I, Spy? (Sophie Green Mysteries, No. 1) (Sophie Green Mystery)

“What’s—where are we going?”
    “Luke’s. He wasn’t kidding about it not being safe for you.”
    Rats. Now I’d have to face him. And I really didn’t want to face him.
    And his revolver was still under my bed at home.
    At least, I hoped it was.
    She pulled up, and I realised I was cocooned in my duvet, a bag on my lap. “What’s this?”
    “Overnight stuff. Deodorant and toothpaste and stuff. I might have forgotten a few things. Come on.”
    She was brisk and swift, not like the companionable girl who’d been comparing Buffy beaux with me earlier. Before the firebomb.
    Shit, someone firebombed my flat. My little flat! What had it done to anybody?
    “What about Ted?” I wailed, and Maria looked at me.
    “Ted?”
    “My car.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Your car is fine. Come on, get out.”
    Luke appeared at the top of the steps to his door, blond hair tousled, wearing a faded T-shirt and boxers, looking like sex personified. Like really angry sex personified.
    I wasn’t sure whether to be turned on or frightened out of my wits. But I was too tired to be turned on and I seemed to have left most of my wits behind in that collapsed building site. I opted for weary haughtiness, and feel I failed somewhat.
    He didn’t say anything to me as he took my bag and slammed back inside with it, leaving me to shuffle up the stairs with my duvet, Maria following. She dumped a cardboard box on the table and lifted a hand in farewell.
    “You two are as crazy as each other,” she said. “I’m going back to check your place out, Sophie. I’ll call you if I find anything.”
    And with that she was gone, the door was closed, her car sped away, and it was just me and Luke looking at each other.
    “You bloody deserved it,” he said.
    “Don’t tell me you threw that thing through my window?”
    He threw me a sarcastic look. “No, but maybe next time I will. Jesus, Sophie—” he stalked over to the door and started punching in a code on the control box, “—what were you thinking?”
    “I was thinking, I’m hurt and I want to go home and lick my wounds.”
    He paused and raised an eyebrow at me.
    “Oh, fuck off,” I snarled tiredly, clutching my duvet about me. “You’d have done the same thing. Why didn’t you set the alarm when I was here before?”
    He sighed. “The same reason I dropped off a box of DVDs at your house. I knew you’d go back.”
    I stared at him. He knew? Then why was he so mad? “Those are your DVDs?”
    “Yes. You seem to have a mild obsession.” He started poking around in my bag. “Do you have your stun gun and things?”
    “I don’t know. Maria packed it.”
    “What were you doing?”
    Drooling unconsciously. “I passed out,” I mumbled.
    “Jesus. Sophie,” Luke came over and lifted my chin. “Look. If you want out of SO17 then tell me. It’ll be easier sooner rather than—”
    “Out?” I stared at him. “Luke, before all this the most exciting thing that used to happen to me was getting two numbers on the lottery.”
    “You need three to win a tenner.”
    “I know. But I’ve never got three. God, one is cause for celebration. I never win anything,” I said moodily.
    “You don’t want to get out?”
    “No! Why would you think that?”
    He ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. You’ve been through a lot. People have flaked out before on less than this.”
    “Yes, well, not me.”
    “Aren’t you frightened?”
    I was bloody terrified. Of everything. “Not really,” I said, and Luke smiled for the first time that night.
    “Liar.”
     
    Neither of us could sleep, so we sat up watching all the Buffy featurettes and episode commentaries. Luke was quite the aficionado—he knew more about it than me. It was bizarrely endearing.
    “So what were you doing all day that was more important than keeping an eye on me?” I asked as the sky started to get light.
    “Checking out Wright and any possible partners. He was right when he said it was no one well known. He’s got no history of working with anyone. He doesn’t even need to link himself with a bank, since he has his own.”
    “It wasn’t that Jane… no,” I yawned, “that Helen woman?”
    “You made up the Helen woman,” Luke reminded me. We were sitting side by side on the chesterfield. I was still wrapped in my duvet and Luke had taken a corner of it. I could feel his leg through the fabric of my pyjamas. It was making concentration quite hard. “I checked out Jane