“You can’t be serious,” Super Agent said.

“As serious as the butt-kicking Miguel’s going to get when I see him.” I’d asked Super Agent for the teeny, tiny favor of putting Miguel on the FBI’s missing persons list. I batted my lashes at him. “Pleeeeeease?”

“You really think there’s foul play here?” Super Agent obviously didn’t.

“Yeah. I kinda do.”

“Fine.” His gaze dropped to the front of my dress where cleavage ran free. “You’re lucky you’re so darn sexy.”

“And you’re going to get extra lucking for saying that.”

Super Agent moved to the desk in the corner of Miguel’s bedroom. We’d promised Alice we’d go through Miguel’s things to look for clues she might have missed. I was sorting through Miguel’s closet, which smelled faintly of him, reminding me of the last time I’d seen my brother.

He’d stopped by to ask me if he could borrow my car for a few days with some excuse about his tires being too bald to make the long trip he intended to take. I think he knew I’d just washed and gassed it up. As usual I gave in to him. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t blame him for it. There was just something about his smile and the way his gaze moved over your face, taking everything in like a search beam. He’d let his hair grow long, nearly to his shoulders and it had tickled my nose when I’d hugged him goodbye.

“Thanks for the loan of the car, sis.”

“Just don’t crash it.”

He started down my front walk and then turned back. “Do you think I could ask one more favor?”

“You always do.”

His laugh was off center, tilting toward self-deprecating. “Yeah, I guess I do.” He glanced down at my car key in his hand, then back up at me. His expression bothered me, but I couldn’t put a finger on why then or now. Maybe because it was so unlike him as was the favor he was about to ask. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The morning sunlight picked up the burnt red in his dark hair and bleached his blue eyes nearly white. I was struck by how much he looked like our dad, and it made my chest hurt.

“I was wondering how your brother managed to get Alice, this house, this life,” Super Agent said, drawing my attention back to the here and now. “He’s got no discernable income and a rap sheet as long as my right leg. Not to mention the fact that he’s a con man. She seems—”

“Too good for him?”

“I was going to say too smart to fall for his B.S.”

“You got all that from the optical groping you gave her?”

He stopped rifling through Miguel’s desk to glance up at me. “I’m a trained observer. It’s my job.”

“You’re also a dude with working dude parts. At least I assume they’re working. Not that I’ll get to find out tonight.”

“Nah-ah. We have a schedule to keep.” He checked his watch. “We’re already more than half an hour behind. But we can catch up if we leave soon.”

“Like I said, working dude parts.”

“I still don’t get why you think he’s missing. There’s nothing here that would lead to that possibility. No sign of foul play, no ransom note or phone call…nothing.”

I pulled my head out of the closet and closed the door. He was right; this was a complete bust. “You’re going to think this is nuts.”

“Coming from you? No doubt.”

“You just got docked an hour, buddy. No make-ups.”

“Aww, come on. You’ve got to admit that you live at the center of a vortex that seems to funnel nothing but trouble your way.”

He had a point. I seemed to be a magnet for messed-up tragedy lately. What with getting accused of murdering my ex-Arizona-state-senator boyfriend, nearly being murdered by an FBI-wanted transvestite, being the object of a stalker who’d killed my annoying coworker as some kind of tribute, and being on probation. But I was still docking him the hour for pointing all of that out to me.

“Are you done insulting me?” At his nod I continued. “It’s because of the twin thing. I can’t really explain it, but it’s like there’s this other part of me that’s not me.”

“Like a phantom limb?”

“Yeah, kinda exactly like that. Sometimes I can feel him, like that time when we were ten and he broke his arm. I got a really sharp pain in my arm in nearly the same place at the same time. Same thing happened when we walked in here. I got the feeling that Miguel is in over his head and that he didn’t just run, he’s hiding. He’s in some kind of trouble. I just don’t know what it is.”

“Okay, so who would know what he’s been into lately? Does he have any friends or associates? I can pull his sheet and see who he’s been in trouble with before.”

