Riptide (28 page)

“I see. Interesting mail delivery service this guy has. Well, better to be careful.” He took a sample of her blood, then left, saying that he'd have results for them in two hours.

“A very good man to have as a friend,” Savich said. “I wonder, though, how many more favors he'll believe he owes me.”

Thomas said to Savich, but his eyes were on his daughter, “You got his kid back for him. He'll believe he owes you forever.”

It was nearly one o'clock in the morning when Dr. Breaker called. Thomas took the call, looked very relieved as he listened. He was smiling when he turned to Becca and Adam. “Everything's okay. Nothing there but your beautiful normal stuff, Becca. He said not to worry.”

Becca had rather hoped there might be something, nothing terminal, naturally, but something. Otherwise, they still had not a single clue about anything. Krimakov had kidnapped Sam to get her back to Riptide. Then he'd shot her in the shoulder to deliver that ridiculous note. In the gym parking lot. Nothing made sense.

That night Adam came to her. It was very dark in her room. She was lying there, unable to sleep even though it
was very late, staring toward the window, looking at the slice of white moon just above the maple treetops. The trees were silhouetted stark and silent against the night, and they were perfectly still, no breeze at all. Thank God the house was air-conditioned. It was cool in her bedroom.

Her door opened, then closed quietly. His voice was soft, pitched low. “Don't be afraid. It's just me. And I'm not here to jump you, Becca.”

She looked over at him, standing with his back against her closed door.

“Why not?”

He laughed, a painful sound, and walked toward her, tall, strong, and she wanted him.

He said, stopping beside her bed, looking down at her, “You never say what I expect. I want to jump you, at least a dozen times an hour, but no, this is your father's house. One doesn't do that under the parental roof when one isn't married. But don't get me wrong. If I could strip that nightgown off you, I would have it gone in a second flat. But I can't. Not here. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Oh hell, that's a big lie. I'm here because I want to kiss you until we're both stupid with pleasure.”

He was beside her then, drawing her up and against his chest, and he kissed her, lightly, then with more pressure, and she opened her mouth and didn't want him to stop. His breath was hot and sweet, his scent rich, dark, and that mouth of his was delicious, and she let herself enjoy him fully. She wanted more and more. It was Adam who pushed her gently back after what seemed like only an instant.

“You're beautiful,” he said and streaked his fingers through her hair, pushing it behind her ears. “Even with your hair still a bit brassy.”

“I'm not stupid with pleasure yet, Adam.”

“I'm not, either, but we've got to stop.” He was breathing hard, his hands flexing and unflexing against her back.

“Maybe we could kiss just a little bit more?”

“Listen, if we don't stop right now, I'll start crying
because I know that sooner or later we'd have to stop. We'll stop now before it kills me.”

“All right, then. You be strong and let me mess with you just a bit.” She kissed his chin once, then again. She touched her fingers to his cheeks, his nose, his brows, lightly traced over his mouth. She looked at his mouth as she said, “I haven't told you this before, Adam. So much has happened. We haven't known each other all that long, and nothing we've done together has been remotely normal or predictable. But here goes: You're very, very sexy.”

He stared at her in the dim light as if he hadn't understood her. “What did you say? You think I'm sexy?”

“Oh, yes, the sexiest man I've ever seen. And finally I've gotten to kiss you. I like it, very much. I kissed your chin because it's sexy, too.”

He looked inordinately pleased with himself, and with her. “I guess being sexy is okay. Is that all you think of me, Becca? I'm just a sexy hunk? Isn't there anything else, maybe, that you'd like to say to me?”

“What else should I say? Your ego is big enough without my saying more.” Then she looked up at him beneath her lashes, a provocative thing to do, and she knew it. For the first time in so very long, actually, longer than she could remember, she allowed herself to enjoy what was happening here.

He didn't say anything, then suddenly he pulled her tightly against him again. He was rubbing his big hands up and down her back. His breathing was sharp, ragged. “I was scared to death when you were in that damned gym parking lot. When he shot that dart at you, Savich had to just about sit on me. I knew I shouldn't move, shouldn't yell like a banshee, but it was hard just staying still, watching you, damned hard. In fact, it was about the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my blessed life.”

He pressed his forehead to hers, holding her loosely now.

His warm breath feathered over her skin. “Oh, yeah, I
was married once. It was a long time ago. Her name was Vivie. Everything was okay for a while, then it just wasn't. She didn't want kids and I did. But I'm not serious about anyone else. It's just you, Becca. Just you.”

