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  I left his office, breathing a sigh of relief. Convincing Finn and Elvis had been the easy part. Telling my best girlfriend, Basia, would be way harder. As her wedding approached, she was becoming increasingly more nervous and worried about the details. Unfortunately, as maid of honor, I kept getting dragged into that weird bridal orbit. Seeing as how I sucked at social events like parties and weddings, this kind of thing was even more stressful for me than the average person. A trip to Egypt was attractive for that reason alone. But I had to be careful. Xavier would have certainly told Basia about Elvis going to Egypt and the contact from their father. I had to play this right.

  Concerned friend, check.

  Emotional support, check.

  Making sure Elvis was back in plenty of time before the wedding, check.

  After I rehearsed my argument a dozen times, I walked to her office. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Basia wasn’t around. When I inquired as to her whereabouts, I discovered she was offsite with a client for the day. Apparently, it was my lucky day. It would be much more manageable to do this over the phone where I could easily have reception problems if the call got too dramatic or emotional.

  Yep. Things were definitely looking up.

  Chapter Nine

  On the drive home to my apartment, I started thinking. In just a few days I would be moving in with Slash. Maybe that was a sign I should begin to explore my domestic side. Channel Betty Crocker. Release my domestic qigong in the kitchen. After all, I had an hour or so until Slash arrived for furniture shopping. Wouldn’t he be surprised if I offered him a plate of warm, chewy chocolate chip cookies?

  I wasn’t sure I had everything I needed for cookies, but I figured I’d improvise. I’d always been pretty good at chemistry and cooking was just a step sideways to that. Walk. In. The. Park.

  Yep. That was me. Suzy Homemaker.

  As soon I got to my apartment, I pulled up a cookie recipe on my phone and started taking stock of what I needed. Chocolate chips, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and baking soda. I had the first five ingredients, but I was missing the baking soda. I could have substituted baking powder or potassium bicarbonate if I’d had either of those, but I didn’t. However, I did know that the purpose of baking soda was to provide carbonation. While I didn’t have baking soda, I did have a carbonated substitute. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. Chocolate chip cookies with a splash of beer sounded good to me.

  After carefully turning on the oven to preheat (that was the easy part!), I dumped all the ingredients except for the chocolate chips into my blender, since I didn’t have a mixer. The blender groaned, probably because it was a little—okay, maybe a lot—thick as a result of the flour. After a few seconds the blender started vibrating so hard I had to hold it with both hands. I turned it off, added a splash more of beer to the mix to thin it out, then turned it on again.

  The blender seemed to take on a life of its own, reminding me of a scene from The Exorcist. It started groaning and whining like it was going to explode. The vibrations were so hard my teeth were chattering as I valiantly tried to hold it in place on the base.

  “Wh-what the h-heck?”

  As I reached down to turn it off, the lid popped off, spraying cookie dough across me, the walls and counter. I yelped and took a step back. That was all the blender needed to lift off like a freaking helicopter and fly across the room before smashing into a lower cabinet.

  I stood there in disbelief, covered in cookie dough. My kitchen looked like a murder scene and smelled like a bar. My ear felt sticky, so I pulled out a chunk of dough and dropped it on the counter.

  Holy cow.

  Time to go into recovery mode. I had to salvage what I could of the batter, so I scraped what was still left in the blender into a bowl, added the chocolate chips, and plopped dough balls onto a cookie sheet. I set the oven timer for fifteen minutes and spent those minutes using an entire roll of paper towels to clean up the kitchen and take a super quick shower. The timer was just going off when I returned to the kitchen. Black smoke curled out of the oven just as the smoke detector went off like a screeching banshee.

  I snatched an oven mitt and reached in to pull out the cookies. Smoke filled the kitchen and the constant screech of the smoke detector hurt my ears.

  “What the—!” I shouted in pain the second I picked up the cookie tray. I stumbled against the open oven door, flipped the tray five feet in the air and sent small, burned, beer-smelling projectiles sailing through the kitchen like a hail of bullets.

  “Ouch, ouch! Damn!” Dancing on one foot, I yanked my hand out of the oven mitt with the previously unknown hole and stuck it under cold water. The cookie sheet landed with a clatter on the dish drainer.

  I snatched the collapsible stool, climbed it and started waving a dish towel at the smoke detector. “The apartment is not burning down,” I shouted at it. “I’m cooking.”

  I ran into the living room and opened the sliding glass door and then opened all the windows. After a few minutes of fresh air and my frantic dish towel waving, the detector finally stopped.

  I climbed off the stool and looked around the kitchen in disbelief. Oh, yeah, I’d released my domestic qigong all right.

  It took me twenty minutes pick up all the cookies, dump them into the trash, and wash the cookie sheet, blender, floor and counters. I’d just put the lid in the dish drainer when Slash strolled into the kitchen and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

  I jumped. He moved so quietly, I hadn’t heard him. “Oh, hey, Slash.”

  “Ciao, cara.” He took a step back and studied me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? There’s something wrong because I’m in the kitchen?” I smoothed down my hair and tried to look domestic, like I belonged there. I leaned my hand on the counter and the other on my hip. Casual, cool and collected. “I like hanging out in the kitchen.”

