"Want to use the Porsche tonight?" she offered.

  "Thanks, but Watson's picking me up."

  She pinned me with a look and a sly smile. "You know, business associates don't usually pick you up for a date."

  "Good thing this is a dinner and not a date then."

  "Right. Call me after," she said. "I don't care what time it is. I'll be up. Unless Watson spends the night. Then you can wait till the morning."

  I rolled my eyes. "I'll call you before midnight," I told her.

  Her nose wrinkled. "That would really disappoint me."

  * * *

  When I looked at Watson, I saw stability, reliability, predictability. I also saw yummy, but that was just my left brain talking. Either way, I liked looking at him. He'd gone the Casual Stud route with gray slacks and a lightweight black sweater, both of which displayed his athletic build to perfection without being obvious about it. With a body like that, he didn't need to be obvious.

  "I hope you like jazz," he said, opening my door for me at the curb in front of a very cool looking club. We found an open table draped with crisp white linen, and Watson pulled out my chair. "I thought it might be nice to have some uninterrupted conversation."

  Only if that conversation had nothing to do with my fictitious employer. I had high hopes the intimate setting, complete with deep, plush chairs, flickering votive candles under cut-glass globes, low lighting, and the soft music of a jazz trio, would keep his mind off Mr. Holmes and on more pleasant things. My mind, for instance, was wandering all over pleasant territory as I stared into his clear blue eyes.

  Watson repositioned his seat for a clearer view of the stage, which brought him closer, allowing me to bask in the subtle musky scent of his aftershave. I felt my stomach flutter and gave myself a mental down girl. I was here on business. My mission: don't blow Sherlock's cover. Or Irene's and mine, as the case may be.

  After a waitress took our drink orders and left, Watson sat back with a smile. "That color suits you."

  I smiled. "Thanks. It's Irene's." Now why did I go and ruin a perfectly nice compliment with a line like that?

  He raised an eyebrow. "The color?"

  "The dress." And the shoes. And the purse. But thankfully I was able to keep those thoughts to myself.

  "Well, it looks nice on you."

  "Thanks," I said again lamely. Good God, what was it about an attractive man that suddenly made my IQ plummet twenty points?

  "So," he asked, watching me closely. "How is Mr. Holmes taking to his newfound notoriety?"

  So much for pleasantries. "Uh…notoriety?"

  "The Irregulars article."

  I suppressed a groan. "So you did read that, too, huh?"

  "Wiggins had the nerve to send me a link, thanking me for my help."

  "Yeah, well, the publicity is good for our business, I guess," I hedged, wondering where that server was with our drinks.

  "I would think so." He studied me for a second, and I prayed he was only enjoying how good I looked in blue.

  "It's strange," he said. "No one seems to know much about Mr. Holmes."

  So much for the power of prayer.

  "That's by design," I said. "He's very private."

  "Not even a photograph," he said.

  "He's a little insecure about his looks."

  "And no mention of where he's from, other cases he's worked, what college he attended."

  "He moved around. Client confidentiality. He wasn't a very good student."

  We looked at each other.

  "I get it," he said. "You don't want to talk about Mr. Holmes."

  I laughed nervously. He had no idea.

  "Okay," he acquiesced. "How about we switch topics."

  No arguments from me there!

  "Have you made any progress in finding Rebecca Lowery?"

  Oy! From one sore spot to the next. Suddenly I was really wishing I'd ordered a shot of tequila instead of a dry white wine. "I'm not sure," I told him. "Maybe. Some. We, uh, are looking into several leads at the moment."

  "So she's still missing then."

  I nodded. "We know her body made it safely from the morgue to Gordon's Mortuary, but it seems to have disappeared from there."

  His lips tightened. "You talked to the mortician." It wasn't a question.

  I nodded again. "Although I'm not sure I believe him. Setting foot in that place makes you want to take a bath with bleach."

  "That doesn't surprise me. I've heard it's not exactly a class operation."

  "You wouldn't recommend it to anyone then?"

