Ekaterina (17 page)

“Hope. Hope Moore, well, that was her married name. Her maiden name was Neumann.”

Larissa poured a tablespoon of
zavarka
into the bottom of Kat’s teacup. She filled it with the boiling water from the samovar and handed it to Kat.

“But Neumann is a German name, isn’t it?” Larissa asked. “I thought you said your mother was Russian.”

“It is. My grandfather’s father was German, but my grandmother was from Russia. My grandfather met her in the war.”

Pyotr accepted his tea from his wife. “In Russia?” He shook his head. “Americans didn’t fight on Russian soil.”

“Yes they did.”
Babushka
Rina thumbed the handle of her cup, and her eyes were on Kat. Kat couldn’t shrug off the intensity of the old woman’s gaze. “They came over in the early days, helped organize the partisans.”

“Yes,” Kat breathed, caught like a deer by the woman’s stare. “I think my grandfather was one of those. He said he worked with the partisans.”

“Well, isn’t that interesting.” Larissa sat down next to Baba Rina, whose eyes never left Kat’s face, and put an arm on the older woman. “
Babushka
Rina was a partisan for a while.”

Silence filled the room as Kat’s heart thumped hard. “Did you ever meet any Americans?” Here it was—the possibility this woman might have met, even worked with Grandfather. Kat held her breath.

“No.” The abrupt response crushed Kat’s hopes. Baba Rina glanced away. “I don’t remember that much about the partisans. It was a horrible, dark time. War is awful. It simply tears out your heart and there’s no way to survive but to forget it all. Erase it.” Her voice dropped, to a harsh whisper. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

The silence felt so sharp, it brought tears to Kat’s eyes. She bit the inside of her mouth to fight them back. “I’m sorry,” she said in a mustered voice.

No one moved. Then, thankfully, Larissa reached across the table and touched Kat’s hand. “Why don’t you ask your grandmother about your grandfather’s activities?”

Kat’s grief seemed to clog her chest. “I never met her. She died when my mother was a baby.”

The tightness in the room dissolved in a moment. “I’m so sorry,” Larissa said.
Babushka
Rina gave her a pitying smile. “What a shame. What was her name?”

“Magda. He called her Magda.”

The old woman’s smile froze, and in a blink, she aged to her eighty-some years, perhaps beyond. “Magda?” she repeated, and an unmistakable tremor strummed her voice.

Kat nodded, a strange feeling gripping her heart.

“That’s not a Russian name.”

Kat’s mouth dried. “It’s not?”

Babushka
Rina shook her head slowly. “That’s a Hebrew name. It means ‘Tower of strength’.”

“Are you sure your grandmother was Russian?” Pyotr asked Kat as he reached for a peroshke, obviously unaware that his mother’s face had drained of all life.

Kat nodded, eyes glued on the old woman. Baba Rina broke Kat’s stare and sipped her tea. Her sleek, aged hands trembled.

“Could I. . .could I show you something?” Kat asked. Her heart pulsed in her throat as she dragged her backpack into her lap and pulled out her Bible. She took out the ancient picture her grandfather had given her, stared for moment at the two women in front of the grave, then she handed it to Rina.

Larissa took it, because
Babushka
Rina refused. “Who is this?”

Kat kept her eyes on the old woman, her emotions wanting to leap from her skin. “I don’t know. That’s why I came to Russia. To find who these women are and why my grandfather has this picture.”

Larissa showed the picture to Rina. “Klassen,” she said softly.

Babushka
Rina stared at it, blinking. Then her eyes filled and she looked down, at her tea.

Kat felt her soul burn in panic as she watched the old woman shake her head.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

-

Ilyitch yanked his carry-on from the overhead compartment, cursing the cramped seats, the stuffy, smoke-filled air that wanted to close his throat, and especially the low-hanging thunderheads that made their landing as close to suicide as he’d like to experience.

