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“That’s it.”
The nurse they’d talked to appeared in the doorway. “Rachel,” she said, “Aino’s been transferred to ICU. You can visit him there now, but please keep the visit brief.”
“I’ll wait here,” Mikel said.
Rachel left him there, surprised at her wish that he could come with her. After following the directions she’d been given, she found Aino in the three-bed intensive care unit hooked up to various bags and monitors. He opened his eyes when she stood by his bed.
“Guess this old goat’s gonna make it,” he told her.
Rachel bent and kissed his cheek. “You scared me.”
“That young man who helped get me here—who was he?”
“His name is Mikel Starzov, that’s all I know.” Aino didn’t need to have her tell him that Mikel was kind and comforting and that she liked him, even though his questions about Leo had made her uneasy.
“The doc says if I hadn’t gotten here so quick I might’ve been in a lot worse shape. He thinks I might come out of this pretty good and we got this Mikel Starzov to thank for that.”
She nodded.
“So I want you to invite Mikel to stay at the farm for as long as he has business in the area,” Aino continued. “That’s the least we can do for a Good Samaritan.”
Rachel’s instinct was to tell Aino she didn’t think that was a good idea, since Mikel’s business seemed to involve them, but this was no time to argue with the old man. “Okay,” she said.
“Tell Mikel I’ll be home in a few days to thank him personally. You take him back to the farm now, no use you hanging around here when the cow will need to be milked. And I don’t want you scaring Eva into rushing back from Finland. I’m too ornery to die, Doc said so right out.”
As she returned to where Mikel waited, Rachel tried to tell herself he wasn’t a threat to them all with his questions. Something about him fascinated her against her will. He was attractive, no doubt about that, with his dark hair and chiseled features, but it was those slightly tilted green eyes that got to her. Hunter’s eyes. She took a deep breath. Rachel Hill was no man’s prey.
She waited until they were driving away from the hospital to invite him to stay at the farm, saying, “Aino insists. We have a guest cottage so you’ll have privacy.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Mikel told her, thinking it was just as well he wouldn’t be in the same house with her, the two of them alone, tempting fate.
“Do you mind if I stop to make a phone call on the way?”
“You can use our phone if you like.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to trouble you.”
He’d spotted an outside phone at the gas station where he’d stopped before and so he pulled in there. Even on vacation he was expected to stay in touch, but private phones could be traced and tapped, so he never made agency calls from anywhere but a pay phone.
He was connected immediately and told his only message was from his grandmother who’d called the Riggs and Robinson screening phone number that led to the agency. She wanted him to get in contact with her immediately.
Before he hung up, he asked his researcher friend, Ed, to check out Rachel Hill, probably born in Michigan twenty odd years ago. Mikel had no reason to mistrust her, but a special agent always made sure.
He’d have to call his grandmother. He really should have taken a detour to see her on the way here—she knew he was on vacation. Taking a deep breath he started to punch in her number, then changed his mind and called his colleague Steve first instead.
“You’re where?” Steve asked.
“Ojibway, Michigan, following a lead,” Mikel told him. “No real news yet.”
“If you’re going to be there a few days, I’ve got some photos of Heidi I want to send you. General delivery?”
“I figure it might take a week or so up here to check things out. Send ’em along.”
Mikel smiled as he hung up, Steve thought his adopted baby daughter was the cutest thing on two feet. Which she was, more or less. He called Grandma Sonia then, who, as he’d expected, began to scold him the minute she heard his voice.
“What kind of grandson are you who doesn’t come to see his aged grandmother when he’s on vacation? For all you know I might be on my last legs.”
“As I recall you were wearing shorts when I last saw you,” he reminded her, “and your legs looked pretty healthy then.”
“A lot can happen in two months, my Mikel. Where have you got yourself to now?”
“I’m in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in a town named Ojibway. Sort of a wilderness area. After all, I’m on vacation.”
“Don’t try to fool me, young man. You never were one for hunting and fishing or gawking at wildlife. You’ve got some other reason for being in such a strange place. You’re not working, so it can’t be that. What is it?”
Mikel sighed inwardly. Try as he might, he’d never managed to stop Grandma Sonia from asking questions. When he was on agency business, he simply told her he couldn’t discuss what he was doing, but it was hard to discourage her natural inquisitiveness otherwise. This might not be agency business, but it was his business and he had no intention of revealing the truth. What could he say to keep her quiet?
A thought struck him, making him smile. She was always trying to marry him off to some girl or other, maybe this would stop her. “I’m seeing a woman,” he told her.
“You’re interested in some girl up there in the wilderness?”
“Yes.”
His smile broadened at the few seconds of silence that followed. Gotcha, he told himself.
“May I ask her name?” Grandma Sonia finally said.
“Rachel Hill.” The name was out before he thought to invent a fictitious one. Still, it didn’t matter, Ojibway was a long way from White Plains, New York, where his grandmother lived.