  He looked at me. "I don't make those kinds of recommendations. That's not my business."

  "I thought maybe since our client is from out of town…" I let the thought trail off.

  Watson stepped into the silence. "When you do find whoever is responsible, he'll face serious charges." Anger and disgust sharpened his voice to a knife's edge. "No one deserves the indignity of this treatment. Rebecca Lowery should be properly laid to rest."

  My heart went pitter patter at the passion mixed with compassion in his voice. "We'll find her."

  "I know you will."

  Then he knew more than we did. Still, I appreciated his confidence in us, even though I wasn't at all sure of its origin.

  I nodded to the band. "They're really good."

  To my relief, his expression brightened. "Aren't they? The Matt Bernard Trio. They perform here a few times a month."

  Was that an oblique invitation?

  Focus, Marty.

  The server finally arrived with our drinks, and I took a grateful sip of my wine, hoping it didn't go straight to my head. I hadn't eaten since lunch, and that had been a drive-through burrito.

  "I apologize," Watson said.

  My eyes shot up. "For?"

  "For getting a little heated just then." The corner of his mouth ticked up in an adorable little half smile. "I can't help taking it a bit personally that one of my cases is missing."

  "No apology necessary," I told him, waving it off with my free hand. "I totally get it. A missing body is disturbing any way you look at it." I paused, thinking about our current theory as to why she might be missing. While I was 99 percent certain Watson hadn't missed an obvious sign of foul play, I had to ask…

  "I'm curious…nothing stood out to you as odd during your examination of her, did it?"

  The apologetic smile disappeared. "What are you suggesting?"

  "Nothing, nothing," I assured him, taking another fortifying sip of my wine. "I guess I'm just grasping for why someone would want her body." Or want it out of the way.

  He relaxed a little. "No. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary about her. And nothing was incongruent with a slip and fall," he added, clearly knowing where my line of questioning was headed.

  "You said you ran a tox screen?"

  "What does Mr. Holmes suspect?" he asked instead of answering.

  Mr. Holmes? Nothing. But Irene and I had all manner of harebrained theories.

  "I'm not entirely sure what his working theory is." I blinked at him, hoping the color of my dress looked good enough on me for him to buy the dumb blonde act I was currently selling.

  It might have been the dim lighting, but I could have sworn his eyes narrowed just that much at me.

  I took another sip—oh, who was I kidding? It was a gulp—of wine, cutting my own eyes to the stage so that Watson couldn't see the deception that was surely imprinted in them. I hated this charade. I couldn't pull it off as smoothly as Irene. And when it came to Watson, I really didn't want to.

  I slid a glance at him, at his startling blue eyes with their tiny laugh lines, at his mouth, with its pouty lower lip just begging to be kissed. If only I wasn't lying to him about, well, everything. I wasn't even wearing my own clothes. Or carrying my own purse.

  "I'm hoping to meet him some day. He seems like an interesting man."

  I set my glass on the table with an unladylike thud. "Excuse me?"

  "Your boss," he said.

  Him again. "Yes, he is," I agreed. "Interesting and very busy. That's why he lets Irene and me do much of the legwork. In fact, lately he's been mentioning bringing someone else on board too. You know, to run background checks and things like that. The mundane work."

  What? What was I saying? I was worse than I thought at this lying thing. I had to stop talking, right now.

  Watson's smile reached beyond his eyes straight into my fantasies. "I'm not complaining, Marty. My life would be much less interesting if he kept you behind a desk. And you can tell Mr. Holmes that the tox report was negative for all illegal substances."

  The second most important thing he'd just said almost slipped right past me unnoticed, thanks to the first most important one. "Negative?" I repeated. How could it have been negative given Rebecca's purchase of Fluffy Bunny?

  "You sound surprised." Watson frowned. "What's going on, Marty? Do you have information I should know?"

  Probably. But the truth was if I told him about Fluffy Bunny, I'd have to tell him where Rebecca had gotten it. And how I knew about it. Which just happened to be from yours truly purchasing it. I was no lawyer, but I was pretty sure the law frowned upon buying illegal drugs.

