Melting The Ice

“Good is a subjective term.”

“Is that why you don’t want the cops involved?”

“This is beyond small-town cops, Hannah. This is the big league. The global league.”

She pushed her uneaten fruit bowl aside. She felt as if all the blood had left her head.

He leaned forward as if to take her hand. Hannah braced for the touch but it never came. He seemed to catch himself, lifting the coffeepot instead. He held it up. “Refill?”

She shook her head. “What happens now?”

He poured seconds for himself. “Now, you tell me about Ken Mitchell.”

“Ken Mitchell?”

“This slices both ways, Hannah.”

“Rex, I don’t know any Ken Mitchell.”

“You were lunching with him at the Black Diamond yesterday.”

Hannah felt something slip in her stomach. “You mean Mark Bamfield, the freelance writer?”

“Try CIA.”

“I see.” Her brain was numb.

“So he’s calling himself Bamfield. What’s his cover?”

She cleared her throat. “He said he was a freelance reporter from Washington, that he was here for the toxicology conference and that he was doing a story on Amy Barnes.”

“See the links now?”

She nodded. She didn’t like what she was seeing at all.

This time he placed his hand over hers. “And, Hannah, if you go to the police now, if you tie me up with bureaucracy, you could end up getting yourself killed.”

She looked down at the large hand covering her own. She could feel its warmth, its roughness. It was the hand with the ring, the token of her love, the symbol of her naiveté. She looked back up into his eyes. She couldn’t read them. “That sounds like a threat, Rex.”

“No, Hannah. A warning. I don’t want you to get hurt. You’ve crossed the line. There’s no going back now. Now you play by new rules.”

He was right. She didn’t see how she could turn back. Her world hadn’t only shifted on its axis; she’d been thrust into a whole new one where she didn’t know the players and she didn’t know the rules. And she sure as hell didn’t know the man sitting in front of her.

She pulled her hand out from under his. “What do you want me to do?”

Something flickered through his eyes. Then it was gone. “Can you get me into the Gazette office? I need to take a look at Amy’s work computer, see if she left any trail there.”