Andreas faced away, examining the mural of Scheherazade. The white tiles in the palace bedroom’s checkered floor were stained crimson. Sterling staggered over beside him, heart pounding in her ears.
He kept his eyes on the mural. “Count the floor tiles in the painting,” he said.
“Huh?”
“You’re hyperventilating. Count them. It’ll help.”
She resented being told what to do. But she counted squares, alternating black and bloodstained white. She was more focused on the scent of his piney soap, but either way, her pulse slowed, and her breathing calmed.
“Good, you sound better.” He removed his blazer and folded it over a chair. “You’re tough. You’ll be fine.”
He slipped off his tie, laid it over his jacket, then unfastened his top three shirt buttons, revealing a bit of chest hair. This caused an entirely different breathing problem for Sterling, but at least now she was thinking about a living body.
He rubbed his thumb across the gold oil lamp and flinched when it shocked him. He ran his fingers through his hair. She wondered what he’d wish for. Probably his grandmother’s schnitzel, or an exhausting hike up a steep mountain, or to cozy up in a cabin with a stack of forms to fill out.
Given his clenched jaw and averted gaze, it seemed he’d wish for anything except her.
“I kept it quiet, but I followed up on Nightingale. There’s nothing in any police records. You sure that’s the name?”
“That’s what I heard. But I don’t know anything else,” she said.
He flicked a tassel dangling from a tapestry. “Who needs all this over-the-top nonsense?”
She crossed her arms. “Let me guess—back in your day, in order to make love, you had to march through snow for two hours, uphill in both directions.”
“Oida. How old do you think I am?”
She shrugged. “Ninety?”
He rolled his eyes. “This kitsch isn’t romantic,” he said, looking around a room that was the definition of romance.
He sat on the mattress’s edge, unfastened his left cuff, and rolled up his sleeve. She swooned. He lay back.
When she caught his reflection in the ceiling mirror, she realized what he was doing. Re-creating the position of David Goldfinch’s body.
Her throat tightened. She watched his chest rise and fall, reminding herself he was alive. She wanted to touch him. She wanted not to want to touch him. She sat on the couch opposite the bed and locked her hands under her thighs, forcing them to behave.
“How does a night here usually go?” he said, sitting up.
“Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much, or a woman and a woman, or a man and two women, or—”
“No, I meant what do you think happened when Hedy and David came in? You’re the expert. Run the scenario for me.”
“If I’m sharing my expertise, what do I get?”
“What do you want?”
She wanted to unfasten the rest of his buttons using her teeth. Alas, propriety prevented her from saying that.
“Whatever info you got from the French consulate’s security guard about the phone calls,” she said.
“Deal. So. Tell me what you think happened. Start when Hedy and David entered.”
She paced, laying out the scene. “They’d begin in the sitting room, with kissing and conversation, then she’d tell him to lie down while she got ready. She eased clients into it. He was dressed, so she’d yet to do any health inspection of his equipment,” she said.
“That’s the service you get if you pay for sex?”
“A skilled pro does it artfully,” said Sterling, switching on the bathroom’s starlit ceiling. “Her flask was open by the sink. Makes sense. It would take a stiff drink to make that guy tolerable.”
