The tour of the vast house stopped abruptly when Chino excused himself to pick up a telephone on which a light blinked discreetly. Amy kept her distance, wondering about the absence of art, here, too, while he listened as the person on the other end of the line did the talking. The computer screens, showing the relative values of currencies in Zurich, Hong Kong and London, confirmed what Gregory has told her. But it raised a question in Amy’s mind: what did this have to do with the Merrills? And Chino was the one watching her, not exactly the other way around. More accurately, he was filling his eyes with her. And not being unpleasant, aggressive or humorless about it, either. Blue, almond-shaped eyes. If she were not really watching him as warily as a sparrow watches a hawk, she would be thinking he was one of those rare men who knew how to laugh at himself. If anything at all about him could be believed.

But he had not yet hit a false note. He had charm, style, surprise. Gregory had excused himself as soon as the front door was closed, and Chino had promptly apologized to her for being “manhandled” by the men who had brought her to Colombia.

“Killing them was apology enough,” she had said. “Thank you so much.”

He tried to respond, but she cut him off.

“No,” she said, “let me correct myself. Gregory said you were going to kill them anyway.”

“Gregory may have told you a lot of things that aren’t true.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, the reason you’re here, for instance.”

Amy stayed silent, waiting for what he would volunteer in what Sam called her, I’m the nurse, tell me where it hurts you, routine. The thought of Sam’s lunatic comment on this context almost made her smile. This Chino person saw something in her eyes, because he grinned himself, shaking his head, giving another hint that he saw something funny in his own situation.

He said, “Why don’t we wait for your husband to join us before I go into all that?” Did she want to shower? Change clothes? She would have her privacy. She said no to all of it. “At least a proper robe to ward off the chill of the mountain air,” he said. “It grows cool in this part of the world in the evenings.”

Her answer was a command, just for the hell of it: “Show me your house.”

And he laughed out loud. Another man who thought she was hysterically funny.