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Was he hurting? She rubbed where her breastbone felt as if it were coated in acid For a long tiht around herself, confused Frightened, but not by Aleksy By herself

She wanted to trust a man who’d just confessed to murder

CHAPTER TWELVE

CLAIR HAD HEARD Russians talk about their dachas She had gathered they were a type of suh out of the city to offer a garden plot and a return to nature The buildings were often little enerations

If this was Aleksy’s dacha, he needed to work on his definition of shack The minute she saw it, her mind heard, Welcome home

They’d flown over nothing but trees once they’d left the outskirts of Moscow, leaving little to distract froliroomed park The fountains were off, the canals frozen, but she’d realized they were nearing St Petersburg This was a place so beautiful even czars chose to summer here

Far froinning to fall The fresh dust of snow only made the expansive estate they touched down on look fresh and new Untouched

It was very new, she realized, looking at the bare, young fruit trees and nut groves that e house The two-story structure was built along old-fashioned lines with a wraparound porch, shuttered s, pretty gables and a roh to host a crowd, yet cozy and inviting Not threatening and not so she would have expected Aleksy to build or buy

As the pilot prepared to lift into the forbidding sky, stirring up a cloud of powdered ice, Aleksy reached onto a porch beaent said—here” He showed her the key, then opened the door, pressing her inside before the man-made storm hit

The interior smelled of paint, freshly cut wood and newly laid woolen carpet All the surfaces gleamed It was tastefully decorated in masculine colors, spacious and unfussy like its owner, but welco

It struck her as a fresh start A pro one

Clair sed, re herself why she was here and who she ith, but choice and logic had been left back in Moscohere the apart-lens cameras She really would rather take her chances with this lone wolf than the pack of coyotes baying at those doors