Poe Read Free Page A

as they walked toward the parking lot.
    “You are Alexandra Poe, correct?”
    Growing annoyed, she quickened her pace.
    “I just need a moment of your time.”
    “Set it up with my secretary,” she said as she pulled out her key fob, and aimed it at her Jeep. With a push of a button, the locks popped open.
    Deuce circled around to the passenger side, while Alex pulled open the driver’s door and climbed in. When she tried to pull it closed, the man in the Armani suit grabbed hold of it, stopping her.
    “You’re about to lose that hand,” she said.
    He didn’t budge. “I know it’s probably not a good time.”
    “You figured that out on your own? Let go of the fucking door.”
    With his free hand, he removed a business card from his pocket, and held it out. “When you get a moment, I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call.”
    Alex wrenched the door free from his grasp, but just before she could close it, he tossed the card inside. The locks clunked down as she hit the dash button, then she started the engine, punched the gas, and left him standing in the parking lot.
    Deuce said, “Looks like the wolves are circling again.”
    Alex looked over and saw that he’d somehow gotten hold of the business card. He turned it so she could see it.
    Taking up the entire left side of the card was an all-too-familiar logo: STONEWELL ASSOCIATES .
    The man’s name, however, was new to her.
    Jason McElroy.
    She grabbed the card out of Deuce’s hand, crumpled it, and tossed it into the back.
    Deuce snickered. “I take it you won’t be calling him?”
    “Not without a gun pointed at my head.”

Chapter Three
    She didn’t get the alarm to stop shrieking until the second try. Clipping a hand against the clock radio, she hit the snooze button, groaned, and rolled onto her back.
    She should have turned the thing off last night, when it was clear she couldn’t sleep, but she’d been too preoccupied with the thought of that asshole from Stonewell to do anything sensible.
    This wasn’t the first time Alex had been approached by the organization. Stonewell was a top-tier defense contractor, and for whatever reason, they seemed to think she should be working for them. She suspected it had less to do with her skills than with the way she looked, being half Iranian and all. Her dark hair and mixed-race features would make it easy for her to pass for a number of different nationalities, which could be quite useful to an international operation like Stonewell.
    Alex pushed the covers to the side, sat up, and made sure the alarm was off for good.
    To hell with them. She was fine with the way things were, thank you. She was her own boss, could pass on assignments she wasn’t interested in, could even take off and do nothing for a month or more if she wanted to. Not that she ever did, but knowing she could was all that mattered.
    She stood up, still angry, thinking that if Mr. Jason McElroy hadn’t grabbed her door like an overaggressive lunatic, she could have brushed it off. That’s what had really set her teeth on edge. Her personal space was very important to her.
    More than one person had learned that the hard way.
    She thought about taking a shower, but what she really needed was to work this crap out of her system, so she pulled some clothes on, grabbed her gym bag, and headed for the door.
    * * *
    A CKERMAN’S GYM WAS located in a middle-class Baltimore neighborhood that was once good, had gone bad, and was now transitioning back the other way.
    Through it all the gym had remained a constant.
    The original owner had been an old fighter named Marty “Ace” Ackerman. Marty had never gotten close to a title fight, but had seen plenty of champions either on their way up or their spiral back down—much like the neighborhood, Alex had often thought—and had died at the ripe old age of eighty-six, right there in the gym.
    He’d left the place to its longtime manager, Hans Emerick. Emerick himself was getting up there in