He began pacing a small circle around me. I turned with him, not willing to give him my back. "S-i-n-s-a-r," he spelled.

"Sinsar?" I said it phonetically.

He shook his head. "Shi-sa. Shi-sa-du."

"Oh, that makes great sense. And the 'du'?" He stopped circling, so I stopped too, his back to the wall, mine to the open door. In time, when I began to see patterns, I would see that he always positioned himself in such a fashion, never with his back to an open window or door. It wasn't about fear. It was about control.

"D-u-b-h."

"Dubh is do?" I was incredulous. It was no wonder I hadn't been able to find the stupid word. "Should I be calling pubs poos?"

"Dubh is Gaelic, Ms. Lane. Pub is not."

"Don't bust a gut laughing." I'd thought I was being funny. Stuffy, like I said.

"Nothing about the Sinsar Dubh is a laughing matter."

"I stand corrected. So what is this gravest of graves?"

His gaze dropped from my face to my toes and back again. Apparently he was unimpressed by what he saw. "Go home, Ms. Lane. Be young. Be pretty. Get married. Have babies. Grow old with your pretty husband."

His comment stung like acid on my skin. Because I was blonde, easy on the eyes, and guys had been snapping my bra strap since seventh grade, I'd been putting up with the Barbie stereotype for years. That pink was my favorite color, that I liked matching accessories and eye-catching heels, didn't help much. But I'd never been turned on by the Ken doll—even before I looked down his pants and saw what was missing—I wasn't jonesing for a white picket fence and an SUV in the driveway, and I resented the Barbie implications—Go procreate and die, I'm sure that's all someone like you can do. I might not be the brightest bulb in the box, but I wasn't the dimmest, either. "Oh, screw you, Jericho Barrons. Tell me what it is. You said you would."

"If you insist. Don't be a fool. Don't insist."

"I'm insisting. What is it?"

"Last chance."

"Too bad. I don't want a last chance. Tell me."

His dark gaze bored into mine. Then he shrugged, his fine suit sliding over his body with suppleness and ease only exorbitant custom-made clothing could achieve. "The Sinsar Dubh is a book."

"A book? That's all? Just a book?" It seemed terribly anti-climactic.

"On the contrary, Ms. Lane, never make that mistake. Never think it just a book. It is an exceedingly rare and exceedingly ancient manuscript countless people would kill to possess."

"Including you? Would you kill to possess it?" I needed to know exactly where we stood, he and I.

"Absolutely." He watched my face as I took that in. "Reconsidering your stay, Ms. Lane?"

"Absolutely not."

"You'll be going home in a box, then."

"Is that another of your threats?"

"It is not I who will put you there."

"Who will?"

"I answered your question, now it's your turn to answer mine. What do you know of the Sinsar Dubh, Ms. Lane?"

Not nearly enough, obviously. What on earth had my sister gotten into? Some kind of shadowy Dublin underworld filled with stolen artifacts, peopled by murderers and ruthless thieves?

"Tell me," he pressed. "And don't lie. I'll know."

I glanced at him sharply, almost able to believe he would. Oh, not in some extrasensory way—I don't believe in that kind of stuff—but in the way of a man who scrutinizes people, gathers their tiniest gestures and expressions, and measures them. "My sister was studying here." He'd given me the bare minimum. I would give him nothing more. "She was killed a month ago. She left me a voice-mail message right before she died, telling me I had to find the Sinsar Dubh."

"Why?"

"She didn't say. She just said everything depended on it."

He made an impatient sound. "Where is this message? I must hear it myself."

"I accidentally deleted it," I lied.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. "Liar. You would make no such mistake with a sister you care enough about to die for. Where is it?" When I said nothing, he said softly, "If you are not with me, Ms. Lane, you are against me. I have no mercy for my enemies."

I shrugged. He wanted the same thing I wanted and he was willing to kill for it. That made us enemies in my book any way I looked at it. I glanced over my shoulder at the hallway beyond the open door and pondered my next move. His threat did not decide me. I wanted to see his face when I played the message for him. If he'd had any involvement with my sister or her death, I hoped he would betray something when he heard her voice and her words. I also wanted him to know that I knew as much as I did, and to believe the police did, as well.

"I already gave a copy of this recording to the Dublin Gardai," I told him, as I fished my cell phone out of my purse and thumbed up my saved messages. "They're working to track down the man she was involved with." See Mac bluff. Better than See Mac run. Way better than See Mac get her stupid self killed. He didn't challenge my words—so much for his boast that he would know if I lied. I pressed speakerphone, then play, and Alina's voice filled the small room.

I flinched. No matter how many times I listened to it, it made me cringe—my sister sounding so frightened, hours before her death. Fifty years from now, I would still hear her message, ringing in my heart's ear, word for word.

Everything has gone so wrong… I thought I was in love… he's one of them… we've got to find the Sinsar Dubh, everything depends on it… we can't let them have it… he's been lying to me all along.

I watched him intently as he listened. Composed, aloof, his expression told me nothing. "Did you know my sister?"

He shook his head.

"You were both after this 'exceedingly rare book' yet never ran into each other?" I accused.

"Dublin is a city of a million-odd people inundated daily by countless commuters and besieged by a never-ending wave of tourists, Ms. Lane. The oddity would be if we had encountered each other. What did she mean by 'you don't even know what you are'?" His dark gaze fixed on my face as if to gauge the veracity of my answer in my eyes.

"I wondered that myself. I have no idea."

"None?"

"None."

"Hmm. This was all she left you? A message?"

I nodded.

"Nothing more? No note or package or anything of the sort?"

I shook my head.

"And you had no idea what she meant by the Sinsar Dubh? Your sister didn't confide in you?"

"I used to think she did. Apparently I was wrong." I couldn't mask the note of bitterness in my voice.

"Who did she mean by 'them'?"

"I thought you might be able to tell me that," I said pointedly.

"I am not one of these 'them, if that is what you're inferring," he said. "Many seek the Sinsar Dubh, both individuals and factions. I want it as well, but I work alone."

"Why do you want it?"

He shrugged. "It is priceless. I am a book collector."

"And that makes you willing to kill for it? What do you plan to do with it? Sell it to the highest bidder?"

"If you don't approve of my methods, stay out of my way."

"Fine."

"Fine. What else have you to tell me, Ms. Lane?"

"Not a thing." I retrieved my cell phone, resaved the message, and jerked a frosty glance from him to the door, encouraging him to leave.

He laughed, a rich dark sound. "I do believe I'm being dismissed. I can't recall the last time I was dismissed."

I didn't see it coming. He was nearly past me, nearly to the door, when he grabbed me and slammed me back against his body. It was like hitting a brick wall. The back of my head bounced off his chest, and my teeth clacked together from the impact.

I opened my mouth to scream, but he clamped a hand over it. He banded an arm beneath my breasts so tightly that I couldn't inflate my lungs to breathe. His body was far more powerful beneath that fine suit than I ever would have guessed, like reinforced steel. In that instant, I understood that the open door had been nothing more than a mocking concession, a placebo he'd fed me that I'd swallowed whole. Anytime he'd wanted, he could have snapped my neck and I wouldn't have gotten off a single scream. Or he could simply have suffocated me, as he was doing now. His strength was astonishing, immense. And he was only using a small fraction of it. I could feel the restraint in his body; he was being very, very careful with me.