The Silver Thread (44 page)

He bit his lip and looked at the woman who he had spent a significant portion of his lifetime working with. Then he glanced at the closed doors, where his wife sat on the other side waiting; waiting for their life together to truly begin.

Out in the hall, Annika heard footsteps approaching. A well-dressed young man with very short dirty blond hair that was longer on top stopped in front of her. He held a folder in one hand, and carried an air of indifference about him, along with incredible posture.

“You haven’t by chance seen Merriweather Narayanaswamy come this way, have you?” he asked.

“She’s in there,” Annika answered, pointing unenthusiastically to the closed doors. “She’s having a private little chit-chat with my husband.” The man’s indifference fell aside. Suddenly he was very interested in who sat on the bench.

“You’re not Talvi Marinossian’s wife, are you?”

“Yeah, actually, I am,” she said, wondering why he was looking at her so strangely with his dark grey eyes. “I’m Annika.”

“How nice to meet you, Annika. I’m Merriweather’s new assistant, Stephan,” he said, outstretching his hand to shake hers. He seemed to hold onto it a few seconds longer than she thought necessary, but she swept the thought out of her mind as he took a seat next to her on the bench, sitting rigidly on the edge rather than sinking his back into it.

“So it’s your first day here and you already know who my husband is?” she asked, trying to make conversation.

“A lot of us know who your husband is,” was Stephan’s prickly reply, and without any further attempt at explanation or conversation, he opened his folder and reviewed its contents in silence.

“Talvi, are you even listening to me?” Merriweather asked, forcing him out of his mind and back into the room where they were sitting. “I said I have a job for you.”

“I’m not interested,” he said, shaking his head.

“I wasn’t asking if you were interested,” she replied with a stern voice.

“I’m serious, Merri,” he said, and when he looked up, she was shocked to see his eyes had become glassy with tears. “I thought perhaps I could compartmentalize things to the point where I might still be able to carry out my assignments, but things honestly are different since I saw you last. Even if it’s my cover, I find the idea of telling another woman that Annika is dead unthinkable. Just saying it out loud is…” He turned away from her, trying to discreetly wipe the corners of his eyes. “I never wish to say it again.”

Merriweather looked at him carefully, thinking back to his first days of employment. He was the only natural born raven that the embassy had ever come across. When they realized that he had written the book on the art of seduction, and he was told that he could get paid for his prowess, provided that he gather intelligence and do away with a few bad apples on the side, it had been a perfect match. The embassy didn’t have to teach him a single thing, other than how to collect his paycheck. For decades, he had been their most efficient operative, audacious, arrogant and worth every penny, until this little matter of Annika Brisby had come up. Now, to Merriweather, the most magnificent and legendary raven she’d ever known just looked like a caged blackbird with clipped wings.

“If that’s how you feel, then there’s no need for us to go downstairs to the weapons locker after all. I’ll let you keep the phone since you did read through all these reports as I asked you to. However, I will need your laptop and your keys,” said Merriweather quietly while her dark eyes burned. She closed his laptop, stacking the pile of folios on it and gathered everything into her arms. She made no attempt to beg him to take the assignment, to shower him with compliments about how irreplaceable he was, or to try and find a pithy desk job to offer someone of his esteemed value. That simply wasn’t Merriweather Narayanaswamy’s style.

Stunned and feeling separated from his body, he watched as his left hand pulled his keys out of his pocket, and handed them to her. The motion seemed unreal, but it was really happening.

“It’s not every day that I get to train an assistant how to deactivate an operative,” she said coolly as she stood to leave. “Now come along. I have to lock the doors behind you.”

They stepped into the hall and Merriweather was surprised to see her new assistant loyally waiting for her.

“You’re already done with the forms I gave you?” she asked, and he nodded, standing up to take the pile of folios and Talvi’s laptop out of her arms.

“Looks like you hired me just in time,” Stephan said, motioning to the items he held. “Do you need me to stay a while longer and get started on this?”

“I would love it if you could stay, but we have something else more important to take care of first,” she said, glancing at Talvi, who looked completely bewildered by her and her new assistant. Shifting the workload into one arm, Stephan outstretched his hand and introduced himself. As Talvi shook his hand half-heartedly, Annika thought that once again, Stephan held on a little too long. Merriweather locked the doors with Talvi’s keys and then started to walk away with her new assistant. She turned back and said,

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Annika. And Talvi…you know how to reach me if you change your mind.”

