Hotter Than Wildfire

  She could start her life up again. He’d forget about her and she could move on, into the sunlight, into a regular life, instead of huddling in the shadows. Maybe even start an interior decorating business. Maybe find a nice man to marry. Maybe—maybe even have kids.

  And even in the fear and terror of this past year, there’d been good moments. Tea with Irene, the odd funny client. She’d read a lot from the local library, listened to a lot of music on the radio. Solitary pleasures, but pleasures nonetheless.

  All ending, right now.

  A thump on her back, hard. The door of the bathroom yawned before her. “Get going. We don’t have all day here.” Hiah.

  Kerry turned, licking her dry lips. “I’m—I’m going to need my hands.” She looked at him, at his light-blue eyes, like colored marbles, just as devoid of any humanity as Mr. Elegant’s. “To…um.” Her mind whirred uselessly. “Need my hands,” she repeated in a whisper.

  He’d either cut the tape or not. She couldn’t do anything about it.

  He whipped out that sharp blade again, the steel whispering against its scabbard, and with one deft move cut through the duct tape. An amazing feat. He sliced through without touching skin, though her wrists were tightly bound together.

  So he was handy with a knife. Real handy. She shuddered even more deeply.

  He nodded sharply at the bathroom, not even bothering to waste words with her.

  “Can—” Kerry was shaking so hard her mouth could barely form words. She flexed her hands, trying to get some circulation going again. It would be too horrible if she botched this. “Can I close the door?”

  He shook his head.

  Oh God.

  “Can you—can you turn your back?”

  Without a word, he turned on his heel, presented his broad back to her. Kerry suspected it was more because he didn’t want to see her vomiting than to provide her with some privacy.

  This was her chance, right now. She stepped into the filthy, stained cubicle. It was dark, with only a small window way up high. There was no question of her being able to escape from it, and she knew the two men realized it as well. Even if she were athletic enough to leap up onto the toilet seat, smash the filthy glass pane and try to haul herself up and out, this man would catch her in less than a second.

  No, there was no way out.

  So she looked around, heart pumping with dread, tears bleeding from her heart. This was where she’d end her life, in this fetid abandoned bathroom, with only two heartless strangers to witness her passing.

  Such a miserably lonely and squalid place to die.

  “Hurry it up,” the man with the funny accent said. Come on, get going, do what you have to do so we can torture you to death for information that’s not in your head.

  Suddenly, a hot flush of rage ripped through her system and she welcomed it. It chased away the icy chill of fear, and even the sadness, because she was going to do what these two men thought was impossible.

  She was going to beat them.

  “Okay.” Kerry put soft humility in her voice, just as he’d expect. She understood very well that they liked degrading her, humiliating her. Just as they would like hurting her.

  Fuck them.

  She put up the toilet cover, a sound the man would be expecting. Only instead of bending over that filth, she held up her right hand and examined the ring on it. It was a sleek, modern design, pure titanium. Will resist a conflagration, the online brochure had said.

  Of course the subtext was, If they burn your body, something will remain.

  The company was as mysterious as its owner—a legendary beauty who hid from the world. Whoever she was, she was brilliant—a designer of jewelry that doubled as weaponry, only for women. Necklaces that broke apart to become small, razor-sharp scythes or hid garrotes, bracelets that held a small amount of C-4 and a detonator that came with detailed instructions and was just enough to blow someone up. The solutions were endless and fascinating.

  Kerry had opted for a ring, very simple and unobtrusive, but beautiful nonetheless. It was disguised as the kind of ring that at first glance looked like something you could pick up at a crafts fair or on any costume jewelry stand.

  Perfectly ordinary ring except for one thing: Press a tiny hidden button on one side and out shot a spring-loaded mini hypodermic syringe preloaded with enough neurotoxin to fell a bull. The syringe could also be preloaded with a powerful tranquillizer, but Kerry knew that if she ever became desperate enough to use it, she’d need to kill. So it had been option A, neurotoxin.

