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businesslike clothing.
    “Don’t worry,” she fussed at herself. “If he wants you, it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.” She paused, frowned at her last words.
    “Whatever.” She shook her head and felt the curls bounce. “The Windswept papers are what’s important.”
    She glanced at her scribbled directions again. There was the sign for Hunter’s Creek Village, one of the Memorial-area towns surrounded by Houston and where Davis lived. She prepared to turn left. Within minutes, she pulled to a stop and some of her apprehensions about her attire returned.
    Davis Jamison lived in a contemporary, glass-and-steel, two-story house tucked in a piney cul-de-sac and reached by a bridge over a small bayou. Encouraged by Houston’s semi-tropical climate, tall pine and oak trees and dense ligustrum bushes completely cut it off visually from its neighbors. A rich, dark green carpet of St. Augustine grass surrounded the house, and flower beds held azalea bushes and big clumps of gold and red day lilies. Crape myrtles lined the far edge of a parking area from which a driveway continued around the side of the house.
    Barrett looked around as she climbed out of her Honda. She didn’t feel at all like she was surrounded by a big city. She could hear mockingbirds chattering and smell the new-mown grass as she climbed the three wide steps leading under a glass-roofed overhang to the front door. She rang the bell.
    An Hispanic gentleman in his late fifties or early sixties answered the door and she identified herself. “Please come in,” he said and ushered her through a foyer into a large, sun-lit living room. “Please have a seat, and I’ll tell Mr. Jamison you’re here.”
    Barrett thanked him and after he left, she turned in a complete circle to take in her surroundings. The interior of the house matched its exterior in contemporary starkness. The entry foyer was two stories high from its black granite floor to the top of its vaulted glass ceiling. A living room stretched away to the right of the front door and a dining room to the left, each two steps down from the foyer. Their ceilings were also double high, just at the level below the arc of the vault. The dining room was separated from the entry by what appeared to be a free-standing set of panels of intricately carved dark wood, but no barrier existed to the living room.
    A wide staircase rose at the back of the foyer. A long balcony looked down on the entry and the dining room, and she could see the tops of doors, so rooms must open off this gallery. What few solid walls existed were a glossy white. The remaining ones were all shaded glass.
    The living room in which she stood was probably larger than the entire lower floor of her condo. The long, charcoal gray leather sofa, black metal-and-leather Eames chairs, and white-marble-topped coffee table at the far end all had clean, uncluttered lines. Another grouping around a clear glass cube was made up of dark blue--what were those chairs with the curved chrome legs and curving seat and back called?--Barcelona chairs, that was it.
    Thick pale-gray rugs delineated the seating areas, and the glossy, dark reddish-wood floor offered some contrast to the furniture. Between the panes of glass at the far end of the room, an expanse of black marble rose to the ceiling from the fireplace at its base. Above the fireplace hung a long abstract painting. Its bright swathes of red, purple, blue and yellow brought splashes of color to the room, but the effect seemed more like an assault on her eyes than a counterpoint to the green outside. A couple of abstract shiny silver-and-bronze sculptures stood on pedestals next to the front glass wall.
    Although the air conditioning was set to a comfortable temperature, she couldn’t help but shiver. She sniffed and caught whiffs of both furniture polish and glass cleaner. Despite the sunshine, the colors in the painting, and the greenery outside, the room felt austere and somewhat