Oceans of Fire

  Abigail rubbed Hannah's back gently. "Jonas deserves toads following him around, especially if he hung out with Sylvia. Who is he dating now?"

  "Someone with a figure," Hannah said. "Her bones won't jab him every time he holds her." She caught the plate of cookies as it started to float by.

  A collective gasp went up. "He didn't say that to you!"

  "Oh, he said it all right. He saw the magazine with the designer dresses from Italy. You know the ones without much in the back and very little in the front? He has to make some snide comment every single time I go out on a job. There was one picture of me with an Italian male model in a particularly sexy pose and Jonas was extraordinarily nasty about it. He was lucky it was only toads serenading him all night." Hannah passed the plate of chocolate chip cookies around to her sisters. "Did Aleksandr say mean things to you, Abbey?"

  "Aleksandr has never made any personal comment to me to make me feel less than beautiful. Just the opposite." Abigail bit down on the warm chocolate and let it melt in her mouth while she thought about Aleksandr Volstov. "He made me feel beautiful every moment I was with him. He always acted like he couldn't see another woman." She smiled around the mouthful of cookie. "He did tell me I had a bad temper once, though."

  "Well, you do," Joley said. When Abigail glared at her she shrugged. "You do. You know you do. Not as bad as mine, but you have one."

  "Men are just so bossy," Abigail said. "It's annoying sometimes."

  "Sometimes?" Joley's eyebrow shot up. "It's annoying all the time. I don't know how any of you put up with it. Seriously, Kate, Sarah, you both should think long and hard before you commit to this marriage thing. Men just like to take over." She caught up three cookies and placed the plate in the center of the seven sisters. "Aleksandr is absolutely the bossy type."

  "You don't have to tell me," Abigail admitted. "He definitely doesn't lack for confidence."

  "What does he lack?" Sarah asked, her voice gentle.

  Abigail took a deep breath and let it out. "Maybe I'm the one lacking, I don't honestly know, or maybe I expected a knight in shining armor. I told him about everything. Us. All of our gifts, the bad, the good, and everything that came with having talent. I told him how difficult it can be and how exhilarating. And I told him how you all had wonderful gifts that seemed so useful and yet mine only did damage. I think he was skeptical at first, but he has a tremendous sense of intuition. So he would throw out little tests, at least that's how I thought of them, and eventually he asked me to sit in on the interrogation of some of his prisoners. For the first time in my life, I felt like my talent made a difference, actually had a purpose. I knew I was helping him and doing something worthwhile."

  There was eagerness in her voice her sisters couldn't fail to notice, but Abigail couldn't hide it. For the first time in her life she had felt part of something and worthy of being a Drake. "It wasn't just the fact that I was working with him, and that he was proud of me, but it meant that I measured up to the rest of you and all the Drake sisters who had gone before us."

  "Abigail," Libby said, reaching out to wrap her fingers around her sister's arm, "how could you think that way?"

  Immediately, at Libby's touch, Abigail's pain eased. She sent Libby a faint smile. "That's why. You're so extraordinary, all of you, the things you can do for people. All of these years being in Sea Haven, has anyone ever asked me for help? They avoid me. Most don't engage me in conversation. I have a few friends outside this family, but not very many. The townspeople are so proud of the rest of you and you're always being asked to help. I know it isn't easy for you and I'm not trying to belittle the fact that it takes so much out of you, but to never be asked made me feel so far from the rest of you." Abigail looked around at her sisters. "Do any of you understand?"

  Hannah nodded. "I'm always the bad girl. It's probably from having to stay to myself so much. I spend a lot of time thinking about things I shouldn't. I can't help it and I wonder sometimes how everyone else can be so good." She took a chocolate chip cookie out of Joley's hand and took a bite. "Well, except for Joley, but she never gets lectures because everyone expects it out of her."

  "Damn straight," Joley said. "I earned my reputation and it keeps growing even when I don't do anything."

  "Stop trying to look pathetic, Joley," Sarah admonished. "You can't pull it off."

