Signs of Permanence
Introduction
If You Only Knew
by Robert Desnos
Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the other traditional trappings of poetic mythology
Far from me yet present nonetheless although you're unaware of it
Far from me, and even more silent than you are distant, since I keep on endlessly imagining you
Far from me, my gorgeous mirage and my perpetual dream, in ways you just can't know.
If you only knew.
Far from me and perhaps all the more so because you not only ignore me, but ignore me more each day.
Far from me because undoubtedly you don't love me or, what amounts to the same thing, because I doubt so strongly that you do.
Far from me because you so methodically ignore my each and every desire.
Far from me because you're so cruel.
If you only knew.
Far from me, O blissful as a flower dancing in a river at the tip of its underwater stem, O melancholy as 7 pm and sunset in a mushroom-cellar. Far from me and therefore still more silent than if you were actually present, yet more blissful still than some lucky, stork-shaped hour that falls down from above.
Far from me at that moment when the stills are singing, at that moment when the silently foaming sea
curls back up on its white pillows.
Far from me, O my ever-present, constant torment, far from me and lost in the magnificent noises of
oyster-shells, crushed by footsteps of some night-owl at the harborside, passing cafe-doors at dawn.
If you only knew.
Far from me, O my deliberate, material mirage.
Far from me there's an island turning around as ships pass.
Far from me, a herd of docile cattle wanders off a path, then obstinately stops at the edge of a steep cliff,
far from me, O cruel one!
Far from me a shooting star lands in the poet's nightly bottle. He promptly corks it up again, and for a
long time afterwards gazes through its glass at the captive star, glimpsing constellations
forming within its walls, far from me, you're that far from me.
If you only knew.
Far from me a house long under construction has just finally been completed.
At the top of a scaffold a bricklayer in dusty white overalls sings a sad little song to himself and then, in the leftover cement in his mortar tray, sees the entire future of the house: the kisses the lovers and the suicide pacts, nakedness in the bedrooms of beautiful strangers and their most intimate midnight dreams, together with various voluptuous secrets caught in the act and revealed by squares of polished parquet.
Far from me,
If you only knew.
If you only knew how I love you and--even though you don't love me--how happy I've become,
how empowered and proud, for being able with your image in my mind to step out into this world,
and able even to step out of this entire universe,
And for being so happy, moreover, even to die for this.
If you only knew how I've conquered the world.
And you, so beautiful, and so seemingly unconquerable too, how completely you've become my prisoner.
Oh you, who from so far away, completely conquer me!
If you only knew.
Chapter 1
Her life had gradually intersected with his as stubbornly and intrusively as a bunch of nettles clinging to a robust oak.
He was the oak: strong, majestic and classically proud; she was the nettle: prickly, wild and persistent.
Nikita Wolfe snorted amicably at herself and the strangeness of her own comparison, gaining a curious glance from her junior coworker, who diverted his brown eyes from the computer screen and looked at her waiting for her to speak.
''What?''
She said mockingly and arched her eyebrow. It was an effective show of bad temper she picked up at a young age while watching her father, an ex-marine, during particularly annoying family reunions.
''Nothing, nothing, uhu.''
Seymour Birkoff returned to the internet research he was paid for and the land of virtually non-existent beings, at least as far as it concerned her.
They were good friends, and she didn't delude herself into thinking that he was really intimidated by her quirks but was growing tired of all the disbelieving glances she got these days, especially from Michael.
She brought to her lips the almost forgotten coffee and swallowed the warm liquid wondering, once again, exactly why she was there working for Samuelle Investigations at the request of a man who daily ridiculed her methods and beliefs.
She became involved in the paranormal because she had known for longer than she had memory of that in this world there existed and operated forces, primitive and mysterious, that others couldn't see or understand when she could. Listening to their voices, seeing that she was special, had helped her to survive her childhood. She had lived passing from one abusive family to another, to end up in a psychiatric hospital when she was nine. There she had the dubious luck to met Madeline Wolfe, the doctor who had healed her emotional bruises and ultimately understood that her newest patient wasn't making up stories the first time that little Nikita ran to her describing, in detail, a vision of a younger Madeline having an abortion.
The only woman she never called mother, as Paul Wolfe had been the only man she never called father, although he was skeptical at first about adopting a difficult and already grown child as she was. They had adored her and she adored them in return, yet she had not for a second thought about giving up her gift, even if such a choice had been possible.
From the time she was nineteen, she knew her dream job was with the FBI and read without embarrassment books and articles about sex cults, serial killers and homicides. The dream became a reality and then a nightmare.
Knowing or perceiving the truth behind the facts was one matter, but proving it, despite regulations and procedures, was another. Even worse, it was standing aside while she had dreams and visions that scared the hell out of her, coming too late on the homicide scene, explaining her weirdest quirks to her older partner Roger or being misjudged and undervalued for her being attractive and blonde.
Her condition was sufficiently difficult even if she had not had the terrible idea to get personally involved with the Assistant Director, Egram Petrosian. In her youthful candor, she saw in her superior all she liked in a man; the thrill of power and the seduction of the forbidden fruit. She had wanted to observe with her own eyes if he was as they said, but the love she felt for him made her blind to his unbridled ambition, his openly cultivated narcissism, his presumption, his chivalry that expected a worthy reward and any other faults she discovered in the decline of their explosive office affair.
She believed she would love Egram forever but, in the aftermath, bitterness was all the relationship left her with.
In this delicate condition, she and Michael Samuelle crossed paths for the first time. He was still working with the police, and she was assigned to collaborate with him on the case of the disappearance of a 3 year-old-boy, Adam Volker. Thanks to every one of their conventional and unconventional efforts, they found the kid: dead in an open field.
The parents were crushed and so was she. It didn't help her that the child molester was arrested. For weeks, the image of the Adam's little broken body and the desperate cries of his mother Elena while she clung to him like she could guard him from further harm invaded Nikita's sleep and plagued her when awake. Detective Samuelle was hit by the tragedy as hard as she was and, although he didn't understand the extent of her feelings of guilt, they were unable to stay separated that night. She had invited him in for a drink and they slept together on her couch. He had known how to comfort her, and she was simply too tired to pass on the benefit of a good hug.
From then on, they managed to keep in touch and it was he, seeing how miserable she was with the FBI, who persuaded her to resign, offering her the opportunity to be his partner in his vision of an Investigative Agency. During their five years of partnership, she had seen him at his worst and his best, had known his family, his friends and his flings and had no doubt she would fall for him. It was clear Michael wasn't a man who fell in love. He loved his freedom far too much to let any of his conquests put him on a leash. She admired that attitude because her love life after Egram was a succession of failures. He respected her too much to take her into his bed and for this she was glad. It was a ritual in their relationship that Nikita would talk humorously about his women and Michael would laugh, complaining only a little seriously about her deviousness, half-attempting to defend them only to prod her sarcasm and laugh harder.
Yet lately it was getting harder and harder to hide how irritated she felt with the familiarity he showed around her and to ignore the pain she felt if he entertained female company in her presence.
Sometimes at night she couldn't sleep and wondered where he was, if he was alright and if he was thinking of her, which Nikita knew was impossible, at least in those certain terms. She wasn't the type of woman he was attracted to physically; she was too tall, too lanky and too blonde, not to mention too flat.
Not my problem - she sternly reminded herself. She wouldn't ever risk the wonderful, deep, beautiful friendship they had for some easy romance and casual sex. She essentially loved and respected him like she loved and respected her parents. This stupid crush she was harboring towards him would just go away if she had the patience to wait a little longer.
'Too bad patience isn't my strong suit.' She sighed, frustrated at the betrayal of her mind. She had no control when it came to men. Why the hell do I only like things that are no good for my health?
''Are you ok?''
'Now, if *he* even noticed, I'm really in trouble.' She thought, slanting a skeptical glance at the desk beside hers.
''Why do you ask?''
''You seem a bit off lately. I almost would think you are ...''
''What?'' 'Could you sound more defensive?' She mentally scolded herself and wished she could smack a book on her head for emphasis without looking like a total freak.
''Sad.''
Birkoff seemed determined not to divert his gaze from the computer screen and that unnerved her a little.
''Not sad, bored to death of me,'' she muttered. She stretched to relieve the sore muscles in her legs and shoulders. 'Who knew she was actually in the same position too long?'
''In a few words, I just need to get a life" she reluctantly admitted, drinking the last sip of her coffee "outside of here.''
Amused by her apparent annoyance at herself, her companion took off his tinted glasses and smirked at her, his face looking suddenly younger and fresher.
''Since when?''
''Since, my dear Seymour, the most exciting engagement of my Saturday night is reorganizing the archives with you.''
Nikita leaned back in her chair and pushed back her hair. She considered the decisively more enticing engagements of her life and work partner, who had ditched dinner with her in favor of one last hurrah with the puppy-eyed bimbo Lisa, next happy bride of the player-but-poor Robert Corliss. A match made in heaven.
''Envy Michael and his blossoming social life?''
He replied to her with a hint of cynicism not entirely directed to his boss. In truth, he was thinking more of his brother Jason and Gail, mostly of Gail.
''Don't laugh; you're no better off than me.''
''Hey, I DO have a life!''
''Sure thing, in cyber space. ''
''It isn't a sin to love technology.''
''Oh, shut up. You can love it and still be an official member of the real world. I doubt Michael will kick your ass if you get some air.''
She began to rummage in the second drawer of her desk and her hands emerged triumphant with lipstick and eye shadow.
''What are you doing?''
"I'm giving you exactly two minutes to complete anything you're doing, and then we're going to pay a visit to Walter and Belinda. Saturday hasn't been completely wasted yet.''
"It's late.''
''We're talking of Volare's. Open all night and the better half of the day and - she paused for effect - this is New York City, it's never too late to go anywhere.''
''I'm not dressed for going out?'' It was blatantly his last effort to win a battle already lost, and his complaint sounded more like a question.
''Don't make excuses. I'm not dressed up either. ''
Birkoff looked her up and down while his friend got up and strode towards the bathroom. Nikita wore a semi-transparent blue chemise and black tight fitting jeans; she was beautiful in that outfit and he doubted she would look out of place anywhere. It wasn't too difficult remembering why he used to have a crush on her. Right after G...
He put his glasses in place and turned off the computer. Maybe Volare's wasn't such bad place to end the night.
Chapter 2
Birkoff furrowed his brows looking at the luminous and eye-catching insignia at the entry and thrust his hands deeper into his jacket pockets when a Hispanic boy collided with him.
''Sorry '' he told him casually, looking straight ahead and continuing on his path without gracing him a second glance, but Birkoff repaid him with equal disinterest keeping his eyes trained on his blonde guide and following her inside with an ease he didn't feel.
The security man, a man he heard being called "Davenport" by Nikita, hugged her briefly and smiled at them as he let them pass.
While nobody would define Volare's as a chic place, it was far from being a simple bar. Middle-aged gentlemen in search of a diversion, married ladies looking for a one night stand, couples in need of some sane fun or privacy, police officers with late night shifts and most of the annoyed youth in the area equally frequented it and equally had their wishes met by the staff.
Nobody could look out of place here and never in his life had he seen so many completely different people united together under one roof.
Loud music, drinks, food and billiards were what made the place suitable for a customer of any age with not too particular tastes and the somewhat unusual interior decorations that reflected the hippy affinity of the owners.
Walter and Belinda O'Brien had been, and in some ways still were, two whacko flower children, who had spent most of their adult life wandering around the world and finally settled in New York only to stay close to their son and begin a working activity suited to their idea of free time.
Birkoff put his glasses in the breast pocket of his green shirt, vaguely disturbed by the changing lights his friend found so cool. I'm working too much - he thought to himself, blinking.
Nikita seemed to spot someone she recognized and cheerfully made her way to the booth where they would sit. The barman, a man large and fat with a red bandana on his forehead and a funny grin plastered on his cheerful face, came to them right away.
''Hey Rudy!''
''Nikita, long time no see! Where's Michael?''
He saluted her enthusiastically and his bubbly voice hung over the pounding music as he unwarily made Nikita, who was trying not to think of the subject in question, cringe and provoked Birkoff to stifle a chuckle at his singsong welcome.
'Why does everyone presume I'm constantly joined to his hip?' Nikita forced herself to continue to smile happily at Rudy and ordering, "A Cosmopolitan, straight up.''
''Comin." Your friend?''
''Uh, I'll take a beer.''
Birkoff looked around uncomfortably like he had no idea what he was doing there or what he was supposed to do. Nikita was rather bemused at observing his skeptical glances at a few of the costumers, until Rudy brought their drinks and he could concentrate on something else.
''So, see anything that you like?''
She asked teasingly, bringing the goblet to her sly lips, enjoying her flirty choice of words.
Her colleague understood nothing of the joke.
''I've seen better places.'' The beer went down in his throat.
''I was talking about girls.''
"Girls?''
Now all his skeptical looks were clearly focused on her.
"Didn't you ever hook up with someone in a bar? Your high school years?''
''No. Why?''
''It's a necessary step.'' She said, leaning particularly close him.
His eyes widened at that point and she guessed his eyeballs could just roll onto the floor, but he made an admirable attempt at keeping his mouth shut. He looked so funny that she wanted to laugh out loud but it would embarrass him.
''Take a look around. Do you see anyone that looks interesting to you? Anyone you might want to talk to? She indicated a brunette with heavy make-up, smoking disinterestedly at the bar down from them. "What about her?''
The boy at her side hissed with distaste. ''She smokes!''
''Well, what about them?'' She tried again, eyeing a group of younger girls laughing in a corner.
''What about you?''
Totally caught off guard by this one, Nikita cleared her throat, desperately hoping that in the back of her mind she would form a coherent reply.
''Me?''
Not being in condition to restrain himself any longer, Seymour Birkoff erupted in startling laughter ''Take it easy! I was joking!''
''Gee, how mature of you.'' She snorted, but was smiling as she rolled her eyes. Taking her second drink, her gaze casually fell on an interesting subject. This time she was pointing at a longhaired blonde girl. A very pretty blonde girl who, while chewing bubble gum, danced with evident abandon. She wore a lightly clinging pink dress and something in her reminded him vaguely of the Spice Girls. He thought that the girl looked like someone who felt awfully good about herself, someone at ease with life.
''Out of my league.''
''Oh, and in what league are you?''
He shook his head defeated and saw Nikita slinking off with definite ulterior motives. "Where are you going?'' he asked, uncertain if it scared him more that she was leaving him alone at the bar or her intentions in doing so.
She left without answering him and got lost in the crowd.
'I'm not made for this' - he sighed, fighting an unexpected rush of panic. But there was definitely too much noise for he could not entertain intelligent thoughts.
Nikita soon returned but this did nothing to assuage his discomfort; she returned with the girl in tow.
''Birkoff say hello to Ginger.''
''Hi.'' The girl who he now knew as Ginger said as bubbly and easily as he would expect from someone looking like her.
''Hi.'' He shyly echoed.
Seeing that her protégé needed another shove in the right direction, Nikita sighed. It was necessary playing the host until he got a little more comfortable.
''I told her about your undying love for Metallica. I hope you don't mind.''
''Uhm, no.''
''She told me you work in an Investigative Agency. Sounds pretty cool! '' Ginger sounded like a genuine person to Birkoff, but he briefly wondered if her interest in his work meant she was someone attracted to luminous careers and/or good cars.
Nikita, standing behind Ginger, pushed up the corners of her lips instructing him to smile.
