Page 36 of Hunter

Inside she saw a small digital recorder.

“What do you think of it?” As he spoke, the red light went on.

“It’s not as much fun as the alligator.”

His lips quirked, but he didn’t speak, and red light went off. Then he clapped his hands several times, making it move again.

“Understand how it works?” he asked.

She nodded. Apparently, it was sound activated—so a listener wouldn’t have to move past a bunch of silence.

Hunter replaced the panel and they returned to the kitchen. Now she understood that he hadn’t simply been curious about the contents of the house. He’d been prospecting for microphones and recording devices. And he’d struck gold.

She hadn’t wanted to believe that someone was listening to their every word. Now she felt a kind of sick anger that Emerson had lied to her. Or maybe Hunter was right; maybe it was the work of somebody else.

He cupped his hand around her shoulder, gave her a little squeeze.

She closed her eyes in frustration.

“Can I help you do anything?” he asked.

Her eyes blinked open. If he could function under battlefield conditions, so could she. Giving him a tiny smile, she stood up straighter and led the way back to the dining room. “Supper’s almost ready,” she said as she moved the laptop computer to the sideboard. “But you could set the table.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

God, she thought, what a mass of contradictions he was. One moment he was engaged in high tech sleuthing, the next he was totally clueless. “It means laying out the knives, forks, spoons and napkins.”

“Okay.”

She found the necessary items in two of the drawers and handed them to him.

He pivoted and stood beside the table, staring at the two blue woven place mats she’d put there earlier. For several moments he juggled the cutlery in his hands before starting to arrange the items—first in a line along one side of the table, then in various configurations, each of which he studied critically before beginning to move them around again.

“Is there a way it’s supposed to be?” he finally asked. “On the tray sometimes, the things are rolled up in the napkin. Sometimes they are scattered around.

“Usually the napkin is folded in half on the left and the fork rests on top of it. The knife and spoon are on the right, with the spoon on the outside. If you’re really a stickler for form, the blade of the knife is to the inside,” she answered in an even voice.

He nodded, following directions exactly, except that one spoon was face down. After a moment’s thought he turned it over.

“Perfect!” she approved. “Wash your hands, and we can eat.”

He complied, while she brought two plates with steak and mashed potatoes. For salad, she’d cut carrot and celery sticks.

When he came back, he sat down at once, picked up the hunk of meat off the plate, and began to chew on it.

In the middle of an enormous bite, he stopped and looked at her, watching the way she placed her napkin on her lap and cut off a piece of meat before forking it to her mouth.

“I am doing it wrong,” he said in a tight voice.

She kept her face neutral, chewed and swallowed.

He picked up his knife and fork. “They like to make fun of the way I eat,” he said. “So I give them a show. I am sorry. I forgot.”

“That’s okay,” she managed, trying not to think about what mealtimes must be like for him.

He cut off a piece of steak, then dug into the mashed potatoes. “This is. . . wonderful,”

“Thank you.” She took another bite, struggling to swallow around the lump in her throat. Everything that she learned about this man set off an emotional reaction.

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