Chapter 18 - The Fire on the Hearth
I placed the phone face down on the desk, stood up from the armchair, and walked over to the stone fireplace. The hearth was stacked with dry birch logs I had split myself earlier that autumn. I knelt, struck a match, and touched it to the curled edges of fatwood nestled beneath the kindling.
Within seconds, a bright, crackling flame caught hold, licking up the rough bark and casting a warm, flickering amber glow across the dark oak paneling of the study. The scent of burning birch filled the room, clean and earthy, driving out the last lingering chill of the October night.
I pulled up a second chair, sat down close to the warmth, and watched the embers glow and pop against the dark stone backdrop.
It was over. The promotion dinner in the downtown hotel ballroom, the whispered threats near the elevators, the encrypted corporate alerts, the cold confrontation in Room 808, and the agonizing, pathetic fallout in the thirty-second-floor office—all of it had dissolved into the past. They had wanted power, status, and the intoxicating thrill of outsmarting the quiet man in the charcoal suit. They had found out, with mathematical finality, what happens when you mistake a closed mouth for a lack of ammunition.
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My phone remained silent on the desk across the room. No more emergency alerts. No more frantic voicemails. The outside world had finally stopped knocking on my door.
I reached out, poured two fingers of unaged spring water into a heavy crystal tumbler, and took a slow, deliberate sip. The cool liquid contrasted sharply with the rising heat of the fireplace.
