She slid onto the chair opposite him and tried to look calm, in control, not as if she’d raced down here on impulse after receiving a nasty phone call-just in case she decided not to tell him about it. Because if he sensed she was holding back, he’d pounce. She smiled. “You look as if you’re waiting for your coffee to say something profound.”

He glanced up, squinted at her as if he had been so lost in thought he’d forgotten where he was. But the remoteness quickly vanished, and he grinned. “Nah. There’s no hope for a higher life form in there. I don’t know, either this stuff is getting worse or my tastebuds are finally improving.”

He paused, and his eyes, with all their golds and greens and grays, took her in, seemed to drink in her very soul. Mollie forced herself not to look away. No wonder he was so good at what he did. Nothing escaped him. Nothing was beneath his probing interest. Yet, she thought, it couldn’t be an easy way to live. Sometimes he had to wish he could just climb out of his own skin for a while and be as oblivious as most of the rest of the world.

“Helen send you up here?” he asked.

Mollie nodded. “She said you were in a bad mood.”

“I am. She was angling to get me away from my desk so she could rummage through it. Drives her crazy thinking I know something she doesn’t.”

“Do you?”

“Yep.”

“She won’t actually go through your desk, will she?”

“Probably not. But she had to play it out. I can just see her standing there, itching to see what I’ve got, then congratulating herself when she doesn’t go through with it.”

“She knows you wouldn’t leave anything out in the open.”

“Even if I did, she’d stop herself. I’ve known Helen since I landed at the Trib as a know-it-all eighteen-year-old. She knows what lines she can cross and what lines she can’t, not just with me. Part of the reason she’s lasted as long as she has is she knows the First Amendment protects what we say, not what we do.”

“Such as fraud, breaking and entering, harassment, trespassing.”

He shrugged. “Such as.” He eyed his coffee. “I used to pride myself on drinking swill. Times change. So, Miss Mollie,” he said, shifting his gaze to her, “what brings you to Miami looking as if you’ve had another good scare?”

“I have.” She sat on a chair at the end of the table, feeling formal, even awkward. “Had another good scare, that is.”

His eyes bored into her, darkening. “Tell me.”

“A phone call. It came on my business line, about ninety minutes ago. The voice was obviously altered, like those unnamed whistle-blowers on 60 Minutes. It suggested I go back to Boston because Miami’s dangerous.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“There’s only my word that the call happened or that the caller said what he said. I don’t want the police getting the wrong idea about me.”

“You don’t want to become a suspect.”

“Or the crazy woman looking for attention.”

Jeremiah pushed back his chair. “But the call happened.”

She nodded.

He rose, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ve got a friend on the Palm Beach police you can talk to. It’ll only take a minute. You can call from my desk.” He grinned at her, an obvious attempt at levity. “Helen’s had long enough to pull herself back from the precipice, wouldn’t you say?”

“Jeremiah-”

“It’ll take two minutes tops. You’ll see.”

They took the stairs back down to the newsroom, no sign of Helen Samuel at his desk. Jeremiah pulled out his chair and made Mollie sit. Then he flipped through a dog-eared Rolodex, dialed a number, got through to some guy named Frank, and handed the phone to her. She told him what had happened, the time, the altered voice, its exact words. Jeremiah made no pretense of not listening in. He sat on the corner of his desk, taking in every word. “I don’t know that this is connected to the robbery on Friday,” she said. “It could just be a nut who saw my name in the paper.”

“Could be,” Frank said. “I’ll write this up. Give me your number in case I have any questions.”

Mollie gave it to him. As she reached over to hang up the phone, her shoulder brushed Jeremiah’s arm, immediately sending warm shivers through her. To be this close to him when she was this vulnerable wasn’t too smart.

“There,” he said. “Duty done. Feel better?”

“Marginally.”

He slid off the desk. “It’s a start.”

She remained seated, blood rushing to her head as another impulsive plan took vague shape. “I have a dinner tonight in Boca Raton. Friends of Leonardo’s invited me. It’s at a private home on the water, probably about thirty guests.”

“Our thief hasn’t hit anything that small. Smallest was seventy-five.”

“I know, but if I’m…” She inhaled, hating the word. “If I’m involved in any way, perhaps we should look at my pattern of activity, too, and not just the thief’s.”

Jeremiah went still. “We?”

She got to her feet, took a breath, and felt more certain about her still-in-progress plan. “I leave Leonardo’s at six-thirty. I intend to keep my eyes open. If anything strikes me as suspicious, I will do what I have to do.”

“Nancy Drew strikes.” But there was no humor in his voice.

“Don’t patronize me, Jeremiah. I’m your ‘common denominator.’ I was attacked. I received that nasty phone call.”

“Precisely why you should skip the dinner tonight and stay home and watch TV. Throw darts. Drag out your flute and play some tunes.”

She raised her chin to him, aware of his penetrating gaze, unintimidated by his relentless intensity-or the sense he was making. “That would be giving in.”

“That would be making an intelligent decision.”

“Maybe, but you do what you have to do, and I’ll do the same. Thank you for your time,” she said, and started briskly across the newsroom.

“When you said we,” he called quietly to her, “did that mean I’m invited tonight?”

She ignored him and kept on marching, and if he was frustrated and even a little irritated with her, so be it. She had come to him in the misguided hope he could be a friend, and he’d gone dictatorial and protective on her. Call the police. Stay home and throw darts.

Damn it, she thought, she half-hoped the thief would show up tonight and she could catch him herself.

“Nancy Drew,” she muttered, and exited the newsroom, aware of every eye in the place on her.

But when she got to her car, Jeremiah was already there, slouched up against its gleaming hood as if he owned it. Mollie sputtered. “How did you get here ahead of me? How did you know where I was parked-”

“I know all the shortcuts, and you’ll notice there are no other back Jaguars in the visitors’ lot.” He eased off the hood. “You’re on my turf now, sweet pea.”

“So?”

“So I want to know why you drove all the way down here to tell me about this nasty little phone call. I want to know,” he said, moving closer, “why you told me about your dinner tonight and said we should look at your pattern of activity and not just the thief’s.”

“The we was just a slip of the tongue. As for the call-” She met his gaze, ignored the flutter in the pit of her stomach, the deep, unfathomable, undeniable yearning she had to connect with this man. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t already know about it.”

He had no visible reaction. “Why would I know about it?”

“Or the guy who tipped you off about me. Maybe he knows about it.”

“You mean maybe he’s the one who made the call,” Jeremiah said, his tone steady, neutral. “And I knew about it.”

“It’s possible, isn’t it? And if you have to keep an open mind, so do I.”

“It’s not possible I knew about it. If I had, I’d be throttling him right now. Is it possible he made the call? Theoretically, I suppose so, but my gut says no.” He considered a moment. The line of his jaw seemed harder, the muscles in his arms and shoulders leaner, tougher. Ten years of digging into crime and corruption seemed to have affected him physically, not just mentally. “But it’s good you’re keeping an open mind. Now. I’ll be at your place no later than six-twenty-five.”