  I shook my head. "Nope. Not a thing."

  "Hmm." He didn't seem to believe that any more than I did. Thankfully, though, he let it go, his attention focusing on the Matt Bernard Trio.

  We listened to the band for a few minutes while I waited for my heart rate to normalize and my suffocating guilt to dissipate.

  "You should probably be aware of something," Watson finally said, breaking the silence. "When Detective Lestrade came in to observe an autopsy this morning, he told me that Barbara Lowery Bristol has been calling him every day about her sister. Sounds like she's demanding he put the entire department on the case."

  "I don't blame her," I said. Even though I did, just a little bit, because it meant she didn't have faith in Sherlock Holmes's ability to do the job. On the other hand, if she'd hired us solely as a red herring, it was possible her badgering of Lestrade was the same thing. Did she really expect Lestrade to divert resources away from his murder caseload to find a missing accidental death? Or was she playing a game with us—hiring Sherlock Holmes and badgering Lestrade to solve the case that she knew neither of us would in order to deflect suspicion from herself?

  My throat felt dry. I didn't want to think the worst of people, but I had the feeling that it just might be a consequence of the job. No wonder police officers always looked suspicious. They had to deal with deceitful people like Barbara Lowery Bristol every day. And I'd only been doing this for a few months. At this rate, I'd come to only trust my dog Toby, and there were a few times I'd seen him look at me sideways when his dinner hadn't met expectations.

  My phone chimed at the same time that Watson said, "You know, Marty—"

  I held up one finger with an apologetic smile and pulled my phone from Irene's clutch to read the text.

  It was from Tara.

  "Would you excuse me?" I pushed back my chair and stood. "I should take care of this."

  He stood reflexively. "Of course. Take your time."

  I hurried into the ladies' room, bypassing the counter to huddle beside the wall-mounted hand dryer.

  Got your messages. All of them.

  Okay, so maybe I had gone a little overboard there.

  What do you want to know?

  So many things. How I'd gotten myself involved in chasing another killer. How Rebecca's toxicology screen had come up clean. How women could stand to wear stilettos for more than thirty minutes at a time. I shifted on aching feet.

  I typed, It would be best if we could meet.

  A stall door swung open, disgorging a plump middle-aged woman who hustled over to the sink then waved her hands beneath the dryer, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. I slid a step to the right. She left before the timer had expired, leaving the dryer running noisily.

  My phone chimed with another text. I don't have much free time tonight.

  I typed, I only need fifteen minutes.

  Another few minutes passed before her reply. Reading it, I could practically hear her impatience. Fine. Meet me at Lampley Park in half an hour. Northwest corner. Do you know it?

  I knew the park. I'd have to figure out the Northwest corner part of it, but that was doable. That's why there were compass apps. My bigger issue was meeting outside on a foggy evening (but weren't they all in San Francisco?) in Irene's skimpy dress. And in these killer heels.

  Are you sure about that location? I asked her.

  I want privacy. I don't want to be seen talking to a detective.

  That was a little insulting, but I sort of understood it. PS Rossi had been practically apoplectic at the though of bad publicity to the show. As a recent understudy-turned-lead, Tara was most likely a bit gun-shy of bad press herself.

  Of course, if she'd had something to do with Rebecca's death, did I really want to meet her at Lampley Park, alone, in the dark, in Irene's thousand dollar shoes? I wasn't sure which of those three might be worst.

  I briefly thought of taking Watson with me but quickly nixed the idea. If Watson went with me, I feared it wouldn't take long for him to realize I was no detective. I wasn't prepared for the big reveal. Besides, Tara might not be willing to talk to me if I brought company, especially if privacy was her chief concern.

  I typed I'll be there, tucked the phone into the clutch before I could change my mind, and went back to the table.

  "I'm sorry," I told Watson. "Something important has come up. I have to go."

