Firestorm Page 0,106

indulge myself.

I had a shuttle within fifteen minutes.

Phoenix is pretty. Austere but pretty, in the way that only desert towns can be--the urban part looks pretty much standard, but it's surrounded by rugged country, upthrust hills and mountains, and three hundred days out of the year, it's dry and cloudless.

Unfortunately for the two million residents, I'd flown in dragging one of those not-dry, not-clear days along with me.

The shuttle driver chatted about things to do in Phoenix, which I accepted with a polite smile and a deaf ear. I had deadlines, emphasis on the dead. Hiking probably wasn't going to be on the agenda. Neither was a spa day, tempting as that might be.

Rent-A-Vette was a showplace of heart-stopping automotive delights. I could have wept at the gleaming ranks of muscle cars, but I managed to keep my cool and present myself at the rental counter to claim the keys to my Z4. It required me to pull out a driver's license and credit card, which I did, emptying my pockets along the way. While that was getting settled, I turned away and speed-dialed Sarah's cell phone.

A sleepy warm female voice answered. "Hello?"

"Sarah," I sighed. I managed to keep my voice low, somehow, although I wanted to shout. "I heard from Cherise. Are you okay?"

"Of course," she said, and laughed. It was a drunken, slow laugh, the kind you make right before you succumb to the anesthesia after counting backwards. "Yes, silly. I'm fine. Eamon's taking good care of me."

"Eamon?" I interrupted.

"Didn't I tell you?" Another slow throb of a laugh. "I forgot to mention him. Silly me. But I know you don't like him--"

How had he found her? Oh God... "Listen to me, Sarah. Please. Eamon is not a good man. I need you to start paying attention. You need to walk away from him."

There was a long, long delay, and then she said, "I don't understand."

"Look, just tell me where you are!"

Another laugh. "I can't do that. It's a secret."

And then the phone changed hands. Before he even spoke, I said, "You fucking bastard. How dare you?"

"The rules were that I stay away from you and your daughter, Joanne," Eamon said in that low, pleasant voice that was such a good disguise for him. "Which I am doing. I love your sister. I told you that. And I'm not willing to give her up just yet. So please, do keep on with your no doubt important crisis, and let us have some time to get better acquainted. I'll see you at the next family picnic."

"Eamon!" I hissed it, as much as you can hiss something without sibilants. "You keep your hands off my sister!"

"Love, I can't keep her hands off me." He laughed, and it sounded utterly unaffected. Villains didn't have the right to laugh like that, so infectiously. I could hear Sarah joining in.

I was glad I'd emptied my stomach on the plane.

I hung up without any good-byes before he could cut me off--a little control on my part, anyway--and went back to the counter. They looked happy. Apparently, my credit limit was stratospheric.

I pulled out of the parking lot in a sky-blue convertible Z4, hit the gas, and almost broke the sound barrier. Damn. The thing was little, light, and incredibly maneuverable. It smelled like rental cars smell, only newer; the interior wasn't roomy, but it seemed to make that an asset by cradling my body in an almost sensuous fashion.

I slipped on my sunglasses at the first stoplight and consulted the free map they'd given me. It looked easy enough--a straight shot up I-17 towards Flagstaff, with a quick jog off to the west at the Highway 179 exit. About a two-hour drive, if you obeyed the speed limit.

I was in a Z4, trying to save the world. Did I intend to obey the speed limit?

Hardly.

I've never really thought about why I like to drive fast, but it probably has to do with control. I like being in control, and I like pushing limits, and the adrenaline rush you get from hurtling down a clean, empty freeway--that's like nothing else. Driving felt especially good after the nauseating, disconnected trip in the plane. Not that I didn't have faith in the pilots, but I never liked being in the backseat. Or the passenger seat, for that matter.

The Z4 throbbed around me like a living thing, and we left the stone-and-glass caverns of Phoenix behind. The sun was a weak brass shadow behind gray clouds, and the