A/N: Brace for incoming plot. And a change in P.O.V.: I'm messing around a bit with this one. We heard from Jackson; now it's Lisa's turn. Enjoy. And--oh, yeah-- Reisert and Rippner aren't mine. The rest of 'em, though: dibs. Thanks for reading.
It was her book. Rippner was reading it. A trade paperback of short stories by Katherine Anne Porter. Lisa Reisert paused the movie she had been watching on the entertainment console built into the seatback in front of her and took off the headphones that had come, compliments of Brandywine Air, wrapped in crinkly cellophane. They were three and a half hours into an eight-hour flight from Chicago-O'Hare to London-Heathrow, seated behind the right-side wing of a Boeing 777. He had the aisle seat; Lisa had moved to the window, giving them both a bit more room, when the window seat had gone unclaimed. It was just past dinner (a decent chicken teriyaki with vegetables and rice for both of them, water, ginger ale); now, at two forty-five a.m. Central Standard Time, the inhabitants of the Boeing were settling down to read or watch movies or doze. In the aisles around Rippner's and Lisa's, hands reached up: tiny angled lamps winked on, winked off. They were beyond the rush period for romantic Valentine's Day getaways to London; the spring tourist season had yet to begin in earnest. As a result, the plane was about two-thirds full. An ash-blond woman in her mid-twenties, wearing gray sweatpants and a pink sweat-hoody, had commandeered the empty three-seat row at the center of the plane, across from Rippner. She'd put on a sleep mask and stretched out across all three seats with a travel pillow tucked beneath her right ear. Lisa didn't envy her either the space she'd claimed or the woman's ostensible ability to relax so thoroughly in a metal pressurized tube rocketing along at five hundred miles an hour eight miles over the Atlantic. If anything, she was glad, keeping the slim metal arch of the earphones from tangling in her hair as she took them off, that nothing in her own life or career compelled her to become so resigned to life as a traveler. She might nap on a plane, but she'd never think of a row of seats as her personal bedspace.
She set her headphones on the empty seat between her and Rippner, leaned close enough to make herself quietly heard over the sound of the engines, and nodded toward the blue-covered paperback open in his hands. "My grandmother cooked for her," she said.
Rippner's eyebrows lowered in friendly perplexity. "Henrietta?"
"Mm hm. In Texas. Miss Porter said she was the toughest broad she'd ever met."
He smiled, that boyish, dimpled smile that showed his even top row of teeth. The smile he'd first used to win her over, some two years back, before they'd briefly made each other's lives hell on and around Flight 1019. Now she knew his expression was sincere.
"Must be genetic," he said.
Lisa smiled back, kissed his cheek. Even above the controlled rumbling of the engines, she thought she felt him tremble slightly. The intimacy between them was easy, but still so novel. "Grandma told me, 'It goes with the name, Lisa Henrietta.' She said that Miss Porter told her she based a character on her, but she wouldn't say which one."
He turned in his hands the paperback's worn bulk. "And you've been trying to figure it out ever since."
"It's a family mystery."
He went back to his reading; she kept the sound from the entertainment console low enough to hear his seatbelt unbuckle fifteen minutes later. She didn't look as he got up, but once he entered the aisle, she took off her headphones again and watched where he went. Forward, toward the restrooms. She paused the movie, bent to take her bag from beneath the seat in front of hers, and edged out of the row. She could use a stretch, too. Her leg muscles were comfortably numb.
With the carpet of the aisle rumbling against the soles of her sneakers, she headed casually for the restrooms.
*****
The locking clasp slid from red to green. VACANT. The door opened. Rippner's shock-blue eyes went wide when he saw her. Lisa pushed into him, crowding him back into the restroom. She reached back to re-lock the door.
With one hand, she gripped his throat, pushing up firmly under his jaw to keep him off-balance. "Don't fight me," she murmured. He didn't speak, didn't protest. He watched her, alert. She could feel his pulse against the ball of her thumb.
