Page 105 of Over Her Dead Body

I wait until they are out of earshot.

“What are you doing here?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You lied and used my name to enter a private residence.”

“Yes.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“It got me through the door.”

“Yesterday, the same trick got me into a car.”

His attention returns to my hands. “What happened?”

“The man holding my name at arrivals wasn’t my driver. By the time I realized that, we were north of the city, he had my phone, and the doors wouldn’t open.”

“How did you get out?”

“I steered us into a construction truck. When he grabbed me, I put a pen through his eye.”

“You need to go home, Emma.”

“I have a job.”

He gestures toward my injuries. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about staying alive than landing this client.”

“I can worry about both.”

When I first found Reid alive, it felt like getting something back.

It doesn’t anymore.

I think of Owen at the airport. The way I left things between us.

I should fix that before I go home.

I look toward the open doors. Marta and her assistant wait in the corridor, pretending not to watch us.

Once again Reid has put me in an impossible position. I can expose his lie and explain that the man they invited into their home as my colleague is actually my husband, who was declared dead ten years ago.

That should settle any lingering questions about my professional judgment.

Or I can get through the meeting and deal with him afterward.

“I’ll play along,” I say. “Not for you. I’m not losing this client because you lied your way through the door.”

He has the sense not to thank me.

I turn toward the corridor. “Marta.”

Marta returns with her assistant and the handler.

“There was a misunderstanding,” I say. “I wasn’t told the house was sending a second specialist. Apparently they consider the collection important enough to want two sets of eyes before either side commits.”

Marta raises a hand to stop her assistant’s typing. “Mr. Adams said he was assisting you.”