Mollie hesitated, then shook her head. “Let voice mail take it.”
Griffen nodded, and from the seriousness of her expression, Jeremiah assumed Mollie had told her about the threatening call earlier that afternoon. But she started out briskly on the walk, and he followed. “They’re madly curious about us.”
“I didn’t expect them to be here when you arrived.”
“I’ll bet. They’re going to grill you tomorrow. They might even stick around until you come home tonight. Doesn’t help that you look as if you’re going off with the devil himself.”
She cocked her head at him. “Who knows? Maybe I am.”
“Ah,” he said, “this must mean I’m not getting dinner.”
“Explaining you to my intern and my best friend is one thing.” The garage door was already open, and she unlocked the passenger door to the Jag. “Explaining you to Leonardo’s friends is quite another. And I don’t want to be duplicitous and let them believe you’re someone you’re not.”
Presumably that would be someone she’d kiss on the hood of a car in a Miami parking garage. “Then why am I going?”
“Because the dinner party is in a large house with extensive grounds. I can drop you off at the end of the driveway, and you can skulk.” She smiled at him, coolly, and Jeremiah realized on some level she was enjoying herself. “I imagine you’re good at skulking.”
He climbed into the passenger seat. “Save me a doggy bag?”
The smile wanted to become genuine, but she’d had a hard day. “I’ll slip an éclair in my handbag.” She went around and climbed in behind the wheel. “Shall we?”
“I’m game.”
She turned the key in the ignition and backed out, reshutting and locking the gates with a flick of a button. She sighed, her grip visibly loosening on the wheel. “This is crazy. You and I both know the thief isn’t going to strike tonight, not at a small dinner party in a private home, even if I am the common denominator. It’s not as if he’s struck every time I’ve gone anywhere.”
“True.” Jeremiah watched her gnaw on a corner of her lower lip, imagined himself doing much the same. It could be a long night.
“Which means you’re here on my account.” She glanced over at him, her eyes clear and focused. “You don’t want me out alone. Am I right?”
“You’re right.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Aren’t you going to elaborate?”
“Elaborating,” he said, “would only make you nervous, and I don’t want to ruin your dinner.”
Her eyes, lightly made up in a way that emphasized their blueness, narrowed on him as she slowed for a stop sign. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jeremiah settled back in the comfortable, expensive seat. “It means I think you wanted me here tonight because you don’t want to be out alone, and I happen to agree.”
“Oh. You’re still being protective.”
He bit back his amusement. “And you, Mollie, are being deliberately dense. If I were just being protective, you wouldn’t give a damn. You’d dismiss it as Tabak-the-SOB-reporter. What gets you is that I care.”
“About your work,” she said stubbornly.
“About you.” At her flush and abrupt pull-out from the stop, Jeremiah laughed outright. “You see? Bad enough you’ll have to eat dinner with me hovering in the bushes. Now you’ll have to fret about someone caring enough about you to risk Dobermans and electric fences.”
She frowned. “I have a lot of friends who care about me.”
“Trust me, darlin’,” he said, laying on the accent, “I’m different.”
Leonardo’s friends lived in a pale coral stucco house on the water. Mollie dropped Jeremiah off at the end of their winding, narrow driveway, where the grounds were thick with palms, vines, banyans, and live oaks. The property was unfenced. He could go unnoticed for days, never mind an evening.
She buzzed down the passenger window and said across the seat, “By the way, there are no electric fences. And no need to worry about the Dobermans.”
He frowned at her. “What Dobermans?”
“Mozart, Ludwig, Cosima.”
“Cosima,” Jeremiah repeated.
“Wagner’s wife.”
“Mollie, that’s three Dobermans.”
“Yes, and they’re all sweethearts. They’ll probably be inside tonight,” she added, “because of the rain. So, not to worry.”
He looked at her darkly, no doubt reconsidering his role as her musketeer, but she resumed her trip up the driveway, leaving him to whatever he planned to do with himself for the next two to three hours.