“What’s your favorite color?” Andrew says, and it startles a laugh out of me. “What? I figure now is as good a time as any to ask some questions. If I did my job well enough, I should be able to ask you anything.”
“Green,” I say. “And I think you’re right. You could ask me anything. What’s yours?”
“Silver,” he says.
“That’s not really a color.” I turn myself a little bit toward him. “Colors aren’t shiny. So basically your favorite color is gray.”
He chuckles. “I’m actually fine with that. Gray is a nice color.”
“Favorite food?” I ask.
“Tiramisu, without a doubt.”
I find his hands and trace his with mine. “Good choice. As weird as it sounds, mine is pepperoni. I can’t get enough of it.”
“So it’s safe to say you’re not a vegetarian.”
I shake my head and grin. “Not even close.”
We’re quiet for a moment, then: “Tell me a funny story about yourself.”
My life hasn’t really been funny for quite some time, so it takes me a minute to think. “I used to have a roommate when I lived in L.A., and we would prank each other by trying to take embarrassing photos of the other and then printing them out and leaving them all over the apartment for each other to find. She was always really good at it—that, and I always take really awkward pictures. It seemed like every day I would come home and find a different awkward picture in a different place. It was a little weird when we had people over, but it was fun. I would try to go and delete the pictures from her phone or computer, but she always kept back-ups—”
“I would really like to see those pictures sometime,” he says. But I can’t respond, because my brain has snagged. Something I read in the files downstairs, about the security company. Trident Security. “Naomi?”
“Hold on,” I say, struggling out of his embrace and off the bed. I find my pajamas in the sheets and pull them on. “I have to go downstairs.”
“What’s wrong?” He’s suddenly concerned. “Are you all right?”
“I just thought of something for the case.”
I hear him stand up too, and say, “It’s almost two a.m., can’t it wait till morning?”
“I don’t think so.” I’m already out of my room and halfway to the stairs.
I flip the light on in the dining room and attack the boxes, looking for the box from the other day, the one with Robert Greene. It takes me a minute to find it, and Andrew is standing in the doorway watching me, totally bewildered. My eyes snag on his body and I have to force myself back on task because he’s so distracting.
“What are you looking for?”
“It could be nothing, give me a second.”
Here’s the box. I paw through the papers to find the comprehensive and boring rundown of the company. I scan it, feeling drowsy already from the minutiae, but it’s there. It’s there. “When the police checked the security records for the entry and exit logs, they checked the servers in the mansion and the central Trident servers, right?”
“Right. There was nothing on them to indicate he left the house.”
I beam at him. “Well, thankfully, Trident Security is a totally normal security company. A.K.A. totally creepy. This changes everything.” I fling myself at Andrew, forcing him to catch me and I kiss him full on the mouth. “And now I’m not sure I’ve had enough of you tonight.”
He spins me against the wall, and then we’re kissing like our lives are at stake. I’m breathing him in, ready to let him take me, do whatever he wants to me. Nothing could be more perfect. And then:
“What the fuck is going on in here?”
I freeze, closing my eyes. No. This isn’t happening. It’s really not happening. Andrew steps slowly away from me, and I see my uncle standing in the doorway. His hair is frazzled, his pajamas rumpled, and his expression thunderous.
“I asked you a question.” He’s not looking at Andrew, he’s looking at me. But I don’t say anything. How can I? He knows what was going on. Saying it is just an insult to both of us.
Andrew clears his throat. “She had a thought about the case, Roger. She came down here to see if she was right.”
“And I suppose she found what she was looking for inside your mouth, Finch?” From the corner of my eye I see Andrew flinch like he’s been hit, but my uncle’s not finished with me yet. “I warned you more than once that he would try to use you against me. I told you to stay away from him. We both know you’re not good enough for this job, but I thought I could trust you to follow simple instructions. I guess that’s not true.”