Zagreb

It’s 10:00 at night and of course I’m wide awake. The ten hour time change means my poor body is thinking it’s noon and time to get to work. No such luck.

11:00 p.m.

I called to check in with Cinnamon. She was glad to hear from me and her temperament was less volatile, though no less flirty.

“Hey Sugar! It’s nice that you called little old me again,” she said when she answered the phone.

“Hey yourself, Cinnamon. It’s good to hear the voice of home a little more often,” I answered.

“I’m home,” she said. “I like that. So come home.”

“I will, as soon as I can get this thing settled. I just don’t want to think that Angel could be in danger and I caused it. Stupid disguises.”

“Did she kiss you, too?”

“No,” I chuckled. “I told her I was gay.”

“Would you make up your mind, girl? Straight girl, gay guy, Straight girl in drag pretending to be a gay guy. Just finish and come home.”

“I’ll do that. Did you call Silas?”

“Yes. He was swearing right there on the phone in my presence. You really made him mad.”

“At least he knows approximately where I am. I’ll text him with an exact location when I find it.”

“He said he’s sending someone after you as backup.”

“Who?”

“He just said you’d recognize him when you see him.”

“Great. Now who could that be?”

“I don’t know, but he said he had to make calls and hung up on me. That was about 7:15 last night. Do you want me to call him back?”

“Don’t sound so hopeful,” I answered. “I’ll text him.”

“Did you really fall in a pool when you tried to escape at the party?”

“I was pushed into the pool.”

“That dress! Teri told me it must have cost a fortune.”

“Well, too bad. The dress was the least of my worries. I left it on the boat where they took me.” I hesitated a little before I went on. “Look, Cinnamon. You know a lot of these guys, er… professionally. What do you think of Goeff Gilliam?”

“Mr. All-Talk-And-No-Action?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“All the girls know that he talks macho and is ultra-rude about talking about sex, but when it comes right down to it, he never even touches one of us. The girls figure he’s a closeted gay guy. It’s a good thing he didn’t meet you in your Mr. J disguise. He’d have liked the fact that you were gay.” She laughed and I had to join in. But that was news that didn’t jive with what I’d experienced. I felt pretty certain that I wouldn’t have gotten away if I’d still been on the “Helen of Troy” when he got back to it.

“Did Teri say anything about him? Is he into hurting people?”

“Like I said, all talk and no action. Nobody has ever been hurt by him that we know. Of course, we all keep stuff secret from each other. It’s part of the code. What’s between us and a client is just between the two of us.”

“Okay. I respect that and I’m not going to ask you to betray any confidences. But the guy really scares me.”

“So where are you going now? Anything I can do to help?”

“Yeah. This is really dumb, but I just remembered it. Did you find any car keys in the office?”

“Car keys. Let’s see. Oh, yes. They were out here in the front office, not in your office.”

“Good. I couldn’t remember where I dropped them. My car is in the Pike Place Garage. Could you go over and bail it out? I’ve got a parking place at my apartment.” I gave her the directions and told her I’d wire money to her account if she’d give me the number. She just laughed and said she’d settle with me when I got back home. Anybody who drove a ’94 Dodge probably had less money than she did. I didn’t do anything to dissuade her of that opinion. Dag made sure that I had enough to do my job.

“That reminds me,” Cinnamon said. “Mr. Johansen came by this morning. He said he had the final papers for you to sign and something about expecting your thesis by the first. Ring a bell?” My thesis. Oh crap! I couldn’t remember doing any work on it at all since Dag died. Somehow it just hadn’t seemed very important. Of course the readers would want it a week before my defense the second week of January. I needed to wrap this up and get home. Life had to go on whether I was a detective or not. I decided to ignore the reasons Lars had come to the office.

“So did you want to date Lars, too?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure he’s available.”

“We all have standards, Sugar,” she answered. “I’ll leave Lars to you while I handle Silas.”

“You are an evil woman,” I said. She agreed and hung up.

Well, it is almost midnight and I’ve soaked in the tub and have to try to get some sleep. I need to drive about four hours according to the map I made on the computer. Here’s hoping I make it. I need more clothes and I have to drive through Bosnia and Herzegovia in order to get to Split, about a hundred-seventy miles from Zagreb.