Alpha Bravo Seal

He preferred women who could chase down guys on bikes to those who excelled at the domestic arts. Pointing to the door off the living room that led to her small office, he asked, “How about I look up Andre and Trudy while you wash and dress that scrape?”

“I’m going to take a shower and change. Is that okay?” Tucking the folder containing Lund’s photographs beneath her arm, she crossed the room to the office. “I’ll get you logged in. A sculptor and an actress—I told you Lars hung with an artsy crowd.”

“So your mom doesn’t trust you to walk the dog?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Back to that?”

“I just can’t imagine someone not trusting you to follow through. You seem incredibly capable.”

“Capable in the wrong way.” She bumped the office door open with her hip. “According to Mom.”

“Traveling to exotic and dangerous countries to expose important stories to the light of day isn’t the right way?”

She powered up her computer and entered a password. “Ah, my mother would rather have me here heading up a multitude of charitable organizations she founded with my father’s money. It’s not an unworthy endeavor—just not me.”

He pulled up a chair in front of the monitor coming to life. They had more in common than he would’ve thought. “I get that.”

“Not many people do.” She stepped back, tipping her head at the computer. “It’s all yours. I’m beginning to think even if we find their phone numbers, we’d be better off coming at these people with the element of surprise.”

“I think you’re right.” He tapped her arm above the dried blood of the cut. “You take care of that, and I’ll find our friends.”

“I won’t be long.” She swept out of the office with a flick of her fingers.

He murmured, “Capable,” at her back and then turned his attention to the computer. It didn’t take him long to find Andre Vincent. The sculptor’s work was being featured in a series of modern art exhibits around the city, with each artist rotating among the galleries.

Slade peeled a sticky note from a pad of them and jotted down the name and address of the gallery where Andre would be visiting tonight.

Trudy Waxman was almost as easy to locate. He looked up the Gym at Judson, which had a play listed on the calendar of events for tonight. When he clicked on the cast of characters, her name popped up.

Again, he reached for a sticky note and wrote down the name and address of the theater and the play times.

A gallery and a play—he hadn’t crammed this much culture into one evening since he’d been back in San Francisco and his parents had dragged him to the opera and a fund-raiser with ballet dancers after. His eye twitched at the recollection.

“Any luck?” Nicole poked her head into the office.

She’d freed her hair from its ponytail, and the strands slid over one shoulder like a smooth ribbon of caramel.

“All kinds of luck.” He gestured her into the room. “Found both of them.”

She sauntered into the office and leaned over his shoulder to peer at the monitor, engulfing him in a fresh scent that reminded him of newly mowed lawns.

She snorted softly. “Glinda Fox Gets High? That’s the name of the play?”

“That’s it, and Trudy doesn’t even play Glinda.”

“I said Lars’s friends were artists. I didn’t say they were particularly good ones.”

“Andre’s stuff doesn’t look half-bad, if you like lumps of stone with faces poking out of it.”

“Ugh. Sounds hideous. Where do we find these lumpen treasures?”

He stuck one of the notes to his fingertip and waved it at her. “It just so happens that some of his work is going to be on exhibit at Satchel’s Gallery in Chelsea, and the artist is going to be in attendance. It’s part of some revolving show for artists.”

“If we go there, are we going to have time to catch Glinda getting high?”

“According to my schedule—” he attached the second note to another finger and held them both up “—we can stop in at the gallery at seven o’clock and still have time to see the play at eight, depending on what we find out from Andre.”

“Maybe after talking to Andre, we won’t need to sit through the play.” Nicole wrinkled her nose. “We don’t really have to sit through the play, do we? We can just meet her after.”

“Do you have anything better to do?” His gaze swept from her bare feet with painted toes to her glossy hair, noting along the way her jeans encasing her long legs, topped off with a plain black T-shirt. She looked stylish without even trying.

“Nope, but I’d like to eat some dinner before we check out that art show.”

“I need to change, anyway.” He tugged on the hem of his sweatshirt. “How about we head back to my hotel in Times Square, grab a bite somewhere near there and then go to Andre’s show?”

“Works for me.”

He walked the chair back from the desk. “Do you want to shut down your computer?”

“That’s okay. It’ll go to sleep and log me out in about ten minutes. Let me put on my shoes, and I’ll be ready.”

He followed her from the office and flicked off the light on their way out. She’d already brought a pair of shoes and a jacket downstairs and she slid her feet into a pair of animal-print high heels that put her almost at his height, with no self-consciousness at all.

Nicole reminded him a lot of the young, wealthy women who populated his parents’ circles in California—confident, self-assured and accustomed to their privilege—the type of woman he usually steered clear of.

But none of the rich girls he knew would step one foot in Somalia, or any other part of Africa, or Central America, or any of the other places Nicole had been to tell a story.

She slipped into the slim black blazer that skimmed the top of her hips and ducked beneath the strap of a small black purse that hung across her body.

“All set.”

Leo was off duty, so the doorman with the second shift called a taxi for them, and Slade gave him the name of his hotel. When they got out of the taxi and made their way through the revolving door, Nicole turned to him.

“I’ll just wait for you down here at the bar. Take your time.”

“I won’t be long.” He strode toward the bank of elevators with disappointment stabbing his gut. Had he seemed too anxious to get her alone in his hotel room? He punched the button to call the car.

She had the right idea. They’d just met this morning—hardly enough time to be showering and changing in each other’s presence. At her mother’s place, a massive staircase and several rooms had been between them when Nicole had changed. He hadn’t even heard the shower. Yeah, way too intimate too quickly.

Even though he had saved her life.

He raced through the shower and mimicked her outfit with dark jeans, a black T-shirt and black motorcycle boots. He grabbed a black leather jacket on his way out of the room.

When he spotted her in the lobby bar, she was chatting with the bartender over a glass of red wine. She had one of those personalities that got people talking—necessary in her line of work, completely unnecessary in his.

He started forward, navigating through the small tables, already beginning to fill up for happy hour. He perched on the stool next to hers and tapped her wineglass. “Do you want to finish that before we find dinner?”

“I could if you’ll join me.” She drew her brows over her nose in a V. “That is if you can join me. Are you on duty or something?”