  "Sheesh. I get no respect in this house. It isn't easy to get the kind of publicity I do. My all-time fave was the time someone sent Mom and Dad the tabloid with the headlines 'Caught in the Act' and 'Confessions of a Sex Addict.' Mom called me and said she and Daddy were leaving the country. She neglected to tell me they'd been planning their trip for years, so I was mortified."

  The sisters erupted into gales of laughter. "Well, you shouldn't have confessed to your addiction," Abigail pointed out.

  "I wish," Joley said. "Who the hell am I supposed to have sex with? I'm on the road all the time and I flirt like crazy but I think they're all afraid of my reputation."

  "Ooo!" Hannah said. "What you need, Joley, is for us to do the red panty ceremony for you. Do you have a pair upstairs? Everyone we've done it for says it works."

  "It worked for me," Abigail reported. "Aleksandr loved the red panties and I was very, very lucky the night I wore them."

  "No way!" Joley held up her fingers in a cross. "I'm not going to saddle myself with a man as arrogant and bossy as Aleksandr. I'm going for the type I can dominate totally. He'll adore me and do every single thing my little heart desires. If the red panty ceremony nets you a hot bossy man, I am so not there!" She looked curiously at Hannah. "What about you? Have you tried it?"

  Hannah shuddered openly. "Sleeping with someone generally requires a date of some kind and dating generally requires talking to someone and as I have never been able to actually talk with a man I like without looking like an idiot, I've passed on the sacred ceremony, thank you very much."

  "You talk to Jonas," Sarah pointed out.

  "Is he actually a man? I think he's an android." Hannah managed a sniff of disdain. "I doubt seriously if he counts and no one--no one--in their right mind would ever go out with him."

  They all looked at Elle. She held up both hands. "As no form of birth control is going to work for me, I figure it's in my best interest to stay as far away from that particular ceremony as possible." She grinned at Abigail. "Although I did participate in Abbey's ritual just before she left on vacation. I chanted, lit candles, and had a lot of fun and then hid in the nearest closet just in case there was a backlash. I'm so pleased to hear it worked."

  "It definitely worked," Abigail confirmed. "He took one look at me the day I wore them and he was so hot I didn't think we'd make it to his room. He had me up against the wall and..." She trailed off, fanning herself. "Suffice it to say, the ritual works."

  "Thanks a lot, Abbey," Elle said, "that's just not right. I'm eating the last cookie and I deserve it."

  They all watched solemnly as Elle ate the last chocolate chip cookie.

  "So he made you feel beautiful, he's great in bed, and he's smart and funny and sings to you," Sarah ventured. "He even had you believing in yourself and sharing your gift. So tell us more about what went wrong, Abbey."

  "He was working very hard on a case. He had several, but this one investigation was ongoing and he'd been working on it nearly two years. It was awful. At first he didn't want to talk about it because it involved a series of brutal child murders. He was certain he was getting close to finding the murderer. It's very different there than here and he was frustrated at times with the level of cooperation and the threats from his superiors. I know the deaths haunted him and he felt responsible because the killer eluded him for so long."

  "How terrible." Joley sat up, frowning. She put one hand on Libby. Hannah did the same. They were all empathic, but Libby would feel the most, especially with her sister, and Abigail was in pain. "For everyone. The parents, the children, Aleksandr, and you as well. It must have been so awful for you to expe
rience what he and the parents were feeling. Was he aware how empathic you are?"

  "How could he be? How can anyone be? Look at how Irene Madison keeps insisting Libby heal her son, Drew, of cancer. She has no idea how dangerous even trying would be. It's the same with everyone. And when we try to explain it, they don't want to hear because whatever they're asking is that important to them. Aleksandr reached a point where he wanted me involved because all that mattered was saving children and I agreed."

  Abigail sat up and leaned her head back against the sofa. She looked at her hands. "How many times do you think we start things with the best of intentions and end up hurting other people?"

  "Abbey," Kate said, "all of us have done things we're not proud of. Everyone makes mistakes. We all make choices based on the information we have at the time. It's all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step."