  The look on his face made me really sorry. If I didn't know better, it was genuine disappointment. "Duty calls?"

  "Something like that." The last thing I wanted to do was have him tempt me into second-guessing my decision not to bring him along.

  He stood, dropped some bills on the table, and touched a gentle hand to my lower back, escorting me to the exit. "Maybe I can take a rain check."

  Be still my beating heart. "I could be persuaded."

  We stepped outside into a chilly evening. Low fog had rolled in thick and heavy, threatening an actual rain.

  "Where can I drop you?" he asked.

  I'd forgotten I had no car. "Thanks, but I can take an Uber," I told him.

  "You don't have to do that," he said. "I'm happy to take you wherever you need to go."

  A couple brushed past us on their way into the club, holding hands, relaxed and casual. We stepped away from the door.

  "No. Really. It's fine."

  A frown formed between his eyebrows again, and I resisted the urge to reach out and smooth it down with my fingertips. And brush that gorgeous blond hair away from his eyes. And kiss those pouty lips, and…wow, the wine had definitely gone to my head.

  "I, uh, I'm meeting a potential witness. In another case," I quickly lied. "But I have to protect my sources. I'm sure you understand."

  "Sure." Nothing about his tone said understanding.

  "I'm sorry," I said again. Truly meaning it.

  Irene was going to be so disappointed in me when she heard how this non-date had gone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Privacy was one thing. Invisibility was another. Lampley Park had the benefit, or drawback, depending on your perspective, of both. After I figured out where it was, thanks to my newly installed compass app, I picked a careful path to the Northwest corner of the park, practically feeling my way along in search of a bench where I could sit and wait. They were few and far between, as were the old-fashioned replica gaslights that for some horrifying reason brought to mind London's East End in the days of Jack the Ripper. Best to put that right out of my head. I had enough problems trying to walk on the uneven pavement in the heels meant for fashion editorials and nothing else. The trademarked red soles had threatened to slip me right into dewy grass more than once.

  But it was more than the footing that had me slowing my steps. It was the other things I couldn't see out there. My eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the darkness. For all I knew, Tara was standing just off the path, watching me. A light mist had begun to fall, largely trapped in the canopy of trees overhead, sprinkling glistening diamonds across the black landscape.

  What had I been thinking, agreeing to meet a potential killer in a dark, secluded spot? Why had I been in such a hurry to talk to her? Tomorrow in the nice, safe daylight would have been soon enough. I had no self-defense training and no weapon, unless you counted the stiletto heels, which I'd be only too happy to take off for any purpose. I did have a cell phone, but having the 9-1-1 app didn't make me feel any more protected out here. It had taken me roughly twenty-five minutes to reach the park and at least ten more to make my way to the Northwest corner. Tara should have been waiting. But she wasn't, as far as I could tell, which made me wonder if I'd been stood up.

  Or set up.

  A twig snapped, sounding like the crack of a rifle shot in the silence. I froze, squinting into the blackness. I couldn't see anything, but I could feel that I wasn't alone. My adrenaline spiked, making me hyperalert to the point of dizziness. Blood roared in my ears, nearly deafening me. I was afraid to move. And afraid not to.

  A shadowy, hooded figure stepped out of the darkness to my left.

  Reflexively, I screamed and lashed out with a kick, hearing a startled yelp when I connected with shin. But that wasn't enough. I went into human windmill mode, throwing more kicks and fists, wishing I had a larger handbag so I could swing that too. One full of bricks.

  The figure stumbled back, causing his hoodie to slip from his head, revealing a shaggy mop of sandy hair and a pair of light brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. Recognition hit me like a slap to the face. I'd seen him before. He was the same guy who'd been in line behind me at Buttercream bakery early that day as I'd tracked Rebecca's last movements. Icy fear stabbed me in the gut. Was I being followed? Or worse yet, stalked?

  "Are you following me?" I demanded, taking on a very menacing karate pose that I envisioned looking like a female Chuck Norris. But probably fell more toward Sandy the Squirrel from SpongeBob.