“Rye and water, no ice, please.”
“Certainly, sir.”
At what point did politeness turn to parody, he wondered; and decided Katrin knew that point precisely, and wasn’t above using it. He sat down.
No one else had noticed anything; perhaps his imagination was working overtime. The odd thing was that, elusively, she reminded him of someone; he’d figured this out while he was doing his routine of bench presses. He’d already searched through all the old Teal Lake contacts, and knew she didn’t belong there. So where else could he have met her? Nowhere that he could think of. And yet something about the tilt of her chin, her carriage, set off signals in his brain.
Once again the food was excellent; once again Guy was gulping a fine Shiraz as though it were water and eating Châteaubriand with the appreciation hamburger deserved.
The conversation turned to the vagaries of the stock market. Guy, to do him justice, had one or two insights about insider trading that were worth listening to. As Katrin poured coffee from a sterling pot, moving efficiently from seat to seat, Guy said with overdone bonhomie, “Well, Katrin, I don’t suppose you earn enough to consider investing. But if you did, would you buy into the Alvena bond fund?”
She said woodenly, “I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Of course not,” Guy said in a voice as smooth as cream. “Let’s try something a little closer to your level. How about two-minute portfolios, they’re all the rage for people with no smarts who know zilch about the market…is that how you’d invest your money?”
For a split second she hesitated, as though making an inner decision. Then she looked right at Guy, coffeepot suspended, and said crisply, “A two-minute portfolio isn’t a bad strategy. When you play the market, you’re going to get some duds no matter how careful you are. So by picking from the TSE’s top blue-chips, you’ll also get enough high-earners to more than offset your losses.” She gave him a bland smile. “Would you agree with me, sir?”
Guy flushed an unbecoming brick-red. “This coffee tastes like it was brewed yesterday,” he snarled.
“I’ll make you some fresh, sir,” she replied, deftly removing his cup, and with that same unconscious pride of bearing that Luke had noticed the day before, headed for the kitchen.
Luke drawled, “That woman’s wasted as a waitress…so what’s the prognosis for the S&P over the next six months, Guy?”
For a moment he thought Guy was going to jump across the table at him, and felt all his muscles tighten in anticipation. Then Guy subsided, mumbling something about low percentiles, and the conversation became general again. Luke lingered over a second coffee and was the last to leave the dining room, timing his departure just as Katrin was clearing off a nearby empty table. Soft-footed as a cat, he stepped up behind her. “It’d be a shame if you had to cash in your investments, Katrin,” he said, “but you’ll lose your job if you go dumping expensive brandy over every customer who insults you.”
She turned to face him, her hands full of dirty wineglasses, her face expressionless. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”
“Last night you spilled brandy all over Guy Wharton on purpose.”
“Why would I do that? Waitresses don’t have feelings—they can’t afford to.”
“Then you’re the exception that proves the rule. I wish to God you’d take those glasses off…then I might have some idea what you are feeling.”
She stepped back in sudden alarm. “My feelings, or lack of them, are none of your business…sir.”
She was right, of course. “I also wish you’d stop calling me sir.”
“It’s one of the house rules,” she said frigidly. “Another of which is that guests and staff don’t fraternize. So if you’ll excuse me, sir, I have work to do.”
“You’re wasted in a job like this, you’re far too intelligent.”
She said tightly, “My choice of job is just that—my choice. Good night, sir.”
She had turned away. Short of grabbing her by the arm, a move he had no intention of making, Luke knew the conversation was over. Score: Katrin, one; Luke, zero. He said pleasantly, “If you are investing, steer clear of Scitech—it’s going down the tubes. Good night, Katrin.”
But, just as he was turning away, he heard himself add, “You know, I have the oddest feeling—you remind me of someone, and I can’t think who.” He hadn’t planned to tell her this. Not before he’d pinned down the memory that was teasing his brain.
Her whole body went still: the stillness of prey faced with a predator. She said so quietly he could hardly hear her, “You’re mistaken. You’re quite wrong—I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
His senses sharpened. Her shoulders were stiff with tension, the same tension that had underlain her voice. So there was something mysterious about her. The ugly glasses were nothing to do with hiding her femininity, and everything to do with another kind of disguise. Katrin didn’t want to be recognized because she was other than she appeared. He said, thinking out loud, “Right now I can’t pin down where I might have seen you…but I’m sure it’ll come to me.”
Two of the wineglasses slipped through her fingers. As they fell to the carpet, one hit the table leg, shattering into pieces. With a tiny exclamation of distress, Katrin bent to pick them up.
“Careful,” Luke exclaimed, “you could cut yourself.”
He grabbed a napkin from the table and knelt beside her, wrapping the shards of glass in the thick linen. Her perfume drifted to his nostrils, something floral and delicate. The red mark on her wrist hadn’t completely faded; her veins were blue against her creamy skin, her wrist bones fragile. She said raggedly, “Please go away—I’ll clean this up.”
Jerkily she reached for a splinter of glass. Blood blossomed from her fingertip; she gave a gasp of pain. Luke said urgently, “Katrin, leave this. Here, stand up.”
He seized her by the elbow, pulling her to her feet. Then he gently rested her fingers on his sleeve, probing at the wound. She said breathlessly, “Stop, you’re hurting.”
“There’s glass in it, hold still,” he ordered, and as carefully as he could extracted a small shard of glass from the cut. “There, that’s better. Is there a first-aid kit in the kitchen?”
A male voice said authoritatively, “What’s the trouble here, sir?”
The ubiquitous maître d’, thought Luke, and wished the man a hundred miles away. “She’s cut her finger,” he said with equal authority. “Will you please show me where the first-aid kit is?”
“I’ll look after—”
“Now,” said Luke, transferring his gaze from Katrin’s finger to the young man’s face. As Luke had known he would, the young man backed off.
“Certainly, sir. This way, please.”
The kitchen was in a state of controlled chaos from having produced gourmet meals for two hundred people. The maître d’, whose name tag said Olaf, led Luke to a square box in a secluded corner of the kitchen. “Thanks,” Luke said briefly, “I can manage now. Perhaps you could see that the remainder of the glass gets picked up.”
Without another word, Olaf left. Katrin tried to tug her hand free, saying with suppressed fury, “Who do you think you are, throwing your weight around like this? Giving everybody orders as if you owned the place. It’s only a cut, for heaven’s sake—I’m perfectly capable of looking after it myself.”
Luke