The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

and tucked her feet up underneath her. ‘I didn’t ask how long you were in London for,’ she said lightly, stacking one coltish wrist on top of the other. ‘Or where you were going after, now that I think about it.’
    ‘Back to New York,’ Jane answered truthfully.
And the rest depends on what you say to going back there with me.
Anne’s full lower lip pouted, and Jane realized that she really had succeeded in making a connection with the solitary girl. ‘But I do have a little more time here – just not today. Maybe we could get together again tomorrow? I’d really like to talk more.’
    Anne nodded even a little more enthusiastically than Jane had expected. ‘You could come by after my lunch shift,’ she suggested, ‘or I could come see you, of course, if it’s more convenient.’
    Jane had a vivid vision of Anne and André coming face-to-face in the hallway of her hotel, and barely suppressed a shudder. ‘I’ll be in the area,’ she lied. ‘I’d love to come back here.’
    Anne glanced around at the bare walls and unsteady furniture, and Jane felt she could almost read the girl’s mind. She leaned forward impulsively, ignoring the wicker chair’s protest, and laid one of her brown hands on top of Anne’s golden-skinned one. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow,’ she repeated, and Anne smiled shyly.
And I’ll make things better for both of us
.

Twenty-nine
    ‘S O SHE ’ S A pyro?’ Elodie asked skeptically, tapping a croquet ball towards a wicket with one hand while sipping a mimosa from the other.
    ‘No,’ Jane insisted, turning her own mallet over a few times in a futile attempt to find a version that felt correct. ‘It’s not on purpose. Remember how my computer was constantly going down?’
    ‘That cute IT guy thought you were into him,’ Elodie agreed. ‘So did I, actually. This isn’t the best example of how this stuff isn’t on purpose, now that I think about it.’
    ‘I wasn’t into the IT guy!’ Jane squeaked indignantly, wincing when some heads turned their way. She had come straight from Anne’s little flat to meet Elodie, but Elodie had been in the middle of a mandatory garden party thrown by her parents. Jane had arrived to find the Dessaixes’ spacious lawn full of well-dressed and slightly tipsy diplomats. The hosts had prudently invested in a heated tent for shelter, but to Jane’s surprise, the sun had finally come out, and spring was well under way.
I guess it sneaks up on you when it rains nonstop for days,
she admitted wryly, watching a pair of yellow birds chase each other around a stand of purple irises.
    In her gloomy, rainproof city wear, she had felt distinctly out of place, but fortunately Elodie’s clothes fit Ella’s body a lot better than they had ever fit Jane’s. Jane did suspect that the skirt of her borrowed pastel sundress was meant to be knee-length, but overall she looked the part of an embassy wife with nothing more dangerous on her mind than thank-you notes. ‘Trust me, Anne has no idea that
she
did any of that stuff.’
    ‘So she could do it again,’ Elodie pointed out, hitting her ball once more and then hopping up and down in triumph for reasons Jane didn’t fully follow. ‘Like, if you tell her some really upsetting, crazy, life-changing thing, she could barbecue you.’
    ‘Not like it would be better to just spring Lynne on her,’ Jane argued reasonably. ‘I have to tell her
something
first.’
    ‘So what do you tell her that will minimize the freaking out, both now and later?’
    Jane poked at her croquet ball, but could tell from Elodie’s face that she was probably pushing it in the wrong direction. It was a question that had certainly been on her mind, but she didn’t have an answer. She could, of course, just knock Anne over the head and drag her back to New York, but Jane wouldn’t have the advantage of André’s private jet on the way back, and she suspected that they’d be stopped before they got out of Heathrow.
And I hear that, since September 11, people are a little more alert to stuff like unconscious women being shoved into the overhead compartments.
    Still, the idea of Anne’s flat, or an airplane, or half of New York, catching fire with Jane in it was profoundly unappealing. ‘I could tell her she’s won a free trip through some lottery she must have forgotten entering,’ she offered.
    ‘And then, when she gets there, that part of the prize is a free family?’ Elodie sent her ball sailing in a