“That's nice,” she said and yawned against his shoulder. Then she bit his neck, then kissed where she'd bitten him. “I wish you were naked.” To his immense credit, he didn't do anything other than shake a bit. “This is very close, Becca. My fingers are actually itching they want to touch you so much. But this is your father's house. We can't. Hey, how would you like to go out in the backyard, maybe we could take a couple of blankets?”

“Out from under the parental roof?”

“That's it. Oh yeah, for sure we could wave to the FBI agents that are scattered around.” He sighed deeply, kissed her ear, and sighed again. “My molecules are even horny.”

Becca sighed and rested her hand on his chest. His heart was pounding hard and fast beneath her palm. She arched up and kissed his throat, then eased back in the circle of his arms. “Not fair at all. I mean, the shirt you're wearing is nice but I would love to kiss your chest, maybe even run my hands down over your belly.”

He shuddered, drew quickly away from her, and rose. “I've been feeling your breasts against me and it's driving me nuts. Now, since we can't be wicked the way I would like, I've got to get out of here. I just can't take any more. I'd like to try but I know it wouldn't work. Good night. I'll see you in the morning. I might be a bit late. I've got to go home and do some stuff.” And he was gone. Her bedroom door closed very quietly behind him.

She sat there on her bed, hugging her knees. So suddenly her life had changed. And in all this nightmare, she'd found herself a man she hadn't believed could even exist. His first wife, Vivie, had had peas for brains. She hoped that Vivie—silly name—lived as far away as Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was a good enough distance away.

Soon enough, of course, Krimakov intruded. She wanted to shoot him, just point a gun at his chest and fire.
She wanted him gone, into oblivion, so he couldn't ever hurt anyone again.

 

T
he next day, at precisely noon, when Governor Bledsoe of New York was walking his dog, Jabbers, in his protected garden, a sniper shooting from a distance of about five hundred feet nailed his dog right through the folds of his neck. Jabbers was rushed to the vet and it looked like he would survive, just like his master had.

Thomas turned slowly to his daughter, the two of them alone in the house. “This is over the top. It's just too much. Damnation, he shot the dog in the neck. Unbelievable. At least the sick bastard isn't here.”

“But why did he do it?” Becca said. “Why?”

“To laugh at us,” Thomas said. “To make this big joke. He wants us to know just how invincible he is, how he can do anything he wants to and get away with it. How he's here and then he's there, and we'll never get him. Yes, he's laughing his head off.”

G
aylan Woodhouse sat at an angle across from Thomas's desk with his face in the shadows, as was his wont, and said, “I don't want you to worry about your daughter, Thomas. Your whereabouts will not be leaked. As you know, the media is still in a frenzy over the shooting of poor Jabbers. The country is primarily amused at his audacity, titillated, glued to their TVs. Everyone wants to know about Krimakov, this man who swore to kill you twenty-some years ago. By shooting that damned dog, he's turned up the heat. He wants the media to find you for him and then he'll come after you.”

“No,” Thomas said slowly, shaking his head. “I don't think that was his motive at all. You see, Gaylan, he had me in Riptide. He had to know I would never allow Becca to go up there alone. He could have easily shot me. He proved he was an excellent distance shooter when he shot the governor of New York. From that distance, he could have nailed me with little effort. But he didn't force anything after he kidnapped Sam McBride, except to shoot Becca in the shoulder with a dart that had a piece of paper rolled around the shaft. No, Gaylan, he shot the governor's dog because he wanted to give me the finger, show
me again that it was his decision not to kill me and Becca in Riptide. He wants to show me that he doesn't have to do anything until he decides he wants to do it. He wants to prove to me over and over that he's superior to me, that he's the one in control here, that he's the one calling all the shots. It's a cat-and-mouse game and he's proving again and again that he's the cat. Damnation, he is the cat. Adam's right. During all of this, we've only been able to react to what he does.”

Gaylan said slowly, “One of my people pointed out that Krimakov certainly managed to get from one place to the next with no difficulty at all, suggested that maybe he has a private plane stashed somewhere. What do you think?”

Thomas said, “Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Heaven knows you can't have much faith in the commercial airlines. But you know, Gaylan, shooting that dog wasn't on a set timetable. You can check it out, but I doubt it.”

Gaylan sighed. “We still don't have any leads in New York. His disguise must have been something. The security tapes showed old folk, pregnant women, children—do we track all of them down to question? Still no witnesses. Damnation, four good agents dead because of that maniac.”

Thomas said, “I've been thinking about that. I'm coming to believe that Krimakov wants Becca and me together, to torment us together, prolong our deaths. But yet he went right to New York University Hospital, shot everyone, then ran. What if Krimakov somehow found out it was a trap? What if he still did it, in fact made a big production of it, all to tell us that he knew about our plan and it didn't matter? Yes, he knew, and he thumbed his nose at us.”

