Paperback Novel

I wake in a nondescript room and by the looks of it - a lit cigarette gloom and streaks of neon light pulsating through the drapes - I've come to in a cheap motel somewhere near the airport.

My hand is on fire.

The pinkie finger on my right hand is missing at the second knuckle; the stump has been cauterized by something very hot and metallic.

The steel bracelet of a handcuff circles my left wrist, the other bracelet dangles open like a fishhook.

Spread across the other double bed is an arresting redhead, her hair swept over her face, her feet dangle off the bed. Crimson lipstick is smudged like a bruise across one cheek.

I get up and put two fingers to her neck, and breathe a sigh of relief when I find the rhythmic thump of a pulse.

Slumped in the shoddy motel chair is the body of a man. By the looks of it, he’s built like a fireplug; squat, well-muscled. He’s dressed in a cheap, shiny suit. There’s a wicked, ragged hole open at his temple. Dried blood makes a Rorschach pattern across the drapes, and all I can see in it is trouble.

There’s no need to check for a pulse, this guy’s dead.

The redhead on the bed stirs, arches her back, rakes slim fingers through the tangle of hair.

“Nikolai,” she purrs. “Baby, come back to bed.”

My name is not Nikolai.

I wake with a nudge to the ribs, in my Temperpedic bed with a paperback novel spread across my chest.

“Baby,” my wife says, “you were snoring again.”