"All kinds," I said without hesitation. "Missing persons. Murder." I stared straight back at him. "Cheating spouses."

  He didn't flinch. So maybe he wasn't married. Or maybe he had his own deception going. Well, I could find that out easily enough. After all, I worked for a private investigator.

  "So wives hire you to follow their husbands around with a telephoto lens?" He smiled at me, a full-on, no-holds-barred smile. It was breathtaking. "Or vice versa?"

  I smiled back. I couldn't help it. "Sometimes. You never know what you'll discover."

  His expression softened. "No," he said, "you never do."

  Wow. There was an undercurrent to that comment that almost knocked me off the chair. That didn't sound like the kind of comment a married man would make.

  I took a breath. "What about you? Your work has an investigatory component to it, doesn't it?"

  "Very much so. Take your aunt's case, for instance. It's proving to be much more of a challenge than I initially expected."

  Now we were getting somewhere. "How so?"

  The server arrived with our wine. When he'd left, Dr. Watson took a small sip and leaned forward. "I told you I'd revisit my autopsy notes."

  I nodded.

  He hesitated. "Are you sure this is something you want to discuss over dinner?"

  I was, but I hesitated to say so; he might think I was a ghoul. But I wanted to know what he had to say, and I might not get a better chance.

  "I never met her," I said. "I didn't even know of her. Sad to say, but it's like she's a complete stranger to me. That's helped me keep an emotional distance from the circumstances of her death, whatever they might be."

  He considered that and seemed to accept it. "There's something I didn't put much weight to initially," he said. "But looking at her death in a new light, I thought Mr. Holmes might find it interesting."

  I leaned forward. "Which is?"

  "There was a substance under your aunt's fingernails."

  "What kind of substance? What was it?"

  "Ginger lily."

  I blinked at him, waiting for the punch line.

  "It's a plant. Not terrifically common, but it's often used in eastern medicine, and specialty incenses and teas."

  "So, my aunt ate ginger lily in some form before she died?"

  Watson paused. "Not necessarily. We don't have the tox screen back yet, so I can't confirm what was in her system. But we found traces of dried ginger lily under her nails, which indicates that she came in contact with it in powdered form shortly before her death."

  "That's it?" I asked, a bit deflated.

  "Sorry," he agreed. "Looking under the fingernails is routine. Often when the manner of death is homicide, we find skin cells and such under the victim's fingernails, because victims usually fight for their lives. Unless, of course, they've been shot. Which isn't the case here." He looked at me. "Are you alright?"

  Sure, sure. Despite my assurances, it was unsettling to discuss how my great-aunt had been killed. For the first time, I knew how Candy Crush Girl had felt at Dr. Osterman's lecture.

  "I'm fine," I said. I smiled again briefly to prove it.

  Watson took a sip of wine. "You'll tell Mr. Holmes?"

  "What?" Oops. "Oh yes," I said. "Of course."

  "It may mean more to him that it does to me," he confessed.

  Yeah, I doubted that.

  That reminded me. I found the phony business card in my clutch and slid it across the table. "It would probably be easiest to email him. I never know where he's going to be, but he checks his email several times a day."

  He glanced at it. "There's no phone number on here."

  My smile came too easily. Clearly I was getting comfortable with this deceit. "He'd have to print new cards practically every week. He uses burner phones and changes them a few times a month. No decent private investigator would allow himself to be tracked through his cell phone. You understand."

  "I guess," he said doubtfully. "I never thought about that."

  Neither had I, until a moment ago. But it had sounded pretty plausible, right? Maybe someone in law enforcement wouldn't buy it, but I wasn't selling it to them.

  Our food came, and I ate my risotto in silence, trying to remember if I'd seen anything at the house that might contain ginger lily. Teas, incense, medicine. I hadn't specifically found any of those things, but I made a mental note to look again. I wasn't sure how it might relate to her death, but it might at least give me a clue what she'd been doing in her last hours. And if it wasn't in her house now, that means it might have come and gone with the killer. Had the killer been covered in ginger lily? Had there been a struggle when they'd killed my aunt? That would explain it getting under her fingernails.

