Amaretto Flame Read Online Free Page B

He
didn’t speak again until he’d nearly reached the tiny gate, and
then he stood still and looked at me for a moment.
    “Listen,” he lowered his voice. “Someone paid
me to drop this off to her, and to be quite honest, I’m a little
afraid for her safety.” He looked suspiciously at the paper bag,
which was rolled closed at the top.
    “Why?” I asked, my own voice lowered as
well.
    “I think I heard it ticking in the jeep…like
some kind of bomb or something,” he answered. My hands went slowly
to my sides as I backed up a few steps, and then I realized he was
laughing.
    “I’m kidding,” he said. “It’s your work
uniform. Bob sent me over with it.” Wow. That was fast.
    “That’s not funny,” I said, unable to conceal
a smile.
    “Why not?”
    “Because. That job is just a cover for my
real job, and it’s very possible that someone might send me a
bomb.”
    “Oh,” he said with feigned seriousness.
“What’s your real job?”
    I wiped the smile off my face and shrugged.
“I’m an assassin.”
    He laughed again, his whole face lighting up,
and then he opened the gate and thrust the paper bag toward me. “In
that case, this is all yours.” After I took the bag, he made his
way around to the driver’s side of his jeep.
    “Hey,” I said. “How did you know I was
Olivia?”
    “Oh,” he smiled. “I saw you in the club. I’m
Jackson, the singer slash DJ.”
    I nodded sheepishly, remembering the sound of
the guitar as I had left the club.
    “You start tomorrow, right?” He asked,
opening the jeep door.
    “Yeah,” I nodded.
    “Well I guess I’ll see you then.”
    “Yeah,” I said again. “Thanks for bringing
this over.”
    “Just remember you owe me,” he replied,
settling into the driver’s seat. “You know, incase I need to put a
hit out on someone or something.” He winked at me and started the
jeep, pulling out onto the quiet street. I watched him drive away,
and shook my head, smiling.
    With a last look around the empty street, I
turned and walked toward the house, waiting for the call from Max
and wondering if he’d have any ethical issues about helping me
break the law.
     

Chapter 3
     
    Thursday morning, I woke up to a sky filled
with thick clouds in all shades of gray and purple. In the same way
the sunshine would brighten most people, the possibility of a good
rain lightened my mood. I stayed in bed for a while, listening to
the sounds in the old house and thinking of the stark contrast
between the quiet here and the continuous bustle back in
Eagleton.
    Max would arrive sometime this morning with
the ID I needed. He’d called the previous evening, during a long
soak in the claw-foot bathtub. It took a little needling to get him
to do what I wanted, mostly reassurance that I wasn’t going to get
into trouble.
    When I finally did get up, I lit a fire
downstairs to fight the chill, and then picked up the paper bag
from an armchair where I’d placed it. I pulled out the uniform and
looked at it for a long time before trying it on. The skirt was far
too high, and I wondered why Bob didn’t just make his girls wait
tables in bikinis. I looked at myself in the downstairs bathroom
mirror, examining every inch of the reflection I saw.
    I wondered what other people would see when
they looked at me. Thick hair that was as black as a midnight sky,
falling to the middle of my back in silky tresses. Steel-gray eyes
that matched the cloudy sky. I was pretty, but I’d long ago given
up the hope of being beautiful. My face was too guarded and cool
for great beauty, not at all warm like Sylvia’s. Sometimes when she
smiled, it was like the whole world was being lit by a cheery fire.
Feeling a sudden pang of homesickness, I began taking Bob’s tiny
uniform off.
    I caught the glint of the scars in the
mirror, and for once, I didn’t look away. They were rectangular,
inch-long, silvery reminders of my past. Two rested on the
underside of my arm, three across my upper stomach,