Only the sound of their breathing, oddly clear above the thrum of the engines. She studied him. A long, indulgent look at his unorthodox-angel's face, his wonderfully full lips, his unearthly eyes. The surprise, the anticipation, in his expression. A bumping friction between their bodies in that tiny space.
She moved her hand to his jaw, turned his face slightly away, pressed her lips to the pulse point she'd felt with her thumb. Nibbled his skin while she released him, then set her hands to wandering his back and torso. He tipped his face, angled his mouth toward hers in a silent query; she kissed him, opening her mouth into his, while she slipped her hands under his sweatshirt, then slid fingertips beneath the loose, soft waistband of his jeans, his boxers. Rippner did as he'd been told. He was a good hostage. He didn't fight her, even as her hands wandered down to fondle his buttocks, then reached to the front, to unbutton and unzip his jeans. He kept his eyes on her. They were luminous when she reached into her bag and held up a foil-wrapped square.
A condom.
*****
She didn't expect it to work for her as well as it was apt to work for him. Female and male anatomies were simply different that way. She would have settled for the thrill of surprising him, of doing something wicked thirty-five thousand feet above the ocean. But his being her hostage did nothing to detract from his skill as a lover. Rippner listened to her when she murmured, her lips brushing his ear--
"Right there, right there, right there--"
-- and maybe ten minutes later, twelve, eighteen at the outside (honestly, who was watching the clock, save anyone who might have been hoping to use this lav?), she was as much as melting into him, they were melting into each other, and-- good hostage that he was-- Rippner was holding her while she regained her composure. Not that he, gasping, was in any shape to do anything other than be held by her in turn. Little likelihood of a takeover attempt on his part. He seemed absolutely disinclined to make a break for it. They were, collectively, a rustling, panting, rubber-kneed mess. The skin of his abdomen and groin felt deliciously warm against hers; the air behind was cool on her thighs and backside, where his hands weren't touching her, supporting her. She disengaged from him slowly. He watched her, not moving, as she dressed. His blue-eyed stare was the purest x-ray vision: she felt more naked with his eyes on her then, pulling her panties and sweats and shirt back in place with trembling hands, than she had all the while they were bumping and grinding. Possibly insolent on his part, given their respective roles-- he the victim, she in charge-- but she liked the feeling very much.
She laid her hand against the flush on his cheek-- God, those wonderful, delicate, sharp bones-- and kissed him. A wicked, breathless bit of smile.
"Thanks for the quickie," she said.
His lips pulled back in a smirk. She smirked back, threw the door lock to green-- and left him to deal with the condom.
*****
"The most amazing thing happened to me in the restroom."
As Rippner re-took his seat, Lisa closed the paperback of Porter short stories. She had been reading from "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." She looked at him innocently. "What?"
"This beautiful brunette just pushed her way in and had her way with me."
He was being a bit ginger about rebuckling his seatbelt. Lisa smiled to herself. "Maybe you should let the flight crew know."
"I prefer to keep her to myself, thanks."
He looked at her. Lisa offered him the book, and he shook his head. "I'm feeling a little sleepy."
"Me, too," she replied.
Rippner smiled and reached up and switched off their reading lamps.
*****
At eleven-forty local time, Lisa stood at a customs counter in London Heathrow and answered questions from a friendly fifty-ish man in a blue button-down uniform shirt and tie. His square face was jocular, but his eyes were very, very keen. Length of stay? Eight days. Business or pleasure? Pleasure. She felt herself blush when she said it. He directed his discreet smile at her customs card. Address at which she'd be staying? London. One Aldwych. A beautiful place, he said. Welcome to Great Britain, Miss Reisert.
*****
She imagined airports were airports the world over, but Heathrow was less daunting than she'd been led to expect. Larger but airier, less of a warren, than O'Hare. Rippner had hired a car to take them to the Aldwych. They each had a Travelcard, but he thought it best that they get to the hotel and get settled as efficiently and comfortably as possible. He knew her preference for economical travel, but navigating the Tube, especially the escalators, he said, was definitely not fun with a weight of luggage. They'd have plenty of chances to see the Underground later.
