Even though she’d thanked him—twice—Davis could tell Biker Babe wished she could have been the one to be there to do the saving, not him. Her hair wasn’t as stark red as her mom’s. Her dad must have diluted the mix, but she was pale-skinned like her mom, with nary a freckle in sight. He smiled. “You’re welcome. So she said I saved her?”

“Not exactly, but close enough. She said you never dropped your cup of coffee, said you calmly put it down, and when it was over you picked it up and took a sip. She admired that. She said you smelled like cordite and lime, like the aftershave my father used to use. I can still see him, patting his face with it while he hummed show tunes.” She stopped, shook her head, reset. “From what she said, I think the guy’s brain was on overload and he’d probably have crashed and burned without your help.”

Yeah, that’s what he’d thought, too, but he couldn’t help himself. He said, “Nah, the guy was still in the manic stage, unpredictable, on the edge, but you’re right, Ms. Black. You look like your mother.”

She gave him a lazy smile. “Thank you.”

“If I hadn’t been there, Ms. Black, I think your mom would have cleaned Jitterbug’s clock herself, made him very sorry he was in that particular shopping mall and had a hankering to joyride in a shiny black Beemer.”

“Jitterbug—good name. I went by Washington Memorial to check on him, found out the moron’s real name is Paul Jones. I hope he’s not a descendant of a very fine American hero John Paul Jones.”

“If so, it’s time the gene line closed its doors. You want to come in? Give the beast here a rest? You can pull him in behind my Jeep.”

She looked at his town house, then at him, up and down, and revved the engine. “Mom said you had a real smart mouth.”

“Me? Never. And my place is clean since my housekeeper was here today, so even the john sparkles. No food, though, since Monroe doesn’t cook.”

“Monroe?”

“He’s a retired firefighter and my housekeeper, what you’d call real anal. I once saw him using an ancient toothbrush he’d pulled off his tool belt to get after some dirty grout in the shower.”

She grinned. “Don’t you just hate that dirty grout?”

“Never really noticed it until Monroe pointed it out.”

She studied him a moment longer, then pulled her helmet back on, fastened the strap, and pulled on her gloves. “I’d like to, but I can’t. Can I have a rain check?”

“Any day but Sunday, that’s my busting-around-with-family day.”

She nodded. “Thanks again, Agent Sullivan, for helping my mom. I gotta go.” She roared away from the curb and down Euclid Avenue like she owned it.

“Who was that hot cracker?”

Davis turned to see Mr. Mulroney standing right behind him, a bag of groceries from the Mini-Mart cradled in his bony arms, a bag of Fritos Scoops! sticking out the top. And was that a can of bean dip? His mouth watered.

“Do you know, I never found out her name.”

“What’s wrong with you, boy? I never thought you’d be that turtle-slow.”

“I guess all that black body armor on that sweet hog sizzled my brain.”

Mr. Mulroney, eighty-four and a half, said as he turned away, “At least she wears a helmet, and that’s gotta mean her brain’s not a bowl of cold oatmeal.”

When had that saying been popular? He watched Mr. Mulroney navigate himself and his groceries safely into the town house two doors down from his, then he glanced once more down Euclid, but she was long gone. He liked her smart mouth and her sense of humor. He pulled off his leather jacket, slung it over his shoulder, and whistled as he walked into his spanking-clean entrance hall. He looked around, breathing in the scent of Pine Sol, Monroe’s favorite cleaner. He walked into his shiny kitchen, pulled a bottle of water from the spotless refrigerator and drank deep. He said to the bottle, as he wiped his mouth, “Curiouser and curiouser.”

England

Two weeks ago

Natalie was driving a steady fifty miles per hour in a light rain on the M2, heading south from London toward Canterbury, handling her sporty dark green Jaguar with a good deal of skill since she’d taken defensive driving lessons, thanks to Brundage’s endless nagging. She loved the Jag, even driving on the wrong side of the road, and called her Nancy.

The rain picked up, nothing new in that, and the traffic remained on the heavy side, nothing new in that, either, but smooth and steady on the major thoroughfares. After living in London for more than a year, an umbrella—brolly—was as much a staple of her wardrobe as her shoes or her purse. She’d had nearly an hour and a half to think about what she was going to say to George’s mother. Vivian had liked her, at least before George’s death, had told her in her rasping smoker’s voice that she was a modern young woman with spunk and spit. Since Vivian was older than dirt, she naturally saw even a menopausal woman as young.