“You're making him sound wilier than the Devil,” Gaylan said, a brow arched. “More evil, too.”

“I would say certifiably insane,” Thomas said. “But it doesn't make him stupid. It doesn't really matter what the truth of his motives was, four agents are still dead. Yet it fits into all the things he's done since then. Over the top, frightening as hell.”

“Yes,” Gaylan said. He looked toward Thomas's
bookshelves for a moment. He seemed to shake himself, then took a sip of his coffee. He carefully set the cup back into the saucer. He crossed his legs, then said, “There's another reason I came here, Thomas. The fact is that the president isn't going to sit still much longer. He called me over, paced in front of me for ten minutes, told me that all this mess had to come to a close, that the media are totally focused on it to the detriment of what he's trying to accomplish. He's got this new flat tax he's trying to sell to the country, only the media is ignoring him in favor of this. He said he'd even tried to make a joke, but the media was still talking about Jabbers and his sore neck.”

“Tell the president that if he wants me to go public, challenge Krimakov at high noon, I'll do it.”

“No,” Gaylan said, “you won't. I won't allow that. He could take you out easily—his shot at the governor was from a distance of at least four hundred feet. You yourself pointed that out to me. He's better than good, Thomas, he's one of the best. He maximized his chances to nail his target.” He held up his hand when Thomas would have said something. “No, let me finish. All I'm saying is that we've got to come up with something else. Somehow, we've got to make him dance to our tune.”

“A lot of very good minds are working on this, as you know, since some of those minds work for you.”

Gaylan nodded, picked up a pen from Thomas's desk, and began rhythmically tapping it against his knee. “Yes, I know. But for now, your whereabouts stay unknown. I'll tell the president that everything will be resolved in a couple more days. Think it's possible?”

“Sure, why not?” And he thought,
How the hell am I supposed to make that come about?

“All right. We continue the silence. What about that incident with Krimakov in Riptide?”

Thomas said, “Evidently, the media doesn't know about her visit there yet. And Tyler McBride—you know, the man whose son Krimakov kidnapped in Riptide—he isn't saying anything to anyone about Becca. I think he's in love
with her and that's why he won't explode sky-high with all this. Becca, however, as much as she cares for his little boy, isn't headed his way.” He paused a moment, looking down at the onyx pen set that Allison had given him some five Christmases before. “It's Adam,” he said, smiling briefly as he looked at his old friend. “Isn't that nice?”

Gaylan Woodhouse grunted. “I'm too old,” he said, then sighed again. “Krimakov won't find you, Thomas. Don't worry. I'll deal with the president. Let's say forty-eight hours, then we'll reassess. Okay?”

“Again, Gaylan, maybe Krimakov needs to find me. Forget the president's political agenda. Just maybe Krimakov's reign of terror will continue until he knows where I am. Maybe we should let him know, somehow.”

“We'll all think about that, but not just yet. Forty-eight hours. Jesus, next the guy might try to shoot off the mayor's wig.” Gaylan Woodhouse rose, dropped the pen back on top of the desk, shook Thomas's hand, and stepped back through the door, where the shadows were thicker. Three dark-suited men fell in beside and behind him as he left Thomas's house.

Thomas stared after him. Shadows surrounded him. Thomas understood shadows very well. He'd lived in the shadows himself for so long he could see them even as they gathered around him, and wondered if after a while anyone would actually see him or just the shadows.

Forget shadows,
Thomas thought. Now wasn't the time to wax philosophical. He thought about the meeting. Gaylan was a good friend. He'd hold out against the president about losing the limelight for as long as he could. Forty-eight hours—that was the deal. It wasn't a lot of time and yet it was an eternity. Only Krimakov knew which.

 

T
he next evening, Sherlock and Savich arrived with thick folders of papers, MAX, and Sean, who reared up on Savich's shoulder, staring about sleepily at everyone, a graham cracker clutched in his hand.

Sherlock looked at everyone in the living room. She didn't look happy as she said, “I'm really sorry here, guys, but our handwriting experts turned up something we didn't expect.”

“What have you got, Sherlock?” Adam asked, rising slowly, his eyes never leaving her face.

“We were hoping to learn whether or not Krimakov's mental state had deteriorated, at least determine where he was sitting presently on the sanity scale, in order to give us a better chance of dealing with him, predicting what he might do, that sort of thing. That's off now. We have no idea, you see, because the two new samples of handwriting Becca gave me aren't Krimakov's.”

