Reviving Izabel Read Online Free Page B

other. A series of large paintings depicting what appears to be scenes of a biblical nature are set near a large stone fireplace, mounted inside enormous glass shadow boxes with lights beaming upward from the bottom like spotlights. The overall lighting is low, like it is in the restaurant, and it smells of incense or maybe scented oil of musk and lavender. On the far wall to my left is an opened door leading into another room where the blue-gray light from several television screens glows against the walls. As I walk in closer to take the leather high-back chair in front of Hamburg’s desk, I glimpse inside the small room. It’s just as I thought. The screens show different tables in the restaurant.
    Hamburg closes that door, too.
    “No, it’s far from over,” I finally answer.
    I cross one leg over the other and keep my posture straight, my chin raised with confidence and my eyes on Hamburg as he moves through the room toward me. I reach down to pull the end of my dress fully over the knife sheathed at my thigh. My purse rests on my lap.
    “You’ve already taken my wife from me.” Indignation laces his voice. “You don’t think that was enough?”
    “Unfortunately, no.” I smile slyly. “Wasn’t it enough that you and your wife took one life? No, it wasn’t,” I answer for him. “You took many lives.”
    Hamburg chews on the inside of his mouth and takes a seat behind his desk, facing me. He rests his sausage-like hands out in front of him across the mahogany. I can tell how badly he wants to kill me where I sit. But he won’t because he believes I’m not alone. No one in their right mind would do something like this, come here alone, inexperienced and reckless.
    No one but me.
    I just have to make sure he continues to believe that I have accomplices until I figure out how I’m going to kill him and get out of the room without getting caught. Hamburg giving the guard one minute of not hearing his voice before he can burst into the room has further put a serious wrench in the plan that I never really had to begin with.
    “Well, I must say,” Hamburg changes the tone in the room, “you are stunning no matter what kind of wig you wear. But I admit, I like the red one better.”
    He thinks my dark auburn hair was a wig. Good.
    “You’re a sick man, you know that, right?” I tap my nails against the chair arm.
    Hamburg smiles creepily. I shudder inside, but keep a straight face.
    “I didn’t kill those people on purpose,” he says. “They knew what they were getting into, that in the heat of the moment, control could be lost.”
    “How many?” I ask demandingly.
    Hamburg narrows his gaze. “What does it matter, Miss Seyfried? One. Five. Eight. Why don’t you just get to the reason for your visit? Money? Information? Blackmail comes in many forms and this wouldn’t be the first time I was faced with it. I am a veteran.”
    “Tell me about your wife,” I say, stalling, pretending to be the one still holding all the cards. “Before I ‘get to the point’ I want to understand your relationship with her.”
    A part of me really does want to know. And I’m incredibly nervous; I can feel a swarm of bees buzzing around in my stomach. Maybe pointless talk will help ease my mind.
    Hamburg cocks his head to one side. “Why?”
    “Just answer the question.”
    “I loved her very much,” he answers reluctantly. “She was my life.”
    “ That is love?” I ask, unbelieving. “You let her memory die with the image of her being a drug addict who committed suicide just to save your own ass and you call that love ?”
    I notice a light move across the floor underneath the door of the surveillance room. There was no one inside before, at least not that I could tell.
    “Like blackmail, love comes in many forms.” He rests his back against the squeaky leather chair, interlocking his porky fingers over his big stomach. “Mary and I were inseparable. We weren’t like other people, other married