“Your newscasts yesterday and today seemed to go well also.”

A fresh rush of adrenaline flared beneath her skin, and her cheeks warmed. “You watched me?”

“Of course I watched you.”

“Why?”

While he didn’t take his eyes off the road, a small smile was still evident. His voice was low, but purposeful when he spoke. “Because I wanted to.”

The flush beneath her skin turned to pure heat, and as short and shallow as her breathing was, she didn’t dare speak right away. She traced the latch on her clutch and scrambled for something neutral to talk about. Anything to get them back to some semblance of normal to keep her mind from dangerous thoughts. “I tried to do a little more research between newscasts this weekend. Went back through some old interviews to see if I could dig up any other ideas on who you might be concerned about.”

“Did you?” He briefly looked her way then went back to navigating to wherever they were headed. “And how did that go?”

She shrugged. “It didn’t, really. All the conversations and people were pretty much the way I remembered it. Although, there was a man I interviewed that seemed off to me. Both when I interviewed him the first time and again when I watched the recording this time.”

“What man?”

“One of Alfonsi’s bodyguards.”

For a moment, Kir was silent, considering. “What bothered you about it?”

Hmm. How to put into words something she still wasn’t sure made sense? “I guess I just always assumed that, if a person has a bodyguard, they have a guard all the time.”

“And his guard said something to imply Alfonsi didn’t?”

“More than implied. He said the day Alfonsi disappeared, he’d first seen him at his office that morning. When I clarified and asked if he’d been the one to drive Alfonsi to work, he said that sometimes Alfonsi drove himself. That sometimes he didn’t want a guard.”

Kir nodded. “It’s true. Sergei nearly always has protection, but not always.”

“Hmm.” She sighed and studied the tall brick buildings that lined North Peters Street. “I guess it’s not as big of a deal as I thought.”

Kir cocked his head. “It might be. If Alfonsi had protection the majority of the time, but opted to forgo it, there could be something he was doing he didn’t want his men, or anyone else, to know of.”

“Well, if he was smart enough to keep his own men in the dark, I’m not sure how we’d figure out what he was up to.”

Rather than comment on her statement, Kir swept into a shallow circle drive that fronted a crowded restaurant.

No, not just any restaurant.

André’s Riverfront—the newest expansion to a longstanding New Orleans tradition. While she hadn’t done any stories on the Trahan family’s newest endeavor, there’d been no secret that Sergei had been a major player in the new and super posh development. While she’d never dreamed of stepping foot in the place, she’d heard people scrambled for months to get a reservation.