“Thinking with your heart,” Isaac continued, “you can be ruined forever. What’s that, port or brandy?”

“How do you know it’s anything? You smell it over the phone?”

“You made a swallowing sound. I know your tastes, and I don’t figure you were choked up about my wise advice.”

“You’re a modern Sherlock.”

“I never claimed less.”

“Why the photo of Patrick Corley?”

“Patrick Michael Lynam Corley. If a man wants to assert his Irishness with four names, who am I to call him by two? I wanted you to see him so you’d have a reference when I report on him tomorrow.”

“Why not report now?”

“I’m still getting feedback from people who knew him. It’s not just that this Maddison Sutton is driving a car registered to this guy. Patrick Michael Lynam Corley has taken this investigation into some very weird territory. I don’t want to get into that until I’ve spoken to a couple more people about him.”

“How can he take the investigation anywhere, weird or not? He’s been dead for seven years.”

“Maybe yes. Maybe no. Keep your pants zipped, boychik, until Uncle Isaac tells you otherwise. And if you’re listening to your heart again, quickly drink yourself unconscious.”

| 23 |

The restaurant was a few steps down from the street, funky but clean, romantically lighted even for a Sunday lunch. David arrived first and was seated in a booth in a private back corner of the room.

When Maddison entered in white slacks, matching jacket, and a blouse the precise blue of her eyes, it was as if spring personified had stepped in from the street. She came directly to him and slid into the booth.

“You look refreshed, David. Your Saturday business must have gone well.”

“Not as well as I would have liked. And how was your Saturday? Did you kill anyone?”

“No, dear. The job is set for this evening.”

“I thought we were spending the day together.”

“I’d like nothing better, but we have only the afternoon.” She winked at him. “The evening is for murder.”

“May I ask who the victim will be?”

“If I told you, then you would be an accessory. The last thing I want is to see you in prison. Orange is not your color. Besides, how could our relationship blossom with bars between us?”

The waitress came with menus, and they ordered glasses of a Meritage.

When they were alone again, David said, “Don’t you worry about winding up behind bars yourself?”

Perusing the menu, she said, “Not possible. I’m a ghost in the machine. The blackened halibut is perfection. So are the scallops with fettuccini.”

He should have been annoyed that she still maintained this assassin charade, but he wasn’t. She intended it as a metaphor. His task was to figure out what she really meant.