“Well, dear, I don’t want to keep you,” she told him, and hung up before he could promise to come and see her on his way back to his Maryland apartment.
Which wasn’t like Sonia, not at all. He’d been preparing himself to field a hundred questions about “his girl” but she hadn’t asked a one. Odd. He was still puzzling over it when he got back to the car and found the gas station attendant talking to Rachel through the open window.
“I sure am glad he’s gonna be okay,” the man said. “Got worried when I heard he was took bad. Wouldn’t be the same around here without old Aino.” He waved at Mikel and walked back to the building.
“News travels fast in these parts,” Mikel commented as he started the car.
“You can’t keep a secret in a small town,” Rachel agreed.
If that was true, then sooner or later someone in the vicinity was bound to know the answers to Mikel’s questions.
“I have some pasties ready to bake,” she added. “I was about to turn the oven on when I looked out and saw you there in the driveway holding on to Aino. You’re welcome to have supper with me.”
“Pasties?”
“Cornish meat pies. Except not quite, because we Finns put carrots in them, something a true Cornishman would never, ever do.”
“Since I’m not Cornish, I won’t quibble. Thanks for the invitation.”
“I’ll be putting the food on the table in about an hour and a half,” she told him.
Once they arrived at the farm, she gave him the key to the small cottage and he settled himself in, finding the place a bit chilly even though the rain had stopped completely. He decided to light a fire in the fireplace so it’d be warm when he came back to the cottage after supper, as Rachel had called the meal.
Once he got a blaze going he sank into an old armchair, propped his feet on the matching stool and relaxed, thinking it’d been a long time since he’d sat in front of a real fire. Rarely did any agency investigation lead him to such a snug and cozy spot. But this time he was on his own. Was Renee to be found here in Ojibway?
He’d come to the Upper Peninsula, following the only lead he’d been able to uncover. Victoria hadn’t been able to tell him much. She’d been eleven when her sister disappeared and vaguely remembered that Renee once had a crush on a teacher of hers—a man named Leo Saari. Then she’d given Mikel her mother’s address in Florida.
He’d flown down to see Mrs. Reynaud, who was living in a retirement village and had unearthed a few more facts. She’d told him Renee had sometimes baby-sat Leo Saari’s daughter, even though Mr. Reynaud had forbidden his daughters to go anywhere other than school without their mother. Baby-sitting was therefore out of the question unless Renee’s mother had covered up for her daughter, which she admitted having done.
Rusty Reynaud had been a mean alcoholic, an abusive type, according to both Victoria and her mother. They were all terrified of him, especially when he got out his old Colt .45 with the elk embossed on the grip and aimed it at them, threatening to shoot. If Renee had run off, it was no wonder. But it was strange the Colt had disappeared at the same time she did.
Mikel stared into the dancing flames as if they held the answer to what had happened to that thirteen-year-old girl. Her old man hadn’t killed her, because a month after Renee vanished, the mother got a phone call from her, though she’d never told this to Victoria. Before Renee could say much of anything, the father had grabbed the phone, cursed her and demanded she return his gun, threatening he’d find her no matter where she hid. Understandably, the girl had hung up and the family never heard from her again.
Soon after that, the mother packed up and moved with Victoria to another state. Two years later she heard her husband had died. A relief to everyone, Mikel was sure.
Mikel had then checked with the police in what had been the Reynauds’ New Jersey hometown. He learned that the same night Renee had disappeared there had been a shooting in town. A drug dealer had been killed by a bullet from a Colt .45, which was never found. Although Mikel had learned that Rusty Reynaud had been chummy with the dead man, there was no concrete evidence to connect him to the shooting, especially since another thug had left town just about the same time.
With that lead a dead end, Mikel had checked the school Renee had attended. The principal had told him that Leo Saari had resigned the month before Renee had disappeared to care for his sick wife. Saari had given Ojibway, Michigan, as his forwarding address. Although the principal had no idea when Saari had left town, he thought it seemed logical it would’ve been not too long after he resigned.
This brought Mikel’s attention back to what Renee’s mother had confessed to him. She’d never told her husband where their daughter was headed that fateful afternoon for fear of his rage. Renee had gone off by herself to baby-sit the Saari child, making Mikel wonder if she’d ever arrived. No one had asked at the time, because Renee’s mother had been afraid to speak up.
But it meant Saari had still been in town on that day. Though it didn’t pinpoint the exact date of his departure, the coincidence had made Mikel suspicious. So, fourteen years later, he was here in Ojibway, where Leo Saari moved to, trying to trace a possible connection between Saari and the missing girl. Though Leo was no longer alive now, surely if he’d brought a red-haired girl with him all those years ago some people around here would remember.
Certainly his father would. Unfortunately, at the moment, Aino was in no condition to be asked questions. But Rachel Hill was available. For questioning, that is. Not for anything else, Mikel cautioned himself, no matter how well she’d fit into his arms.