Thomas looked like someone had slapped him. He said slowly, “No, that's not possible. Admittedly I just looked at the ones from Riptide briefly, but they looked the same to me. You're sure about this, Sherlock? Absolutely?”

“Oh, yes, completely sure. We're dealing with a very different person here, and this person's mind isn't like yours or mine.”

“You mean he's not sane,” Thomas said.

“It's difficult to say with absolute certainty, but it's possible he's so far over the edge he's holding on by his fingernails. We could throw around labels—psychopath comes readily to mind—but that's just a start. The only thing we're completely certain about—he's obsessed with you, Thomas. He wants to prove to you that you're nowhere near his league, that he's a god and you're dirt. He sees himself as an avenger, the man who will balance the scales of justice, the man who will be your executioner.

“It's been his goal for a very long time; it could at this point even be his only reason for living. He's rather like a missile that's been programmed for one thing and one thing only. He won't stop, ever, until either he's killed you or you've killed him.”

“So it was never Krimakov,” Adam said slowly. “He really was killed in that auto accident in Crete.”

“Probably so. Now, not all of this is from our experts' analysis. Profiling had a hand in it, as well.” Sherlock turned back to Thomas. “Like you said, the two different sets of handwriting look close to a layman's eye, which probably means that this guy knew Krimakov, or at least he'd seen his handwriting a goodly number of times. A friend, a former or present colleague, someone like that.”

“We're sorry, guys,” Savich said. “I know that Krimakov's former associates have been checked backwards and forwards, but I guess we're going to have to try to do more. I've already got MAX doing more sniffing around Krimakov's neighbors, business associates, friends in Crete and on mainland Greece, as well. We already know that he had a couple of side businesses in Athens. We'll see where that leads.”

“No, all that has already been checked,” Thomas said.

Savich just shook his head. “We'll have to do more, try anything.”

Sherlock said, “We've also inputted everything we know into the PAP to see what comes out. Remember, the computer can analyze more alternatives more quickly than we can. We'll see.”

Thomas said, “All right. What exactly did the profilers have to say, Sherlock?”

“Back to a label. He is psychotic. He has absolutely no remorse, no empathy for any of the people he's killed. None of them mean anything to him. They were detritus to be swept out of his way.”

“I wonder why he didn't kill Sam,” Becca said.

“We don't know,” Savich said. “That's a good question.”

“It just doesn't seem possible,” Adam said. “Just not possible. Why would a colleague or some bloody friend—no matter how close to Krimakov—go on this rampage? Even if he is a psychopath, always has been a psychopath, why wait more than twenty years after the fact? Why take over Krimakov's mission as his own?”

No one had an answer to that.

Adam said, “Now we've got to find out who would follow up on Krimakov's vendetta once Krimakov himself was dead. What's his motivation, for God's sake?”

“We don't know,” Sherlock said, and she began rubbing Sean's back with her palm. He was cooing against his father's shoulder, the graham cracker very wet but still clutched tightly in his hand.

“There are graham cracker crumbs all over the house,” Savich said absently.

Becca didn't say anything. There were few things she'd ever been absolutely sure were true in her life. This was one of them. It simply had to be Krimakov. No matter how infallible the handwriting experts usually were, they were wrong on this one.

But what if they weren't wrong? A psychopath obsessed with finding and killing her father? He'd called himself her boyfriend. He'd blown up that poor old bag lady in front of the Metropolitan Museum. He'd dug up Linda Cartwright and bashed in her face. No empathy, no remorse, people were detritus, nothing more. God, it was unthinkable.

She looked over at Adam. He was looking toward Savich, but she didn't think he really saw him. Adam was really looking inward, ah, but his eyes—they were cold and hard and she wouldn't want to have to tangle with him. She heard her father in the other room, speaking to Gaylan Woodhouse on the phone.

Sherlock and Savich left a few minutes later, leaving Adam and Becca in the living room, looking at each other. He said, his hands jiggling change in his pockets, “I've got stuff to do at my house. I want you to stay here with Thomas, under wraps. Don't go anywhere. I'll be back tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I want to do some stuff, too,” she said, rising. “I'm coming with you.”

“No, you'll stay here. It's safe here.”

And he was gone.

Her father appeared in the doorway. She said, “I'll see
you later, sir. I'm going with Adam.” She picked up her purse and ran after him. He was nearly to the road when she caught up with him. “Where are you going?”

“Becca, go back. It's safer here. Go back.”

“No. You don't believe any more than I do that some colleague or friend of Krimakov's from the good old days is wreaking all this havoc. I think we're missing something here, something that's been there all the time, staring us in the face.”