Free INVITING FIRE (A Sydney Rye Novel, #6) by Emily Kimelman Page A

doors, letting in the night air. I took a deep breath and stared into the jungle. But with the lights on in my room it just looked like a dense wall of soot-black nothingness. Only the sounds emanating from the darkness gave any idea of how vast the jungle really was.
    I booted up my laptop. While it loaded I went over to my dresser and opened my T-shirt drawer. I pushed the clothing aside but didn't see the memory stick. I pulled out an armload of stuff and moved the rest around but didn't see it. My heart started thumping. Could someone have taken it? It felt like such an intimate attack. Like a piece of me had been stolen. As I dropped the clothing back into the dresser the thumb drive fell out of them, knocked against the drawer's side and clattered to the tile floor.
    I let out a sigh of relief and a small laugh before picking it up. I plugged it into the USB port and, picking up my computer, moved onto the bed, closing the mosquito net around me. Blue began to snore softly as I opened the file and loaded the first day. I watched the sun rise, slowly filling the room with light. My body still under the blankets, eyes closed. The image was in gray scale. Which seemed to smooth everything out. There were no sharp contrasts in the footage. My face looked relaxed. More relaxed then I'd ever seen it while I was awake, staring at myself in a mirror. More relaxed than any photo I'd ever taken.
    I watched myself wake up when the nurse came in with my breakfast. Fast forwarding I skipped to the part where Dan came in. He held my hand and I could see his lips moving but I didn't know what he was saying. Dan looked tired, the bags under his eyes darker than they must have looked in person. His hair, a wonderful hay blonde in person, appeared dull and gray on the screen. He left and I stared out the window.
    Leaning toward the screen I tried to see my eyes better. Was I thinking? Was it possible not to? My brain felt like it was constantly thinking, judging, making decisions. And yet there I was, staring off into nothingness. Of course, there was no way to tell what was going on inside of me. I had no memory and the me in that image was gone. As gone as the me sitting on this bed in Costa Rica had been while that me was laying in that hospital. A shiver ran through me as I wondered about that. How could "she" be gone? Would "she" come back?
    I fast forwarded again until Robert Maxim walked through the door. His face was creased with worry as he stood over my body. I paused the video and zoomed in, trying to decipher his expression. It felt like I'd watched him watch me a million times. The man had visited me every day while I was under his care in the recovery wing of Fortress Global's Miami headquarters. Every damn day Robert Maxim showed up in my hospital room.
    Strange enough that the man I considered my enemy protected me, worked to keep me healthy, and visited me. Here is the really strange part. I smiled when I saw him. It was a lazy, unfocused happiness but that girl in the bed, the one inhabiting my body, some part of me smiled when she saw Bobby Maxim.
    I watched the screen as he reached out and smoothed hair away from my brow. There was no denying the tenderness in his touch. It was his smell I'd picked up in the jungle tonight. His smell that haunted my dreams. It was Robert Maxim who made me yearn for pain and hurt. Who made me feel alive and alert while I slumbered. Who left my days filled with aches and regret. I shut the computer lid, and covered my eyes, taking in deep breaths. He was making me crazy, or I'd already gone insane. Either way, I had this suspicion, this very nauseating fear, that as I laid here in my towel on my bed, that Robert Maxim was outside in the jungle surrounding our camp. Waiting for me to find him.
    I opened my messenger app and sent Dan a note.
    Where is Robert Maxim?
    Honduras, why? Came his answer moments later.
    My fingers wavered over the keys. Because I thought I smelled him in the