Money to Burn by James Grippando Page A

again.
    “Delivery here for you, sir. Courier brought it by an hour ago.”
    “I’ll get it later, Juan.”
    “‘Urgent’ marked all over it,” he said, walking over and handing it to me.
    I grabbed it as the bell chimed and the elevator doors parted. I swiped my security card and punched twenty-six. The doors closed, and I inspected what Juan had given me. It was the size of a FedEx envelope, but it was from a local courier service—probably delivered by one of those maniacs on bicycles who pedaled as if they got paid extra for bumping off pedestrians in crosswalks. I had one eye on the numbers over the elevator doors blinking with each passing floor—fourteen, fifteen, sixteen—as I found the zip tab on the package and pulled it.
    There was a sudden flash of red and yellow, and I wasn’t sure if the package flew from my hands or if I had thrown it to the floor. The elevator stopped immediately, and the alarm sounded. I was stunned for a moment, then smelled smoke. My sleeve was on fire, and flames were at my feet. I ripped off my jacket and stomped on it and the package in a frantic effort to extinguish the flames. I was winning, but barely. The package seemed to contain some kind of substance that burned with resilience. I smothered it with my jacket until the flames died, but the smoke continued to thicken even after the fire was finally out. It had a chemical odor, and my hands were stinging from the burn. Breathing was nearly impossible in the smoke-filled elevator.
    “Are you okay in there?” the voice on the intercom asked.
    The car wasn’t moving, and I felt on the verge of succumbing to the smoke. I grabbed the seam between the doors and pulled as hard as I could. At first the doors didn’t budge, but on the second try, they separated—not enough for me to climb out of the car to safety, but at least I could stick my nose and mouth out into the shaft and breathe.
    “I need help!” I yelled.
    “We’re on our way!” the response came.
    I stood there with my face in the crack between the metal doors. I was light-headed but refused to let myself pass out. My focus was purely on survival, but as I caught my breath, Stanley Brewer’s words came back to me.
    “When the motive is revenge, you never really know when—if ever—they are going to call it even .”
    I cast my eyes downward, peering into the dark elevator shaft below.
    “Not good,” I told myself. “This is definitely not good.”

10
    I COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED.
    The thought was sinking in as I stood outside the closed door to Eric Volke’s office. The president had the largest corner office on a highly secured floor that was reserved for nine of Saxton Silvers’ most senior executives. Visitors knew they were in the right place as soon as the elevator doors opened: They could smell the flowers. Roses, calla lilies, crepe myrtle, and other assortments were abundant and fresh every day, a two-hundred-thousand-dollar line item in the firm’s annual operating budget. An extravagance, to be sure, particularly since no more than two or three executives were actually in the office on a typical day. Today obviously wasn’t typical. It wasn’t even nine o’clock and the place was buzzing.
    “He’s on the phone,” said Nancy, Eric’s assistant.
    Of course he was. Eric Volke off the phone was like Tiger Woods off the golf course. “I’ll wait,” I said.
    I took a seat on the leather sofa, and suddenly I had to catch my breath.
    Damn, I really could have been killed.
    Things were moving so fast. I hadn’t really processed how close I’d come to burning alive inside an elevator. My hand was still stinging and red. I had decided not to go to the emergency room, even though that flaming package had probably given me a second-degree burn. I had bigger problems.
    As I waited, I wondered how much more harm the anonymous sender had intended.
    My cell rang, reminding me that the wheels of commerce were still turning. I had to cancel