Driven by Fire (Fire 2)

“Where are the ice packs?” Dr. Gentry demanded.

“Screw the ice packs. What are you telling her about me?”

“Not a God Almighty thing except that you must’ve crushed her.”

Jenny was surprised Doc even bothered to answer his rough question. “Don’t be rude,” Jenny snapped at him. “I already know who you are and exactly what you do.”

“I doubt that. You need another bath but Doc only has a shower. If Doc is finished with you I can help you get clean.”

“I’ll help her,” Doc said sternly.

“To paraphrase your elegant words, she doesn’t have anything I haven’t already seen.”

“I don’t give a damn what you have or haven’t seen. The woman deserves her modesty.”

“I thought you had somewhere to be,” he said with a meaningful undertone.

“I don’t leave my patients until they’re ready. Now get those damned ice packs, or you won’t be able to move your shoulders by tomorrow.”

He gave her a disbelieving glance. “You really think so?”

“All right, you’re Superman. Make things easier on yourself for once and use the ice packs.”

Ryder made a disgruntled growl as Dr. Gentry helped Jenny to her feet. “You just come along with me,” she said. “You’ll feel a sight better after you’re cleaned up.”

The woman was right. Half an hour later Jenny was coming to the conclusion that Dr. Gentry was always right. She even managed to shampoo the dried blood from her hair with a minimum of discomfort to her lacerated scalp, but when they were done Jenny was shaking with exhaustion.

Dr. Gentry toweled her off with capable, impersonal hands, found her an ancient dressing gown that came to her ankles and looked like it had once belonged in Storyville, that notorious center for prostitution in old New Orleans. Great, she thought. As if she weren’t already feeling vulnerable and uncomfortably sexual for no good reason. At least there was a pocket for Billy’s cell phone. She’d had every intention of leaving it at her house, and now it was about the only thing she had left, useless as it was to her.

The bathroom was off a tiny bedroom with a sagging, tarnished brass bed taking up most of the space. “What you need most now is sleep,” said Doc.

“I want to go . . .” She’d been about to say “home” when she realized she had no home. Sudden tears filled her eyes.

“Now don’t be worrying about anything right now. Things will sort themselves out—you’ll see. You just climb into bed—that’s right—and I’ll tell Ryder to leave you alone.”

The sheets were wonderful—like heavy linen—and the bed was soft and comforting. She blinked away her tears, patted the phone in her pocket, and a moment later she was sound asleep.

Chapter Eight

Soledad looked around her large room in the headquarters of the American Committee for the Preservation of Democracy and sniffed disapprovingly. It was filled with old furniture, like the rest of the house, with old rugs on the polished floors, marble in the bathroom, and heavy curtains to block out the sunlight. She had watched a great many shows on American television and she knew this was not what a rich house should look like. It should have stainless-steel appliances and granite countertops for fat American women who never cooked. All this old furniture belonged in a dump, she thought contemptuously.

It was getting late, and it seemed as if the house was empty. There was no sign of her jailer, the saintly Ms. Parker, or the bad-tempered man who’d let them in. She’d done a preliminary canvass of the place and found nothing suspicious—not a computer in sight, not even a telephone, not anyone to question why she was snooping around, but she knew she was far from alone. She’d already identified one hidden camera in the bedroom, three in the hallway, and she had no doubt the place was littered with them. She kept her stupid sheep expression on her face. Even the most innocent of women would be curious about a place like this, especially someone who supposedly grew up a sheltered innocent in a third-world country.

There were no innocents in third-world countries, but Americans were too stupid to know that.

It was getting very late. Ms. Parker wasn’t the kind of woman to spend the night in the arms of a man like Ryder, though Soledad would have been tempted if he weren’t the enemy, but then Ms. Parker didn’t know how to enjoy life. She was so caught up in being good, trying to prove she had nothing to do with her rich family. If Soledad had had a family like her jailer’s, she would have made full use of it.

Right now, though, Soledad was better off depending on herself. If the house really were empty, then she needed to use her time wisely, find out where the hell Parker had hidden the cell phone. Once she found it she could be long gone, no longer at the mercy of her saintly lawyer. God, but that woman annoyed her! It was no wonder someone had shot at her.

Soledad didn’t know who had fired the gun and she didn’t care. It had come nowhere near her, and she had the kind of enemies who didn’t miss.

She slipped out the door, heading down the hall, the saccharine smile on her face. She knew she could pass for a teenager, when in fact, she was twenty-five in years and ancient in experience. She had yet to find one person she couldn’t fool.

She knew better than to look at the cameras stationed around the hallway. She was on the second floor, and she suspected that’s where the heart of the operation kept itself. She couldn’t very well tap the walls, looking for a hollow sound, but she could keep her chastely lowered eyes glued to the doors, looking for a trace of light escaping from beneath the heavy wood. Ugly, she thought to herself. She would have torn down the whole place.

“Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing?” a voice came from behind her, slow and lazy with the New Orleans accent she was getting used to, the one Ms. Parker seemed to be missing, and she jumped, cursing herself for being so jittery.

She turned to find a man watching her. He was tall, lean, with a charming smile on a too-handsome face. Child’s play, she thought. He would be so used to women falling at his feet that he would assume she would do the same.