  He sniffed the air. “Were you cooking again?”

  Dang it. He always knew. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because it smells like smoke, your hair is wet from a recent shower, the windows and doors are all open, and the stove is still on. But I can’t figure out why it smells like beer in here.”

  I threw up my hands. “That’s so not fair. How can you be that observant in five seconds?”

  He lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  I sighed, then turned off the stove. “Fine. I was trying to make chocolate chip cookies for you.”

  He thought about that for a moment. “Okay. And that explains the beer smell how?”

  “I didn’t have baking soda, so I substituted a carbonated beverage to mimic the carbon dioxide present in the baking soda.”

  He chuckled and held out a hand. “Come here.” I took his hand and he pulled me into his arms, resting his chin against the top of my head. “Must I try a sample?”

  “Not unless you want to dig them out of the trash.”

  “Mio Dio.” He blew out a relieved breath and murmured what sounded like a prayer in Italian. “I dodged that bullet.”

  “Hey!” I smacked him in the chest. “Who knows, they might have been fantastic. You like chocolate and beer, right? It could have been a winning combination.”

  “Could have is the operative phrase here.”

  Secretly, I was relieved he hadn’t tried one. Regardless of the cooking disaster, I was in a win-win situation. I could claim relationship points for trying to cook something special for him while maintaining the theoretical possibility—however slim—they might have been edible. Still, I was glad he hadn’t eaten any of them. I loved Slash and didn’t want him to spend the evening throwing up because he’d forced one down to please me. Plus, I was up for another attempt—reluctantly—if he really wanted freshly baked cookies.

  I tried to summon as much enthusiasm as I could. Domesticity co
uldn’t possibly be this hard, right? “I can try to make them again for you, if you’d like.”

  He looked so alarmed I almost laughed. He studied my expression carefully. “You really want to try again later?”

  I sighed. “As much as I want to get every fingernail pulled out by someone using a toothpick. What do you say? Let’s just buy a bag.”

  He stepped back, releasing me from his embrace. “We’ll definitely eat out. Pack up the rest of your kitchen stuff. We won’t need any of it until after the move. Need more boxes?”

  “No, I’m good. How was your day?”

  “Busy. I got your email. I’m glad Elvis is on board with us coming to Egypt.”

  “On board might be a bit strong. But despite an initial protest, I think he’s glad he won’t be doing this alone.”

  “Happy to hear that.”

  “Me, too. Finn gave me the time off, too. I worked a lot of extra hours last week on the DSC case, so it was good timing.”

  “Excellent. And Basia? What did she say?”

  “Well, I haven’t talked to her yet. That’s going to be the hard one.”

  “I’m in full agreement with that. I don’t envy you that conversation.”

  I sighed just thinking about it. “What about you? Were you able to get permission for the trip?”

  “It wasn’t easy, but I did. I made our reservations today. We’re good to leave tomorrow evening.”

  “Hooray! Wait. Just kidding. It means more packing. Not my favorite activity at the moment.”

  He grinned and pulled something hard and black from my hair. He examined it with interest, then dropped it into the sink. “Ready for furniture shopping?”

  I tried to smile. “As ready as I’ll ever be.” Which was never, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Good. We can go to dinner after that.”

  I hoped it didn’t take too long because all that cooking had made me really hungry. As we climbed into his SUV, a sedan in the parking lot started its engine and Slash lifted a hand in greeting at whoever was behind the wheel. Someone waved back.

  “Is that your detail?” I asked, climbing into the car and fastening my seat belt.

  “It is.” He got in on his side and started the ignition.

  “So is it the FBI or the Secret Service?” Not like I could tell the difference. It was still a nondescript black sedan and two guys sitting in the front.

  “Secret Service. The transfer is complete.”

  “Wow. That was fast. Are they coming to Egypt with us?”

  “Not this time. I had to promise to keep my internal chip activated and make certain accommodations regarding my safety, but we’re cool.”

  If he thought he could slide that one past me, he was wrong. I narrowed my eyes. “What kind of accommodations?”

  Slash backed out of the parking slot and headed onto the main street. “Security ones. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not stupid. They aren’t just letting you go, Slash. What kind of accommodations are we talking about? It’s not something like the poison capsule in your tooth if you’re captured by terrorists or spies, is it?”

  He rolled his eyes. “God forbid. We are far more sophisticated than that these days, cara.”

  “So, what is it then? Some kind of microchip implant that will release potassium cyanide? A neurotoxin? Remote explosions? Spill.”

  He glanced sideways at me. “You can put your imagination at rest. It’s nothing that dramatic. You know full well I can’t talk about this. But I won’t let myself get captured by terrorists. And if I do, I’d take care of it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means this discussion is closed.” His voice was firm. “I’ll be fine. The NSA trusts me to handle myself, so you should too. Don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen to me.”

  I blew out a breath. I wasn’t happy about it, but Slash had pulled the national security card. There wasn’t much I could say or do that would cause him to admit to anything more. But I hated knowing that somehow, somewhere, he had something either implanted or hidden on him that he might use on himself in the name of protecting national security.

