"Fire play?"

Nadia clucked her tongue. "It's not as bad as it sounds. But you know, the whole thing is about limits and rules. And honor, personal honor. That's the real basis of this lifestyle. It's all about who can be trusted. If you can't be trusted, you're out."

I wondered if that was part of James's hang-up about honesty. "Okay, and Damon's in charge of your training?"

"No, we're actually mostly working under a woman named Vanette. Mr. George is testing us tonight, though." Juney giggled. "I can't wait!"

"I'm keeping you from him, then," I said, taking a gulp of my coffee.

"Oh, he would have come up with some other diabolical delay, I'm sure," Juney answered. "I'm hoping the wait has made him randy as a horse. He's the best lay I've ever had by far."

Nadia smirked. "He is good. And pretty, too."

I couldn't help but smirk back. Sounded like "handler" Damon George was going to have his hands full keeping a rein on these two frisky fillies. "Thank you for talking with me."

"You're welcome!" Juney jumped up and gave me a kiss on the cheek before stepping back to put her blazer back on. "I hope we'll see you there. You'll see. It's a blast. If you've got any masochistic or submissive tendencies at all, it's the best."

Nadia stood and patted me on the arm. "And of course, you'll keep this all private. Strictly."

"Of course."

"Let's exchange phone numbers, in case you want to call us with any other questions," Juney said, jotting hers down on a piece of paper. Nadia added her number as well.

I hesitated for a moment. I'd never given the "James phone" number to anyone before. But it was the phone I had to rely on here. I wrote the number down, tore it off, and gave it to them.

They hurried to the front of the cafe, where I saw Damon standing. He paid the cashier, and all three of them waved to me as they went out the door.

I thought, well, that was quite a different evening than I'd expected. I walked around a little, looking at the sights while I went in the direction I thought the Underground was. I ended up browsing in a bookshop, then meandering along the edge of a park where a band was playing.

I had just come to the Underground when my phone rang from an unknown number.

My immediate thought was: James?

"Hello?"

Surprisingly, it was Damon George. One of the girls must have given him my number. "Where are you, Karina? Do you need a ride?"

"I can find my own way home, thanks," I said. "Are you done with Nadia and Juney already?"

"Ha. It's been well over an hour, more than enough to finish their night's lesson. Let me come get you in the car."

"Damon, my mother always told me not to get in cars with strange men."

"Even if I promise I won't touch you?"

He couldn't have known that saying so would send goose bumps all over my arms and across my neck, as I thought about the things James could do to me without ever touching me. "I said 'no,' Damon."

"Ahem. Actually, Karina, you didn't say no. You said your mother told you not to get into cars."

"You're maddening! All right. I meant no, then. And I'm saying it now." I looked around the street, wondering if he knew where I was, if he was nearby. But he wasn't James, and that sort of thing happened only with him.

"Okay. I understand. I do want to talk to you about my offer, though."

"Your girls convinced me. I'll call the number on the card you gave me."

"All right. I think I can help you, Karina."

"Help me pass the audition, you mean?"

"No. I mean help you understand your interest in dominance and submission."

"Well, if I pass the audition, you'll have plenty of chances for that."

"True. All right, Karina, if you're really not interested in talking, hang up on me now."

"I will! Ahhh!" He was so infuriating! If I didn't hang up, that meant I kept talking to him, and if I did hang up, it was like I was following his orders. I hung up and resisted the urge to throw the phone at the ground.

The truth was I did want to talk about it with someone who understood it all. But not him, I told myself. Not like that!

I went back to the ArtiWorks, alternately fuming about Damon and trying to imagine what the audition for the secret society would be like. Michel was nowhere to be seen, and Paulina was in her studio. I could hear her singing along to some music while she worked. I went to my room rather than disturb her.

I meant to spend some time working on the books, but the moment I got in I set up my laptop on my bed and took the envelope of photos out of my purse.