  "When I went to the station to meet Aleksandr, I was told he'd brought in a suspect and that he was in an interrogation room waiting for me to help question the man. All I knew was that Aleksandr had told me he was close to breaking the case. I assumed the suspect in custody was the man he was certain was the killer. When I went in several officers were in the room and everyone was yelling at the suspect. They stood over him and pounded the table and accused him over and over."

  "I'm so sorry, Abbey," Sarah whispered. "That wouldn't be easy for any of us."

  Abigail shook her head. "Don't feel sorry for me. I wanted to be there. I wanted to help him solve the murders. I wanted to be important to him." She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. "I was so stupid. I wasn't thinking. I didn't go in there thinking of the suspect or even with a clear mind. I went in thinking about myself. My own glory. Of helping Aleksandr and making him happy." She hit the back of her head three times against the sofa cushions in an agony of recrimination. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid."

  "It's human, Abbey, not stupid. You loved this man and you wanted to help him. Using magic takes steps, we all know that, but all of us have skipped those steps in the heat of the moment. I imagine it was very emotional for everyone concerned."

  "I asked him if he was guilty. But I didn't ask what his crime was or what he had done to the child, I simply asked if he was guilty. The other officers were shouting questions and Aleksandr was using his cold, very frightening voice and I was just so certain that I could make him confess his guilt. And I did. He said yes and then he calmly reached over and took a gun one of the officers had so conveniently laid on the table and he shot himself in the head."

  "Oh, my God!" Kate was horrified. "Honey, I'm so sorry."

  "Abigail...," Sarah began.

  Abigail shook her head. "You know what his crime was? He fell asleep while he was supposed to be watching his child. He was drinking and he got sleepy and he lay down and she left the house to play with her friends. The real killer snatched her. Of course he felt guilty. What parent wouldn't? He was the child's father--not that I knew that at the time. They didn't tell me and, worse, I didn't think to ask." She looked at her sisters, tears shimmering in her eyes. "Even when he said he was guilty, I knew he wasn't, but I didn't have the time to say it. He just went for the gun." She lifted her hands. "I had his blood all over me. Some nights I wake up and I'm still covered and I can't wash it off no matter how hard I try."

  "You have nightmares," Hannah said. "I hear you crying but your door won't open for me."

  Abigail held out her hand to her sister. "I'm sorry, Hannah. I know that distressed you, but I just couldn't face anyone. I couldn't tell you what I'd done."

  "Is that the reason you won't have anything to do with Aleksandr?" Joley asked.

  Abigail let out her breath. "I don't know. I only know that it was one of the most horrifying moments in my life and I expected him to comfort me--to do something--but all of the officers began talking really fast, especially the one whose gun it had been. The next thing I know I was dragged out of the room and Aleksandr just stood there and watched them take me away."

  Sarah frowned. "I don't understand. Were they accusing you of something? What did he do?"

  "He stood there so still, his eyes as cold as ice, and he watched them drag me out of the interrogation room as if I were a suspect in one of his murders. I was covered in the poor man's blood and they took me right past his wife. I looked at her and she was staring at me so hopelessly. She'd lost her daughter and in a few minutes someone would come and tell her about her husband."

  "That rat bastard!" Joley exploded. "And all this time I was harboring a plot to get the two of you back together."

  "Toads aren't good enough for him," Hannah declared.

  Sarah held up her hand for silence. "Abbey, honey, I know this is hard for you to tell us, but we need to know everything that happened to you in order to help."

  Abigail shook her head. "So you and Libby and everyone can make me feel better about what I did? I can't take it back. That small moment in time when I walked into that room so filled with my own importance. So certain I'd catch a killer and Aleksandr would be grateful to me. So sure that my magic was wielded with every bit of power and expertise as all of yours." She leaned back, fighting tears. "We never can just stop time. Or take moments back. Life doesn't work that way, does it?"

  "No, it doesn't, Abbey," Kate said. "But we go on. And we learn from our experiences. Tell us the rest. Tell us what happened to you."