''Yeah.'' He smiled brilliantly, hoping he wasn't making an ass out of himself.
''You have to travel a lot, don't you? ''
''Not as often as people would think '' He continued to smile so much that he feared his face was cracking. At least it seemed to work against the awkwardness.
Feeling that she had to make an exit soon or Birkoff would never make a real move, Nikita chose that moment to fall back on her strategy and leave. Plastering a smug grin on her face, she decided to announce she had to leave.
''I'll be right back'' she briefly explained, turned her back on the young duo and headed toward the crowd of dancing people.
''Nikita! Wait!'' Birkoff's terrorized plea fell on deaf ears, and he looked at the girl beside him with a lost, puppy dog expression. Ginger thought it was cute in an adorable kind of way.
''My brother loves Metallica too. He joined a group with the same name, played the drums, but y'know my parents kicked him out of the house. He made too much noise. The whole neighborhood was complaining.''
''Drums...''
''You could hear him a mile away.'' Ginger stated, nodding and looking at him with really huge blue eyes.
''I played the drums when I was in high school...'' he said, finally glad he had found a way to break out of his mute-mode
Chapter 3
Nikita took refuge at the opposite side of the bar where she ordered another drink and sipped it slowly, relishing the music flowing through her body and lifting her spirits.
Once in a while she tossed a curious glance in the direction of where she left her colleague. He appeared to be doing rather well considering how Ginger was wrapped around him on the dance floor…Go Birky!
Tapping her foot rhythmically against the bar stool, Nikita felt all the stiffness of the muscles in her neck ease a little. What a rough week.
Following Simone Pham's trail from Venice to Morocco had been draining, both physically and emotionally.
Their clients were people who wouldn't or couldn't confide in the police for resolution to their problems, therefore. it was a rarity for the police to solve certain types of disappearance cases. She suspected she wouldn't ever understand how an heiress as cultured and exceptionally beautiful as Simone could willingly get in such serious trouble by seeking the company of a delinquent nut case such as Errol Sparks' genre. The young woman could have anything she could ever want and yet…all her money could not save her from being seduced and held for months by a bunch of criminals. Not even social prestige spared such a wealthy philanthropist as Helmut Volker from losing his one child to a pervert.
At least this time she was able to help. The memory of the delicate face of Miss Pham, scarred with ugly violet bruises, her eyes filling with tears as her uncles hugged her, provided her with a sweet sense of comfort.
Her mother always sustained that beauty for a woman could be a curse as easily as it could be a blessing, especially if also supported by brains. Nikita would have believed her if not for her experience in the psychology field, for the attractiveness of her fine features had survived the hardness of decades without losing their grace. Madeline Wolfe she was sure would NEVER age.
The sudden awareness of being stared at by a man not far from her breached her consciousness, gratifying her only partially.
Given her absorbing work and her indefinable relationship with her partner, she had not the time or the energies to invest in any steady dating.
Last time Nikita had seriously dated someone was right after she had bid Egram goodbye, and Belinda and Walter shamelessly attempted to hook her up with their son. They had, without a doubt, succeeded. She and Marco, from what she could remember, had been a wonderful couple. He made her see what she was missing in her previous affair by treating her like a princess. They were similar but different enough to have fun together and set off fireworks in the bedroom. Perhaps if his company had been less loving and pleasant and if his family hadn't been so ready to 'adopt' her, she wouldn't have felt compelled to break it off with him.
She just wasn't ready for what he was offering her. God…he even served her breakfast in bed.
The dazed memory of Marco's smile and kisses hit her suddenly forcing her to consider that she was very much alone, although her job and other preoccupations had helped her hide the truth from herself.
Careful about not doing anything that could be interpreted as encouragement, Nikita pretended to casually cock her head to the side, giving a curious glance at the man looking at her.
What she saw left her pleasantly surprised; the guy in question was a tall fair-haired man. Handsome, not in the cleanly sensual way Michael was, but more like the classical 'boy next door.
He looked almost out of place as if he didn't know what he was doing here. But he looked at her as if her presence was enough of a reason to stay.
Or maybe it was her sexually and emotionally deprived imagination speaking.
Nikita saw him smile at her tentatively, noticing that she had unintentionally started to stare back at him.
She smiled at him in return thinking that he had a nice smile; she hadn't flirted with anyone in ages.
He lowered his eyes and the next thing she knew, he was beside her.
"Hey."
The stranger saluted her, managing a sheepish grin that didn't quite hide the general impression of the uncertainty of his move.
Feeling a desire to provoke born out of her earlier irritation, Nikita glided her eyes up and down his lean figure then paused on his seemingly embarrassed hazel eyes.
"Hey" Nikita replied, trying to sound indifferent.
Rather than being discouraged by her approach, the stranger looked relieved, although not completely comfortable enough to grace her with a second step toward a friendly conversation.
"So…Do you think I could buy you a drink?"
He took a long breath, clearly aware of her amusement at his hesitant inquiry because he laughed a hollow and short laugh and then added… "I'm sorry I bothered you. I swear I'm not a stalker or anything. I'm sorry…I guess I'm just really out of practice at this sort of thing".
For one second he looked like he was reluctantly going to go away.
It surprised Nikita that the idea of him leaving was disappointing for her.
"Okay" she suddenly said, once again surprising herself.
Her acquiescence stopped him and he came back to her side, a little surprised himself at how his wish of having her stop him was suddenly realized.
"Okay" he repeated a little breathless, and then as if suddenly he had just remembered it… "By the way, I'm Gray Wellman".
Shaking his outstretched hand, Nikita replied with what she hoped was a dazzling smile: "Nikita Wolfe".
Chapter 4
Gray sat beside her, so close that his arm was now touching hers. He bought her a drink, as he had promised, and they sipped their drinks quietly studying each other.
She watched him swallowing his drink and wasn't quick enough to stop herself from comparing him to Michael and, of course, finding him somewhat lacking although they had hardly exchanged more than a few words. The only real reason was that Gray wasn't Michael. But he looked like a good man and plainly not someone who ran around chasing every skirt he saw. Someone she might even enjoy knowing.
''So Gray, are you from here?''
''Oh God no. Nobody comes from the Big Apple.'' He replied '' I hate big cities. It's all the same little apartments and way too chaotic. I'm here to follow a project for a friend. I'm an architect.''
He said the last word with the same amount of pride that Bush might have used to tell his family that he was just elected President. Gray must really love what he did for living and it showed.
Nikita liked passion in a man. It was part of why she had fallen so hard for Michael: He needed to do what he did best and nothing could stop him.
She wasn't really surprised to see Michael's face sneaking into her thoughts again even if she wasn't pleased. Actually, she was beginning to think that she would never rid him from her mind even if her life depended on it. A sweetly painful habit that she wasn't ready to break; it unnerved her as few things could.
Gray talked and talked about his great passion for buildings and churches, seemingly unaware that she was completely unable to follow the very one-sided conversation and not because she didn't want to or didn't try. Simply, her mind was so tired of everything that her thoughts refused to be properly channeled and continued to drift to other subjects, namely Michael.
At the same time, she was so tense that sleep would elude her showing no mercy, even if all she craved were the comfort of her bed.
But it wasn't her bed that she needed. She needed contact; with something or someone.
Nikita looked at Gray Wellman knowing all too well that what she wanted from him was not listening to his small talk.
''I love this song, would you like to dance?''
She asked him, playing casually with a strand of her pale blonde mane, touching him lightly on his arm with her elbow.
She didn't really know the song, but it was almost slow and she wanted to dance. She hadn't danced in such long time.
In response, he smiled shyly and passed his hand through his spiky hair as he assured her that he wasn't a good dancer, but he'd love it if she was willing to take the risk of having her feet slowly massacred.
''I'll take the risk.'' She told him, thinking not for the first time that she genuinely would like to get to know him better.
He led her onto the dance floor, their bodies' coming in contact was awkward at first, but it was well hidden in the frenzied rhythm of the music. When Gray took her in his arms, Nikita didn't refuse him.
In fact, the quick traveling of his hands along her back was exactly the attention that she needed.
Dancing, her body moved away from his and came close again. Then suddenly, the touch of the Gray's hands became less shy, more extensive and lingering.
He held her closer than she was actually comfortable with, but she didn't protest.
It was just when Gray started to kiss her collarbone and neck that she noticed they had stopped dancing and she was in a corner.
It occurred to her that she had drunk two or three drinks more than she usually did and much stronger drinks then she was used to.
Judging from the smell of his panting breath on her mouth, her new friend had done the same.
Gray kissed her hard and it was a good kiss, which she only half participated in.
Nikita had never believed in cold kisses but this was it: a good, cold kiss.
Just as unexpectedly as it began it was over, along with his patronizing caresses.
Gray pushed her away from him, as if he had came to his senses in that exact moment, and slowly touched his lips with his fingertips almost as if he could not believe what he had just done.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do this. '' He told her, with evident agitation in his voice, the plain features of his face very upset, almost panicked.
At her disbelieving expression, he hurriedly shoved his hand in his pocket and took out a small, shiny item.
''I'm a married man,'' he added, showing her a golden ring perfectly distinguishable as a wedding band even in the half-light.
Nikita looked at the ring then looked back at Gray and finding herself at a loss of witty or sarcastic comebacks for one of the few times in her life, as well as finding the situation definitely too absurd for words, did the only thing that made sense for her to do.
She drew her hand back and slapped Gray with a whack so powerful that his head snapped back.
Then, without a word, she turned her back on him and, taking with her the last shreds of her mortified dignity, went proudly in search of the ladies room.
Chapter 5
Nikita splashed cold water on her flushed face several times before she felt even close to her normal self. After turning off the tap, she focused on concentrating all her anger into one sphere and compressing it until it was reduced to the tiniest ball.
But no trick could erase the sensation of dirt on her skin. She could not believe a married man had just felt her up and that he had the nerve to treat her like whore. Even worse, in her melancholy over Michael, she set herself up to be treated like a whore; she let him do it, trying in vain to rid herself of her sorrowful mood.
This wasn't her! This wasn't her at all. She did not do one-night stands. And she never had sex for the sake of improving her mood or to forget her troubles.
Alcohol and depression were a very dangerous mix, Nikita said to herself as she quizzically examined the haunted gaze in the bloodshot eyes that disbelievingly stared back at her in the mirror of the ladies room.
Leaving the bathroom, she felt the loud music pulsing in her ears and irritating the sudden throbbing in her head, a nasty reminder of tonight's brilliant display of stupidity.
It made her want to drink another glass of something, anything, just to silence the nagging thoughts of what she had done. But then, drinking is what had gotten her into this in the first place.
God, she hoped that slap stung for a week and left a handprint on Grey's cheek.
It was no use wishing she had stayed home even if that meant watching late night reruns of Ally McBeal and falling asleep on her couch; anything would have been better then this nightmare of an evening. Carefully making her way outside, Nikita carefully scanned the area, relieved to find that the fair-haired jerk had not followed her. She quickly disregarded her initial intention to hang around until Walter or his wife showed up. She just wanted to get home as quickly as she could and try to put this nightmare behind her. One good night of sleep would hopefully help her put this unfortunate event behind her.
The only thing she was certain of was that she would NEVER again drink to forget her sorrows.
Nikita found Birkoff and Ginger right where she had left them. A dark haired boy whose arm was draped around a girl with bright short pink hair and way too many body piercings had joined them.
His previous embarrassment forgotten, Birkoff looked genuinely jolly and wide-awake. She felt very guilty for interrupting one of his few brief outings into the real world that he allowed himself.
It was easy forgetting how young Seymour Birkoff was. The only real image she had of him was sitting at his laptop, day after day, with the same intense concentration working until all hours. What reason could he possibly have to deny his youth, what could have caused him to have such a cynical façade? This was how he ought to be spending his free weekends: having fun with friends rather then being glued to a computer with tons of files and eating Oreos in too small an office.
She approached, deliberately slowing her pace so he wouldn't notice her distress and quickly explained that she was too tired to stay. Birkoff reacted admirably for someone who had been dragged against his will to an environment he normally disliked but had just started to have fun in and was suddenly told to leave.
The pink haired girl cut Nikita's impending retort off with a hoarse, deeply musical voice that nobody would have expected from someone so petite. Temporarily disentangling her thin arms from her boyfriend's intimate embrace she dismissed Birkoff's concern in a spontaneous gesture.
"This is not a problem Detective Boy. Darwin there, she gestured for Nikita's benefit at the dark haired boy behind her, has his car. If you feely lucky enough to brave his driving, we will give you a lift. ''
Seemingly offended by his girlfriend's comment on his driving, Darwin felt a need to defend himself. "Don't listen to her, my driving is perfectly fine", he grumbled, once again enfolding the girl's tiny figure in his arms, looking so very tall in comparison. "The offer still stands, we'll drop you home."
Promptly smothering Birkoff's shy refusal, Nikita intervened by smacking him on his nose with her car keys. "No need, you can take my car. Return it tomorrow morning - without any damage please", as she emphasized the last part. "I'll take a cab. Don't even think about refusing me. I owe you for dragging you here at this hour."
Thanking God, her young cyber geek required no other persuasion, all too happy to continue to enjoy Ginger's shameless flirting. Nikita found no need to admit she had drank too much to safely drive and she was also relieved that no one took notice of her current state.
Once outside, the cold night air seemed to fan the fumes of alcohol and dull her mind, so much so that the simple operation of calling a cab was disbelievingly exhausting. Once finally getting a cab, she had to really concentrate in order to tell the driver her own address.
During the drive home the reality of returning to her apartment filled her with anguish she had no real reason to explain. She failed to get a grip on the sadness or the loneliness filling her heart.
Suddenly, painful images of Michael, laughing and making love to Lisa filled her mind. She imagined him basking in anticipation that same night, just before calling his old friend Nikita to cancel dinner with her. A dinner she had wanted to share with him so badly that she could still taste the disappointment she had felt when he called her and said he wouldn't come. If she had been less proud, she would have cried, but instead she bottled it all up and those emotions exploded out of her in the worst way.
Michael didn't care and this, after all, was the heart of the matter…her heart.
She would just have to learn to deal with it.
"Figures" she mumbled to herself as her anger flared up, once again overcome by a sad numbness. "This is what happens to you when you stand and watch him stomp on your heart without so much as a second glance and then forgive him as if it were nothing".
Standing before her door, Nikita hesitated to move and stared blankly ahead. Cheap was the only word to describe how she felt at that exact moment.
After a short annoying battle with her keys, which were infuriatingly rebellious in her numb fingers, she entered her dark apartment and forcefully closed the door behind her as she leaned against the hard and cool wood. In the nocturnal stillness some extraneous feeling alerted her senses as the lights were suddenly turned on.
Nikita Wolfe blinked twice attempting to get used to the change of lighting and met the irritated gray-green gaze of the source of all her problems.
Chapter 6
"Where have you been?"
For a split second she refused to believe that Michael was really here in her apartment looking quietly comfortable on her couch, annoyance and irritation very evident in his tone as he asked her a question he had no right to ask.
His hair was ruffled, his white shirt was partly unbuttoned and his black tie was loose and to the side, leaving exposed a very delicious view of the strong column of his neck and good expanse of his muscular chest.
The entire picture he presented was enough to make her go weak in the knees with unwanted desire…'geez girl would you get a grip.'
He wouldn't have the balls to wait up for her as if she were some immature teenager worrying her parents because she broke curfew…or would he?