  There was a second option to the ring, which Kerry had barely paid attention to. Twist that tiny button instead of pressing it, and the syringe would pop out on the underside, penetrate the skin of your hand and kill you instantly.

  If the man who stood with his back to her had been alone, she’d have stabbed him in a heartbeat. Reached over and jabbed him in the neck, hard. He wouldn’t be expecting it at all. He’d die at her feet and she’d rejoice.

  But the syringe was preloaded with just one dose. Kerry hadn’t thought it through but she realized how incredibly clever the designer was. If you needed two doses, you were better off killing yourself because you’d never prevail.

  “That’s enough,” the man muttered and turned around, giving her a quick, impersonal up and down look. She hadn’t gone to the bathroom, she hadn’t vomited. “What the fuck—”

  Staring him straight into his dead eyes, Kerry wrenched the button, felt the white-hot prick of the needle, welcomed it, and dropped where she stood, dead before she hit the ground.

  Chapter 13

  San Diego

  They drove up out of the condo’s garage in single file. One, two, three. Mike first, then Sam and Nicole, then Harry and Ellen. They turned right and followed the ocean for a couple of miles, then turned inland over a beautiful bridge.

  They all drove at exactly forty miles an hour and kept the exact same distance from each other.

  It took Ellen a while to realize what this was: a convoy.

  She turned her head and looked blindly out at the passing scenery. This was an unusually beautiful part of San Diego, but she barely noticed what she was seeing.

  This, then, was the life of Harry, of Sam and Nicole and of Mike. Reduced to moving in a convoy as if through Baghdad, through incredibly hostile terrain.

  Because of her.

  Roddy, dear, sweet Roddy, was dead.

  Because of her.

  “Hey.” Harry’s deep voice broke the silence. He picked up her hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed the back and returned her hand to her lap, all the while staring at the road up ahead. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Are you a mind reader now?” Ellen’s voice was froggy and she cleared it.

  “Don’t have to be a mind reader to know what you were thinking. It was all over your face.”

  She huffed out a little laugh. He hadn’t looked at her once since they’d come up out of the garage, so clearly he had 360-degree vision. It wouldn’t surprise her; he seemed to be Superman. He’d prevailed over three of Gerald’s men.

  He continued staring straight ahead. “There was nothing you could do for your agent. And it had nothing to do with you. Montez is a bad guy and your agent was caught right in the middle of his machinations. Just bad luck, like being run over by a truck. You can’t beat yourself up over it. It won’t do you any good, and above all, it won’t do him any good. The only person to profit would be that fu—would be Gerald, because you’ll be a little less alert.”

  He was right, of course he was right.

  “Besides, you’ve got other things to think about. Like my tax return. We’re all going to dump tons of pieces of paper on you, and man, you’re going to regret your offer.”

  No, she wouldn’t. She was actually looking forward to it. “Nicole comes first.”

  He dipped his head briefly, and a touch of a smile crossed his face. “Of course. Ladies first.”

  “No, not because ladies
come first but because she figured out what happened in Baghdad. That deserves a reward.”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “I can’t believe she’s better at some types of computer research than I am.”

  Ellen laughed. She laughed. When was the last time she laughed? Over a year ago, surely. It felt odd, and came out a little rusty, but it was definitely a laugh.

  He slanted her a glance. “Sounds good, you laughing.”

  “Yeah,” she whispered, surprised at herself. It felt good, too. With all her troubles, and she had a mountain of them, she felt her spirits rise.

  Her situation in general sucked, and she had no future to speak of, but right this second, life was good. She was very safe right now, in a vehicle that she was sure was armored, with Harry at the wheel. Gentle, sexy Harry, who was good with violence. He wielded it like a surgeon wields a scalpel, for her, not against her.

  In the vehicles in front of her were three people who were fast becoming her friends, two of them warriors.