  He smiled, trying to lighten the moment. “By the way, the police called me this afternoon.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because I asked them to keep me apprised of what they found out about the guy that accosted you at Elvis’s house,” he said. “They gave me a brief update.”

  “And?”

  “The guy’s name is Merhu Khalfani. He’s a thirty-six-year-old unemployed British citizen in the US, supposedly on holiday.”

  “He breaks into houses for his holiday entertainment?”

  “Apparently. Perhaps of note, he’s of Egyptian descent. His father was an Egyptian living in London, although he passed away about a year ago. His mother now lives in a small town outside of Cairo. Interestingly, the father worked for the British Museum as a curator.”

  “Let me guess, in the Egyptian exhibits.”

  “Correct.”

  “So, what was Mr. Khalfani’s reason for breaking into Elvis’s house?”

  “He said he was hoping to make money off the computer equipment.”

  “Right. That’s why he didn’t even look once at the stuff.” I mulled it over. “We can’t consider it a coincidence that he has Egyptian ties and Elvis’s father is in Egypt. Anything else?”

  “Well, he claimed to have no knowledge of any letter or Elvis’s father.”

  “That’s a load of crap.”

  “Of course. But why did he want the letter or, more importantly, who gave him the directive to try and get it?”

  “Good question. Do we know anything else about this guy?”

  “Not yet. But we will.”

  Yes, we would. A few taps on the keyboard and a bit of sleuthing and we would know a heck of a lot about Mr. Khalfani. But right now I had to get my brain in the furniture shopping mode.

  Unfortunately, that mode was significantly lacking, so, as a result, I was planning on totally winging it.

  After about twenty minutes Slash pulled into the small parking lot of a colonial-style house. It had an impeccably manicured lawn with a lot of colorful flowers planted along the front sidewalk. A couple of giant pots filled with more flowers flanked the front steps. An old-fashioned sign hung from a signpost on the front lawn that said Marco’s Italian Furniture and Antiques.

  I shot Slash a surprised look. “I thought we were going to a furniture warehouse.”

  “My mother suggested Marco’s. She thought we could probably find some nice pieces here. My family has been friends with the family for years. They used to live near my mother in London. I thought it might be less intimidating than a huge warehouse full of stuff. I called ahead and made an appointment for us.”

  My brain was stuck on the first thing he’d said. “Your mother? You mean you told her we were going to be living together?”

  “Of course I told her.” He patted my knee. “She’s really looking forward to meeting you. I invited her and my stepfather to visit as soon as we get settled and the construction is finished.”

  What the heck?

  For a second I couldn’t breathe. I would be sleeping in the same bed as their son while they were in the house. Why hadn’t I fully considered the implications of that before?

  “Slash, can we talk about this? Isn’t that going to be weird for you? I mean, we’ll be sharing a bedroom while they are in the same house at the same time. I could move to a mat in the exercise room, I suppose.”

  “You are not sleeping on a mat in the exercise room. We are adults. It will be fine as is.”

  Easy for him to say. They were his parents. To me they were complete strangers. I’d be sleeping in their son�
��s bed, where everyone would rightly presume we were doing more than just sleeping. I had no idea how they would take to our living together arrangement in spite of Slash’s assurances.

  I hadn’t even told my parents I was moving in with Slash, and I knew them.

  I almost started to hyperventilate, but with supreme effort stopped myself. I couldn’t stress about any of that now or I’d fall apart. I had to focus on one stressful thing at a time. Next up was shopping at some exclusive Italian furniture boutique for something to sit and sleep on. How hard could that be?

  I climbed out of the SUV. Slash took my hand as we walked up the sidewalk. The Secret Service pulled up to the curb and turned off the engine. We climbed the front porch and Slash rang the bell. I looked down at my jeans and wrinkled green blouse. My hair was loose but hadn’t been brushed since my shower. I did a quick finger comb, making sure there were no stray cookie pieces there, and wondering if one was supposed to dress up for furniture shopping at a fancy Italian furniture boutique. Heck if I knew. Slash hadn’t said anything about it and now it was too late.

  I took a step back when a giant man threw open the door. Without a word of greeting, he reached out his meaty hands and yanked Slash into a hug, smacking him on the back with enough force to shatter a brick wall.

  “Buona sera!” He released Slash, grasping him by the shoulders, shaking him hard before kissing him on each cheek. “My boy, look at you now. You’re a man. The last time I saw you, you were this high and about fifteen, I believe.” He turned to me, his eyes widening. “And who is this bella signorina?”

  Slash put a hand on my elbow. “Marco, meet Lexi Carmichael.”

  Black hair curled over his ears and his wide smile was framed by ruddy cheeks and a thick black beard. He looked like a cross between the Jolly Green Giant and Hagrid from the Harry Potter books. I sincerely hoped he didn’t smack me on the back like he’d just done to Slash. I gingerly held out a hand.

  “Una donna perfetta, è la coza più nobile della terra,” he murmured, taking my hand. Instead of shaking it, he gently kissed my knuckles.

  “Um, it’s nice to meet you, too,” I said.