was up in a heartbeat.
“Sloane Hillyard, Exler Corporation.” She reached out her hand when he drew near. “Councilman Ayre’s office asked me to stop by.” She wasn’t sure what she found more disconcerting, the almost imperceptible chill that swept over his face as she spoke, or the flush of heat that assaulted her at the touch of his hand. Nerves, she told herself. She was just on edge over being in a firehouse again. “Nice to meet you, Captain Trask.”
“And you.” There was a cursory politeness in his voice but no warmth. This close to him Sloane could see that his eyes weren’t black. They were deep gray, the color of darkest smoke, the color of a stormy sky at dusk. “What can I do for you and the councilman?”
Focus, Sloane reminded herself. “I’m here for our meeting.”
“Our meeting?”
“I called to confirm yesterday.”
“I didn’t get any…” He checked himself and pulled a pink slip of paper covered in illegible script from his pocket. “Ah. This must be you. Sorry, but I didn’t get this until about five minutes ago and it’s been a really hectic day, so if—”
“That’s all right,” she cut in smoothly. “I’ll only need a few minutes of your time. We need to talk about the gear.”
“The gear?” He put his hands on his hips and gave a nod. “Ayre doesn’t waste time, I’ll give him that.”
Sloane didn’t need to know the reason for the sarcasm to understand that she was at least a partial target. Irritation pricked at her. “We need to talk about scheduling, plan the testing,” she continued, not about to be derailed. “Councilman Ayre’s office—”
“Yeah, I know, Councilman Ayre’s office.” Nick cut her off, glancing at the number of men with sudden, pressing business in the immediate vicinity. “Look, let’s go to my office and you can tell me what Ayre’s up to this time.”
He didn’t offer it as a choice, but in the clipped tone of command. “Yes sir,” Sloane muttered, following him up the stairs. Perhaps the man could put out fires, but graciousness was clearly not his strong suit.
Nor, she thought a moment later, was neatness.
“Right through there. Have a seat.”
Sloane stood in the doorway of his tiny office and threw a glance of disbelief at the jumble of paperwork and books everywhere. “Which stack of paper did you have in mind for me to sit on, Captain Trask?” Her tone was deceptively sweet, as was her face. The sarcasm lurked only in her gaze, which warned him not to push too hard, not to presume too much.
Nick shifted a pile of books to the floor. “There.” The telephone jangled for attention and he answered it impatiently. “House sixty-seven, Trask. Oh yeah, right. Giancoli says the brakes on the pumper are down.” He slid into his chair, instantly absorbed, leaving Sloane standing in the middle of the room.
Setting down her briefcase, she took the opportunity to look around. Photographs covered the walls: smiling fire-fighters in front of shining engines, men crowded together at the kitchen table, competing in the Firefighters’ Olympics. A newspaper clipping showed grim men in helmets and turnouts, lines of exhaustion etched into their soot-streaked faces as they carried stretchers out of a smoke-filled building. Hillview Convalescent Home Burns but the Fire Claims No Victims, the caption read. The men in the picture were from Ladder 67.
Sloane glanced further along and her interest sharpened. Stacked haphazardly atop the filing cabinet were a pair of plaques, the top one an award of valor presented to one Nick Trask for action above and beyond the call of duty. Impressed in spite of herself, Sloane glanced over to where he sat at his desk, absorbed in his call.
She’d been wrong when she’d thought his face held more character than perfection. Clearly, the sharp slashes of his cheekbones, the compelling shape of his mouth translated into above-average looks. It was simply that the force of his personality was so strong that it overwhelmed the handsomeness, carried it past simple good looks to a more dangerous realm, giving him the ability to hypnotize, the power to obsess.
The sudden flicker of warning ran through her to the pit of her stomach. In defense, she moved to stare out the window. Outside, a dog barked and boys shouted as they threw a football in the street. Inside, a subtle tension filled the air.
Nick shifted in his chair impatiently. “Yeah, okay. Let me know when it’ll go. Great, talk to you later.” He hung up the phone, turning to where Sloane stood. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but for just an instant her hair blazed the exact color of flame. For just an instant, he watched without speaking. He shook his head and forced his mind to business just as she turned from the window.
“All finished?”
“Yes. Sorry about the wait.” Because he was still having a hard time concentrating, Nick plunged in without preamble. “So, Ms. Hillyard, what has the councilman’s office promised that we would do for you?”
His tone was more brusque than he’d intended. It made Sloane’s mouth tighten and she took her time coming back to her chair. “I believe the councilman’s office is taking a sincere interest in your safety, as I think you’ll see. Now, I made an appointment through the city weeks ago,” she said frostily. “I assumed you’d be ready to discuss this.”
Nick silently cursed the man who’d taken the garbled message, then cursed the fact that it had been uncovered so late that he’d had no time to sort it out. And he added Ayre, just on principle. No matter how gorgeous she was, whatever the woman was selling, it was going to take time he didn’t have. “Yes, well,” he said, summoning his patience for what looked to be a long siege, “why don’t you start at the beginning?”
Sloane took a deep breath. “I work for the Exler Corporation,” she said, a little too carefully. “I’ve developed a system called the Orienteer. It’s designed to locate firefighters in burning buildings.”
“How?”
“It’s got a microprocessor that combines global-positioning-system input with a database of building plans to locate anyone, anywhere. You want to find your team members in a burning building, you can. If they need to track their way out, it will lead them. No one will die the way they did in the Hartford packing-house fire ever again.” Her voice caught, so briefly he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t imagined it. “We’ve gone through the preliminary lab qualification and breakdowns. The last step is testing in a real-life situation with firefighters.”
“No way.” Nick was shaking his head before she finished. “My guys aren’t guinea pigs.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Not a chance.” Nick knew how this went, oh, he knew it. Put on the dog for the politicians, invest precious departmental resources and when the photo ops and the elections were done, so was the funding. That was bad enough, but put his men at risk for that photo op? That was where he drew the line.
“You can’t just refuse.”
“First of all, it’s totally impractical.” That was the part that really burned him about operators like Ayre. It couldn’t be something reasonable or useful. No—some babelicious Girl Scout turned up with her science project and Ayre saw only the headlines, not the lives at risk.
“Impractical?”
