Free Tell Me No Lies by Annie Solomon Page B

How soon before it got back to the wrong people?
    She found herself southbound on the Taconic. The winding parkway with its tree-lined landscape soon gave way to the exhaust-filled rumble of the interstate, and to the toll booths and bridges that led to the complex world of Manhattan.
    She ditched the car in the garage a block from her office on Madison and Sixty-first Street. Trying to shake her feeling of foreboding, she walked to the sleek glass tower, anonymous among so many other lofty structures. The security officer recognized her and waved her in. She took the elevator to the ninth floor and let herself into the office of Baker Financial.
    Letty Birnbaum looked up in surprise from her post outside Alex's office. "Thought you weren't coming in today." Letty's acid red hair was teased into new heights, her dress tight and cut low enough to glimpse a bit of cleavage. Not exactly the pin-striped conservative who should be representing Alex's business to the world, but something about Letty had struck Alex from the first. An openness, a free-spiritedness Alex longed to possess.
    "Changed my mind," she said.
    Letty snorted in disbelief. "You just can't bear to take a day off." She smiled and leaned forward conspiratorially. The glimpse of cleavage increased to an eyeful. "So, how'd it go last night?"
    If she only knew. "Great. No problems." Alex riffled through the pink message slips Letty handed her. Smolov, her contact in the Russian Duma, had called twice. Was mere a problem? He'd assured her there was enough support in the Parliament for the tax legislation they needed. Was opposition gathering again?
    "Well, you were a hit in one quarter." Letty nodded over to the office. Through the open door, Alex saw a huge bouquet of flowers covering the center of her desk.
    "Who are they from?'
    Letty pulled back in shock. "You think I looked?"
    Despite her distress, Alex smiled. "Absolutely."
    Letty sighed. "You know, you should trust people more." The mournful look she threw Alex turned into a wide smile. "Okay, so I'm busted. They're from Petrov." She waggled her brows suggestively, which Alex ignored.
    ''Okay. Thanks." She started toward her office.
    "Okay, thanks? You get flowers from one of the hottest guys on the planet even if he is old enough to be your father and that's all you can say?" Her voice took on a note of concern. "Are you all right? You look, well... tired."
    Alex forced herself to smile. She didn't like that her distress was so clear on her face. "I'm fine. Late night. Lots of excitement."
    "Want me to hold your calls?"
    "Thanks."
    Finally, Alex escaped into her office, closed the door, and sank onto the pale green leather couch. She was thinking more clearly now, the fear of discovery settling in as undeniable fact. Fact she had to face and deal with. Hank Bonner knew about her relationship to Luka, so where did that leave her?
    Absently, she stared at the flowers. A thick bunch of gaudy hothouse blooms, they were showy in an overblown way, like an overdressed woman with too much makeup. Miki had probably spent a fortune on them. Then again, he wouldn't think them worth much if he didn't pay through the nose. Money was the only arbiter that mattered in the new Russia. She thought of the old joke she'd heard time and again in Moscow. One new Russian tells another about a pair of shoes he bought for five hundred dollars in Paris, and the second businessman calls him a fool; he could have bought the exact same pair for a thousand dollars up the street.
    She closed her eyes. Her mind refused to stay on the problem of Luka. Hank knew about Luka or thought he did. She'd lied to him. Again. And someone had searched Luka's apartment down to the floorboards. Had they found what they were looking for? What had it been? What had Luka discovered? Whom had he told?
    The questions wound through her like an endless maze, up one blind alley and down another.
    She sighed, picked up the phone and called Moscow. It was after