“No. Fire. And if I’m willing to pay you, why won’t you do it?”

Jack stared at her. This was not at all what he’d expected from Alicia. She seemed to care so deeply about so many things, why was she so blind about this? Almost as if her rational processes ducked for cover whenever that house was mentioned.

But whatever the reason, Jack wasn’t about to get into a debate about doing the arson. It wasn’t something he put up for discussion.

“Because who I work for and what I do for them is entirely up to me. And I choose not to do this.”

After a moment of utter silence, during which Alicia’s eyes blazed with such intensity Jack thought she might explode, she turned and walked back to the door to. her apartment, opened it, and stepped back.

“Then, there is nothing left for us to discuss. Good-bye, Jack.”

She had that right. But as Jack passed her at the door, he said, “Just remember, there are other ways you can handle this. Take a few deep breaths and think about it before you go looking for somebody else to do the job.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t be looking for somebody else.”

And then she slammed the door.

Jack took the stairs down slowly. Maybe it was all for the best to cut loose from Alicia Clayton. That was one seriously overwound human spring back there in that apartment. He’d rather not be around when she snapped and started bouncing off the walls.

At least now he could devote himself full time to Jorge’s problem. He’d already learned some interesting stuff about Ramirez.

Jack turned and glanced back at Alicia’s door. Still… something appealing about her. Or maybe tantalizing was a better word.

What was that expression—something about a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma? That was Alicia Clayton: a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma within a thick coat of Semtex.

And a very short fuse.

3.

3.

“I don’t have to go looking for somebody else,” Alicia whispered as she locked the door and headed for the phone. “Because I already have a name and number.”

She’d call him now, and set this up as soon as possible. That house was a cancer on the face of the city, the planet, her life.

And fire… the cleansing flame… was the only cure.

WEDNESDAY

WEDNESDAY

1.

1.

“He spiked 103.4 last night,” Sorenson said as they entered Hector’s room. “But it responded nicely to a single dose of Tylenol, and it’s stayed normal since.”

Alicia glanced at the nurse. “One spike? Just one?”

Jeanne Sorenson flipped through the chart and checked the temperature graph. “Just one. At four-twenty.”

Maybe it was nothing. One spike could be merely a fluke. She hoped that was all it was.