But of course he would, this was his style: She had his keys like he had hers but only he used them, entering her apartment when she ran late for their lunch dates, surprising her with the table ready and the kitchen smelling of the most delicious aromas. It was she who never took the chance to know his apartment as intimately as he knew hers.
"So?" Where were you?"
He asked once again being patient and feeling a bit unnerved that she was just standing there staring at him without any attempt to satisfy his curiosity.
Deliberately ignoring his question, Nikita shook her head in exasperation and slowly moved away from the door. She shrugged out of her jacket and let it fall carelessly to the floor knowing the action would irritate him. Since the day she met him, he had proved himself to be a neat freak, wanting everything to be in its proper order. She smiled to herself knowing how he disapproved of these little habits of hers. It fueled in her an intense desire to try and hurt him as much as he hurt her. The absurdity of this juvenile wish caused a lump in her throat and a terrible sadness deep down in her heart.
"What the HELL are you doing here Michael? I thought you had a date."
Nikita strode forward with a slowness that was grating on her own nerves let alone what it was doing to him. Heading straight to the kitchen, she found herself in front of the refrigerator sooner then she expected. Her head felt both heavy and light at the same time, a very strange feeling. Her thoughts continued to stumble one across the other even before she could fully complete them. It gave her a general feeling of vulnerability and another feeling, this one more familiar…recklessness.
"Never assume anything Nikita". He chuckled, looking very amused with himself. "The little vixen was trying to get back at her fiancée. I couldn't get free of her whining soon enough. But I do have to hand it to her - she is one of a kind."
Wanting to smack that smug look off his face, she turned and opened the refrigerator and grabbed the half full carton of milk. Knowing this was yet another of her habits that he found unhealthy at best, she drank straight from the carton, very pleased that he had a good view of her from his position on the couch even with her back to him.
"Poor baby, are you disappointed that you didn't get laid?"
She didn't bother to keep the sarcasm out of her voice not caring what he would think. She wandered from the kitchen to the living room while still drinking from the milk carton, hoping that the milk would somehow help her fight the lingering effects of the alcohol still in her system. Although at the moment, the alcohol was not her biggest preoccupation.
If Michael perceived the restlessness behind her acidity, he made a point to ignore it because he resumed talking as if she hadn't spoken in the first place.
"Right after I left I bought Chinese for two and came straight here but you didn't answer the door. So I used my key."
"And you made yourself very comfortable!" Nikita giggled, giddy in her misery.
She was standing right in front of his seated form and his eyes inspected every inch of her figure, finding her irresistibly beautiful. Her endless legs silhouetted by her very tight black jeans, the delicious curves not quite veiled by her chemise, her heart shaped mouth curled in a tremulous cocky grin and those large blue eyes that were so full of fire and spirit, it was all absolute perfection for him.
The first time he met Nikita he had been enthralled with her beauty. He was, however, totally convinced that she was seriously screwed up with all her talk of visions and paranormal perceptions and that alone kept him from acting on his attraction to her. Later, when he was forced to admit that there was a basis for truth to her claims, he became fascinated by all the seemingly crazy ideas she came up with. Their friendship had kept him from trying to get physical with her and he had no reason to regret his lost chance because Nikita had become the only true intimate human relationship in his entire adult life.
Although his companions were usually her exact opposite, he never got enough of looking at her, admiring a beauty in her that was so much more than just external.
Whether she knew it or not, Nikita would forever be his secret ideal of feminine beauty, a unique blend of inborn sensuality, natural innocence, tomboyish charm and a tender heart.
Michael once again looked at Nikita and watched her sipping from the carton of milk and then licking away the little milk mustache; the unconscious action making her look both childlike and sexy as hell. For the first time, he noticed she looked tipsy and he finally pieced together all the elements of her peculiar behavior.
"You have been drinking." He stated, both curious and concerned. It wasn't like her.
"So? I'm an adult." She replied, offended by his scolding tone, sitting down on the cool floor and crossing her legs Indian style. Scowling at him she abandoned the empty milk carton on the floor and, crossing her arms with a determined look, she asked the question that was burning in her mind since she found him on her couch.
"Why were you waiting for me anyway?"
Only the slight widening of his eyes gave away his surprise and aggravation at her question.
"I don't know. I suppose I had nothing better to do, unlike you. Well, are going to tell me where you were?"
When he entered her home, Michael was sure that she would return shortly and was rather pissed off when she didn't come home and, with each passing hour, he got more pissed off. He couldn't explain what had caused him to wait except the curiosity of wanting to know how late she would be out…and the nagging irritation of wanting to know if she would return alone. His behavior was not exactly proper but he liked to think their friendship went beyond it after all the dangerous situations they had gotten through together. And, after all, he was just looking out for his best friend's well being. Or so he kept telling himself.
Much to his annoyance, Nikita giggled again.
Chapter 7
''My! Curious, aren't you? '' She humored him. Mustering a smug smirk, he leaned his chin on the back of his hand, cracking a malicious half-smile: ''Why are you avoiding answering my question?''
Nikita struggled to suppress the surge of shame that his interrogation caused and, trying to put it out of her mind, she looked at him with a renewed spirit of challenge.
She pushed her upper body toward him, her elbows resting on her bended knees and feeling once again cocky to the point of recklessness spoke to him with a fake conspiratorial accent: ''It appears that Birky and I were luckier than you tonight.''
'Nikita? Birky? Birkoff!!??' Michael absorbed her admission losing any trace of bemused malice and replacing that look with one of worried concentration. It was the stony expression he often assumed when he was focusing on a very hard case, and it would scare anyone who didn't know him as well as she did.
''What do you mean by you and Birky?" He inquired, with the quietly imperious tone he used during the interrogation of a witness, and the coolness of his gaze almost iced the laughter bubbling up in her throat. But not quite. It was impossible for her to tear her eyes away from his; sometimes she felt magnetism so primal when he looked her straight in the eyes that she often wondered if he didn't feel it too.
''Gee, relax. It's not what you're thinking!''
Nikita chuckled, a sound that was for Michael as familiar and comforting as much as it was irritating him at the moment. She continued her explanation, careful to maintain her deceivingly light tone:
''I asked Birkoff- she erupted in giggles again -No, actually I kind of forced him, to escort me to Volare's to see how Walter and his family were doing, but they weren't there. So I hooked him up with a nice girl and found some company for myself.''
She looked at Michael only to find his face completely devoid of any emotional response except for maybe faint curiosity. She felt a strong impulse to push his limits, to find out how much interest she could squeeze out of him despite her awareness that he didn't care for her in any romantic way. It was because of this impulse she went on, for once not caring that her behavior might disappoint him or make him think less of her because she was eager to wipe that indifferent look off his face.
''To tell you the truth, I was probably pretty close to getting lucky, but my boy suddenly remembered he had a wife waiting for him somewhere in Buffalo.''
Nikita and Michael were very near each other, and although she was on the floor and he was on the couch, they were able to see each other's reactions better than either would have liked. Neither one able to decipher what the other was thinking.
Michael's distant look forced Nikita to break the silence that threatened to fall between them, Nikita knowing only too well how long he was able to stay silent and how little she would be able to bear it if he continued to just stare at her blankly without uttering another word.
''Don't know why I let him come on to me…I…he didn't have ring on his finger, how was I supposed to know? It's not like I was dressed like tramp or even wanted him all over me… ''
Nikita trailed off, her voice breaking while trying to contain the unexpected quivering of her little determined chin as she subconsciously worried her bottom lip with her teeth. She didn't notice that her eyes were glossy or that her hands were closed in tight fists.
It wasn't lost on her, the sudden shift in his expression, her listener's beautiful sea foam green eyes changing from indifference to concern.
''He didn't hurt you, did he?'' Michael asked, reaching out to grab a golden strand that had fallen over her face, tenderly brushing it behind her earlobe.
''No, I'm all right. ''
His fingers lingered longer than necessary in her hair, offering a caress that made her tremble inside. She liked that he felt so protective of her. It was surprising how openly caring he could be sometimes and so tactless at others.
''He made you drink too much? I could…" His tone became angry again.
''He didn't make me do anything that I wasn't more than willing to do, Michael. Take it easy.''
She angrily interrupted his outraged rant before he could continue. Nikita flinched away from his touch, unnerved at his fierce look and then thrilled by the contained rage in his voice.
''This isn't like you.''
The notion of her being capable of going out, getting drunk and then giving her body to some unknown idiot disturbed him so much that he didn't want to believe it. He found himself jealous that some strange man could touch her in ways he wouldn't allow himself to.
Her voice interrupted his silent musing.
''No, you are right, it isn't me, sleeping around is more your style. But hey, who knows, maybe you are rubbing off on me.''
It was a low blow saying such ugly things to him and she was fully aware of it, but anger was better than pain any day of the week. Moreover, if the only way to get to him was arguing, she was quite ready to make the sacrifice. Seeing the anger reflected on his handsome features made her feel alive.
''Now shut up Nikita, that was uncalled for!''
''Why Michael, you never shut up? I'm not some quivering virgin! Stop treating me like one!''
''I was only worrying about you, damn it!''
Nikita visibly winced at this one. Michael didn't swear. Ever. That one word hit her like a slap across the face.
''I don't need or want your worry. What I want is some respect! '' She muttered angrily.
''Jesus, now what are you blabbering about? I do respect you!''
''No, you don't! ''
They were hissing in each other's face now, nose to nose; Nikita holding onto her rage in an attempt to resist the sudden awareness of his breath on her lips. As long as she continued to vent at him, she would feel nothing but fury flowing through her veins.
''If you had an ounce of respect for me, you wouldn't push aside my opinions or dismiss my theories simply because they rock your little prearranged universe! And you sure as hell wouldn't cancel our dinner plans because you want to chase after some airhead hoochie who calls you at the last minute! I'm sick and tired of being your…your laughable clown!''
His dark brows knitted in a straight line as Michael fully absorbed her anger; he had fights with her before, and she had given him more explosive vocalizations of her opinionated self, but what upset him was realizing that Nikita seriously believed every word she was saying.
It was so absurd that he couldn't even fathom a decent reply to her nonsense. She was the only one he trusted and it seemed impossible that she didn't know this simple fact.
''I don't laugh at you. Ever ''
He hoped he could calm her down. She was so tipsy. Michael made a mental note of not taking her out for drinks in the future.
''You are such a liar Michael. Half of the things I believe in are junk to you.''
She bounced back. Her face was flushed and her eyes were now lucid. They reminded him of lapis lazuli; it was the same beautiful shade of blue. Then it was as if all the energy flew out of her body leaving her completely spent. A thousand little fires exploded inside her head weakening her further. Michael seemed to notice the change while he watched her uncrossing her legs and sitting on her knees avoiding his gaze.
''I'm sorry for canceling dinner, Kita.''
He couldn't really tell her anything else. Sex had looked like a good way to kill the stress and he had jumped at the chance of an easy lay. That was it. He had not meant to hurt her feelings.
Nikita hated his "I'm sorry-routine'' more than anything in this world, but he sounded so apologetic that she couldn't help but look up at him, although she had a feeling that wasn't such a good idea. Her tummy flip-flopped when she met his vivid green eyes. She was so close to him she forgot how to breathe, so close that she could count the pores in his skin. And he was smiling at her, that little sexy as hell shy half-smile of his; that devastating half-smile. Nikita could distinctly smell his shaving cream and the light musk made her dizzy sending a visceral jolt of pure sensation through her body setting off all kinds of alarms. She tore her gaze away from his petal soft, sensuously molded mouth with a growing sense of frustration and longing. It was unfair for him to be so utterly ravishing, so powerfully masculine. How could she stay angry with him when the only thing her stupid, treacherous body desired was to bury herself in his arms and enjoy the privilege to simply touch and taste that temptingly smooth skin?
Michael was staring at her and she felt it. Of course she should have responded to him. Maybe accept his apology. Or even refuse it. Being the sole object of his concentration caused her to shiver.
''Ni-ki-ta? What is wrong?''
He was still gentle with her, touching her shoulder to lightly shake her. She both hated and loved the way he pronounced her name, unlike any other man had ever done. It was like a lover's caress. But they weren't lovers and every time he said her name it was a painful reminder of what she couldn't have but desperately desired.
Damn him for being so gorgeous. If everything about him weren't so sensuously godlike, she would at least be capable of looking at him without having X -rated thoughts.
''Sometimes Michael, I really hate you.'' Nikita said in an exasperated sigh, and then she leaned in and kissed him.
Chapter 8
Michael saw her coming on to him with a feeling akin to shock. He saw his colleague, his best friend, his partner in crime for the last five years closing the minimal distance between them and brushing his lips with hers. It was a kiss, light and soft; too short for him to taste.
It was the strangest situation he had ever been in. Tomorrow morning when her drunkenness wore off, they would probably laugh this off - or maybe not.
She retreated and stared at him, her breath fanning his face, her forefinger tracing the borders of his mouth.
''Don't treat me like that again. Deal?''
''Deal.''
Even when she was drunk, Nikita was one of a kind, and he had to admire that in her.
She kissed him again but this time her tongue darted out to follow the fine patterns her finger had previously traced.
Michael found himself unwillingly entranced by her actions, amazed at the feel of the wetness she left on his lips.
He allowed her to kiss him deeply and at her leisure, his lips posing no resistance to her audacious and sinuous exploration of his mouth.
He recognized that Nikita's emotional condition was volatile at best since she was now kissing him as if there were no tomorrow after having screamed at him just seconds ago. He knew that if he rejected her attentions and she woke up tomorrow and remembered all the details of this crazy night, she would probably feel humiliated and embarrassed enough to distance herself from him and their friendship. Whereas, if he let her do as she wished, she would probably stop on her own and they could easily put this behind them.
And with that rationalization, Michael started to kiss Nikita back.
In his mind, he did not have much cognition of how it happened but soon it didn't matter anymore because Nikita tasted so good, better than he ever could have imagined.
Every slow sweep of her tongue along his summoned a growing exquisitely carnal response from him, as though they were accustomed to melting into each other.
Every movement of her mouth toward his was balanced by a movement of his mouth toward hers.
He burned for her and of her.
A fog of dark appetite wrapped itself around his brain preventing him from registering anything beyond her fumbling movements against his body.
Michael felt the spasms in her fingers as they entwined with the longish auburn locks of his hair, and his fingers bared the back of her neck of her wild golden mane in answer.
He felt his fingers caressing the nape of her neck, massaging the small spot of bare skin and trembling from the intensity of that oh so simple physical contact.
He felt, rather than heard, Nikita moaning in the depths of her throat as she continued to kiss him.
He understood that he had to stop but he couldn't, and the disobedience of his body from this newborn need to touch her scared him as very few things could.
Michael thanked God when the woman in his arms imposed an abrupt but reluctant end to their kiss.
She leaned back and looked at him for a long moment, giving him all the time to dread what she would possibly tell him, and her aquamarine gaze searched his smoke and emerald eyes so intently that he was temped to look away .
Her eyes were glazed over, but Michael couldn't say if it was from passion or from the alcohol.
Strangely, Nikita did nothing but abandon herself to him, laying her head in the crook of his neck as she breathed shakily.
''Michael, Mi-chael,'' she murmured lowly as his heart constricted painfully.
He kept her body tightly anchored to his own, afraid of something he couldn't define nor entirely perceive.
