Page 7 of Hotter than Wildfire

What the hell did he care?

Harry lay back, closed his eyes and let her carry him away until the sky outside his living room windows went from black to pewter to pearl.

At seven, he reluctantly slipped his headphones off and headed for the shower.

Time to face another day.

Seattle, Washington

April 3

Roddy Fisher was thrown into the storage room by two of his men, McKenzie and Trey.

Gerald Montez was sitting in a comfortable chair, because he thought it might take a long time to beat some information out of the guy. But looking at the worm, he thought maybe not. Maybe they could get this done fast.

Roddy Fisher, talent agent, was small and round and was already whimpering, though he hadn’t even been roughed up yet. All that was still to come.

Montez was used to soldiers, men who’d been trained and trained hard to be tough, to resist. This guy was a soft target, the softest. Trendy clothes, manicured hands, no muscle definition at all. Gerald didn’t know what Fisher looked like yet because his men had brought him in with a hood over his head. Interrogation 101—keep them disoriented. And scared.

The guy was scared all right. He’d even pissed his pants.

Fucking wuss.

Montez signalled with his hand and a bright spotlight was switched on, leaving the rest of the warehouse in darkness. One of his men whipped the hood off and Fisher screwed his eyes up against the thousand-watt light.

Montez knew Fisher couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything actually, but still he kept his face blank, though he felt disgust. Fisher’s eyes were swollen shut from tears and snot ran down his face, making the duct tape over his mouth glisten. Nobody’d touched him, beyond bundling him into a car and putting a hood over his head, and just look at him. Already in meltdown.

He hadn’t even seen Montez’s men behind him, standing ready beside a tray full of instruments that looked designed for carpentry work. Carpentry work on humans, to cut and pull and carve. And Fisher hadn’t noticed the tarpaulin under his chair to catch sweat, blood, DNA.

Trey reached around and ripped the duct tape off Fisher’s mouth. Jesus, Fisher winced as the tape was torn away. What a freaking girl.

“Oh God,” Fisher snivelled. His voice was high and whiny, warbling with bodily fluids. “Where am I? What do you want?” His eyebrows furrowed. “Money! That’s what you want! Take it, in my pants pocket.” In his excitement he forgot his hands were in restraints. He scrabbled for his pockets. Finally, he lifted one hip. “In here. I’ve got three credit cards, you’re welcome to all of them. I won’t report them as stolen. And I’ve got two thousand dollars in cash . Take it. Take everything.” His hopeful face lifted up into the light.

Montez waited until it became clear even to the idiot on the chair that he didn’t want money. Fisher slumped, defeated.

After another long silence, Montez finally spoke.

“Where’s Ellen Palmer?” he asked quietly. Be great if they could do this the easy way. Get the intel, ice the guy and go. Montez had a lot to do before this mess was over and time spent away from business was money lost.

“Who?” Fisher’s forehead scrunched up in confusion, utterly, completely clueless. He couldn’t possibly be that good an actor. Not with the stress he was under. Not a soft civilian.

“Eve.”

Fisher’s features cleared. “Oh, Eve. I’m sorry, that information is highly confident⁠—"

All the breath went out of him at the punch Trey gave him. It wasn’t even a real punch, just a shut-up-and-pay-attention punch. Still, this Fisher asshole started wailing like a siren. Jesus. Montez waited until the noise died down and Fisher was reduced to snivelling.

“Eve,” Montez said again.

Fisher shook his head. “Can’t, man. My contract says⁠—"

Another whack upside the head, not even hard enough to rattle teeth and the wailing began again.

“Okay okay! I’ll talk!”

Christ. If he hadn’t had a deep personal interest in the outcome, Montez would have left this to his men. What a waste of his time interrogating this moron.

Montez moved his chair forward so Fisher could see him, opened a file he held on his lap and pulled out a number of photos. He held up the first photo, the formal portrait that had been on the Bearclaw website, turning it so Fisher could see it clearly.