He slung the bag over his shoulder, and nearly flattened the doddering
Dadushka.
The old man shuffled at the speed of molasses from the cramped cabin. Ilyitch sucked in a calming breath. Keeping tabs on Ekaterina Moore suddenly felt like taking candy from a child. He smiled, despite his frustration.

Yes, things were clicking into place, but before he spent the next ten hours on his feet, chasing down a blonde with a gift for evasion, he had to know the truth. He had skimmed too close to detection this time. Ilyitch ducked out of the cabin, into the fresh, moist air. Twilight slung enough shadow across the tarmac to keep him safely disguised, for now. He lolled at a snail’s pace as the rest of the passengers filed through the locked gates into the terminal. The air smelled of diesel fuel and rippled with the ear-piercing whine of an AN-2 motoring down in post-flight. A slight wind kicked up dust and sent grit into his eyes. Ilyitch muttered an oath as they watered. He wiped them, and fought a wave of frustration. Grazovich had better be right. He didn’t like to waste time, not with interest rates on his investments plunging in the States. He should thank his dumb luck that the FSB had the answers buried in their files, and that he’d found it before Captain Spasonov had the brains to follow Ekaterina Moore’s suggestion. Now, he just needed to exert a little influence and confirm his suspicions. If Ekaterina Moore had his answers he’d get them, one way or another.

Chapter 11

Kat stared at the ceiling in her dark hotel room, running over the night’s events, believing in her gut that
Babushka
Rina was lying. The old woman had all but declared it with her eyes—she never again looked Kat straight-on the rest of the stilted evening.

The old woman knew something. But what? Had she met Kat’s grandfather or someone who knew him during the war? Did Baba Rina recognize someone in Kat’s faded photograph?

Her skin prickled remembering the way Larissa read the name, Klassen.

It was familiar to her. Kat knew it in her bones.

Her chest felt heavy, thick, and her eyes burned. “I feel as if I’m teetering on the edge of discovery, Lord, but something keeps yanking me back!” She slammed her fist into the ancient bed.

The Watsons were in the next room, probably staring at their own whitewashed ceilings, anticipation pushing sleep into the realm of impossible. Kat sat up and trudged to the window. A lonely streetlight swept back the darkness in a puddle of light. In a nearby doorway, a man slouched in the shadows, probably a drunk dozing off his latest liquid meal.

While she watched, the bum staggered to his feet and walked to the edge of the sidewalk—fairly gracefully, she thought, for a man soused enough to sleep on the street. He stood dimly illuminated by the envelope of lamplight, and stared boldly at the hotel.

At her window.

At her.

Kat’s heart stopped in her throat.

No, it couldn’t be.

In a second, she whirled, ran for the door. She slammed it open and dashed down the hall. Her heart raced her down the stairs, into the lobby. . .

. . .where she skidded to a halt and blinked.

“Privyet, Kat.”

-

“Let me get one thing perfectly straight with you right now.” Kat’s eyes sparked in fury. “I am
not
going back with you.” With her hands clamping her hips, her face flushed, dressed casually in a pair of black leggings and a baggy tee shirt, he’d never seen her look more enchanting.

He gulped back a smile. “I missed you too.”

Her mouth gaped. He saw her working up a response, and held up a hand to save her the trouble. “It’s okay, Kat. I’m not here to drag you back to Moscow.” Although the thought had crossed his mind more than a thousand times as he winged his way to Yfa, having totally discarded his common sense. Well, perhaps not
completely
. After what he’d finally dug up in the FSB computer, Kat had landed herself smack in the middle of a century-old mystery, and her connection with Grazovich had suddenly taken on an entirely new meaning.

Vadeem was here to protect her. At least that’s what he told himself as he turned to butter before her blazing eyes. He sucked a deep, calming breath. “I’m here to help you.”

She harrumphed, raising the attention of two ladies dressed to kill in thigh-high black leather skirts and sequin blouses, smoking cigarettes near the restaurant entrance on the far end of the ancient Intourist lobby.

