Murder Under Cover

Chapter 10

“You know I love to play the Killer game,” I began, taking a moment to register just how much my life had changed in the last few months. Brooklyn Wainwright, bookbinder-cum-murder solver extraordinaire. “But do you really think it matters how she met him?”

“I’m beginning to think it matters very much.”

“She told us what happened that night.”

“But we’re missing something. I want to start at the beginning and make notes.”

“Good idea.” I doodled ever-expanding circles on my paper. “But the way I see it, Alex is-or was-a key player, but Robin was just an innocent bystander. So why does it matter how they met?”

“Why was he killed inside her home?”

“Because someone was after him and followed them to her place, and found a way inside and… Heck, I don’t know. It was convenient?” But it wasn’t, of course. And there was the whole drugging-of-Robin issue. Nothing made sense about this.

“I’ve come to the conclusion,” Derek said, “that Robin is connected to the mystery behind Alex’s death.”

I thought about it and sat forward with my theory. “Maybe Alex stole something from someone else and Robin got in the way.”

Derek leaned in. “Did Alex steal it? Or did Robin steal it?”

Frowning, I inched back. “Robin didn’t steal anything. If Robin had stolen something, wouldn’t the killer have killed her instead of Alex?”

“Very good point,” Derek said, encouraging me along. “So you think Alex stole something? Maybe he stole it from Robin.”

“Robin doesn’t have anything worth stealing,” I argued. “And who knows if Alex stole anything or not? None of it makes sense.”

“You’re right,” he said firmly. “None of it makes sense until we fill in the blanks.”

“How do we do that?” I sipped my drink and stared at him. “Wait. You have information.”

“I do.”

“Well, spill it.”

With a smile, Derek pulled out his smart phone and slid his finger across the surface until he found what he was looking for. He showed me a picture of a tiny metal box held in someone’s hand.

“What is that?”

“It’s a photograph of a mini flash drive. The smallest one they make, currently. It plugs into a plastic port and fits into the USB slot of any computer. It’s an effective and innocuous way to transport information from one computer to another.”

“Okay. Is that what Alex stole?”

“We think that was his intention.” Derek leaned forward again and spoke softly. “What we know for sure is that a highly placed Ukrainian operative working in deep cover in Toronto was activated recently.”

“Activated?”

“Yes,” he said, making me nervous as he watched my reactions closely. “He was sent to San Francisco to retrieve an item of crucial importance to the government.”

“The Ukrainian government?”

“Yes.”

“I’m assuming that you got this information from your people at Interpol?”

He said nothing, just continued to look at me with the barest hint of a smile. I suppose he thought it best not to say out loud exactly where he’d obtained this information, but Interpol was a safe bet. Still, a part of me was irked. Was he trying to keep me safe from culpability? Or did he simply not trust me? Or did he not trust Robin? Wait. Did he think my house was bugged? Okay, that was ridiculous. I took a deep breath and tried to reel in my overactive imagination.

“So I’ll assume the highly placed guy is Alex, right?”

“Yes.”

“And the crucial item?” I waved my hand at his phone and the picture of the flash drive.

“Exactly,” he said, holding the phone up again to show the photo. “A flash drive. A tiny one.” He put the phone down and held up his thumb and forefinger to indicate how small the metal flash drive was. “This big.”

“Tiny. I get it.” What I was really getting was a bad feeling in my stomach. “And who was he retrieving it from?”

“A soft target.”

“Okay.” Apparently, we were playing Twenty Questions. That was fine; I liked to play games. “What’s a soft target?”

“Robin is a soft target.”

I sat back in my chair and stared at him. I wasn’t so crazy about this game anymore. “You know that makes no sense, right? But let’s continue for the sake of argument. How long ago was this guy sent from Toronto?”

“Six days ago.”

With a heavy sigh, I got up and pulled the small calendar from the wall above the kitchen telephone and counted off the days. “So he came to San Francisco almost a week ago and found the flash drive or whatever he was looking for. Then he just happened to stop at Kasa for dinner and met Robin there.” I pointed at last Thursday, the night Robin returned from India.

“Did he find the flash drive, then meet Robin?” Derek asked. “Or did he meet Robin in order to find the flash drive?”

“Are you trying to make me mad?”