She closed her eyes and he felt her gradually relaxing into him until she went completely still in his embrace.
''Kita?'' he whispered to her, receiving no kind of answer.
Gently moving her over, Michael saw that she was sound asleep. Her quick fall into slumber reminded him that what she had done was only the result of too many drinks in a cheap bar.
Unforgivably stupid of him to forget it.
With a few practical prudent movements, he swept Nikita up in his arms and proceeded to bring her upstairs to her second-level sleeping alcove.
He breathed deeply to steady his regained control of his physical reactions before going up the stairs and was careful about keeping their body contact as minimal as possible considering the circumstances.
He settled her on the bed still scared of touching her any more than was necessary, as if the most casual brush of his hand against her skin could awaken feelings he refused to accept. All the same, he gave in to the temptation to smooth errant locks of hair away from her face.
Michael sat for a while on the bed with her, contemplating every nuance of her face, the rise and fall of her chest with every amazingly regular breath she took in deep sleep.
If he had been familiar with the concept of 'love', he would probably have understood that he loved Nikita and that he had loved her for a long time but, unfortunately for both of them, Michael had never known what love was.
A woman of great beauty and sleek grace, Victoria Blake had engaged in a relationship with the surrealist director Jacques Samuelle to cultivate hopes of her ascent as an actress. She often blamed her early pregnancy for the premature end of her career as a model. The role of mother and wife didn't suit her and the birth of her second son only increased her unwillingness to embrace it. Her abandonment of her family condemned Michael to take care of a workaholic, occasionally alcoholic, father and his problematic younger brother Mark.
As children of a broken family, Michael and Mark grew up without particularly relying on one another. Instead, they coped with the emotional void that surrounded them on their own and constantly challenged each other.
In their maturity, they were able to consciously seek a more stable relationship, but their father stayed a familiar stranger even after he gave up the bottle.
Michael had never fallen in love. He liked women; the way they looked, acted and felt underneath him, and the women obviously liked him a lot. Rarely was he required to commit to a long courtship of any of his lovers and, although he was by nature a monogamous man, none of his affairs lasted more than a month.
Like most young men forced into prudence during their childhood and early youth, he had the tendency to strip his adulthood of any kind of responsibility that wasn't work-related.
Women offered themselves to him like towns already conquered and he welcomed them like a general in time of war.
Michael's thoughts, as he watched over Nikita while she slept, was that he couldn't and shouldn't desire her because he would lose something that he was strongly committed to keeping if he did.
Michael rarely made love to a woman on the first or second date. He enjoyed the foreplay and the challenge of the conquest as much he enjoyed the act itself, however, after he intimately caressed and possessed a woman, he could acutely feel the loss of mystery that had attracted him at the very beginning of his pursuit and started to look at her in a different light. None of them had kept his interest long enough to spur him into a serious romance, and he couldn't avoid considering them as nothing more than pleasurable interludes.
He liked the way Nikita talked to him freely and how freely he could talk to her, the way she surprised him and the way she fit in his life. Michael still didn't understand what had just taken place downstairs, but he had a compelling desire to forget it before he fully realized how much he feared the enormity of the passion Nikita stirred up inside him.
Looking at his watch, Michael noticed that it was late and he was too tired to return to his place. He was sure that Nikita wouldn't mind if he slept on her couch.
Chapter 9-Rated 16+
Falling asleep on her partner's shoulder, Nikita Wolfe perceived her senses being drawn to the very center of her being by a force older than time. She felt as if she was vacating her material form and yet drowning within herself.
Familiar shadows were being cast upon her, and she dissolved into them and them into her as they seemed to nourish each other. She felt full, empowered and unbounded.
Her soul was expanding but the direction in which it was expanding was a mystery.
She didn't ask herself questions because it was almost as though she knew that she had all the answers.
She floated in an infinite space, clear and clean, immersed in a liquid tangle of incomplete plots.
If she had been capable of fear in the condition she was in, she would have been alarmed by the vague perception of her essence being yanked back to reality.
She was again flesh and blood, but still saw infinity reflected in the two dark eyes looking back at her.
Two eyes seeing infinity in hers.
She smelled a thousand earthy scents blending together and recognized the unique scent of the forest. A scent she instinctively knew she loved.
And the grass…she felt it tickling her nude back and heard the murmurs of nature, the calling of a night owl.
There were other sounds too, sounds of coupling, which she heard coming closer and closer.
So close that she realized that she was producing them, at least in part.
There was a man over her chanting the ancient melody with her, claiming her for himself and giving himself to her.
The man was nude too and sweat slid between their bodies as he sweetly, pleasantly rocked against her, seeking in her moist warmth the only home he had ever known.
The man didn't look anything like Michael, but she felt that it couldn't be anyone but him.
No one but him.
He was about to say her name, but before she could hear it or read it on his lips, everything vanished and she was lost and alone in the deepest darkness aching for the Promised Land she had just glimpsed.
Then in the darkness a mirror appeared and she went to it, listening to its obscure call.
The woman mirrored there was her but at the same time wasn't her. She was dressed like she was from another epoch and the hair piled on the top of her head was a dark honey blonde instead of Nikita's almost white locks. She smiled, Nikita Wolfe's smile on her face, and mouthed at her from the mirror:
''There's a time for every purpose.''
The whisper of her alter ego seemed to materialize beyond the mirror and echo a thousand times in the darkness getting stronger.
Deafening her.
Then Nikita Wolfe awoke to the commanding tone of her alarm clock.
It took her a while to comprehend that it had been a dream and that this was her true form. It had all seemed so real. She could still smell the forest. The smell had seeped from her dreams. No, it had been more like a psychic perception. The woman in the mirror had been her in another lifetime.
Her alter ego was trying to show her something.
But if it was so, then something else must have triggered their contact. Nikita tried to recall if she had done anything extraordinary last night.
''Oh, fuck!'' she exclaimed, bringing her hands up to cover her face.
Saying it out loud almost made her feel better.
Last night she had kissed Michael. An act of drunken bravado.
Astonishingly, Michael had kissed her back.
How on earth would she face him today?
Chapter 10
The same morning, approximately at the same hour, Seymour Birkoff awoke in a bed that wasn't his. He didn't immediately grasp where he was, but his nakedness was a fresh reminder of how he spent the previous night.
Covering his chest with the sheets previously tangled about his legs, he looked around and saw that he was alone.
There was no trace of the girl who owned the little apartment he had spent the night in, but at least he more or less recognized her bedroom.
He was embarrassed and more than a little ashamed to find that he had been too preoccupied with other things last night to really remember any significant details about the room.
Since his clothing seemed to have disappeared along with Ginger, he took advantage of his solitude to assess the place he was rather than giving free reign to his discomfort.
There were many stuffed animals, thick university textbooks occupied the white writing desk to his right, and right before him was a life-size poster of a relatively famous musical group. 'The Whits' was written in cubical characters above the image.
Standing proudly in the foreground was a statuesque blonde beauty, the lead singer Isabel, and beside her was a blue-eyed guy who happened to be the band's leader.
Birkoff used to say that 'The Whits' sounded more like the squeak of a mouse than the name of a trendy group and when he did Gail would get extremely worked up. She detested when he teased her about her favorite band. Gail thought that the name was nice and original because it was derived from that of their founder and songwriter, Alex Whitman.
Birkoff remembered that she had even dragged him to their concert once using very conniving arguments.
Yes, The Whits were definitely Gail's favorite group even if he had always thought that she liked the myth behind them more than their music. She loved listening to all those romantic songs knowing that they were written by Alex to be sung by his wife Isabel.
Gail was that kind of person. She saw and loved the melodramatic side of reality.
Birkoff would have preferred not thinking about her, especially when he had just made love with someone else, but he had come to accept that he would think of her often and that the sight of her would continue to hurt him as long as he didn't forgive her.
It was difficult, if not impossible, to forget someone you once loved so much and now hated with the same intensity.
There were moments when he really wanted to forgive her. After all, she had been his first girlfriend, the same girl to whom he'd lost his virginity during a stroll in the park on prom night, the same girl he'd lived with during the six more adventurous months of his life.
Yet every time he would remember how carelessly she had stomped on his dignity, his resolve would weaken and all the good memories would fade from his mind to be replaced by the banished image of her in their bed with Jason.
It was almost a year and a half since Gail left after various failed attempts at reconciliation, but he still had not bought any new furniture.
All the pieces Gail had chosen for them had been thrown out the window and now his 'home' was no less blank than his private life.
Her betrayal had left a wound so deep that he no longer had the courage to open up to someone like he had with her. No, he wouldn't risk it again.
It wasn't just a matter of trust or hurt pride. Far more than that.
If Gail had cheated on him with any other man, he could have dealt with it and maybe eventually forgiven her.
But Seymour Birkoff had been born to a teenage mother who gave up one of her identical twin sons at birth in order to be able to keep the other. Growing up, Birkoff had become used to a life of sacrifices and was fine with it. His mother Lisa had worked hard to give him a life as close to normal as she possibly could without informing him of the existence of his twin, so young Seymour had considered her his only family. When Jason Crawford had knocked at their door wanting to know his biological relatives, Seymour believed that he had found a missing link to the mystery of his birth, someone with whom he could share that empty place in his soul that he couldn't fill.
And seeing the one he had thought of as the love of his life in pos-coital bliss with a man with his own face, more money and all the qualities he ardently desired for himself had broken something inside him.
It was as if someone had told him that he had no right to exist.
As if in one single moment all the good things in his life lost their color.
Birkoff was so intricately immersed in those thoughts that he almost didn't notice Ginger's return.
''Hi, sleepyhead.''
''Hi.''
Her arrival made his body tingle in a way he couldn't understand. In spite of his best intentions to remain cool, he couldn't prevent his face from becoming suffused with intense, unmistakable visible heat as he looked at her from the top of her head to her toes.
He was naked and Ginger was nicely and completely dressed.
She was wearing a long green floral skirt, which reached her ankles, and a matching top. Her blonde hair was in a braid and her smiling face was scrubbed clean of any make up.
She looked sweetly feminine, in contrast with the spicy and restless pursuer she had been at Volare's, but more in tune with his lover last night.
Making love with her had been sweet and slow and thinking of it now made him feel more relaxed.
''I went out to get you a croissant.''
She handed him a package and Birkoff was careful to touch the bag anywhere but where her fingers were. The maneuver was lost on Ginger because even she was blushing a deep crimson.
''I don't usually do this…'' she tried to explain.
He nodded.
''I don't usually eat croissant either.''
Ginger giggled and Birkoff's eyes became bigger.
''No, I meant I don't…have sex with someone I just met.''
Birkoff almost choked but managed to assure her that these weren't his parameters for normalcy either.
For two very long minutes, the young, one-time lovers just stared at each other and then broke into infectious laughter, which revealed their mutual ignorance of the attitude to be assumed.
Later, Birkoff would ask what time it was and Ginger's answer would bring an abrupt end to their conversation.
It appeared that Mr. Birkoff should have already been on his way to the Agency.
Ginger had the grace to blush and turn away as she gave him the clothing she had gathered from the floor, folded and placed in one of her drawers just after she had gotten up, but she managed a good attempt at acting nonchalant as she asked him out for lunch.
''Today, I can't. It's a tough day. Why don't you come up for a visit tomorrow?''
It came out as an off-the-cuff answer.
Birkoff didn't concern himself with stopping to think about why he was so ready to postpone the date.
Anesthetizing his subconscious mind with thoughts of work was an alternative decidedly more appealing. The last thing he needed was to get Michael irritated with him for some banal delay.
Little did he know that he wouldn't be the only one at Samuelle Investigations to come in late that morning.
Chapter 11
After her unusual nocturnal activities, Nikita found relief from her persisting disorientation under a cold shower. Unfortunately, while the cold water did wake her up completely, it also forced her to deal with the more tedious consequences of her hangover. She felt terrible and was firmly convinced that she looked even worse.
For all these reasons, she was hardly happy to find Michael making coffee and eggs in her kitchen. He was wearing the shirt he had left in her home two months ago when she'd offered to wash it for him and the black pants he'd worn the day before.
Just the smell of food was enough to make her stomach turn and it wasn't because of nausea. Despite what felt like an ongoing bombardment taking place inside her head, she was almost hungry.
No, the knots in her stomach had little to do with a lack of appetite and everything to do with the man cooking.
She wasn't ready to see him, much less to talk with him. She didn't know what to do.
Oh well, he had kissed her back while fully sober and seeing as she had been drinking, he should be the one to broach the matter and explain his actions if he wanted to discuss it so much. For once, she wouldn't be the one to talk out problems.
Playing dumb sat perfectly with her. Moreover, he had no right to enter her home whenever he felt like it.
''What are you doing here?''
Nikita felt that it was awfully redundant to ask, but she doubted that there was any use in having scruples when dealing with someone as maddeningly insolent as he was.
Nonetheless, she collapsed on her couch with a deliberate effort not to glance at him and simply willed herself to figure out why her head was threatening to explode at that very moment.
''Good morning to you too, sunshine,'' Michael chuckled, oblivious to her displeasure with him and appearing hugely bemused by her dejection.
Being seen by him in such a pitiful state made her feel considerably worse. Nikita didn't push the issue, fearing that doing so would require them to deal with the matter of the previous night's tumultuous events.
He approached her with a tray containing a mysterious steamy cup.
"How are you?''
''I have a killer headache. I think I could die,'' she sighed, staring at a fixed point above his head.
''Hangovers are a bitch. I've had my share,'' he nodded knowingly.
Perhaps it was merely that French-Canadian accent of his, but the way he swore sent a delicious shiver down her spine. There was something inexorably tragic about her going into hormonal overload simply by listening to him talk, but this time she didn't feel as uncomfortable as she usually felt when being reminded of the force of her attraction to him. Right now, his eyes held a glint that she had seen somewhere else just a little while ago --- in her dream. In the dark eyes of another man.
Michael didn't seem to mind her close observation of him, perhaps attributing it to her headache.
''What have you there? '' Nikita inquired pointing at the cup that he had made no move to offer her.
Michael shrugged. "A miraculous cure for hangovers. The recipe belongs to an old friend from the University. For all the times we made use of it, I can assure you that it works. You will be better faster than you can imagine if you drink it. ''
''If I drink it.''
Just as Michael passed the steaming cup near her face, Nikita had the chance to sniff the 'brew' and immediately wrinkled her nose, snorting in disgust.
''It smells vile.''
''It tastes worse. But as I said before, it 's extraordinarily effective.''
''What is it?''
''If I told you, I would have to kill you. Now drink.'' He jokingly encouraged her.
''I can't believe I'm doing this'' she muttered, taking the steaming cup from the tray and taking a tentative sip.
"I would advise you to drink it all at once.''
Showing courage that even Nikita didn't think she possessed, she gulped down the entire cup in one shot while attempting not to taste the horrible liquid.
''Pray it works.'' She mumbled, practically feeling her brain painfully contract.
''It will. A scalp massage could help too.''
''Are you volunteering?''
Nikita tried hard not to squirm, thinking of her scalp being massaged by his long fingers with her head resting on his muscular thighs. She didn't doubt for one minute his skillfulness, quite the contrary actually. She halfheartedly hoped he wasn't offering.
''I'm willing to let you take advantage of my talent.'
Nikita bit her tongue so as not to curse at him since she instantly caught the double-entendre. In some way, she suspected he could make the simplest line sinful. If she didn't know better, she would think that he was teasing her on purpose.
