They went outside-the air warm, cooler gusts coming in off the water. Limousines and expensive cars rolled up in long lines, depositing ball-goers in their elegant clothes and glittering jewels. Mollie didn’t regret her decision not to stay. She wanted to be alone, sitting out on her deck listening to the crickets and the palm trees in the evening breeze.

They spoke little on the short drive to Leonardo’s house. Mollie just sank into the ratty truck seat, staring at the lizard food Post-it on the glove compartment. She really knew nothing about this man. Nothing at all. Except she was glad he was driving her home, not some nameless security guard from the hotel.

“I’ll wait until you’re inside,” he said, stopping at her driveway. “Griffen left before you were attacked. If you know where she and Deegan are, maybe she can come stay with you.”

She nodded, suddenly exhausted, and climbed down out of the truck, her legs wobbly. She tapped in the code on the keypad outside the gates, grateful for Leonardo’s elaborate security system. It was dark now, the truck headlights on. As the gates opened, she went to Jeremiah’s open window. Her throat was tight, her head spinning. “It was no accident I was the victim tonight, was it? Even if I hadn’t been wearing that necklace, the thief was gunning for me. I think-” She swallowed, trying to make sense out of the flashes of memory, the bits and pieces of information all vying for attention. “I think the thief was lying in wait. The dinging of the elevator…that was just to throw off the police.”

The truck’s interior lights and the angle of the streetlight cast Jeremiah’s face into shifting, eerie shadows, his eyes darkened, his straight, hard mouth unyielding. “Mollie-”

She didn’t let him finish. She was too keyed up with her own theories. “But I don’t know that. I just-” She exhaled. “Why me? Especially when I’m the only ‘common denominator’ you have.”

“Don’t try to make sense of it tonight,” he said. “Look at it in the morning.”

“He could have been at the party and seen me in the necklace, then slipped out after I went to the ladies’ room and waited for me…”

“Mollie, at this point anything’s possible.”

Her head shot up. “Including that I’m the thief? That I did this to myself?”

He sighed. “No. I really don’t believe that’s possible.”

“But you considered it,” she said.

“I consider everything.”

His matter-of-factness, his truthfulness, had calming effect on her. In her frazzled state, she would have reacted strongly to even a hint of condescension or lying. “Fair enough. I should go on up now.”

“The hotel will be here any minute with Leonardo’s car. Why don’t I stay and handle that for you?”

“Thanks.” She smiled. “I’d appreciate that. And-well, you might as well come upstairs when you’re finished. We both missed dinner. I’ll fix us a couple of sandwiches.”

“Mollie-”

She glanced back at him as she headed inside the gates. “You’re not hungry?”

The truck hadn’t moved. “You don’t have to fix me a sandwich, Mollie.”

“It’ll give me something to do. I’m ready to jump out of my skin as it is. It’s just as easy to make two sandwiches as one.” She smiled, already feeling better. “And I’m more likely to throw up if I don’t eat something.”

“Well, then,” he drawled, and she heard his beat-up old truck grind into gear, “by all means, fix us a couple of sandwiches.”

7

They ate sandwiches at the kitchen table. Turkey and lettuce on sourdough with pickles on the side. Although she knew she needed to eat, Mollie’s stomach had turned midway through fixing them. “I wonder what they’re having at the ball,” she said. She’d thrown a sweatshirt over her dress to ease a sudden chill; she’d deal with her bruised, raw neck later, after Jeremiah left. “I could have made it through dinner if they were having something good.”

But she could only get halfway through her sandwich. Her stomach clamped down. Nerves. Jeremiah finished off her second half while he stood up and rummaged in her freezer. Without a word, he got out a tray of ice, set it on the counter, found a dish towel, dumped most of the ice in it, tied it up, and handed it over to Mollie. “Put this on your neck. First aid stuff in the bathroom?”

“The hall bathroom,” she said, pointing.

He withdrew down the hall. She could hear him rattling around in the medicine cabinet. She didn’t have much by way of first-aid necessities. A box of Band-Aids, antibiotic ointment, aspirin, a thermometer. She’d been blissfully healthy since her arrival in south Florida.

Jeremiah returned with a tube of antibiotic ointment and a dampened face cloth. “You want to do this or shall I? I’ve had basic first aid, but I haven’t had to use it since I dropped my turtle in the kitchen sink while I was cleaning his cage.”

“I’ll do it.”

She took the face cloth first and gently wiped off her neck, which didn’t sting when she touched it nearly as much as she’d anticipated. That finished, Jeremiah squeezed out some of the ointment on her finger, and she dabbed it on.

“You need a mirror-you’ve missed a couple of spots,” he said, and proceeded to squeeze goo on his own finger, then dab it onto her neck. His touch was gentle, functional, but still sent warm, welcome tremors through her. “I’d leave it uncovered.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks. I guess I know a little of what it feels like to be garroted.”

“Nasty business,” he said.

“Yes, it is.” She narrowed her gaze on him. He was still standing, not pacing, but not at ease, either. “You’re not going to tell me how you got involved in this story, are you? How you found out I was your ‘common denominator’?”

He didn’t hesitate. “I can’t.”

“You’re protecting a source?” But he didn’t answer-didn’t need to answer-and she said hotly, “But if you have a conflict of interest because of me and can’t do the story, why do you need to protect this source?”

“Because that’s how I operate.”

And because he didn’t owe her an explanation, she thought.

“Mollie, pour yourself a glass of wine, keep the ice on your neck for as long as you can stand it, and try to put tonight out of your mind and get some sleep.” He walked over to her, tucked a fat lock of hair behind her ear. “If you want, you can call me tomorrow.”

“Will you tell me anything then that you won’t tell me now?”

“Probably not. But you’ll take it better after you’ve rested.” He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “Now, I’d better get out of here while I still can.”

“Wait.”

She placed her towel of ice on the table and took his hand, pulling herself to her feet. She brushed his mouth with the tips of her fingers, cold from the ice, and then followed with her lips, kissing him softly, sinking against his chest just for a moment. His arms went around her, and she could have stood there all night.

He kissed the top of her head, said, “Mollie, you need that glass of wine.”

“And the good night’s sleep.” She smiled, pulling back. “I know. Thanks for your help tonight.”

“We’ll talk soon.”

She nodded, and he left. She wondered if his sense of honor was at work again-she was in pain, in shock, out of balance, and he wasn’t going to take advantage-or if he simply wanted to make sure she hadn’t ripped a necklace off her own neck before he got into bed with her. The Tabak-as-rogue of her imagination would have capitalized on her trauma and stayed the night, eliciting every bit of information he could in the process.

This complicated, honorable Jeremiah Tabak had her mystified. And frustrated. How much easier to get her addled brain around a driven, unethical skunk of a reporter than the man she’d encountered tonight. Irreverent, suspicious, intriguing.

She returned to the kitchen and added more ice to her sopping towel before wandering into the den, not sure what to do with herself. She put on the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Leonardo as the tenor soloist. She turned up the volume, the entire apartment pulsating with the rich, swelling sounds of orchestra and chorus, the emotion and passion and wonder of a piece written more than two hundred and fifty years ago by a dead man.