style="font-size:15px;"> “We don’t know if they had that celebration before or after his dinner at Antoine’s.”
“Except for the ice. And the still damp towels.”
“Not entirely conclusive.”
“True, I suppose. But not likely.”
“Did you have any information on Reese flying out tonight?” Finn asked.
“No proof, but I hardly think he’d stay in town. He’s based in London, so it’s the perfect time to get a flight over.”
“I haven’t been able to track anything down.” He went back to tapping on his screen. “He’s a lot more circumspect in how he makes his travel arrangements than Miss Forsythe.”
“Wouldn’t you think, if she was a high stakes roller, or in any way associated with one, she’d be more circumspect herself?”
“Not if her traveling to New York was already a well-established routine, which it was. Deviating from that suddenly would have looked more suspicious.”
“If she flies privately, that takes a pretty good travel expense account. She’s done well for herself, but that’s pretty steep. Reese, on the other hand…”
Finn looked sharply at her, then clicked back to the reports he’d downloaded onto his iPhone. “She didn’t always. Fly privately, I mean. That was noted on the last two trips, and this one. No other details about the flights, just a note from the agent that private arrangements were made. By noting the time of the car rental return, you could guess the flight times. The drop-off location is a private field just outside the city.”
“So, maybe we’ll get two for the price of one,” Felicity said.
“The big question is, do they still have the stone?”
The driver pulled in past a small discreet sign announcing the private field. They passed a small restaurant and gift shop, then a gas station. A few minutes later, they were pulling up at a small building with a car rental sign on the front. Just beyond, he could see the shadows of the larger plane hangars. The tarmac was just to their left, and the runways just beyond that.
When the town car came to a stop, Felicity didn’t wait for someone to come open her door. Finn barely caught up to her at the rental agency door. There was a woman in a red blazer behind the counter inside. “I’d prefer it if you let me handle this one.”
Felicity smiled sweetly at him. “You think I can only make things happen when there are men involved?”
He pushed open the agency door for her. “No. I just think I can make things happen better when women are involved.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“What? No smart retort?”
She brushed by him, leaving a brief whiff of lavender in her wake. “No.”
When had she put that on, anyway? It was incredibly…lingering. Not to mention arousing. “Because?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Because you might be right. This time.”
He laughed, and they shared a smile that was both knowing and intimate and made him desperately wish they were anywhere but where they were. They approached the desk together. “Excuse me,” Finn began, before Felicity could start in. “We’d like to rent a white Lexus. Two door, if you have it. Would you happen to have one available?”
The young woman smiled rather mildly at Finn. “I’d have to look, sir.”
“Thank you, Andrea,” he said, catching the tag on her blazer pocket. “Much appreciated.”
Clearly not impressed with his attention to detail, much less charmed by it, she gave a rather short glance Felicity’s way, then began tapping on the monitor screen in front of her.
Another clerk stepped out of an office door behind the counter. His name tag read BRIAN, and he was younger than Finn’s new friend, Andrea, enough that he didn’t appear to be shaving yet. But not so young that he didn’t get hung up, at least briefly, when he caught a glimpse of Felicity Jane. Maybe they should take turns, he thought, depending on gender.
“Whatcha need?” he asked, all willing to provide the cheerful customer service Andrea was not.
“I have it,” she said, at the same time Felicity smiled at Brian and said, “Lexus, white, two-door?”
“I—I do have one,” Brian said, all but beaming with pride. He stepped over to another terminal and began tapping on a keyboard.
Felicity followed him, after casting a brief, smug smile Finn’s way.
He was pretty sure his responding smirk rivaled Andrea’s. Or was a close second.
“It was just turned in, but it’s not done being cleaned,” Brian continued, looking a bit more tentative now.
“Dammit,” Felicity murmured, but not so low that it didn’t carry to the young rental agent.
“I’m really sorry, ma’am,” the agent rushed to add. “But regulations state that we have to go through a check list of items before we can release it for rental again.”
She looked up at Finn, all plaintive and uncertain. Damn, she really was good. “What do we do now?” she asked, as if their only other choice might be life-threatening. Given the barely suppressed level of hostility Andrea was aiming at Felicity Jane, that might not be an exaggeration.
“It won’t take that long, ma’am,” Brian hurried to assure her. “I can get them to put a rush on it; it’s just we had to go retrieve it from one of the hangars—” He broke off when both Finn and Felicity turned to look at him. “What? What did I say?”
“It was left at a hangar?”
“Yeah, some hot shot called and informed us we’d have to go pick up the car ourselves, like we have that kind of crew available. Some people just aren’t considerate, but I’m sure we can accommodate you. How about I offer you an upgrade, free of charge? I have a nice—”
“That’s quite kind of you,” Felicity responded, this time with a smile only Finn knew was forced. “We need to go discuss this; then we’ll get back to you.”
“Sure, no problem. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do. I’ll put a rush on the Caddy for you, just in case. It’s a convertible!”
“Much appreciated,” Finn said, then steered Felicity back outside, leaning down to speak quietly in her ear. “I saw a sign pointing to the main flight office. It’s over there, about halfway down the line of private hangars. We’ll head there and see what we can find out.”
“If she’s on Reese’s plane, they could be heading anywhere. He doesn’t fly in anything small.”
“I’ll bet,” Finn muttered.
Felicity let that pass. “We’d be lucky to find anyone in the office who’d talk to us.”
