Once and Always

  “Golly,” Karl said. “Who would do that?”

  This time he couldn’t help it—his gaze went to his battered black suitcase. The one nearly full of carefully, meticulously made fake arrowheads. ’Course, the people he sold them to on eBay didn’t know they were fake. And obviously both Molly and Walkingtall didn’t know, either.

  Now if only Karl could keep it that way.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sam’s hand was warm and strong and entirely too right.

  Maisa thought about pulling her hand from his grip. It was what she should do, certainly, but he was already tugging her to the front door, the silly little dog trotting along behind them.

  She did have to find her uncle, and somehow in the last hour or so, she’d begun to trust Sam to do it. Maybe it was the cabin—homely and obviously cared for—maybe it was the silly little dog he seemed to adore, or maybe it was that photo of Sam and his fellow soldiers. There was something about that photo. She’d heard it in his voice as he’d told her about King, Enrico, Frisbee, and Zippy. His voice had almost been vulnerable when he’d spoken about his friends. That was an odd notion: that Sam might be vulnerable in any way. And yet she was beginning to see that there was much more to the man than she’d first thought.

  She’d been almost hilariously mistaken about him. He was much, much more than a simple man. The question now was: Did she want to delve further? No, that wasn’t right. She did want to find out more about Sam. Having once discovered that there were unplumbed depths to the man, she couldn’t help but want to find out more, keep digging until she had all his secrets in her hands. But was that smart?

  Maisa smiled wryly to herself. Had she’d ever been smart about Sam?

  Sam let go of her hand long enough for both of them to get their winter gear on before leading her out the door. The terrier hopped down the front step, his tail wagging madly.

  “Do we have to take the dog?”

  Sam didn’t break his stride. Neither did the terrier. “Nope.”

  She scowled, skipping a step to try and catch up. “Then why is he coming?”

  “Because he likes the ride.” Sam opened the passenger door to his truck and boosted the little dog in. Great. The mutt was riding on the same side as she was. Sam glanced over his shoulder with a cockeyed grin as if he’d heard her mental grumbling. “And his name is Otter.”

  “Otter. Right,” she muttered as she neared the truck, feet dragging. “Otter the Dog.”

  “Yep,” he said, and before she caught on to what he was about to do, placed his palm firmly on her bottom and boosted her into the truck as well.

  Maisa landed with a rather winded “Oof.”

  Otter glanced at her sideways with what looked like scorn.

  Wonderful.

  She tried to smooth out her face as they both watched Sam tromp around the front of the truck and get in the driver’s side. He turned on the engine, put the truck in reverse, and turned, laying his right arm along the back of the seat to watch behind as he backed out of the drive. Otter immediately scrambled onto her lap and put both stubby paws on the passenger-side windowsill.

  She raised her hands and glanced at Sam, wide-eyed.

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “He likes watching out the window.” He quirked his eyebrow at her hands, still hovering over Otter, as he turned back around. “Not a dog person?”

  “What was your first clue?” She frowned down at the little body on her lap. He smelled vaguely of fish, and he was heavier than he looked. Also, his paws were wet. “I’ve never been around dogs.”

  “Not even when you were growing up?”

  “No.”

  “A cat, then.”

  She shook her head. “No pets.”

  He glanced at her as he pulled out onto the county road. “Allergic?”

  “No.” Now she sounded—and felt—defensive. “Mom and I moved a lot.”

  He was silent as he concentrated on maneuvering the big truck onto the highway. The road still wasn’t plowed. A lot of the snow had blown off the highway, but some was packed down right where the lane met the main road.

  Sam shifted down and bumped over the mound. “What about your dad?”

  She shrugged. Otter slid just then, one of his back paws scrabbling on her leg, and she caught him around the middle to steady him so he wouldn’t fall to the floor of the truck. His fur wasn’t soft. Instead it was wiry and kind of oily, but the body underneath was warm. The little dog didn’t seem to notice that she’d placed her hands on him, still staring intently out the window, so close his breath had fogged the glass.