*****
It was clear but cool as they exited Terminal One. She'd packed and dressed for the weather-- a selection of sweaters, jeans, leggings, a dress coat, a tweedy-leathery jacket, gloves, cap and scarf as needed-- but she suspected the air felt brisker to her Florida skin than it felt to Rippner. In fact, he seemed to brighten, stepping out of the car at the Aldwych. She understood: she'd felt one good, hard blast of Chicago winter roughly five weeks back, when she'd hauled him home from his near-poisoning at the hands of Matthew Leon, and that had been enough. He lived with cold some five months out of the year. The air here smelled clean, too-- no hint of Chicago industry, oddly little of the big-animal odor she associated with large North American cities like New York.
The Aldwych was its own block, a standalone, slender sweep of building pointing toward the Strand like the prow of a Thirties luxury liner. Lisa thanked the doorman; Rippner followed her; a second man followed him with their luggage.
She wanted to see the place as a professional hotelier. She found herself smiling in stunned delight. The lobby was pillared, spacious, high-ceilinged, the white of the walls and the antique arch of the dark window casings a gracious contrast to the gold-and-teak of the Lux. She felt as though she were stepping back in time, or entering a temple; for the first time since she and Rippner had boarded the plane last night, she felt as though she were truly outside the States, and somewhere far, far older. In the tasteful pale light, the present seemed to balance perfectly with times past.
She caught Rippner watching her, his elbow resting casually on the mirror-polish of the reception desk. He had keycards in his hand. He and the receptionist, a coolly precise dark-haired young man, were looking at her with nearly matched looks of polite expectation.
"Do you approve, Miss Reisert?" Rippner asked.
"It'll do," she said. When the receptionist did his best not to look crushed-- Lisa saw in him, suddenly, Cynthia: he was the new boy, she realized, probably just out of training-- she added: "It's lovely. Really. Absolutely lovely."
"Thank you, Miss Reisert." The receptionist's relieved smile revealed itself in his hazel eyes. Peter, read the brass-colored name tag on his black lapel. "Enjoy your stay."
*****
They had a corner suite on the fourth floor. The shape of the sitting room followed the curve of the building. Pale cream walls, deep blue carpeting. A sofa in mauve, glass-topped tables, fresh orchids in tall crystal vases. All spotlessly clean. While Rippner tipped the bellhop, Lisa wandered to one of the room's two windows and looked out at the buildings arching gracefully away along Aldwych.
When they were alone, Rippner asked: "Will it do?"
She was, frankly, a little stunned. She wandered into the bedroom, checked the bathroom, the free-mounted round basin, the selection of soaps and shampoos and lotions from an organics company out of New Zealand; she cast a professional glance toward the gleaming shower drain and the baseboards. Rippner watched her. When she re-entered the bedroom and ran her fingers down the edge of the bed's black headboard, he asked:
"Sweeping for bugs, Lise?"
"They're everywhere these days," she heard herself say, a little absently. "Bedbugs. You can't be too careful."
He chuckled, opening his suitcase.
The white down coverlet on the bed looked like a cloud. Rippner left his unpacking and tackled her playfully onto it. Lisa laughed, surprised. He relaxed his weight onto her, and she wrapped him in her arms.
He nuzzled her; he kissed her throat. He eased her thighs gently apart and pressed himself against her. Casually possessive but not insistent. It could go several ways. She might doze off like this, contentedly; she might ease out from under him and finish her unpacking; she might let him strip her naked and submit her to variations on the theme she'd started in the lav on the plane.
Rippner smoothed her hair away from her forehead, caressed her cheek. "Are you tired?"
"No. I slept well on the flight, actually."
