"Wait! Where are you taking him?" Erica demanded, running after the FBI agents.
"He'll be held temporarily in jail until his trial," one of the agents told her.
"And then what?"
"Depends upon the judge. If he's found guilty on all charges, he could be sentenced to life in federal prison, or possibly even face the death penalty."
"No!" Erica screamed. "Yuri's innocent! If he ever did kill anyone, it was only in self defense!" But the agents had already gone, leaving Erica to weep hysterically.
Erica and Toni returned alone to Jed's, where the minutes seemed to crawl by. The little girl was restless, tearful. "Where's my Daddy? I want my Daddy!"
Finally visiting hours at the jail arrived, and Erica was able to visit Yuri. To Erica, he looked amazingly calm and collected, given the circumstances. He smiled when he saw her.
"Are you all right? What have they done to you?" she asked anxiously.
"I am fine, Erica. Please, do not worry about me." Unable to touch her, Yuri pressed his fingers against the glass separating them, and Erica did the same.
"It is my precious little Tonika I am worried about, and you too, of course," said Yuri.
"She misses you, Yuri. She's cried for you all day. So have I."
"Listen, Erica," said Yuri. "This is very important. You must have yourself and Tonika packed and ready to go by midnight tonight. That is when Nikita will come for you. You must wait for him outside Jed's house."
"Nikita?"
Yuri put his finger to his lips. "I can say no more. You must do as I say. That is all."
Erica nodded. "I love you, Yuri."
"I love you too, dearest Erica. Please give Tonika all my love. Tell her her Daddy misses her."
"I will." Puzzled by his words, but afraid not to follow them, Erica had her own and Toni's bags packed and ready to go well before midnight that night. Wishing to avoid the explosive argument that would surely have ensued, she'd left Jed a note before quietly slipping out of the house.
Nikita turned out to be a huge, burly man who barely spoke English. Toni was afraid of him, clinging to her mother and crying.
"There, there," Erica soothed, patting her little daughter's back in an attempt to comfort her. "It's all right. Everything's going to be all right." Toni eventually cried herself back to sleep.
At last Nikita was parking in an open field where a small private airplane waited with its engines running. Quickly he herded Erica and Toni aboard it, where Erica soon realized that it also held two other men, one of whom was Yuri.
"Daddy!" Toni cried, hurling herself into her father's lap.
"My Tonika!" Yuri laughed as he planted kisses all over the little girl's face. Then he reached for Erica, pulling her into a three-way hug. "And Erica!"
"How'd you get free?" asked Erica.
"Mikhail and Denis," he indicated the other man and the pilot. "They enter jail disguised as guards. Say they have orders to transfer me. Take me to airplane."
"But where are we going?"
"Somewhere we will all be safe."
"Which is where?"
"Perhaps Canada again."
Erica thought of California and felt so homesick she ached inside. Yet she couldn't bear the thought of Yuri possibly facing the death penalty.
All through the following day, the airplane flew northward along the west coast of the United States. Yuri and the other men spoke together in animated Russian. Erica talked to Toni, played pat-a-cake with her, and sang to her. By about noon, they entered Canada, and the two pilots, Mikhail and Denis, switched places. By nightfall they were still over Canada. Erica slept for a few hours, and when she awakened, she found that she was still in the air.
"Shouldn't we have gotten there by now?" she asked.
Yuri didn't say anything.
Lunchtime came and went, and still the airplane traveled on. At one point Erica realized that they were flying over water.
"What's that?" she asked Yuri.
"The Bering Strait," he muttered, almost sounding guilty.
The icy shock of realization swept over Erica. "You lied to me!" she shrieked, helplessly pummeling Yuri with her fists. He grabbed her wrists and looked into her eyes, his own a mixture of sympathy and resolve.