  “My father wasn’t around,” she answered absently.

  “Your mother divorced him?”

  “No. He left us.” Her words were bitter, the memory like fresh bile, hot and acidic.

  Sam didn’t say anything.

  Oddly, his silence spurred her to continue. “My father was ashamed of us—of what we were. I remember hardly anything of him. Just bits and pieces. His voice arguing with my mother. The time he slammed the door as he left and Mama threw a mug against the wall and it shattered. Dyadya yelling at him. They had horrible fights…” She trailed off and her fingers tightened on the little dog’s gray fur.

  She tried not to think too much about Jonathan. She usually pushed any memories, any stray thoughts, from her brain as soon as they occurred, but now, strangely, she remembered the watch he’d worn on his wrist—old and gold and with an actual watch face, the second hand softly, inevitably, ticking. He’d once held it to her ear when she’d been very young to let her hear and count the beats.

  “Nothing nice?” Sam asked, interrupting memories that surged past her walls, and Otter turned to look at her as if he asked the question, too.

  She smiled, but it wasn’t happy. “He took me to the zoo once, the little one at Como Lake in Saint Paul, and bought me a Popsicle, but it was hot and I threw up. It was bright red on the hot asphalt and I could tell he was embarrassed.”

  Embarrassed of her.

  So embarrassed he’d made damned sure to tear their family apart.

  His hand tightened on the wheel, but he offered no stupid words of sympathy. Some hurts were so old that belated Band-Aids couldn’t heal them. The only hope was that they would scar and eventually fade.

  She felt something soft and warm and looked down to see that Otter was licking her hand. She stroked his head. The fur on his forehead was wiry, but his ears were surprisingly soft.

  “That’s why he’s so important, you see,” she told Otter’s silky ears. “My uncle. He was there when Jonathan wasn’t. At my fifth-grade school play. To make borscht for me on Saturday nights when Mama had a date with some loser. He brought me with him when he went to the Russian café to drink tea with his friends. I’d have a teacake and a glass of sweet tea and listen when they’d talk in Russian. Dyadya was there.” She finally looked at Sam and saw that his face held no pity, only interest. “Jonathan wasn’t.”

  Sam nodded, not looking at her. “You’re close.”

  “Yes.”

  Otter sighed heavily and collapsed into her lap. Maybe the unvarying snowy scenery out the window had finally bored him.

  “You don’t have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I.”

  She glanced away, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. She’d never asked him about his family. That felt suddenly wrong. “No relatives?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about the police chief?” She frowned. “Doc, right?”

  He looked amused. “Right about Doc being the police chief, wrong about him being related. He was a friend of my dad’s. No relation at all.”

  “Was?”

  “Dad’s gone.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him she was sorry when she remembered: he hadn’t when she’d told him about her father. They were past polite, meaningless condolences.

  “But… did you grow up here?”

  He shrugged
. “Dad was in the army. Originally from Texas, but his people are mostly gone. I grew up all over.”

  “Your mother?”

  A corner of his mouth kicked up, but not in amusement. “Kind of like your dad.”

  “Oh,” she said softly, feeling a kinship. “So you’re by yourself.”

  “You’re gonna hurt Otter the Dog’s feelings.”

  She smiled at that, stroking the little dog’s wiry fur. “I was only out of the state when I went to college in Madison.”

  He nodded. “George said you had a degree in accounting.”

  She winced. She guessed she really hadn’t spoken much about herself if he’d had to question her uncle to find out what she’d majored in. She cleared her throat. “Where’d you go?”

  “What?”

  “To school?”

  “You mean college.” He shook his head. “Army, remember?”

  “No ROTC?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?” she asked before she could stop herself. It really wasn’t any of her business. She scowled. “You’re smart enough.”

  “Thanks.” His tone was so dry she winced. “Never saw the need.”

  “Humph.” She sank lower in the truck seat. “I’d think it would help with your career.”

