Page 57 of Hotter than Wildfire

Once Irene accepted the number, the last refuge of a desperate woman, they both knew she’d some day call it.

In the meantime, in their little time outs over the expensive teas Kerry splurged on, they talked of quiet, gentle things. Never anything personal. No information that could be used against them. Just books and movies and music. Kerry hadn’t even known that Irene was a world-class singing talent until that evening when she’d stepped in for old Honorius. She’d nearly fainted, Irene had been that good. And she hadn’t hinted, not once, that she sang or played.

Kerry didn’t mind. She didn’t need to know Irene’s secrets. God knew she had enough of her own. The whole point of a secret was that it stay hidden. Her secrets could kill. She suspected Irene’s could, too.

Where was Irene? She’d been gone for a week now, without communicating in any way. They had a secret message board, set up by the two of them, as casually as if every person on earth needed a secret means of communication. Neither of them talked about it, but they used it often. To set up appointments, to exchange a few words.

For both of them, Kerry suspected, this was their only form of human connection—the odd cup of tea in her cozy, cheap little apartment. They never spoke at work. They had different shifts anyway. There was an unspoken imperative—don’t let anyone know we’re friends. They both respected it.

Kerry was just starting to get worried. Whoever was after Irene—had he caught up with her?

What kind of man was after Irene? Was he like Tom—a pillar of the community? The kind of man people instinctively looked up to? The kind of man no one would ever believe was capable of cruelty?

Where was Tom? Had he hooked up with some other woman-victim? God, she hoped so, though she pitied any woman under his harsh rule. But if there was another woman, maybe his obsession with her was abating. Maybe she was hiding out here in cold, rainy Seattle, doing a server’s job for a pittance, for no discernable reason. Maybe she could go back to her first love—interior decoration.

Oh God. For the first time in a long while she allowed herself to think of the future. Or at least a future. Something more than merely staying alive.

The rain was pelting now, drops splashing down so hard they bounced almost a foot high. She chanced a glance at the sky. It was pewter-dark, without a break at all in the clouds. She knew by now what that meant. Rain for at least the next couple of hours. Holing up in a storefront wasn’t going to help. She was going to have to run down the street to the Blue Moon.

She dashed down the street, glancing for a startled second at a man who was coming toward her fast. He was an idiot without an umbrella. You got drenched with an umbrella, without one…well.

He was tall and thin and blond. For a horrified instant she thought he looked like Tom, only without that pampered spa look, and dressed in casual clothes.

He wasn’t Tom, though. That thought made her so happy she nodded at him as he walked by, the nod two strangers caught in a downpour would make.

Lousy weather, isn’t it?

You can say that again!

Suddenly, Kerry felt a strong hand grip her arm from behind, almost lifting her off her feet. A sharp prick in her biceps. The rainy world turned entirely to water, long streaming silver stripes that were fast turning black.

She had time for one panicked thought.

Tom found me.

TWELVE

San Diego

They crowded round Nicole. Ellen noticed that Sam kept a hand on his wife’s shoulder, in encouragement, support. That must feel…nice, she thought. To have someone always on your side.

Then a heavy, warm hand landed on her own shoulder and she looked up, startled, into Harry’s sharp golden eyes. He wasn’t looking at Nicole’s monitor, he was looking at her, face sombre.

Suddenly, he smiled. Straight at her, looking her right in the eyes. Harry had a face that didn’t smile often, the lines and muscles of his face told her so.

This smile lit his face up, made him look younger, approachable. For the first time Ellen realized that he couldn’t be that much older than her. Maybe six or seven years. He’d seemed lifetimes older, with his detailed knowledge of the inner workings of violence and with hidden tragedies she could sense.

The smile did something else. It lit her up inside, as well.

Crazily, with all that had happened, even with the fact she had a dangerous man after her, a man who’d tortured and killed her agent, a man who’d probably killed Arlen—when he smiled at her, it all disappeared.

Her head knew that there were monsters outside, monsters with sharp teeth and claws, but for this instant in time, it all felt far away, happening to someone else. Another Ellen Palmer, not this one. This one had made love all night with the big golden man standing so close to her she could feel his body heat. That huge hand, elegant and long-fingered, had touched her everywhere. At the end, it had seemed as if he’d known her body better than she did. He had a Reality Distortion Field around him and when she was inside it, danger and fear were far away. They didn’t have anything like the hold on her that sex with him did.

Sex.

God, why hadn’t anyone told her the sheer power of sex? That it felt like plugging into some primordial power source? Who knew?

Sex had been sometimes fun, sometimes boring, sometimes a little painful, but that was usually her fault because often she wasn’t turned on very much.