All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas (7 page)

“I'm sorry,” he said. He really did have a very nice smile for someone who was either genuinely stupid or stupidly trying to be funny. “A dolphin's not a fish—of course. I must've been stupified by your beauty.”

Funny he should use that word…But okay. “That's been known to happen,” she told him, as flippantly as she could manage. “That's why I work for gay men. My powers of stupification don't seem to affect them.”

He laughed. “She's funny, too. Well, well.”

“And she hates being referred to in the third person.” Dolphina led him out of the living room and toward the front parlor. “My calendar's in here. What am I setting up again?”

“Something post-work,” he said. “Maybe drinks?”

She looked at him. “Robin said coffee in the morning.”

“Or drinks,” Will said. “Either was fine with him.”

“He's a recovering alcoholic,” she said flatly. She narrowed her eyes at him. “How could you be at this party and not know that?”

As she watched, he was clearly trying to think up a good excuse. But he ended up just shaking his head. “I'm obviously factually challenged. I have to confess that I really don't know very much about Robin. I promise I'll do more research before our meeting.”

“Hmph,” she said as she flipped through her calendar. “How's Tuesday at ten thirty?”

“Ooh,” he said, making a face as he wandered around the office, taking in the books on the shelves and the colorful painting that hung above the fireplace mantel. “No chance to make it Monday?”

Monday, Robin would be on set all day. “You really don't want to talk to him when he's in character.”

“Well, actually, that might be—” Will started.

“I'm sorry,” Dolphina said. “I was trying to be tactful. Robin's been trying to get me to work on that. But the truth is, Robin doesn't talk to anyone while he's filming. Except for his fellow actors and the director, and maybe the A.D. And Jules, of course. And me. Sometimes. But not you. No offense.”

He was smiling at her again, and if she hadn't known enough to keep her distance from handsome, scruffy, silver-tongued men who could twinkle their eyes on command, her heart might've skipped a beat. But no. If she were looking to get plastered against the windshield of tragic romantic reality, there were about a half a dozen perfectly good Navy SEALs waiting for her in the living room.

“Tuesday at ten thirty is fine,” he told her as he wandered toward her desk and picked up the envelope that was atop the unopened mail sitting next to her computer. “Thank you.”

She took it out of his hands. “No touching.”

He looked down at her and once again their gazes seemed to lock. And there it was again, that electric spark. “Do you often get mail from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?” he asked.

Dolphina looked at the return address. Huh.

“That's a response to their wedding invitation,” Will realized. “Did Robin really invite President Bryant to his wedding?”

Jules and Robin had indeed done just that. It was, Jules had reassured Robin, merely an inclusive gesture. Bryant was, after all, his boss's boss, which made him Jules's boss, too. But, bottom line, there was no way the U.S. President was actually going to attend.

Which was a good thing—because both Jules and Robin wanted a small wedding. A quiet, private ceremony with family and friends—really just a few dozen more people than were at today's party.

The President's attendance would turn the affair into a three-ring circus, both in terms of security and media coverage. If they thought they had to fight off hoards of reporters now…God forbid the President showed up—there'd be no way they could keep the press from attending.

“Hot damn.” Will, meanwhile, had jumped to conclusions. “The President is coming to Robin and Jules's wedding.”

“His secretary probably just sent his regrets,” Dolphina said.

“Open it and see,” he urged.

She looked at him. “I won't be able to tell you what it says. It's not your business.”

“Yeah, but don't you want to know?”

She put the envelope down. “I'll find out later.” On second thought, she took the entire pile of mail and put it into her desk drawer, locking it shut.

She picked up her calendar book again. “Kuhlman or Hartz?”

“Excuse me?” he said.

“Your last name.” Dolphina again looked up at him. There were two different Williams on the party's guest list. Well, three, including little Billy Richter, Robin's pint-sized nephew. William Kuhlman was the real estate agent who'd helped Robin and Jules find this amazing house. William Hartz worked for the FBI.

Her Will was hesitating, and she could see from his eyes that he was weighing the pros and cons of…lying to her?

She flipped to her guest list and quickly checked and…Of course. William Kuhlman was attending the shower with his wife, Jodie.

Nice.

Apparently he
was
her type—already married.

She waited.

He gazed at her.

She lifted an eyebrow.

“What the hell,” he finally said. “It's Schroeder.” He spelled it for her as she continued to stare at him. “It's German,” he added, as if that would somehow make it more believable.

“Really?” she said. “Because Kuhlman sounds German, too.”

“Kuhlman?” he asked. “Yeah, it probably is. Who's Kuhlman?”

“You are,” she said. “William Kuhlman.”

He laughed. “Wait a sec—you mean Bill, Robin's real estate agent? I just met him in the kitchen. Nice guy. Glasses. Goatee?” She must've continued to exude skepticism, because he took out his wallet. “You want to see my driver's license?” He held it out to her.

She took it. Looked at it.
William T. Schroeder, six feet one inches tall, born May 22, 1967, 214 Massachusetts Avenue…
She turned, flipping on the office copy machine, slipping the license onto the glass and closing the lid.

“Hey,” he said.

“You don't mind, do you?” Dolphina asked him as she pushed the button to copy his driver's license.

“I, uh, kind of do,” he said as the machine whirred.

She turned it off again, then handed him back his license and put the copy she'd made in with her notes.

“You can have my phone number, too, if you really want it.” He put his wallet back into his pocket.

“Considering Jules works for the FBI,” Dolphina said sweetly, “I'm sure we'll be able to find you. If we have a reason to.”

