Page 74 of The Honest Affair

“Interesting enough that you might want to reopen the investigation? Or call your friends at AISE to see if they’d like to help?” I leaned closer. “Any chance your contact at Hungarian intelligence might remember you?”

Ruggeri smile, her red lips spreading with cool, competent knowledge. “Oh, yes. He liked me very much. My husband was not so much a fan.”

I smirked. Ruggeri was hard, but she wasn’t ugly. Yeah, I could see her using her looks to her advantage when it suited her.

“Well, then,” I said when I sat back in my seat. “I’ve got some friends at the CIA who might be curious about this as well.”

I removed a card and placed it on the table, then hastily scribbled my cell phone number on the back and scratched out my office phone.

“It’s better to reach me here,” I said as I slid it toward Ruggeri.

She examined the card, then tucked it away in her purse before pulling out one of her own and writing her own cell phone number too.

“I think I will be in touch, Mr. Zola,” she said. “Thank you for the drinks. It has been most…illuminating. Tell Marcello I said hello.”

I picked my hat off the table and leaned in to trade farewell kisses to the cheek as I stood. “And you as well, Ms. Ruggeri. I appreciate it more than you know. Ciao.”

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