  "They interrogated me for two days and nights. Apparently the officer who was careless with his gun accused me of upsetting the prisoner with my questions. They were horrible, hitting me and shouting." She broke off, shaking her head. "I thought they were going to kill me. They wanted to blame someone for the poor man's death and I guess I was the perfect scapegoat. I didn't have anyone to stand up for me and they wouldn't allow me to call the embassy."

  "How terrifying. That doesn't make any sense," Libby said.

  "They didn't even let me change my clothes. I was so frightened and I kept thinking Aleksandr would come and get me out of there, but he didn't." Abigail looked down at her hands. "I was so far away from all of you and too ashamed to reach out. I was so scared, but I was more afraid you'd find out what I'd done and never be able to forgive me. I still can't forgive myself."

  "And you can't forgive him," Sarah said quietly.

  Abigail shook her head. "Somewhere deep inside me, I know it's selfish to want him to put me first. To want him to comfort me when my world has fallen apart."

  "It isn't selfish, Abbey," Joley said. "It's human. Normal. You're not a martyr, you're a woman. Of course you would want your man to put you first and, for God's sake, help you out when you need it." She clenched her fist. "I wish I'd known all this when I was letting him charm me. I would have punched his lights out."

  The wind came up from the sea, howling as it battered the house. The sisters looked at Hannah. She shrugged. "It happens when I'm really angry, a leftover childhood thing. I can't always control it."

  "Do we want to know what they did to you while they interrogated you or are Hannah and Joley going to go psycho on us?" Kate asked.

  Abigail shook her head. "I'm not going to talk about that. It was horrible and I was more scared than I've ever been in my life, even more frightened than all the times I've been diving and run into sharks."

  Elle closed her eyes and turned her face away, tears on her lashes and running down her face. "They hit you over and over. One man slapped your face a lot." Her voice sounded distant and there were lines of strain around her mouth. "They threatened you and made lewd comments. They called you witch and they tried to get other names out of you. The man slapping you wanted you to name Aleksandr, to say he left the gun there on purpose." Elle opened her eyes and looked straight into Abbey's eyes.

  Abigail felt her heart jolt painfully. It was always that way when facing Elle. She looked so young with her vivid red hair and her pale skin, but when you looked int
o her eyes, they were too old and filled with knowledge, filled with things no one else saw.

  "You never said his name."

  "No, I didn't."

  "Why?" Elle asked softly.

  Abigail shook her head. "I don't know."

  "Yes, you do."

  "I loved him."

  Elle sighed. "You did love him very much, but that wasn't why you didn't name him. You were angry and frightened and you're as stubborn as hell, Abbey. That wasn't the reason you refused to give him up. And it wasn't because you wanted him to save you. After the first three hours of that man standing over you, spitting and slapping and threatening you, it didn't matter to you if Aleksandr saved you or not."

  "I was angry," Abigail whispered.

  "At all of them," Elle said. "Somewhere inside you is that answer. When you get past anger and disappointment and you let go of guilt, you'll know why. And then it got worse, didn't it, because you suspected Aleksandr had to do something terrible in order to get you released."

  Abigail nodded. "The men interrogating me suddenly were pulled from the room and others took their place, but they didn't talk to me. They whispered back and forth and they acted very different--fearful--and they didn't ask me anything at all, just whispered together, clearly very afraid. They seemed to be constructing some story to tell their superiors. I knew something terrible had happened."

  "You..."

  "No!" Abigail shook her head at Elle. "Don't say it. Don't even think it. I don't want to know what Aleksandr did to get me out of there. If he killed someone to get me free, if someone else died because of me, I couldn't live with it."

  "Abbey...," Sarah started.

  "No, I mean it. I can hardly breathe sometimes thinking about that poor woman without her husband and daughter. I can't go there. Don't ask me."

  "And maybe that's what you run from in Aleksandr," Elle said. "Not his mistakes, but his strength. The very things you relied on and admired in him are the things you fear the most."

  Abigail couldn't look away from Elle. "You knew. All this time, you knew."