  Of course, it could also easily be explained by her making herself a benign cup of the stuff herself before having a perfectly natural heart attack.

  I sighed.

  Dr. Watson looked up. "Something wrong with your meal?"

  "No, not at all," I said. "I was just thinking about your findings."

  His expression pinched a little with worry. "I knew we shouldn't have discussed it."

  "It's not that," I assured him. "I'm just thinking of all the places my aunt could have ginger lily powder stashed away in her house." I paused at his confused expression. "My aunt was a bit of a…hoarder. Anyway, proving an absence of it might mean it came from her killer, right?"

  "If," he added, "there is a killer."

  "But with the way she stashed things in every corner, it could take me a year to be sure it wasn't hers."

  "Maybe I can lend a hand."

  "You don't have to do that," I said immediately. Who knew what undiscovered things Kate might have squirreled away in the place. The potential for humiliation was too great. As if he could see worse than me in a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers.

  He smiled that crooked smile that made me want to invite him not only back to the house but up the stairs and into the bedroom. "Think about it on the way. I can be very useful. Trust me—I'm a doctor." He glanced around for the server. "Did you want to order dessert to go?"

  I shook my head. I didn't think I could stomach it.

  He insisted on paying the bill (not that I protested too heavily) and guided me out of the restaurant with a hand at my elbow. I didn't mind the help. My feet were killing me. He could have carried me over his shoulder like a caveman if he'd wanted to. I was never wearing borrowed stilettoes again.

  Sadly, he was a perfect gentleman, right up to the time we stopped next to the Porsche. Then I heard his low whistle. "Is this your car?"

  "I drove it here," I said. Not the same thing, but he was hardly listening anyway. He circled the car, running his hand lightly across the fenders and the roof. I sent Irene a silent thank-you for her generosity and her good taste in cars.

  "It's a beauty," he said. "It's this year's model, isn't it?"

  I had no idea. "Of course," I said.

  "A boxer six, right?"

  I stared blankly at him.

  "The engine," he prompted.

  I gestured to the hood. "Take a look for yourself."

  He grinned at me. "I could try, but this is rear engine."

  Just my luck. He was a car guy too.

  "I was just testing you," I said. I beeped the door open. "Try to keep up with me, will you?"

  He laughed. He had a nice laugh, deep and genuine. "I'll do my best."

  He did keep up with me, pulling up right behind the Porsche when we reached the house. He managed to materialize at my door before I got out, opening it for me and offering his hand. Carefully, I slid my legs out and let him help me to my feet, holding on to his hand for a little longer than I had to. Nice.

  "Maybe I need to consider a career change," he said as we headed up the walk. "Lowly public servants don't get to drive Porsches."

  Neither did lowly baristas. Or make-believe PIs. I smiled at him. "You seem to be enduring the hardship pretty well." We climbed the front steps. "Maybe you could take it for a quick—" I stopped dead, staring at the door.

  There were pry marks on the jamb. Slivers of wood lay on the sill plate, and the door itself was gouged, as if several off-target hacks had been taken.

  Someone had broken into my house.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "What is it?" Watson asked.

  I pointed to the telltale signs on the cheap lock.

  Watson frowned, immediately inspecting it closer.

  I glanced over my shoulder into the park. Someone had known that I'd left, which meant someone had been watching the house. Maybe the intruder was still watching the house, standing in the darkness just down the street.

  Suddenly I felt exposed and vulnerable and very glad that Watson had insisted on following me back to the house. But I didn't want to stay outside on the stoop for very long. I could practically feel malevolent eyes boring into me.

  When I made a move to push the door open, he put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. "Let me go first," he said very quietly. "It may not be empty."

  That hadn't occurred to me. I'd assumed the danger was on the outside.

  He slipped through the door, with me right on his heels. He was surprisingly light on his feet but tightly coiled, like a trained martial artist, as he moved through the foyer with hardly any noise at all. He was probably some kind of karate guy on top of everything else.

  I pushed the door shut as quietly as I could before stepping out of my shoes and following him into the living room in bare feet.

