on the near constant hard-on he’d been sporting since seeing her again.
“So, what’s next, Mr. Holmes?”
Finn turned his attention back to the report. With a little more time, he could get quite an extensive dossier on Miss Forsythe, but time was a commodity he didn’t have. He was also itching to do a more thorough search on his current partner-in-not-quite-crime. Though not so much for the purposes of the case at hand. If he’d been smart, he’d have dug more deeply a long time ago. And he’d been tempted many times over the intervening years to do just that. Mostly it had been fear of what he’d discover, and what it might lead him to do about it, that caused him to opt to leave himself in the dark. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt either one of them.
But now that he’d made a more direct connection, one he couldn’t ignore, it was well past the time for burying his head in the sand. Or anywhere else. It was time for answers. One way or the other, he’d get them. Just as soon as he found Julia Forsythe.
“What’s the next step?” she asked.
He started tapping at the keyboard again. “Next, we search for any information pertaining to previous visits she’s made to the city.”
“And you’re going to get this—wow.” She leaned over again as information began scrolling onto the screen. “How in the name of heaven can you access flight information like that? Particularly after 9/11?”
He leaned forward to get a closer look. “She’s a regular visitor, it seems. Comes to the East Coast, New York City in particular, half a dozen times a year or more. All in the past two years since going into the art business.” He scrolled down. “Bingo. I love the Internet and travel package deals.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I don’t have to dance around Homeland Security and flight databases. Avalon Travel’s Web site is much less secure.”
“Avalon Travel?”
“Small San Francisco agency, it appears. They book her flights and hotel.”
“Hotel?” Felicity repeated.
He felt the sudden spike in tension and smiled. “And car rental.” He tapped a few more keys, then abruptly pushed his chair back. “Come on.”
“You don’t think she’d still be there, do you?”
“Nope, she checked out earlier today.”
“But—wait up a second, will you?” She kicked off her heels and grabbed them before hurrying up the steps behind him. “Where are we going?”
“Airport.”
“She has a flight leaving tonight? Which one?”
“Yep.”
“But airport security, you can’t get out to her gate—”
“It’s a private airfield, but we’re not going there. At least not yet.” He held the front door for her, never more thankful for Felicity’s limo sitting curbside, awaiting its mistress’s next whim. “She has to return her car first.”
Felicity paused. “Who rents a car in the city?”
He gave her a sardonic smile as they climbed in and closed the door. “I don’t know. Someone who wants to avoid using public forms of transportation for whatever reason?” He stretched out his legs. “You tell me.”
“It’s true, I use my own town car, but it’s not quite the same as driving yourself about in this horrible traffic. Given the alternate forms of transportation, I’m simply surprised Miss Forsythe would choose to squire herself about.”
He shrugged. “Maybe she likes to be in control of things.”
“Perhaps. With all your whiz-bang technology, can you find out how many miles she put on her little rental?”
Finn sat up a bit straighter. “Why?”
“If the mileage seems exceptionally high for around-the-town driving, it could be worth noting.”
“Meaning you think she rented a car to do out-of-town business, while in town?”
Now it was Felicity’s turn to shrug.
Finn pulled out his iPhone and tapped at the screen. “Hopefully those are questions we’ll be able to ask her ourselves.”
“How close are we cutting it?”
“Too close for comfort, but unless she drives like she’s in an Indy race, we should cross paths.”
Felicity settled into her seat and crossed her legs. Finn kept his attention focused on the small, illuminated screen.
“Do you think it’s coincidental that she happened to be in town at the same time as our Mr. Reese?”
“I’m not a big fan of coincidence.”
There was a pause, and he looked up to find her smiling. “And yet, here we are.”
“Hardly the same thing.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Perhaps.”
“Meaning what?”
“I’ve been in New York many times in the past two years. And yet, our paths haven’t crossed until now. Are you saying you showed up in New York, in my hotel room, by plan?”
“No, I was tracking Reese—”
“Did you know I was in the hunt this time?”
“I—” He faltered. He hadn’t known. Not for sure. But he’d hoped. There had been only a few times that his cases had involved something she might have also had an interest in. Each time, he’d certainly wondered if she’d pop up, had even anticipated the moment.
“So…a coincidence, then,” she said.
“Only in that I wasn’t intending to cross your path, but it’s not all that surprising that I did. Given what we found in Reese’s hotel room, I highly doubt it was just coincidence that he and Julia Forsythe ended up in the city at the same time.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Reese was trying to secure a big exchange at Antoine’s, which fell through. I seriously doubt he just bumped into Julia in the hotel bar on the way back and figured, what the heck, might as well have a little fun.”
“I simply meant that you bumped into me, and with a little less restraint, we might have left similar evidence behind. Perhaps more.”
Finn couldn’t exactly refute that statement. “You think they’ve worked together before, or knew of each other, happened to bump into each other at a time when he had no time to spare, and couldn’t resist temptation?”
Felicity’s smile was both knowing and challenging. “You tell me.”
“What
