Deliver Us From Evil (A. Shaw 2)

Dominic had seen her drive up and was waiting for her at the door.

When she walked in the cottage and saw the messy digs she said, “I see Whit has settled in quite nicely here. Where is he, by the way?”

“Out working on the job. Told me to hang here.”

“I just got a text from the professor. That’s why I’m here. He wanted to know if there are problems. Are there?”

Dominic tugged at the wrists of his sweatshirt. “I take it you and Whit had words.”

Reggie sat down on the edge of a chair. “Why, what did he tell you?”

“You want his version straight or the cleaned-up copy?”

“What did he say, Dom!”

“Verbatim, that you’ve ‘lost your bloody head over this bloke and you’re possibly screwing everything up,’ only he didn’t use the word ‘screwing.’ ”

“Is that what you think?”

“You went out with him today, right?”

“And I’m going to see him tonight too.”

“Reg,” he began.

She cut him off. “And do you know why?”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” he said sarcastically.

“I can see you’ve been hanging out with Whit too long. That tone

doesn’t become you, Dom.”

“You may not agree with him on everything, but he’s got good instincts in the field.”

“No, he has great instincts in the field. But so do I. And this time he’s just wrong.”

“And why is that?”

They both whirled around to see Whit standing in the doorway that led to the small kitchen.

“I thought you were out,” said Reggie.

Whit came forward and sank down on the couch next to Dominic. “I was and now I’m back. So keep talking. This is really informative.”

“By the way, Bill knew someone had searched his room.”

“Really? Guy’s better than I thought. I’ll have to keep that in mind.” Whit continued to stare at her.

“Do that. At least for future missions.”

“Back to this mission. And your relationship with little Billy?”

“Okay. I’ll lay it out for you. I have a short time frame to get to Kuchin. The whole mission is predicated on him going where I want him to go at a certain time and day.”

Whit tugged his jacket off and tossed it on a small table in one corner. “Just get to the part we don’t know and are thinking the worst about, meaning you and bloody Bill!”

“Jealousy,” said Reggie simply. “It’s the fastest way to reel a man in. He thinks I’m spending too much time with Bill, Kuchin gets antsy. He’s already reacted that way. That gives me the upper hand. He’ll come at me hard: ‘Janie, go to this beautiful place with me and that beautiful place and have this lovely dinner and drink that lovely wine.’ And it’ll come to the point that wherever I suggest that we go, he’ll do it, without hesitation. So having Bill around actually made my job far easier. I don’t have to overtly throw myself at Kuchin, which is very good, because a man like that will see through that sort of thing nine times out of ten. He believes he’s coming after me, it’s a whole different story. His defenses are down.” She paused. “But if you two male-female experts have a better way, I’m listening.”