LITMIR.BIZ

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is very rapid…”

      Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

      “Hello? Yes?” My voice sounded scared even to my own ears. The sound of the rattling doorknob, small, furtive, had wakened me from deep sleep and I leapt out of bed. I trembled, at once confused, alone, and vulnerable.

      No answer. And I couldn’t see anyone through the peephole. I checked the lock yet again, to be sure. And I looked to see if another note had appeared. It hadn’t.

      I plopped back on the bed, wide-awake and furious. I needed sleep after the trip. Who had dared to wake me up like that?

      I took a deep breath. Get a grip, Elizabeth. No doubt some confused tourist was looking for his own room.

      I dug through meds and took an Ambien to bring on the reluctant god of Morpheus—something I should have taken earlier to forestall jet lag. This way, I wouldn’t even know if someone tried the door.

      But the medicine didn’t work the way intended. In a fitful dream I wandered lost through a snowy forest, shadowed by figures behind trees. Men? No. Wolves.

      Heart pounding, I gave up, turned on the light, and pulled Pride and Prejudice to me. That’s what it was there for, to provide balance.

      The immortal, familiar first words were as calming as usual: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. The reader knows at that moment that she is in good hands. Safe hands. We all want truth universally acknowledged.

      And in the midst of life’s other trials, how comforting to be worrying that much about marriage.

      I’d rather have slept, but in lieu of that, my old friend Jane held me as she’s done in the past—transported to a different time and place, where finding husbands became the absorbing tale of a village—almost a matter of life and death.

      Marriage is a little scary in its own right, but marriage made a better topic tonight than Peter. Murdered Peter.

      And much better not to think of the slinking gray things in my nightmare. I do love wolves, but not in my dreams.

      CHAPTER 11

      At table keep a short hand; in company keep a short tongue.

      Turkish proverb

      Rays of early sunlight streamed across my newspaper in the dining room of the Pera. I sipped black, sweet Turkish coffee down to the grounds and then chewed the last bits, washing it all down with the bottled water on the table.

      The jet-lag medicine had finally helped me get to sleep, but the night had been fitful. Was someone was after me? First on the ferry, then the note, and finally the movement of the door handle? How different things would have been if Peter were here with me.

      And I don’t mean in a romantic sense. Peter had that dangerous edge to him that attracts women, but he wasn’t great in the intimacy area. We’d almost tried that once. Almost. And the reason it didn’t work wasn’t all Peter’s fault. I’m a fine one to talk about intimacy.

      About half the headlines in Cümhüriyet were intelligible to me this morning. I sighed. My Turkish had been so good when I lived here…first on the Moda coast along the Asian side, where ferries made watery tracks across to the Princes’ Islands…on a good day, you could see across the Sea of Marmara all the way to the mountains of Bursa. Later in Bebek on the European side, where the glory of the Bosphorus lay at my feet, including ferries, tankers from Russia, Rumania, and Bulgaria, swift little American and Turkish spy boats checking on them, luxurious wooden yalıs along the coast.

      Those had been days of free-lance correspondent work, commitment a foreign concept. Well, face it, commitment might never be a strong point with me. I could have enjoyed commitment a few years ago, when going to a restaurant alone felt strange and when I made an odd wheel at parties… At this stage of my life, when some of my friends were starting to worry over grandchildren, I found it exciting and stimulating to have no specific ties, no immutable partner. I rather liked my own company.

      Still, it would be nice to have someone special again. I had plenty of girlfriends. It wasn’t quite the same.

      One of the Cümhüriyet headlines announced that police had arrested a terorist in Istanbul. A fuzzy picture showed a man being led away by uniforms. With my rusty Turkish, I couldn’t understand the gist of his alleged crimes.

      The unexplained term terorist probably meant the man was with the PKK, Kurdish separatists from the southeast. Because of the ongoing conflict between Turkish authorities and the PKK, for years the Kurdish group had used explosives to disrupt Turkish life. New linkages with Islamic extremists in recent years, however—and old linkages with communists or nationalists—made it hard to say just what the roots of terror were at any given point. Everybody seemed to have a cause they felt was worth blowing others up for.

      Maybe because my Turkish was bad, maybe because apprehension lay under the surface, my attention wandered to last night’s note. What did “be careful” mean? Too vague to be useful. Was someone trying to scare me? Why not just explain the problem?

      Yet this morning my spirits were high. Hard to concentrate on fear with the distraction of chewy light-brown Turkish bread accompanied by wild cherry jam. Fresh piquant goat cheese with briny dry olives seduced me from another plate. I chased my coffee down with water and a tangy sour cherry juice.

      A man sat at a table near me. He wore a tan suit and was handsome in a French sort of way—and he stared at me. Did I button my blouse wrong? Did I have a coffee grounds mustache?

      I passed a napkin across my lips and ordered more coffee. Ignoring the strange man’s stares, I retrieved the glasses I’d set aside and began looking through the file in my briefcase.

      The polite waiter in his black and white penguin outfit brought the coffee. As I reached to help set it on the table, my files cascaded from my briefcase onto the floor. Mustering what dignity I could, I scrabbled around for the papers. The note with Andover’s name, number, and the party meeting time had somehow gotten in with my file stuff and lay on top.

      As I tried to stand up with what I’d retrieved from the mess, I realized I was not alone under the table. Brown shoes attached to tan-covered legs blocked my way. There were even arms and hands reaching under the tablecloth.

      “Excuse me,” I blurted out, furious at my situation and outraged that anyone would have the unmitigated nerve to offer, nay, insist on, helping.

      Especially at breakfast, when one should always be alone.

      “I am so sorry. Please let me show that chivalry is not dead.” “Chivalry” had the accent on the second syllable. It was, of course, that man from the next table.

      Tan-suit’s charm was beginning to get to me, like a little rash that starts to itch. “I don’t rely much on chivalry,” I replied frostily, trying to push the hair out of my eyes and hold the strewn papers at the same time.

      With the slipperiness of paper that has been refined, one little group detached itself from the main clump in my arms and slid to the floor. Where is nice, rough recycled paper when you need it?

      The man picked up that bunch and handed it to me , looking kind but apprehensive. Did he fear my re-losing control of the situation? Or regaining control? I had to admit he was low-key about the whole thing. And I hadn’t been nice to him.

      In a flash, the humor of the situation hit me. I laughed, and Tan Suit grinned back in apparent relief. Grabbing the last of the papers and stuffing them unceremoniously into my briefcase, I sat down fast, leaving the guy standing beside the table.

      “Thank you for your help,” I said. Maybe that would get rid of him gracefully and let me organize myself.

      But once you laugh with someone, you have a relationship, no matter how tenuous. I stifled a sigh. “Do please sit down.”

      Mr. Tan Suit reached into his wallet for a business card and handed it to me. The card said, “Jean Le Reau,”

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