Free Spirit of a Hunter by Sylvie Kurtz Page B

accomplished maestro.
    “Ah,” Kingsley said, “but this was a really sick set. She was falling deeper in love with me with every song.”
    “You’ve got to get a life, man.”
    Kingsley snorted. “Like you’re one to talk.”
    “Me, I’ve been places, done things. You’re too young to be a lonely old man spending all your time in basements.”
    “I’m not lonely.”
    But the prickly tone told Sabriel he’d hit a nerve. “When was the last time you went out with friends?”
    “I have friends.” A grunt. “What’s with all the concern, anyway? I didn’t know you had that manywords in you.” Kingsley’s chair squeaked. “Besides, I was just e-mailing a friend in Seattle before you called.”
    “Bill Gates?”
    The sound of flesh hitting flesh smacked through the line. “Whoa, hold the presses. Mercer told a joke.”
    “Ha, ha.” Sabriel’s lips quirked, knowing that the rest of the Seekers saw him as a stone. But his smile fell as a shadow crossed the lone window of the shack. Nora. She’d stacked Anna’s clothes on the dusty table and was now peeling the dirt-smudged sweater from her body.
    Turn away, he ordered himself. But mesmerized by the play of mellow light on pale skin, he couldn’t seem to pry his gaze from the sight. She pulled the neck of the sweater over her head, making his palm itch to skate down the inviting slope of her back. The gold in her hair gleamed like pyrite as it cascaded back down her shoulders. He sucked in a breath at the imagined feel of silk against his skin.
    “You okay?” Kingsley asked.
    “Fine.” Yeah, just great. He was ogling Tommy’s wife like a regular Peeping Tom. Ex-wife, he reminded himself. Not that it mattered. She was the one woman on earth he needed to stay away from.
    Biting back a curse, he tore his gaze to the night and focused on the information he needed from Kingsley. “Got anything on the Colonel’s employees?”
    “Yeah, with a little scanning, firewalking and banner grabbing, I was able to get through in five minutes.”
    Sabriel grunted. “That’s so comforting.”
    Kingsley chuckled. “Isn’t it, though?”
    “I’m looking specifically for something on Boggs and Hutt.”
    Computer keys clacked in a toccata. “Two of the dozen ex-Army Camden has working security for him, both at home and at the lab. Melvyn Boggs is head of security. Been there for nine years. An ex-Ranger like you.”
    They’d gotten their gold and black tabs in the same class, but that didn’t mean they were pals. Boggs might be persistent, focused, driven, confident and determined, but as far as Sabriel was concerned, he’d failed the humble, honest and selfless portions of the Ranger doctrine.
    “Dane Hutt started two years ago,” Kingsley continued. “Ex-infantry. Both have clean records. No arrests. No convictions. Nothing to say they aren’t upstanding members of the community. Fits the rest of the team. All angels as far as the law is concerned.”
    Like all the Colonel’s dirty business. “Sanitized?”
    Kingsley made a noise that was a cross between annoyance and anticipation. “That’s going to require more digging.”
    Sabriel couldn’t help himself. He glanced back at the shack’s window. Nora, clad in Anna’s fleece jacket, sat on the chair and was pulling on Anna’s socks.
    He didn’t know why he’d kept the clothes. Maybe because the Colonel had made such a big deal about wanting every stitch that had belonged to Anna after her death. She’d last worn them on their honeymoon—almost twelve years ago. A hike in the mountains, justthe two of them and all that endless space. Waking up next to her with the sunlight painting the sky pink and purple and the song of nature around them had seemed like heaven.
    Then they’d had to get back to the real world, where the Colonel had pushed and pushed and pushed until Anna had cracked.
    “Can you tap into medical records?” Sabriel asked, turning his back on the window once