In the slight upturn at the corners of his mouth, she saw him thinking it: A really good orgasm will do that for you. "How about some exercise, then?" he asked. "Have a look at the town?"
*****
Back at street level, on foot, with traffic coming at them from the wrong side, she had a moment of mild panic. London near Covent Garden was not a tall city, but it certainly seemed a jumbled one, and she had a sense, waiting in a knot of pedestrians beside Rippner for a walk signal at the corner of Aldwych and the Strand, that they were about to step into a maze.
He caught her reaching for her A-Z. "Pages sixty-seven to sixty-eight," he said, his eyes twinkling.
Lisa closed the atlas and her bag. "Smart alec."
*****
He didn't tell her where they were headed, as they walked east along the Strand, then joined Fleet Street, but Lisa guessed. Nevertheless, she felt her breath catch in her throat when she first looked up at the dome of St. Paul's. She saw in her mind a classic wire image, a photo of the cathedral taken during the Blitz, fire and smoke engulfing the buildings all around while the dome, untouched and intact, glowed with the light from the flames.
They came in on a paved path that wound through the churchyard, where an American gray squirrel glared at them and the circling auto traffic from the grass beneath a thick-trunked leafy tree, legs splayed, tail belligerently a-twitch. They joined an intermittent flow of tourists and parishioners up the broad stone steps to the main doors. Rippner caught her looking at him wryly just before they went inside.
"What--?" he asked.
"I'm experiencing a bit of a disconnect here, Jackson," Lisa confessed. "You-- church--"
"As long as no one splashes me with holy water, I should be fine." He grinned. "Come on."
*****
They gazed at the nave and upward into the dome, at the light and space, the paintings depicting the life of Saint Paul. Rippner led the way to a door midway along the cathedral's five-hundred-foot length, to a door at the southeast corner of the dome.
"Care to see London the old-fashioned way, Lise?" he asked.
*****
Before the modern skyscraper, before the Eye started its slow aerial spin on the south bank of the Thames, St. Paul's was the most heavenward view in all of London. Four hundred and nine steps led to the Golden Gallery of the cathedral's cupola, three hundred and fifty feet above the floor of the nave. Rippner and Lisa made the climb casually, and alone. Some two hundred steps up, they made their way along a narrow service passage to the Whispering Gallery, the joists and arched copper of the interior dome visible to their left. The second stage of the climb led them to the air and wind of the Stone Gallery, where they looked down through the balusters at the deep blue width of the Thames, across the silver spine of the Millennium Bridge to the square industrial bulk of the Tate Modern.
Rippner stood beside her, his arm loosely around her waist. "Want to go all the way to the top?" he asked.
"Lead on."
*****
She disliked flying, but, paradoxically, perhaps, she wasn't afraid of heights. So the view down through the tight mesh of the metal stairs spiraling to the Golden Gallery bothered her not at all. She let Rippner lead the way. They stood at the top of St. Paul's Cathedral with nothing over their heads but puffy gray-bellied clouds in a blue pre-spring sky and looked down at London sprawling away beneath them. Rippner stepped close to the railing and turned to Lisa, resting his elbows on the railing cap, the metal there worn to paintless black, as smooth as stone.
"Come here," he said.
Lisa put away her camera and came over.
Rippner straightened away from the railing. "Close your eyes."
"You first," she countered.
He closed his eyes. Lisa, her heart beating a bit more quickly, followed suit. She felt exposed but not fearful. Even as the wind buffeted her hair and jacketed shoulders, the tarmac deck of the gallery was solid beneath her feet. Rippner put his hands on her, on her upper arms. She didn't flinch. He drew her closer and kissed her forehead, her temple. With his eyes still closed, he missed her mouth, kissed her cheeks instead. She found his lips before he found hers. They kissed deeply, there in the clear, cool, windy heights.
Giggling behind them. Lisa opened her eyes. She and Rippner turned to see a group of girls, maybe first-year-college-aged, emerging from the door of the cupola, cameras in hand, their puffy parkas a rainbow of colors in the late-winter sun.
