LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Stungun?”

      Bryan rolled his eyes. “We all have code names. We don’t know each other’s real names. Not even my superior knows who I am.”

      “What are the other agents’ code names?”

      “My team consists of me, Stungun, Tarantula and Orchid. Siberia is our control—our boss.”

      “It’s okay for you to tell me that?”

      He smiled briefly. “We change the code names all the time. I’m Casanova right now, but I’ve been Jackknife, Hustler and Hopper.”

      “Hopper?”

      He shrugged. “’Cause I’m quick like a rabbit, I guess. I didn’t come up with it.” He sat wearily in a leather office chair. “Have you found anything?”

      “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve found out. John Pelton, one of our loan officers, has been downloading porn. Really raunchy stuff. I never would have guessed. Then there’s Cassie Hall and Peter Glass. They’ve apparently been carrying on a torrid affair—and they’re both married to other people! I feel like a pervert, reading their e-mails.”

      “Anything pertinent to the case?”

      “I’ve been comparing log-ins to the times various illegal transactions were made. It’s painstakingly slow, but I think I might be able to figure out who the culprit is by process of elimination.”

      “Any front runners?”

      “I’ve been able to eliminate a couple of people. But there are still dozens of candidates. Most people stay logged in all day when they’re at work. Still, it’s a start.”

      “Good. Keep at it. There are cold cuts and fruit in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

      She glanced at her watch and was surprised to see it was almost two. She’d been so engrossed in solving the puzzle, she’d been oblivious to the passage of time.

      “I’m afraid I have more bad news,” he said, his tone positively funereal.

      “What? It’s not my family, is it? They haven’t reported me missing or anything, I hope.” She wasn’t in close contact with her parents—she talked to them every couple of weeks. They wouldn’t be worried about her yet.

      When he didn’t answer at once, she felt panic creeping over her. “Bryan? What is it?”

      “It’s my grandparents. They’re holding a dinner tonight at their house on Long Island. It’s a command performance. We have to be there.”

      “Oh.” Word had apparently gotten out about Bryan’s new girlfriend, and she was being summoned for inspection.

      “The good news is,” he continued, “my cousins and aunts and uncles will be there, and they’re all at each other’s throats these days, so there’ll be lots of drama to keep everyone distracted. The focus won’t be solely on you—though you’ll receive your share. Are you up to it?”

      “Sure. As long as no one asks me how I got from Kansas to New York with no clothes.”

      Bryan waited nervously in the living room while Lucy got ready for dinner at The Tides, the home where he’d spent a lot of his growing-up years. She’d been very nervous about what to wear when he’d told her the Elliotts dressed for dinner.

      His grandparents could be a bit pretentious, no two ways about it. And controlling? They gave new meaning to the word. The competition Patrick Elliott had set up among his children and grandchildren was a perfect example. He liked to make them jump through hoops.

      Still, they were good people, and they wanted what they thought was best for their loved ones.

      When Bryan heard Lucy’s bedroom door open and shut, his gaze went immediately to the corner around which he knew she would soon appear, and he caught himself holding his breath. Having seen some of the clothing Scarlet had picked out for his “girlfriend,” he couldn’t wait to see how Lucy had tricked herself out tonight.

      He wasn’t disappointed. When she came around the corner, she wore a clingy halter dress in a muted, burnt-orange color. It came almost to her knees, the hem ending in a flirty little ruffle, but that didn’t make it conservative. It showed every delicious curve of her body. She’d draped a silk fringed shawl over her bare shoulders, the color ranging from pale peach to a dark orange. A bold silver necklace called attention to her long neck and the enticing curve of her breasts.

      “Too slutty?” she asked. “I don’t want your family to think I’m easy, although if I’ve moved in with you after knowing you only a couple of weeks, I guess I must be.”

      “You look terrific, not slutty at all.” He wanted to touch her. He wanted to untie the little bow at the back of her neck and peel that dress right down to her waist. He wanted to kiss the shiny gloss off her lips and tease her breasts until her nipples were hard against his palms—

      “Bryan?”

      “What?”

      “Shouldn’t we go? I don’t want to be late.”

      Bryan forced himself to think about the time he’d crash-landed a plane in a Greenland blizzard and had survived for two days on four granola bars. Cold, very, very cold. He’d gotten frostbite and had almost lost his little toe.

      Better. “Yes, let’s go.” He offered her his arm in a courtly gesture, and she took it, smiling uncertainly. “You look like a goddess, you know.”

      “Oh, stop.”

      “You do. And it’s not just the designer clothes and trendy hair. Since your makeover, you carry yourself differently.”

      “It’s my inner Lindsay,” she quipped, though he could tell she was pleased with the compliment.

      On the drive out to Long Island, Lucy worked at memorizing their story. They’d met at a Paris café where Bryan was swapping recipes with a chef. She’d gone there thinking she would write a novel but had found out she couldn’t write. Now she was trying to find herself. She’d inherited a bit of money and so was in no hurry to get a job.

      They invented fake names for her parents and a fake Kansas town as her home.

      “You can say you worked at a bank, since you know that world, but make it somewhere besides D.C.”

      “What about my education? I have a finance degree.”

      “Keep it, but say you went to … I don’t know. Loyola. None of my family has ever been near Chicago.”

      “I’ll just try to steer conversation away from me. I’ll ask questions about you instead. That worked pretty well with Scarlet.”

      “Oh, really? And what did Scarlet say about me?”

      Lucy put on her most innocent face. “She said when you were a kid you liked to pull the wings off flies and burn things.”

      “What?” The look on his face was priceless.

      “I’m kidding. She said you were the only one who didn’t go into the magazine business. Why is that?”

      “I’d planned to. I actually studied finance, with some vague idea of working in the EPH home office. But the government recruited me before I graduated. I knew I couldn’t tell my family I was training to be a spy—they’d have gone through the roof. So I bought a restaurant instead.”

      “Why a restaurant?”

      “I met Stash when I was still in school. It was his dream, and I knew I liked food. So I bought the café and hired him to run it. I had no idea I would enjoy it so much. I’d planned on being more of a silent owner, but it hasn’t worked out that way.”

      “Tell me more about your family. Who will be there tonight, besides your grandparents?”

      “No

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