The phone rang, summoning Marcus from a very pleasant daydream of Meghan. He was back in his hotel room, planning his next step. He and Meghan had had an excellent time, but he knew better than to drag it out. Awkwardness set in, then boredom. That made it too easy for a woman to come to her senses.
So he had come back here, feeling giddy with promise. And then he had thought of the conversation he was going to have to have with Ekaterina.
I’m afraid I can’t take on any more projects.
Why not?
Because I just can’t.
Yes, that would convince her. Still, it was more pleasant to think about Meghan than to plan what he was going to say to Ekaterina, so that was what he’d done.
And now the phone was ringing. He knew exactly who it must be. Let it ring, he thought, but he was by nature a conscientious man, so he picked it up on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“Marcus?”
“Ekaterina?” He’d been expecting Yuri. It never occurred to him that she would call him herself. “It’s good to hear your voice,” he said, and it was. Then he thought about what he had to tell her and it didn’t feel so good after all. He jerked to his feet and paced a few steps, wishing he were on his cell phone and not chained to the limits of the cord on the landline.
“Marcus, we have a problem.”
Now he could hear the distress in her voice — and he hadn’t even told her about anything. About Meghan.
“What is it?” He rolled his shoulders to ease the sudden tension out of them. A thing you had to do with Ekaterina was not to let her tension become your tension, her problems become yours.
Ekaterina’s voice was muffled when she spoke again. It took him a moment to recognize that she was holding back tears.
“Yuri’s been hurt,” she said, and she tried to say it in a matter-of-fact way, but nothing that happened to Yuri could ever be matter-of-fact to Ekaterina.
“Oh god, no,” Marcus said. He knew she was in Berlin and he had his own private opinion of German drivers and the autobahn, so he assumed there must have been some sort of auto accident. “Are you all right? What happened?”
A moment passed and then she said, “He was attacked.”
“Attacked?” For a second he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. The very idea seemed ludicrous. Yuri’s great skill was to be completely inoffensive even when he was stonewalling you or screening you out. No one ever blamed Yuri for anything; no one could want to hurt him. Had the target actually been Ekaterina?
“The police say it was a random mugging,” she said.
He heard the tremor in her voice. He sat down hard on the bed. “Oh god,” he said again, and then she snapped, “You know how much it annoys me when you say that,” and so he tried another approach. “Do you want me to come to Berlin?”
“No,” Ekaterina said emphatically. He tried not to let it bother him that she rejected his offer so quickly. Didn’t families stand together in times of need? But he could hardly blame her. Theirs wasn’t an ordinary family.
“Is he going to be all right?” Marcus asked. Perhaps it wasn’t as serious as Ekaterina made it sound. Maybe that was why she didn’t need him there.
“He’s survived so far,” she said bitterly. “There are a lot of internal injuries.”
Internal injuries? Marcus stopped his pacing and frowned at the carpet. “What exactly happened, Ekaterina?”
“He was knifed.”
“Knifed? Did he try to resist the mugger?”
“Don’t you dare blame him,” Ekaterina said heatedly. “Don’t even start.”
“I’m just trying to understand what happened,” he said, immediately contrite, using the soothing voice he often had to take with her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” she said in her most clipped tones, and Marcus knew better than to contradict her. He heard her take a deep, steadying breath and when she spoke again, her voice was calm and under control. “The thing is, I’m going to be tied up here for a while, so the project in New York will be delayed indefinitely.”
He clutched the phone. “Delayed indefinitely?” he repeated, his voice not much more than a whisper. His stomach lurched a little, like on the drop down a roller coaster and then the exhilaration filled him and hope soared.
He didn’t have to tell Ekaterina. He fell back onto the bed, the phone still parked against his ear. “All right,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.
“Before this, with Yuri — ” She sounded scattered, and he sympathized, but the project was indefinitely delayed —
“Before this,” she began again, “someone was making inquiries about you.”
“Me?” His mind raced. What had he done? What alarm had he set off? Then he considered Meghan. She almost certainly had a gray-level investigation going on.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a reason for concern.”
“You always take it like this,” she said. “Look, I’m coming to bring you home — ”
“No,” he said, and his stomach swooped again.
“No?” A little impatiently. “No what?”
“No, I’m not going home,” he said happily, and he didn’t even care if she heard his happiness. He stared up at the ceiling and thought not even the entire room could contain his happiness, not even the entire hotel.
“What do you mean?” Ekaterina snapped. “I’ll be there — ”
“No,” he said one more time. “Let me know if there’s any change with Yuri. Take care, Ekaterina.”
He hung up the phone carefully, as one might handle a snake one believes, but is not entirely sure, to be nonvenomous. He stared at the receiver for a moment, then found the switch for the ringer on the side and slid it into the “off” position.
The first thing she would do was call him back. Then she would take measures.
He didn’t want to be here when she did.