''Considering my devastating suffering, I accept your sacrifice.''
Nikita dismissed her previous assumption as the fruit of her imagination while Michael maneuvered her onto her back, her head lying on his legs, and began to massage her temples. Although she felt incredibly tense in finding herself in so intimate a position, she maintained her composure and was very glad that she was not blushing.
''Relax'' he ordered her, his fingers magically easing her headache with their movements. His touch captured her full attention. She closed her eyes, half-disappointed and half-relieved that he didn't look at all embarrassed at the position they were in.
''How does it feel?'' Michael asked her a few minutes after he had started.
''Soooo gooood.'' She purred, but caught herself and said, "I would say it works.''
''Good.'' He smiled, pleased with her response.
''Maybe you should go Michael. At least one of us has to be punctual '' She didn't want him to leave so soon but couldn't really make him stay and lose time because she was paying her dues for drinking too much.
''If I can't show up fashionably late, what is the advantage in being the boss?''
Michael enjoyed being close to her and, after the bewilderment of last night, he couldn't leave her alone, not only because he wanted to help her, but because there was still something he needed to tell her.
Nikita giggled, amused by his dry sense of humor. It was nice being with her like this. So nice that Michael paused before continuing with what he had to say.
''Nikita, do you remember last night?''
Nikita sighed. She was sure that Michael heard her as it sounded loud to her own ears.
''Little bits and pieces. I was really out of it.''
''Yes. You gave me an incensed lecture about the fine art of respect.''
''Mmm, I remember that part.'' Nikita closed her eyes, relaxing under the caress of his hands. He had slightly roughened fingertips and they felt good scraping on her skin. . To be utterly truthful, better than good, more along the lines of incredible!
''Did you mean it?''
''Yes. For the most part. I could have forced my hand since I was tipsy and all.''
''I see.''
Michael was silent and just when she gave up on his responding, he did.
''Nikita, I trust you. Even when it doesn't appear that I'm listening to you, I am. I cannot totally believe inwhat you do, but I believe in you. If I didn't, I wouldn't have asked you to be my partner. Don't ever think otherwise.''
''Okay.''
He was a unique man, able to switch from light-minded to serious in a matter of seconds. It left her unsettled but in a pleasant way.
''Michael?''
''What?''
''How do you feel about your past lives?''
''I'm Catholic.'' He sighed, sounding fairly somber and anticipating to disagree with her on another absurd subject.
Nikita laughed in that throaty, smoky way she had, the one he could identify with only her and got up.
''I do feel better now. Thank you. We better go. You wouldn't want to leave Birkoff alone with Corinne Markali, now would you?''
''No,'' he agreed.
''Birkoff has my car. If you give me five minutes to change, I'll come with you.''
''Fine. I'll wait for you in the car.''
He pretended to believe that it would be just five minutes, although she was the only woman he knew who could be ready in less than that if absolutely necessary.
''Nikita?'' He called to her while she was starting up the stairs. '' What was it about reincarnation?''
''Let it alone. I was just teasing you.'' Nikita smiled secretly to herself while hurrying upstairs, feeling wholly optimistic about what had gone unsaid between them. After all, there was indeed a time for every purpose. If Michael wasn't ready for an us just yet, she could wait. He had loved her in another life much the same way she loved him now.
She was by nature an impatient person, but for things that truly mattered to her such as him, yes she could definitely wait.
Chapter 12
When Seymour Birkoff stepped hurriedly over the Samuelle Investigations threshold, he couldn't decide if he was more relieved or surprised to see the offices empty, except for the discreet presence of their official secretary, Miss Gerard. At last, relief won out over surprise, and the young American computer and technology expert sank in his seat, carelessly smoothing his wrinkled shirt as he tried to remember where he had hidden his private store of Oreos.
It was impossible facing a day, as the one he had ahead, without a constant supply, especially when he needed to come to terms with what he did last night. In a daze, he watched as one of the keys to his desk slowly disappeared from his fingers and began falling. He quickly reached out to grab it before it hit the floor.
''Coffee?''
The sweet melodious voice of the only other occupant startled Birkoff, making him squirm and hit the corner of his desk.
''OUCH!''
''Oh Seymour, are you alright?'' Scratching his shorthaired head, Birkoff frowned instinctively at the use of his first name, which he disliked intensely, as his brown-eyed gaze narrowed on the saccharinely sweet sounding woman. If any other individual had talked him in that tone, he would probably resort to a sarcastic comment, assuming he or she was being phony.
''No'' he answered. If there was one thing absolutely clear to him just like when he had initially met Sarah Gerard, it was the fact she was exactly as she appeared: a young woman who saw the world through rose-tinted glasses and harbored a deep rejection complex. Having blue eyes that were crystal clear, chestnut shoulder-length hair, pale skin and frail, fine features, Sarah could be considered beautiful. It wasn't the oversized, nondescript clothing she habitually wore to keep men away, but rather the bashfulness of her character, the transparency of her fear to live. Sarah was also one of the few beautiful women who wouldn't fall for Michael. Conversely, the reason Michael never made a play for Sarah, even jokingly, went well beyond Michael's unwritten rule that he would not get involved with Nikita's friends or the discretion he usually applied by not mixing business and pleasure. There was an ever-present childlike air about Sarah Gerard, an innocent quality in her desperate need to feel safe and a silent plea to go easy on her in her introverted looks, which made it a natural reaction for her employers to feel protective towards her. Sarah returned their kindness with being dearly devoted to her daily tasks, preparing coffee, arranging appointments with potential clients and answering the telephone, and it gave Birkoff reason to think that this was her whole life. He also thought that leaving her mundane job at the local library to come work with them was the most courageous choice Sarah ever made. But today, Birkoff didn't feel like he could or should look at her with an air of superiority; his life now felt almost as empty, if not more.
''It's nothing. Did Michael call?'' he grumbled. Michael was late. Moreover, Michael always called when he was late even if the cause of his temporary absence was as commonplace as the morning traffic. Meticulous, systematic but yet often unpredictable, Michael Samuelle excelled in anything he did and it showed. His efficiency was etched in the restrained use of gestures and words, and the secret of his success was in his strict pragmatism and his surprisingly detached observation of the things around him. Working with him, straining to keep up with Michael's way of thinking was exhausting yet exhilarating and Birkoff wouldn't exchange his position with anyone else.
''No, at least not yet. ''
Michael hadn't called that morning. In fact, he made his entrance almost twenty minutes later and held the door open for his blond companion, as he acknowledged Sarah's welcoming smile and returned her greeting with a formal verbal welcome.
Sarah immediately sensed the somberness of the couple but chose to ignore it. She had no right to interfere in their business and, as usual with Michael and Nikita things were hardly as they appeared regardless of what any of them thought. Sometimes Sarah wondered if their endless tiptoeing around each other would ever stop. It was extremely rare seeing one without the other, but watching them together never ceased to amaze her: They moved in perfect unison as if they were one.
Nikita looked bothered when she asked Sarah if Mrs. Markali had called to cancel. Apparently her problem, if you could call it that, was so urgent that she couldn't afford the luxury of coming back. But Nikita's worried expression must have not been linked to this, because Sarah's confirmation of the appointment didn't ease the creases around her mouth. In turn, Birkoff was rather curious to notice that Michael was not only strangely unresponsive to his report of required research, but he was also contemplatively watching a sleepy looking Nikita.
This was the uneasy and odd atmosphere that greeted Corinne Markali upon her arrival, although she seemed too distracted to take note of any of it. She was a woman in her 50's, bearing the vestiges of past beauty, consumed too soon by an insecure temperament. It was the classical case of the rich, worried wife who dedicates her life to her husband and is afraid of admitting a potential betrayal on his part. Corinne Markali was adamant in her defense of her marriage and all she demanded was knowing where her husband was when he was supposed to be working and why he looked so on edge and nervous lately. This was a run-of-the mill investigation but one that would help their finances.
Nikita's hangover was still too painful for she could not help becoming increasingly irritated with the woman's uncooperative attitude, while Sarah was moved and Birkoff was looking totally uninterested with what was happening inside Michael's office. Michael, for his part, felt no real emotion or interest regarding the case and was equally determined to resolve it seeing the business potential of being known to the Markali's important friends, if only for solving such a simple mystery. Every one of them was fully committed to meeting their client's request with professional encouragement.
Rolling up their sleeves and getting down to work seemed a good way to escape the uneasiness plaguing the office that morning. Any unresolved questions for Michael, Nikita or Birkoff as to their individual activities of the previous night would have to wait.
Chapter 13
''It's sad really'' Nikita Wolfe said, absently looking out the fifth floor apartment window.
''Quite, but it happens rather frequently." Michael Samuelle answered, his voice echoing as a whisper in the completely empty space around them. It was one of those times when Nikita knew he was replying purely by instinct because his words were said without any emotion. Although he was standing beside her, his total concentration was on the scene he was observing through his binoculars. Or, more specifically, on Nikolai Markali 's office, whose wide window was well viewed from their point of observation. Bless Birkoff and his diligent approach to their work; finding this place had been ingenious rather than lucky.
''In truth, I was talking about us not about Corinne Markali. I thought we were making progress; missing people, kidnappings, lost relatives, threats, stolen valuables to be recovered and now we are back to the basics and nothing better to sink our teeth into.''
Nikita liked looking at Michael when he couldn't turn and see that she was staring at him; it gave her a glimmer of wicked satisfaction for all the times he had caught her doing just that.
''You don't always have to like the job, Nikita. Sometimes you just have to do it.''
Still, he didn't acknowledge her physical presence at his side with any reaction other than looking slightly annoyed at being forced to talk when he was otherwise occupied. His apparent apathy toward her left Nikita feeling deeply dejected without valid reasons. It was as if the kiss she gave him four nights ago in a moment of alcohol-induced weakness never happened. He never mentioned it and she simply pretended that she didn't remember so as not to push the issue. At the beginning she had felt almost victorious, but now she wasn't so sure he had really kissed her back. Maybe she had only imagined or dreamt the whole thing. Who could say? She was not in the habit of ever drinking enough to get tipsy.
Although Nikita hated second-guessing herself, it was becoming shockingly clear that around Michael her confidence seemed to fall like dominoes stacked one behind the other. Her feelings for him were like an earthquake that left no part of her already complicated inner universe intact. In some way, even when she was in a position of advantage like now, Michael succeeded in making her feel like she had been stripped naked in a room full of strangers. The worst part of it was that some days she would just shrug it off, let him do it, but today was not one of those days and nothing could offend her self-esteem more than his treatment of her as if she was a capricious child; however, she took no steps to make him aware of this.
''You should put a flashing neon sign over your head when you aren't in a conversational mood Michael. It would help all of us.''
She saw Michael lift the corners of his mouth for a fraction of a second in response and was rebuffed by his indecisiveness.
''What do you know about the woman?''
''Her name is Eliza Parker and she is an assistant. She hit it off with Markali during her first week there because of a common art interest. She is passionate about politics. Her addition to the staff goes back five months. Wonder of wonders, it coincides with the beginning of the Nikolai Markali disappearing acts.''
''More or less. Birkoff is working on her?''
''Yes. He says he could have something by this afternoon.''
Michael nodded and again became silent. He put down his binoculars and with a fluid movement shrugged off the tension centered in his back. He was doing his best to forget just how much he had desired his partner four nights ago but it was difficult, and this caused him to impose unfamiliar self-restraint on his actions toward her. He had not expected that this decision would sorely limit the spontaneity they shared. On the other hand, if he ignored this new concept to look at her in a different light, things between them would soon return to the way they had been all along. As soon he ceased trying to rationalize why that kiss had been so good, he would then stop with the complex conjectures on why she had kissed him and why he had kissed her back. Truthfully, he needed to just stop thinking about last night!
Michael was about to invite her out for coffee when her cell phone rang, cutting him off and capturing her immediate and complete attention. It always looked to him as if Nikita's mind was constantly running in new and mysterious directions at a speed that other people could never contemplate.
''Excuse me'' she dismissed him with a smile and an accent mockingly gentle, bringing the phone to her ear.
Chapter 14
Lily Corsini and Nikita Wolfe's friendship was based on a kinship of ideals and interests and a bond strengthened by the sweetest childhood memories. They had met on the first day of school soon after a young Nikita began living with the Wolfe's. Lily's independent nature made her anxious to be liked by the shy new girl in class and her own family, a bunch of stubborn Italians with a proud clan spirit, had been won over by Nikita's cerulean eyes and blond tresses the first time they had done homework together.
They had survived their first crushes together, bought their first lipsticks together and attempted their first part-time jobs at the same establishment. In high school, many heads would turn when they walked side by side, each one posing a striking contrast to the other: Nikita - tall, athletic, her Nordic coloring glamorous and her shapely legs endless while Lily was more delicate, petite, dark with shiny black hair and an aquiline nose enhancing her almond shaped brown eyes.
There had been no disappointments, as often happens in relationships cultivated through youth, to tarnish the image of those times as anything but innocent and carefree. Even when they had embraced very different lifestyles (Nikita entering the Academy and Lily beginning her career that brought her the coveted role of buyer for Woodies) and had not managed to keep in touch as much as they would have liked, they preserved the ability to share the moment. When Lily had married and moved to the Big Apple with her husband Edward, it had felt as if the sisterly link they had formed while living in Baltimore had never been interrupted. Therefore, it wasn't strange when Nikita had maintained silence on her friend's surprise confession of marital infidelity. To be honest, from the moment she had heard this stunning revelation Nikita had considered Lily's behavior completely alien to her character. There had only been one other man prior to Edward and, much to the embarrassment of Lily's traditionalist family, she and Edward had lived together for a year before marrying. Nikita didn't know and wouldn't even hazard a guess as to whether or not they burned for each other, but she wasn't really in the habit of judging anybody. Lily's confession had been surreal and far more surprising because it was done with a firm determination to soon put an end to the union Nikita had always believed solid. Yet her friend's joyful expression when she finally spoke about her lover, the look on her face of total joy as she declared their long waiting to be together had finally arrived, had shown Nikita the absolute truth about the situation. In that moment, Lily had looked as if she was another person but, at the same time, the light emanating from inside her was oddly familiar and Nikita had felt it reaching out to her, searching for recognition she couldn't deny. She had not known if she felt more outraged or honored for being the first to be informed of her friend's love.
Driving home, Nikita felt an undefined apprehension and asked herself why anybody else's problems should worry her more than her own and exhaled a sigh of relief at the sight of her street coming into view. Once she parked, she moved to her apartment, barely waving to Mrs. Cooper, a tenant who would probably be happy to delay her with some recent gossip about her sister-in-law, and took the elevator to her floor. Her place was at the end of the passage, number 412. In front of her door, Nikita saw a dark-haired woman kneeling down with her arms covering her head.
''Lily" she called, as the clicking of her heels on the floor seemed to alert the other woman of her presence and propel her to get up on her feet.
It wasn't until they were face to face that Nikita realized that the brunette beauty had her lip split open and was bleeding. Her eyes opened wide flashing a rebellious surge of wonder and indignation and trying to connect with Lily's two furtive brown orbs.
"Did Edward do this?"
It seemed impossible. Passive, controlled Edward Davis hitting Lily, the wife he adored?
"Nikita, can we go inside please?"
Nikita's hand stopped in midair, as she had been moving to touch the bruised cheek and instead looked for the keys in her purse. Physical contact wasn't always comforting for someone under pressure.
