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of silence before she spoke, she focused on the objective. She needed information.
    Jeez, Ana, he’s cooperating. Take it, for once. With that in mind, she drew a deep breath and pasted a smile on her face. “That does change things, Mr. Bromley. Let’s look at your list.”
    You show me yours, she thought, smirking, and I’ll show you mine.
    He leaned forward unexpectedly, and before she could recoil, a long finger stroked a brief caress down her cheek. “You had a piece of fluff, just there,” he commented, leaning back. “It was quite distracting.”
    She frowned as the air backed up in her lungs, caught there by the intimate gesture. Whoa. What the heck had that been about?
    The yo-yo of emotion, enhanced by his switch from superior to personal, was not helping her. Maybe she did need more sessions with the psych guy.
    Shaking off the feeling that she was losing control of every part of this meeting, she managed a “Thank you” as she took the list he now offered. Scanned it.
    Now her frown was for the list. “There’re two paintings on this list that aren’t on my list, and one that’s on my list, that isn’t on yours.”
    â€œAh, very quick of you, Agent. You must have a photographic memory to have such quick recall.” He looked impressed, and Ana felt an irrational surge of pleasure. “The second item, the one you noticed that’s no longer on our list, is a matter you’ll have to discuss with Dav…Mr. Gianikopolis. However, the first two, which are not on your list, were items we discovered later to be fraudulent. They were uncovered as forged long after the case went cold. In fact, neither Dav nor I are sure if they are part of this, but I wanted them included, just to check.” He shrugged. “A decorator Dav was utilizing bought them on his behalf. Usually Dav buys his own stuff, but he was—” Bromley stopped, as if he’d been about to make a critical remark and thought better of it. “He was distracted.”
    â€œDistracted?” she pressed.
    Bromley smiled. “Beauty can be very distracting,” he commented, an even warmer smile on his face. She presumed he was talking to her now, not about his boss, but she couldn’t be sure.
    Weird. She was in no way beautiful.
    â€œSo you’re dancing around saying that he was having,” she paused, chose a less inflammatory word, “dating the decorator?”
    â€œPrecisely. It wasn’t until at least a year later that we discovered those two pieces were also counterfeit. They may be connected to your case,” he said, then shrugged. “Or not.” He took a sip of coffee and continued. “The lady in question claimed no knowledge of the forgeries. I tend to believe her, actually. I’ve listed her name at the bottom of the sheet there. You can contact her.” His features were poker smooth, but she could swear there was a ripe note of dark amusement in his voice as he added, “It would be nice to hear what she has to say to the Agency, rather than to us.”
    â€œHmmm, yes,” Anna murmured. She’d moved on from wondering about the decorator, and was now distracted by the data. “Red herring?” she muttered, quickly scribbling a note as her thoughts raced. “Connected? Maybe.” She stopped writing, tapped the pen on the table, then realized she was talking to herself again.
    Damn it. She was going to have to break the habit of talking through the data out loud. Pretzky’d warned her, and here she was doing it with a perfect stranger.
    Perfect being the operative word.
    She hated it when she blushed. No help for it though. “Sorry. Thinking it through.”
    â€œGood idea.” This time, there was real humor in the grin he shot her, not…attraction.
    â€œDo you have photographs of the paintings? Something I could take with me?”
    â€œOf course. There’s a file of