Page 14 of Savage Beauty

“I would never resign. This research is important to me. I need to talk to Dr. Kallio.”

“That’s probably not the best idea.” He’s seated in the chair. The side of my hospital bed must have been uncomfortable. “Remember what the Interpol suit told you? Red Notice? Not a good idea to go barging back.”

“I need to let her know I didn’t resign. My research projects.” I push up off the bed and ignore my scratchy sore throat. “Mr. Hawkins, I need to get back to them.” The light in the room feels brighter. I need to go.

“Call me Max.”

“Max—”

“Sloane.” He says my name slowly, imbuing it with care and an unstated request to listen. “We need to take this slowly. Someone burned down your sister’s home in Asheville. These theories are good, but we need to proceed with caution.” An uneasy feeling washes over me. “Whoever hired Anton Solonov, and the other two tangos, Omar Cardenas and Alexis Flores, is still out there.”

“They killed someone?”

“Felix Hernandez. A good man. One of the best.”

“They told me they had Sage and that they wouldn’t hurt her.” None of this makes any sense. But they killed someone. And burned down Sage’s home?

“Who told you they wouldn’t hurt Sage?”

“The man in Cambodia. Not Anton. Another man. I don’t know his name. He said he’d hurt Sage if I tried to escape. But I was skeptical of the photograph he showed me. But I still did what he wanted. He could’ve hired anyone to do what I was doing.” The pulsing in my head intensifies, and I place my forehead in my palm.

“Sloane, none of what happened is your fault. But it’s important you accept that you can’t go waltzing back to your office. Someone hired these men. For all we know, it could be this Dr. Kallio you’re mentioning.”

“No. She’s my friend. But there are others.” We’re always looking for investors. Maybe someone else…maybe someone felt the report I put together would curtail investment? I compiled the data to prove our lab is a solid investment and my research will earn out, but maybe they looked at the cancer rates and interpreted the data differently?

“Sloane…whoever is behind this is powerful. You’re still coming off the meds. Let’s take it slowly. Maybe you’ll remember more. But waltzing back into your office before we have some answers is not an advisable game plan.”

“Mister…Max… Is that your full name?”

“People call me Max. It’s short for Maxwell.”

“Fine.” I blink. Focus. I need to figure this out. The puzzle pieces need to fit together. “That Interpol guy…he asked your team to share any reports. Is there an incident log? I need to know everything.”

CHAPTER3

Max

Sage didn’t want to barrage her sister with questions or bring on traumatic memories too quickly, so we’ve been pussyfooting around her all day. Bringing her orange juice. Letting her sleep. Answering questions about why she’s in the hospital. Until the Interpol guy appeared, no one asked a single goddamn question of importance. But of course, now that she’s completely lucid, they're gone, and I’m the one here to lay it all out there for her.

She’s no longer squeezing her eyes shut in pain, and she sounds sincere.

“I’m not sure we have much more knowledge than you do. There’s no report to share. Not yet.”

“Why not?” For someone who took a job abroad so they could skirt international laws, she’s got a lot of self-righteousness jammed up her ass.

I sit up a little straighter. She’s not my commanding officer, and our company has taken tremendous expense to save the prickly PITA. “On this case, we don’t actually have any paying clients?—”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Arrow Tactical Security. It’s the company Knox and I work for. Missing persons is just one example of the work we do. After the man broke into Sage’s home?—”

“When was that?”

Damn if I can remember. I pull out my phone. It’s a Blackberry. Got used to the thing and have refused to change. I log onto a VPN to pull up our Slack channel.

“What are you doing? Are you—” She leans forward, squinting those eyes as if it’s possible for her to see my screen.

“Patience, woman. Close your eyes and breathe.”

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