Then he released her abruptly, turned, and walked away.

He made it into the elevator and rode it down to the next level of the garage where he’d parked. But as soon as he alighted, he placed his back to the concrete block wall and knocked his head against it hard enough to hurt.

What the hell was he doing?

When he’d seen Talia backing her car out of her driveway, he’d given no conscious thought to following her. He’d just reacted. Fortunately, he’d planned on going out later, so the items he had begun taking with him whenever he left were already zipped into the duffel bag. He’d had the presence of mind to grab it before he’d bolted from the apartment, nearly breaking his neck getting down that blasted staircase, certainly breaking speed limits to catch up to her and then to keep her car in sight.

He hadn’t planned on her knowing that he was tracking her. Between her getting into the elevator to go up and when she came back down, forty-seven minutes had elapsed. Forty-seven minutes during which he’d examined his motives for acting so rashly.

After a heated debate with himself, he concluded that he wasn’t simply a man obsessed with a woman but that this additional surveillance was justified. She was as much a suspect now as Jasper. He needed to know where she went, whom she saw, and why.

Right?

Right.

So he’d continued to amble back and forth across the lobby, keeping a close watch on everyone the elevators disgorged, and trying not to attract the attention of the rent-a-cops posted at all the building’s entrances.

When Talia reappeared, he’d ignored the bump his heart gave. From across the lobby, he’d monitored her activity in the coffee shop. After several minutes passed, he decided that no one was joining her. She hadn’t consulted her cell phone. She hadn’t glanced around periodically in anticipation of someone’s arrival. Rather she sat alone, looking forlorn and in need of a friend.

He was good at that, too, he’d reminded himself. Role-playing. Wasn’t that one of his best honed skills?

So into the coffee shop he’d gone.

But at that point, he’d known he was kidding himself. Her apparent anguish had taken precedence over her being a suspect in at least one capital crime. The more he saw of her, the looser his grip on objectivity became, until, as of now, it was virtually nonexistent. He’d gone so far as to admit his crazed obsession to her.

Aw, well. It was too late to rethink it. Too late for a do-over. He couldn’t take back any of it. He didn’t want to take back the kiss.

He pushed himself away from the wall and started down the ramp toward his parking spot. As his car came into sight, he drew up short. “Shit!”

Standing in the deep shadows, the do-gooder from the coffee shop was leaning against the hood of his car, obviously lying in wait.

Anger propelling him, Drex didn’t break stride but walked straight up to him and demanded, “What the fuck, Gif?”

Chapter 14

Drex sat slumped in the driver’s seat of his car. For as long as he could, he withstood the weight of Gif’s stare from the passenger side, then turned to him. “What?”

Gif the unflappable said, “You have to ask?”

“Why were you tailing me?”

“Why were you tailing her?”

“Surveillance.”

“Surveillance?”

“Surely you’re familiar with the word. Derived from the French—”

“Drex—”

“—verb—”

“Drex,” Gif repeated, putting some oomph behind it.

He lapsed into angry silence and stewed, then snidely asked, “Did you and Mike toss a coin to see who would be the monitor, and you won? Or did you lose?”

“He and I discussed who should come and decided that—”

“You’re a sneakier spy.”

“Indubitably.”

Drex scoffed. “Hate to break it to you, buddy, but you’re slipping. The first rule of working undercover is to stay the hell undercover. Don’t let the tailee know that he’s being tailed. In the coffee shop, what the hell were you thinking?”

“That I should intervene.”

“Why?”

“Because of the lady’s apparent distress.”

“I didn’t cause her distress.”

Gif conveyed his doubt by raising his eyebrows.

“I didn’t,” Drex said.

“Okay, but your manhandling wasn’t helping.”

“I didn’t manhandle her.”

Again the eyebrows went up.

Drex ignored them. “From now on, stay invisible, or you may forget how to.”

Gif gave him a rare, and somewhat smug, smile. “I had the veal Milanese and a glass of Brunello.”

Drex stared at him as though struck dumb, then shook his head with incredulity. “I never saw you.”

“You weren’t supposed to.”

“How did you even know where we were having dinner?”

“I got here yesterday afternoon, parked down the block from your apartment, and waited until you came out, so spit-and-polished you could’ve been a groom. I followed.” He shrugged as though it had been too easy. “The dinner seemed to go okay.”

“If you don’t count the smoke coming from Talia’s ears.” He explained about the manuscript. “That ticked her off. She didn’t like me schmoozing Elaine, either. She sees me as an opportunist who’ll prey on Elaine’s affections and her bankroll.”

“Now there’s an irony.”

“Tell me,” he said. “Anyway, as I’m sure you saw, I followed Talia home, but didn’t talk to her after parting company at Elaine’s. Jasper was on the porch. We exchanged good nights.”

“Why wasn’t he at the dinner?”

Drex explained but stopped short of sharing his certainty that the untimely illness had been a fabrication devised to give Jasper an ideal opportunity to search the garage apartment. Informing his partners of that would only contribute to their distress. They were already discontented over something, or Gif wouldn’t be here.

If they had issues with either him or the situation, they should have aired them, talked them over with him, rather than to go about checking up on him so underhandedly. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“Why, Gif?”

“Why what?”

Drex gave him a droll look. “Something has your noses out of joint, or you wouldn’t be here.”

Gif grimaced as though troubled by intestinal gas. “That dinner date you arranged worried us.”

“How come?”

“You were reluctant to talk about it.”

True. He hadn’t elaborated on the plans for the date because he didn’t want his cohorts questioning his reasons for setting it up. Which indeed had been questionable. But Gif could sense an evasion and sniff out a lie from a mile away, so his straightforward answer came as no surprise to Drex.

He felt a mix of admiration and agitation. “It pisses me off that you two appointed yourselves my babysitters. Did you come to see if I was behaving myself? What are you going to do? Put me in timeout? Am I grounded?”

“Don’t get riled.”

“I’m already riled.”