And he wasn’t talking about some unspecified time in the future. He wanted to go in tomorrow. Tomorrow!

She’d said no. No, no, no. She’d have to prepare herself for something like that. If he wanted to search the place tomorrow, he’d have to go by himself.

But Jack had insisted, saying she’d grown up there, she knew all the hidey holes. She had to be along.

Telling herself it was only a damn house, she’d agreed.

Jack would be picking her up tomorrow night at seven.

Alicia shuddered and looked up from her meal. Will and the waiter were watching her… expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Obviously she’d missed something.

“Do you want to do the honors?” Will said, pointing to the fresh bottle of wine in the waiter’s hands.

“No,” she said. “If it’s the same as the first bottle, I’m sure it will be fine.” She could never get into that wine-tasting rigmarole. Her palate wasn’t that discerning anyway. Either you liked the wine or you didn’t.

“So,” Will said after the waiter had refilled their glasses, “what are your plans for the week?”

I was an accessory to an illegal trespass in Midtown today, and I’m planning a breaking and entering tomorrow night.

“The usual, I guess. You know, stamping out disease. How about you?”

“Like you, the usual: seeking out the weed of crime and tearing it out by its roots.”

They laughed. Maybe it was the wine, but she found she liked Will’s offhanded manner, the way he didn’t take himself too seriously. She liked his slightly crooked smile and the way he held his wineglass by the rim, letting it dangle from his fingertips as he talked, and the way he looked into her eyes when she talked. All things she’d never noticed about him before.

They just about killed that second bottle of merlot, and so by the time they left the restaurant, Alicia was feeling warm and happy. She heard herself ask Will to come in when he dropped her off at her place.

She felt a spasm of alarm—Why did I do that?—but told herself to be calm. It would be all right. Tonight, in this place, with this man… it would be all right. She wanted this… she needed this.

“Want some coffee?” she said as she hung up his coat.

“No,” he said. “That coffee we had at Zov’s will probably keep me up half the night as it is. But I would like something else.”

As Alicia turned to face him, he took her in his arms—gently—and pulled her close.