“Obviously, it’s something important. He’ll let me know.”

“You’re very trusting.”

“Shouldn’t I be?” Until that very moment, it had never crossed my mind not to be. Not with Jim. “You don’t think-” My thought was interupped by the ring of a cell phone. It was Beyla’s. She grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

“I’ll bet she’s up to no good,” Eve whispered.

It seemed like a pretty sure bet.

I tossed down the towel I’d used to dry my pizza pan. “You up for tailing her again?”

“Are you sure you want to?” Eve’s voice was anxious.

I wasn’t. But I still hadn’t made up my mind about what to do with the disc and the information on it. Whatever we saw Beyla do, wherever she went, whoever she met with… maybe it would help me come to a decision.

I held onto that thought as we went outside. I clung to it as we dodged raindrops, following Beyla as she walked away from the parking lot, across the street, and a couple blocks up from Très Bonne Cuisine. By the time she got to a placed called Bucharest, I was hanging on to my hopes by my fingernails.

We’d played it safe and smart, staying far enough back so that Beyla didn’t see us, but when she went inside the restaurant, we dared to get closer. We huddled under the awning above the front door and watched her through the rain-spotted window. She said something to the hostess, who nodded and led her away from the door.

“Nothing.” Eve’s shoulders drooped. She spun around and leaned against the building. Her hair was as wet as mine. On Eve, slick and wet looked good. On me… well, my hair was so curly, rain almost never penetrated. And humidity only made it curlier. I suspected that right about now, I looked like I had a head full of rotini noodles, and one glance at my reflection in the window confirmed my worst fears.

“She’s going to dinner, that’s all.” Eve was disappointed. “She’s not going to lead us anywhere interesting.”

“Who schedules a dinner on the night of a cooking class?” I took the chance of peeking in the window again, but by now, the hostess was back at her station, and Beyla was nowhere in sight. “Beyla didn’t know Jim was going to cancel class. Jim didn’t even know that. He would have mentioned it to me if he did. And Bucharest…” I studied the lighted sign above the door. “That sounds mighty familiar. It might be-” I fished in my pocket for the piece of paper Drago had given me the night he died.

“Bucharest!” I exclaimed and held the paper up for Eve to see, my mind already spinning with the possibilities. “He wrote the address of the gallery on the back of a receipt from this place. That means he’d been here. I wonder if he ever met Beyla here. Maybe she’s meeting somebody again.”

Eve didn’t look convinced. “Maybe she’s just hungry.”

“Maybe we should find out.”

Just as I was about to head inside, she plucked at my sleeve. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. “I’ve already gotten you into enough trouble. If it wasn’t for me, we would never have started this investigation. You never would have lied to the police. You never would have concealed evidence. You never would have stolen anything, either, because you’re the most honest person I know.”

“And I would have never stopped being such a sissy, would I? Come on, Eve. Let’s finish what we started.”

The grin Eve gave me in return was all the response I needed. We headed inside.

I guess I was hungry, but then, that was no surprise-I hadn’t been able to eat my cheeseburger pizza. It smelled really good inside Bucharest. Directly in front of the door was a desk, where the hostess was busy on the phone taking a reservation. To her right was a doorway into a dark, wood-panelled bar, and behind her was a long, narrow hallway. I’d seen the same setup in restaurants in other old buildings in the area, and I suspected the hallway led into a room in the back that was the main dining area. With a smile at the hostess, I pointed in that direction, like I knew where I was going and who I was looking for.

Actually, I did.

I just didn’t know who I’d find her with when I got there.

The hallway opened into exactly the kind of room I expected, but unfortunately, when it did, there was no place to stand back and stay out of sight. Eve was eager to get wherever we were going, and when I stopped to peek around the corner, she kept going. She bumped me from behind and, like it or not, I was catapulted out of the shelter of the hallway and into the room.

Even in the dim lighting that passed for ambiance, I saw Beyla immediately.

And she saw me.

She was seated at a table for two, her back to the windows that ran along that entire side of the restaurant. Though I could tell she struggled to keep her expression impassive and her eyes on the man seated across from her, one look at me and she went as white as the tablecloth she was clutching in her hands.

Naturally, the man seated with his back to me turned to see the cause of her alarm.

“It’s Yuri!” I grabbed Eve’s arm and pushed her back the other way before she even had a chance to peek into the dining area. “She’s with Yuri. Damn it! Something tells me we shouldn’t have come. He might be trying to get information out of her. Or-” I stopped dead. “Or they might be in this thing together!”

The very thought was enough to get me going again. With Eve leading the way, we raced toward the front of the restaurant. The hostess was nice enough to ask if we needed assistance finding the party we were looking for, but we didn’t stop to return the pleasantry. In fact, we didn’t stop at all. We had just made it to the front door and Eve was already outside under the awning when a hand clamped down on my shoulder.

I wasn’t surprised when I turned and saw that the hand belonged to Yuri.

“Ah, Miss Capshaw!” He smiled in a way that would make anyone watching us think we were old friends. “So good of you to take the time to stop by. You will join us for dinner?” He backed up a step and made a broad gesture, like a waiter showing a guest to table.

“No, thanks. I’m not very hungry.”

“But surely that is why you are here?” Yuri motioned toward the dining room again. I stayed put. “What else would bring you to Bucharest on such a rainy night?”

I peeked around Yuri’s shoulder toward the back dining room, picturing Beyla there.

“I might ask you the same thing,” I said.

Surprise flickered across his face. I couldn’t tell if it was because he didn’t expect me to come right out and ask why he was consorting with the enemy, or because of the nasty tone in my voice.

He lit a cigarette. Apparently the No Smoking sign above our heads (in English and Romanian) did not apply to him. As he slowly dragged in and let out a lungful of smoke, he narrowed his eyes just a bit, as if he’d never seen me clearly before and wanted to get a better look.

“What is that saying about the bees and the honey? You can catch more by being sweet, yes? You see what I mean? I am being sweet to Beyla so she does not think that I know what she has done. In the meantime, I try to find out what she knows. And what she doesn’t know.”

“Is it working?”

Yuri’s shrug was noncommittal. “It would be working better if I had all the evidence I need.” He raised his eyebrows. “Or perhaps that is why you are here? Perhaps you have been following me, and you saw me come into this place. You are here to give me the disc?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Not until I had the good guys and the bad guys straight on my scorecard. If Beyla and Yuri were in cahoots, it changed everything. Especially when it came to handing over the disc.

Yuri dragged in another lungful of smoke and blew it out in a stream in my direction. I held my breath. “I am sorry that I have not had a chance to return your kind phone call,” he said. “I should say, the call from your friend.” He peered out the front door to where Eve was looking at us, wide-eyed and curious. When she waved (ever the beauty pageant contestant), he waved back. “Miss DeCateur, she is very beautiful, but not very smart. I think you are not happy that she made that phone call. You are not thinking that you can get money for the disc, are you? That you will hold onto it until I pay you? That is your plan? I must tell you, that would not be smart. Not at all. Please, tell me you brought it with you. Then we can put an end to this business.”