“We all take orders from the U.S. attorney around here,” Jack said. “She is something.” The corners of his mouth turned up as he slid out of his running pants.

Nick stared at him in astonishment. “Was that actually a smile? Shit, Pallas – all these years we’ve been working together, I wasn’t even sure you had teeth.”

“It’s part of this whole softer side Jack is trying out,” said a voice from around the corner. A younger, well-built African American man strolled over from the showers. Like Jack and Nick, he was naked except for a towel knotted around his waist. “It’s kind of nice, actually – he barely ever threatens to kill people anymore.” The young agent reached over the bench in the center of the aisle and stuck out his hand to Nick. “I’m Jack’s partner, the inimitable Sam Wilkins,” he said by way of introduction. “I’ve seen you around the office the past few days.”

Nick shook his hand. “Nick McCall. You’re the new guy from Yale, right? I’ve heard about you. People say you’ve got a wardrobe that rivals Huxley’s.”

“Who’s got a wardrobe that rivals mine?” Huxley came around the corner in a towel and – big surprise – Polo shower shoes. He took his glasses out of his locker and put them on. He spotted Wilkins. “Oh. Hello … Wilkins.”

“Hello, Huxley,” Wilkins replied coolly.

Nick pointed between the two of them. “You boys have a problem?”

“No problem,” Huxley said. “Just a little friendly school rivalry.”

“Not so much a rivalry,” Wilkins corrected. “I’d call it more a mutual understanding between the two of us that Huxley here went to the other Ivy League law school; the one that follows behind Yale in the rankings.”

“And also a mutual understanding that Wilkins here went to a law school that, while theoretically Ivy League like Harvard, teaches its students wholly impractical classes like Law and the Butterfly,” Huxley noted.

With a chuckle, Jack mumbled under his breath to Nick. “It’s like watching the preppy, well-bred versions of you and me trash-talking.” He headed off to the showers.

Huxley looked offended by this. “I’m not that preppy.” Naked except for his shower shoes, he took out a pair of neatly ironed boxer briefs from his duffle bag and pulled them on.

Nick decided to redirect the conversation. “So how did your meeting with Jordan Rhodes go today?”

“Fine. We got together at her house and went over the details for Saturday. If anyone at the party asks how we met, we’re going to say that I’m a customer of her store. I know enough about wine to be able to pull that off without a problem. And I have to tell you – we couldn’t have picked a better person to help with the op. Jordan was able to give me a detailed description of Eckhart’s office. I’m not anticipating having much trouble getting the bugs placed quickly.”

“You’ll have to figure out a way to sneak away from the others,” Nick pointed out.

Huxley slid on a light blue dress shirt. “Already got it covered. Jordan is going to pull Eckhart aside and talk to him about some special wine she’s been trying to locate for him. While he’s distracted, I’ll slip away from the other guests and make my way to the office.”

He gave Nick a knowing look as he buttoned his shirt. “Look, I know Davis asked you to babysit me on this.” He held up his hand. “I get it, it’s my first undercover op. But trust me, I’ve spent three months working on this case – no one wants Saturday night to go smoothly more than I do. I’m ready for it.”

From the sound of things, Nick couldn’t disagree.


TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Nick crossed the parking lot to his SUV, unlocked the door, and climbed in. Damn, it was cold. Six years had taught him that New York had nothing on Chicago in terms of bitter winters. He started the car and let it warm up for a few minutes. He was just pulling out of the parking lot when his cell phone rang, the sound carrying through the speakers via the Bluetooth system in his car. Nick checked the caller ID on the radio display.

Lisa.

He hadn’t spoken to her in six months, since before he’d begun the Fivestar investigation. Frankly, he hadn’t planned on speaking to her again. Sure, they’d had a couple of fun nights, but he’d made it clear from the beginning that there wasn’t anything serious between them. Still, he didn’t want to be rude and ignore her.

He answered the phone. “Lisa, hello.”

A woman’s earthy voice sounded through the speakers. “I heard you were back in town.”

“Got your spies out?” Nick teased.

“Maya said you picked up carryout from Schoolhouse Tavern the other night,” Lisa said, referring to the waitress who’d rung up his order.

