Riptide

“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.”

“What do you mean?” he said slowly. She saw the agents in the car down the street slowly get out and stand, both of them completely alert.

“I mean nothing makes sense unless it’s Krimakov. But just say that it isn’t. That means we’re missing something. Let’s go do your stuff together, Adam, and really plug in our brains.”

He eyed her a moment, looked around, then waved at the agents. “We’ve got to walk. It’s three miles. You up for it?”

“I’d love to race you. Whatcha say?”

“You’re on.”

“You’re dead meat, boy.”

Since they were both wearing sneakers, they could run until they dropped. He gri

“Let’s go.”

She nearly had his endurance, but not quite. He slowed in the third mile.

“You’re good, Becca,” he said, and waved his hand. “This is my house.”

She loved it. The house wasn’t as large as her father’s, but it sat right in the middle of a huge hunk of wooded land, two stories, a white colonial with four thick Doric columns lined up like soldiers along the front. It looked solid, like it would last forever. She cleared her throat. “This is very nice, Adam.”

“Thanks. It’s about a hundred and fifty years old. It’s got three bedrooms upstairs, two bathrooms-I added one. Downstairs is all the regular stuff, including a library, which I use for a study, and a modern kitchen.” He cleared his throat. “I had the kitchen redone a couple years ago. My mom told me no woman would marry me unless the stove would light without having to hold a match to a burner.”

She smiled. She nearly had her breathing back to normal.

“I had one of the two upstairs bathrooms redone, too,” he said, looking straight ahead. They climbed the three deep steps to walk across the narrow veranda to the large white front door. He stuck a key in the lock and turned it. “My mom said that no woman wanted to bathe in a claw-footed tub that was so old rust was peeling off the toes.”

“That does sound pretty gross. Oh my, Adam, it’s lovely.”

They stood together in a large entryway, with a ceiling that soared two stories, a chandelier hanging down over their heads and a lovely buffed oak floor. “I know, you redid the floors. Your mom told you no woman would marry you if she had to be carried into a house across a mess of old ratty linoleum.”

“How did you know?”

He’d preserved all the original charm of the house-the deeply carved, rich moldings, the high ceilings, the lovely cherry wood carved fireplaces, the incredible set-in windows.

They prepared to hunker down in the library, a light-filled room with built-in bookshelves, beautiful oak floors, a big mahogany desk, and lots of red leather. She looked around at the bookshelves stuffed with all kinds of books-nonfiction, fiction, hardcovers, paperbacks-stuck in indiscriminately.

Adam said as he handed her two folders, “My mom also told me that women liked to read all cozied up in deep chairs. It was just men, she said, who preferred to read in the bathroom.”

“You’ve even got women’s fiction here.”

“Yeah, it seems a man can never stack the deck too much in his favor.”

“I want to meet your mama,” Becca said.

“Undoubtedly you will, real soon.” Then he couldn’t stand it. He walked to her and pulled her tightly against him. She looked up at him and said, “I want to forget Krimakov for just a minute.”

“All right.”

“Have I told you lately that I think you’re really sexy?”

He smiled slowly and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Not since last night.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him back, thoroughly.

“I don’t want you to forget it,” she said after several minutes had passed. “You’ve gotten me a bit breathless. I really like it, Adam.”

“We’re in my house now,” he said, and this time he kissed her, really kissed her, no holding back, letting himself crash and burn, letting himself burrow into her. He brought her tightly against him, feeling all of her against him, and he wanted to jerk down her jeans, he wanted to devour her, take her until both of them shattered with the pleasure of it. He wanted to kiss her breasts, touch and kiss every inch of her, and not stop until he was unconscious. And then there was her mouth. Jesus, he was making himself crazy. It was so good he really didn’t want to stop, and why should they stop?

His hands were on the buttons of her jeans when he felt the change not only in himself but in her. It was Krimakov and he was there, just over their shoulders. Waiting. He was close, too close. Krimakov was out there, only it wasn’t really Krimakov now. Whoever he was, he was a madman. Adam sighed, kissed her once more, then once again, and said, “I want you very much, but now, at this moment, we’ve got to solve this thing, Becca.”

“I know,” she said when she could speak. “I’m getting myself back together. I’m getting myself focused now. You’re quite a distraction, Adam, it’s hard.” She pulled away from him, stiffened her legs. “Okay, I’m ready to think again.”

“I promise there’ll be more,” he said, grabbing her and giving her one last kiss. “How about a lifetime full of more?”

She gave him a dazzling smile. “Given that gorgeous modern kitchen and how I believe, without a doubt, that you’re about the best kisser in the whole world, I think bunches of years might be a wonderful thing.” Then she looked at his groin and he nearly expired on the spot.

“Good,” he said finally, just a slight shiver in his voice, and she loved the way those dark eyes of his were brilliant with pleasure in the afternoon light shining in through the windows. “Now, let’s do it.”

Two hours, three cups of coffee, and a demolished plate of Wheat Thins and cheddar cheese later, Adam looked up. “I was going over my notes on Krimakov’s travel out of Greece over the years. It’s been here all the time, just staring up at me, and I didn’t see it until now.” He gave her a mad grin, jumped up, and gathered her beneath her arms and lifted her, then swung her in a circle. He kissed her once, then again, and set her back down. He rubbed his hands together. “Hot damn, Becca, I think I’ve got the answer.”

She was laughing, stroking her hands over his arms, so excited she couldn’t hold still. “Come on, Adam. What is it? Spill the beans.”

“Krimakov went to England six times. His trips to England stopped about five years ago.”

“And?”

“I never stopped to wonder why the hell he went to England all those times, until now. Becca, think about it. Why did he go? To see a former colleague, to see a friend from the good old days? Not a woman, he’d remarried, so no, I don’t think so.”

She said slowly, “When he moved to Crete, he was alone. No relatives with him. Nobody.”

“Yeah, but his files had been purged. Remember, there wasn’t even anything about his first wife. It was like she never existed, but she did. So why did the KGB purge her?”