"Of course."
As they entered and Lily sat on the couch seemingly preoccupied about folding her jacket properly, both women felt slightly uncomfortable with each other.
Chapter 15
''I brought you some ice.'' Nikita said.
''Thank you so much.''
Lily passed the ice over her swollen lip, not quite hiding a grimace of pain and looked at her host not knowing where the conversation would go from this point. She felt tormented, perhaps a little humiliated at being seen in such a state and began doubting if her impulse to seek refuge here was a helpful or sensible one. The entire event was all so blurred now.
''Do you want talk about it?''
With a powerful jolt, both dread and relief gripped her stomach at the yet expected question. There were so many secrets and so many deceptions in her life lately, and the awareness of finally being completely free to talk honestly about her emotions was a welcome stranger. Nikita was a comforting presence and she knew that a simple 'No' wouldn't be taken as offense. She could remain silent but was that what she really wanted?
Lily leaned back, tapping her mouth with the wrapped ice.
''I didn't expect it would be pleasant, but it was much worse than I imagined. I have never seen Edward so angry. It was as if he was a stranger, so full of fury. The way he looked at me, it was obvious he loathes me more than any other human being he has ever known. The things he said...he wanted to know all the details, how it happened, where, when...why. He wanted to know why the most. What kind of answer could I have given?''
Lily was on the verge of crying again and, pushing aside the sensation of helplessness, Nikita realized that there was really little else she could do except listen. It was difficult for her watching people when they cried. It caused her to feel that their suffering could somehow penetrate her being and become a part of her permanently.
''It wasn't a good reason for hitting you Lily."
''I think he was more shocked than I was. He was completely out of control and knew it. He practically pushed me out the door before he started to realize what was happening.''
Lily held her head between her hands looking a lot more tired and spent than Nikita ever remembered having seen her. The end of this marriage would be a tragedy affecting those directly involved and the probable intrusion of her relatives.
''You lied to him for an entire year. It was probably unfair demanding more of him, although this wasn't justified. ''
Nikita allowed a forced smirk to show on her lips; there was no significant amount of understanding between her and Edward Davis, an egocentric and ambitious man in her opinion. However, it didn't prevent her from sympathizing with his anguish because, if nothing else, he did everything in his power to make his spouse happy or from admitting he was far from being violent and impulsive. At one time, she had admired and envied the peaceful coexistence that Lily and Edward had with each other and she could not comprehend the shock he must have experienced at learning how his wife had consciously betrayed him for one year, was now running off with this man and was pregnant with his child!
But it wasn't her business and true friends should accept the other's faults. Appreciating only the good points makes anybody useful and not a real friend. Besides, Lily already looked upset enough on her own, Nikita mused looking at her friend who was nervously running her fingers through her raven hair.
''It's not that. In Edward's eyes what Orson and I did was a criminal act against his good faith, and I wanted to explain to him that it wasn't like that but there was no way he would listen. I fell in love with Orson, I would die for him and we will have a baby conceived from this love. I don't know how such happiness could be born out of such pain. We always justified ourselves saying it was inevitable but now I wonder if we had the right to do what we did.''
''I don't believe there is anything you can do for Edward now except give him the time he needs to heal. You can't change the past, can you?''
Nikita took Lily's hand and shook it like they had done when they were very young and one saw the other crying.
Lily gave a sad and tender smile. ''I'm sorry I involved you in this debacle. I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn't consider the trouble I could cause other people. It wasn't meant to become your problem.''
''Leave it alone. We can always blame it on hormones, right?'' Nikita gave a wave with her hand and her impish grin squeezed a chuckle out of Lily. "Right?"
"Thank you; jokes and crying aside.''
Nikita dismissed the thanks and persuaded Lily to lie down while she cooked lunch because "the early stage of pregnancy is delicate and she had every intention of grabbing something to eat before returning to work anyway."
It felt good puttering in the kitchen with Lily resting on the couch while her ugly and often absent red cat, Spike, wandered curiously between her legs. She liked the familiarity present in cooking for someone, more so because her work kept her out of her home a lot. It took her back to when her mother was teaching and her father sat at the table reading his newspaper and wrinkling his nose.
While they ate, Lily said she was meeting Orson tomorrow and added that he was leaving the home where he lived with his wife and son and would move in with Lily the same day. They would take up residence in what had been their hideout for their clandestine trysts.
Nikita mostly listened.
After lunch, they parted with a hug. Nikita was content that Lily looked better than she did earlier, and her drive back felt different than her drive home. Lily and her were the same age, however, Lily was divorcing her husband, moving in with and carrying her lover's child, a man whom, according to her "she would die for". When she was younger and thought about her future, Nikita had vividly imagined that she would be swept off her feet by a wonderful man and would live in a beautiful house like the one where she grew up: a place safe and warm, a place to call ""home". Wasn't that every woman's dream, feminist or not? She didn't regret any of the choices she had made; she considered her life rather successful: In her profession she traveled a lot and got to see some interesting places. She liked her lifestyle, being so completely absorbed in the case at hand that she could 'feel' her brain feverishly searching for all the right connections, the teamwork, the adrenaline pulsating through her veins. She loved her job and was proud of being damn good at it. She loved New York although she wasn't born there, because it was the city that didn't sleep, because it was turbulent and gigantic, the capital of the American dream. What was it they said? If you can make it there you can make it anywhere -- and she had made it!
Had she ever been ready and willing to die for a man?
The answer was no, and it wasn't difficult to reach this conclusion. Nikita was a firm believer that nobody could invent happiness for her that wasn't there. People were born alone and died alone with the choices they made. If they were lucky, there would be someone to share the journey.
It hadn't been like that with Egram, and she had instinctively known this because not once had she ever imagined sharing her entire life with him. Never once had he figured as a permanent element in her mind. The more elusive he was, the more she wanted to please him, the more gratified she was by his ministrations when he came back to her. Their affair had been highly physical, the circumstances leaving time for little else and the constant shift of balance of power between them had been like a drug.
She wouldn't die for Egram even when she saw him as the one human being on earth who could possibly love her like she wanted to be loved. It was information she filed away for future reference, as she put her foot inside the door of the Samuelle Investigations offices.
They occupied an entire floor in a respectable building. When they took possession of the space, there had been a lot of restoration work to do, but it had been worth all the time and energy. Every single spot in the office was now as dear to Nikita as her apartment and not only because she spent most of her waking time there.
Chapter 16
The first thing she saw was exactly what she had expected, Seymour Birkoff hunched over his laptop. His lack of response at her entrance indicated that he had not finished his research. Nikita saluted him while hanging her coat by the entrance.
''Hello B.''
''Mmmm. You're early ''
Knowing he wasn't looking Nikita rolled her eyes. His flat welcome was quite dismissive, but she had to admire his dedication. If she happened to spontaneous combust, he wouldn't notice unless one of her embers threatened his precious laptop.
''Found anything?''
"Plenty, there's quite a lot of dirt on Miss Parker and I'm not nearly finished.''
A slight scowl appeared between his brows, contradicted by his narrowing gaze and by the pleased crease of his mouth. She was definitely looking forward to finding out what had him so focused, but for now it was better to leave him alone as he obviously desired.
''Fine, I will be with Michael for a while assuming he's here too.'' Her assumption wasn't confirmed or denied and, although it could mean that Birkoff had lost himself and the meaning of her last line in his little world, she chose to interpret his unresponsiveness as confirmation and left the room to knock at the next door. After receiving the invitation to cross the threshold, she found Michael sitting at his desk, his diary in his hands and a pile of photocopied documents before him.
''Hey" she greeted, closing the door behind her with deliberate slowness. She neared him but didn't take her a seat on the chair in front of him, preferring to sit on the corner of his desk knowing he had no particular fondness for this habit but that he wouldn't ever tell her.
''Hi, did you resolve your problem?''
She could feel and hear his concern for her. It soothed the tension she had been experiencing when she was with him lately.
"It's fixed. What have you got there?'' She motioned with her head hinting at the papers he had been reading. Michael selected a few photocopies from the pile and handed them to her.
''Mrs. Markali sent them by fax. They are certifications of consistent withdrawals of money from their accounts that her husband initiated during the last two years without her knowledge.''
''A resourceful lady contrary to her looks.''
Corinne Markali had not made a good impression on Nikita, although she generally tried not to dwell on her personal opinions of their clients however unpleasant they might be. She had come to the conclusion from the manner in which she had been looked up and down and from the way the older woman had responded directly to Michael, that dear Corinne considered her little more than another pretty face. It was probably juvenile to get upset by this, but it had been some time since a client had misjudged her like that.
"She comes from money. Her family was among the richest and oldest in the Balkans. Without her legacy, it's unlikely Mr. Markali would have gotten so far in his political career, however brief it has been.''
Michael said this with a distinct edge of disgust in his tone. Families such as this, whose members were so used to handling money that they were only at ease with their 'own kind', reminded him too much of the world where he was born and raised. Nikita nodded, totally surprised at the way the minds of these people worked. They could be idiots and incapable in the easiest of situations, but knew all they were supposed to about protecting their interests. For them it was all about money.
''Well, these are consistent." She wasn't sure if she had ever seen so many zeroes at one time. If they were gifts to a lover, it was a situation definitely more complex than they had originally hypothesized.
''Regular too,'' Michael said, as he looked at her face while she analyzed the print-outs and turned the pages, watching her as she absorbed the information and jumping to the same conclusions. The withdrawals were initially far apart but then increased in consistency and frequency.
''Do you think somebody is blackmailing him?'' She asked, her eyes glittering with the promise of a challenge. It fit with all the inconsistencies of Nikolai Markali: his abrupt disappearances from work, his recent nervousness when the telephone at his home rang and his need for cash.
Michael clasped his hands in his lap, sank back in his black leather armchair and giving her a satisfied look said, "considering his shadowy past, it's a concrete possibility ''
Finally they were getting somewhere!
Chapter 17
It was standard procedure to deepen the knowledge of their employer's background if they were directly involved with the investigation.
The digging on Nikolai Markali had proven to be very revealing by showing his connections within the eastern European politic. A man fond of his country and interested in social scourges, he had run for presidential elections and had been the favorite until he had surprised his supporters, as well as his party, by announcing his retreat. According to Samuelle Investigations principal informer, Mick Schtoppel, this choice had been dictated more from necessity than from his poor health, as was publicly told to the electors.
It had been rumored that the politician's name figured in a list of possible 'associates' of a local terrorist faction. No concrete proof of participation in illegal business was found, but it also looked like Nikolai's leaving for the States had discouraged further investigations. Michael, despite his lack of tolerance for the man, valued Mick's usefulness as a consistent source of information and had considered this development intriguing, even though all they had at the time suggested nothing more than a suspicion of conjugal infidelity. He couldn't deny a slight preference for the second possibility presenting itself.
Nikita was teasing him on the benefits of intuition (in that he professed to being a non-believer), when Birkoff barged in and interrupted them with some freshly stamped pages and exclaiming enthusiastically with his face lit up like a child.
''We hit the jackpot! You guys aren't gonna believe any of this!''
Arching her eyebrow at the display of excitement, Nikita took from Seymour's hands the copies he offered, as the boy explained himself while looking back and forth between her and Michael:
''To begin, Claire Parker isn't Claire Parker. As a matter of fact, from a purely legal viewpoint there's no proof she's ever existed before her employment with Markali. I ran a search of her photo on the databases of police and this came up ''
Birkoff indicated to Nikita and Michael the sketch showing the full front and profile photos of a slender girl, short blonde hair and vacant china blue eyes. It was her penal record. She looked like... no, she was the younger version of Claire Parker.
''Sage Matthews. She is barely legal when she marries her contemporary, Peter Ross. They live for a while in Las Vegas where they are sued for fraud at the age of 20, but they come out of it clean. They are 22 when police search their house and find a large quantity of cocaine. He confesses and discharges her completely, taking all the blame and asserting his wife knew nothing of his activities. While he's in prison, her name appears again during an investigation about an organization of industrial espionage. Her involvement, marginal or not, is never proven. Once Peter gets out, they both disappear from the face of the earth. Seriously, after five years there is barely a trace of them ever existing. ''
While she and Michael went through reading the particulars about Sage's penal background, Nikita bit back her question about the legality of hacking into police databases of various states; it wasn't really a question and it wouldn't be the first time so she stayed silent. Besides, even Michael didn't seem to mind and she doubted all this information could be acquired in any other way.
Michael went ahead to examine Peter Ross' file, which was slightly more eye-catching than Sage's, as it bore traces of a penchant toward illicit activity that had started off as a way to survive. Staring back at him from the full frontal photo was a blonde boy with hardened eyes, orphaned who grew up in Maine.
''What do we know about him?'' Michael inquired, his gaze scanning the page so as not to miss anything.
Birkoff answered animatedly, "He is evidently proud of his work. Ran from the orphanage in Maine when he was 15, was 16 when he began working for Alec Chandler and by then authorities always kept him under observation. A short time later, Chandler, as we all know, was on trial for slavery. For Peter there was nothing major before his detention. He was released early for good behavior.''
''So basically they reunited and just went poof?''
Still leaning on Michael's desk, Nikita commented and eyed skeptically the two penal records, taking Peter's file out of Michael's hands to look at again; her attention drawn to the notion of two lives wasted - it was the first thought that popped into her mind, but she pushed it away.
Photos of archived police files were severe, yet she doubted that the vacant expression on the two young people had anything to do with this.
''Until today'' Birkoff nodded, and she didn't know if she was bemused or dismayed at seeing him so cheery about such a thing.
''There was a trace showing connections between the Markali's old life and Sage?'' The softly spoken question by Michael seemed to make Birkoff very satisfied.
''Not in the slightest.''
''Check on Peter.''
Birkoff rubbed the back of his head in a subconsciously self-effacing fashion, as he rebuked himself for not having already anticipated this request.
''But nothing makes us believe they are still together.''
''Nothing makes us believe the contrary'' was the quietly commanding reply.
They had all the puzzle pieces in their hands and now the game was to make every one of them fall neatly into place.
It was the part Michael liked the most.
Chapter 18
Sleep. It called to Nikita luring her as a siren's song would a Greek sailor. The more she slept, the more she felt drawn to that place so warm and quiet; the place she always, always dreamed about.
Her sleep was full of unknown faces, sounds and smells; too far away and disconnected to allow her to find the missing link that would allow the picture to coalesce. She could hardly recall what the visions had been when she was awake yet they filled her with a heady sense of anticipation. Nikita focused her eyes on the paper before her, but all she could see were blurred black lines on a white field.
A yawn soon escaped her.
It was late morning and it was raining. She had always liked the rain and when she was a child had run outside to feel the drops fall on her face and hands. Even today, she loved the smell of rain; the sound of the raindrops beating on the glass of her window and how warm she felt tucked in her bed while outside it rained cats and dogs.
One of her favourite fantasies involved Michael and her making love under heavy covers during a storm.
But why even think about that.
Maybe her life wasn't so healthy after all.
She abandoned the poetry book she was reading. Nikita loved beginning her day with positive thoughts and rarely got the chance to read much at any other time, but now Spike was catching his claws on her pale grey nightgown and she needed to reprimand him. It was one of his preferred pastimes, and she kept forgetting to cut his claws while he slept. Actually, the truth was that she couldn't ever summon the courage to do it.
