There was going to be a meeting, soon. And something else was going to happen, soon. And it was going to be big. The details weren’t there but it was enough to make the office crap its collective pants.

That was the only reason Nick hadn’t been sent to Alaska or North Dakota to check on terrorist ties there. And since he’d flat-out refused to come back to D.C., he was allowed to continue with the mission. Under strictest orders to stay in the surveillance van and not even crack the door open for a piss.

But Charity’s house was a magnet, he simply couldn’t stay away. He’d get on the road to drive to the surveillance van, then find himself driving back in. It was as if Hit Man’s SUV was sensitive to some kind of force field around Parker’s Ridge.

The operator who could never get lost now found himself lost beyond saving, unable to leave.

Being here, now, outside Charity’s house, was breaking every single rule in the book, and about a dozen beyond that.

He wasn’t going to be recognized. Dressed in black from head to foot, with thin black shooting gloves and a black Nomex balaclava, nobody could possibly recognize him even if they saw him, which they wouldn’t.

He had his head against the downstairs bathroom wall. Through the siding, he could hear her vomiting, then quietly crying. He heard it twice—through the wall and over the mikes he’d scattered through the bedroom.

Her misery came through, loud and clear.

Nick reached out a hand and lay it against the cedar siding. Not a foot from his hand, he knew, was Charity. He’d give his left nut to be able to hold her, ease the tears, though they were for him.

His hand curled into a fist and he beat it, gently, against the wall, body tense with frustration, while Charity whimpered.

A big black limo with smoked windows had come to a rolling stop in front of the house and Nick crouched even farther, watching through the alleyway between the house and the garage. A big rhododendron bush hid him from sight.

He came to high alert when an ivory-tipped black cane came into view, followed by an elegantly shod foot. The man’s uniformed driver held a back door open for him. The driver was carrying a big black box with one arm and supporting the man with the other.

Several minutes later, Nick heard the doorbell chime through his headset. In the bathroom, silence, then the sound of running water.

Vassily Worontzoff, world-famous writer, international crime syndicate boss, had come calling, to console Nick’s widow.

Twenty

Charity opened the door just as Vassily was lifting his gloved hand to ring again.

“My dear,” he said warmly, looking her up and down. He walked in, taking off his hat and pulling off his gloves. “I’ve been worried about you. On the table by the window, Ivan,” he said without looking around.

The driver deposited the big black box on the table and quietly left. A minute later, the powerful engine of the limo fired up and the big car drove away.

Vassily waited until they heard the car depart, then stepped forward and enveloped her in his arms. Her own arms came up automatically.

He was the first person she’d touched since…since Nick. She hadn’t wanted to be hugged by anyone at the funeral and had avoided even those pointless air kisses. Even Uncle Franklin had seemed to understand that she couldn’t be touched, otherwise she’d fly into a million pieces. And Aunt Vera—the poor darling had been barely aware of what was going on.

So no one had hugged her and no one had held her and she realized now, right now, how much she desperately needed both. These past days had been spent on another planet, far from humankind. A big, dark, airless planet with heavy gravity and no life. Vassily’s tight embrace bumped her back to Earth, among her own kind.

He was a man who’d known great sorrow. He held her as if he wanted to absorb some of her own.

“My dushecka,” he murmured, head bent over hers.

His heavy overcoat was warm from the car, as was the pocket created by his shoulder and neck. He gently pushed her head down more tightly onto his shoulder, her cheek nestling against the soft cashmere of his overcoat, her nose against the warm skin of his neck.

“Cry, dushka,” he commanded softly. “It’s best. Get it out.”

Her heart was drumming, so quickly she thought it might just beat its way outside her chest. A high keening sound rose in the room and it took her a second to realize it came from her. Her lips tightened against the sound, but it wouldn’t be contained. She took one big gulping sob of a breath, another and then it was meltdown. Utter and total meltdown.

How could she have any tears left? Surely she’d cried them all, buckets, lakes, oceans of tears.

Charity cried as if she’d never cried before—a deep upwelling of despair. She was racked with sobbing, shaking, and shivering, tears spurting from her eyes. She was trembling so hard she’d have fallen to the ground if he hadn’t been holding her up.

Vassily held her tightly, letting the crying jag take its course, letting the hot, poisonous ball of grief work its way through her system, the sounds she was making raw and ugly in the quiet house.

She cried until her throat ached, until her lungs hurt, until she felt her bones would shatter from the trembling, holding on to the lapels of Vassily’s coat, drenching his shoulder.

The hot ball of fiery grief had moved on, at least for the moment, leaving Charity clinging to Vassily, weak-kneed and dazed.

“Come, my dear. Let’s sit down.” It was the first time he’d spoken since the crying jag had begun. She was infinitely grateful that he hadn’t spoken platitudes while she’d been crying her heart out.

But then that wasn’t Vassily’s style. He wouldn’t reassure her that things would get better. This was a man who understood tragedy down to the depths of his soul.

Vassily walked her to the sofa, sat her down, unbuttoned with difficulty his overcoat, and sat down next to her. Again, he put his arm around her and kissed her gently on her forehead, and again on her cheek. His lips were warm and dry.

Some time later, when the wildest stages of grief were passed—however impossible it was to think of that time—Charity knew that she would cherish the memory of his gestures of affection.

He rarely touched anyone. He always seemed to her to be so self-contained, not ever needing human warmth. Content with his music and reading and whatever it is he did all day in that enormous, beautiful mansion. Certainly, she’d never seen him with a female companion and, at many of his musical soirées, she had somehow ended up doing the honors of the house.

Suddenly, Charity wondered whether Vassily had a love life.

It had never even occurred to her that he might. Perhaps because she’d been blinded by his fame or had been unable to look beyond the scars to the man underneath. He wasn’t even that old. Though the years in the prison camp had aged him terribly, Vassily was only fifty-four. Young for a man. Especially for a rich and famous one.

Did he have a secret lover he didn’t want to share with the world? Perhaps a Russian émigrée, a woman of letters that he saw discreetly from time to time? Someone he could speak to in his native tongue? That would be best. She hoped he didn’t have a series of paid liaisons—dry, heartless, mercenary affairs, swift and cold. How awful.

A large linen handkerchief had appeared in his hand and he wiped her eyes carefully, then he held the handkerchief politely against her nose while she honked into it. She must look awful—red-eyed, red-nosed, gaunt, dazed.

He was speaking as he wiped her face. “The very best remedy for situations such as these is chai and vodka. An age-old cure for the Russian soul and perhaps even the American soul, who knows?”