from behind her, “I’m not a sexist.”
She turned around to grin at him. “Aha! So you were eavesdropping.
I thought you were probably lurking back there. I
was afraid that you were going to try to throw Tyler out of the
house.”
“Maybe I would have if you hadn’t finally gotten a grip and
pushed him out. I wasn’t a bully or a know-it-all, either, when I
was growing up. I never tortured you.”
“Don’t become part of your own script, Adam. I can also write
whatever I want to on that script, since it involves me.”
“I’m not gay, either.”
She just laughed at him.
He grabbed her by the shoulders, jerked her against him, and
kissed her fast and hard. He said against her mouth, “I’m not gay,
damn you.”
She pulled away from him, stood stock-still, and stared at him.
She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth.
He streaked his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. “I’m
sorry. I don’t know why I did that. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m
not gay.”
She started shaking her head, then, just as suddenly, unexpectedly,
she threw back her head and laughed and laughed, wrapping
her arms around herself.
It was a nice sound. He bet she hadn’t laughed much lately. She
hiccuped. “You’re forgiven for trying to enforce your manhood.
Got you on that one, hmmm?”
He realized he’d leapt for the bait. How could that have happened?
He looked down at his fingernails, then buffed them lightly
against his shirtsleeve. “Actually, what I should have said is I’m not
at all certain yet that I’m gay. I’m still thinking about it. Kissing you
was a test. Yeah, I’m still not certain one way or the other. You
didn’t give me much data.” Not much of a return hit, but it was
something.
She walked past him into the kitchen. She started measuring out
coffee. When she finished, she turned the machine on and stood
there, staring at the coffee dripping into the pot. Finally she turned
and said, “I want to know who you are. Now. Don’t lie to me. I
can’t take any more lies. Really, I just can’t.”
“All right. Pour me that coffee and I’ll tell you who I am and
what I’m doing here.”
While she poured, he said, leaning back in his chair, balancing it
on its two back legs, “Because you’re an amateur I looked at the
problem very differently. But like I already told you, you didn’t do
badly. Your only really big mistake was your try at misdirection
with the flight from Dulles to Boston, then another flight on to
Portland. Another thing: I reviewed all your credit card invoices.
The only airline you use is United. Since you’re an amateur, it
wouldn’t occur to you to change.”
She said, “Trying another airline flicked through my brain, but I
wanted out as fast as I could get out and I feel comfortable dealing
with United. I never thought, never realized–”
“I know. It makes excellent sense, just not in this sort of situation.
I didn’t even bother checking any of the other airlines.”
“However did you get ahold of my credit card invoices?”
“No problem. Access to any private records is a piece of cake, for
anyone. Thankfully, law enforcement has to convince judges to get
warrants and that takes time, a good thing for you. Also, I’ve got a
dynamite staff who are so fast and creative that it sometimes surprises
even me.
“No, don’t stiffen up like a poker. We’re talking absolute discretion
here. Now, there were only sixty-eight tickets issued to
women traveling alone within six hours of the flight you took to
Washington, DC. I believed it would be three hours, but we all
wanted to be thorough. It turned out you called the airline to
make reservations only two hours and fifty-four minutes before the
flight, as a matter of fact. You moved very quickly once you made
up your mind to get the hell out of Dodge. Then you had to buy a
ticket to Boston, then on to Portland, Maine, when you arrived at
Dulles in Washington, D.C.You didn’t want to buy it in New York,