The chair was so comfortable and the fire so pleasantly warm that he hated to move. All the cottage lacked was someone for him to share this interlude with.
A female someone. In his mind’s eye he pictured a leggy brunette whose soft brown eyes promised a sweetness he didn’t see too much of in the women he knew. She wasn’t all that far away, either.
What harm was there in imagining her here with him? In reality, far from practical, but no problem at all in a daydream. Rachel had worn no makeup, her pink lips, free of gloss, had looked eminently kissable. He recalled her scent, something faintly flowery but elusive, an enticing fragrance that was on the tip of his memory.
If she were here in this chair with him, he might be able to place that elusive scent. And taste those enticing pink lips. Among other things that he’d best not dwell on or he’d be in no shape to go to the farmhouse for supper.
Chapter Two
Once the pasties were in the oven, Rachel went out, collected the cow from the field and led her to her stall in the barn. There, she pulled on her coveralls and sat down to milk her. When she finished she placed the milk in the cooler, shed the coveralls and returned to the house where she washed up.
Eyeing her jeans and T-shirt, she decided to change to a pants outfit more intermediate—not jeans, but not dressy, either. She had no need, or reason, to dress up for Mikel, though she did need a few dabs of makeup. But when she found herself fussing with her hair, she made a face at herself in the mirror, put the brush away and marched out of her bedroom.
In the big old farm kitchen, she set the pine table with everyday dishes and silverware, not wanting Mikel to get the idea the meal was a special event for his sake. It was merely the supper she’d planned for herself and Aino, not a good-china-and-silver-dining-room dinner.
As she finished making the salad the oven chime went off, telling her the meal was cooked. After setting the salad bowl on the table she grabbed a hot pad and removed the sheet of pasties from the oven. She glanced at the phone, which hadn’t rung since the doctor had called to tell her Aino’s prognosis looked promising. He’d said he believed the immediate treatment he’d been able to give Aino had prevented a more serious stroke. And, yes, she’d be notified if there was any change for the worse—which he didn’t expect.
Of course she was still worried about Aino, but that wasn’t why she was as jittery as a teenager on a first date. Which this certainly wasn’t. Inviting Mikel to supper was a mere courtesy and bore no possible resemblance to a date. Well, maybe a little something other than courtesy. She needed to discover exactly why he’d come here to locate a man who’d been dead for seven years, and a good way to find out was to be casually friendly over food.
Transferring five of the pasties to a plate, she set it on the table next to the salad, then plucked the ketchup bottle from the refrigerator and added that. Aino always slathered ketchup on his pasty. Never mind what Martha Stewart might say, the bottle on the table made it all the more casual.
Even though she’d been expecting it, when she heard the tap at the kitchen door she started and had to clear her throat before calling, “Come in.”
“Something smells mouthwatering good in here,” Mikel said as he entered.
She gestured toward the table, wordlessly inviting him to be seated.
“Anything I can do?” he asked, hovering instead of sitting, looking at her with those green hunter’s eyes.
“Just tell me if you want coffee with supper or afterward.”
“After, please.”
When she started toward the table, he held her chair out for her and pushed it in once she sat down, just as though they were in some fancy restaurant. She appreciated his gesture, even though it made her more nervous for some reason.
“I hope you like the pasties,” she said.
“My grandmother taught me early to approach any new dish with a confident heart, as she put it, meaning that I should expect it to be delicious.”
As he spoke, he slid a pasty onto his plate. Picking up his fork, he used it to break through the crust and lifted out a portion filled with vegetables and meat. As he chewed he raised his left hand and formed an approving circle with his thumb and forefinger.
She gestured toward the ketchup bottle. “Aino likes to pour ketchup over his pasty.”
Mikel shook his head. “I don’t fool with perfection.”
Though pleased, she told herself she wasn’t getting any further with her plan to find out why he’d come here. What did he want to know about Leo?
He looked out a window, saying, “Even on a cloudy day you have long summer twilights here.”
Rather than wasting time commenting on northern summer evenings, she tried to find an opening that wasn’t too obvious. “Have you ever visited the U.P. before?” she asked finally.
“No. Do you always get these cold rains in August?”
“Some years. It’ll warm up.” How could she ease him off small talk?
“Did you hear how your grandfather is doing?” he said after a short silence.
“The doctor is optimistic.”
“So that means you won’t have to call his granddaughter in Finland right away. How long before she comes back to the States?”
She had her opening. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I’d like to talk to her.”
“About what?”
He raised an eyebrow. “How about a fair exchange here? You haven’t yet answered my question.”
It wouldn’t do any harm to tell him, she decided. “Eva will be flying back to New York City the end of next week, but, before driving home, I think she plans to stay awhile with the upstate friend she left her car with.”
“So my questions will have to wait.”
