LITMIR.BIZ

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a little girl sitting on a woman’s lap as lights exploded in the night sky. “Of course. You’ll be taking the weekend off. You must have plans.”

      “Yeah, I got plans. I plan for us to toddle into the office about midmorning. I can show you the ropes. Won’t be able to do much legwork today, with everything shut down, but we can start putting things in order.”

      “I don’t want you to give up your weekend. I’d be happy to go in and straighten up your office, and you could—”

      “Bailey. I’m in this with you.”

      She set her mug down, linked her hands.

      “Why?”

      “Because it feels right to me. The way I see it, what you can’t figure out in your head, you do on instinct.” Those sea-mist eyes roamed over her face, then met hers. “I like to think there’s a reason you picked me. For both of us.”

      “I’m surprised you can say that, after the way I acted last evening. For all we know, I go out cruising bars every night and pick up strange men.”

      He chuckled into his mug. Better to laugh, he’d decided, than to groan. “Bailey, the way a single glass of wine affects you, I doubt you spent much time in bars. I’ve never seen anyone get bombed quite that fast.”

      “I don’t think that’s anything to be proud of.” Her voice had turned stiff and cool, and it made him want to grin again.

      “It’s nothing to be ashamed of either. And you didn’t pick a strange man, you picked me.” The amusement in his eyes flicked off. “We both know it was personal, with or without the alcohol.”

      “Then why didn’t you…take advantage?”

      “Because that’s just what it would have been. I don’t mind having the advantage, but I’m not interested in taking it. Want breakfast?”

      She shook her head, waited until he’d gotten out a box of cereal and a bowl. “I appreciate your restraint.”

      “Do you?”

      “Not entirely.”

      “Good.” He felt the muscles of his ego expand and flex as he got milk out of the refrigerator. He poured it on, then added enough sugar to have Bailey’s eyes widening.

      “That can’t be healthy.”

      “I live for risk.” He ate standing up. “Later I thought we’d drive downtown, walk around with the tourists. You may see something that jogs your memory.”

      “All right.” She hesitated, then took a chair. “I don’t know anything about your work, really, your usual clientele. But it seems to me you’re taking all of this completely in stride.”

      “I love a mystery.” Then he shrugged and shoveled in more cereal. “You’re my first amnesia case, if that’s what you mean. My usual is insurance fraud and domestic work. It has its moments.”

      “Have you been an investigator very long?”

      “Four years. Five, if you count the year I trained as an operative with Guardian. They’re a big security firm here in D.C. Real suit-and-tie stuff. I like working on my own better.”

      “Have you ever…had to shoot at someone?”

      “No. Too bad, really, because I’m a damn good shot.” He caught her gnawing her lip and shook his head. “Relax, Bailey. Cops and P.I.s catch the bad guys all the time without drawing their weapon. I’ve taken a few punches, given a few, but mostly it’s just legwork, repetition and making calls. Your problem’s just another puzzle. It’s just a matter of finding all the pieces and fitting them together.”

      She hoped he was right, hoped it could be just that simple, that ordinary, that logical. “I had another dream. There were two women. I knew them, I’m sure of it.” When he pulled out a chair and sat across from her, she told him what she remembered.

      “It sounds like you were in the desert,” he said when she fell silent. “Arizona, maybe New Mexico.”

      “I don’t know. But I wasn’t afraid. I was happy, really happy. Until the storm came.”

      “There were three stones, you’re sure of that?”

      “Yes, almost identical, but not quite. I had them, and they were so beautiful, so extraordinary. But I couldn’t keep them together. That was very important.” She sighed. “I don’t know how much was real and how much was jumbled and symbolic, the way dreams are.”

      “If one stone’s real, there may be two more.” He took her hand. “If one woman’s real, there may be two more. We just have to find them.”

      It was after ten when they walked into his office. The cramped and dingy work space struck her as more than odd now that she’d seen how he lived. But she listened carefully as he tried to explain how to work the computer to type up his notes, how he thought the filing should be done, how to handle the phone and intercom systems.

      When he left her alone to close himself in his office, Bailey surveyed the area. The philodendron lay on its side, spilling dirt. There was broken glass, sticky splotches from old coffee, and enough dust to shovel.

      Typing would just have to wait, she decided. No one could possibly concentrate in such a mess.

      From behind his desk, Cade used the phone to do his initial legwork. He tracked down his travel agent and, on the pretext of planning a vacation, asked her to locate any desert area where rockhounding was permitted. He told her he was exploring a new hobby.

      From his research the night before, he’d learned quite a bit about the hobby of unearthing crystals and gems. The way Bailey had described her dream, he was certain that was just what she’d been up to.

      Maybe she was from out west, or maybe she’d just visited there. Either way, it was another road to explore.

      He considered calling in a gem expert to examine the diamond. But on the off chance that Bailey had indeed come into its possession by illegal means, he didn’t want to risk it.

      He took the photographs he’d snapped the night before of the diamond and spread them out on his desk. Just how much would a gemologist be able to tell from pictures? he wondered.

      It might be worth a try. Tuesday, when businesses were open again, he mused, he might take that road, as well.

      But he had a couple of other ideas to pursue.

      There was another road, an important one, that had to be traveled first. He picked up the phone again, began making calls. He pinned Detective Mick Marshall down at home.

      “Damn it, Cade, it’s Saturday. I’ve got twenty starving people outside and burgers burning on the grill.”

      “You’re having a party and didn’t invite me? I’m crushed.”

      “I don’t have play cops at my barbecues.”

      “Now you’ve really hurt my feelings. Did you earn that Scotch?”

      “No match on those prints you sent me. Nothing popped.”

      Cade felt twin tugs of relief and frustration. “Okay. Still no word on a missing rock?”

      “Maybe if you told me what kind of rock.”

      “A big glittery one. You’d know if it had been reported.”

      “Nothing’s been reported, and I think the rocks are in your head, Parris. Now unless you’re going to share, I’ve got hungry mouths to feed.”

      “I’ll get back to you on it. And the Scotch.”

      He hung up, and spent some time thinking.

      Lightning kept coming up in Bailey’s dreams. There’d been thunderstorms the night before she came into his office. It could be as simple as that—one of the

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