I was searching for information on the Internet about UK postal codes when Becky popped up in the video chat window.

"Hey, Becks!"

"Hey, Rina! How's it going so far? I got your e-mail! Are you at Misha and Paul's right now?"

"I am. And I think I have some leads, too."

"Oooh, like what? The postmark thing?"

"That's one. Here's the envelope he sent." I held it up so she could see it. "I don't know yet what-"

She leaned close to the screen, and it looked like she was writing something down. "I'll look right now."

"Okay, Watson," I joked. "But there's more."

"I'm all ears, Sherlock."

"Ha. So, remember when you were telling me Renault was drunk and ranting about something called the Crimson Glove Society? I met a man tonight who had a red glove in his pocket."

"Is that unusual?"

"A single glove, satin, and oh, by the way, he had two female sex slaves following him around the museum? Yeah, I'd say it was unusual."

"At the museum!"

"He was the big-money donor who got a private tour. Anyway, he sort of flashed the glove and then handed me a business card. Next thing I know, I'm invited to a sex slave job interview."

"What!" Her image jiggled as she grabbed her laptop like she was trying to grab on to me. "You're not serious."

"I don't mean slaves like illegal trafficking, Becks. I mean, you know, doms and subs. There's a club here in London and they train the subs to do stuff. The point is it must be the same secret society that James is in. And if he's here in the UK, how much you want to bet he gets in touch with them?"

"Oh. Well, I can tell you one thing," Becky said, typing some more as she talked to me. "Whoever mailed that envelope mailed it from York, England."

"You can tell from the code?"

"Yep. Here. I'll send you the link to the info site about it."

I didn't really need to see the page about the postal service, though. I was already doing a search on York. A tourist info site came up, and I clicked on one of the links there touting "Art in York."

Jackpot. "York has glassmakers!"

Becky was apparently looking at a different website from me. "And a ton of chocolate shops. What is up with that?"

"I don't know, but I think I'm more likely to find him through the glass artists, don't you?"

"Of course! Looks like York is only two hours from you by train. I'll send you a link to that, too." She tapped on her keyboard. "So. You've got two solid leads now. The glass people in York and your kinky rich people's club."

"And Paulina and Michel," I added. "They seem to think there's a chance they'll hear about his whereabouts at some point."

"You'll find him, Karina. I know you will."

"I'm sure you're right, Becks." It was nice to hear her say it. But I wondered if he wanted to be found.

Four.

This Girl Is Made of Loneliness

The next day I called the number Damon had given me. I was a bit surprised that a woman answered. I'd been expecting someone like Damon, I guess. She told me the earliest they could audition me would be the following week. When I asked what the audition would include, she told me that not knowing was all a part of the test. She did tell me the date and time, but said that the exact address wouldn't come to me until an hour before so I would have time to get there. When I asked what I should wear, she laughed, called me a "dear thing," and hung up.

Fine. In the meantime, Michel had just finished stripping the back hallway of the ArtiWorks and we started retiling the front entrance. I planned a trip to York for two weeks later, by which time I'd have collected enough of my pay from Martindale to have a little to spend on getting there and back.

I also started leading an afternoon group tour of the exhibition every day, filling in for one of the regular docents when she took her summer vacation. Many of the visitors seemed to think it was charming that they got an American art student to lead them around the museum. Tristan followed my tour a couple of times, but claimed he could never speak so knowledgeably and authoritatively about the subject. I knew from chatting with him over lunch that he knew plenty about the pre-Raphs, but he shrugged it off.

By the day of the "audition," I had a blister on one hand and some scrapes and bruises on my arms from renovating, and I still hadn't figured out what to wear. I took a hot shower and then sat on my bed, contemplating the clothes I had to choose from.

What would James have wanted? I thought suddenly. Thinking about him brought everything into focus. It was a job interview, right? I put on the outfit I wore to meet Martindale that first day, matching blazer and slacks, but with one difference. I left my underwear off. Just in case.

