The Forgotten Holocaust (Ben Hope, Book 10) Read Online Free PDF Page B

can get information out of a stone.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Famous for it.’
    ‘Fair enough. I helped people.’
    ‘People?’
    ‘People in trouble. And people whose loved ones were in trouble.’
    ‘Now we’re really getting somewhere. Helped them how?’
    ‘By bringing the loved ones home safely,’ he replied.
    ‘You’re talking about missing persons?’
    ‘Kidnap cases, mostly.’
    ‘Wouldn’t the police normally deal with that kind of thing?’
    ‘In theory,’ he said. ‘But when clients begin to see how badly things can get botched up by going down that road, they’ll often turn to the freelancers.’
    ‘That’s what you were, a freelancer?’
    ‘The term was “crisis response consultant”. I worked alone.’
    ‘And did what exactly?’
    ‘Whatever was required,’ he said.
    She sipped a little more whisky, getting acclimatised to the burn now, staring at him intently over the rim of her glass. ‘Sounds like a risky business.’
    ‘It had its moments. I was trained for it.’ He reached for another log from the neat stack by the fire, and lobbed it into the flames. The blaze crackled up with a shower of orange sparks.
    ‘Sounds like you enjoyed the danger,’ Kristen said. ‘Some people are attracted to it. Even thrive on it.’
    ‘Funny. That’s what Brooke said, too.’
    ‘Brooke?’
    ‘My fiancée. I should say, ex-fiancée. We split up a couple of months ago.’
    ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
    ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Well, no, it isn’t.’
    ‘I know how it goes, believe me.’
    ‘You too?’
    She nodded. ‘We’d been together three years. I thought it would last forever, you know?’
    ‘That’s what I thought, too,’ he said. ‘That Brooke and I were for life. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you planned.’
    ‘You never know what life’s going to set in your path,’ she said, with a one-sided smile.
    ‘I miss her. There’s not an hour I don’t think about her.’
    ‘What’s she like?’ Kristen asked.
    Ben paused a long time before replying. ‘What can I say? She was the morning of my day.’
    ‘My God,’ Kristen coughed.
    He looked at her. ‘What?’
    ‘I can only wish that, one day, a man will say something that beautiful about me. I think I just met the last of the real romantics.’
    He smiled darkly. ‘I’ve been called a lot of things, but that’s a new one.’
    ‘Here, give me another drop of that stuff, will you?’ she said, proffering her empty glass.
    Ben found it strange that he should be confiding like this in a stranger. Whisky and loneliness made for a powerful cocktail. A little too powerful. He hadn’t eaten much that day, and with all the Guinness inside him already, he was feeling uncharacte‌ristically light-headed. He poured another measure for Kristen. He knew he needed to stop topping up his own drink, but topped it up anyway.
    ‘So what about this book of yours that you’re thinking of giving up on?’ he asked.
    She shrugged. ‘Seemed like a good idea at the time. Nobody’s ever done a proper biography of Lady Stamford before. I’ve spent the last eight months travelling back and forth researching everything about her life, both here in Ireland and after she returned to England. Which is what I’ll be doing myself tomorrow.’
    Ben looked at her and found himself smiling. She was attractive, she was warm and engaging. Under any other circumstances, a man might have felt a pang of disappointment that she’d be gone the next day. A new female attachment was the last thing Ben was looking for at this point in his life, but he was still sorry that he was going to lose an interesting companion. He shoved all those thoughts to the back of his mind.
    ‘Eight months is a lot of time to spend on research, just to give up on it,’ he said. ‘What happened, did you lose interest?’
    ‘Not at all. Lady Stamford’s is a fascinating story.’
    ‘Tell me some of it.’
    ‘You really want to know?’
    ‘I wouldn’t ask