“No, darling,” he said in a soothing voice, and reached out to touch my hand. “I’m trying to find a killer.”
I clutched his hand in mine. He was being objective and I was getting emotional, and that wouldn’t help solve anything. I took a moment to breathe and realign my thoughts. “Okay, we both know Robin is innocent, right?”
“Of course, but she’s also at the center of something thorny. We need to unravel each individual thread in order to help her out of it.”
“Agreed.” I looked at the calendar again. “So, I’ll go with the theory that Alex found the flash drive Thursday, then met Robin that night. So maybe someone else was after the flash drive, too, and they tracked down Alex Saturday night at Robin’s place. Where they killed him late that night, or rather, early Sunday morning.”
“Perhaps. Continue.”
“Okay. I’m thinking of that perfect bullet hole in Alex’s forehead.” I gulped back a shiver of dread and continued. “So whoever killed him was probably another so-called professional operative, right?”
Derek nodded, but said nothing.
“So how professional is it,” I continued, “to kill another operative in the home of some innocent civilian who has no connection to anything? Wouldn’t they wait and whack him on his own turf?”
He smiled at my use of the lingo. “That’s a good point, and there are two different ways to proceed from there. The first is to assume that the killer wasn’t a professional, but the expert bullet placement belies that theory.”
“Right. What’s the second?”
“The second is to assume that Robin was not the innocent civilian we thought she was.”
“And that’s impossible,” I insisted, “so we’ve hit a dead end.”
“No, we’ll just continue to work through it until we arrive at our original theory.”
“What’s that?” I asked, sounding crabby.
“That Robin is innocent, naturally.”
“Oh.” Somewhat mollified, I nodded. “Okay, let’s keep talking.”
“Let me introduce one more tangle,” Derek said. “Perhaps I should’ve mentioned this before, but another agent was apparently dispatched to do the brush, but once Alex was killed, she was told to track down the drive.”
“She?” I echoed. “Would that be Galina?”
He lifted a shoulder. “My source didn’t have a name to give me. I was only told it’s a woman.”
“But Galina seemed more like a spurned lover than a highly trained operative,” I grumbled.
“She also worked out of Toronto, so perhaps you’re right. Perhaps they were lovers.”
I thought about that for a moment. “The fact that they were lovers probably saved our lives.”
“How so?” he asked.
“Galina was as strong as a bull. I have no doubt she could’ve killed us both with two well-placed karate chops. But she was emotional. She was on a wild rant, out of control, so Robin and I were able to get some punches in and distract her enough to push her down to the sidewalk.”
“Excellent theorizing, darling,” he said with a proud smile.
“Thanks,” I said, grinning, then remembered something else he’d said a moment ago. “I’m afraid to ask, but what’s a brush?”
“Brush pass. One agent passes off the item to another.”
“Good to know.” I leaned forward on my elbows. “So Alex was supposed to get the flash drive and pass it on to Galina. But Alex obviously didn’t find it and neither did Galina, because she kept yelling at us to give it to her, right?”
“That’s right.”
“So we’re kind of back to square one.”
“Not at all. A day later, your home was broken into.”
I shook my head. “Wow, I almost forgot. Broken into by some big ugly guy, according to Tyler. So who’s that guy? And why break in here?”
“Because they all think Robin has the flash drive.”
That shiver of dread grew more pronounced and I rubbed my arms to make it go away. “They broke in to find Robin.”
“They want the flash drive, not Robin.”
He said that to make me feel better, but it didn’t work. Alarmed, I stood and flexed my hands nervously. “Do you think someone followed us to Dharma? Is Robin in danger there?”
He jumped up and grabbed hold of my arms. “It’s all right. She’s with Austin, and I have Gabriel watching the perimeter.”
“Oh.” I blinked in surprise, then wrapped him in a tight hug. “Thank you for thinking of that.”
“Shall we call it quits for the night? Are you tired?”
I stayed tucked close to his solid body for another moment. He was like my own private security blanket, and I savored every inch of him.
Finally, though, I lifted my head and looked at him. “I’m not tired. I want to keep going. But I’m starving, so let’s cook while we talk.”
“Perfect.” He kissed me, then let me go, following me into the kitchen to help.
We whipped up a big salad with chunks of veggies and shredded chicken. I’d forgotten all about my martini, so Derek poured me another very weak one. Back at the dining room table, we resumed our theorizing game.