My phone rang as I was slipping my shoes on. "Hello?"

"Go to the address you're about to receive by text," said a female voice that I thought was probably the same woman I had spoken to before, but I couldn't be sure.

An address appeared on my phone a few moments later, and I set about figuring out where I was going, in other words, which of the London Underground trains to take. The Underground wasn't that much trickier than the New York subway, but sometimes it took some figuring out.

I took the train to Green Park, and as I came out of the station, my phone pinged with another text. It read: Ring #3.

I walked a few blocks to the address I was given and was surprised that the building seemed to be a modern block of apartments. A mother escorting two young children was making her way down the front steps as I approached. I pressed the buzzer for number three. A moment later the door unlatched and I went inside. Number three was on the first floor, at the back. A large envelope with my first name on it was taped to the door. I opened it and pulled out a letter.

If you are to join us, the bond will be built on trust.

If you believe you can trust us, you will follow these instructions. Place your phone inside the envelope along with this letter and tape the envelope to the door again. Then take the Tube to Holborn. The address you seek is printed on the card.

Card? I looked in the envelope again and saw a business card at the bottom I had missed before. It had only a street address, no name or even the city. I put the card in my pocket, put my phone in the envelope, then stood there thinking.

This was fairly heavy cloak-and-dagger stuff, although it seemed very unlikely they were trying to steal my phone. I supposed they didn't want me taking a camera where I was going, and they had to be careful I hadn't brought the police or a TV news crew with me. They were probably watching me right now. I taped the envelope to the door and went on my way.

It felt distinctly odd to be without a phone. I'd gotten so used to having it, using it to check the weather, the map, read the news, and so on, all the time. Not having it was like wearing a blindfold. Which was probably the other purpose for them taking it away.

Fortunately, it wasn't hard to get to Holborn Station, and there was a map on the wall of the train station that let me get my bearings and find the address I needed. I walked a few blocks from the station on a quiet residential street that opened onto a square running around a small park. The buildings here were what I thought of as brownstones, only larger than I was used to. Each was four stories tall and quite wide. The sidewalk was paved in large, flat stones, and each building had a front patio surrounded by a wrought-iron fence.

This looked much more like what I was expecting, but I braced myself in case this doorway, too, had another hoop to jump through. I went up the stone steps and saw the entryway had only one doorbell. There were no envelopes in sight. I pressed the button.

A moment later the door opened. A slender woman in a pillbox hat and stylish suit, her skirt tapering to her knee, looked me up and down. Her eyes were shadowed by the netting from the hat, and she looked like the starlet of a noir film. "Your name?" she said coolly.

"Karina. Karina Casper."

"Come in." She stepped aside so I could enter and then shut the door firmly behind me. I was in the plush-carpeted front hallway. A large staircase led upward and parlors were off to either side. She cleared her throat. "If you'll go forward and to your right."

I went down the hall and then into a sort of library or sitting room. One wall was built with cabinets up to waist height and then bookshelves going up nearly to the high ceiling. A rolling ladder was attached to one side. In the middle of the room was a large table with a sculpted edge. Three chairs sat on one side of it, a single chair on the other, with a folded napkin in front of it.

She gestured to the single chair and I sat in it, my knees suddenly feeling a bit shaky. What was about to happen? Were they going to ask me to do anything? Or were we just going to talk?

She stepped up beside me then and picked up the napkin. "Call me Vanette. This is a blindfold." She snapped it in the air and it unfolded.

"Oh."

"You don't have to wear it if you don't want to, but I think it actually makes things easier."

"All right."

She went around behind me and smoothed my hair with her hands, then lowered the cloth in front of my eyes. She tied it snugly, but not too tight. I wondered how she knew how snug to make it. Maybe she had a lot of practice. She was right, though. I felt more secure with it on. Maybe it was like calming a horse by putting something over its eyes. I felt my breathing deepen in the peaceful dark. It was time to let whatever was going to happen, happen.