“No, darling,” he said in a soothing voice, and reached out to touch my hand. “I’m trying to find a killer.”

I clutched his hand in mine. He was being objective and I was getting emotional, and that wouldn’t help solve anything. I took a moment to breathe and realign my thoughts. “Okay, we both know Robin is innocent, right?”

“Of course, but she’s also at the center of something thorny. We need to unravel each individual thread in order to help her out of it.”

“Agreed.” I looked at the calendar again. “So, I’ll go with the theory that Alex found the flash drive Thursday, then met Robin that night. So maybe someone else was after the flash drive, too, and they tracked down Alex Saturday night at Robin’s place. Where they killed him late that night, or rather, early Sunday morning.”

“Perhaps. Continue.”

“Okay. I’m thinking of that perfect bullet hole in Alex’s forehead.” I gulped back a shiver of dread and continued. “So whoever killed him was probably another so-called professional operative, right?”

Derek nodded, but said nothing.

“So how professional is it,” I continued, “to kill another operative in the home of some innocent civilian who has no connection to anything? Wouldn’t they wait and whack him on his own turf?”

He smiled at my use of the lingo. “That’s a good point, and there are two different ways to proceed from there. The first is to assume that the killer wasn’t a professional, but the expert bullet placement belies that theory.”

“Right. What’s the second?”

“The second is to assume that Robin was not the innocent civilian we thought she was.”

“And that’s impossible,” I insisted, “so we’ve hit a dead end.”

“No, we’ll just continue to work through it until we arrive at our original theory.”

“What’s that?” I asked, sounding crabby.

“That Robin is innocent, naturally.”

“Oh.” Somewhat mollified, I nodded. “Okay, let’s keep talking.”

“Let me introduce one more tangle,” Derek said. “Perhaps I should’ve mentioned this before, but another agent was apparently dispatched to do the brush, but once Alex was killed, she was told to track down the drive.”

“She?” I echoed. “Would that be Galina?”

He lifted a shoulder. “My source didn’t have a name to give me. I was only told it’s a woman.”

“But Galina seemed more like a spurned lover than a highly trained operative,” I grumbled.

“She also worked out of Toronto, so perhaps you’re right. Perhaps they were lovers.”

I thought about that for a moment. “The fact that they were lovers probably saved our lives.”

“How so?” he asked.

“Galina was as strong as a bull. I have no doubt she could’ve killed us both with two well-placed karate chops. But she was emotional. She was on a wild rant, out of control, so Robin and I were able to get some punches in and distract her enough to push her down to the sidewalk.”

“Excellent theorizing, darling,” he said with a proud smile.

“Thanks,” I said, grinning, then remembered something else he’d said a moment ago. “I’m afraid to ask, but what’s a brush?”

“Brush pass. One agent passes off the item to another.”

“Good to know.” I leaned forward on my elbows. “So Alex was supposed to get the flash drive and pass it on to Galina. But Alex obviously didn’t find it and neither did Galina, because she kept yelling at us to give it to her, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So we’re kind of back to square one.”

“Not at all. A day later, your home was broken into.”

I shook my head. “Wow, I almost forgot. Broken into by some big ugly guy, according to Tyler. So who’s that guy? And why break in here?”

“Because they all think Robin has the flash drive.”

That shiver of dread grew more pronounced and I rubbed my arms to make it go away. “They broke in to find Robin.”

“They want the flash drive, not Robin.”

He said that to make me feel better, but it didn’t work. Alarmed, I stood and flexed my hands nervously. “Do you think someone followed us to Dharma? Is Robin in danger there?”

He jumped up and grabbed hold of my arms. “It’s all right. She’s with Austin, and I have Gabriel watching the perimeter.”

“Oh.” I blinked in surprise, then wrapped him in a tight hug. “Thank you for thinking of that.”

“Shall we call it quits for the night? Are you tired?”

I stayed tucked close to his solid body for another moment. He was like my own private security blanket, and I savored every inch of him.

Finally, though, I lifted my head and looked at him. “I’m not tired. I want to keep going. But I’m starving, so let’s cook while we talk.”

“Perfect.” He kissed me, then let me go, following me into the kitchen to help.

