"I still think there's a connection."

Matt shrugged his reply and sniffed at the wine in his glass. The Air France jet transporting them from Saint Petersburg to Paris had fabulous accommodations, including a fantastic wine selection. Matt's father had rebuilt him with the keenest senses available within the animal kingdom. That was a boon where investigations were concerned, but it had spoilt his palate for anything but the finest of foods. Since he and Michaela couldn't afford to eat at five-star restaurants every night, he usually satisfied himself with relatively simple, cheap food.

Their vacation wasn't a normal occasion, however. They'd saved up for nearly a decade, and while neither of them was rich, neither of them was poor, either. Every flight they'd booked was first class, since there was no way Matt could fit into a coach seat, and they'd very deliberately scheduled their flights to include dinner service.

This flight was no exception. Matt had selected the foie gras, which they’d prepared as a stir-fried Asian themed dish rather than the traditional French presentation. Matt vaguely remembered seeing something similar created on the original Iron Chef show, and the taste delivered everything he'd imagined it would. Michaela claimed she was watching her figure and selected the vegetarian option. She'd fed Matt a spoonful of her ratatouille, and it was fantastic, the tart and tangy tomatoes merging with the sweetness of the onions and garlic, both underlain with the slight bitter notes of the green pepper and the smooth rich flavor of the eggplant.

Michaela elbowed him in the side as he sniffed the wine and reminisced about the meal they'd just finished.

"Yo! Frank! I'm talkin' to you here."

He frowned down at her, but he couldn't keep it up for long. So beautiful she took his breath away, as true now as it had been the first time he saw her. Thoughts of those first few hectic days together brought a smile to his face, but the thought of the dangers they'd faced put an end to what remained of his hard-won calm. After checking the telltales to be sure it was allowed, he picked up his handheld computer and brought up both sets of case files.

"I heard you, love. The similarities are somewhat intriguing."

"Intriguing? The guys have the same damned name!"

"No, it's not."

"Is so! Look at them."

"I am, right now. The art and artifacts in Japan were reputed to be owned, circa three hundred years ago, by someone known only as Koibito. The collection that was pillaged in the Hermitage was formerly owned by a gentleman named Lubitlem, but the collection had been loaned to the family of the Czar in the mid 1700's. Based on my research, it was not Lubitlem that loaned the collection to them, but rather a well off landowner from the Ukraine who, quote 'no longer had the room on his estate to care for another person's property'. That's a pretty thin excuse for a donation to the Imperial family, but given the age of the records, the direct quote is actually questionable.”

"As I said before, the similarities are intriguing. A collection, owned by an unusually named collector, was donated to an Imperial collection by some third party. The collections were both stolen by an individual with strength beyond the limits of the human frame, who ignored items of equal or greater value, even though they were housed behind the same security, and would not have been any more difficult to take."

"Maybe he had his hands full?"

"Then why not take the items of greater value? No, I'm convinced you're right, there are connections here. I just can't find them."

Michaela folded her arms and looked out the window, her lip pursed out in a pretty little pout. "That's because you're ignoring the obvious, whether you can prove it or not."

"I beg your pardon?"

She heaved a sigh, which completely broke his line of thought as her perky little chest demanded his attention. Eventually he realized she’d been speaking for a while.

"...to planet Frank, come in, planet Frank. My mouth is up here."

He smiled at her, amused by the heat in his own grin. "Trust, me, Michaela Franklin, I am always intimately aware of the location of your mouth."

He had the unalloyed pleasure of watching her mouth, open to scold him, gabble silently for a few moments as a blush rushed from the deep cleavage produced by her bra and the arch of her back, covered her neck, and turned her face a bright pink. He kept his mouth shut in a knowing smile the whole time, imagining the last time they'd been alone. Oral sex was the only way they'd been able to have sex when they first got together, and they still enjoyed it more than was legal in several states.

"What were you saying again, dear?"

She couldn't keep up her scowl and her blush at the same time. She smiled, but she smacked him on the arm when she did. She was angelic, but he'd never make the mistake of assuming she was a nurturing, naked cherub. No, she wasn't nonviolent at all, but he'd never wanted anyone more.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

He knew that they needed to talk about the cases, but on vacation, he refused to feel guilty for woolgathering about how much he enjoyed his life with his wife. While she pulled her thoughts together and away from the obvious fantasies he'd inspired, he stared into her eyes. They were a gorgeous red brown, like imported cinnamon, and when she got angry, they were just as fiery.

"Ok, we've got three problems, Mister mine."

"Go ahead, I'm listening."

"Not staring at my chest again?"

"I can multitask. Besides, I was staring at your eyes."

"Uh, yeah. Now, the first thing is the whole 'beyond the limits of the human frame' thing. We're dealing with something supernatural, agreed?"

That distracted Matt slightly from her eyes, "Well, it could be a human with a powered exoskeleton."

"And those are common enough that criminals have them available?"