Annika peered up at her husband, who stood frozen in the same place as when he’d come out of the room, except that he was staring at Merriweather’s back with a dazed expression. His eyes moved down to meet hers as she approached him slowly.

“Are you alright?” she asked, concerned by the look on his face, noticing his damp eyelashes. With his left hand, he reached out and took hers, knocking their rings together gently with a soft
clink
when they intertwined their fingers.

“Do you remember when we were married, and you were telling me how you didn’t want me across the meadow?” he asked, looking at her with bittersweet inquisitiveness. “You said you needed me right next to you, and I promised I would be. Do you recall that promise I made to you?”

She nodded her head, surprised that he remembered.

“I’ve told you in the past that I keep my word. I try not to make promises I have no intention of keeping.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Well…” he paused to look at his messenger bag slung over his shoulder. It appeared much lighter without the computer and folios inside of it. “I hope you still need me around as much as you let on during our wedding. I’m not certain if I just quit, or if I just got sacked. Either way, I don’t work here anymore.”

Annika’s jaw dropped.

“What happened?”

“You,” he replied, and leaned down to touch his forehead against hers, squeezing her hand tight, then letting go and pulling her as close against him as he could. He stroked her long brown hair and nuzzled against her ear, telling her ever so softly, “
You’re
what happened. What do you say, my little dove…shall we skip the rest of the tour and go home?”

After booking their flights home via Talvi’s phone, they stopped at a wine shop before checking into a hotel near Heathrow airport. He nabbed a wine key from the bar and had a bottle of Tempranillo uncorked before they even reached their room. Annika didn’t even wait for the door to shut before dragging her bag into the bathroom. After a week of hiking and only one bath, she felt she deserved a very nice, long, hot shower. She was dismayed when she realized that she had left her special conditioner at the hotel in Paris, leaving her hair rough and full of snarls when she stepped out of the bathroom.

Talvi had been lying on the bed, flipping through menus and nursing that bottle of wine until it was half empty. When he rose, his eyes ran from her head to her toes, then back up again, before he gave her a dismissive kiss on the forehead. He took a hearty swig and carried the wine with him into the bathroom.

“Why don’t you be a sweet little wife and find a place you’d like to order dinner from while I take my shower?” he called out to her, and shut the door.

“Babe, you didn’t tell me what you wanted,” she called through the closed door.

“As long as it’s vegetarian, I don’t care,” came his disinterested reply, and then the shower turned on once more.

A current of déjà vu rippled through Annika’s mind, but she shrugged it off. After she struggled to put on her t-shirt and yoga pants over her damp skin, she found herself cursing once more that she had forgotten her conditioner when she began to comb it out. She flipped on the television and her annoyance was replaced with sheer bewilderment. The same zombie film that she’d watched with Finn was playing. She stared at the screen, then at the bathroom door, then at the restaurant menus, and then back at the screen.

What the hell is going on here?
Am
I dreaming?
she wondered, and searched through the menus until she found the number to a Chinese restaurant. After placing her order, she settled into the bed and continued watching the movie, holding her comb absentmindedly, half expecting Finn to come out of the bathroom when the door opened.

But out stepped Talvi, in his worn out cargo shorts and soft white tee. And even though it was wet, his unruly black hair still managed to rebel in every direction. He reached into the bag from the wine shop and opened a second bottle, this time a Bordeaux, before settling beside his wife.

“I think a white would have been a more appropriate pairing with Chinese,” she pointed out. She winced as the comb caught on yet another snarl, ripping a few more strands of hair from her head.

“Bollocks to that rubbish,” he said, taking a sip from the bottle. “I’ll drink whatever I like with whatever I please, and I’m partial to red.” He passed the Bordeaux to her and took the comb away with authority. “Come along now, scoot up so I can sit behind you,” he said, rapping her on the thigh with the comb. “I’ll get this mess sorted out in no time.”

“I can do it myself,” she insisted.

“It’s about as painful for me to watch you do this as it is to watch a bird fly into a window,” Talvi said. “Now move your bum so I can have a go.” Annika did as she was told without further argument, and focused on the wine and the zombie outbreak on the television. She had to admit, Talvi was as gentle as a lamb while picking carefully through her snarls and tangles. He worked with such determination that he wouldn’t even pause to take a drink of wine when it was offered to him.

