You've Got Male by Elizabeth Bevarly Page A

alone.”
    “Done,” Dixon’s boss agreed without hesitation.
    And Dixon could see by her expression that, incredibly, Avery actually believed him.
    “Can I go home now?” she asked.
    “Soon,” No-Name told her. “After we figure out our plan of attack. But if you’d like, we can find you a room more comfortable than this one for the time being.”
    Slowly she pushed herself up from the cot, but when she looked at the door, she went a little pale and sat back down. “I’ll just stay here for now,” she said. “But I might as well start preparing for the trip home.” Again she looked at Dixon. “I’ll need a glass, a bottle of Black Label, a bucket of ice and a lemon. I prefer my scotch on the rocks with a twist.”
     
    A S D IXON WAITED FOR A VERY to order last call on her own personal happy hour a floor below the one where he and his employer had found a room to chat, he leaned against a wall and silently willed the Big Guy to hurry up and conclude a conversation on his cell phone which seemed—from this end anyway—to consist largely of affirmative grunting. Eventually his superior oinked out a goodbye and disconnected, turning his attention to Dixon.
    “Here’s how it’s going to play out,” he said.
    Ooh, Dixon was on pins and needles.
    “You’re going to take Avery Nesbitt back to her place long enough for her to pack some clothes and make any necessary arrangements for leaving town.”
    Dixon narrowed his eyes at the other man. “Leave town? Why? I figured Cowboy and I would just keep tabs on her at her place.”
    His boss shook his head. “Too risky for what we have planned. She has too many neighbors in that building and she’s in the heart of the biggest city in the country. We still don’t know what Sorcerer is up to, and if we can avoid having her in such a densely populated area, then we need to do that. So Avery Nesbitt’s going home.”
    “Home?” Dixon echoed. “You just said you want her out of her apartment.”
    “No, I mean she’s going home home,” his boss told him. “To her parents’ estate in East Hampton.”
    Okay, now Dixon was really confused. He’d learned from his investigation into Avery’s background—and she had confirmed it herself during their recently concluded interview—that she was estranged from her family. More than estranged, actually. The other Nesbitts had severed all ties to her when she was arrested, and she’d had no personal contact with a single member of her family since she was taken into custody. She wasn’t welcome at her parents’ estate. She didn’t want to go there. It made no sense to send her. And Dixon said so.
    “It’s safer for her,” the other man said. “If Sorcerer discovers she’s cooperating with us, he’ll know where to find her in Manhattan, and I wouldn’t put it past him to come after her.”
    “Oh, and he won’t know where to look for her in East Hampton?” Dixon asked. “You can bet he knows as much about Avery as we do. Except for us having found her, too, and having exposed him to her. And even that might not take long for him to discover.”
    “Which means he also knows that she has no contact with her family,” his superior pointed out. “He won’t have any reason to think she’s staying with them. He won’t have any reason to think she’s not home. And even if he does find her there, the place is a fortress. Desmond Nesbitt is one of the wealthiest men in the country. He’s an even bigger security freak than his daughter is. She’ll be safer if she’s there,” he repeated. “And so will the city of New York.”
    Dixon didn’t buy it. She’d be safest at her apartment with him, since he’d planned to move in with her until they caught Sorcerer. There were too many things that could go wrong by removing her from her natural habitat, not the least of which was another one of those nuclear-holocaust panic attacks. He told his boss that, too.
    “She’ll be fine,” the other man said