“I hope that’s all his evasiveness amounts to.”

She crossed her arms on the edge of the table and leaned forward. “So what if he stretches the truth a bit? Why does that concern you so much?”

“I’m amazed that it doesn’t concern you.” He gestured toward the garage apartment. “Without notice, a stranger moves in next door. He’s unknown even to the Arnotts, yet he’s living practically in the shadow of our home. The day we met, he told me he’d come to the area to soak up color and soul for his novel. Doesn’t that imply that he would be out and about, observing and experiencing the culture? Instead, he rarely leaves the apartment.”

“He’s absorbed in the writing.”

“Is he? Perhaps. But I get the feeling that he’s not as devil-may-care as he wants us to believe.”

She looked down and studied the wood grain in the tabletop. “In all honesty, I get that impression, too.”

“Then we’d be wise not to believe everything he tells us and to be guarded about what we tell him. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes.” Then, lifting her gaze back to his, she said, “On the other hand, we could be overanalyzing and becoming paranoid when there’s no cause to be. Maybe Drex was merely testing his storytelling ability last night. He wanted to see if he could weave an engaging history for himself and make me believe it.”

“Possibly. After all, when you boil it down, fiction writers are glorified liars, aren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

He didn’t ask how she would put it. Seeming to have closed the discussion to his satisfaction, he got up and carried his dirty dishes to the sink. It rather irked her to be dismissed, but she let the subject drop. She didn’t want to engage in an argument where she would be placed in the position of defending Drex, whom she didn’t know and who was possibly the blatant liar Jasper suspected him of being.

However, as Drex had described to her that period of his life, he had appeared to be telling the truth. There had been no teasing glint in his eyes or devilish smile to suggest either a white lie or a whopper.

My mother never set foot in Alaska. When he’d said that, his eyes, his whole demeanor, had conveyed stark, heartbreaking reality. “He grew up without his mother.”

“Pardon?”

Caught musing out loud, she repeated, “He grew up without his mother.”

“She died?”

“I don’t know. That’s when you barged in. I’m left with a cliffhanger.”

“Regrettable. The unknown facets of Drex Easton are the ones I wish I knew.”

He folded the dishtowel he’d used and draped it over the edge of the sink, then lifted his gym bag off the floor and slid the strap onto his shoulder. “All right with you if I hang around the club after my workout? I may stay and have lunch there.”

“I could meet you.”

“I thought you planned to work on the African trip for your client.”

“Those plans are flexible.”

“Better to leave them in place. I’m not sure when I’ll want to eat.” Her expression must have revealed her letdown. In a crisp voice, he asked, “Is that a problem, Talia?”

It was a problem that she must be made to print out an itinerary to leave with him whenever she went out of town, but that he got piqued if she asked about his plans for an afternoon.

She replied with comparable curtness. “No problem.”

He moved to stand behind her chair, placed his hands on her shoulders, leaned down, and whispered in her ear. “Instead of lunch, how about I take my favorite girl out for dinner tonight?”

She was being placated, and it angered her. She was inclined to shrug his massaging hands off her shoulders. But, for the sake of marital harmony, she smiled back at him. “Your favorite girl would enjoy that.”

He kissed her behind the ear. “I had better stay on my toes. Because I think our new neighbor spun that sad tale about his boyhood in order to woo you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s not at all ridiculous. I believe you’re too smart to fall for his adolescent seduction, but I also believe he’s ballsy enough to try.”

As he was about to pull away, she reached up and placed her hand on his arm. “If you’re seriously worried about Drex’s integrity and intentions, we don’t have to continue being sociable.”

“I’ve already obligated us to at least one more dinner. A double date with him and Elaine.”

“Elaine?” she exclaimed. She came around in her chair and faced him. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“He extended the invitation last night.”

“And you accepted? Jasper, Elaine—”

“It’s okay. He more or less asked my permission to make a move on her. He thought she and I might be carrying on illicitly.” Jasper winked at her. “Funny, isn’t it?”

Drex thought, Not that fuckin’ funny.

He pushed back his chair and went over to the window in time to see Jasper’s car backing out of their drive. Through the surveillance receiver, he could hear Talia moving around the kitchen. Cabinet doors being shut. Water running. The sun’s glare on the windowpanes prevented him from seeing her. He wondered what she’d worn down to breakfast.

“Jesus.” He was becoming a peeping Tom. He pushed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in an attempt to blind himself against envisioning her in some kind of soft sleepwear, disheveled and barefoot, hair in tangles, eyes drowsy.

Before dawn, he’d been awakened by an erotic dream featuring her. Images of her were unformed and ephemeral. He could feel more than he could see, but the sensations were intense. He woke up painfully aroused, the sheets saturated with sweat despite the gale powered by the new fan blowing across him.

He was out of sorts and troubled despite last night’s success.

When he’d told Mike and Gif that Jasper’s search for the transmitter was futile, that he was looking in the wrong place, they’d congratulated him on his ingeniousness.

“He thought he had me,” he’d said, “but he’s the one who got hoodwinked.” When Jasper had come up empty-handed, Drex had felt like shouting at him across the lawn, Gotcha, sucker!

“He gave himself away,” Drex told them. “Who goes looking for hidden surveillance after having a neighbor over for burgers? Nobody, that’s who. I’m telling you, he’s our man.”

Mike and Gif had pressed him to tell them how he’d achieved hiding the bug, and where. He’d refused. “For me alone to know. It’s my crime. If caught, only I will take the fall.”

At that point, Gif, in his reasonable way, had resumed his argument that Drex should notify Rudkowski. “What you’re doing is high-risk, Drex. You might give yourself away and not even be aware of it until it’s too late. If not Rudkowski, alert somebody to what you’re doing. Think of the additional resources that—”

“No, Gif. I tried that once, and it backfired. Big time. Remember?”

“Vividly,” Mike grumbled.

“Okay, then. Before I involve Rudkowski this time, I’m gonna have the suspect hogtied and squealing confessions.”