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getting
closer to figuring her out. I wasn't. Dimples deepened in her
cheeks, and the corners of her mouth slid up a tad. She licked
her lips, probably to cool them off. Her eyes smoldered.
    Coffee could wait. Sabine couldn't.
    To touch her was as surprising as anything else about
her. She was an intellectual, surely into her mid-forties, but she
had a musculature under youthfully pliant skin that would
have drawn envy from most eighteen-year-olds. Her passion
flowed from caress to tease to attack. Each mood had its own
poetic humor or driving emotion—from Whitman to Nash to
Ferlinghetti. Mostly Ferlinghetti, who won fame for a poem
about a streetwise Dog looking for an answer to things that
were bigger or smaller than himself. Fitting for Sabine, with
her painting of a squalid window in her opulent office, her
books of gauchos and McGrew, her exquisite intellect and
physique. Her lust without pretension. I'd met her only
yesterday and this evening realized that physically I'd never
wanted a woman more.
    Her hair fell softly across my chest. Her head rose and
fell with my breathing. "Are you going to find him, Mick?"
    "Ask me again next week. I had expected to make more
progress."
    "It's only been a day."
    "Usually finding people isn't that hard, unless they
don't want to be found and have the resources to hide. Or, if
they..."
    Sabine touched her fingers to my lips. She didn't want
to hear the more dire possibility.
    "I'll keep in touch with his brother," I said. "Trevor still
might contact him. I asked his secretary to send a bulletin
throughout the firm. That's a worldwide resource. I also hired
an investigator in Caracas to check Diego Cervantes' status in
Petroleos de Venezuela. There might not be a connection, but
Trevor apparently thought the guy was important."
    "I feel that Trevor is alive and well, but maybe scared. I
also think you'll figure all this out and bring him back."
    I traced the length of her spine and pressed her against
me. In the comfort of her warmth, I let myself relax and believe
her. "Do you like vineyards?"
    "I adore vineyards, stamping about in the country,
stealing grapes."
    "I have a friend who has a few cottages on his vineyard
in Bordeaux. We could spend the weekend if you're free."
    Sabine slid on top of me, kissed my lips and ran her
fingers along my temples. "Thank you Mick, but I can't. I keep
my weekends free for my husband."
    "Your husband? You're separated?"
    "Not at all, at least not in that sense. We have a home
outside the city. I stay here during the week."
    My breathing suddenly grew shallow. I should have
asked. I should have known. It probably wouldn't have made
any difference in what just happened, but at least I could have
put a leash on my rampaging emotions.
    "He knows." Sabine kissed me again. "He's an
extraordinary man, whom I love with the same fervor as when
we wed. He is in bed what Blake is on paper—a genius of
mystical refinement. And you Mick are—"
    "Robert Service?"
    Sabine brushed her hand along my chest, down my
stomach, between my legs and squeezed.
    "A Dangerous Dan McGrew."
    I grunted and hoped I met a better demise.

Chapter 3
    Before going into the office, I went with Sabine to file a
missing-person report with the police. The man who
interviewed us was efficient and polite, but he seemed to
harbor some expectation that Trevor might come back from a
woozy tryst today or tomorrow.
    Sabine told him that was highly unlikely considering
the nature of his work. A sudden absence could wreck any
chance for his being elected to a director's post.
    The policeman nodded sagely. "There's much pressure
at work, no? A little escape to refresh is understandable."
    "It is not understandable. That's why I'm
here." Sabine said.
    "There's been no word from family, and it's been only
one day."
    "He has no family in Paris. He missed a client meeting. You do not understand. That's disastrous for him, for
his career."
    "Disaster?"
    The policeman's voice hardened and revealed