  He smiled as he signaled and turned. “I’m a small-town cop, May. Not exactly a high-powered career.”

  “But…” She frowned, moving restlessly. “You want to move up in the department, don’t you?”

  He shook his head and laughed.

  “What?” she asked indignantly. It hadn’t been that stupid a question.

  “You sound just like Doc,” he said. “He’s always pushing me to get a degree, take a leadership position in the police department, that sort of stuff.”

  “So why don’t you?”

  His mouth tightened. “Things don’t go so well when I’m in charge. The town’s better off where I am.”

  She noticed that he didn’t say he was better off where he was. What did he mean by “things” not going so well? What exactly had happened in Afghanistan?

  Maisa opened her mouth to ask, but one look at his shuttered face made her think twice. It wasn’t any of her business anyway what Sam did with his life. It wasn’t as if she cared one way or the other.

  She took a deep breath, pushing away the sadness that thought brought, and said lightly, “So out of all the world you decided to settle in Coot Lake, Minnesota.”

  “I’m not exactly the only one,” he said softly, casually. Too casually. “Your uncle retired up here even though, as far as I can figure, he didn’t know anyone here before he came. Kind of odd that he’d move up here when there isn’t a Russian for miles around.”

  She looked at him.

  He turned his head to pin her with those laser blue eyes. “In fact, the only other Russian I’ve seen since Old George got here was that guy yesterday.”

  She’d been lulled by the musty warmth of the car heater, the heavy weight of Otter, and most of all by Sam’s carefully light voice.

  She blinked stupidly. “What?”

  He nodded as if her astonishment had confirmed something and looked back at the road. “The guy in the red car. Didn’t you notice the accent when I drove you both to town?”

  She straightened. Otter grumbled as he was disturbed and had to move his head to a new position on her arm. She thought frantically. The oily little man whose suitcase she’d wound up with. He’d worn a red windbreaker… and that was all she’d remembered of him.

  “He didn’t speak while I was in the car,” she said sharply.

  He nodded again. “His name is Ilya Kasyanov. Russian, I bet, and I can’t help wondering what he’s doing in Coot Lake when the only other Russian here is your uncle.”

  The pink diamonds. Dyadya’s unwelcoming face. Dyadya disappearing without a note this morning. The bomb in the suitcase. Oh, God.

  The mafiya had found Dyadya.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There was fear in May’s face, and Sam hated it. May should always wear the confident smirk that he was used to. The flame in her big brown eyes that said she was about to try and cut him down a notch. The combative feminine spark. That was the expression she should have on her witchy little face: defiance and fire and daring. Not fear.

  Never fear.

  Sam tightened his hands on the steering wheel, keeping his eyes on the road. It was slow going—the snow on the highway was compacted in places, but in others it had iced over, creating dangerously slick patches. God only knew how Old George had managed to get out of his drive.

  When they caught up with him, Sam was going to have a talk with the old man. Let him know it wasn’t cool to put himself in danger when it bothered May. But before that, he was going to have to weasel out of her exactly what was going on.

  “You didn’t know him? Ilya Kasyanov?” he asked to clarify.

  She shook her head. Her brows were knit as she absently stroked Otter’s back. The terrier was snoring on her lap, and Sam just hoped he didn’t fart in his sleep. Otter packed powerful ammunition.

  “Never seen him before?” he pressed. “Your uncle ever mention his name?”

  “No, Sam.” She sounded almost irritated, but not quite and the difference worried the hell out of him.

  “Talk to me, May,” he said, not letting any gentleness into his voice. Now was not the time to let his feelings for her get in the way of finding out the situation. “What’s going on?”

  She shook her head, not saying anything, but her face was white.

  The Welcome to Coot Lake sign flashed by on the right, adorned with the emblems of the Knights of Columbus, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion.

  Sam slowed at the town speed limit and blew out a breath, thinking. “Kasyanov didn’t have any tattoos that I could see.”

