the hotel, and it’s close to the hospital, where I spend most of my time anyway.”
He pushed himself off the couch. “I’ll tell Saint he can land us now. As soon as we’re down, I’m going to get on with some research, starting with your brother-in-law and his law firm. Tomorrow morning I’ll hit the police station in the area where the accident occurred.”
“You really think Dane is somehow mixed into what happened?”
“I don’t think anything yet, but I’m going to look at every single thing.”
“Whatever you think best. This is what you do.”
He nodded. “Yes, it is. And I’ll do it as fast as I can.”
“Speed isn’t important.” Sadness washed over her face. “Dane isn’t going anywhere, and at the moment, neither is Brianne.”
“We’ll get it done. We always do.”
“Can we get back to your fee for a minute? I’d really like to get that out of the way. I assume when you checked me out you know I’m a multi-published author. I make good money, Mr. Hamilton. I can pay you. I want to pay you.”
“I know you can but, again, let’s see what all the job really entails. What all is involved here. We have sort of a sliding scale for fees.” He grinned. “Depending on how much we like the client.”
“I want this to be fair,” she protested. “I have resources. I’m not a charity case, just because your brother recommended me.”
Blaze inched forward, reached over and took one of her hands in his. The contact nearly fried his nerve endings. All he could think was, What the hell? His second thought was, Thank fuck for my control or I’d embarrass myself. But he forced himself to look directly at her, capturing her attention.
“Please. Let’s forget money for the moment. Okay?”
She sighed and nodded.
“How much did my brother tell you about Galaxy?”
She shrugged. “Just that you all won some money and decided that you wanted to take the skills you learned as SEALs and put them to use helping people in civilian life.”
He chuckled. “That’s a pretty basic way of looking at it, but I think my brother is not at all impressed with us.”
She frowned. “Oh, no. He couldn’t say enough good things about you. He told me that if anyone could get to the truth here, it was you and your partners.”
“I’ll have to be sure and thank him. But here’s the deal. Obviously, we don’t spread the details around, but since you came recommended by Nolan, I feel comfortable sharing some of them with you. Maybe that will help.”
He watched a little of the tension leave her body. “Okay. I just know that all this”—she waved her hand around the cabin of the plane—“doesn’t come cheap.”
“You’re right, but here’s the reason we can do it, my partners and me. We’ve been friends for a long time. Went into the SEALs together, although we ended up on different teams. Got out at the same time. Had a big celebratory dinner and decided to test our luck as civilians by buying Powerball lottery tickets.”
“Lottery? Powerball? I’m guessing you won?”
He nodded. “The big prize. A little over a billion dollars.”
Blaze thought her jaw would hit the floor. “Did you say a billion?”
“I did.” He realized he was still holding her hand and gave it a little squeeze. “So you can see why we can be, shall I say, flexible in our fees. And picky about our clients.”
“And you bought the plane.”
“We did. We didn’t want an office in the usual sense. We knew that most of the clients we’d get would not want to be in a place where they could be overheard. Here we can control access and contain things.”
“And the name, Galaxy?”
Blaze found himself grinning. “Because the sky’s the limit.” Then he turned serious. “So you see, we have the resources to dig into your problem and the flexibility to charge whatever we want to.”
“I won’t let you do this for free,” she insisted. “My books sell very well. I have the funds to pay you.”
“I wouldn’t agree to it, anyway. Payment of any kind is what legitimizes a contract. But let’s see what we’re getting into first.” He rose from the couch. “I’m going to tell Saint to take us back to the hangar.” He looked at his watch. “It’s close to seven o’clock. Could I interest you in dinner?”
“Thank you, but I’m going back to the hospital. Studies have shown that most patients in a hospital die at night and often on