*****
They opted for the whole package at St. Paul's, top to bottom: they saw the place from the tip of the dome all the way down to the crypt. Lisa, armed with a visitor's map, located the tombs of Florence Nightingale and Christopher Wren, through whose fine building she and Rippner were prowling. In the northwest corner of the level, before a deep alcove, stood a brace of scaffolding hung with NO ENTRY signs.
Rippner asked at the gift shop: "What's going on?"
The clerk was female, twentyish, brown-haired, and glass-eyed bored. "Surveyors from London Transport, I think."
Rippner frowned mildly. Lisa saw calculation in the movement of his eyes as he looked across at the alcove. "Extending the line from St. Paul's station?" he said.
"I'm not certain, sir. I'm sorry."
Behind the bars of the scaffolding, four men emerged from the alcove. One was possibly a church official, an older man in a black suit, pepperish gray hair neatly trimmed; the second was paunchy, ginger-haired, and younger, carrying a briefcase and wearing the type of badly fitted blue suit that Lisa associated with flunky government work; the third was a very tall, sleek man in a gray suit as beautifully cut as the second man's was ugly, with black hair and eyes-- Lisa could see, even at this distance-- almost as shockingly blue as Rippner's. The fourth man was striking for another reason entirely.
"He looks like Boris Karloff," Lisa said.
Rippner looked. Man number four was in his late forties, possibly his early fifties, rawboned, nearly the same height as man number three. Unlike the others, he was wearing work clothes, dark blue trousers, an oilskin jacket over a heavy gray sweater, and those clothes appeared to be dirty with dust and mud. He was carrying a leather tool bag, and he looked, Lisa thought, as he stood apart from the others to take a call on a cell phone, as though burning away his flesh would reveal a gleaming steel skeleton underneath.
Rippner, standing near a spinner of post cards near the shop entrance, was trying not to stare. He was practically glaring at a photo of the cathedral at sunset.
Lisa edged closer. "Do you know him, Jackson?"
"I'm not sure," he said.
*****
They finished their tour of the cathedral. As they were leaving, Lisa saw Boris exiting to their right, tool bag in hand. Which wouldn't have been all that odd, except for his face, only he turned and looked right at them.
A beat. Lisa felt a jolt of adrenaline.
He walked off down the wide stone steps. Rippner touched her arm, and she paused with him to the left of the doors. He was looking after Boris. Letting him get some distance. Right as the man reached the base of the stairs and turned to the right, Rippner moved.
He said, as they reached the sidewalk: "Put on your cap, Lisa. Give me your jacket."
Rippner took off his own jacket as Lisa pulled on her gray knit cap. He handed her his sueded brown leather jacket, and she put it on; he folded her jacket over his arm. Altering their appearance, if ever so slightly. He kept his eyes on Boris as they crossed the churchyard and entered the bustle of pedestrian and auto traffic off Cheapside.
He was heading for the roundel of St. Paul's station. Rippner took out his Travelcard. Lisa took out hers. Rippner let Boris get a lead on them at the stairs, then followed him down. He was slotting a credit card into a wall-mounted fare vendor when they entered the station's low-ceilinged tumult. Rippner passed him and walked toward the turnstiles. Just before Lisa inserted her Travelcard, Rippner caught her hand. "Wait, Lisa."
Boris was going back up the stairs. Rippner followed him. Lisa followed Rippner.
*****
From Newgate, then along Holborn, they kept distance between themselves and Boris. Surrendering to the thrill of the chase was easy. She and Rippner moved well together. Lisa seemed to sense when he wanted to slow, to step into a doorway, to stand as innocently as any couple out to see the sights, looking into a shop window, pausing to peruse a bill of fare. Just past Chancery Lane station, Boris stepped into a Boots. They followed him in. Rippner guided Lisa back to housewares while Boris bought a bottle of aspirin.
