Smith sat with his back to the wall inside the private lounge he had purchased for the evening. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone to Adri’s office.” He returned to writing out his letter to his employers in a smooth, flowing cursive. “You were looking for clues to Solindra’s whereabouts too.” Theo glared hard at the bottle of spiced cider and the self-boiling pot of coffee beside it. The tiny boilerbox below the pouring jar hummed along nicely. “Yes, and it appears that Adri is well armed in the civilized art of secret-keeping. I didn’t expect to find much, but even a careful man, or lady, gets careless at some point. The trick is to intercept that point.” He turned the letter over and kept writing. “For example, you did catch me off guard in the town with that nasty business with the children.” Theo’s fingers seized tight against the handle of his coffee cup. “Never fear, Mr. Meilleur. As a professional, I admire such temerity at times. I am not a vindictive man.”
