“You had sex! Again!” Stacy cried as soon as Caitlyn stepped through her front door.

“Cripes. What are you, a witch?” Caitlyn had been planning on giving Stacy the cold shoulder, being chilly and distant and standoffish and absolutely no margarita parties until her friend regained her senses, stopped taking drugs (was there any other explanation? Caitlyn thought not), and killed the Boss. Or dumped him. No, killed him.

But she had forgotten Stacy’s uncanny instincts and had been startled into answering her. “You and I are not talking about my sex life until you fix yours. And I mean, like, yesterday.”

Stacy hurried toward her from the couch and peered at her. “Wow, you totally did it! I mean, I knew this morning, but I was kind of distracted by trying to stop you from squishing my new guy like a bug.”

“Don’t remind me. And don’t call him the new guy. Let’s call him the dead guy.”

She ignored that. “Greg said you were back in town to do some work for him—”

“I. Will. Kill! Him! How many times do I have to tell people, I don’t work for him!” Her fingers plunged into her hair and she had to actively restrain herself from pulling hard. “Arrrrgggghhh!”

“—and here you’ve been bumping hips…you did it with that unbelievably delish-looking guy in the office, right? Right? Oh, man! That hair! Those eyes! Those shoulders.”

“Well…”

“Oh my God, he is so gorgeous!” Stacy rhapsodized. “All tall and cool and yummy, and those big hands and those eyes…”

“All this is true,” Caitlyn said modestly, calming down and pulling her hands out of her hair.

“So…?”

She knew where this was going. She also knew Stacy would be merciless until she’d gotten all the answers. Quicker—and easier—to just come clean. “Best in my life.”

And not just because of the sensations Dmitri had aroused in her. Not because she was so desperately, wildly attracted to him. The jet had been fine, but their time in the suite…it had been…more. The way he looked when she came, the way he whispered dark, delicious things into her ear, the way he held her after. For the first time, she truly understood the phrase “making love.” It hadn’t been fucking, that was for sure. “Very, super, amazing, ultrabest.”

“I’ll bet. He looks like he knows what he’s doing.”

You don’t know the half of it. Force of habit—she’d been telling Stacy all her secrets for over five years—almost made her say, Best of all, most wonderful of all, he’s a cyborg like I am. The only other one in the world.

But no. Tempting as it was to unload on her friend, that was Dmitri’s secret to tell. Not hers.

“Let’s get off the subject of my sex life and get back to yours.”

“Let’s not. I had enough of that this morning. You’re not going to throw me into a wall, are you? Because that looked, like, so massively painful.”

“Good. I hope I cracked all his ribs. I hope bone shards are puncturing his lungs this minute. If he’s sore or, even better, in the ICU, he won’t be able to…um…I mean he won’t…”

“Never underestimate the inventiveness of an older man,” Stacy said solemnly, ignoring Caitlyn’s all-over shudder.

She managed to get herself under control long enough to whine, “Why, Stace, why? That’s the one thing I gotta know. Out of all the men. All the bad, sucky, disastrous choices you could make. After all the things I told you. Why him?”

“Come into the kitchen,” Stacy said gently. “I’ve got coffee made.”

When they were seated at the kitchen island, Caitlyn sulkily sipping coffee heavily laced with cream and sugar, and Stacy drinking nothing at all, she continued. “Honestly, Jimmy, I couldn’t even tell you. How can I explain it to anyone, even my best friend, when I don’t know myself? I was always grateful to those government weenies for saving you.”

“But—”

“I know, I know. Don’t you think I understand how you feel? I was there when Gregory sent those goons after you. I saw what had changed, how you were changed. I mean, cripes, in school you couldn’t even do the five-hundred-yard dash without needing, like, transfusions afterward, but now all of a sudden you’re like Supergirl. I know you like to go your own way and I know you don’t like to be under obligation…to anyone. But still. I couldn’t help it…. I was so glad you were alive.”

Caitlyn took a moody slurp.

“So I always told myself if I ever ran into him, this guy who took over your life, the Boss, I’d thank him. Fat chance, right? How’s someone like me ever going to meet someone like him? I didn’t expect to see him at the party last week, to say the least! And I really didn’t expect to find him…to think he was…” She shook her head. “I can’t explain it. And it wasn’t like it sometimes is, all heat and nothing else. We talk, you know, and discuss things, and have fun, and he has the greatest laugh and the sweetest smile….”

He has a nasty chuckle, Caitlyn thought, and he doesn’t smile, he smirks. But she didn’t say anything. Her anger at her friend was rapidly fading, to be replaced by a kind of dull despair. Stacy was falling for the Boss. Soon the world would burst into flames and then things would really get sucky.

“And like I said, I don’t know where it’s going with him or even if it’s going anywhere, but I’m kind of interested in sticking around for the ride, you know?”

“Umf,” she replied. “Stace, um, I heard every word you said….” And the chip in her head would probably play it back a thousand times, putting her in her own special hell. “But do you ever wonder what the j—what he wants out of all this? What he’s up to? It can’t be just, you know, getting laid. I mean, I know guys are nuts about you, so I figured ages ago you must be a great lay….”

“Yeah, well,” she said modestly.

“But don’t you, um, think it’s kind of weird that out of all the women in the world, he picked my best friend?”

Stacy’s dark eyes met Caitlyn’s without flinching. “It’s not like that, Jimmy.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t expect you to be happy about it, but I expect you not to break his neck or run him over or crack his spine or whatever you’d like to do in order to let off steam.”

“Umf.”

“What are you doing back here anyway? I thought you had a bunch of murders to solve. I mean, I was hanging around hoping you’d show, but I was still kind of surprised when you came in the door.”

“Well, yeah, I do—I mean, Dmitri and I do. But what am I supposed to do, Stace? I’m in that lab, looking at the dead guy and trying not to puke, and I don’t even know how to dust for fingerprints. Like I’ve been saying, I’m not a cop. This isn’t my thing at all. We looked at dead Dr. Miller and putzed around the lab and then Dmitri started with his computer thing and then I had the best sex of my life and took a nap, and now I’m here to shower and change my clothes and get my own car. But as far as solving the murders, I dunno. I really don’t.”

“Fair enough. Like you said, it’s not like you didn’t warn everybody, right?”

“Right. And next time you’re cuddling with the Boss, you might want to remind him.”

“Nope. We promised each other not to talk about you when we’re…you know. Together.”

“You mean, the one thing that might make this horribly nasty situation work for me, and you won’t do it?”

“Nope.”

“Fuck a duck!”

“On your own time, sweetie. Now. Let’s talk about Mr. Yummypants.”

Caitlyn scowled, then said, “He’s from Lithuania, he has his own castle, he’s helping me on a case, he likes me, he’s fabulous in bed, and I’m in deep, deep trouble.”

“Oh, good,” she sighed, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Tell me all about it.”