Part 8 (2/2)

He stepped into the elevator car, which tossed his own image back to him in smoked gla.s.s.

Everything about her was top-of-the-line. And her background just didn't equal fraud. Fletcher Industries generated enough profit annually to buy a couple of small Third World countries. This new arm of it was Natalie's baby, and even if it folded in the first year, it wouldn't shake the corporate foundations.

Of course, there was emotional attachment to be considered.

Those same instincts told him she had a great deal of emotional attachment to this new endeavor. That was enough for some to try to eke out a quick profit to save a shaky investment. But it didn't jibe. Not with her.

Someone else in the company, maybe. A compet.i.tor, hoping to sabotage her business before it got off the ground. Or a cla.s.sic pyro, looking for a thrill.

Whatever it was, he'd find it.

And, he thought, he was going to enjoy rattling Natalie Fletcher's cage while he was going about it.

One cla.s.sy lady, he mused. He imagined she'd look good-d.a.m.n good-modeling her own merchandise.

The beeper hooked to his belt sounded as he stepped from the elevator. Another fire, he thought, and moved quickly to the nearest phone.

There was always another fire.

Chapter 3

Ry kept her cooling her heels for fifteen minutes. It was a standard ploy, one she'd often used herself to psych out an opponent. She was determined not to fall for it.

There wasn't even enough room in the d.a.m.n closet he called an office to pace.

He worked in one of the oldest fire stations in the city, two floors above the engines and trucks, in a small gla.s.sed-in box that offered an uninspiring view of a cracked parking lot and sagging tenements.

In the adjoining room, Natalie could see a woman pecking listlessly at a typewriter that sat on a desk overflowing with files and forms. The walls throughout were a dingy yellow that might, decades ago, have been white. They were checkerboard with photos of fire scenes-some of which were grim enough to have had her turning away-bulletins, flyers, and a number of Polish jokes in dubious taste.

Obviously Ry had no problem shrugging off the cliched humor about his heritage.

Metal shelves were piled with books, binders, pamphlets, and a couple of trophies, each topped with a statuette of a basketball player. And, she noted with a sniff, dust. His desk, slightly larger than a card table and badly scarred, was propped up under one shortened leg by a tattered paperback copy ofThe Red Pony.

The man didn't even have respect for Steinbeck.

When her curiosity got the better of her, Natalie rose from the folding chair, with its torn plastic seat, and poked around his desk.

No photographs, she noted. No personal mementos. Bent paper clips, broken pencils, a claw hammer, a ridiculous mess of disorganized paperwork. She pushed at some of that, then jumped back in horror when she revealed the decapitated head of a doll.

She might have laughed at herself, if it wasn't so hideous. The remnant of a child's toy, the frizzy blond hair nearly burned away, the once rosy face melted into mush on one side. One bright blue eye remained staring.

”Souvenirs,” Ry said from the doorway. He'd been watching her for a couple of minutes. ”From a cla.s.s A fire up in the east sixties.

The kid made it.” He glanced down at the head on his desk. ”She was in a little better shape than her doll.”

Her shudder was quick and uncontrollable. ”That's horrible.”

”Yeah, it was. The kid's father started it with a can of kerosene in the living room. The wife wanted a divorce. When he was finished, she didn't need one.”

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