Free Flashback by Jenny Siler Page B

pale fingers on the rug.
    Steady, I told myself, steady. The person took a step closer, and I whirled around the jamb, Beretta at eye level, wrists straight, forearms tensed.
    â€œDon’t move,” I said, slamming the barrel of my gun against the man’s left temple.

EIGHT
    The American stopped, frozen except for one muscle in his jaw that flexed and released like a misplaced heartbeat.
    Keeping the Beretta steady with his head, I stepped behind him, caught the edge of the open door with my toe, and nudged it closed. “You ran out on me earlier,” I said. “Very impolite.”
    He was wearing the raincoat in which I’d first seen him and, beneath it, a sweatshirt and jeans. I ran my free hand up inside the coat, then down along his legs.
    â€œYou won’t find anything,” he said, and he was right.
    â€œIt’s Brian, isn’t it?” I asked, standing. “I’m not sure I caught your name at the Pub.”
    He nodded carefully.
    â€œWell, Brian,” I told him, helping him forward with the barrel of the Beretta. “Why don’t we chat in the living room?”
    â€œIs he dead?” the American asked as we started forward.
    â€œI’m afraid so.”
    We crossed into the living room, and I directed him toward the settee. He sat down and looked over at Joshi. “Did you kill him?”
    I didn’t answer. If Brian hadn’t killed the little man, I figured any allusion to my own violent tendencies might give me some leverage.
    â€œWhat were you doing in my room?” I asked.
    â€œIt is you, isn’t it?” he said, ignoring my question. “When I first saw you at the terminal, I wasn’t sure, and then in your room that night I thought I was wrong, but I wasn’t.”
    I took a step toward him with the Beretta. “Cut the bullshit,” I said, “or you’ll join our little friend here.”
    Brian crossed his legs and stretched his arms out along the back of the sofa. He had the body of a swimmer, tall and fluid. “You won’t kill me,” he said, leaning back into the pillows.
    â€œWho are you?” I demanded. “Joshi told me you paid him to keep tabs on me.”
    â€œWho are you ?” he retorted. “Marie Lenoir? Hannah Boyle?”
    I leaned over him, laying the tip of the Beretta’s barrel just behind his ear. “Who’s Hannah Boyle?”
    He moved his head to look up at me. His eyes were as blue as mine, clear and flawless, cold with contempt. “I was hoping you could tell me that,” he said. He made a movement with his right hand as if reaching for something in his coat.
    Shaking my head, I nudged him with the Beretta’s barrel.
    â€œMy wallet,” he said, glancing toward his chest. “It’s in the left breast pocket.”
    â€œI’ll get it,” I told him. Reaching into his coat with my left hand, I pulled out a worn leather billfold.
    â€œOpen it,” he said.
    Keeping my eyes and the gun on Brian, I stepped back, pulled one of the wooden chairs out from the little table, and sat down. If he had wanted to kill me, I thought, he could have done it that night in my room at the Continental. And yet, it struck me, death was not the only danger to be aware of.
    â€œOpen it,” he repeated.
    I laid the wallet on the table and opened it. A handful of dirham notes peered out from the top of the billfold. A half dozen plastic cards were tucked neatly in the leather slots. In the centermost panel, secured behind a piece of clear plastic, was a California driver’s license with Brian’s face on it. Brian Haverman, the license said; 1010 Bridgeway, Sausalito, California.
    â€œThere’s a picture,” he told me. “In the fold behind the license.”
    I reached in with my left index finger, slid the photograph out, and unfolded it. The print was color, the edges of the paper worn from being handled too much, the image