Page 14 of Hotter than Wildfire

She hesitated and he understood she was still weighing how much to tell him. “Frankly the guy was so drunk he could barely articulate. But—he was actually boasting! When I said I didn’t believe him, he pulled out a cellphone and showed me a snapshot of him, the boss and two other guys. Soldiers, in Afghanistan. Standing next to what looked like hundreds of pallets stacked high with dollars wrapped up into bricks. The guy was falling down drunk but the photos were clear. Then he said—all that money was gone the next day, and no one ever noticed.”

“What happened next?” Harry asked quietly.

He had a sense of where this was going. But he was also having trouble focussing on her story. It was riveting, but the quality of her voice was even more riveting. Soft and clear with the faintest tinge of southern spice in there. It was mesmerizing, and tantalizingly familiar. Which was, of course, crazy, since Harry had never seen her before in his life. He was hallucinating, which was not good.

He needed to sleep at least as much as he trained. A good military rule.

“While he was telling me the story, so drunk he was nearly passing out, my boss noticed us across the room. He looked at me and at this drunk guy and I’ve never seen a more menacing expression on a human face before.” She shivered at the memory. “It certainly sobered up Drunk Guy. He went ash white, said to forget he’d said anything and disappeared so fast you’d swear you could see the dust. I was spooked. The boss started coming over and I hid behind a pillar and slid away. I needed to think about it, because the whole story rang really true. And explained all the anomalies I found in the accounts.”

Harry was watching her, trying to concentrate on her words instead of the timbre of her voice, feeling slightly light in the head. Maybe this woman was like one of those Greek sirens whose voice alone was enough to make sailors crash into rocks? Jesus, he wouldn’t be surprised. “And then?”

She huffed out a breath and got a closer clutch onto her backpack, nervous system tightening up. “The next day they found that guy’s body. The drunk one who’d talked. I heard it on the early morning news. It was made to look like a mugging but I don’t think he was the type of man to be caught by surprise like that. They found his body by the side of the road with a bullet through his head and all his money and credit cards gone.”

“What was the calibre of the bullet?”

Her eyes opened wide. “I beg your pardon?”

A lot could be told by the calibre, but she wouldn’t know that. “Never mind,” Harry said. “Go on.”

“It was just too much. I—I guess I freaked. I didn’t go to work that day, didn’t even call in sick. I just—didn’t show up. Which was stupid, because anyone who knew me, knew that was unusual for me.”

“Hard worker,” Harry murmured and her head came up with an expression of pride.

“Yes, I am. I’ve never taken a day off sick and I’ve been working since I was twelve.” She shook herself. “Anyway, I thought all night about going to the police, but the thing is the local police chief is a really good friend of my boss’s, and a lot of the cops practice free shooting on his shooting ranges. My boss makes a point of contributing very generously to the Family Survivor’s Fund. They would never believe me, not in a million years, not without proof and I didn’t have that. When the news came on about Drunk Guy being killed, I realized right then and there that I was going to have to go to the police or I’d be next. And then I happened to look out the window at a van parked across the street from my condo entrance, and men started pouring out. They were armed and they were Ge--my boss’s men.”

Harry froze. “What did you do?”

“I ran,” she said simply.

Ellen could clearly remember the bright blinding panic flaring in her head when she saw the men spilling out of that van.

Pure instinct took over. She didn’t even stop to think about what she was doing. She didn’t pack a suitcase, didn’t do anything but grab her car keys and the thousand dollars she always kept in cash in an ancient copy of Pride and Prejudice and run down the back stairs to the laundry room, where there was an underground corridor exiting onto the back parking lot where she kept her car.

She drove to the most eastern ATM she could think of, withdrew as much money as the system would allow, then turned west and began the long long trek to the furthest point she could think of, Seattle.

“You ran,” Harry Bolt repeated thoughtfully. His deep voice was quiet and calm.

She nodded. “I knew I had to keep off the grid because my boss—my former boss—is good at finding things out. That’s one of the things he does. And I knew he wasn’t going to ever just forget about it. I think—" Ellen lifted her eyes to Harry Bolt’s and searched his face, looking for something elusive. Some sense that he would understand completely and totally what she was saying. She found it. She drew a deep breath. “I think he’s the kind of man who will keep looking for me until I’m dead. Can you believe that?”

“Absolutely,” was the quiet answer.

Okay. Okay. Maybe this was going to work.

“I drove at night and slept in motels during the day. Sometimes I stopped for a week or two and waitressed in places where they don’t ask for documents. Finally, I made it to…a city in the north. I rented a room in a rough part of town. I paid cash, no questions asked. The landlady wasn’t about to report my rent to the IRS. After a couple of days, I found a job as a waitress in this dive. I gave the boss a false name and I didn’t show him any papers. The owner was—was good to me. I think—I think he understood.”

Mario Russo, one of life’s good guys. Big and rough-looking, with only inches of visible skin not covered by tribal tattoos. He ran a funky bar frequented by an astonishing variety of humanity, but he didn’t water his drinks, he didn’t ask questions and if you behaved, you could stay forever in his place on one beer. Particularly on cold days.

Though he didn’t have to, Mario paid her a little over minimum wage, which with tips was enough to pay for her room and keep her. He never asked questions, paid every Friday night, and was always somehow there if a customer got a little rowdy with her.

“About a week after I ran, I found out that—" Her throat constricted and she swallowed heavily. As always when she thought about it, her stomach seemed to slide greasily up her windpipe.

Ellen watched Harry Bolt watching her. Again, he showed no signs of impatience as he waited for her to continue her story. Not a muscle in his body moved. She suddenly had a flash of insight—he’d wait for her to tell her story in her own way, no matter how much time it took.

Up until now Ellen’s focus had simply been—is this man my enemy? Was she going to get herself killed coming out in the open with him?

But now she relaxed just a little and noticed other things about the man. He was so very tall, for one thing. Even sitting down, he towered above his desk. He was big with it, too, dense, lean, tightly-packed muscle with no fat anywhere. Amazingly broad shoulders, maybe the widest she’d ever seen.

Astonishing as his physique was, though, it wasn’t the first thing you noticed about him. No, what drew your attention like iron filings to a supermagnet were his eyes. A brown so light it could almost be called golden. Intense, intelligent eyes that seemed to see more than most.