Nikita was pouring herself a cup of hot vanilla tea when her cell phone rang. Still annoyed with and trying to keep her overactive cat away she answered when she recognized the name flashing on the display, it was Marco O'Brien.
''Marco?''
''Yes, it's me. Listen, something came up about the woman you told me about.''
After their break-up, Marco and Nikita had retained a cordial relationship, although they weren't quite what would be considered friends. They had an agreement that they would exchange professional information, which was helpful for both, if not always ethical. In this case, Nikita had asked Marco to keep on eye on Sage. Naturally Michael didn't know anything about it as he wouldn't have agreed, aside from the fact that the two men never liked each other without any specific rationale.
''What is it?''
''She was found disfigured and killed this morning in the room of a hotel. The husband has just identified the body.''
The voice from the other end of the phone was hushed and she heard background sounds and voices.
''Are you at the crime scene?''
''Yes, my partner and I were assigned to work on the case. I'll need to be talking with you as soon as possible.''
''Can I come over there?''
''You will have to hurry. The murder was particularly brutal, and it is already attracting a lot of unwanted attention from the press.''
As Nikita scribbled down the address, her cat jumped on the table annoyed with the attention he wasn't getting any longer from his mistress.
When she hung up, Spike was glaring at her with inquisitive green eyes. Resigned to having no breakfast and knowing that she should at least tell Michael where she was going, Nikita offered Spike a consoling hug that was beneficial for both of them.
He liked being held in her arms like a baby.
Her long fingers caressed the soft red fur on his back as she clumsily punched in Michael's number. "This is my life Spike, running from somewhere to nowhere whenever the phone rings and having heart to heart talks with my cat."
''Meow." Spike grumbled with a reproachful air, his eyes lazily half-closed.
Chapter 19
Needless to say, when Nikita called Michael and explained what had transpired, he insisted on accompanying her. This was not a situation Nikita had been very happy with.
Sage Matthews had been murdered in a small room in a pitiful hotel. By the time they arrived, journalists, cameramen and a few horrified passers-bys already surrounded the place.
Michael got out of Nikita's car, observed the surroundings and quickly located Marco who was talking with his colleague, Carla Malone, by the building. He waited for his partner, but Nikita just stared straight ahead giving no indication that she knew Michael was waiting for her until she saw him glare in her direction and then hurriedly joined him.
Michael acted oblivious to her displeasure at his presence. He found it interesting how easily she could get irritated with him, and he often forced his hand just to witness her body express repressed fury. Nikita was the type of person that managed to make everyone aware if and when she was unhappy.
Marco moved forward and, even though he acknowledged both of them, his attention was focused on Nikita; knowing from experience that the other guest would hardly share much information with him. He led them inside the shabby hotel to the yet shabbier room where Sage had met with her assumed assassin, whom no one remembered seeing.
Nikita thought it was truly a sad place to die, a single, untouched bed with foul violet sheets, low lighting and a very tiny bathroom where, Marco said, the murder took place. Police officers were still moving in and out searching for elusive evidence of the crime. It could be a figment of the imagination, but she felt colder and shuddered.
Marco was asking them if there was any information they should share with him and how Sage was implicated in their business, but she let Michael handle it, which he did by saying that they were obligated to their clients by confidentiality. She wanted to respond to that, but she didn't get involved in the conversation. She could hardly distinguish their words, attracted as she was in spite of herself by the bathroom 's threshold.
Moving over there, she saw the bathtub where Marco had indicated the body had been found; naked, disfigured by numerous deep blade-like cuts in a pool of blood. It took Nikita exactly five seconds to realize that she was no longer picturing Sage, but actually seeing her.
It was impossible; Sage was at the morgue! However, Nikita actually saw her, lying with her platinum head out of the bathtub, a tattoo on her shoulder, as she soaped her legs.
Nikita blinked twice in rapid succession and the image faded.
Her eyes caught the blood-written words on the surface of the mirror, not particularly legible. It was probably Sage's blood. She had not screamed or fought her attacker; otherwise somebody would have heard her and nobody had. Was she drugged?
Nikita felt even colder.
Fear grabbed at her wildly beating heart with long claws. It was Sage's fear. The bathroom's walls exuded it, and it was affixing itself to her.
Her gaze returned to the blood-streaked mirror. She saw Sage's lips begin trembling like she was about to break into tears while she desperately tried to hold herself together.
Nikita deeply exhaled and inhaled in a strenuous attempt to control her body. Fuck. She wouldn't puke like a damned schoolgirl!
''Ni-ki-ta, are you all right?''
She felt, rather than heard, Michael who now stood behind her.
''It's okay. I just need some fresh air.''
Chapter 20
It never failed to amuse him how weak human beings were. How common was their fear, how frail and easy to manipulate were their minds. How different they were from him even if outwardly they were so like him.
He had stopped being afraid a long time ago when they had taught him that fear kills the mind, and he had realized that control was a much greater achievement when he exercised it on others rather than on himself.
The people around him weren't his equals. Why should they perceive themselves in that light knowing who and what he was? They were but playthings to be used and destroyed for his own amusement.
Across the road, he watched how people gathered in small groups exchanging terrorized whispers about what had transpired inside that wretched hotel, and then disbursed leaving for homes or workplaces while taking with them their ineffectual terror. They were like industrious insects waiting to be trampled on.
Conflicted and unhappy by nature, in their torment he found his joy.
He licked his lips thinking about Sage's sweet suffering face as he pushed his knife's blade into her flesh after making it incandescent with his lighter. Remembering how she had struggled for courage while undressing for him and bathing for his pleasure.
He had full control of her, had pushed her terror of him so far inside her that she had not been able to utter one plaintive cry. In his slow torture of her, he had taken on the role of master and the owner of her deepest wishes and feelings, the keeper of all her secrets. He had dissected her mind and what was commonly called a soul, possessing her in death like no other before him had in life.
Police were still at the hotel and he recognized the cop named O'Brien, as he came out of the building with two strangers, a man and a woman. Officer O'Brien was an ordinary man, intelligent but not overly astute, guided by a strong sense of responsibility toward the victims and their relatives, compassionate but not particularly sensitive, rational but not pragmatic.
His guests appeared much more interesting to him. The man was a rock. From the way he moved, it could be perceived that he had a strong personality and ingratiated himself with no difficulty into the discussion. There was sensuality about the man and he could feel it even if he wasn't particularly open to that kind of sexual experience. And there was power. And control.
The man walked very close to the woman; close enough to almost touch her with every step taken. The stance managed to convey protectiveness as well as possessiveness, whether O'Brien understood it or not.
He smirked.
Where the two men were of little consequence to him, the woman was a whole other story. She had natural golden hair; not peroxide-blond like Sage or honey-blonde like Melissa.
The fine lines of her long body were suggested at, but not inappropriately revealed, by a red sleeveless Chinese shirt and snug fitting white pants. She was very beautiful in every way. Her voluptuous lips pursed in an expression of worry, then formed a grim smile as she turned to answer something asked by one of her companions. Her cerulean eyes searched for some missing detail around her, as if she could sense his careful observation of her.
She probably could! He wanted to laugh out loud. He could sense her diversity.
She was like him!
What an interesting and unforeseen coincidence!
His mind reached out to touch hers, finding a point of contact and creating a link between them. Now he was able to squeeze out a part of who she was and absorb it into himself.
The first sensation he had was of warmth, as a blur of loved faces circled his mind. Yes, she was caring and passionate by nature. Headstrong. Very capable but only if she decided to be.
This woman lived with faith and with pain. He felt in her an unresolved, unaccepted sadness. She was a collage of contrasting feelings.
It was very interesting indeed.
Feeling that his invasion had been perceived and the woman was withdrawing from him, he planted inside her mind a special trace of his 'visit', one she would later assimilate as he now reluctantly left her.
He watched as the woman stroked her arms as if to warm her body, glanced around again before exchanging a few words with her 'friend' and entering the car with him. He would have to seek information about her and make plans for their next contact.
Ah! He had the sensation that she wouldn't be very enthusiastic about playing this new game with him, but she would play.
Chapter 21
Three days later
In her apartment, Nikita sat on the couch while Spike observed her from his lucky position on the cushion, as she idly flipped through the pages of a magazine. She had been very stressed lately. A knock at the door closely followed by the ring of the bell drew them both out of their peaceful reverie.
Tossing aside the magazine, Nikita went to the door and peered through the peephole. Hesitating, she looked back into her apartment to assure herself that it was presentable, undid the security chain and finally opened the door.
Marco was on the other side.
"Busy?" he asked her, lightly smiling.
"Not at all" she replied, unaware that she was matching his expression and stepping aside to allow him entry.
Nikita went back to the couch where the ever-attentive Spike jumped onto her lap while Marco remained standing.
"Do you know why I'm here?"
"I can imagine." She kept her blue eyes steadily focused on him, but her hands rhythmically stroked the cat.
He found it a little frustrating and had the nagging suspicion she knew it.
"So?"
"So", she remarked "there's nothing I can tell you about our case. I'm honour-bound to maintain my client's privacy."
"Even at the risk of becoming the accomplice of an assassin?"
Marco was at his wit's end, grasping at straws and it showed. His comment was so absurd because at this point he had no identification, no decisive proof and no possible motive. All he knew was that Sage had no reason to be where she had been and that she had been working for Nikolai Markali under an assumed name. According to her husband, this was to hide her shady past from her employer. On top of that, there was that absurd report on the autopsy, and Nikita was refusing to provide any help whatsoever.
"Our clients aren't criminals Marco, and I can't and won't tell you anything."
"Anything? Anything at all?"
Nikita felt a pang of guilt for adding to his frustration. She 'd like to help him, but she couldn't even if she had wanted to. This was because Corinne had nothing to do with Sage's death, and she would be met with a lot more than disbelief if she really explained to him how she knew.
In a last exasperated gesture, the cop handed her the folder he had been holding in his hands.
"Just look at these."
Unwillingly, Nikita took the folder in a show of good will, if anything else. Under Marco's watchful brown eyes, she pulled photos from it. The first ones were of Sage's brutalized body. As she had read in the newspapers, the deep cuts in her flesh showed burnt edges caused by a blade that had been heated. On the right shoulder, there was a tattoo, just like in her vision, in the design of drake's head. A familiar design and she knew exactly why. Just another piece of information she could not share with Marco. Or Michael.
Figures.
"As you see, perhaps it wasn't the first time" Marco said, as Nikita viewed the second set of photos. "The other woman was Melissa Salinger. She worked in Germany selling fake documents. She then came to America, became a wife and mother and was killed last winter in Salem."
Melissa 's body had the same cuts and was arranged in the same pose as Sage had been. It was a truly shocking sight.
Marco's face bore a look of tiredness, and he pleaded with her to please listen.
"I've got people to answer to Nikita, people who are afraid. What can that poor man tell his daughter when his little girl won't go to sleep because she has nightmares that the man who killed mommy is going to kill her? How can you let this continue if you know something? This could be a serial killer, for God's sake!"
"You have no right speaking to me like that. I do not know anything!"
Nikita was desperately trying to stay calm. The subject alone made her nervous, but Marco's doggedness wasn't helping at all. It was useless telling him about the Markali's and she would get sued if she did. Conflict of interest was truly a fitting phrase.
"I don't believe you!" Marco exclaimed angrily.
"Then you know the way out, Marco" she icily replied while pointing towards the door, her fingers growing more rigid as she kept caressing the cat in her lap. Spike flew off her lap, perceiving her tension.
"Look at those photos and tell me again that there's nothing you can do to help me."
"I have already done that!"
Without knowing if she was angrier with him or with herself for not resolving this situation much more quickly, Nikita rose and moved toward the door with Marco slowly following her.
O'Brien raised his hands in surrender, remembering just how stubborn this woman could be especially when getting on her bad side.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be pushy."
She was standing beside the door and turned her head swiftly to mock him "No?"
Opening the door, she made it very clear that she wanted O'Brien to leave but he reached out and closed it.
"Help me." He pleaded.
Nikita lowered her eyes and raised them again. "I can't tell you anything that Peter Ross couldn't better express."
She hoped that Marco got the hint, but he gave no outward sign that he had. He simply and silently stalked out the door she had again opened only after looking at her intently and muttering under his breath "you can keep the pictures."
Closing the door, Nikita felt guilty. She hated leaving things unfinished.
Uneasily, she noticed the folder he had left on the couch. Feeling her throat go dry, she went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Afterwards, she stowed the folder on an overhead shelf intending to not give it a second glance.
This was a resolve that lasted no more than five minutes.
Chapter 22
Nikita threw the photos of Melissa Salinger and Sage Matthews on the table.
It made her sick seeing those women, both tall blondes with the same bruises and mimicking the same provocative position in the bathtub.
She had followed the developments of the case through the newspapers.
None of Sage's wounds had been fatal, even if they had most assuredly been painful beyond any verbal expression. Moreover, the autopsy had revealed that Sage did not die from excessive bleeding and her blood had been devoid of any known drugs, but there did show a high level of noradrenalin. It seemed that her assassin had blinded her first by holding a flame too closely to her eyes.
Noradrenalin was a hormone that registered in high concentration in the blood of kamikazes, essentially because it was produced in abnormally elevated quantities when suffering excessive emotional stress. The most important function noradrenalin played in a body's nervous system was setting energy levels so that one would not feel exhausted and tired.
There was also the consideration that Sage had not screamed or fought in spite of the pain being inflicted upon her. Perhaps she was masochist, Nikita reasoned. Even if she personally could not imagine the pleasure that somebody could experience from being violated so cruelly, she couldn't ignore the fact that there were people who considered the exchange of pain as an erotic act.
The hypothesis didn't fully convince her, not so much because she was unwilling to consider that possibility, but because she, herself, had felt Sage's terror while standing inside the hotel room, as well as the satisfaction of the person watching Sage, her murderer. It was the utter fulfilment of one in complete control, although now she couldn't recall those moments in such detail.
Nikita shuddered. It wasn't like she regretted her lapse in memory at this moment.
Concentrating on Melissa Salinger, she tried not to evoke the image that Marco had painted of a little girl trembling in bed for her mom, maybe even resembling the poor deceased woman.
Without much warning, her head began spinning faster and faster and a swirl of colours took form in defining pictures.
Melissa accompanying her daughter to school.
Melissa looking younger and more rebellious, with a seductive smile playing on her thin lips and offering her hand in invitation to lie beside her on a bed covered with black sheets.
Melissa with a ghostly white face pleading for mercy, as she slowly immersed her body in a bathtub.
Melissa crying soundlessly in pain, her eyes pale and her pupils dilated.
Shocked, Nikita almost lost her sense of balance. These pictures she had not seen from the victim's point of view, she had seen them from the captor's.
Grasping the table, Nikita perceived something sticky and bleak expanding inside her mind; like a seed germinating and flourishing in too short a time.
She willed herself to try and stop this sensation but the effort staggered her.
Lord. Her breath became laborious and droplets of sweat could be felt on her forehead.
Bending her head down, Nikita looked at the close-up shot of Sage's shoulder and her tattoo. She vaguely remembered a similar tattoo on the calf of another woman, Jenna Vogler.
It suddenly occurred to her that she just might have an idea of what the design represented.
Her stomach turned and the taste of bile rose up in her throat as she pushed away other bloody images.
The last thought hammering inside her head was that this had never before happened to her, being so shaken and overcome by mere photos.
Then darkness took over and Nikita passed out as she collapsed on the cold floor with a heavy thud.