  He felt more than saw May’s quick look.

  He waited a beat, then went on, “Of course I suppose not everyone is tattooed in that crowd.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said far too quickly. Poor May. She was better at offense than defense.

  “No?” He turned the wheel to pull into one of the diagonal parking spots before the Laughing Loon Café. The stripes couldn’t be seen beneath the snow, but everyone knew where they were. There were only two cars parked in front: Haley Anne’s silver hatchback, and a bright red Jeep with out-of-state plates next to an older snowmobile. He put the Silverado into park and glanced at her. “The Russian mob? George has a Russian accent, Russian mafiya prison tattoos, and he showed up out of nowhere ten years ago. Either he’s working for the mob now—which seems kind of unlikely, since we’re not in a teeming crime center—or he’s in hiding, maybe witness protection. Which is it, May?”

  Her soft pink lips parted, her face shocked. He flashed on her wearing that look last August, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, fine strands of hair stuck to her temples with sweat as he entered her.

  He smiled at her. Hard. “Not much point in holding out on me, sweetheart.”

  She inhaled, looking around. “I don’t… how do you know about mafiya tattoos?”

  That was just insulting. “I am a cop, Maisa.”

  “Okay.” She swallowed audibly, clutching at Otter’s fur like he was a teddy bear. “It’s… He’s not in witness protection.”

  He turned off the truck and waited.

  “You’re right—he was in the mafiya. First in Russia and then here.” She jerked her chin up, meeting his eyes defiantly. There. There was the May he knew. “He worked for a powerful pakhan—like a Russian godfather. The pakhan’s name was—is—Gigo Meskhi.”

  Sam frowned. “Meskhi doesn’t sound like a Russian name.”

  “It isn’t.” She shrugged. “My mother and Dyadya are from Georgia.”

  Sam’s brows rose. He knew that Georgia had been within the former Soviet Union, but that was about it. “Different names?”

  She half smiled. “Different language—
though most speak Russian as well.”

  “Do you?”

  “Speak Georgian?” She shook her head. “No. I don’t speak Russian, either, though I know a few phrases. That’s about it. I wish I’d learned as a child, but both Dyadya and Mama were adamant that I speak English at home. They grew up under the communists and they wanted to leave that world behind—especially Dyadya. He was in the gulags. He doesn’t talk about it, but they were terrible, I know.”

  Sam nodded. He’d heard pretty bad things about the Russian judicial system. “What happened with Meskhi?”

  May inhaled as if bracing herself. “Ten years ago Dyadya was forced to testify against Meskhi.”

  “Forced?”

  “Forced by my father.”

  “What?”

  Her mouth twisted. “My father is Jonathan Burnsey. He’s a prosecutor now, but at the time he was an ambitious assistant city attorney with information about crimes Dyadya had committed. My father gave my uncle no choice. Dyadya’s testimony put Meskhi away in prison for life.” Her fingers clenched hard on Otter’s fur. “I think… I think Dyadya did it for me.”

  Sam watched as Otter turned his head and licked May’s fingers. “Why do you think that?”

  She uncurled her fingers from Otter’s fur and began to stroke him. “Because there was no reason for him to do it otherwise. My father might’ve forced the issue, but Dyadya could’ve gone into hiding or fled the country. Meskhi may have threatened me and Mama, I don’t know.” She looked at him and she’d let down the shields that normally hid her eyes. She looked afraid, confused, maybe a little lost. “In any case, I think Dyadya saw it as the only way to keep us from Meskhi’s influence. He has no family other than us, you see. Dyadya never married, and the rest of his family is gone.”

  Her family as well, he thought. She lived in a very small world, his May.

  She took a breath and concentrated on her hands, as if she were talking to Otter. “Meskhi is a very dangerous man. Dyadya had to go into hiding even before the trial was over.”

  “But you said he’s not in the witness protection program.”

  May smiled cynically. “He doesn’t trust the government.”