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"Yeah, that's my best guess."
"Why? Is she planning on blackmailing her?"
"Maybe." An eighteen-wheeler roared past. "Or maybe she just wants to shake her up. I'm not sure. Either way, it looks like it's all in the family."
"Yes, well, thanks for doing the leg work, my boy. You come on in, write it up and I'll hand your report to the Committee and that'll be the end of it."
Those were the words Conor had been waiting for. So why was he taking a deep breath, turning his back to the noise of the traffic and running the tip of his tongue over his dry lips?
"Listen, Harry, I've been thinking about what you said. Hoyt Winthrop's a personal friend of yours, right? It would be really bad news if it turns out that I'd overlooked something, especially after I put all this time into the preliminaries."
All this time? He 'd been at this, what, a grand total of forty-eight hours?
"Such devotion and loyalty," Thurston said with a wry chuckle. "What's the bottom line?"
"I think somebody should check out Miranda Beckman."
"That seems logical."
"And this de Lasserre character, too."
"Meaning?"
Conor took another deep breath. "Meaning, a couple of days in Paris and I'll be able to nail the lid on this thing."
"You? Go to Paris?"
"Check my passport, Harry," Conor said drily. "I've been there before."
Thurston laughed. "Oh, you are a clever one, O'Neil. You didn't want to touch this with a ten-foot pole but now that it means a couple days strolling the Champs Elysees, you figure, why not?"
Conor laughed, too. "You know me. 'Ask not what your country can do for you...' "
"Well, why not? Go to France, parlay fransay with Miranda Winthrop..."
"Beckman."
"Beckman, Winthrop, whatever. Sacrifice yourself on an altar of mademoiselles, fromages and vin rouge, and we'll put this one to bed."
Conor laughed again. Then he ended the call, took the picture of Miranda Beckman from his pocket and looked at it. After a long minute, he got back into his rental car and pulled out onto the road.
* * *
He flew Air France, business class, and though he was usually good at catching a long nap on a flight, he couldn't manage it this time.
He asked the hostess for a couple of magazines and she obliged with a Time he'd already read, a Forbes that didn't interest him, and a copy of something French.
Miranda was right inside the cover, smiling that cool, Mona Lisa smile.
It was an ad for perfume, maybe, or jewelry. He had no idea which and it didn't matter. He just thought that only a photographic trick could make a woman look so innocent and so sexy at the same time. And when his body reacted, the blood pooling hot in his loins in a way that had become increasingly familiar over the past few days, he finally admitted the truth to himself.
He wasn't going to Paris to close out the Winthrop file. He was going because he needed to take a cold, in-person look at Miranda Beckman and put an end to whatever in hell was going on inside his head and in other, far more primitive parts of his anatomy.
Boys got hard-ons from pictures, not men. And he had left boyhood behind a long time ago.
Chapter 4
Paris, two days later
