Drake Sisters 03 - Oceans of Fire

Sarah and Carol exchanged a long look and then both turned to Abigail.
    Abbey felt a chill sweep down her spine.
    “What happened inRussia, Abbey?” Sarah asked. “There is death between you and this man. I see blood and death and violence.”
    There was no accusation in Sarah’s voice, none in her expression, but Abbey wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. She was different. Flawed. Her crime an unspeakable one. She shook her head. “I can’t. Please don’t ask me. Everything will change and you’re the only refuge I have left to me besides the sea. If you love me, don’t ask me to explain.”
    “It’s because we do love you,” Sarah said gently.
    Abigail dragged herself up, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about it.” She couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t think about it, slamming the door in her mind closed to prevent throwing herself off a cliff. She would never be free of what she’d done, the harm she’d caused. And she’d never be free of Aleksandr Volstov.

Chapter 3
    <>
    CONCEALED in the shrubbery at the bottom of the hill, Aleksandr stood staring up at the house on the cliff. Abigail Drake. She’d haunted him for years. He knew which room was hers. It faced out over the hillside, with an ocean view from her balcony. The sliding glass doors were wide open and white lace drapes danced with the breeze coming in off the ocean. He had been most careful to observe every entry point, every weakness of the house, when he was inside. He’d even tested the stairs for creaks.
    The house was enormous and seemed shrouded in secrets. Fog lay heavy around the sprawling building and in the trees, as if guarding the structure and its occupants. The misty tendrils were eerie in the silvery moonbeams, wrapping the balconies and windows in ghostly gray.

    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    She was up in that house. In that room. Only a few yards away from him, no longer halfway around the world. She couldn’t escape him this time. She’d returned every letter he’d painstakingly written. He’d put his heart and soul into those letters and she’d rejected them without even opening them. Some of the letters had traveled to several countries to reach her. He still had every one of them, smudged with half a dozen postmarks. He’d told himself he was a fool, but he couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t forget about her.
    Couldn’t stop the way she crept into his mind a hundred times a day and remained in his dreams night after night.
    He took a cautious step onto the property. Clouds spun across the moon, casting an eerie mix of shadows and flickering moonlight over the landscape. Trees and shrubs swayed as if something guarded the hillside hidden beneath the dense thicket of leaves and branches. Some branches were raised toward the sky while others bent in twisted, sweeping shapes toward the ground, long arms bent on deterring intruders. It was as if the property itself wanted to keep out intruders.
    Once again he went still, getting a feel for the rhythm of the night, uneasiness creeping into his mind and body so that he felt the hair on his neck rise. He shrank down instinctively, his body aware there was more than fog and moonlight in the trees almost before his brain registered the information. He was tuned to every night sound, every cricket and frog. The tendrils of fog shrouding the house reached out like macabre snakes, twisting through the dense foliage, further obscuring vision, but he was relying on instincts, not sight.
    Aleksandr slid deeper into the shadows and went motionless again, his senses heightened and on full alert. He heard nothing, saw nothing, yet he knew he was not alone. He waited patiently, shifting position only when he had full cover. Finally he caught glimpses of a dark shape moving stealthily through the trees. The fog and shrubbery obscured his vision, but he heard the scuff of shoes on rocks and dropped to the ground. Aleksandr was a big man and needed stealth to move in close to the hunter. He drew his gun and slithered through the brush. A man stood in the shadow of the trees staring up at the house through a pair of binoculars. Aleksandr’s heart jumped when he realized the binoculars appeared to be trained on Abigail’s room.
    The drapes on the French doors swayed and Aleksandr tensed when he saw Abigail walk out onto the balcony and face the sea. She was wearing a pair of drawstring pajama bottoms and