by Kyra Davis
“Lander,” I whisper.
“Yes?”
“Is this the way you’re greeting all your dates these days?”
“No, Bell, just you.”
Just me.
I wish that didn’t sound so wonderful.
• • •
Twenty minutes later we’re both dressed and the skillet’s on the stove. Lander’s putting on his coat because I forgot to bring the onions. I’ve also convinced him that some Coronas and limes would be a nice addition. I talk him out of calling his driver for this even though it’s about a ten-minute walk to the grocer. Everybody deserves a night off.
He kisses me on the cheek before he leaves. “I like this,” he says quietly.
“What? Kissing?”
“You’re cooking, I’m getting groceries. It feels . . . nice.”
I laugh. It’s so domestic. So sappy sweet.
It makes me smile.
I watch him leave, almost wishing I hadn’t purposely left the onions at home.
When I’m sure he’s gone, I go into his office and head straight for his desk. There in the top drawer is his sketch of the biker. I start to push it aside to look to see what else is in there when something about the picture stops me.
It’s the biker’s face. His expression seems worried . . . even scared. It isn’t the look of a man who is angry or of someone who Cries in Rebuke, per the title.
I look at the title again. I remember how carefully Lander selected it. He didn’t exactly come up with a phrase. He seemed to come up with each word individually, as if he were solving a puzzle rather than naming an image.
“Lander was always more into Scrabble, anagrams, crossword puzzles, things like that.”
Word games . . . Lander plays word games. I study the title again before grabbing a blank piece of printer paper and a pen and getting to work.
It takes me several minutes, but eventually I get it.
C.R.I.E.S. I.N. R.E.B.U.K.E. . . . it’s an anagram. It’s an anagram for INSECURE BIKER.
And if that’s an anagram . . .
I put the picture back and open the drawer where he keeps his sketchbook. I find it on top of some insurance papers for various artworks, a fountain pen that’s probably worth upward of five hundred dollars, his passport, and his social security card—a number I memorized over a year ago.
I flip open the book and start with the picture of the woman with the dollar signs in her eyes and the diamond-collared dog, Dogged Girl.
I almost laugh. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.
D.O.G.G.E.D. G.I.R.L.
Switch those letters around and you get GOLD DIGGER.
Anagrams.
I flip to the picture of the politicians drawn to look like marionettes. It’s titled T.H.R.U.S.T.I.N.G. S.P.E.L.L.
At least that’s what he wrote. It takes a while, but eventually I get PULL THE STRINGS.
Giddily I flip to the page with the drawing of the crying woman, clinging to the pant leg of the crowned man. A. C.A.D. F.E.E.L.S. S.P.E.W.I.N.G. S.O.R.R.O.W.
This one isn’t so easy. I sit hunched over the desk, writing out different possibilities. Maybe one of the words is eel ? Pew ? Rad ? Three minutes pass, then five. I have PRINCESS but I’m not sure that’s right. Still, with the guy wearing the crown and all, maybe he’s king and the crying woman is a princess? But I can’t come up with the word king from this anagram.
Princess of . . . Could she be a princess of something? Of what?
I’m getting a little frustrated now. Lander draws these pictures and creates these anagrams when he’s working out something in his head, when he’s thinking things through . . . and I sense that of all the pictures this one will offer me the insight into his mind that I really need. I could do this later but now that I’m in the middle of it I want to finish working out this puzzle now. I feel like I’m on the brink of something here.
My mind runs through all the things I know about Lander. Which is a lot. Perhaps too much for it to be useful. I look at the woman again, at the man. I can’t see the face of either person, but the woman has her hair in a French braid down her back. Not very many women wear their hair like that anymore . . .
. . . but Lander’s mother did. I’ve seen pictures.
“But the people who live in places like this . . . They’re a little like royalty, aren’t they? They’re treated like kings and queens, princes and princesses,” I had said.
And he responded . . .
“Yes, my mother was treated like the dowager princess of Wales.”
I work with the letters and there it is: DOWAGER PRINCESS OF WALES. His mother the dowager princess. And the man . . . That must be his father.
It gives me pause. I’m going to have to think about what that means . . . research it. But now something else has caught my eye. Peeking out from under those insurance papers is the drawing of me.
I pull it out and study the picture with new eyes.
Why did he put me in period dress? And the dress is so . . . so specific.
Kind, Witty Heroine is the title.
I start to work with the words, writing out every possibility. NOWHERE—no, that doesn’t make sense. KID, but there’s no child in the picture.
One minute passes, then two, then three . . . I’m not making progress.
Until I look at the costume again. I look at my position . . . I look at my hair, swept up in a low bun, loose enough to reveal my waves. Again it just looks so familiar, and I know it has something to do with history. The problem with having studied so many of Lander’s interests over the last few years is that all that new information is crammed into my head and getting mixed up. If I remember the name of a battle, I forget the date or vice versa. And to be honest, the battles themselves are of less interest to me than the people who waged them. During my studies I found that the women of World War I and World War II were much more interesting than the men. The sly strategies they employed in order to survive while still advancing their cause . . . well, it’s just something I can relate to. Like Virginia Hall, a civilian woman who trained battalions of the French Resistance and gathered intelligence on their enemies. She successfully became a master of disguise in order to fool the Germans, even going so far as to train herself not to walk with a limp despite her prosthetic leg. And conversely, in World War I there was Mata Hari . . .
Oh.
I look down at the drawing again. The picture it’s modeled after is so famous I’m embarrassed I hadn’t figured it out before. And yet I can’t help but double check. I pull out my phone and do a Google search, hoping that by some miracle I’m wrong. That I’m misremembering.
But I’m not misremembering anything, because there she is: Mata Hari, wearing the exact costume I’m wearing in the drawing.
Mata Hari the seductress.
Mata Hari the whore.
Mata Hari . . . the Frenchwoman who worked as a double agent for the Germans in World War I.
Mata Hari the traitor.
My hand is shaking now as I move the letters around. I KNOW HER . . .
. . . and there it is. The solution to the anagram.
The memory of Lander’s warm touch against my skin now turns very, very cold. His prints chill me as I recoil from the drawing. I want to throw up. I want to run from the room. But instead I just read the unscrambled note again and again. Four little words:
I KNOW HER IDENTITY.
Click here to order Deceptive Innocence, Part Two now—available February 17, 2014
acknowledgments
I want to thank Rod Lurie for all his support and feedback and for putting up with me when I was completely freaking out about deadlines. And I want to thank my friends and family for being so patient and understanding when they didn’t hear from me for weeks on end because I was completely caught up in writing. I don’t know what I would do without any of you!
about the author
Kyra Davis is the New York Times bestselling author of Just One Nigh
t, the critically acclaimed Sophie Katz mystery series, and the novel So Much for My Happy Ending. Now a full-time author and television writer, Kyra lives in the Los Angeles area with her son and their lovable leopard gecko, Alisa.
Visit her online—www.KyraDavis.com
Follow her @_KyraDavis—www.Twitter.com/_KyraDavis
Visit her Facebook fan page—http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fans-of-Kyra-Davis/303460793916
also by kyra davis
Just One Night
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Kyra Davis
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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition January 2014
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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Cover design by Anna Dorfman
Cover photographs © Adrian Ricardo/Alamy
ISBN 978-1-4767-5628-8
Table of Contents
Cover
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