Vadeem took a step toward her. Kat stiffened, her eyes narrowing. “What you are doing here?”

“I told you, I’m here to help you.” Oh, he’d forgotten how good she smelled. “C’mon, let’s go have cup of coffee.” He tried a smile.

She eyed him up and down, as if she could judge his intentions by his rumpled gray shirt, his black jeans, or the way he burrowed his hands into his jacket pockets. He gave her the courtesy of not moving until trust edged into her eyes. It earned him a smile. “Okay. But I don’t drink—”

“Coffee. I know.” He pulled out two packets of hot cocoa. “I picked them up in Moscow.”

The next smile was genuine and went right to a soft place in his heart. So maybe he’d done the right thing by following his gut instincts instead of his brain.

“Okay,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “You’ve piqued my interest. Why are you here?”

He shot a glance at the decked-out duo near the restaurant, still eavesdropping, then at the desk clerk, who was trying unsuccessfully to bury her attention in a day-old newspaper. “There’s an all-night café down the street.” —Where he’d spent much of the evening waiting for her to return to the hotel.— He was dying to know why she’d sent the Watsons to the hotel alone, and where she’d spent the last six-some hours. He shrugged away the questions and offered her his arm.

She looked at him a long moment. Then, quietly, “I need to go upstairs and change clothes.” She said it with enough smile to make every emotion he’d successfully buried over the past fifteen hours rise to life with a shout.

“I’ll wait.” He would have no problem enjoying her company in whatever attire she picked. However, he had to admit, when she changed into a lavender shirt and jeans, it did magical things to her face. Softened it. She’d added a touch of makeup while he paced in the hall, confirming in his heart that jumping on a plane that afternoon and racing to Yfa had been, yes indeed, the right thing to do.

Even Ryslan had agreed, once Vadeem tracked him down, that they would need Kat’s help if they were going to untangle Grazovich’s little scheme. So maybe his brains hadn’t taken a vacation.

She trotted through the lobby hauling her backpack over her shoulder. “I can’t believe you found me. How did you know where I was?”

He gave her a look that made her screw up her face in shame. “Kat, the FSB knows your every move.” He laughed when she turned ashen. “It’s okay. I really wouldn’t have followed you if it wasn’t important.”

Like keeping you alive.
He didn’t voice the thought, knowing she’d laugh at him, but the truth of it made his chest tighten.

They walked out into the street, under a canopy of stars. The night breeze tangled in Kat’s hair, laughing at her efforts to comb it back, away from her face. He noticed she shivered slightly. He peeled off his coat. “Here.”

She shook her head, but he ignored her protest and slid it over her shoulders. Hopefully her scent would rub off on it like last time.

“Did you really miss me?”

Her question hit a soft spot. He debated, feeling as if he was about to cut out his heart and lay it before her. “Yes.”

Was that a giggle?

It bolstered his courage. “In fact, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Her sudden silence made his heart stall in his chest. Oh no, he’d gone too far, too fast, again. He turned.

Yep, her face was pale. Eyes wide, luminous, fear haunting her expression.

“Sorry,” he rasped. “But it’s the truth. There’s something about you that I can’t shake.”

She ducked her head, started walking faster. He winced, scrambling for recovery. “So that’s why I looked into your background.”

That stopped her. It wasn’t quite the place he’d wanted to go with this conversation a second ago, but at least she’d stopped.

“Yes, Kat. I looked up your past. I couldn’t find anything on your mother, or your grandfather. In fact, I couldn’t find anything on you at all.”

Her face fell.

“But I did find something about Pskov.” He had her. Big amber brown eyes alive and simmering with hope. “During the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Russia was fighting World War I against Germany. Czar Nikolai, despite the fact that his country was falling to pieces, was at the front, directing his armies. In Russia, up until Peter the Great’s time, the czar was also the head of the Church. He was considered God’s envoy on Earth.”