Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) Read Free

our one aborted make-out session after we’d both nearly been killed. I was pretty sure that whole thing was off the table between the two of us now, at least if his actions towards me were any indication.
    I figured he must have moved on. Or maybe he had rules about trying to bed one of his employees.
    Whatever the reason, he’d more or less pretended like that whole thing hadn’t happened.
    “Do you have any idea why he’s even there?” I said to Kiko. “Bangkok?”
    “Is that where he is?” she mused.
    Her voice remained friendly but disinterested.
    I sighed, rubbing my face with a hand.
    Turning around, I sank deeper into my seat. After another few seconds of thought, I pulled out my phone, clicking over to web browsing. I tried looking up how long I’d be airborne for a non-stop flight from San Francisco to Bangkok, but it turned out there weren’t any nonstop flights between those two places. The flight combinations listed on my online travel site ranged from seventeen to thirty hours, depending on layovers.
    Clicking off my web browser, I exhaled again, half in tiredness that time.
    Combing my fingers through my long dark hair, I rested my head on the back of the seat. I stared up at the limousine’s roof, wondering again what possessed me to agree to go to work for Black in the first place.
    I also wondered why I wouldn’t just head to the beach as soon as I got there, leave him to fend for himself regarding whatever crazy mess in which he’d gotten himself.
    I knew the answer, though.
    To both questions, really.

Two
    FOLLOWING ORDERS

    “MS. FOX?” A voice called out to me, barely audible over the traffic.
    I turned, flustered, my two jackets already shed and balanced over two different arms.  
    It was hot. I should have tried to fit the jackets inside one of the bags.
    Managing those, my purse, a long silver case which Kiko gave me a photograph of and told me to pick up in baggage claim in Bangkok, my phone and a different, white, carry-on suitcase––a roller bag I’d also never seen before today––had me more than a little overwhelmed.
    That probably would have been true even without jet-lag and the eighty-five-degree heat with eighty percent humidity at six in the morning. The crowds of equally jet-lagged people trudging through customs and security with me and out towards the long line of taxis that waited outside the terminal didn’t help. We all bumped into one another and sweated on one another even as we stared around with equally bleary and unfocused eyes.
    Since it was so early in the morning, there was a quietness in the air, too, however. People were friendly, if exhausted-looking. The crowds were less bad as well, I suspected, compared to what they might be in the middle of the day or early evening.
    The two suitcases were probably the hardest part to manage.
    Based on what Black said, I assumed the white roller bag must be filled with clothes from my own apartment––also thanks to Kiko. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was in the larger, silver hard case, since it appeared to be fitted with an expensive-looking combination lock.
    Whatever it contained, I highly suspected it wasn’t meant for me.
    As I went through the revolving glass door to the sidewalk outside baggage claim, I found myself wishing I had an extra set of hands.
    Even so, when that set of hands appeared, taking both jackets, the larger silver case and the roller bag away from me with a polite smile and a bow, I just stood there, confused. In the end, I felt strangely naked, despite my near-instant relief at having it all gone.
    He left me my purse and phone, so that was the good news. I found myself thinking it likely wasn’t a thief, given that. I still wondered if maybe he’d confused me with someone else.
    Then a woman called my name.
    My eyes found her standing next to a white SUV parked at the curb.
    She was Thai, maybe five-foot-two and in her early thirties, I guessed. She was well-dressed,