We whipped up a big salad with chunks of veggies and shredded chicken. I’d forgotten all about my martini, so Derek poured me another very weak one. Back at the dining room table, we resumed our theorizing game.

“What do you think is on this flash drive?” I asked.

“I’ve got my people working on that. All we know so far is that it contains information that is critically important to the government.”

“Why do they think Robin has it? Alex could’ve left it in a safe-deposit box. Or somewhere in his apartment.” I stopped and held up my hand. “Wait. He had an apartment here and he went to college here, supposedly. But he was deep cover in Toronto? How did that work?”

“He worked in San Francisco for a Toronto-based company and traveled back and forth regularly. It was a good cover.”

I was still frowning. “Show me again how big this flash drive is.”

Derek finished a bite of salad, then said, “Give me your hand.”

I reached out and he took hold of my hand. Wrapping his thumb and finger around the first knuckle of my pinkie, he said, “It’s smaller and thinner than the tip of your little finger.”

“Huh.” I tried not to obsess over the feel of his hand touching mine. I ask you, how could scarred knuckles and a callused palm be such a thorough turn-on? “How in the world are we supposed to find something so small?”

“It’s probably hidden in something bigger. It might even be hidden in plain sight. Affixed to a small makeup mirror in Robin’s purse or slipped inside a checkbook or cigarette case. Or a key ring.”

“So we’re back to thinking that Robin had it?” I popped a tomato chunk into my mouth.

“Just theorizing.” He pushed away from the table and disappeared down the hall, then returned with my purse. “May I?”

“Sure.”

Reaching into my bag, he first pulled out my small bottle of aspirin. “You could tape the flash drive to the bottom of the inside of this container and fill it with aspirin. Or you could cover it in plastic wrap and shove it into a jar of face cream, then smooth out the surface. Something like that won’t show up on an airport security screen.”

“You know too much about this stuff.”

“It’s a job.”

I put down my fork, feeling defeated. “We’ll never find it.”

“That doesn’t sound like my daring sleuth.” He grabbed my hand and shook it playfully. “This is why we need to go through Robin’s movements that night, step by step.”

“You really think Robin was a soft target?”

“It’s the only way to explain why Alex drugged her.”

My shoulders slumped. “Another detail I forgot about. So you’re thinking Alex drugged her so that while she was sleeping, he could hide the flash drive somewhere in her house.”

He waved his fork. “That’s one possibility, of course.”

“But you clearly don’t think so.” I pondered as I sipped my martini. I’d never been crazy about the taste of martinis, but I did like the feeling of sophistication that drinking them gave me. Sort of like playing dress-up when I was young.

“It would make more sense if he thought Robin had it,” I conceded. “Then he drugged her and searched for it.”

“It would make more sense,” he restated, probably for my benefit.

I took a quick bite of crunchy romaine, then shook my head. “But that would mean that Robin had the flash drive. And why in the world would she have a flash drive with Ukrainian government secrets on it?”

He stared at me steadily as he chewed.

“What?” Then it hit me and I choked on a laugh. “You can’t be serious. You think Robin is some kind of… what? A secret agent? A spy? You’re way offtrack.”

“All right,” he said with a casualness I didn’t trust for a second. “You tell me. Why did Robin have something so critical to the Ukrainian government that they would send one of their top operatives to steal it?”

“Who says she had it?”

“We’re just tossing around scenarios right now. Examining things from all angles. Every possibility is on the table until it’s eliminated.”

“Then let’s eliminate this one first.”

“Yes, let’s,” he said mildly. “Tell me how Robin met Alex.”

“Okay, she walked into a take-out restaurant. Alex was already in line and they struck up a conversation. There was no preset meeting, no weird intrigue, no brush pass.” I used air quotes to indicate my contempt for the whole idea that Robin could be involved in some idiotic spy game.

“All right,” he said. “Then what?”

I started to go on, then stopped. I searched my memory banks and played back my original conversation with Robin. Something was off about my starting point. And it bugged the heck out of me to admit it. “I was wrong. Robin was in line at the restaurant when Alex came in after her.”

He reached for my hand in a show of sympathy. “Go on, love.”

“While they were waiting for their food, they struck up a conversation.”

“Did Robin tell you who spoke first?”

