Until You

Conor cleared his throat. "Mr. Winthrop." He stuck out his hand, pasted a smile on his lips and hoped he didn't look anywhere near as foolish as he felt. "It's good to meet you, sir."

"My pleasure." Winthrop gestured towards a doorway. "Let's go into the library, shall we?"

Conor nodded, smiled, did all the things a sane man was supposed to do before stealing one last glance at the portrait. And that was all it was, he saw with relief, just a portrait and definitely not a very good one.

Maybe he should have accepted Mary Alice's offer of coffee before he'd headed uptown after all.

The library was enormous, big enough to accommodate both a grand piano draped with a silk shawl and a fieldstone fireplace with a hearth that could have easily held a spitted ox. Windows heavily draped in crimson velvet gave out onto the street.

Hoyt Winthrop waved to a grouping of leather chairs and sofas.

"Sit down, Mr. O'Neil, please. May I offer you something? I was just about to have a second cup of coffee."

"Coffee would be fine. Thank you."

"Of course. Charles?" The butler materialized at once, all but clicking his heels. "Coffee, please." Winthrop sat down on the sofa opposite Conor, waited until the door had swung shut and then leaned forward, his hands flat on his knees. "Well," he said, "it's certainly very kind of you to make time to see me, Mr. O'Neil."

Conor nodded politely. What harm was there in a little white lie?

"It's my pleasure, sir."

"How is my old friend Harry? We haven't seen each other in years."

"He's fine. He said to send you his congratulations." Conor paused as the butler entered the room carrying a silver coffee service. He waited until the coffee was poured and the door was shut before continuing. "The investigation's been completed and you passed with flying colors."

Winthrop beamed with delight. Conor had seen this same reaction before. It never failed to amuse him that men and women should look so much like little children on Christmas morning when they found out they'd passed a background check and were about to be rewarded by being appointed to jobs in which they'd almost invariably end up with ulcers or worse.

"That's wonderful news. Wonderful." Winthrop's smile dimmed just a little. "But we seem to have run into a minor glitch."

"The note, you mean?"

Winthrop nodded. "Yes."

"May I see it, please?"

"Of course. I'm quite sure it means nothing, but still—"

The door opened, interrupting him in midsentence. Winthrop rose to his feet and Conor did, too, as a woman entered the room. For one heart-stopping second, he thought it was the girl in the portrait—but it wasn't. This woman was considerably older and not half as beautiful. Still, the resemblance was strong, even uncanny.

"Hoyt, darling," she said, and came towards them. She smiled but her eyes—not the extraordinary green of the painting but a light hazel—homed in on Conor with the intensity of a laser-guided missile.

Winthrop put his arm lightly around the woman's shoulders and she offered her cheek for his kiss.

"Mr. O'Neil, t

his is my wife, Eva. Eva, dearest, this is Conor O'Neil. Harry Thurston asked him to stop by."

Eva Winthrop smiled politely as Conor took her outstretched hand. Her fingers were cool but she surprised him with a firm, steady handshake.

"How do you do, Mr. O'Neil? Please, sit down."

Her voice held the faintest trace of an accent. French? Spanish? Conor tried to remember what the papers had said about Eva Winthrop but he drew a blank.

"Mr. O'Neil's come to tell us the Bureau's finished its background check, darling," Winthrop said to his wife as she arranged herself on the sofa beside him.

"And?" she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"And, everything's fine."