They passed the news agents, navigated the controlled mayhem outside Holborn station. In a sidestreet west of Holborn, a sign reading BLOOMSBURY COURT high on the wall of the building just off the turning, Boris entered a bookstore.
At the gray wall just short of the store's street window, Rippner hesitated. Lisa had had just a glimpse before they stopped: an old shop, no Borders gloss, covers in red and brown and green, hardback but not, seemingly, anything of value enough to warrant protection from direct sunlight.
"I won't tell you to wait out here," Rippner said. He looked at her frankly, then opened the door of the shop. Lisa followed him in.
A chime sounded as they cleared the door. A pair of sensors at ankle level, no old-fashioned tinkling of bells overhead. No one was at the corner counter to their left. The cash register on it was modern, a flat black box and keyboard beneath a black-backed flatscreen monitor. Eight narrow aisles of shelves stood before them, reaching back into the store. They were tall, ten feet or better, and neatly packed with books. No cramming, no mismatched, tipping stacks. Balancing this against the lower quality of the stock sacrificed to the sun's fading rays in the display window, Lisa thought whoever owned the place knew the value of his or her inventory.
Boris was not immediately in view. Rippner moved from aisle to aisle, looking toward the back of the store. There was a stockroom door in the back, visible from the aisle farthest to the right. It was open. The space beyond was very dark. Rippner touched Lisa's arm, and now he said to her, without saying anything at all: Stay here.
She nodded, not liking it, and watched him walk off cautiously down the aisle. She tensed as he disappeared into the darkness beyond the doorframe.
She was there, hovering at the head of the far aisle, when the shop's doorchime sounded. She started, turned. A young man in a black pea coat was entering, a carrier of four white Starbucks coffee cups in hand. He looked at her, surprise in his dark eyes. He had straight thick brown hair in need of a cut, and a crooked, toothy smile that quickly replaced that initial look of surprise, and he asked in an American accent as he unwound a black-and-white-checked scarf from his neck:
"Can I help you?"
Lisa stepped away from the far aisle, quickly scanned books in the row one over. "Yes--"
-- She was looking at the mystery section. The ays, the bees. Agatha Christie--
"I can't seem to find Leslie Charteris," she said.
He came closer. Lisa tried not to look nervous. "Romance?" he asked.
"Mystery, actually. He created a character called The Saint."
The young man looked blank. "Well, let's see--"
Lisa let him scan the shelves to her right and left-- she was standing with her back directly in front of a dozen Charteris titles, in hardcover and paperback-- while she listened toward the storeroom for crashes, gunshots, sounds of a struggle.
"Ah. There. There you go." The young man pointed, smiled his lopsided smile. Lisa, feigning surprise, turned toward the line of Saint books level with her lungs.
Sounds from the storeroom. Lisa started; the young man, looking toward the back of the store as she did, didn't notice.
"Amy--?" he called.
No reply. But a moment later, Rippner came walking toward them up the narrow aisle, ahead of a red-haired woman with grass-green eyes. She wore a sweatshirt and jeans that were dustier than work in a bookstore might warrant, and on her face was a look of perfectly stilled fury. She focused the look and her green eyes on the young man while Lisa said to Rippner: "I told you, sweetie: all the Charteris they had would be on the shelves."
"Guess you were right, angel."
He was doing a very good job of not looking perplexed. He slipped an arm around Lisa's waist, kissed her on the lips, and made a show of scanning the spines of the books she'd found.
"Were you looking for a particular title?" the young man asked. The green-eyed woman gave him a look of undistilled death.
"The Saint and the Vanishing Mendicant," Rippner replied. He looked amiably at the young man. "Ever hear of it?"
*****
Two minutes later, they were walking back the way they'd come, along Holborn. Rippner was looking pensively at the sidewalk.
"That was a fake title, wasn't it?" Lisa said.
"Mm hm."
"What happened to Boris Karloff?"
