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“It’s a perk,” Mike said easily. “Nothing more than a very nice perk. Who are you exactly?”
Pamela laughed and tossed her head back so the rubies around her white throat glimmered. Mike caught the sparkle of diamonds in her hair. “A perk? Come now, dear, that lie will make your nose grow. You ask who I am? Darling, I’m Nicholas’s wife, more’s the pity.”
Nicholas’s wife? Mike heard the snark clearly. What was this about?
Nicholas said, “Ex-wife, actually. As I recall, Pamela, there was never any pity involved.”
Sherlock saw the glitter of anger in Lady Pamela’s eyes and threw herself into the breach. “I’ve read several of your articles, Pamela. The holistic approach to beauty and fashion is a big hit right now.”
Pamela stared a moment at Sherlock’s hair. “An FBI agent who is into the holistic approach? Isn’t that a lovely surprise. One simply never knows who one’s audience includes, does one?”
“No, I suppose one doesn’t,” Savich said.
“Did you know about my magazine, Nicky? Perhaps you’ve checked it out after pounding the pavement all day? Maybe talking about me to your mates over a Guinness at the pub?”
Nicholas said, “I really don’t do much pounding, Pamela. And my mates aren’t the holistic type.”
“Such a humiliation for your family, Nicholas, you now a common copper. Now, the Foreign Office—” She gave a sparkling look to Sherlock and Mike. “That’s when I met him, in Istanbul, right outside the Blue Mosque. Imagine, a spy for a husband, it was all so exciting at first—” She gave an elegant shrug.
“But you were so busy, Nicky. Then after Afghanistan, well, your moods, darling, they became such a trial.” She shrugged, her smile brilliant now. “Do you know my magazine has tripled its subscribers since we launched two years ago? The Jewel of the Lion special edition goes online tomorrow, and I expect it to be our biggest hit yet.”
No one had anything to say about that.
She turned back to Nicholas. “I hope your family does well.”
“They do very well, thank you.”
She patted his cheek. “Life moves on, Nicky. One of these days you must learn to move along with it. I read about Inspector York’s murder. It’s all over the news, on the Internet. Everybody wonders what’s going on. You’re here to find out what happened, aren’t you?”
Nicholas said nothing.
Pamela said, “Oh, yes, my father told me he saw your father at the club last week and—he’s the Earl of Clarens, you know, and—”
Zachery’s voice came through loud and clear on Mike’s comms unit. “Bo wants Nicholas, Savich, and Sherlock upstairs. Mike, you stay put, keep an eye on things.”
Did her boss think one of the guests would pull the Koh-i-Noor out of his pocket and wave it like a red flag?
Nicholas looked relieved for the excuse to leave. He nodded to his ex-wife and stepped into the elevator with Savich and Sherlock, pressed the button to five. Mike’s last view of him was his stoic face as the doors closed.
“He could always
run fast, when he wanted to,” Pamela said. She gave Mike an indifferent nod and sashayed off, her five-inch Louboutin stilettos clicking on the marble floors. Even when she moved into a crowd, Mike could still see her, she was so very tall and thin and exquisite.
Was he Sir Nicholas? No, he couldn’t be, Sir Nicholas was the nearly headless ghost in Harry Potter. Lady Pamela—his ex-wife. Life was like an onion, her mother had always said, you never know what you’d have when another layer peeled away.
What had happened in Afghanistan?
The lights flickered, once, twice. The crowd didn’t seem to notice.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mike said aloud. “Now is not the time for the lights to go out.”
Zachery’s voice came over loud and clear on her comms unit. “Probably the snow, but our people up here are checking into it. What more could it be than a simple power surge?”
“I hope you’re right. Can you imagine, eight hundred people wandering around and the lights go out? Pandemonium.”
Her cell rang; she saw Nicholas’s name on the caller ID. “Hang on, sir, it’s Nicholas.” She clicked off her comms unit and answered her cell.
“Mike, did you see the lights flicker? Zachery thinks everything is okay, but I know it’s not. Something’s not right. Get up here now.”