“How did you get so good at this?” she asked, running her fingers through a finished section of hair.

“I used to brush Yuri’s hair every night before bed,” he replied quietly. “She couldn’t fall asleep otherwise. When I began working away from home, she would remain awake for days at a time, much to my family’s frustration.”

He snickered at a funny scene in the zombie movie, and then gathered another handful of her hair.

“How long did you work at that job?”

“Just over seventy years.”

“Seventy years?” Annika repeated, mystified at the number. “That’s an insanely long time to do one thing.”

“My unique skill set rarely allows for me to do just one thing,” he replied casually as he took the comb and worked it through her hair. “It was the perfect fit for me, but now that you’re in my life, I seem to have outgrown elements of it, the way one outgrows a pair of shoes. Speaking of which, you may have to reign in your spending a bit until I sort out how I’m to take care of you. I told Merri about those red-feathered Manolo’s of yours, and she showed me how much they cost. I didn’t realize you had such expensive taste until Finn took you shopping. For a girl who complains so much about spending money when I’m around, you seem to have no trouble spending it when I’m away.”

“Yeah, that’s called retail therapy, babe, so I hope you’ll think twice about taking me on vacation and then ditching me without an explanation,” Annika said, gloating confidently. “And I can get another job to support my shoe addiction. I’ve been taking care of myself for a while. I don’t need you to worry about it.”

“I’m not implying that I’m skint,” he said, appearing nettled as he reached around her for the wine. He took a drink before he went on. “I’ve plenty of savings, and I’m not concerned about living comfortably, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you spend all of your time working away from home for a pittance when I’ve given up my entire career so that we can be together.”

“And I appreciate that, but we can’t live off of savings forever,” she said, trying to reason with him as a zombie on the television met a gory demise.

“Tell me something, my little dove,” he asked, passing her the bottle, and then resumed combing out her hair again. “Why are you so dead set against letting me take care of you? Is it because you’re female and I’m male? Would this even be an issue if you were male and I were female?”

“I just don’t think in this day and age that a woman should expect to be taken care of by a man,” Annika shrugged, and took a sip of the wine.

“In what fashion?” he implored, leaning in closer to her as he spoke. “Financially? Physically? Emotionally? Spiritually? Husbands and wives are expected to take care of one another, wouldn’t you agree? Or should they all be so bloody independent that they don’t need one another after all? Then what is the meaning of a marriage in the first place? Isn’t that what’s wrong with the modern world, that loss of compassion and connection, that loss of strong and trusting relationships? Isn’t that what’s wrong with us? I know we have something solid and real which we can build upon, but you must give me
something
to work with.”

She turned away from the movie and saw his hypnotic blue and green eyes hovering in front of her. The corner of her mouth twitched as she glanced at the bottle in her hand.

“You said you wanted something to work with?” she asked him.

“Yes, Annika. Please…anything,” he begged.

“You can work on this,” she said, grinning to herself as she passed him the bottle of wine.

“How dare you steal my own joke and use it on me, you saucy girl?” he crooned, letting his incredulous expression melt into a softer one. “Theft is a crime in most places. You must want me to punish you again.”

“I shouldn’t be punished at all. I can’t help it if I didn’t learn my lesson the first time. You’re just a bad teacher.”

Talvi eyed her lovingly and exasperatedly all at once while he dropped the comb and raised the bottle to his lips.

“Annika, if money were no object, what would you do with your time? Would you focus on your music or would you rather spend five days a week in someone else’s shop just to prove that you can buy yourself a pair of pretty slippers every now and again?”

“Well…if money were no object, I wouldn’t work. My music would be my work,” she admitted.

“Then let your music be your work, you stubborn, silly girl, for money is no object.”

“What kind of money are you talking about?” she asked, now turning her body to face him. “Are we talking private yacht money, or private island money?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Annika. I was never interested in purchasing either of those things,” he said breezily, setting the Bordeaux on the nightstand. “I wish you would stop thinking of it as my money. It’s
ours
. And if you think I use it to control you, you are sorely mistaken. You actually have more control over me than I ever imagined, until the other day. I only pray that Finn has truly forgiven me.”