I thought back to the night we talked about her encounter with Alex. “She didn’t say. She just said that they were having a fascinating conversation and when their orders were called, Alex said he didn’t want to be like ships passing in the night and never see her again, so they got a table and ate together.”

“Do you remember Robin telling you anything about him that I haven’t heard yet? Anything at all?”

All right, Derek was getting to me. I rubbed my cold hands together because I was starting to worry now. Still, there was no chance in hell that Robin was a spy. “We should probably get her on the phone for more details, but I do remember her saying that he was an engineer born in the Ukraine. He came over here to go to Berkeley and never left. He was cute and funny and sexy, blah, blah, blah.”

“Blah, blah, blah?” he said.

I chewed on my lip. “I shouldn’t belittle her feelings for him. She was so happy. She blushed when she talked about him. Robin never blushes. And she called him Mr. Wonderful.”

“She cared for him,” he mused. “I saw that, as well.”

“That’s right. You were here when she talked about how he liked museums and ball games and all that stuff.”

“Yes, and you called him a metrosexual.”

“Exactly.”

“I still have no idea if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“I’m not sure, either,” I said, laughing. My smile faded slowly. “She really seemed to like this guy Alex, and I was worried, somewhat selfishly, I guess. Because I know she’s been in love with Austin forever, and I’ve always wanted them to get together. Of course, now it seems they have, so we’ll see what happens.”

“Did you share your concerns with her at the time?”

“Yes. She blamed Austin for not making a move in her direction. Said she wasn’t going to sit by the phone waiting for his call.”

“No, she doesn’t seem the sort who would sit around waiting for a man.”

“She’s definitely not.” I sipped my cocktail. “And you were here when she told us about Alex manipulating her into inviting him back to her place.”

His lip curled in derision. “Yes, I remember that part. So now where are we?” He consulted his notepad. “Let’s go on. Tell me again what the name of the restaurant was?”

“Kasa. It’s an Indian restaurant. There’re a few of them around the city. We laughed about that, because she’d just returned from India. But she still had a taste for Indian food.”

“Just a moment.” He dropped the pen on the notepad, glanced around the room as though he’d lost something, then turned to look at me. “She’d just returned from India?”

“Yes, she took a tour group there. I told you.”

“No, you didn’t. You left out that rather interesting detail.” His forehead was creased in thought. “How recently did she return from her trip?”

I gave him an odd look. “Are you sure I didn’t tell you this already?”

“No, you absolutely did not.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I’ve been distracted.”

“Yes, well.” He scribbled something on his notepad. “Plenty of distractions lately.”

“I’ll say.” Most of the distractions had been caused by Derek and his sudden constant presence in my life. Not that I was complaining. I gathered up our empty plates and took them into the kitchen. Derek beat me to the sink and took over, washing the dishes as we talked. I got the funniest little twinge around my heart as I watched him work in my kitchen. Talk about distractions.

“Anyway,” I continued after forcing my gaze away from his wet, soapy arms, “Robin was on her way home from the airport when she stopped at Kasa to get dinner to go.”

He ran hot water over each dish and utensil and placed them in the drainer. “And she was in India for what? Two, three weeks?”

“Three weeks.”

“Any idea where she went?”

“I know she landed in New Delhi and the trip centered around that area of the country. She took them to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. I think they rode elephants in Jaipur and camels somewhere else. You know, the usual. Then the group flew home and she flew to Varanasi to see her mother.”

“Her mother lives in Varanasi?” He tilted his head to look at me. “Why didn’t I know this?”

Frowning, I considered the question. “I’m really not sure. Anyway, she stayed with her mom for three days, then flew home.”

“And then she flew home,” he mused. “I assume she gathered her baggage, obtained her car from long-term parking, and headed for home. Unless someone picked her up. Did you?”

“No,” I interjected. “She drove her neighbor Sharon’s car to the airport and left her Porsche at home in the garage.”

“Why didn’t she just call a cab?”

I shrugged. “She did, but it didn’t show up and it was getting late, so Sharon gave her the keys to one of their cars. They have, like, four old cars.”

“Why didn’t Sharon just drive her?”

I smiled at his logical questions. Sometimes circumstances just weren’t logical. “Sharon was sick, and Robin didn’t mind paying the parking lot fee. It’s a tax writeoff for her.”

