concerned. “I’ll make my cappuccino,” she said. “But I’ll be damned if I’m settling in before I hear what’s going on.”
She returned from the kitchenette two minutes later and plopped into the chair by Kit’s desk.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been playing Nancy Drew after you promised me you wouldn’t.”
“A little bit, but that’s not the big news.”
Haltingly, she described her encounter with X. Baby listened, stunned, one hand on her chest.
“Dear God,” Baby said when Kit finished. “You’ve called the police, of course.”
Kit bit her lip.
“No, I haven’t,” she said. She raised a hand. “But before you’re tempted to beat me with a rubber hose, hear me out. If I talk to the cops again, there’s nothing concrete I can really report. So they could end up deciding I’m a bit of a nut job, the way I keep blabbering about this mythical man that only I get to see—like Big Foot or something. Plus, I’d have to admit that I took his pen. It was an innocent mistake, but it could sound suspicious and make the cops wonder what I’m really up to, if I’m trying to throw Kelman under the bus to protect myself. And if they start looking into me, it could impact our business.”
“Then what do you do?”
“I’m thinking that the best strategy is for me to learn more about what’s really going on so I have credible information to share with the cops. And the way to do that is to convince this Garrett Kelman that I trust him.”
“But that sounds so dangerous, Kit. The man forced his way into your home last night.”
“But in the end he didn’t hurt me—or even threaten me. And I need to get ahead of this. I’m worried that if I don’t, the people who broke in will come back for the flash drive. They’ve surely discovered by now that the one they took has nothing but photos of leather club chairs and a bed with a nail-headed upholstered headboard.”
“Wait, I thought you assumed Kelman had broken in.”
“I’m not so sure now. When he stepped through the door, he seemed to be taking it all in, like it was his first time there, and when I told him about the burglary, he looked alarmed. Besides, he knew that flash drive was in the pen, so why steal the random one in my drawer?”
“Kit, you know I think you have good instincts, but I don’t like this. The man could be lying all over again.”
“I know. But like I told you, some of what he shared last night turned out to be true. And I’m not going to reach out to Kelman until I’ve investigated him further. There’s more research I plan to do this afternoon.”
For a moment Baby said nothing, just tapped her gleaming pink nails in a nervous dance on the desktop.
“I had a colleague named Garrett once,” she said finally, arching a brow again. “British. He claimed the name meant ‘he who rules with a big spear.’ That’s not what this is about, is it?”
Kit snorted, and then broke into a smile.
“He didn’t seem to have a weapon on him last night, and in regard to that other spear you may or may not be referring to, my lips are sealed.”
Baby offered a grim smile back.
“Just promise me that if you sense any danger whatsoever, you’ll call the police. And if you don’t, I will.”
“Got it. You’d mentioned yesterday that you were going to be here most of the day. Is that still your plan? Because I need to go out for a while, and I don’t want to leave Dara alone.”
“Yes, that works for me. Plus, I have a potential client stopping by this morning, someone renovating a boutique hotel here in New York. Could be a nice piece of business that we’d work on together. I also want to field any calls that might come in today from clients concerned about their credit card information.”
“Any fallout from that?” Kit asked, sensing now that there had been.
“A bit, but I didn’t want to tell you last night before you went to bed. I emailed all the active clients, the ones who we’ve kept the card numbers for, and I told them to contact me with any questions. Several people called back, two in a tizzy, and one of those was your Greenwich Village client, Layla Griggs. She wasn’t pleased about the idea of having to apply for a new card.”