Hot Revenge Box Set 4

Klempner

Damn phone…

What’s wrong with the fucking thing?

I tap in again. Nothing happens.

I’m several floors up, heading back for my hotel room. The signal should be strong up here.

I inspect the screen…

Yes… plenty of signal…

Better contact Dakho… Get him to supply a new one…

A more reliable model this time…

Arriving at my room door…

… A brief shufti along the corridor…

… I’m alone. A quick inspection that my slicked-on hair is still in place…

… It is… a faint dark line against the white paint, which peels away, then drops to the floor as I slide the card into the lock and push the door open…

I toss the useless phone onto my bed then start to shrug off my jacket…

… and in mid-movement, I stall.

My spine prickles and without meaning to, I’m standing stock-still, Glock in hand, staring around the apartment.

What’s wrong?

Working on automatic, my hand follows my eye, weapon aimed, but…

I don’t see anything.

Nothing has moved.

Nothing has changed.

above me, riffling the petals on a vase of lilies and wafting honeyed

still lies in vacuumed stripes, with only my own

Really?

my foot down by one of the

table, alongside my breakfast tray. And the balcony is

handle of the bedroom door. With a subdued click, it swings

the bed made, and beside the pillows, a pair of bath-towels folded, for some inexplicable reason,

they

tea and coffee kit, biscuits, a small box of foil-wrapped

the other, at arm’s length, I flick open first one wardrobe door, then the

my own clothes. And while shirts garishly printed with pineapples and palm trees might be an offence to good taste, I don’t feel threatened

Only one place left…

to the door of the

long second… ear cocked…

to no more than the mixed warbles and screeches of birds,

kick the door and it bangs

bath where I’ve washed away the sweat of the day and the maid has been lax in

alarms are

What triggered it?

tastes metallic and my

Calm down…

Breathe…

Think…

What happened?

was barely in

Outside then…

Something in the corridor…

ceiling, I dart a look outside. The corridor is still empty; nothing