  Amazingly, all of them had gathered her into their little circle of protection and friendship. Crazily enough, though she was in terrible trouble, she’d never felt so safe. So safe, so warm, so protected.

  Don’t get used to it, she warned herself. Because it would be easy to just sink into it, like into a warm bath, and never get out. There would be a deadline to all of this, no doubt. Harry and Sam and Mike would be working to come up with a plan for her. A place to go, documents to fit into a new life that they’d conjure up out of thin air.

  They’d do a better job of it than she could. Would she have a say in what life they chose for her? Music was out, of course. At the thought, a heavy lump of lead settled into her chest. No more music, no more singing, not even amateur singing in a choir. Her voice was too well known by now. Somehow Gerald must have traced her back through her music, so music was out.

  Accountancy, too, of course. Even she knew, you don’t take up your old profession when on the run.

  She didn’t want to waitress any more. It had been fun for a while but it was hard drudgery, and for better or worse, she had lots of money stashed away, so she didn’t have to do it.

  Maybe a job in a bookstore? She liked reading. Or, or…her mind turned blank when Harry took her hand again, raised it to his mouth. This time the kiss wasn’t reassuring, it was pure sex. She felt his warm lips, the slight bite of beard even though he’d shaved. His mouth lingered, a touch of tongue, and she suddenly flashed on last night. How his beard had scraped her shoulder as he kissed and lightly bit his way down to her breast.

  He’d stopped moving in her, hot and hard and heavy inside her, while he kissed his way to her breast. Then he’d lifted his head, fierce golden gaze locked to her eyes. Sliding his hips forward to be more deeply into her.

  Oh God, just remembering made heat blossom all through her body.

  Harry chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m red, aren’t I?” Her voice was resigned.

  “Like a stoplight, honey.” The little convoy took a corner and she looked blindly out the window, trying to cool off a little. His voice roughened.

  “I don’t blush, but—” He took her hand and put it over his groin. Right over the hot steel column in his pants. It was a shocking thing to do. Probably she should protest, but there wasn’t any blood in her head to think, and all the air had left her lungs. “I’m thinking of the same thing you are.”

  He pressed his hand down hard over hers and she gasped as she felt his penis jump, lengthening a little. It had done exactly the same thing last night when she’d nipped him under his ear. It hadn’t been planned; she hadn’t thought it out. It had been instinct, an urgent curiosity to find out what he tasted like, and whether he liked being lightly bit as much as she did.

  The answer had been yes. Hell yes.

  She’d felt the pulse of new blood flooding into his penis buried deep inside her and her vagina had clenched tightly. Thinking of it, remembering it, her hand instinctively tightened around him and the breath exploded out of his body.

  “God.” The word came out rough. His jaws were clenched, muscles rippling up to his temples. She’d have said he was in pain if it weren’t for the fact that his hand tightened over hers to keep it right where it was.

  His eyes quartered the street. “We’re going to be at the Morrison Building in about four minutes. Where am I going to go with this?” His hand clenched around hers and his penis surged again against the palm of her hand.

  Blood suffused her face; her hands trembled. The little convoy was slowing down. Soon they’d be parking and the two of them would have to emerge from this SUV with her burning face and his erection.

  “We have to think of something that will cool us down,” she gasped. Something as big and as cold as Antarctica, the way she was feeling.

  Harry lifted his hand from hers and she released him.

  They drove down into the gloom of the building’s underground garage, the bright sunlight abruptly gone, as if a switch had been thrown.

  “Not hard,” Harry said, parking neatly beside Sam and Nicole’s vehicle. “Just think of Gerald Montez. That’s enough.”

  Turned out that Nicole’s office was just across the corridor from her husband’s. Pretty convenient.

  She had elaborate security, involving a palm print and a keypad code. The only thing missing was the retina scan. When her door clicked open, like that of a bank vault, Nicole put her hand to Ellen’s back and urged her inside. Nicole turned back to the three men.

