Chapter 1 - The Man in the Fire
By the time the ceiling started coming down, Nora Bennett could no longer feel her palms.
She could still feel Adrian Vale.
Two hundred pounds of unconscious man. Black suit soaked with blood and smoke. One arm dragging across the scorched rug as Nora locked both hands under his shoulders and pulled.
"Wake up."
Nothing.
Flames ran along the library walls.
Everyone else had already escaped.
Nora should have too.
Instead, she had gone back for the one man in Boston she had spent nine months secretly watching - the man who might know why her father vanished twelve years ago.
If Adrian Vale died in that room, the truth might die with him.
His eyes finally opened.
"Go," he rasped.
"No."
"Nora."
Her grip nearly slipped.
It was the first time he had ever used her first name.
"You know my name?"
Even half-conscious, Adrian looked at her strangely.
"I know more than people think."
A violent crack split the room.
A cabinet crashed across Adrian's leg.
Nora shoved at it until her shoulders screamed. Adrian dragged himself free. Together they reached the corridor just as the windows blew outward.
Security chief Dominic Shaw found them in the smoke and carried Adrian the last thirty feet.
Outside, Nora collapsed on the wet stone courtyard while firefighters rushed past.
Dominic crouched in front of her.
"You went back after the explosion."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Nora looked toward Adrian's stretcher.
"I couldn't leave him."
Dominic studied her face.
"What's your full name?"
"Nora Benn."
His expression changed.
"No, it isn't."
Hours later, after stitches and questions from a detective who clearly did not believe her story, Nora stepped outside the hospital.
A black SUV waited at the curb.
Dominic sat alone in the back seat.
He lowered the window.
"Get in, Nora Bennett."
She stopped breathing.
May you like
Dominic's voice dropped.
"If you want to know what happened to your father, you need to come with me before Adrian wakes up."
