“I had asked a lot of questions about your folks. Besides the police, I saw the hotel manager, maids, clerks, plus several coffee shops they visited, and your parents’ old St. Petersburg friends. Probably talked to 50 people in all. Russia’s not the best place in the world to ask about missing people. So, yeah, it could have been a warning. But if it was, that puts a new face on what’s happened to them.”
“Yeah… not a good one.” They both were silent with their thoughts. “I left the day after you did. There was no point.”
“I was surprised you were able to get over there at all.”
“My office wasn’t happy. We’ve had a kind of bothersome problem I’ve been on, but I had to come over when I heard you were in the hospital.”
“And still no word?”
“No. Nothing.”
“John, the thugs at my place wanted
Krestinski studied his friend. “She was in a… what do you call it. Some Indian place… when you met her.”
“An ashram.”
“Yeah. An ashram. Could it be something from there?”
“I doubt it. There was probably some grass around, but I don’t think they were in the selling business.”
Krestinski rolled a pen around his fingers. “What does Cilla know about your side trip for me?”
“Everything except my ending up in the hospital.”
“How are you feeling now? That Russian doctor said you took a hell of a blow.”
“I’m fine. John, I don’t want Cilla to know I got banged up over there. She’s had enough problems in her life. She needs me to provide a stable, secure and non-threatening environment. So far I’ve done a shit-poor job.”
Krestinski looked out the window and sighed. “It may not get much better if mafia is involved, particularly Russian mafia because…”
“They go after the wives?” Hudson put in.
“Not just the wives. Anyone in a family they feel has crossed them. Aunts, uncles, maybe a cousin or two.” He leaned forward with his hands on the desk. “God, Hudson, I’m sorry. I should never have brought you into this.”
“I’d have asked you the same if it had been
“Yeah. Started as a translator. The last year or two he’s been working from their office in Switzerland. This was to be their first vacation in over a year.”
“Is there a glimmer of hope the events up our way aren’t connected?”
“Sure, the Bartlett episode may have just been a random home invasion that’s now over. And the St. Petersburg head-knocker may have only been after money just as we thought. There may be no connection at all…”
“Yeah, those are the disclaimers.”
But neither believed it, and the drive home for Hudson was longer than the way down.
His wife received a little stronger hug than usual.
“Hmmmmm.” After a minute she pushed him back to look in his eyes. “Okay, something’s wrong. What did John say?”
“Offered sympathy. Suggested it might have to do with drugs. They’re spreading out from the Boston area. He said he was surprised we hadn’t seen them up here before. Drugs aren’t his field, but he said he’d pass the word along to those working in it.”
“Those men weren’t after drugs, Hudson.”
“I know. So I told him. Probably house jackers, if there is such a thing.”
The silence sat while he took off his coat. Then Cilla said softly, “So we’re on our own if they decide to return.”
“We’ve been there before.”
They went into the living room. “I just got in myself. I butted heads with Kurt today, and Gail wanted to talk about it.”
“Break his leg?” An inside joke. Cilla had training the equivalent of a black belt in tae quon do, and a hardened outlook on men and life brought on by the murder of her Indian mother and rape of herself at age fifteen. Her intensity in practice had, in one case, accidentally broken the leg of her best friend and fellow practitioner.
“Better.” Comfortable on the couch, she told him the Bale Out story.
Hudson, listening, felt a glow of almost paternal pride - though he wouldn’t have been enthusiastic about that adjective. “Good girl. I’m surprised Kurt made it as close as he did, the way he attacked the trail.”
“Me too. He’s almost as strong as you.”
“Got stronger legs anyway. Just as you must have.”
“
Hudson nodded. “Still in time to get it up for next winter.”
“Barely. God, have I procrastinated over this. I should have decided a month ago, Hudson, but I just wasn’t sure.” She covered his hand with hers. “I know how you’ve hated the idea of putting more skiers on the trails.”
He took both her hands. “I’m selfish. I’d love to have a mountain to us. You’ve got to look at it as a business.”
She smiled and took her hands back. “Sitting at my desk after the race with Kurt I suddenly felt it was time I started
“No different than electing as class president the guy who throws a rope on the football field. It’s about confidence and leadership. And you’ve started to get them together.”
“Bob Gold called. Andre still hasn’t gone back to work, and he and Bob and I are climbing Frankenstein Gulch tomorrow.” She grinned. “You are, of course, invited.”
“Thank you. I’m already booked to jump off Cathedral Ledge.”
Hudson was feeling a little extra glad to see her. The conversation with John Krestinski troubled him more than he’d admitted to himself. Up in their bedroom lying on the bed, he watched her take off her sweater and then go into the bathroom, closing the door before further disrobing. He shook his head, bemused. The trauma of a decade ago had made her a very private person. From the rape attack at the age of fifteen to four months ago, her vision was that men carried disgusting weapons hidden in their pants, and during that period had arranged her life to never encounter them. She still could not bear having a man touch her in any way. And, with the exception of her cousin, Kabir, with whom she’d been brought up and who was “family” not a “man”, and Hudson, none put a hand on her shoulder or took her arm in traffic. During her dark ages she’d buried a sylph-like body under baggy jeans, corduroys and heavy checked shirts, and rolled waist-length hair into an enormous bun over a cameo locket face that made one wonder - should anyone look, and few did - if her long, slender neck could hold it all up in a high wind.
She’d developed weapons of her own, as Hudson discovered when he had innocently triggered them. A little like dealing with a hand grenade, he’d thought after that episode; any boyfriends - and at the time the thought never occurred to him he might someday be in that category - better be careful pulling the pin. But it hadn’t turned out that way. By the time sex was brought into their relationship, she’d been the one who’d done the bringing - awkwardly, fearfully, yet determined that phobias not prevent her from pleasing the man she loved. An old fashioned attitude that delighted Hudson with its fresh innocence, yet along with it a fierce emotion that awakened the same in him. She was a one-man woman, and the man hadn’t gotten away.
How precious she was to him. He couldn’t allow anything to happen to her. The sudden loss of his well-loved first wife, not even a year ago, heightened his apprehension. The European trip was the first time he and Cilla had been apart since their marriage. A sudden surge of desire tightened his groin. But Cilla was not someone - even yet - for whom the mere mention of an interest in sex was automatically followed by turning down the sheets. It had to be approached just right.
