Tell Me No Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

darkness and screaming, screaming. The nightmare was old, as were the memories of her mother saying Nothing is wrong, Lindsay. Go back to sleep. Forget what happened. Forget. Forget.
    Grimly Lindsay turned her mind away from the past with all its irretrievable questions and regrets. And pleasures, too. Despite the nightmare, despite whatever she had finally forgotten, there was much that she loved of the past, and the past was China. She had missed it bitterly when she had been sent to the United States as a teenager. Although she had finally come to love her aunt, the summers spent in Hong Kong with her mother were rich with memories of laughter and voices and the seething humanity that was the Orient.
    "This way," said O'Donnel, touching Lindsay's arm, startling her out of her thoughts.
    In defiance of local parking regulations, O'Donnel's car was waiting at the curb. The car was American-made, neutral in color and had no visible auxiliary lights or siren. Even so, there was no ticket decorating the windshield. D.C. cops quickly learned how to read government license plates. Some cars would never be ticketed and towed away, even if they were parked right in the lap of the Lincoln Memorial.
    As soon as O'Donnel pulled out in traffic for the short drive to the Hoover Building, Lindsay started asking the question that had been tickling her tongue since she had first seen the rich, gold-plated shield.
    "Who lost some ancient Chinese bronzes?"
    Now that he had Lindsay safely in tow, O'Donnel didn't need to rely on charm, Irish or otherwise. "I'm not free to say any more than I already have, Miss Danner."
    "Mr. O'Donnel."
    He turned and looked at her quickly, surprised by the self-possession he heard beneath her soft tone. "Yes?"
    "If Mr. White isn't on the other end of this drive, you might as well take me back to the museum right now. I won't work with people who lie to me, no matter how pretty their badges are.
    O'Donnel's mouth moved in an unwilling smile. "He's there, Miss Danner."
    Nothing more was said during the short drive, nor as O'Donnel led Lindsay through the blank-walled, air-conditioned corridors of the Hoover Building. He handed a laminated plastic visitor's badge to Lindsay, which she clipped onto the wrap-front of her dress. O'Donnel clipped his own ID card to his coat pocket and said nothing of interest until he closed an office door behind her.
    "Here she is, Steve. You didn't tell me she was a tiger."
    "Sharpened her pretty little claws on you, did she?" asked L. Stephen White. "Do you good, boy." Without looking up from the photographs he had been sifting through, White said, "Naughty baby, Lindsay. And from such well-behaved missionary stock, too."
    Five months of proximity had accustomed Lindsay to her employer's manner, but she hadn't learned to enjoy it. She doubted that she would ever learn to enjoy being treated like a backward third-grader by the distinguished L. Stephen White. She knew that there was nothing personal in his treatment. He acted toward everyone like that, man and woman alike. It was the result of being raised by parents with more money and less compassion than Fort Knox.
    "Was there something you wanted?" asked Lindsay.
    White glanced up, looked her over from softly curling chin-length hair to high-heeled sandals, and murmured, "Yes, baby, there most definitely is."
    "Then it better be in my job description," shot back Lindsay, impatient with her employer's relentless supply of sexual innuendos.
    O'Donnel snickered. "Go get 'em, tiger. If you need any help filing a harassment case, I'll be glad to lend a hand."
    "Down, boy," said White, standing and stretching. "Lindsay and I get along just fine, don't we, baby?''
    "Especially when I'm not three days behind in my work because of an unscheduled trip to Canada," Lindsay agreed tartly.
    "You're cranky. You had lunch yet?" asked White.
    "Yes."
    "Must be your period, then," he said, yawning.
    Lindsay turned and started back toward the hall