Page 97 of Stuart Woods' Smolder

It wasn’t until they’d been driving for a couple of hours that Benji realized he’d forgotten to call 911 to report the fire.

Chapter 30

“Wake up.”

Dalton parted his eyelids, then slammed them closed again. Someone had turned the light on in his room. Confused, he rolled onto his back and eased his eyes open.

“Simon? What the hell?”

“Get dressed. We have somewhere to go.”

Dalton sat up. “How did you get in here?” While he was staying at the same hotel as Simon, he had not given the art dealer a key to his room.

“Quit dawdling and get up.”

Still half asleep, Dalton swung his legs off the bed, grabbed his phone off the nightstand, and checked the time. It was barely five a.m. “Where are we going at this time in the morning?”

“To find out how much your friend Monica Reyes knows.”

“Monica? What are you talking about?”

Simon headed for the door. “I’ll be in the lobby. If you’re not there in ten minutes, I’ll leave without you.”

Dalton threw on some clothes and rushed into the lobby with two minutes to spare.

He had assumed Simon had come with his driver, but it was Simon himself who got behind the wheel.

“Can you tell me where we’re going?” Dalton asked as they drove over the hill into the San Fernando Valley.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

Simon was equally unhelpful when Dalton asked what he’d meant about Monica, and he finally gave up trying to get anything out of him.

Thirty minutes later, they were in the northeast end of the San Fernando Valley, traveling on a windy road into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The houses along the road were far apart from each other, often out of sight of their neighbors.

Dalton was starting to think they were heading to the top of the mountain when Simon pulled into a driveway and stopped. Planted in the front yard was afor salesign that looked as if it had been there for years, which made sense, given that the house appeared just as neglected.

“What are we doing here?”

“Getting our answers.”

Simon climbed out. Dalton hesitated a moment, then did the same.

The front door of the house swung open before they reached it, Phillip on the other side.

“Is he ready?” Simon asked.

Phillip nodded. “Primed and waiting.”

“Lead on.”

They passed through a dingy living room into a dark hallway, the whole place stinking of mold and rot, then stopped at a closed door at the very end.

“In here,” Phillip said.

He opened the door and stood to the side so that Simon and Dalton could enter first.

The space was lit by a single, bright light focused on a man tied to a chair in the middle of the room. He was slouched forward, his face hidden. The only sign of life was the rise and fall of his torso as he breathed.

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