Chapter 23
Maeve Keanan considered herself pretty lucky for a woman of her time. Her hair had always been a reason for envy among the women of the small village where she grew up: it was pure raven in colour, showing off fire-red nuances in the sunlight. She was petite and thin but showed the strength of a man when she worked in the fields.
Because her father was a bookbinder, she had been taught to read unlike most of her fellow citizens. She liked to think of herself as a thinker, and her father often said that she was the son he never had. His friends disapproved of the amount of freedom he allowed, but he trusted Maeve completely. She was proud of the belief her family had in her, and she didn't care what strangers thought.
People gossiped that she was a witch, but the truth was that she simply had an affinity with members of the Old Religion. Even though she knew everything about it, and had even been invited a few times, she never participated in their feasts and celebrations.
Nor did she openly admit that she didn't believe the stories about them being acolytes of the Devil, and frankly doubted that researching beliefs of other religions was a way to honour God. Nobody would have listened to her anyway, and it would probably bring disgrace on her family if they had . Being the second of five sisters, she wouldn't allow herself to compromise the younger, unmarried ones.
Her true luck was in having Ron Keanan as her husband; he was different from other men. Not only did he listen when she talked, he sincerely considered her opinions, didn't view all females like lower creatures and had respect for her daily chores and her thirst for reading. He even bought her a book when their finances allowed. Ron had also asked her to teach him to read after they were wed.
Unlike others, Ron didn't think that the promiscuity of the mind led a woman to the promiscuity of the body and didn't feel threatened by her intellect.
There wasn't any trait of his that Maeve found debatable or would change. In her eyes he was perfect, an unimpeachable ideal of morality, intelligence and strength. Ron had always been a model to revere ever since they had played together as children and rivalled in running, swimming and riding horses.
She had never thought about or desired to marry someone else and assumed it was the same for him. He had formally asked her father for her hand during the Feast of Autumn of her 16th year, but had mentally chosen her to be his bride much earlier.
Ron came from a family of hardworking agricultural laborers, and saw her every day because he was a close friend of her cousins. After marrying, they had left their village to live in a little home in the mountains away from the ill-fated gossips they had grown up with and here they hunted animals of the forest, worked on their furs and made cheese from the milk of their goats.
She was grateful to him because she loved their life there and the forest itself.
Even if they still weren't blessed with a child during their five years of marriage, she would characterize herself as happy.
Today Maeve had gone out, in spite of the cold, because it had finally stopped snowing and the sun was high in the clear blue sky.
She inhaled the crisp clean air, enjoying the revitalizing effect that this simple act had on her body .If this good weather continued, maybe Ron would come back sooner. The prospect was a happy one as she sorely missed him.
Ron wasn't pleased about leaving her alone but hadn't had much choice. His brother was in serious judicial trouble in town, and their father was too old to give him the kind of help he needed. Maeve hoped her husband had been sufficiently reassured by the promise of the family living close by to stop in and check on her.
Unfortunately the snow had stopped them from visiting, but Maeve wasn't worried for her safety, being confidant of having all the means necessary to provide for her comfort. It displeased her far more knowing it was all too likely that an avalanche could obstruct the path to their home if it kept snowing the way it had been.
She tried to ignore that possibility as she admired the enchanting picture of the white peaks towering above her. In the serene silence surrounding her, she was startled by a series of sounds and took hold of the rifle she had brought for protection against wild animals. Her dogs barked furiously and she soon found herself within close range of a saddled bay horse whose rider appeared to have fallen in the snow as if he was hurt.
Terrorized by the notion that it could be Ron, she fearfully ran toward the horse and bent over the unconscious body.
Thank God - it wasn't Ron!
The unknown rider had obviously been shot and God only knew how far the horse had travelled through the desolate surroundings and the falling snow.
Dear Lord, so much blood tainted the snow and limp body of the stranger!
Maybe this man had been robbed by bandits and had managed to run. Or maybe 'he' was the bandit.
In any event, he had lost a great deal of blood. At home she had herbs and knew how to tend such a violent wound. It wasn't wise taking home a stranger when her husband wasn't there and it surely wasn't good for her reputation regardless of whether or not the man was injured.
Yet Maeve didn't want his death on her conscience and knew that she was the only one available to help him.
Her small hands touched his cold, pale face. His dark eyes fluttered open to her caress, and he whispered something unintelligible in what sounded like another language. The horse pushed his muzzle against the bleeding shoulder of his master.
There was room enough for the beast inside their small stable, and she would take him out there after dragging his master into the house.
Ron would understand why she couldn't do otherwise, and this poor man didn't look like a criminal.
Well, even if he was a criminal, he wasn't in any condition to cause her harm.?
''Kita. Nikita?''
It was a male voice filled with concern. She awoke to the sound and the touch of hands on her face.
She slowly opened her blue eyes and saw the face of a man.
A cleft chin, smoky green eyes fraught with worry and the lips of a liar made just for her kisses.
Recognition flashed in her gaze. She smiled and dreamily called to him, aware of the pleasure that saying his name aroused in her: ''Armand?''
Chapter 24
Michael had been more than worried when he found Nikita's limp body on the floor of her apartment. Her face wasn't pale but rigid with distress when he touched it. He hoped that the touch of his hands caressing her face and the sound of his voice calling her name would rouse her to consciousness.
Anxiety slowly filled the space between every heartbeat as it became evident that he wasn't able to break the sleep that was so heavy to appear unnatural.
His relief was palpable when he saw her eyelashes fluttering and she slowly - so slowly that it felt like centuries to him- opened her eyes.
His face was so close to hers that he could see the violet freckles of her dilated lapis-blue pupils and feel the heat of her breath on his chin. Her eyes had assumed a dreamy expression at getting used to the light. Her lips formed a vague smile, very endearing to him, and opened almost shyly to murmur, "Armand?"
The name was pronounced gently, intimately, as if her voice only echoed the deeper whisper of her heart.
It only took seconds for realization to jolt Michael back to reality that the name wasn't his.
"It's Michael," he stated unsteadily, feeling regretful despite himself. An unexplained sadness gripped him, was quelled by relief, and then subsided without leaving much of a trace.
His partner hesitated, as if coming to peace with something private, covered her eyes with her hands and finally spoke. "Why are you here?"
Nikita's return to reality was abrupt, almost brutal in its unpredictability. Where most people awoke from their dreams feeling 'not awake just yet', her senses were almost perfectly alert since Michael had started shaking her. Her sleep seemed to have sharpened rather than dulled them, and she felt an almost unbearable despair for being drawn out of that sweeter reality when she knew- and knew as surely as she knew how many fingers and toes she had - that the best part was yet to come.
A desperate yearning silently screamed from the core of her being, sliced her soul in a thousand discarded pieces and laid as an unwanted weight on her chest.
"Are you okay? Perhaps it's best if you see a doctor. I can accompany you".
"No need of that. I was just tired".
"Tired enough to fall sleep on the floor?"
This statement was ironic, light but not amusingly so; he used this as a shield to cover his disorientation. Only moments before she had lost consciousness, and he only wanted to be certain that she was truly fine.
Nikita explained in a few faltering words that she hadn't been able to sleep and that seeing Marco's photos had upset and disgusted her enough to collapse over them. She hated with a passion the worry he showed for her, wishing for much more from him at this moment and expecting nothing.
Michael perused the photos Marco had brought while Nikita gave him the documentation of case she had brought home yesterday and that he had come looking for. She was startled when she noticed it was late evening. No wonder Michael had gotten anxious when he could not get through to her and decided to come by in person. It was extremely unsettling now aware of how long she had been out and how clearly she remembered what she had seen in her sleep. Those images and sounds were branded in her mind, yet there was a blatant difference between what she had seen before fainting and what she had dreamed. Both episodes disturbed her but in very different ways. Perhaps it would be easier if Michael was not there but, on the other hand, she didn't want him to leave.
She dreaded his questions, was angered by his answers and scared from the lack of her own. Seeing Sage and Melissa had seized her by a terror equalled only by her horror. Never had she felt so helpless, so disoriented and deceived from the perceptions of her mind.
Never before had her extrasensory perceptions been so extraneous and unclear. It was as if they didn't come from her, but had simply exploded inside her head by some remote signal. It would have been so much easier to remain asleep, lulled by nostalgic visions of a time which wasn't hers, instead of staying here confused and afraid, questioning her treacherous senses.
If only she could talk -truly talk - about this with Michael, trusting him with all her anguish and confusion. It would comfort her, even if it would not be much help.
When he glanced her way and she pretended to listen to him, she was tempted to do just that.
However, at the same time, she wanted to rush him out the door and tell him to get the hell out of here, to let her sort out this emotional confusion by herself. She didn't want to appear weak to him. She wanted nothing more than to ask him to put his arms around her and hold her until she felt better. The two desires, both strong, were repressed and pulled together so they were indistinguishable from each other in a seamless blend, causing a tension that threatened to explode at the least provocation.
Of the words that had been exchanged between Michael and her, Nikita would later remember very little. They were just that…words; intangible traces of information without much usefulness or consequence for now, while she absorbed the shock of having been, for few interminable moments, inside the head of a murderer, without any real explanation.
From his side of the room, Michael was secretly watching her; seemingly unaware that she was there but not quite 'there'.
At last he exhausted his list of reasons for staying and moved to leave.
Nikita wanted to stop him but instead accompanied him to the door. It was embarrassing; her almost inherent need not to stay alone.
At the threshold, Michael turned to look at his beautiful partner to try and convince himself that she was all right.
Again, Nikita heard but didn't remember his words of goodbye. It seemed like her bloody brain was too tired or distracted to retain them and let them quickly go after grabbing a hold of them.
She studied his face and a light smile flickered on hers with self-confidence, as if it truly was a debatable issue if she wanted to strongly close the door behind him or beg him to stay with her just a little longer.
Longing ate at her from within. Fear slapped its face.
"Thank you for everything".
It was the best she could manage and it didn't seem enough. It wasn't enough.
She laid a hand on his arm and, for the second time in her life, leaned in and brushed her lips over Michael's, reflexively closing her eyes and pulling him just a little closer by rubbing her mouth against his. It was as if she couldn't hold back any longer and that complicatedly simple gesture would represent an anchor, or at least the final expression of a heartfelt frailty. With that kiss, she felt Michael's presence enveloping her, infusing her with distant and unreachable warmth. The feeling of the heat of his mouth lingered as the rewarding memento of her bravery, while she drew herself back and her eyes opened to meet his gaze.
A flicker of raw emotion showed in his piercing jade eyes and just for a moment fractured the composure that he normally projected around himself so flawlessly. The look then vanished as if it had been nothing more than a projection of a hopeful imagination or a trick of raging hormones.
During her kiss, he had been completely unmoving. Even his lips were firmly unresponsive under hers, as she had subconsciously expected they would be.
The next thing she felt was his hand touching hers. For a moment she thought he would ask her why she had done it, or if he could stay, or would kiss her. But he didn't.
"Are you okay?"
She wasn't okay, stung with the weariness of what she missed but never had. Every time he pushed her away it hurt. And it was far worse when he did it by just doing nothing at all.
"Everything is okay".
Everything but her.
They saluted each other and Nikita closed the damned door. Alone again.
Chapter 25
Michael Samuelle was beginning to doubt if he understood women at all. Actually, it was not all women. He had a great deal of experience where the opposite sex was concerned; however, it proved utterly useless when it came to understanding his partner. Nikita Wolfe was an enigma he couldn't quite resolve no matter how hard he tried. Every time he thought he had come to a conclusion, the entire scenario would change and he was left clueless once again. It was as if there was a part of her that he could not quite reach or figure out. And now there was this new obsession of hers, kissing him without warning or apparent reason when she was feeling insecure and in an extraordinarily emotional state. The goodbye kiss Nikita had given him at her door had thrown him off balance and totally shocked him
In all honesty, he would have been less affected if she had slapped him in the face. Although she kept insisting she was fine, Michael had not believed one word. He even doubted that Nikita heard anything he had told her while he was at her apartment. Instead, she seemed to be answering robotically and spacing out regularly every few seconds.
Michael didn't like it - not at all. But there was nothing he could do since she refused to confide in him and so he had left. It didn't mean that he wasn't worried because he was, very worried. It disturbed him being kept in the dark, not being able to face the problem head on, whatever it was, and this was no exception. As he drove home, it troubled him that he had left Nikita alone and clearly scared by some undefined threat. So Michael abruptly shifted the car into reverse, garnering a few loud horns from displeased drivers.
When his ringing of the bell at Nikita's door went unanswered, he didn't hesitate to use his set of keys. Carefully moving within the apartment, he called her name repeatedly until Nikita stormed out of her bathroom ranting about his 'uninvited' visits. He took in her reddened puffy eyes and the white towel around her neck and assumed that she had probably been crying and now was washing her face.
''What's happening?''
''That is what I should be asking you, Michael. I thought we had established that you were done breaking into my home whenever you felt like it. Or are you so obtuse that I have to change my lock to finally get you to understand that I don't appreciate it?''
Waving her hands in the air, Nikita looked a lot more confident than she felt. Michael had the grace to not look the slightest bit perturbed.
''I'm trying to help.''
''How? By frightening me out of my wits ?''
''No, by giving you the chance to talk to me about what is scaring you enough to make you cry.'' His frustration by her open hostility was evident in the tone of his voice.
"Oh, trust me Michael, you don't want to hear anything I have to say ! '' she snapped, turning her back on him and running into the other room where she dropped down on her well-worn couch.
Michael discreetly followed and sat beside her.
Without turning her head, Nikita could feel him looking at her. She sighed as her hands nervously held on to her elbows.
''You are seeing things again.''
That was the understatement of the year Nikita thought to herself. Hugging herself even tighter as if fearing an attack, she knew that she should at least appreciate his effort. She closed her eyes at the unexpected touch of his hand on her neck then turned to look at him from under her eyelashes; it was obvious to Michael that she was exhausted.
''Have in me the same faith I have in you. Trust that I can help you or at least believe you.''
Perhaps he said it in a whisper or maybe it was just her mind taking those words and letting them speak to her heart, but Nikita hadn't even noticed that she had started talking.
''After I looked at those photos, saw the murders"…her attention drifted to a large spot on the wall behind Michael and then returned to him stubbornly as if daring him to contradict her "it's been horrible.''
''I understand.''
Aware that the verbal comfort he could offer wasn't much, he continued to caress her neck.
''It wasn't like my usual…perceptions. These things I'm seeing from the killer's point of view.''
''Has anything similar ever happened to you before?''
''Never." Nikita shook her head for emphasis, 'It was like I was captured inside his head and I don't even know why!''
''His?'' Michael inquired speculatively.
''What?''
''You said 'his head.' Are you sure it was a man?
''Yes." Nikita clarified. I could not possibly be wrong. He desired his victims and well…his was only pure male psychology.''
''It's something to start with. We can work on it.'' Michael assured her, and then on second thought asked "it's all over now, isn't it?''
''What do you mean?'' Nikita asked, still a bit skeptical at how readily he had accepted this revelation. She half-expected to see him glowering from one moment to the next as he usually did.
'' Are you still…um…you haven't…''
It was sort of funny seeing him at a loss for words, and she was seriously tempted to let him go on but decided to let him off the hook.
''No, Michael, I'm not hearing voices right now. I'm not a radio transmitter, you know!'' Nikita meant to sound offended but a small smile gave her away.
To be continued….