If he expected her to run across the room and fly into his lap, he was sorely mistaken.

She sauntered toward the desk. Her short evening dress clung to the curves of her body. Her five-inch heels clicked like slow castanets across the hardwood floor. She dropped into one of the upholstered wingback chairs across from him, and sat there all dark eyed and leggy, staring at him.

Emerson rolled his chair back toward the desk. He knew the only thing that would pull her out of this mood was another full-court press on one of his credit cards. It was beginning to drive him crazy.

“Why are you looking at the pictures again?” she asked.

“Just curious.”

“About what?”

“I’m interested in your family.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you, and I want to know everything there is to know about you.” He almost said it with conviction.

“Uh-huh. You keep looking at the pictures and wanting to know who the people are. You ask me about my mother and her family. How she came from Cuba and what she’s doing in Colombia. You have a lot of questions for someone who is just curious,” said Katia.

“If it bothers you, I’ll stop.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I begin to think that maybe the way we met was no accident.”

“What are you saying?”

She thought about it quickly and decided this was not wise.

“It’s just that I don’t understand. What are you looking for in the pictures?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“You’re looking for nothing? Then you’re wasting a lot of time. If you tell me what you’re looking for, maybe I can help you.”

She fixed him with her piercing dark brown eyes.

“You said you didn’t know any of the people in the photographs,” he said.

“That’s true.”

“It’s not important. There’s no reason for us to argue about it.”

He’d believed her when she told him she knew none of the people in the photographs, or where the pictures had been taken. According to Katia she had never been to Colombia. This seemed strange since her mother claimed to have relatives there and she visited them at least once a year. But she never took her daughter, nor, according to Katia, did she take any of the rest of her family from Costa Rica. Why? Emerson thought he knew the reason. It was in the pictures.

“Tell me the truth. You are looking for something or someone in those photographs. Tell me what it is? Maybe if you tell me, it will make sense to me. And then maybe I can help you.” Katia was determined to find out what it was. Increasingly she felt that Emerson was a threat, to her, and perhaps to her family.

“I told you. I’m just curious.”

“Yes, because you love me. You want to know everything about my family. I know, you told me.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. Listen, why don’t we go watch a movie in the video room?”

“I don’t want to watch a movie.” She sat there in a slow burn. “I want to know why you’re always looking at those pictures. And don’t change the subject.”

“I told you the reason. Tell you what. Why don’t I put the photographs away if it upsets you? I won’t look at them anymore. The pictures are none of my business. I’m sorry I ever looked at them. If it upsets you, then I will not look at them again.”

What was he hiding?

“You’re right. It’s none of your business,” she told him. The Latin temper was starting to kick in. Emerson could feel the heat rising in the room.

“You looked in my camera.” It was a sore point with Katia because Pike had taken it and uploaded the pictures without asking her. Then, by mistake, he’d put the camera someplace where she couldn’t find it when they left for the States.

“I never told you you could go through my stuff and mess with my camera.”

“I bought you a new camera when we got here, didn’t I?”

“Yes. But you had no business going through my things without asking me.”

“I was trying to surprise you,” said Emerson. This has been the line since she caught him with the pictures in his computer. That he was planning on surprising her with glossy pictures of her family members as a gift.

Katia wasn’t buying it. True, her mother took the pictures and there were supposed to be some family members in them, but Katia didn’t know a single one of them. She had never been to Colombia, and she told Emerson that. These people meant nothing to her and he knew it. “You had them printed out without even asking.” The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. He was nosing around her family. He may have been sending them money, but he was still an outsider.

“Don’t get angry, Katia.”

“And don’t tell me what to do. Those are not your photographs. They belong to my mother. You had no right to take them.”

“Fine, here. They’re yours. Take them.” Emerson leaned back in his chair, both hands up as if to surrender.

Katia didn’t hesitate. She scooped the photos up and turned her back as she assembled them.

Pike didn’t care. If retrieving the glossy printouts kept her quiet, fine. As long as she didn’t tell him to erase the downloaded photo files from his laptop, what difference did it make? And by now there were digital copies in several places. Pike’s laptop was configured for global travel. Once connected to the Internet, his home e-mail opened from anywhere in the world. Before they had even flown north, Pike had forwarded the digital images from Katia’s camera to a laboratory in Virginia for enhancement and analysis. If all went well, the results should be back any day.

The only picture Katia didn’t get when she grabbed them from the desk was the one Emerson had slid under the magazine. This was a shot he had enlarged and cropped to better see something in the background. He thought he knew what it was, but he wasn’t sure. He tried to enhance it using consumer software. He could make out only a few details-lines and part of a circle. But because of the angle at which the original picture was taken it was impossible to make out anything else. None of the lettering or dimensions on the diagram in the photo could even be seen, much less read. But Emerson had a hunch as to what it was, and who the old man was too. They were the reason he kept going back to the photos.

Katia stood with her back to him, on the other side of the desk. He could tell by the way she stood, stiff, that she was still riding a wave of anger.

Unless he could patch this up, she would not be sleeping with him tonight. This would raise logistical problems: how to keep an eye on her without locking her up so she wouldn’t rabbit. Once the lab report on the photos came back, if what he suspected was true, she would be someone else’s problem. But until then, he wanted to keep her close. She was part of the genetic chain, and blood is thicker than water.

He waited a few seconds, then got up out of the chair and walked slowly around the desk until he stood behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder. Katia jerked and pulled away.

“Katia, please. Don’t be angry with me. I didn’t realize that I was upsetting you. Please forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” she said. “When are we going home?”

“A few more days.”

Why? she thought. What was he waiting for?

She studied his face for a moment. It was impossible to read what was going on behind those eyes. He would tell her in a few days or a week now, but he would tell her anything to keep her here, to keep her quiet. He was lying and she knew it.

A single tear shimmered slowly down her cheek, like mercury running down a piece of silk.