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That rethen her resolve That, and the fact that avenging Meili’s death was one of her beloved A Sook’s dying wishes

Cindy would continue her charade to its rightful conclusion

That night was a sleepless one for Derek

He’d let Leo walk out without a confrontation What good would accusing the s slide than to open Pandora’s box Derek would do that when he had the evidence to back up his suspicions that some or all of Matthew’s art-partnershipshady

But tonight, he’d pretended to accept Leo’s sta sketch when he upset Sloane’s file

Bothit for a minute

But neither of the books and swatches, brightly announced that he’d be in touch soon, and blown out of there

What in the hell had he been searching for?

Any way you sliced it, ruh Sloane’s file smacked of the kind of desperation innocent men don’t possess

Which only added to Derek’s guilt about not sharing his suspicions with Sloane But how could he? He was in no stronger of a position than he’d been in before What could he add—that he’d co up papers fro Leo’s flustered reaction wouldn’t help Sloane would only re Leo perceived him to be, and how very badly he wanted to impress Derek and create the perfect love nest for them

No Derek couldn’t say anything to Sloane Not yet But tonight’s little escapadeon with these guys, so they wanted to keep hidden

He wasn’t giving up until he figured out what it was

At a little after nine in the , Sloane and Jeff arrived at the battered women’s shelter in Chinatown

As planned, Sloane let Jeff take the lead as they walked through the front door and sought out the woe Jeff showed her his Bureau ID, infor her in Mandarin that they ith the FBI and needed to see a resident named Lucy The woman started, and closely examined his ID Then she introduced herself as Mrs Chin, and asked if he knew Lucy’s last name Fully prepared for that question, Jeff told her he didn’t, but he rattled off a full description of the Lucy in question Still, Mrs Chin was very leery and very protective She asked several more questions of Jeff, all of which Sloane understood, none of which she responded to When Mrs Chin sent curious glances her way, Sloane bowed her head and kept herovert respect and awareness that she was the outsider, and that it was not her place to intrude on this community, not without permission

Jeff assured Mrs Chin that their interest in Lucy was strictly to get information that would help others in trouble They had no intentions of revealing her identity or her whereabouts to anyone, nificantly to the husband whose abuse had resulted in her being there Last, he urged Sloane forward and told the administrator that his partner was fluent in Mandarin, had traveled extensively in China, and that, Caucasian or not, she’d been selected to accompany him here out of consideration for Lucy, to alleviate any fears sheto her woman-to-woman