expertise. She coasted around for an hour, checking for a tail, before she headed for her motel. She parked at the back and started up the stairs, feeling suddenly exhausted.
Somehow she was not surprised to find Lemuel sitting outside her room. “How?” she said, but he caught her up in his arms and held her close. After a second, she let herself lean on him. Then when a couple of minutes had passed, she opened her door and they went inside.
He sat by her on the bed, his arm around her. “Manfred called me directly,” he said. “I was closer than he was, so I told him to turn around and go back to Midnight, if he wanted. He said he would.”
“Where were you?” she asked, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.
“Here in Dallas,” he said. “I had a plane layover. I can delay a night.”
She started to tell Lemuel he didn’t need to postpone his departure, but when she tried to make her lips move, she simply couldn’t make them form those words. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I got away from him.”
“Woman, I know that,” Lemuel said in his quiet voice. “Manfred gave me the address. I saw the body. Who sent him?”
“My father’s right-hand man,” she said. “Ellery McGuire.”
Lemuel was silent. “Does he know where you are?”
“He knew I was going to that house, or at least suspected enough to put someone there. I don’t know how. I’ll figure it out.”
“Did you get whatever you went there to get?”
“No, I never got inside. Falco caught me first. I was too cocky. On the other hand, why would I ever imagine there’d be someone waiting there for me? I had other things to worry about.”
“What were you afeared of?” From time to time, you could tell Lemuel had been born in another age.
“That there might be security measures I didn’t know about, or that the jerk who now lives there would catch me and I’d have to do him in . . . which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.”
“But instead, someone you never expected was there waiting for you.”
She nodded.
“You have no idea why?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t had time to think. I was too . . . intent on getting away from the area before the body was found. I had to get to a safe place.”
“You’re safe now,” he said, his cold lips brushing her cheek.
Suddenly she wanted the familiarity of him, the touch of him, more than anything else in the world. She turned to him, put her hands on each side of his face, brought his lips to hers.
For the first time that night, something went exactly like she’d expected. Maybe even better.
12
Manfred was rejoicing in the lifting of the siege the next day. He didn’t know what had happened in Dallas to make most of his watchers withdraw, but there were only two lone reporters outside the next day. He immediately checked the Internet. His search parameter was “Goldthorpe Bonnet Park,” and he got information immediately.
“Hmmm,” he said. “So Lewis found a body.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, he thought. “No identification. Well, well, well.”
There was a quiet knock on his back door, so he was glad he was dressed and had brushed his teeth. He was sure who his caller must be. He opened the door and Olivia came in. It would be an exaggeration to say she looked like hell, but it would be accurate to say she’d looked better every other time he’d seen her.
“You just get in from Dallas?”
“Yeah.” She stood facing him, her mouth tight with reluctance. “Okay, thanks for calling Lemuel. As it turned out, I didn’t need him. I got away by myself. But it was nice to have backup. Don’t ever do that again.”
“Sure, don’t babble on and on about it,” Manfred said in a friendly voice. “I didn’t worry at all after getting a picture of you in danger, and I wasn’t halfway to Dallas when I heard from Lemuel telling me all was well, so I only wasted half a tank of gas and some sleep. That’s fine! I don’t mind. Anything to help a friend.”
Olivia looked more and more angry as he spoke. Just when he began to believe she might hit him, she smiled, though reluctantly. “I do thank you,” she said. “But most situations, I can handle myself. I was really, really glad to see Lemuel. It was a stroke of luck that he