She dressed quickly in a short-sleeved sweatshirt and a pair of cut-off jeans and looked under the bed for a pair of flip flops.

“There’s some cream cheese and pepper jam and crackers there on the counter.” He was at the sink with his back to her when she came downstairs. “And I poured us each a glass of wine.”

“Thanks.” She gave him a quick hug from behind. “I am happy to see you, but you have to stop doing that.”

He laughed. “I swear, I didn’t intend to sneak up on you. Believe me, if I had…”

“Yeah, I know. I wouldn’t have heard you until you were standing right behind me.” She grabbed the wineglass and raised the glass to her lips, then sat it quietly on the counter. She opened the refrigerator, noted the supply of food he must have brought with him, and took out a bottle of club soda.

“What are you making?” she asked as she got another glass and filled it with ice and soda.

“Just something simple.” He smiled, looking more relaxed than she’d seen in a while. “Salmon, roasted red potatoes, carrots and zucchini. Some fresh figs for dessert.”

“That’s your idea of a simple dinner? It’s way more than I make for myself.”

“That’s because you can go out and get a great meal whenever you want one. These days, I have to come back to the Chesapeake or go to Essaouria for great fish.”

“I don’t even know where that is.”

“Essaouria? It’s a city on the coast of Morocco.” He checked the oven’s temperature and unwrapped the fish. “There’s a hotel in an old villa there owned by some friends of mine. It’s where I stop when I’m on my way…here and there. They have a chef there who ranks with the best in the world.”

“Then why isn’t he in Paris, or London? Or New York? Some place people have heard of.”

Connor laughed again and juggled three lemons playfully. “He loves the city, loves Morocco, loves the villa. Everyone who goes there loves it. It’s beautiful, it’s peaceful, and yet it still has that hint of danger that you expect to find in Morocco.”

“I’ll put it on my list of places to visit.”

“Let me know when you decide to go and I’ll meet you there.” He lined the lemons up on the counter and started to chop up garlic.

“You go there a lot?” She scooped up some pepper jam and cream cheese with a cracker.

“As often as I can.”

She finished off the cracker, chewed, swallowed, then asked, “So who is she?”

“Who is who?”

“The girl you keep going back to Essau…what was it?”

“Essaouria.” He smiled over his shoulder.

“So who’s the girl? Who do you go there to see?”

“Like I said, I have friends who own the villa and…” He shrugged.

“Don’t be evasive. I know when you’re conning me.” She smiled and added, “Pun intended.”

He made himself busy, concentrating on the task at hand, chopping green onions and garlic and opening the jar of chutney.

“There’s no one.”

“How come?”

“No time these days.” He continued chopping, his eyes on the onions as if they held the secret of life. He stopped after a few moments, took a sip of his wine and said, “There is one woman…”

“Aha! I knew it!”

“I barely know her. I met her once-the last time I was there, at the villa. She’s American. An archaeologist.”

“And…” Mia urged him on.

“And I don’t know much else about her.”

“What’s she look like? Start with that.”

“She’s blond. Pretty. A little shorter than you.” He appeared to be considering the question. “She looks fragile, but she can’t be, all the time she spends in the field.”

“Hair?”

“Short, kind of choppy.” He smiled. “Not like stylish choppy, like Livy Bach’s.” He named a fellow agent who was always at the top of the style game. “Just…choppy. As if she did it herself in the field. Which she probably did.”

“Eyes?”

“Blue.” He responded without hesitation, making his cousin smile.

“Well, who does she look like?” Mia asked. “Does she resemble anyone we know?”

“She just looks like herself.”

“What else do you know about her?”

“I don’t know a whole lot else.” He shrugged. “Except that she spends a lot of time in the Middle East. Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan. She was cataloguing some digs or something.”

“Isn’t that dangerous for a woman in that part of the world these days?”

“From what I’ve learned about her, she’s well respected. She’s considered an expert in several fields of interest, I do know that. And she’s written a lot, been published, has lectured at some of the major universities here and in other countries.”

“Where did you hear all that?”

“From Magda. She and her husband own the villa-and knows her pretty well.” He turned and grinned. “And from the Internet.”

“You did an Internet search on her? You must be interested.” Her eyes twinkled. “What else did you find out about her?”

“Mother’s an anthropologist, father’s an archaeologist, as is one of her brothers. Oh, and her grandfather was as well. He was famous, discovered some ancient lost city.”

“Sounds like quite a gal. Have you made your interest known?”

He shook his head. “There really hasn’t been an opportunity. But one of these days…”

“How do you know she isn’t involved with someone else?”

“Magda would have told me. She’s always trying to fix us up.”

“Why don’t you let her?”

“The time hasn’t been right.”

“Don’t you ever get lonely?” Mia asked.

When he didn’t answer, she said, “I do.”

“I guess that explains the line-up of wine bottles near the back door.”

“Those are from the entire time I’ve lived here,” she told him, “and they’re still sitting there because this house is so far out in the fucking sticks no one’s even heard of recyling.”

“Just seems like a lot of wine for one small person.” He turned and she raised the glass of seltzer to him in salute. Seeing it, he said, “So, would you want a little lemon with that?”

She laughed and held out the glass. He cut a small wedge from the lemon and dropped it in.

“Before you ask,” she said, “yes, I was starting to depend on the wine to help relax me at night. Too much so. I thought maybe I should try to cut back, you know. Before I had a problem and couldn’t cut back on my own.”

“Can you?”

She nodded. “Yeah. But I think if I waited much longer…maybe not.”

“Demons? Ghosts.”

She nodded. “A little of both.”

“Want to tell me about them?”

“You already know about them.” She leaned on the counter. “You know their names.”

“Let them go, Mia.” His face tightened. “Brendan’s in hell, where he belongs. Let him stay there. And Dylan, well, there’s nothing anyone can do to bring him back. We all have to move on, get past it. You, me, Annie…”

“Does it bother you, that she married someone else, Con?”

“The idea of it did, until I got to know Evan. He loves her. It isn’t her fault that she didn’t get to marry Dylan and live happily ever after. She’s a good person and one of my best friends. She deserves to be happy. So no, it doesn’t bother me. At least, not anymore.”

He wrapped up the unused onions and returned them to the refrigerator.

“You have to stop hiding behind dead bodies, Mia.”

“What does that mean?” Mia frowned.

“That means, stop using your work as an excuse for not having a life.” He turned to face her. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Stop punishing yourself for what Brendan did. You were not your brother’s keeper, kiddo.”

“You’re a good one to talk.” She put the glass down on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t think I don’t know why you keep running all the time, Con. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you volunteer for every dangerous assignment that comes along.”

“I’ve been trained for it.” He went back to work on the fish. “And I do it better than just about anyone else.”

“Don’t you ever ask yourself why?”