  He paused. "Anything out of place?"

  I rolled my eyes. "You're kidding, right?" Everything was out of place. Sure, I'd boxed up some things, but the boxes were still stacked everywhere. I'd swept up, but I couldn't find a dustpan, so little piles of dust and debris dotted the floor like a case of chicken pox.

  Something creaked above our heads.

  Our eyes met, and Watson put a finger to his lips. I pointed to the broom I'd left propped against the sofa. He grabbed it and led the way up the stairs, which would have given me a great opportunity to check out his backside if I hadn't been so focused on being terrified.

  The master bedroom door was partly open, the way I'd left it. No more creaking. No noise at all. I wasn't even sure we were breathing. He brandished the broom and pushed the door open wide with his foot.

  The room was empty. The dresser drawers were standing open, as was the closet door. The bed was unmade, the comforter bunched up and hanging halfway onto the floor.

  He glanced at me over his shoulder.

  "I didn't do that," I whispered. "The drawers, I mean."

  His grin was small and fleeting. "Anything missing?"

  I rummaged quickly through the drawers. It was frustrating to admit I didn't know. The house wasn't exactly organized to begin with. Kate'd had so many things, and I hadn't bothered to inventory any of it. I'd just thought I'd work my way through it and keep, donate, or toss things as appropriate. "I can't tell," I said finally. "I think—"

  "Shh." He cocked his head, listening. A second later I heard it too. Footsteps downstairs in the kitchen.

  He was already on the move. "Stay here," he barked over his shoulder.

  Why did men always say that? I had no intention of staying there. This was my house, and I might be terrified, but I was also furious. I grabbed the closest thing I could find for a weapon of my own and stormed down the stairs behind him.

  But I hoped Watson had a major-league swing with that broom, because he had a head start on me. I heard him yell "Hey!" and then the bang of the back door being thrown open hard enough to rattle the windowpane.

  I hurtled into the kitchen. Through the open back door I saw a black-clad figure running across the backyard toward the fence, with Watson chasing after him. Seconds later, the figure had scaled the fence and dropped out of sight. Watson jumped, grabbing the top of the fence to leverage himself over the top.

  "No!" I shouted.

  He hesitated, glancing back at me.

  "He could be armed," I yelled. Which was a possibility. But in reality, the thought of being left alone here terrified me. I didn't want to be alone in the house. I wasn't sure I'd ever want to be alone in the house again.

  He dropped back into the yard. He wasn't even breathing heavily. "We should call the police."

  The police meant Lestrade. I didn't want to deal with Lestrade.

  "I don't think we need to do that," I said. "It doesn't look like anything was taken."

  He ran a hand over his hair and adjusted his jacket and tie. "I thought you couldn't tell."

  "I changed my mind," I said. "Woman's prerogative."

  We went back inside, locking the back door behind us. I poured him a glass of water. He drank it standing at the counter, looking at me over the rim. He'd chased an intruder down the stairs, through the house, and across the backyard, and he hadn't even broken a sweat. His hair was barely ruffled. I looked more disheveled getting out of bed in the morning.

  He pointed. "Is that the PI's weapon of choice?"

  I was still holding the "weapon" I'd grabbed on my way out of the bedroom—a remote control to the ancient TV. I put it on the table and squared my shoulders like I imagined a rugged, battle-tested detective might do. "My gun wouldn't fit in my purse," I said. Which would have been true, if I'd had a gun. A Q-tip wouldn't have fit in the small clutch I'd borrowed to match the dress. That purse was about as practical as five-inch, pointy-toed stilettoes. And eyelash curlers. Who needed curly eyelashes anyway? I'd never once been told my eyelashes looked especially nice tonight.

  Speaking of which, I was done looking fine, nice, or great for the night. I wanted comfort. Probably it wasn't very rugged of me to want to wrap myself in cotton jammies and fuzzy slippers until I stopped shaking, but that was what I wanted to do. And I wanted familiarity. 2B's leering. Mr. Bitterman's toxic cooking. My apartment, which no one in his right mind would ever want to break into. Or live in. Which only went to show how shaken I was, that I actually wanted to go back there.

