Reviving Izabel Read Online Free PDF Page A

couples, but because we were so different didn’t mean we loved each other less than anyone else.” His eyes lock on mine briefly. “We were lucky to find each other.”
    “Lucky?” I ask, baffled by his comment. “It was luck that two sick people found each other and teamed up to do sick things to other people? I don’t follow.”
    Hamburg shakes his head as if he’s some old wise man and I’m just too young to understand.
    “People who are different like Mary and I were—”
    “Sick and demented,” I correct him. “Not different.”
    “Whatever you’d like to call it,” he says with an air of surrender. “When you’re that different from society, from what’s acceptable in society, finding someone just like you is a very rare thing.”
    Absently I grit my teeth. Not because he’s angering me, but because I never imagined that anything this disgusting man could ever say to me would make me think about my own situation with Victor, or that anything he could say I would actually accept.
    I shake it off.
    The faint light underneath the surveillance room door moves again. I pretend not to have noticed, not wanting to give Hamburg any reason to think I’m anticipating another way out.
    “I came here for names,” I blurt out, having not thought about it thoroughly.
    “What names?”
    “Of your clients.”
    A change flickers in Hamburg’s eyes, the shifting of control.
    “You want the names of my clients?” he asks suspiciously.
    Oh shit…
    “I thought you and Victor Faust already had possession of my client list?”
    Keep a straight face. Don’t lose composure. Shit!
    “Yes, we do,” I say, “but I’m referring to the ones you never kept a record of.”
    I think I’m going to be sick. My head feels like it’s on fire. I hold my breath hoping I saved myself.
    Hamburg studies me quietly, searching my face and my posture for any signs of faltering confidence. He rounds his heavy, double-chin.
    “What makes you think there’s a ghost list?” he asks.
    I breathe a partial sigh of relief, but I’m still not out of the woods.
    “There’s always a ghost list,” I say, though I really have no idea what I’m talking about. “I want at least three names that aren’t on the list we have a record of.”
    I smile, feeling like I’ve regained control of the situation.
    That is until he speaks:
    “You tell me three names that are on the list you have a record of and then I will oblige.”
    I have officially lost the control.
    I swallow hard and catch myself before I look ‘caught’.
    “What, you think I carry your list around in my purse?” I ask with sarcasm, trying to stay in the game. “There will be no negotiations or compromise, Mr. Hamburg. You’re hardly in any position to be cutting any deals here.”
    “Is that so?” he asks, grinning.
    He’s onto me. I can feel it. But he’s going to make sure he’s right before he makes his move.
    “This isn’t up for debate.” I stand from the leather chair, tucking my purse underneath my arm, more disappointed than before about relinquishing my gun.
    I press my fingertips against the mahogany desk, holding my weight up on them as I lean over just slightly toward him.
    “Three names,” I demand, “or I walk out of here and Victor Faust walks in to blow your brains against that pretty painting of the baby Jesus behind you.”
    Hamburg laughs.
    “That’s not the baby Jesus.”
    He stands up with me, tall and enormous and intimidating.
    While I’m running through my mind trying to find the source of how he knows I’m full of shit, he is a step ahead of me and announces it like a kick in my teeth.
    “It’s funny, Izabel, that you’d come here asking for names that don’t appear on a list that you…,” he points at my purse, “…don’t keep a record of, because then how would you know that the names I gave you weren’t already on it?”
    I am so dead.
    “Let me tell you what I think,” he goes on. “I think you’re here all