comforts. Besides, they’d hardly been huggers in their actual lives. She nudged her sister away. “It’s good to be seen.”
The inspector watched the exchange, frowning. “Then who killed her?”
“Me,” Gregor replied without opening his eyes, his forehead resting in his palm. “That’s why she materialized when I touched her. We were all hoping she would accept my apology so that she could live again, as Sonya does. But she wants Demyan.”
“Exactly what do you want with him?”
Gregor raised his lids and gave her a slight shake of the head.
She hardly needed the warning. This puppy was as square as Sonya. He wouldn’t want any part of what Anya intended.
“I simply hope to talk and resolve some things from our past.” Her voice trembled and she hated herself for feeling even a drop of fear at the prospect of seeing Stas again.
“Fine.” He flipped open a notepad, wrote S.D. at the top of the page, and glanced up at her expectantly.
On second look, his eyes might be gentle, but they weren’t youthful or innocent. She considered him for a moment, disarmed by the unforeseen intensity of his stare. This puppy had seen things. Being a police officer probably guaranteed as much.
She scanned his pleasant face again, smooth, with that fair-but-golden-kissed skin fate bestowed upon only the luckiest of Ukrainian men. His knowing, hazel-eyed gaze snagged her, electrifying the air and accelerating her out-of-practice heart.
She’d thought him barely twenty-three at first, but that penetrating stare raised her estimate to twenty-seven or maybe twenty-eight. Still an infant compared to Stas, who’d been fifteen years older than Anya when he’d taught her. And a child compared to her, though she’d been only twenty-one when she’d died.
“Come on, Yuchenko, put away your little notepad. Do you need to pack an overnight bag, or shall we head straight for Odessa? From the cut of your suit, I see you care nothing for your appearance, so I imagine we can leave straight away.”
“What?” He blinked those languid eyes. Really, the man was a dolt. If she weren’t an invisible and semi-naked ghost shackled to a muddy slipper, she would find Demyan herself.
“Odessa. The trail starts at his ballet studio there. Let’s go.”
“Absolutely not. I’m going alone. Tell me what you know.” He sat straighter, unaware there was still a bit of green juice at the corner of his mouth.
A mocking laugh escaped her, as resonant as the hiss that had slid from her mouth earlier, but this time cruel. Pink blotches appeared on his high, strong cheekbones. Once upon a time, she might have regretted shaming a man like that, but now, after decades of being alone and invisible, the power was pure pleasure.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
She crossed her arms and looked to the Lisko contingent. Surely they would second her command, but Sonya and Dmitri leaned back against the wall as if they were watching a show, expressions bemused. Perhaps she shouldn’t have antagonized her thuggish brother-in-law so thoroughly on the car ride from the river. And Sonya--she hadn’t changed a day since they’d died. She and her sister had been like oil and water before. Now they were more like heaven and hell.
No way was she going to let this police putz find Stas without her.
She let her anger build--Sonya’s patronizing, Yuchenko’s dismissal, and deeper than both, her outrage at what Stas had done. She drew the emotions up to the surface where they poured off her and filled the room with a violent wind.
Chapter 3
Sergey’s notebook blew off the table, and Gregor’s tie caught like a sail and smacked him in the face.
The ghost laughed with frightening glee.
Sergey stood up and backed himself against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. He needed a moment to wrap his head around a windstorm in the interrogation room.
And a sexy, super-mean ghost.
And a mission to find his father, which surely had more to it than just talking.
The whole scene felt like he’d stepped into one of his mom’s hallucinations.
Sonya came to stand in front of Anya, gripping her biceps. “You have to control it.”
The ghost blinked. “I am.”
Sonya’s shoulders fell. “Of course you are. I should have known. Anya, if you want to find Stas, you cannot antagonize those who would help you.”
“Fine.” Her lovely body seemed to vibrate with the force of the wind while her face screwed up in concentration, her brows drawing closer together.
The plastic chair Sergey had been sitting in blew over.
Okay. Time to wrap up his little time-out. It wasn’t working anyway. He could still only halfway believe any of this shit was happening.
“Now, Anya!” Sonya cried.
“Um…?” the ghost said.
Sergey squeezed his eyes shut. Not a good syllable coming from a powerful supernatural creature. He tried to keep his voice calm as he said, “She’s lost it. She’s not in control anymore.”
“Breathe,” Dmitri ordered. “Slow and steady. That always helped your sister.”
She nodded, forming a little O with her mouth, her cheeks hollowing out and her chest rising. Slowly, the wind calmed.
“Hell. Does that happen often?” Sergey asked, this time failing to hide the tremor in his hands and voice.
Gregor rubbed his free hand over his eyes, then smeared it down his face. “Only when a rusalka doesn’t get what she wants. You should have seen Sonya here when she was about to blow. Nearly took down all twenty-six stories of the Hotel Omnus.”
“Come to think of it,” Dmitri said, glaring at Anya while addressing Sergey, “I think you should take her with you, get her off our hands.”
“Dima.” Sonya tilted her head at Gregor, who looked on the verge of passing out. “Your uncle is in no state to travel, and Anya can’t go without him.”
“Well, she can go. Yuchenko can take her moldy ballet slipper with him.” He nodded at the shoebox. “And he won’t have to hear a peep from her without Gregor there. I think that’s a win-win.”
“Except me. I don’t win.” Anya huffed and stomped her foot. The loss of control had left her even more disheveled, her cheeks flushed, and for some reason, the childish stamping was kind of endearing, vulnerable instead of just bitchy. The unexpected gesture filled his cop-brain with a rush of curiosity. What exactly was this pretty little siren’s story?
“I have to go with you,” she said. “There are things I can’t recall about Odessa, about Stas. If I see the place, it will jog my memory. What I can tell you now will just be a sliver of what I could, once I see the place again.”
Gregor cleared his throat. “There may be another way.” He pulled a signet ring off his finger. The band had been wrapped with gauze, narrowing the opening to fit his emaciated hands. He slid it onto Anya’s thumb. “Ready?”
“For what?” She seemed to flinch away from him.
But he’d already let go of her. Sonya’s coat fell to the ground, and a shiny swath of pink satin showed inside it. Her nightgown.
Shit, was she naked?
He glanced up--how could he not? The little thing was fine to look at.
Nope, not naked. Somehow wearing the very same nightgown. What the hell? He crossed over and picked up the one on the ground. Perfectly real, soft as sin, and slightly warm from her