Pia lay still, thanking her luck in seeing Whitney on the monitor and not having to run into her someplace else in the house, wondering if she had left any evidence of her nocturnal visitation. She figured Whitney was still in the house, and she didn’t relish the idea of lying here in the dark, listening to Zach Berman snore. She needed to grab a couple of hours’ real sleep in her bed. Pia swung her legs over the couch, fumbled for her purse in the dark, and stepped over to the door.

Chapter 23

23.

ZACHARY BERMAN’S HOME, BOULDER, COLORADO

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013, 4:45 A.M.

Whitney Jones was sitting at Zachary Berman’s dining-room table, expertly tapping a message on her iPad. She was good at it and often sent more than a hundred texts a day. She heard the door to the den open and close. Whitney was pleased someone was taking the initiative, as she wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. She sensed that someone had appeared in the archway into the dining room and gathered it was Pia, as Berman surely would have announced himself. She further sensed that Pia had entered the room and walked over to her, but she didn’t look up. Whitney was being deliberately passive-aggressive—she sensed her boss’s infatuation with Pia and thought it could only lead to trouble.

“Oh, hi, Miss Jones,” said Pia, genuinely embarrassed despite not having been discovered in flagrante delicto. Pia hoped she was doing as good an acting job as the one she had with Berman, albeit in a completely different role. But still, she felt if what she’d been caught doing was not illegal, it was at least naughty. She was glad it was only being found asleep on the couch first thing in the morning with her boss’s boss, and not wandering around Berman’s house, looking for incriminating evidence of what Nano was up to with the Chinese, as she actually had been doing.

“I thought I heard the door open,” said Pia, waiting for Whitney to react in some way. “And of course I saw the light.”

“One second,” Whitney said, and went on typing rapidly with her thumbs. After a long minute, she looked up with arched eyebrows and addressed Pia. “I’m sorry if I woke you. I was looking for Mr. Berman. Obviously enough, I guess. He has a call to make this morning before certain people leave their offices.”

From Pia’s perspective, Whitney appeared to be completely unperturbed by Pia’s presence. Either she was hiding her feelings and doing an acting job, too, or she really was as cool as they came. It also made Pia wonder what the relationship was between Whitney and Berman. Obviously she had a key to the house.