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Kit angled his head as he looked at her. “Yet you had the guts to shoot someone in that storeroom.”
“I’m not proud of that.”
He picked up her hand and played with her fingers. “Maybe you should be. From what we’ve been able to gather so far, desperate measures were called for. I’m thinking that you’re more like the heroine of The Terminator. Given the opportunity, you rise to the occasion.”
Recalling her earlier resolve, she met his eyes. “I’d like to think so. Some of your theories are turning into facts.”
His eyes narrowed immediately. “You remembered more. Tell me.”
“I recognized Paulo and Juliana’s pictures on the TV screen. They’re the young couple that came into Prestige Designs.”
“Anything else?”
She glanced down at the box on the table between them. “Before I tell you the rest, I want to know what you spotted in the stuff the D.L. cleared out of my locker. I can handle it.”
He squeezed her hand. “I know you can. But, first, we order.”
Though her appetite had faded, she scanned the menu. “What do you recommend?”
“Everything. My personal favorite is the lamb souvlaki.”
“And souvlaki is?”
“A shish kabob without the vegetables. But you can’t go wrong with gyro, which is a Greek-style hero sandwich with grilled lamb, tomatoes, onions and the house’s special cucumber sauce.” He sent her a quick grin. “Of course, if you want to live on the wild side, you could try the grilled octopus. It’s the house specialty.”
“I think I’m basically conservative. I’ll take the gyro.”
He signaled the waitress and ordered two gyros. Then he opened the box that he’d brought from the Dragon Lady’s office. “You can examine everything, but the most important thing is the card.” He handed it to her.
She stared down at her name. Drew Merriweather. In the lower left hand corner was Designs by Drew.
And an address—2355 Chelsea Street, 1A. She stared again at the name and concentrated hard. Drew Merriweather. That’s who she was. She had no doubt of that. Surely, knowing the name should unlock…something.
Finally, she glanced back up at Kit. “Nothing. I’m not even getting a dizzy spell.” The panic she’d been holding at bay broke through in such a rush that she shivered. “What if I don’t ever remember?”
He took her hand again. “You will. I told you I have a plan. We’re going to go there. But first, I had to arrange some precautions. Since your purse is missing, I’m still worried that those thugs who chased us last night may know who you are and where you live. So I made a phone call at the bar, and asked a pal of mine to help us out. Luke Rossi. He’s a fellow P.I. who specializes in security. He’s a real whiz kid when it comes to technology, but now and again, he has a yen to get out of the office and do a little field work. Right now, he’s over at 2355 Chelsea, getting the lay of the land. If someone is watching the place, he’ll spot them, and then we’ll work around them. He’s meeting us here in an hour. In the meantime, we’re going to eat and build up our strength.”
Drew took a sip of her wine. She didn’t like it at all that Kit was putting himself in danger again for her. “What if that doesn’t work? Nothing came back to me in the store. I may not remember anything when I visit my…” She wasn’t sure what to call it.
“It’s either your home or your place of business. Probably your home since you don’t have a separate listing for Designs by Drew. And even if you don’t remember anything, we’ll find clues. And then we’ll follow them.”
She swallowed the panic and thought about being fair. He’d helped her from the get go—in spite of the blood on her suit, the recently fired gun and the money. She met his eyes steadily. “Look, you’ve been really great. But now that we know my address, maybe it’s time that I went to the police. They can take it from here.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you trust me to help you?”
“Yes. Of course, I do, but…”
“Then, I think we ought to go to the address on the card and see what we find.”
She drew in a deep breath. “No. I want my twenty-dollar bill back. I’m going to terminate your services.”
His eyes narrowed, and she caught a glimpse of steel. “I didn’t think that you were a quitter.”
Temper surged through her. “Your best friend is close to being arrested. One of the reasons for that is the police don’t have the full story. While you were at the bar, I just remembered more. Paulo and Juliana were alive when Roman fell down the stairs. He came up to the choir loft to protect them.”
“Tell me everything you remembered.”
She did, then said, “So you see Roman must have struggled with the man that I shot. He told Paulo to take Juliana and run. He said to go to you. The police need to know that Roman was trying to protect his sister and Paulo.”
“I agree.”
“Oh.” Drew felt as if the bottom of her stomach had just dropped out. He agreed with her. And that’s what she’d wanted, right? Or had she been counting on Kit to argue with her and talk her out of going to the police? Was she that much of a Casper Milquetoast?
A waitress set platters in front of each of them. “Anything else?” she asked.
Kit smiled at her. “Not right now.” Then his eyes returned to hers. “Eat up, and be sure to try the fries while they’re hot. Dad makes them Greek-style with oregano and feta cheese. You squeeze the lemon wedge over them.”
Drew glanced down at her plate, but she’d lost her appetite. Kit obviously hadn’t. She watched as he lifted the gyro and took a bite. She cleared her throat. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to turn myself over to the police right now.”
“You’re not turning yourself over to the police.”
“But you just said you agreed that I should—”
“I said that I agree the police should know what you just remembered…eventually. But we’ve got a little time to play with. I’m pretty sure they won’t charge Roman until he comes out of surgery and they can talk with him. Theo will know just how long he can stall the police. Meanwhile, I think the best plan is to see if we can jog your memory back into place. You may remember enough to clear Roman entirely.”
A disturbance at the bar had them both turning their heads. They stared as Spiro lifted Helena off of a bar stool, tossed her over his shoulder as if she were a featherweight and carried her through the door behind the bar. Applause broke out along with a few cheers.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Kit said. Then he returned his gaze to Drew. “You are a very dangerous woman.”
“DID I JUST SEE what I think I saw?”
Kit glanced up to see Nik and the redheaded caterer, J. C. Riley, approaching their table. What in the world was his brother doing here? “You did, and my friend here, Drew Merriweather, is the instigator. She encouraged Helena to buy a motorcycle.”
“Helena bought a motorcycle?” Nik grinned down at Drew. “Good job. It’s high time one of them made a move. Drew, this is J. C. Riley.”
J.C. extended her hand to Drew. “How do you feel about sharing? That food looks wonderful, and I’m fainting on my feet.”
“Sure,” Drew said. “Help yourself. I’ll never eat all of this.”
As he offered his chair to J.C., Kit deftly lifted his own plate and said, “Enjoy, ladies. Nik and I have a little business to talk over.”
J.C. popped a Greek fry into her mouth with one hand, and waved them away with the other.
“Not very subtle, bro,” Nik commented as Kit nudged him out of earshot and toward the bar.
“What are you doing here? You said you were going to find a way to continue working on the case.”
Nik signaled the bartender for a beer, then grabbed a fry from Kit’s plate. “I might ask the same of you. I thought you were working on the case, too.”
“I am.” And it wasn’t going well, Kit thought. Drew was thinking of bolting. He could have handled her having second thoughts about the situation she was in, but his gut told him that she was thinking of bolting from him, too. As he watched her laugh at something J.C. said and then squeeze lemon over a fry, he realized that he wasn’t going to let her walk out of his life.
“And the blonde is helping you out?”
“She’s a client.”
“Nice-looking.”
Kit frowned at his brother. “She’s taken.”
Nik grabbed another fry. “Nothing like mixing business with pleasure, I always say.”
“It’s not like that. Is that what you’re doing with the caterer? Mixing business with pleasure?”
Nik’s eyes narrowed. “Watch it, baby bro. To borrow your words, it’s not like that.”
There was something in his brother’s eyes that had Kit backing down. “Okay, what say we change the subject? I need the latest you’ve got on what happened at St. Peter’s. The news channels have been running the same loops over and over again.”
Nik took a sip of his beer. “You can’t breathe a word.”
