Chapter 1

"Guess where I am? You can’t imagine..."

Pressing the phone to my ear, I waited for Mike Quinn's gravelly voice to ride a cellular wave up the Eastern Seaboard.

"Given the choice," he said, "I'd rather imagine..."

That shouldn't have surprised me. After all, Michael Ryan Francis Quinn was a decorated narcotics detective, and if there was one thing the NYPD looked for when recruiting from their uniformed force, it was imagination—that and “inquisitiveness, insight, and an eye for detail." (According to Quinn, the New York brass referred to these as "the four I's," although I had pointed out the last one started with an E.)

For the past six months, Quinn had been working in Washington, DC, where a U.S. attorney had drafted him for a special assignment. He wasn’t permitted to tell me much about his Justice Department job, although I did deduce his Federal Triangle desk phone had caller ID because he always answered my rings with a husky hello reserved only for me.

Just the sound of his voice relieved the tension I'd been feeling about the night ahead. Of course, I didn't have a clue what was really ahead. If I had, I might have gone straight home and pulled the covers over my eyes.

In a short space of time, I'd be bribing a bomb squad lieutenant, cracking a mathematician's seventeen-digit passcode, and conjuring culinary ideas for a billionaires' potluck.

That I could handle. But battling a giant octopus; raiding a forbidden coffee plantation; defusing a nitro-packed knapsack; stopping a Slayer (while working with one); and fixing my daughter's love life? I think even 007 would have flinched.

At this point in my story, however, my life was manageable, even pretty nice. I was sitting on hand-rubbed leather in a private limo, and a good cop was purring in my ear.

"Let's see now..." Quinn continued. "I'm imagining you in your duplex above the coffeehouse. You just stepped out of the shower, and I'm holding your robe. I’ve got a nice blaze going in the bedroom, the champagne’s poured, and I'm about to—"

"Mike!"

"Yes?"

I glanced at the glass partition separating me from the male chauffeur. It wasn't raised all the way.

Okay, phone sex in front of an audience (even an audience of one) might have been acceptable for your average world-weary urbanite—and, yes, after living in the Big, Bad Apple for years, I was weary enough for any middle-aged single mom. But I was still my nonna’s granddaughter. (Not that my dear daughter would agree. I could just hear her now: "That's why my generation does sexting, Mom! Type it out and it's totally private!" Right, honey. And nobody shares stored data in cyberspace.)

"I'm not at home," I explained to Quinn. "I'm on my way to dinner. You'll never guess where—"

"You better just tell me, Clare. I have a conference call in twenty."

The "boyfriend voice" was gone, the warmth chilling into a tone I knew far too well—stoic, emotionless cop.

I should have replied with something generally reassuring, like: "I miss you" (which I did); "I wish you were here" (ditto); or even... "On your next visit, I'm baking you up a Triple-Chocolate Italian Cheesecake like the one you inhaled on New Year’s Eve" (which I planned to).

But I didn't say any of those things. My excitement level was so high that I simply blurted the news—

"I'm riding in a chauffeured limo, on my way to dinner at the Source Club!" The silence stretched on so long I was sure our connection was lost.

"Mike?"

"You're pulling my leg."

"I'm not pulling anything."

I couldn't blame the man for doubting my words.

Even I had trouble believing it. The Source Club was one of the most élite enclaves in Manhattan. With my anemic bank account, I was lucky to get into Sam's Club, let alone a zillionaires club.

"So what's the story? Did your former mother‑in‑law give up and sell the Village Blend to a national chain?"

"Bite your tongue."

"You inherited a fortune from a lost relative?" He grunted.

"Maybe I’d better get you to the altar already—in handcuffs, if necessary."

"It's nothing like that, and I’d rather you kept those handcuffs on your belt, if you don't mind. The last time you used them on me, I needed an ice pack."

"Are you fishing for another apology, or another bunch of flowers?"

"Neither...although I did love the daffodils and white tulips."

"I'm glad," he said. And I was, too, because the warm tone was back, and on that blustery evening in late January, I needed all the warmth I could get.

Outside, frosty flurries were beginning to fall, and the inviting lights of my coffeehouse were no longer in sight; neither were the cozy pubs and intimate bistros of Greenwich Village.

The golden glow of the historic district had been replaced with the silver glare of downtown skyscrapers.

"You would love the limo he sent for me, Mike. It's an antique Rolls-Royce—or is it a Bentley?"

"A Bentley is a Rolls, and who is he?"

"It's so British, like something the late Princess Diana would have ridden around in, but he’s modernized the inside with all these gadgets—"

"I repeat, who is he? And how did you end up in his limousine?"

"That’s kind of a long story."

"Give me the short version."

"You know part of it already. Remember that poor guy I helped out the other day?"

"The billionaire? I wouldn't call him poor, Clare."

"You know what I mean. This special dinner is his way of saying thanks."

Suddenly I was listening to a whole new dead zone. The cellular waves kept rolling up from DC, but Quinn's voice wasn't riding them.

"Maybe you'd better give me the long version," he finally said. "And start at the beginning."

"I thought you had a conference call in twenty?"

"The Los Angeles District Attorney can wait."

Uh‑oh. "It's completely innocent, Mike. Why do you think I'm telling you?"

"Go on."

"You remember, don't you? This all started with a coffee drink order."

"A coffee drink order?"

"Actually, more like two dozen coffee drink orders…"