  “Ellen’s spending the day with me.” Harry opened his mouth and she shook her finger at him. “With me. And I don’t want to hear any discussion about it.”

  Harry looked at Sam, who made a strangled noise in his throat. It was clear who called the shots in that family. Mike just looked amused.

  Nicole leaned forward a little. “Harry, you know perfectly well that Sam made sure my office is as secure as yours, and he watches who comes in and out of my office on his monitor anyway, don’t you, Sam?”

  Sam looked at the floor and had the grace to look a little bit abashed. It was hard to tell, though, on that rough face. He was even worse than Harry at showing emotion.

  “Ellen is going to be much more comfortable spending the day with me, aren’t you, dear?” Nicole turned to her.

  Walking around in an office of men she barely knew, except for one who turned her on so powerfully she’d have to avoid him as much as possible, or staying with Nicole, cool, calm, friendly Nicole. There was only one possible answer. “Ah. Yes.”

  “This is your way to make sure that she looks at your books before she looks at ours,” Harry said sourly.

  “Absolutely. So embrace the suck, as you military types say.” Nicole smiled as she closed the door in their faces. She leaned her back against it and blew out a little breath. “Now. We’ve got rid of them, so we can relax.”

  She waved a graceful hand at the small office. “Welcome to my little lair. You work on that laptop over there and I’ll work at the desktop. Around eleven one of Sam’s men will go downstairs and get a skinny decaf latte for me and you’d like…what?”

  “Cinnamon chai,” Ellen smiled.

  “Great.” Nicole pressed a button on a fancy intercom system, murmured Cinnamon chai and hung her jacket up on a brass clothes tree.

  Nicole went to a beautiful antique console under the window, brought out two big cardboard boxes and placed them on the table next to the laptop. She opened the flaps, looked inside and winced.

  “Oh, man. This is what denial looks like. I’ve been putting this off for way too long. I started Wordsmith while my father was very ill, and it took all my energy to do the work and take care of Dad. So bookkeeping came a very distant third.” She tilted the boxes so Ellen could see inside. There was a wild tangle of bills and check stubs and invoices. It looked like weasels had nested in there. Nicole peered again into the box and back at Ellen. “This is really bad. Sorry.”

 
Ellen looked around at the tiny little office. Small as it was, it was gorgeous, decorated with a few antiques and lovely watercolors and pretty knickknacks, and it smelled of potpourri. It was like being inside a little jewel box. Just being here made her feel good.

  “I can’t imagine anything I’ll like more than repaying your kindness by doing something I enjoy doing. So no thanks necessary.”

  Nicole’s beautiful cobalt-blue eyes widened. “You like keeping accounts?” she asked, in the same tone as you’d say, You like genital herpes?

  “I do, yes. Strange as that sounds. So, Nicole, you’ve made me a very happy woman. Tell me how your system works.”

  “System.” Nicole thought while tapping on the lid of one of the boxes with a manicured pink-tipped nail. “Um, I don’t really have much of a system besides Throw the Piece of Paper into the Box. On that laptop you’ll find chronological files of work as it came in and the quotes I put out. Then you’ll have to match those to the bills. I do translations myself and bill those directly, but a much bigger part of my business is matching clients with translators, and I take a ten percent commission for that. So there are two different sets of accounts.” She looked worried. “It’s really complicated. Maybe I should—”

  Ellen put her arm around Nicole’s shoulders and squeezed gently. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. This is what I do, so let me do it.”

  “I thought you sang.”

  “Yeah, and keep books.” Nicole just looked at her, shrugged, and sat down at her desk. She slid in a portable hard drive into the processor and fired up her desktop. Within a minute, she was lost to the world, tapping away at the keyboard, totally absorbed in whatever it was she was translating.

  Ellen understood completely. Numbers did for her what languages did for Nicole. She loved them, trusted them. They loved her back and had never, ever let her down. Numbers just—they just always made sense. When the people around her had never made sense, numbers had.