"I feel like eating something more colorful. You go on without me. I'll catch you later."

I wandered over to the Hotel Kulm and found my way into a casual dining room that boasted a definite alpine flair. Shiny wood booths. Banners emblazoned with crests of arms flying from exposed rafters. Beer steins perched on display shelves. Rams' heads mounted on wooden plaques above the doors. Alpine horns and cowbells hanging on the walls. I found an empty booth next to a bank of windows and sat down. The sun was glaringly bright as it streamed through the window glass, so I left Shirley's sunglasses on as I looked over the menu.

"Hello, gorgeous." From the tail of my eye I saw a man standing beside my booth, his voice, low, breathy, seductive. I looked up.

"Hi, Wally."

He scrunched his eyes up like Superman doing his x-ray vision thing. "Emily? Is that you? I didn't recognize you. Wow. You look really good today."

I'm not sure what that said about how I'd looked before today, but I decided not to go there. "Must be the weather conditions," I suggested. "First time you've seen me in the sun."

"The sun. Right." He smiled. I smiled back. He gawked. I gawked back. If we did much more of this, I figured I'd never get to order.

"Would you care to join me for lunch?" I asked.

"I'd love to." He slid into the booth beside me.

And since he was here, "So how's that room change of mine coming?"

"It shouldn't be much longer. The Swiss are very efficient. Just cut them a little slack."

Easy for him to say. His room probably had windows. I returned my attention to the menu. "I suspect you've eaten here before. Do you have any recommendations?"

"Yeah. How about we get together for drinks tonight at the Hotel Chateau Gutsch? It's a really romantic spot, seventeen hundred feet up. There's a little railway that takes you up to the hotel and a belvedere platform that gives you a great panoramic view of the city at night. If the fog lifts, you might even be able to see something. I'll be free around nine o'clock. What do you say?"

Ordinarily, I'd leap at the chance to have a drink with a man who was a snappy dresser, had an exciting career, was kind to old people, and who was a flaming heterosexual, but my hormones were sending me signals that Inspector Miceli had ruined me for all other men. Miceli hadn't officially invited me to dinner yet, but what if he decided to invite me tonight? If I already had plans with Wally, I'd have to refuse him, and he might never ask me again. Was I prepared to suffer the consequences? I mean, I could be in danger of losing the love of my life by agreeing to climb seventeen hundred feet to ogle the same fog I'd seen by day, only darker.

"That's really nice of you to offer, Wally, but my grandmother already has me booked up for tonight."