“Okay,” he muttered. “Okay. So she’s driving home. It was a long flight. She was hungry, so she stopped to pick up takeaway at this Indian restaurant.”

“That’s exactly how she described it.”

He nodded as he dried his hands on the dish towel. “So she was waiting for her food when a good-looking fellow walked in and struck up a conversation with her.”

I leaned back against the counter. “You’re making it sound like he was following her.”

“Am I?”

“You are. And that answering-a-question-with-a-question thing that you do? It drives me a little cuckoo.”

“Does it?”

I made a face and he grinned. “Sorry, love.”

I didn’t believe him for a second. “Where were we? Oh, yeah, that creep had to have been following her. That’s where you’re going, right?”

“Yes, that would be my guess.”

“Your guesses are usually accurate,” I said with grudging admiration.

“Thank you, love.” He held my face in his hands and kissed my forehead. “I know this is tough for you. Do you want to stop?”

“No, I’ll be better once we figure this out,” I said, and began to pace the short length of the kitchen. “So he asked her out to dinner, where he manipulated her into inviting him to her home. And then he… what? Drugged her in order to search her house for a tiny flash drive?”

“Go on.”

“What I can’t understand is, why do these people think Robin has the flash drive?”

“Because someone alerted them to the fact that she was bringing it back from India.”

“But who? And why? And how?” I looked at him with suspicion. “I don’t believe for a minute that Robin had anything to do with this, but I’m willing to admit that Alex might’ve been under the illusion that Robin brought the flash drive back from India.”

Derek smiled his approval. “All right, let’s continue on that track.”

“Okay, but I had another thought. There must’ve been a lot of planes coming in around the same time as Robin’s.”

“Yes?”

“So maybe someone on Robin’s plane or in the terminal dropped the flash drive into her carry-on bag, then followed her out and signaled someone like Alex to keep following.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“A lame one, right?”

He held up both hands. “I didn’t say that.”

“I appreciate it.” I stared at the floor as I started pacing again, this time moving out to the living room, where there was more room to roam. “Here’s another possibility. Maybe Alex was told to look for a certain woman and he mistook Robin for that person.”

“Mistaken identity?” He moved his head back and forth as if weighing the possibilities. “It could happen.”

I sighed. “It’s far-fetched, I know.”

“Darling.” He stepped into my path and put his hands on my shoulders. “How much do you know about Robin’s tour guide business?”

Confused, I looked at him, then did a double take. “No, no, no. Don’t go there.”

“It’s a simple question.”

I jerked back from him. “You honestly believe her tour guide company is a cover for espionage activities?”

“Is it?” he asked mildly.

“Stop that.” I jabbed my finger at his chest. “Stop doing that question thing and stop thinking Robin is a spy.” I was seriously cranky now.

He wrapped his arms around me and rubbed my back. He caught me off guard or I would’ve sidled away from him.

“I have no doubt that Robin is completely innocent,” he said, and kissed the top of my head.

I clutched his waist as I glared at him. “You’re damn straight she is.”

“Of course she is.” He met my gaze. “Another theory you haven’t mentioned is that Robin did have the flash drive and simply didn’t know it. Perhaps someone slipped it into her luggage, as you suggested. Or she might’ve brought it back from India as part of something completely innocuous. A souvenir or a trinket. She’s obviously American, and there might’ve been people scoping the terminals, looking for someone like her. A random choice. Someone friendly, innocent, trusting. Who better to use as a mule to smuggle something into the country? Once she was safely inside the U.S., they sent someone to collect it.”

“I like the random theory, but I can tell you don’t believe it.”

“Not really, but it’s important to consider every possibility.”

“Okay, we’ve considered it and discarded it. So you actually think Robin knowingly carried this thing all the way from India to the U.S.”

“Not knowingly, perhaps. She might’ve been unaware of it. It was hidden in something, perhaps. But I definitely believe she brought it back with her.”

“In the book,” I muttered. My spine began to tingle, and it wasn’t from Derek’s enthralling touch. I inched away from him so I could think more carefully. “Derek, Robin brought back the book.”

“The book?” he repeated slowly. “What book? From India? Have I seen it?”