"They would require a great deal of initial investment, but they're expensive, not secret state assets."

"Okay then, but what are the odds that two different groups of criminals with the same Em Oh have the same expensive, sort of unusual tool?"

Matt nodded the fact that he was conceding her point. "The odds are our two groups are at least connected."

"Okay, lover boy, so we've either got one high tech group, two groups sharing high tech, or a supernatural bad guy."

"Or two supernatural bad guys, but the modus operandi argument argues against that as well. Yet there is another possibility..."

Michaela tilted her head, waiting for him to continue. "Come on, don't keep me in suspense. Out with it."

"Sorry, enjoying the way your hair falls when you do that. It could be a supernatural bad guy with a piece of high-tech equipment."

"Not common."

"Says the angel in the jet liner, talking to her golem husband who is sorting data on his palm computer."

That got a crooked smile out of her, and he sat silently, watching her smile at him. She stared at his eyes as much as he stared at her mouth. They had another few hours in the flight, so it seemed neither of them felt an irresistible urge to keep business and pleasure separate.

"Oh, right. Anyhow, another point in favor of the supernatural bad guy theory is that it ties the Em Ohs together."

"Explain?"

One of the things Matt enjoyed most about married life was being able to use one word instead of two and still have someone understand him. He might be pedantic, but he didn't like wasting words. Really, he didn't.

"Okay, if it's one bad guy, he was operating more than three hundred years ago in Japan and in Russia. The information we have points to the same general time frame, but it's not a hard and fast fact. Either way, we're looking at someone over three hundred years old."

"Or someone with a shopping list over three hundred years old."

"Well. Shit. I didn't think of that. Family connection?"

"Yes. So based on what you've said, our perpetrator is still either supernatural or high tech, but the crimes are likely related in some way."

"Ok, that gets to the second obvious thing you've overlooked. The names, bright boy. They're the same."

"No, they're not."

"Yes, they are."

"No, they're..." Matt stopped in the middle of his denial. His wife wasn't given to lying or to playing practical jokes in the middle of an investigation. He thought carefully about the names for a bit but couldn't pick up on the similarity.

"The name of the owner of the Japanese art was Koibito."

"Right."

"The name of the owner of the Russian art was Lubitlem."

"Exactly. Same name. Probably the same guy. And travel between Japan and Western Russia over three hundred years ago hints pretty strongly at someone supernatural or rich, and there are no records of someone that rich with that name back then. You checked."

"Wait. Stop. The name Koibito and the name Lubitlem are not the same."

Michaela just stared at him, mouth hanging open, like she was about to accuse him of being insane, or maybe accuse him of lying.

"Kay oh eye bee eye tee oh."

She blinked at him, but the accusation in her expression softened, and she waved a hand at him, indicating he should continue.

"El you bee eye tee el ee em."

She shook her head, not understanding why he said what he said.

"What did I just say, Michaela?"

"Two sequences of letters. Nonsense, as far as I can tell."

He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on the thought that eluded him. Michaela started to say something, but he lifted a hand, and she stopped and muttered 'this better be good.' When he realized what was happening, it elated, frustrated, and frightened him all at the same time.

"I get it. I don't like it, but I get it."

"Ok, Frank, what do you get?"

"Part of your gift of languages. When it's working, you hear meaning, not sound."

"Oh... kay. And that's important because?"

Matt opened his eyes and stared at her, "Think about it. Those two 'random collections of letters' were the two words I was saying."

"Oh. Okay, and that's important be..." Michaela stopped, a look of sudden comprehension on her face, "oh, shit. It's the same person."

"I never realized you couldn't hear the differences between aliases."

"It doesn't always work, but yeah, sometimes I can't, especially when someone's using a name that means the same thing in different languages. All right, so we've got a single owner three centuries ago. He or his family are going around collecting up his artwork."

"It means something else, too."

"What's that?"

"If this guy's name gives you that type of reaction, it's a bit more likely he's supernatural in origin. You're hearing his true name."

Michaela tilted her head to one side, considering the information. "Probably. Does that help us?"

Now it was Matt's turn to think about it. "Probably not. If my father was still alive, he might be able to do something. He toyed with various forms of magic at one point. If we knew someone powerful enough that we trusted, maybe, but..."

"We don't know anyone like that we trust."

"Well, maybe Mom."

Michaela winced and frowned. "I'm sorry, Matt, but with the problems she's talked to you about lately, I'm not sure if she's the best person to be handing true names to."

Matt wanted to be offended, but... he couldn't be. His godmother's sanity remained a precarious thing, and if they handed a powerful being's true name to her the best they could hope for if her sanity failed was nothing at all. The worst, that the being she called would somehow control her, didn't bear thinking on.

"Well, at least we know we're dealing with a single villain or group."

"Yeah, there is that."

"So, love, what was the third thing?"

She grinned across the gap in their seats at him. "I'm really hoping the first-class restroom is bigger than most, because I have an irresistible urge to join the mile high club."