License to Thrill

the situation would worsen before it improved. The clawing panic she'd felt earlier settled into a cold stone of terror in her stomach. For the first time since her father's death, she was glad he wasn't around to see her. Or to be mired in yet another scandal surrounding his beloved gallery.

    *****

    Before inserting the key Kat had given him, James inspected the deadbolts for signs of tampering, but found none. If someone had entered her apartment, it was with a key or through another entrance, unless her friend Denise had left it unlocked.
    Wearing latex gloves, James opened the door and eased into her flat. In one glance he noticed the long coat was not where she had tossed it the previous evening, but other than the cushions on her couch being in slight disarray, nothing else seemed amiss. He noted the humidor in the corner, then headed toward her bedroom. The police probably wouldn't arrive for a couple of hours, but he didn't wish to arouse suspicion with his unexplained absence. Besides, he wanted to help guide the questioning of the others at the gallery. Since Tenner was already convinced of Kat's guilt, James suspected the detective would be woefully inept.
    Her bedroom looked comfortably equipped with a large bed and simple, eclectic furnishings. The walls were textured white on white, sparsely adorned with simple framed posters. The pale linens were gender neutral, absent of ruffles and floral prints. The impression of her body was clear in the rumpled comforter.
    James wasn't in such a hurry that he didn't spend a few seconds imagining her lying there sprawled on the covers, her dark hair loose and trailing over the edge of the bed. The woman really was quite delectable, even though she seemed to attract trouble—which, on second thought, could be an exciting quality.
    His mouth worked as he pondered the state of the room. She hadn't even bothered to turn down the spread... as if she were only going to be there for a short time. James pulled at his chin. Had she just returned from burglarizing the gallery? She hadn't exactly denied it when he had pressed her. In fact, he would have bet his gold watch that she was hiding something. But none of it smacked of the Kat he'd become acquainted with the night before.
    Still, he professionally canvassed the room for likely hiding places for either the letter or the case it had been stored in. Nothing. He found her security badge in a jewelry box, but didn't touch it. Next he opened the folding doors to her closet and blinked at the multitude of colored boxes stacked knee-high. Pussy-Kat seemed to have a penchant for shoes, and the ones she'd been wearing yesterday—which appeared to be the same ones on the film—were in a box on the top row. He slipped a pen through an ankle strap and lifted it for a closer look. They were fairly new, the matte leather barely creased at the stress points. The American size ten meant nothing to him, but he could tell it was a large shoe. But then again, Pussy-Kat was a woman of generous proportions—she needed a good foundation to support all that voluptuousness.
    He spent a few seconds rummaging through boxes and flipping through her cramped wardrobe, careful to leave things as he'd found them. His hands stilled when he found the long coat in the back, half sticking out as if it had been hurriedly rehung. He quickly sifted through the pockets, but came up with only an old movie ticket stub and an opened roll of breath mints. The floppy hat was stuffed in the far corner but, again, yielded no hair or other physical evidence, so he stuffed it back.
    And for a few seconds, he considered the impossible. If he disposed of the clothing, the evidence wouldn't be as overpowering. He shook his head to clear it—he was already treading on a thin professional line.
    He then performed a perfunctory search of the living room, bathroom, and kitchen, again coming up empty-handed. James sighed, dreading the phone call to Lady Mercer, then wondered if Guy Trent had already contacted her.
    Disgusted, James banged his hand on the white countertop. He was a weapons expert, a surveillance specialist, and a spy with a dozen aliases. In his twenty-year career with the British government, he'd protected statesmen, eluded assassins, extracted military secrets from various enemies, and freed heavily guarded hostages. And now after six months of retirement, he'd let a damn love letter slip through his fingers.
    And an American woman slip under his