I felt my cheeks getting warm at the thought of showing Derek the Kama Sutra. “You haven’t seen it yet. It’s a rare book a friend of Robin’s mother sent. They want me to restore it.”

“May I see it?”

“Of course.” I dashed down the hall to the closet. Derek followed me and watched as I unlocked the panel that revealed the false floor. “This is the book I was worried about when the big ugly guy broke into my place.”

“Why were you worried about it?”

“You’ll understand when you see it.” I lifted the shopping bag out of its hiding place and handed it to Derek, then closed and locked the panel.

“You’ve aroused my curiosity.”

“Let’s go to my workroom,” I said, leading the way. “The light’s better in there.”

Once we were seated at the worktable, I pulled the old leather satchel from the shopping bag and unbuckled it, then slipped the book out.

“That’s an interesting old saddlebag,” he said.

“It’s cool, isn’t it? But wait till you see this.” I unwrapped the white cotton cloth and pushed the book toward Derek.

“Well, that is certainly no souvenir,” he said. His tone was light, but his jaw flexed with tension.

“It’s in decent condition, so go ahead and look through it. You won’t do any damage.”

He stared at the red leather cover and inspected the jewels. “Magnificent.”

“It really is.”

He turned it so that the spine faced him. “What is… Ah, the Kama Sutra. Another detail you neglected to share.”

“Did I?” I smiled. “There goes my brain again.”

With a half grin, he said, “Is that why you didn’t show it to me?”

“Of course not.”

It was clear by his sardonic expression that he didn’t believe me. “Has anyone else seen it?”

“Just Ian.”

“You showed Ian the Kama Sutra and not me?” He laughed. “What am I to think of that?”

“Oh, no. I just knew he would appreciate it-you know, intellectually. Because it’s a book. Not because…” Oh, God, was my face red?

“I do love seeing you flustered,” he said, his smile broadening.

I frowned. “Then you must be in heaven right now.”

He bent over, kissed me, then murmured, “Close to it.” Then he took hold of the book. “Well, let’s have a look.”

“Yes, good idea.”

After a moment of studying the cover, he said, “I’m going to assume these jewels are the real thing.”

“That’s my understanding.” I pointed out the obvious gems. “Sapphires, rubies, emeralds. I think these small clear gems are diamonds, but I’ll have to verify that.”

“And Robin’s mother sent this to you?”

“Yes. It belongs to her mother’s friend.” I gave him an abbreviated history of Shiva Quinn and her friend Rajiv Mizra. “Anyway, Shiva is a bit of a collector and Rajiv is, too. Abraham once recommended me to Shiva, so it was nice of Shiva to pass my name on to Rajiv.”

“It certainly was. Does Rajiv plan to sell it?”

“He’s not sure. He wants to know how much it’s worth before he decides.”

“So you’re to estimate its cost on the open market? Is that why you showed it to Ian?”

I nodded. “Yes, and because I knew he’d go ape over it.”

“I’m sure he did.” He continued to study the book, turning it this way and that. “What does the restoration entail?”

“Basically, I’ll separate the leather from the boards, take it apart, reinforce the ties and the boards and the spine, repair some light tears, clean it up, and put it back together, stronger than ever. I probably won’t remove the gems. It would be too difficult and I would hate to lose one. I’ll use an air gun to get rid of the dust and I’ll wipe away as much grime as I can.”

He rubbed his fingers over several of the colorful gems embedded in the peacock’s feathers on the front cover. “Delicate work.”

“Yes. There are several torn pages, and fixing them will be the most challenging part.” And despite the situation and my fears for Robin’s safety and the ludicrous idea that she might be a spy, I was dying to get my hands on the book again. Just staring at it made me want to reach for my knives and get busy. So I curled my hands into fists and dropped them in my lap. “For the most part, it’s in excellent condition. Very strong. It should repair easily. I’m dying to get started.”

“Why haven’t you started yet?”

I laughed. “Distractions, remember?”

He picked up the book and stared down the edge of the front cover, then pressed it carefully. “It’s padded.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll remove it?”

“Right. I’ve got to check the batting, strengthen the spine, and reglue the endpapers.”

“Can you do it tomorrow?”

