Riptide

said next to her ear, "It's all right, my
    darling girl. It's all right."
    And she stilled. Strong arms were around her. She felt his heart
    pounding rhythmically, powerful and steady against her cheek.
    "I'm sorry, I don't mean to carry on like this. I miss my mother. I
    loved her so much and she died. There isn't anyone else for me."
    "I miss your mother, too, Becca. It's going to be all right. I swear
    it to you."
    She pulled back just a bit and looked up at an older man who
    looked oddly familiar to her, but that was impossible, wasn't it?
    She was sure she'd never seen him before in her life. The drugs
    were still affecting her, holding her brain back, scrambling things,
    making her cry. "I'm nobody's darling girl," she whispered, and
    raised her hand to lightly touch her fingers to the man's cheek. He
    was so handsome, his face lean, his nose thin, straight, his eyes a soft
    light blue, dreamy eyes. Now that was strange. Her mother had
    told her that she had dreamy eyes, summer dreamy eyes. "I don't
    understand," she said, frowning up at the man's face. "Who are
    you?"
    The man looked as if he would cry with her, but he swallowed,
    several times, and cleared his throat. "I'm your father, Becca. I'm
    Thomas Matlock. I can't bring your mother back, but I'm here
    now, and I'll stay."
    "You're Thomas? You're the man Adam and Savich are working
    for?"
    "Well, let's say they're helping me out."
    She didn't say anything then, just frowned a bit, trying to assemble
    things in her mind, in her memory, to make some sense of

them, realizing suddenly that she recognized his eyes because he'd
    given them to her, realizing-- "When he slipped the needle into
    my arm that second time," she whispered, looking directly into his
    eyes, "just before I went under, he said right against my ear, 'Tell
    your daddy hello for me.' "
    His face paled and he grew vague, indistinct, his arms loosening.
    She grabbed his shirt with her fist, trying to pull him closer. "No,
    don't leave me, please."
    "Oh, God, I won't." Thomas looked up at Adam. "I guess that
    says it all."
    "Yes," Adam said. "At least now we know for bloody sure."
    "Amen to that," Sherlock said. Then she added, "Why don't we
    all go out to get a cup of coffee while Thomas gets to know Becca
    a bit better?"
    When she was alone with the man who'd said he was her father,
    she looked up at him and said, "Why did you leave us? I don't even
    remember what you looked like I was so young when you left.
    There is this old photograph of you and Mom, and you looked so
    young and so handsome. Carefree. It's a wonderful picture."
    He held her very close for a long time, then slowly he said,
    "You were all of three years old when it happened. I was a CIA operative,
    Becca, and I was very good. There was this other KGB
    spy--"
    "Krimakov."
    "Yes. I was sent over to what is now Belarus, to stop him from
    killing a visiting German industrialist. Krimakov had brought his
    wife, as if they were there on some sort of vacation. It was in the
    mountains. There was a gunfight and she tried to save him. I hadn't
    seen her, hadn't even known she was there." He paused a moment,
    memory stark and alive in his eyes. He said simply, "I shot her in

the head and killed her. Krimakov promised me he would kill not
    only me but my family. He vowed it. I believed him.
    "He managed to escape me. I decided that I would have to kill
    him to protect you. When I tried, I found out that he'd simply disappeared.
    There was no trace of him. The KGB helped him, obviously,
    and he stayed buried until very recently, when I was told he
    was killed in an auto accident in Crete. You know the rest."
    "You left us to protect us?"
    "Yes. Your mother and I discussed it. Matlock is a common
    name. She took you and moved to New York. I saw her four,
    maybe five times a year. We were always very, very careful. We
    couldn't tell you. We couldn't put you in danger. It was the hardest
    thing I've ever had to do in my life, Becca. Believe me."
    All of a sudden she had a father. She stared at his face, seeing
    herself in him, seeing also a stranger. It was too much. She heard
    him say something, heard Adam arguing with someone just inside
    the door, sharp and loud, then she didn't hear anything at all. That
    was a good thing, she thought as she slipped away, back where there
    were no dreams, just seamless darkness, without him, no worries or
    voices to tear her apart. Her father was dead, dead since she was
    very young. It was