“Move your car to the back of the house,” she said to no one in particular.
Hawk pulled out the keys and started back down the walkway.
Satisfied, she opened the door wider. “You may as well come in. The damage is done.”
42
CASSIE
“You may sit,”Anna (Irina?) said, escorting us into the living room after Hawk returned from moving the car.
The interior of the cottage was exactly as it appeared outside: small and cozy, worn furniture arranged around a fire that burned low in a stone hearth, table lamps casting a soft glow over the room.
A quilt was folded across the back of the chintz sofa, two overstuffed armchairs covered in a faded tapestry next to the fireplace. A simple kitchen with pale wood cabinets was visible from the living room and three doors marched down the single hall.
Bedrooms probably.
Jagger and Vigo took the chairs next to the fireplace while I sat at one end of the sofa and Hawk stood next to the window that looked out over the trees surrounding the side of the house.
Anna stood nervously between the kitchen and living room, looking like she might decide to bolt at any minute.
She was tall and slender, with perfect posture and an elegant tilt to her chin. Her blonde hair was threaded with silver, but her face was sill mostly unlined, and I guessed her to be somewherein her mid-forties, although her long skirt and the oversized beige cardigan she wore over a gray turtleneck was more suited to someone much older.
She had the sharp bone structure of a model, and while she was attractive even now, she must have been a knockout when she’d been young.
Her hands fluttered nervously to the pendant around her neck, a religious figure I didn’t recognize suspended by a gold chain. “Would you care for tea?”
I heard again the Russian accent.
“No, thank you,” I said.
“I’ll certainly need some,” she said, turning for the kitchen.
I let my gaze sweep the room while she moved around the kitchen. The room had been almost overtaken by books. They groaned from the shelves on one wall, were stacked on the side tables and even the floor. A laptop sat closed on a small table near the window where Hawk stood, staring through the glass at the surrounding landscape like a guard on patrol.
Something soft bumped against my calf and I looked down to find a gray cat with yellow eyes sliding past me.
I ran my hand along its silky fur and heard it start to purr.
“That’s Misha,” Anna said, returning with a tray laden with cups and a porcelain tea pot. “She’s usually shy.”
The cat made a U-turn, returning for more pets, and I stroked her back as she made her way to Anna, who set the tray down with shaking hands on the coffee table next to a bouquet of roses in a chipped blue-and-white vase.
She poured the tea and handed me one of the cups, then handed one to each of the Hawks. They looked ridiculous holding the fragile porcelain cups, and I fought against the urge to laugh.
Maybe I was finally losing my mind.
“Are these your bodyguards?” Anna asked, sitting at the other end of the sofa.
“They’re my… friends,” I said.
Her gaze flickered to Hawk, then Vigo and Jagger before returning to me. Her eyes were sharp and knowing. “You’ve put your… friends, and yourself, in danger by coming here. To say nothing of me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.” I hesitated. “Can I ask how you knew my parents?”
She poured cream into her tea from a small porcelain pitcher with a rose-vine border. “I met your mother when I was in school.” She set the creamer down and took a drink of the tea. “In Blackwell Falls.”
“You went to school in Blackwell Falls?” I asked.