I regarded him warily. “You think there’s a miniature flash drive hiding in there?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

With a nod, I said, “I’ll start on it tomorrow morning.”

“Good. The sooner you do that, the sooner we might have some answers to our questions. And it just might save Robin’s life.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

He studied the book for another few minutes. Opened the pages, ran his hands over the calligraphy, examined the paintings and brushstrokes, inspected the positions. “It’s quite extraordinary.”

“Yes.” I sounded breathless. I’d been just as fascinated watching him as he was with exploring the book.

“And it’s written in French,” he murmured. “That’s unexpected, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

He looked up at me. “Have you studied the Kama Sutra?”

“Only a bit,” I said, as I ran my fingers over the corded spine. “I suppose everyone has a vague knowledge of it. You know, positions and such. But wasn’t it written as a social primer of sorts? Marital etiquette or something like that?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what it is.” He turned a page and stared at the French script. Was he translating the words? “An Englishman, Richard Burton, is said to have written the definitive English translation. I was compelled to study it extensively for an assignment once upon a time.”

I laughed. “Oh, don’t stop there. I want to hear about this assignment.”

“I can’t say too much-only that one of our own government operatives had been co-opted by a sex therapist working at a spa somewhere on the coast of Sardinia, who planned to extort certain secrets.”

“Sounds like fun.”

He chuckled. “Elucidating, yes. Fun? Not really.”

“Well, that’s a shame.”

He lifted the book again and perused the ornate red leather cover. “This is really outstanding.”

“I think so, too.” I gave up, took a deep breath, reached over, and stroked the spine. “What does Vatsyayana mean?”

He looked amused as our hands touched. “He’s the author.”

“Oh.” Warmth spread up my neck. My cheeks would be turning pink any second now. Again. “I guess I should’ve known that. And I should probably know what the words Kama Sutra mean, but I don’t.”

“It’s Sanskrit,” he said, moving closer. “Kama is ‘love.’ Sutra, loosely translated, means ‘a lesson’ or ‘a rule.’ So essentially, the Kama Sutra contains the rules of love.”

“Ah, I see.”

He turned to a page in the middle of the book. “Here’s a rule you might be interested in. It refers to pressure points.” He read the text in perfect French, an experience I found insanely erotic.

“Um…”

“In the corresponding illustration”-he pointed to the facing page-“you can see how the woman’s anxiety has been eased.”

“Oh… yes.”

“Let’s try that.” He took my hand and rubbed a spot between my thumb and first finger. At the same time, he pressed his leg against my thigh.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Do you feel that?” he murmured.

“I feel… Oh…”

“Yes, you do.” He moved in and covered my mouth with his. His lips were firm and his intention was clear. My heart thrummed against my ribs as he softened the kiss; then his lips moved along the ridge of my jaw to my ear. It was pure instinct that made me stretch to accommodate his every move. I felt a twisting and turning in the pit of my stomach and I heard myself moan with need. The sound and its unfamiliarity brought me back to reality, if slowly.

Derek stood and pulled my chair back and I slid off it. His mouth hovered within reach of mine and I didn’t hesitate. I stretched up and pressed my lips to his. He enclosed his arms around me and deepened the kiss, just as someone battered their fists against my front door.

The door flew open and a man burst into my house, waving a gun.

I screamed.

“What the-” Derek shouted, then shoved me behind him. “Get back.”

I watched as Derek boldly slapped the man’s gun hand, then grabbed and shook it. The gun went flying as the man fell to his knees.

He was big with a pockmarked face. Big and ugly. Was this Tyler’s bad guy?

“Who do you work for?” Derek yelled as he grabbed the man’s shirt and tie and shook him.

From where I was crouched, I could see blood dripping onto the floor. “Derek, he’s bleeding.”

Derek took hold of the man’s jacket lapels and whipped them apart. A large splotch of blood was seeping through his white shirt.

“Who did this to you?” Derek asked in concern. “Who are you?”

The man blinked up at him. He was heavyset, and his eyes were red rimmed.

“Who sent you?” Derek asked again, then spurted out a flurry of words in a foreign language. Russian? Ukrainian? I didn’t know, but the man nodded quickly and replied in the same language.

Derek barked out one more sentence.

The man sighed deeply, muttered something else, then crumpled to the floor.