“Great,” he said, although he didn't sound as if he meant it.

Because William Schroeder was not on today's guest list. A fact that he clearly knew, since party-crashers tended to know that they were crashing a party.

Despite the fact that this wedding shower was being held here in Jules and Robin's home, the official hosts were both Robin's sister Jane and her husband, Cosmo, and Jules's best friends, Sam Starrett and Alyssa Locke. Dolphina had helped them by being in charge of the guest list and all the RSVPs that had come in.

She'd done significantly better with
that
task than she had with her job of getting the grooms to the surprise party in something other than their underwear.

“So, do
you
drink?” Will asked her now.

Dolphina found herself blinking at him. Surely he knew that
she
now knew he'd crashed this party…

“Because if you do, maybe we could, you know, go out for drinks some time,” he finished.

“You're asking me out,” she clarified.

“Yes, I am.” He was definite. “The stupification's wearing off. I find I'm regaining my usual working vocabulary, and I would like very much to go out with you. I don't suppose you want to copy your driver's license for
me
?”

That
was so not going to happen. “Thank you, but no, Mr. Schroeder,” she told him. “Both to the copying and the drink. I'm very much unavailable. For the entire rest of my life.”

“So…” he said, actually settling in to talk, perching on the arm of the leather sofa that was under the bay windows that looked out onto the busy street. “You're seeing someone and it's serious?”

“No,” she said. “I'm not. But thanks for offering that as an option for a tactful excuse. Thing is, I'm just not feeling the need for tact right now.”

He laughed. “Then you're just…not interested?” he asked. “Because maybe I'm wrong, but I'm picking up what feels like at least a little bit of interest.”

“Absolutely,” she admitted truthfully. “I think you're very interesting. Too interesting.”

“Too interesting,” he repeated. “Is that really possible?”

“You tell me,” she countered, sitting down behind her computer and turning it on. “Or should I just Google you?”

He was so busted—there was no way now that he was going to just sit there and pretend that he wasn't.

“Look,” he started to say, but whatever he was going to tell her, he didn't get a chance to finish.

“Hey, Dolph.” That was Jules shouting down the hall. “Is Robin with you?”

“No, he's not,” she shouted back. They really had to get an intercom. “He said something about giving someone a tour of the house?”

“Will you do me a favor?” Jules came down the hall to ask at lower decibel levels. He was carrying Robin's little nephew on his hip. “Oh, hey, hi, how are you?” he greeted Will. “I'm sorry, Dolph, but would you mind running to the third floor, see if he's maybe locked in the library again?” He rolled his eyes at Will. “We have a slight issue with the locking mechanisms on the doors. They're all really old—the wood's mahogany. They're beautiful, but you never know when a knob's going to just…come off in your hand. You pull and…If it happens when the door's closed…you're screwed.”

“Don't go anywhere,” Dolphina ordered Will. “Don't talk to him,” she likewise ordered Jules.

“What? Why?” she heard Jules ask, clearly bemused, as she took the stairs up, two at a time.

Terrific. Wonderful. Freaking great.

Robin could not believe this.

He was locked in the basement.

He'd been giving a tour of the house to a group of Jules's friends from the FBI, including Gina Bhagat. Gina was an old friend of Jules's who was now married to his boss, Max. Robin had met Max a number of times in work situations, and it was funny. He'd nearly tripped over the man in the kitchen today, and he hadn't recognized him without his dark suit and tie. Wearing jeans and a sweater, smiling, with his arm around his beautiful wife, Max Bhagat seemed like a completely different person.

Gina had been fascinated by the history of Jules and Robin's home—particularly the rumor that the place had been a stop on the underground railroad. Slaves escaping north to Canada had been hidden here, probably in this very basement.

So Gina had wanted to see it.

While they were down here, Robin had noticed that one of the narrow ceiling-level windows had blown open, and a puddle of icy water was collecting on the cellar floor. Since this was the last stop on the house tour, he'd sent his little group back upstairs where it was warm, and went about finding a stepladder so he could push the window shut.

It wouldn't latch, though. He was handy enough when it came to fixing things, and he quickly saw that part of the metal lock had rusted through and snapped off. He ended up jamming a piece of wood against the window, which did the trick of keeping it closed.

He'd put away the ladder and gone up the stairs and…

The fricking doorknob came off in his fricking hand.

Jesus, if he didn't love this old house so much, he would hate it. Just last week he'd gotten locked in, up in the third floor library.

And okay. Just because the knob was in his hand didn't mean that he couldn't manipulate the mechanism and open the door and…

Thud.

The metal rod and other knob fell out on the other side of the door, leaving nothing for him to grasp and turn. The hole where it had once been was too small for him to fit more than one finger in—his pinky at that—and he couldn't disengage the lock. The hinges, of course, were on the other side.

Robin banged on the door for a while, but the basement entrance was out of the way, in the back of the kitchen mudroom. If the additional door between the mudroom and the kitchen was closed, that, combined with the noise from the party, meant that no one was going to hear him no matter how loudly he banged and shouted.

There was a basement door leading out into the tiny back garden, but it was dead-bolted shut, and there was no key in sight.

And, of course, his cell phone was up in the bedroom that he shared with Jules—plugged into its charger and set on silence.
Let's have a no-cell-phone day, babe.
That had been Robin's brilliant idea, conceived as they hurriedly changed into dry clothes after getting the bejeezus surprised out of them by fifty of their friends and coworkers.