“The baton didn’t come through a door you were watching, and the watch didn’t either. The threat is already inside. You see that, don’t you?”
The question was rhetorical.
Luca continued. “Someone who knows how you read rooms is likely performing exactly what they think you’d expect to see.”
We were both quiet. The amateur was working on informing the professional.
“And now we—“
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “When we find it, it won’t announce itself. I think it’s someone I’ve known for years. Maybe someone Dominic has known for decades.” He held my gaze. “It won’t be obvious from any list you’ve built.”
I thought about the photographer’s flash. Every head went up toward the gallery while the light sat two feet off the ground. I’d committed that moment to memory. I hadn’t asked what it meant.
“Sometimes the person closest to you is the most dangerous,” Luca said.
“And sometimes closeness keeps people from seeing clearly.”
“Fair,” he said after a moment. “That’s fair, but you create distance and call it professionalism.”
I looked at him, and my breath caught.
Somehow the distance between us changed. I wasn’t sure how it happened. We were close, and the courtyard light caught one side of his face while casting the other into shadow. His arms hung loosely at his sides.
I turned to leave before the conversation went somewhere it shouldn’t.
Luca reached out and caught my wrist. Not hard. Just enough to stop me.
I kissed him.
His mouth was warm, and he tasted faintly of coffee. He didn’t pull back. He reached out for my jaw with his palm open.
Luca exhaled slowly through his nose. Then his hand tightened just slightly on my wrist, and he kissed me back. Everything around us faded—the hum of the ceiling fans and the gurgle of the fountain.
When I pulled back, his eyes opened slowly. He rubbed my stubble with his fingertips.
“That’s going to complicate things,” I said. The statement came out flatter than I intended, but it was honest.
“I’ve watched you examine every exit in every room you’ve walked into since you arrived. Complicate isn’t the word I’d use.”
“What word would you use?”
“I haven’t decided.” He lowered his hand. “Get back to me when you’ve figured out what you’re afraid of. Then we can have the conversation properly.”
He picked up his coffee mug and turned toward the French doors, looking out at the courtyard.
I had nothing useful to add. Then I pulled my tablet from the counter and opened the Fontenot file.
Two minutes later, the front gate opened.
I heard footsteps, Dominic coming up the front walk. He walked through the parlor and appeared in the kitchen doorway still in his jacket, hat in hand, with a satisfied expression on his face.
He read the room immediately.
“Productive evening,” he said.
“The investigation required some fieldwork,” I said.
“Mm.” He moved to the counter and poured a glass of Armagnac. He capped the bottle, picked up the glass, and turned toward the hallway. At the doorway, he paused.