  "I really think we should get the police involved," Watson said. "Even if nothing was taken, a crime was committed here tonight." He flashed his crooked grin. "Apart from your housekeeping."

  I blinked. Was that a joke? He could have been killed, or bonked over the head, or gotten a really bad splinter from the decrepit back fence, and he was making a joke?

  Then it occurred to me he was trying to make me feel better. That was what alpha men did for fragile women after performing acts of machismo like chasing intruders away. I was becoming more convinced by the minute that this guy only played a doctor during the day—at night, he helped rid Gotham City of crime.

  Only I wasn't fragile. A little freaked out, kind of anxious, sort of angry, but not fragile.

  "It's alright," I told him. It was probably some neighborhood kid who'd known the house was empty. Or an opportunistic petty thief who'd broken in to help himself to whatever he could find. "I'll just go home, and tomorrow I'll call someone to fix the front door." And hope they didn't charge too much. Maybe I could get bars over the windows while I was at it. And a security system. And a big, ill-tempered dog.

  "Let's go, then," Watson said. "I'm going to follow you there."

  "You really don't have to," I said. "It's an apartment building, and there are always people around." Most of them in their 80s and 90s with diminished hearing but an exaggerated sense of civic responsibility. They'd call the police in a millisecond if they spotted an unfamiliar face. Mrs. Granger in 2F had once called the police on the FedEx delivery man. Mrs. Granger didn't trust men in shorts.

  "It's no bother," Watson told me in a voice that clearly said he wasn't taking no for an answer. "I won't be able to sleep tonight unless I know you're safely home."

  While part of me bristled at the sexist sentiment, the truth was, while I wasn't fragile, I was still a little spooked. And I was more than ready to go back to my apartment and lock myself in for the night. I'd think all of this through in the morning, when I had a clearer head and some distance. Things always seemed better in the daylight. More manageable.

  I ran upstairs for the neon green, fuzzy slipper fashion-don'ts I'd found in the spare bedroom the night before. They looked ridiculous, but I felt more genuinely me than I had all night.

  Watson waited in the foyer. His lips twitched when I came downstairs, as if he was fighting a grin. If he wasn't careful, I'd think he had an actual sense of humor.

  I retrieved Irene's shoes from the foyer, and we managed to get the front door locked again, although a good shove would probably break its tenuous anchor in the jamb. I'd worry about that in the morning too. If someone wanted to break in and steal boxes of ancient newspapers, let them.

  When I pulled up in front of my apartment building, Watson was still right behind me. He hadn't let me slip through so much as a yellow light without him during the drive.

  The building looked especially welcoming, with fast-food wrappers and random pages from a newspaper blowing across the property, the exterior lighting reduced to negligible by some dead bulbs, and a surly-looking group of teenagers clustered together near the entrance, with a cloud of cigarette smoke hovering over their heads.

  Watson's headlights went out, and his door opened. I was just happy he'd seen me to the curb. He didn't have to walk me to my apartment. In fact, I wished he wouldn't. I usually hid my apartment away like squirrels hid nuts.

  I got out of the Porsche. I had no choice. There was no time for a home makeover. Might as well get it over with. The place was what it was. Embarrassing.

  To Watson's credit, he didn't say anything about the building, the cigarette smoke, or the dilapidated lobby. He glared at the teenagers when they snickered at my fuzzy slippers, quieting them down instantly, but he seemed preoccupied as I unlocked my door. I hoped that none of the peephole cataracts were on duty. Between my outfit and my escort, I'd have tongues wagging all over the building.

  I pushed the door open and turned to Watson. He was closer than I'd thought—close enough that I saw little flecks of pale green in his blue eyes that I'd never noticed before. Or maybe I'd caught him leaning in for a good-night kiss. Had he been leaning in for a good-night kiss? I'd hate to interrupt him if he was doing that. Maybe that was what he had been thinking about on the way to my door. That was why he'd been so quiet. A man like him wouldn't just spontaneously make a move; he'd plan it right down to the pucker and then analyze it on the way home.