“Just like that? You believe me?”

“Yeah.”

“Congratulations. You got your hour back.”

We finished going through Miguel’s condo and even though I found all his hidey-holes—which really impressed Super Agent—we didn’t find anything that would give us a lead on Miguel’s whereabouts. We said our goodbyes to a teary-eyed Alice and headed to my apartment across town.

Once there, Super Agent immediately got on the phone and worked his FBI-Special-Agent magic to put Miguel on the FBI’s missing persons list and to pull up his rap sheet. He’d been right. Miguel’s arrest record was longer than anybody’s leg. I had no idea he’d been arrested so many times. Not all of the charges had stuck, which made Super Agent frown. It was kinda cute how he thought every arrest should lead to a conviction, or at the very least some jail time and parole.

Which was pretty ironic considering I was currently on probation without having served any jail time. We almost never discussed my reduced charge of disturbing a crime scene or the fact that I could be sitting in a cell for additional weapons charges. The gun had been registered…just not in my name. The police were such sticklers for that kind of thing. But thanks to my helping the FBI capture the murderer of a state senator and an internationally wanted fugitive I’d only gotten two years of probation.

“There is one name that’s popped up a few times in connection with Miguel’s,” Super Agent said.

He was drinking coffee, his feet propped up on my coffee table as if he was prepping for an all-nighter. The thought of what Super Agent could do to me in a whole night made me want to forget my wayward brother and get to the part where he reactivated my dormant lady parts.

“Sergei Levkova.”

That name sent a chill through me, blasting away all my other thoughts. Talk about your past coming back to bite you in the behind. Sergei Levkova. I’d briefly thought to call him when I was mentally running through the list of my brother’s friends—his name was still in my cell phone. I’d transferred it into three different phones yet I hadn’t spoken to him in more than four years. For good reason. I’d put him firmly behind the door marked Only open in case of severe emergency or complete insanity.

“Why does that name sound familiar?” Super Agent asked.

Here was the part where I could stare at the ceiling, whistling, or I could come clean.

He grunted. “That’s why.” He turned his laptop so I could see the screen, his FBI-Special-Agent gaze scanning my expression like a laser lie detector. “He shows up on your arrest record too.”

Sergei Levkova had contributed to more than my arrest record, but that was something I couldn’t discuss with Super Agent.

“We used to hang out,” I hedged.

He eyed me some more and I was pretty sure he knew I was hiding something. “Did you know he and Miguel own a business together?”

“No.” There was a reason why I didn’t keep close tabs on my brother and an even bigger reason why I wouldn’t follow whatever he and Sergei had cooked up together.

“Vasili Investments. It looks like it’s some kind of investment brokerage firm that boasts high returns. Hmm.”

He clacked away on his keyboard some more. I was at the edge of my seat now with the feeling of leaning over my own grave. I sent a frantic, fruitless prayer that he wouldn’t dig too far into Sergei or my relationship with him. That was a Pandora’s box that should never be reopened. But I knew enough about Super Agent to know he wouldn’t stop digging until he had all of his questions answered. And the man never ran out of questions.

I popped up out of my seat and tapped my bare wrist. “We’re behind schedule. I should’ve been naked and finding religion an hour ago.” Unzipping my dress, I started for my bedroom, hoping some skin would make him forget all about my brother and Sergei. I turned back and looked at him over my bare shoulder. “I’ll be in the bedroom assuming the position if you’d like to join me.”

My dress slid down the rest of the way to pool at my ankles. I kicked it at him, hitting him mid-chest. He practically threw his computer across the room and leapt off the couch, chasing me until we hit the bed. We landed in a twisted pile of limbs, struggling to rip each other’s clothes off. And then he kissed me and I forgot all about Miguel and Sergei.

By the time we were completely naked and rolling around on the bed I couldn’t remember my own name. Everything went out of my head except what Super Agent was doing with his hands and oohhhh…his mouth. His glorious, glorious mouth.