“What? Was she interviewing Ilithyia?”

Alex choked out a laugh. “Didn’t seem likely. That’s why Nuri called the police.”

Good move on Nuri’s part. Reporters knocked on the front door. They didn’t sneak onto the estate in the back of a horse trailer. Unless they were from a tabloid. And since Harrison wasn’t a movie star, and there was nothing remotely salacious going on at Cadair Racing, this could hardly be an exposé.

Then Harrison’s brain hit on a worst-case scenario.

“Son of a bitch,” he all but shouted.

“She can’t be,” said Alex, correctly interpreting the outburst.

“Sure she can,” said Harrison.

There was no reason in the world the woman couldn’t be attached to a foreign spy agency or black-ops organization.

“A covert operative in a horse trailer?”

“It got her past security.”

“She’s an American,” Alex pointed out. “The CIA doesn’t have anything against the UN.”

“Yeah? Well, they’ve got something against the Syrians and the Iranians.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“Maybe. But that’s bizarre behavior for a horse thief, and she’s certainly not here to do a feature on my love life for the National Inquisitor.”

The grandfather clock ticked three times before Alex spoke. “You want me to head down to the lockup and sleuth around?”

Harrison pushed back on his chair and came to his feet. “No. I’ll get her. If she is an assassin, it’s my neck on the line.”

“We could leave her locked up until the reception’s over. She can’t hurt anyone from jail.”

“That only works if she’s acting alone.”

Alex went silent as Harrison stood up, pressing a hidden button to reveal a wall safe.

“Jobar’s on duty,” Alex warned.

“It figures,” Harrison grumbled. He spun the dial back and forth then clunked the lever. He pulled out three stacks of bills.

Jobar was usually expensive. If the woman was CIA, Harrison hoped the American government would consider reimbursing his bribe.