Yet Wilhelmina was still positive that Juliana had the Minstrel’s Rough. It would explain so much. It was also logical, and the old Dutchwoman was not one to back away prematurely from what made sense.

At any rate, it had been a frustrating morning. The man posted outside the Beresford continued to stand in the cold, but Wilhelmina paid no attention to him whatever. But better to be aware of him than not.

She had made a cup of café au lait and now was tempted to play the piano. Would any of Juliana’s monumental talent seep from the ivory keys into her old bones? Bah, she thought, I must be more tired than I feel.

The Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 was open on the rack. Wilhelmina knew it to be a difficult piece, but she’d never played it. She wondered if she should give it a try now, to clear her mind.

She pressed middle C very slowly, and no sound came out.

Hendrik…

Yes, he was in her thoughts. Catharina had called, tearfully telling her older sister about seeing him that morning. Wilhelmina wished she’d been able to speak up and ask Catharina to relate every detail of their conversation…how he’d looked, sounded, must have felt. Everything.

Not that she cared, of course.

“You’re kidding yourself, Willie,” she muttered. “You still care. You always will.”

Suddenly she felt eerily alone amidst all that space, with so many people in the city around her. At home in Rotterdam, she never thought about being alone.

“Liar,” she said aloud, with vehemence.

She jumped up, suddenly spooked, and ran around into all the rooms, pulling drapes, checking the locks on the doors and windows, and then came back to the living room, shaking. She turned on the stereo. She didn’t care what she listened to. Anything besides the cries and the screams and the prayers and the loneliness that too often whispered to her in the night.

Hendrik…may God damn you to hell!

And not just for what he’d done-but for showing her what might have been.

“You’re being unfair,” Juliana informed Matthew as he walked with her to the shuttle gate. “Unfair, unreasonable, and damned provoking.”

He grinned. “Damned provoking, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, so are you, sweet cheeks.”

“Me?”

“Uh huh. You’re holding out on me.”

She didn’t say a word.

“Maybe not much, maybe a lot. With you, it’s hard to tell. But whatever you’re not telling me, I figure I don’t need to know. It’s just not worth pulling you deeper into this mess. Whether by accident or design, two people are dead. As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough.”

“I think we should work together,” she told him as the announcement came for her flight to begin boarding.

“God save me.”

“You have no right to tell me what to do.”

“I have every right to keep you from bird-dogging me-and I can do it.”

Her dark eyes gleamed with frustration and excitement, which both worried and pleased him. But the paleness was still there, the bruise on her wrist. He admired her for not wanting to run, but he couldn’t let her determination undermine his own common sense. Having a piano player strutting around behind him wasn’t going to accomplish a damn thing. And there was no guarantee she was ever going to get around to telling him what she knew about the Minstrel’s Rough. She didn’t believe in tit for tat.

Not, of course, that he’d told her everything.

“Matthew, listen to me,” she said, “I’m involved in this whether or not you like it.”

“That’s my point: I don’t like it. Get on the plane, Juliana. Go home, go to Vermont, go to the Club Aquarian, go any goddamn place you want to-just stay the hell away from me.”

“Maybe I’ll go see Sam Ryder and find out if he’s more cooperative.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Matthew jumped forward and pulled her around by the shoulders so she faced him. “Don’t screw around with Ryder.” The words came out dark and angry, but he didn’t raise his voice and his mouth hardly moved. “He’ll eat you alive.”

His tone, his expression, his firm grip on her would have intimidated the hell out of anyone else. He knew it. But Juliana just wrinkled up her face. “That’s not your problem.”

“I’ll make it my goddamn problem.”

“I’m not your concern,” she said.

“The hell you’re not.”

She was as worn out as he was, as testy, as independent, as used to getting her own damn way. She was never nice for the sake of being nice. It wasn’t necessary in her world. Wasn’t necessary in his, either. He looked at the uncompromising set of her jaw and her lovely mouth, and he said the hell with it. He pulled her even closer and kissed her hard, briefly, tearing himself away before the warmth of her penetrated too deeply.

Just as he’d wanted himself, a kiss wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even close.

“I don’t want to see you zipped up in a body bag,” he said.

She teetered a bit, and he was pleased to note he’d had the same dizzying effect on her that she’d had on him. But she recovered. He could see her kicking herself back into gear. “So that’s it, right?” she said hotly. “You kiss me and pack me off like you’re Davy Crockett off to the Alamo or wherever he was off to.”

“That’s right,” he said.

She tossed her head back, insulted.

Stark laughed. “You liked the kiss, sweetheart, and don’t try to pretend otherwise. You kissed me back.”

“A reflex. Like playing arpeggios.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had one of my kisses compared to playing arpeggios.”

“Well.” She fell into the long line for the shuttle to New York. “If Aunt Willie and I are followed again, I’ll know who not to call.”

Matthew’s thick black brows drew together in a deep frown. Christ, if he only knew when to take her seriously. Her high cheekbones were pink, the rest of her face dead white. What the hell was she talking about this time? Followed-again? Bullshit. It was just a ploy. But Aunt Willie…

“Is that woman in New York?”

Juliana just smiled and waved.

Matthew swore, but she continued to ignore him. Finally, swearing some more, he scrambled for a ticket and got in line, at the end because she refused to let him cut in front of her.

She did, however, arrange to have him sit next to her. Their shoulders brushed lightly. Arpeggios, he thought, Jesus. She looked at him up close, her eyes sparkling. “I have an ulterior motive for permitting you to sit beside me,” she said.

He was thinking she meant their kiss had knocked some sense of fair play into her and she was going to tell him about Aunt Willie and being followed and maybe even something about the Minstrel’s Rough. She might even want another kiss.

But she went on, matter-of-fact, “Now I know about helicopters. So tell me about platoon sergeants.” She smoothed her skirt and looked over at him. “What exactly is a platoon?”