“Right, I forgot that she teaches part-time at your yoga studio.”

“She says you look exactly the same.”

“It hasn’t been that long, Lisa.”

“Six months.”

“Well, I told you it would be a while before you heard from me.” If ever.

“But now you’re back. Any chance you’re free tonight?” she asked invitingly.

Nick sensed that this was the moment where he needed to politely – but firmly – make a clean break from Lisa. Actually, he thought he’d done that six months ago.

From the start, he’d explained to Lisa the same thing he explained to every woman he got involved with: he didn’t do relationships. Working undercover for months at a time virtually precluded the possibility. Right now, he was focused on his job, and he liked being focused on his job. He’d been working undercover jobs for six years now, and he was good at it. While he reported to Davis, he generally handled his cases the way he wanted, which suited him well.

When he was a kid, Nick had seen the look of relief on his mother’s face every time his father walked through the door after one of his police shifts. Unlike his father, however, there were many nights, and weeks, and months, when he didn’t come home at all. He may have been focused on his career, but at least he knew not to inflict his unpredictable lifestyle on someone else.

“Lisa, look – we talked about this before I went undercover. This was just a casual thing,” he said.

“But I thought we had fun together.”

“We did. But I’ve got a few things going on with work, and some personal days I plan to use after that, so this isn’t a good time for me.”

Lisa’s voice turned suspicious. “There’s someone else, isn’t there? You don’t have to lie about it.”

“There’s no one else. I’m just not in a position to give you what you’re looking for.”

The phone went silent for a moment. As much as Nick tried to be a stand-up guy about these things, sometimes women got a little pissed when they realized that – hot sex notwithstanding – he’d really meant it when he’d said that he wasn’t looking for a relationship.

“Fine. But being by yourself all the time is going to get lonely, Nick,” Lisa said. “When that happens, you remember the good times we had together. And give me a call.”

She hung up.

Nick exhaled in relief and made sure the call had disconnected. That hadn’t been too bad. When he didn’t call Lisa back, she’d move on. After all, it had been just sex. No sweet nothings, no endearments, no promises of the future. Soon enough, she would realize that she could get a better deal elsewhere.

He had just exited off the highway at Ohio Street when his cell phone rang again. He glanced over and checked the caller ID.

Shit.

He quickly backtracked, thinking about how long it had been since their last conversation, and realized he undoubtedly had another pissed-off woman on his hands. Perhaps this was one of the reasons he preferred to stay undercover. No accountability.

Bracing himself, he clicked the button on the steering wheel to answer. “Ma – I was just about to call you.”

“Right. I could be dead and you wouldn’t even know it.”

Nick grinned. Despite being perfectly healthy and fit at almost sixty, his mother issued frequent proclamations about her death and the ways in which people would inevitably wrong her in it. “I think Dad, Matt, or Anthony would probably call me if that happened.”

His mother, the illustrious Angela Giuliano, who had once disappointed every smitten, fiery Italian man of marriageable age in Brooklyn (as the story was frequently told to Nick and his brothers) by allowing the strong, silent, and decidedly non-Italian John McCall to drive her home from the Moonlight Lounge on a fateful New Years Eve thirty-six years ago, snorted in disagreement. “What do your brothers know? They both live less than fifteen miles from this house, and your father and I never see them.”

Nick happened to know that both of his brothers, as well as practically every living relative in New York on his mother’s side of the family, had dinner at his parents’ house at three o’clock every Sunday afternoon, no exceptions. His father had long ago accepted the weekly Italian invasion as the price one paid for marrying into the Giuliano family.

As happened every time he spoke to his parents or his brothers, Nick felt a pang of guilt. He was more independent than his two younger brothers, and in that sense, the thousand-mile separation from his parents wasn’t entirely a bad thing. But still, he sometimes missed those Sunday dinners. “You see Matt and Anthony every week. You see everyone every week.”

“Not everyone, Nick,” his mother said pointedly. Then her voice changed and turned warmer. “Well, except for this upcoming weekend.”

Nick paused at this. It could’ve been a trap. Perhaps his mother suspected something was up with her birthday and was fishing for information. Although it was surprising that she’d come to him – she usually went after Anthony, who had the secret-keeping skills of a four-year-old.