"Poof--!" Rippner spread his strong, square hands to the cool air. "No sign of him."
"A lot of these old buildings are connected, aren't they?"
"Yeah. He might have had work done," Rippner continued, half to himself, muttering. "I should know something about-- Bloomsbury Court, Lisa," he said, more clearly. "Ring any bells?"
"No."
Again, as before, when he'd stood outside the shop: hesitation. She could practically hear the intrigue, his job, calling him. Then his face softened. "We're on vacation, right?"
"That's the rumor," Lisa replied.
He turned to the left, suddenly, into an alley Lisa might not even have noticed in passing. Just as she was about to tell him enough was enough, she'd had her share of skulduggery for the day, he stopped in front of a glass door. An awninged bank of windows to the left. Above the awning, in red neon, were the words Bar Polska.
Rippner held the door for her. "How about a snack?"
*****
They sat at a round modern table away from the windows, a plate of hot pierogies and tiny clear glasses of rose-infused vodka between them. Lisa watched Rippner scoop sour cream onto the blade of a butter knife.
"The man we followed. Who do you think he is, Jackson?"
"I'm not sure--"
"Who do you think he was?"
Rippner sipped his vodka. "Bill Morgan. Engineer. Specialized in digging. Tunnel work. Transport of London might be considering modifications to St. Paul station; if he's gone legit, he might be helping them make sure they don't damage the foundation of the cathedral."
"If he's gone legit."
Rippner's lids were low over his clear eyes; his eyebrows twitched in thought. He looked down at the plate between them and said: "I never even asked if you like pierogies."
He was being evasive, but she smiled at the honest apology in his tone. "They're very good. And the vodka is excellent."
Rippner finished his glass of vodka and bisected another pierogi with his fork. His smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
We're on vacation, right?
*****
She kept the thought as she dressed for dinner. She sent Rippner on ahead, not wanting to delay or to be late for their reservation (they were on for eight o' clock) as much as she found herself wanting to indulge: they were traveling together; their toothbrushes and antiperspirant were sharing space by the bathroom sink; but tonight she wanted to make an entrance. Rippner seemed willing to play along. He watched her for a moment from the doorway of the bedroom, lean and handsome and relaxed, his hands in the trouser pockets of an impeccable black suit, and then left her to fuss with her hair while he went for a drink in the lobby bar.
*****
She wondered, when she walked into Indigo, if she had done the right thing. She had her hair up; she was wearing a simple black sleeveless dress. And when Rippner looked across the room at her, her heart went still. No pounding, no pain, no catching of breath. A moment of perfect suspension.
He smiled, then, and it was his boyish, open smile, much again the smile of the Tex-Mex in Dallas. And nothing like that smile at all. He wasn't looking at her now; his lightning-blue eyes were looking directly into her.
The head waiter broke their line of vision. Lisa, nearly relieved, met Rippner midway, at a modern rectangular table against the softly lit wall, near one of the arched windows, away from the view of the lobby bar. He passed behind her to draw her chair back from the table, and she could feel his eyes on her skin.
"Never more beautiful," he said quietly.
*****
He had the duck; she had the salmon. The food was excellent. So was the wine. Rippner raised to her his glass of crisp Chardonnay.
"Thank you for the bagels, Lisa."
She touched her glass to his. "You're welcome."
"We're even now."
"I should hope so."
The food was delicious, the setting lovely. She thought, as she looked at him, I could be anywhere as long as I could look into your eyes.
She set down her glass, looked back to her plate. She picked up her fork and finished her salmon, the last of the spinach and pistachio risotto.
Rippner re-focused on his own food. He asked, perhaps too casually-- in any event, he seemed to be asking the rest of his duck, not her: "Is something wrong?"
"I think I'm a little tired." It was at least half true. She'd had little sleep; in the space of a day, she'd crossed an ocean and several time zones. She smiled for him, apologetically. "I'm sorry."
