“Those are, uh, recreations of ancient Buddahist drawings. It’s supposed to represent Tantric, uh, sex.” She felt fire in her cheeks. “My mother bought those on a trip to Calcutta. They’re not exactly my type of thing, but I, uh, didn’t want to offend her. So I put them up in here.”
He gave the drawings a slow once-over that left Rita squirming, before saying, “Your mother’s very progressive.”
“If only you knew,” she couldn’t stop herself from saying.
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing.” She wished the damn drawings would spontaneously combust. It wasn’t every day a girl found herself standing in her bedroom with a stranger who didn’t like her, examining erotica on her walls. She wondered how to diplomatically remind him of his reason for being in her room in the first place. “Dorian…”
He took the hint. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat and focused on the windows, checking one lock, and then the next. The third was not only unlocked, but slightly ajar. He gave her a significant look. “You keep these locked?”
“Usually,” she said defensively. It was growing clearer and clearer to her that she’d screwed up and forgotten the door. She wasn’t happy about admitting that she went about leaving windows unlocked, too.
“Maybe they got in through here,” he suggested.
“From three floors below?”
As he shrugged, that suit she had so criticized pulled against his broad shoulders, drawing her attention once again to his heavy, beautifully shaped chest. He pointed downward at the old, elaborate columns decorating the facade of the building. They were old and worn, dating back to the same era as the carved angels that had been stripped off. “Somebody crazy enough to risk it could use that scrollwork as footholds.”
Maybe. She looked at the window again. It was divided into four-by-two metal bars in the shape of a cross. She pointed at the small spaces left by the bars. “A trained monkey might be able to get through there.” She pointed. “But not a person.”
He nodded speculatively, inspecting the lock and the window. “A trained monkey or an eight-year-old kid.”
“What?”
“Determination can make quick work of little obstacles like a narrow opening.”
“Even so,” she argued, “what would an eight-year-old kid be doing in my bedroom?”
“Whatever the grownup that’s controlling him forces him to do.” He said this with a grimace of bitterness.
“You’ve got to be joking!”
He gave her a glance that said she had no idea what she was talking about. “It’s a mean, nasty world out there, and people do lots of mean, nasty things to each other. Including children.”
“Why would anyone want to do that to me?”
“Simple burglary, most likely. Unless….” He stopped, thought for a while, and then went on, “Unless someone has it in for you. As we were discussing over dinner, your writing stands a good chance of making you enemies.”
Her mind was yanked backward several hours, past their disastrous dinner, to that chilly online encounter back in the coffee shop. Are you afraid of heights?
The look on her face must have told him something, because he stepped forward and placed both hands gently on her shoulders. He had to dip his head somewhat to look her in the eye.
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