The offices lay behind tall double doors of pale gray wood and brushed steel. Lindsay opened the right-hand door and walked into a reception area that was still lurking in the previous decade. The bleached gray wood was the keynote, looking like the ghost of trees. What wasn’t wood was leather or brushed steel. Including the receptionist, Lindsay thought grimly. She was glad she’d employed a ruse to ensure Catriona Polson would be in. Looking at hair blue-black as carbon steel and a jaw with a higher breaking strain than a girder, she knew she was about to be given the brush-off for having the temerity to arrive without an appointment or three chapters and a synopsis. The sweat on her forehead from the sudden transition to air conditioning didn’t make her feel any more confident of success.

Lindsay had felt slightly guilty about ringing up and pretending to be an American publisher’s assistant breathlessly booking a noon phone call to Ms. Polson, but not guilty enough to miss making sure she wouldn’t have a wasted journey. The receptionist’s grim glare gave her immediate absolution. She smiled. Nothing altered. The receptionist continued to stare at the screen of her computer. Lindsay cleared her throat. The receptionist’s plum-colored mouth puckered. Lindsay found herself irresistibly thinking about cat’s bottoms. Then the lips parted. “Can I help you?” haughtily, in a little girl voice that would have shattered crystal.

“I’d like to see Ms. Polson. No, I don’t have an appointment. I know she’s in the building and I’m absolutely positive she’s not in a meeting.” Lindsay’s smile grew wider as her voice became more honeyed.

The receptionist’s whole face tightened, eyeliner and mascara almost meeting in a smudge of black. “I’m sorry,” she said smugly. “She’s expecting an important phone call.”

Lindsay assumed her Southern belle accent. “I know, cher. I was the one booked the call. I just wanted to be good and sure Miz Polson would be here to see me.” Then she grinned. “Would you tell her I’m representing Meredith Miller?”

The receptionist did her cat’s bottom impression again. But she condescended to pick up the phone. “Name please?” she demanded as she keyed in a number.

Resisting the temptation to respond with her Sean Connery impersonation, Lindsay simply gave her name. The receptionist spoke into the phone. “Catriona? I’ve got a person here called Lindsay Gordon who says she’s representing Meredith Miller. She also says she made a hoax phone call to us earlier, booking your call from New York . . . She says she wanted to make sure you’d be here . . .” She flicked an ostentatious glance up and down Lindsay’s outfit. “No, she’s definitely not from the tabloids . . .” A malicious smile crept across her face at those final words. She replaced the handset. “Ms. Polson will be right with you.”

Lindsay perched on the edge of the desk to irritate the receptionist while she searched her business card wallet for something appropriate. When she found it, she slipped it into her breast pocket for later. Just then, the inner door opened. Now Lindsay realized why all the doors in Polson and Firestone reached right up to the Victorian ceilings. Any lower and Catriona Polson would have been perpetually banging her head. She was one of the tallest women Lindsay had ever seen, and she must have been aware of the effect she had on people meeting her for the first time. Yet there was nothing apologetic or clumsy about the way she carried her six feet plus. Lindsay imagined with relish the effect on some of the more effete males of the publishing world whom she’d met. She wore a swirling skirt of Indian cotton, flat strappy sandals and a loose embroidered cotton camisole. Flyaway blonde hair was cut in a twenties bob and framed a round face that looked as if its normal expression was cheerful and welcoming. Right now, wariness was the predominant aspect.