“He seemed really happy when we left,” said Annika, glancing at her meteorite ring from him. A warm, comforting feeling drifted over her as she thumbed it.

“He was happy to see me leave,” Talvi replied.

“No, that wasn’t it at all,” Annika said. “Did it have anything to do with that
kormanin
thing you were going to ask him?”

Talvi’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“How would you know anything about that?”

“I was with your dad when he came out to the hole you dug,” she confessed, causing her husband to scowl. “He said you had a lot on your mind because it was the deepest one you’d ever dug.”

“I said some very private things to him…I didn’t intend for you to be listening in.”

“I guess he wanted me to hear what’s going on in your head,” Annika said, and put her hand on his knee. “He said we need to talk more. I’m trying to be a better listener, but you need to open up outside of your comfort zone.”

Talvi pursed his lips and tossed his mane, looking like an irritated black cat that was undecided whether to stay and be petted, or slip out a window.

“So what’s this
kormanin
thing you were talking about?”

“I asked Finn to be my
korvaaminen
,” Talvi replied in a serious voice. “You know how children are born and they have fairy godparents?” Annika nodded. “It’s similar to that, but for couples. It’s a promise to care for someone if their partner were unable to. It’s a bit old fashioned and not very common, but I thought my circumstances necessitated it. If anything happened to me, I wouldn’t trust anyone else to care for you as you rightfully deserve.”

“Aww, I think that’s really a sweet gesture,” she said, running her fingers through her hair again. “Do girls get to pick a
korvaaminen
for their husbands?”

“Absolutely they do, if they feel there is a need.”

“Then I would pick Patti Cake for you,” she told him.

“Pish Posh. You’re only saying that to be nice,” he said, trying not to smile.

“No, I mean it,” she said. “When you told your dad that Patti, James, Charlie, and Chivanni all agreed that you weren’t being inappropriate with her, it made me feel really stupid for thinking that in the first place. I can see how she reminds you of Runa and Yuri. Plus I know you’re a huge flirt. I knew that when I met you, but I just figured you would stop being one after we got married.”

“You may as well have expected me to start wearing curly-toed shoes and begin making toys for good girls and boys,” he said with a contemptuous snort. “I am what I am. I was dead serious when I told you that you were stuck with me and
all
of my habits for the rest of eternity.”

“Were you really born winking at the midwife?”

“So the story goes,” he said, and shot her a seductive wink. “She warned my mother that I was going to be quite the charmer. You take it so bloody serious, but I’m only having fun. And you certainly don’t seem to mind when it works to your advantage, such as when we went to the bank and I made friends with Sandy.” He paused and sighed irritably before he went on. “It’s been exhausting to constantly prove my loyalty to you. That’s why I became so angry on the airplane, in addition to arriving at the hotel to find what I found, and then you didn’t even give me a kiss, or tell me that you missed me. I’m very sorry for what I said about Merriweather, but I’ve really had enough of your insecure feminine nonsense. You’re not an insecure woman.”

Annika was silent as she thought back to what Finn had told her back in Paris, when they were in their safe little den deep underground.

I don’t believe anyone else would have the fortitude to be my brother’s wife…being in a relationship with someone means that you need to grant one another certain all
owances.

Maybe allowing him to be his flirtatious, outrageous self was the kind of allowance Finn was referring to all along. Her moment of clarity was shattered when Talvi let out a delighted howl.

“Oh, that is just bloody brilliant!” he hooted in glee.

“What is?” Annika asked, glancing at the television screen, to which his eyes were fixed upon.

“Our heroine has a M4A1 carbine assault rifle for a leg,” he pointed out. “How perfect is that for killing zombies?”

A warm, sweet sensation seeped into Annika’s skin as she recognized her husband’s appreciation of her favorite genre of films.

“It’s okay for being caught off guard, but I think the noise would just end up attracting more zombies,” she pointed out. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to use a knife or a sword?”

“True, a blade is ideal for stealth,” he agreed, running the comb effortlessly through her untangled hair. “Even guns with silencers are not really silent when the firing pin strikes the primer. A knife in a skillful hand can remove a throat or a heart without making a sound. However, they require far more intimacy than a gun, and the last thing one would want is to come into contact with zombie blood. It might lead to infection, so the rifle is clearly the optimal choice in this situation.”