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continued, “you seem a bit underdressed compared to the other night. I do like the baseball cap, though. Very fashionable.”
    She flashed him a grin. “It keeps my long blond hair out of my face.”
    “Duly noted for my report to the police,” he said, his mind still pondering the intriguing thought of where she might carry a concealed weapon. “Unless you’re here to kill me, in which case I suppose I don’t really care what color your hair might be.”
    “If I were here to kill you,” she returned in a calm, soft voice, sending a glance beyond him at his desk, “you’d be dead.”
    “That confident, are you?” She wasn’t armed; he could rush her, grab her, and hold her for the police. Instead, Richard took a sip of brandy.
    “Mm-hm,” she answered. “Who was that you sent out to shake Senator Branston’s tree? Or Barbara’s, rather?”
    He found himself watching her mouth, the soft curve of her full lips. Concentrate, dammit . With a breath, Richard glanced toward the skylight again. The glass was thick, but not enough to stop a good listening device—or a bullet. So she had had the opportunity to kill him again and hadn’t taken it. Interesting.
    “That was my attorney. Tom Donner.”
    “Attorneys. My favorite people. Now why don’t you move over there by the cabinet for a minute?” she suggested, walking closer. She seemed coiled, ready to move in any direction, to react to whatever he might do. Richard found it oddly…tantalizing. Most people played more defensively where he was involved. Miss Smith, it seemed, considered herself his match.
    “This is my office, Miss Smith. Why don’t you ask me nicely? Considering that you’re unarmed.”
    The soft smile touched her mouth again, saying both that she had no doubt she could hold her own against him and that she was supremely enjoying their encounter. “Please move, Mr. Addison,” she cooed.
    Because he wanted to see what she meant to do next, he moved where she indicated. Stepping forward, she brushed gloved fingers through folders and papers on his desk. “I don’t have any concealed weapons, either,” he said after a moment, covering a flicker of annoyance when she invaded the top drawer of his desk.
    “Of course you do,” she said. “I just want to make sure they’re not anywhere too easy to whip out.” Her glance took in his faded jeans.
    After a moment she backed away, giving him an all clear gesture. He returned to his desk, sinking back against the near edge. If she’d checked the cabinet behind him she wouldhave found a .44, but she undoubtedly thought she could get out before he could get to anything he had closed away. “All right, let’s say I accept that you’re not here to kill me,” he said. “Why are you here then, Miss Smith?”
    For the first time she hesitated, a furrow appearing between her delicate, curved brows. “To ask for your help.”
    And he’d thought nothing else could surprise him this evening. “Beg pardon?”
    “I think you know that I didn’t try to kill you the other night. I did try to take your Trojan stone tablet, and I won’t apologize for that. But thievery has a statute of limitations. Murder doesn’t.” She cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t kill anyone.”
    “Then turn yourself in and tell the police.”
    She snorted. “No fucking way. I may have missed the tablet, but not all the statutes have run out on me.”
    Richard folded his arms across his chest. She hadn’t taken the tablet. Curiouser and curiouser—and it didn’t suit him to let her know that someone else had made off with it. “So you’ve stolen other things. From people other than me, I presume?”
    As she glanced toward the skylight, her smooth, devil-may-care countenance shifted a little. It was an act, he realized. Fearless as she seemed to be, she would have to be desperate to drop in on him here tonight. If he hadn’t been so accustomed to reading people, looking for weaknesses, he never would have