top and the oval sapphire from the jewelry box to the growing pile on the bed. “But they aren’t the same. They were changing anyway.”

  “He would’ve found a way to bring her back and make things the same.”

  Liv dropped the last of Olivia’s silk T-shirts in the suitcase and zipped it shut. “Now, I’m not giving him the chance. We’re going to bury Olivia. We’ll hold a memorial service, have a funeral. Then he’ll see that things have changed.”

  “And if he doesn’t accept your view?”

  “Then things will change anyway, won’t they?” Liv fiddled with the wedding band on her finger. It slipped easily over her knuckle. She glanced at the gold circle and noticed the inscription, “SEF to OAS—Forever.”

  Forever, the ring said. Till death do you part, they’d vowed on their wedding day. She didn’t even know what the A stood for—Anne? Alexandra? Abigail?

  Liv dropped the wedding band on top of the pile on the bed. She would not honor Olivia’s promises. She would make her own.

  One arm wrapped around her middle and chewing the thumbnail of her other hand, Cari suddenly looked like a small child as she slouched against the door frame. “Why can’t things stay the same?”

  “You’re afraid.” Liv walked over to her niece and hugged her.

  Cari’s shoulders shook, and she dropped her head onto Liv’s shoulder. “I—I…”

  “You don’t like change.”

  Tears exploded out of Cari. Black streaks of mascara ran down the red shoulder of Liv’s sweater. “I’m scared, too,” Liv said. “I love Sebastian, and I’m not sure he can ever love me the way he loved Olivia.”

  Forcing him to face his fears was a risk. He could just as easily reject her as he could embrace her. Olivia was a part of him. Liv didn’t want to take that away from him. But she wanted a clean start for herself. She wanted him to want her, not just the Olivia in her. She wanted to feel as if she had a solid footing in her home. To have both on her terms, she needed to take that scary step into the unknown. And it was like jumping out a high window. Would she break or would she land on her feet?

  “You’ve been so good to me, Cari. I really appreciate the way you’ve stood up for me with Paula and Sebastian. It’s not like our friendship will change just because I choose to stand on my own.”

  “I know, but…”

  “But what?”

  Cari shook her head.

  “It’s okay.” Liv was touched that Cari cared.

  “I think I made a mistake.”

  “We can fix it.”

  “Why are guys such jerks?” Cari wailed. “Why do we always have to change for them? Why can’t they change for us? Why aren’t we good enough the way we are?”

  “We are.” Liv wiped Cari’s tears with her thumb. “We just have to believe it first.”

  Cari pushed away from Liv, took both of her hands and grasped them so tightly Liv whimpered. “I’m sorry, Liv. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to screw everything up. I thought, I thought—”

  “Cari?”

  “Liv, if I tell you something, do you promise not to ask questions?”

  The fiery look in Cari’s pale blue eyes frightened her. “Cari…”

  “It’s important, Liv. Please trust me.”

  Reluctantly, Liv nodded.

  “If you want to help Sebastian, you have to help me find your account numbers. Now.”

  “I promised Se—”

  “He’s going to kill you. Unless I bring him the account numbers, he’s going to kill you.” Cari tugged on Liv’s hand. Liv resisted. “Sebastian won’t hurt me.”

  “Not Sebastian, Thor.”

  “Who’s Thor? What account numbers?”

  Cari shook her head. “I thought if I did what he asked, then Sebastian would see what it’s like. He could’ve helped Dad, but he refused.”

  “Wait. Stop.” Liv pulled Cari down at the foot of the bed. “Now tell me what you’re talking about.”

  Cari popped right back up. “A mistake. I made a mistake. I gave him Sebastian’s accounts, but there’s not much there. Now he wants yours. And I can’t find them. They’re not on the computer.”

  “Sebastian keeps Olivia’s and his financial things separate.”

  Cari’s eyes widened and she reached for Liv’s hands, squeezing them tight. “You know where they are?”

  “Of course. I filed them.”

  Cari heaved a loud sigh of relief. “Oh, I’m so glad. I never, ever, meant to hurt you. Only Sebastian, and I never meant it to end like this. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s okay. As soon as I give him the account numbers, everything’ll be fine.” She led Liv down the stairs at breakneck pace.

  THE FUMES OF CHEAP RED WINE in Nadine Kershaw’s apartment were so thick, a lit match could have blown the whole thing to the moon. Her body conformed to the faded orange recliner’s contours as if she’d been poured into it—a soft white pudding of a woman draped in black stretch pants and a dizzying yellow-and-black vertical-striped top. The television flickered images from The John Walsh Show, but the sound was muted to white noise. Was she expecting Walsh to run a segment to find her son’s killer? Sebastian could almost understand how that would make sense to her.

  He patted Nadine’s fleshy hand to regain her straying attention. “I need to know who helped you.”

  “No good,” she slurred. “I tried, you
know. I did the best I could.”

  “I’m sure you did. But to find who killed Bernie, I need to know who was the contact between him and Weld.”

  “No good.” Her sausage fingers reached for the bottle on the end table covered with cigarette butts. She tipped the bottle back to her open mouth and found it empty. Her head dropped forward and her whole body shook as she cradled the empty bottle between her huge breasts.

  “Whoever was helping Bernie after he escaped is the one who killed your son.”

  Her bloodshot eyes connected with his. “Jealous. He was always so jealous.” Tears magnified the tired brown of her eyes.

  “Who?” Sebastian prodded. “Who was jealous?”

  “I tried.”

  “I know. I can understand how a mother would want to keep her son out of prison. You gave birth to him. You raised him. Sacrificed for him.”

  “Damn right. Gave everything to him.”

  Sebastian sought eye contact with Nadine. This was taking too long. He needed to get back to Liv. “That makes you an accessory, Nadine. You realize that, don’t you? It means you could go to prison.” He scooped a half-empty bottle of wine from the shag carpet so filthy he couldn’t tell what color it was. “They don’t serve booze in prison.”

  She made a grab for the bottle. He swung it out of reach. “You can have this, Nadine. Just as soon as you tell me who made all the calls from the disposable cell phone you bought.”

  She stared at the bottle and swallowed hard. He sloshed the liquid to whet her thirst. She licked her thick lips.

  “I’m not going to make this easy for you, Nadine. You can talk to me and fix your pain, or I can take you in and we can wait you out. Either way, we’re going to find out who you gave that phone to.”

  She looked away, out the window where some kid had scrawled “Wash me” in the dirt. “Why should I help you? You never helped me.”

  “I’m helping you now, Nadine. You don’t want to go to jail.”

  She snuffled. “I tried. But he made it so hard to love him.”