"It's alright. We'll make an early night of it." Rippner smiled back at her. "Save the wild nightclubbing for the rest of the week."
She laughed softly. "Right."
*****
Over coffee and a dish of warm rice pudding (his) and a bowl of cocoanut ice cream (hers), from which they each stole, one from the other, shamelessly, they discussed their plans for the rest of the week, or at least for tomorrow, which seemed to be shaping up as a day of museums. Seeing the Tate Modern from the top of St. Paul's seemed to have been the trigger. Neither of them mentioned the bookstore or Boris-- Bill Morgan, Lisa reminded herself. And neither of them said what they felt when their eyes met.
*****
"It was Rippner," Bill Morgan said to Roland Mason.
Muttered Amy Kendrick, slouched in a stuffed chair in Mason's sitting room at the Mandarin Oriental: "And you led him right to the bookstore."
Morgan gave her a dead-eyed glare. "He didn't recognize me."
"Why the hell did he follow you, then?"
"The real question," Mason said, interrupting, "is 'What is he doing here?'" He looked toward the room's bar, where a slender dark-haired man in a two-piece charcoal suit and a brunette in a sleek sapphire-blue dress appeared to be holding their own private cocktail party. "What can you tell us, Mr. Grant?"
Robert Grant deftly plucked an olive from his cocktail glass. He popped it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed, casually. He kept his eyes, a shade of brown just short of black, on his companion at the bar as he answered: "I have no idea. But I'm meeting with Carter tomorrow afternoon; I'll feel around."
Mason joined them. "You have some history with Rippner, don't you, Rosemary?"
Rosemary Wheeler smiled, flicked him with devilish blue eyes. "Not as much as I'd prefer."
"What about the girl?" This came from Kendrick's and Morgan's third party at the bookstore, the young man badly in need of a haircut. Seth Patterson was seated now at the room's largest table, the dwelling place of laptops and papers, and when the others in the room turned their attention to him, he shrank down slightly behind his wall of screens.
"The girl you made an ass of yourself with?" Kendrick asked.
"I thought she'd be suspicious if she was in the store and no one-- She looked like she needed help--"
"She already was suspicious, you idiot. That's why she and Rippner were in the store in the first place."
"Amy," Mason said. He waited until he was certain she would remain quiet before he continued. "Bob, get on that, too. Find out who she is."
Grant plucked himself another olive. "Will do."
"She might be his replacement," Morgan said.
"If, by 'replacement,' you mean 'friends with benefits and a side order of syrup.'" Kendrick gave him a look that said that, between him and Patterson, she considered herself to be well and truly surrounded by idiots. "You don't know a thing about body language, do you? I'd put more money on him being here with her on their honeymoon."
Morgan's right hand closed in a fist. He took a deep breath, released it slowly, restraightened his fingers as he did. "I still don't know why we need Bloomsbury and St. Paul's."
He looked again at Patterson.
"One more time," said Seth. He looked back at the older man evenly now; his voice was more confident. "Bloomsbury-- British Museum-- is not far enough underground. To guard against the deactivation pulse that Professor Becker will transmit when-- or if-- he realizes his nanites are missing, we need at least the depth of one of the deep shelters. And British Museum is still a visible station: we need privacy to test both compounds, the 'nites and the Play Doh, and one of those compounds-- the Play Doh-- is extremely volatile. We set any of that off near Holborn, and someone is apt to notice. I don't think London Transport has an especially tolerant policy toward people lighting off fireworks in the Tube. Do you?"
Morgan moved toward him, his face still but deadly. Mason stepped between them.
"Stick to your tunnels, Bill," he said. "Rippner or no, we're still in good shape." Some of the anger eased from Morgan's shoulders; Mason glanced back toward Grant. "And, Bob, get us that intel on Rippner and the girl."
"My pleasure," Robert Grant said. "Here's to tomorrow." He winked at Rosemary Wheeler and drank the rest of his cocktail.