Hard Line

by Clare, Pamela

  Samantha followed Thor up the stairs, into the station, and down the hallway toward the A1 berthing area, where she could see a small crowd gathered.

  She stripped off her hat, gloves, and mask. “Why would Lance break into my room? Does he think you hid the… uh… package there?”

  “I’ve got a few ideas about that, but we’re going to find out.”

  She heard Lance shouting before they reached the A1 pod.

  “Get off me! You stupid bastards! You don’t understand!”

  “Dude, you’re going to have lots of time to explain it to us.” That was Malik.

  Thor rested a hand in the middle of her back as they grew closer, the brief contact reassuring. People moved aside for him, letting them through. And there on the floor, hands zip-tied behind his back, was Lance, Malik holding his feet while Lev had a knee in the middle of his back.

  Malik saw Thor, grinned. “Hey, man. He took a swing at me and tried to run, but, as you can see, he didn’t get far.”

  The door to Samantha’s room stood ajar, one of her dresser drawers dumped onto the floor, her panties scattered everywhere, the lamp on her desk toppled.

  Rage flared inside her, white-hot. She stomped over to Lance, glared down at the back of his head. “What the hell were you doing in my room?”

  “Samantha! Tell these bastards to get off me. I just wanted Patty’s journal.”

  “You apologized for trying to take it from me, and now you break into my room to steal it? You jerk! That belongs to her family.”

  Thor walked up beside her, knelt, tilting his head to make eye contact with Lance. “Lance, buddy, you’re under arrest.”

  “Under arrest? That’s bullshit. Tell your lugnuts to get off me!”

  “Lugnuts?” Lev snorted.

  Thor got to his feet again. “Get him up. It’s time for us to have a little chat.”

  Steve made his way through the crowd. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Samantha pointed to her open door, trembling with rage. “Lance broke into my room and was searching it. He wanted to steal Patty’s journal.”

  “Jesus, Lance.” Steve rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw, looking like he hadn’t slept in a week. “What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”

  Lev and Malik jerked Lance to his feet, the two keeping hands on him.

  Red-faced, Lance craned his head to look at Steve. “Tell them to let me go.”

  “They’re deputy marshals now, and breaking and entering is a crime, even here.” Steve turned to Thor. “You can take him to the small conference room if that works.”

  “Thanks.” Thor faced Lance. “Did you take anything from Dr. Park’s room?”

  Lance gave Samantha a sullen look. “No.”

  “You two take him to the conference room. I’ll meet you there. I need to get my laptop so we can film this. Dr. Park, do you want me to walk you back to the Dark Sector, or do you want to stay here and clean up?”

  She started to answer, but Lance cut her off.

  “Film it? Why do you want to film it? Wait. You think I killed Patty? Is that it? I had nothing to do with that!”

  “Come on.” Lev steered Lance down the hallway. “You know the way.”

  Hardin spoke to the crowd. “Okay, everyone. Back to work.”

  Samantha tried to regain her equilibrium, shock and rage giving way to an overwhelming sense of violation. She hugged her arms around herself. “I’ll straighten things up and then get back to the lab.”

  Thor’s eyes were warm with concern. “Come get me when you’re ready to go.”

  Kristi made her way through the dispersing crowd. “I’ll help, Sam. There’s no one in the infirmary now. Decker can call if he needs me.”

  “Thanks.” Samantha exchanged one last glance with Thor before he disappeared down the hallway. Then she stepped into her room. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Why does he want Patty’s journal?” Kristi knelt, picked up a drawer from the floor, and slid it back into the dresser.

  Samantha scooped up her panties and began to fold them. “He said he wanted to see what she wrote about him. I told him it was none of his business.”

  “Is he insecure or what?” Kristi righted the lamp on Samantha’s desk, then froze, a smile spreading on her face. “There are two condoms in your trash. It was Thor, wasn’t it? Is he as incredible in bed as Malik?”

  Heat rushed into Samantha’s face. “I … He…”

  “I knew it!” Kristi picked up the papers Lance had knocked off Samantha’s desk. “Malik is the best lover I’ve ever had. If Thor is anything like him… Sorry. You just had your space violated, and I’m getting into your business.”

  “I’m just more private than you are.”

  Kristi seemed to accept that. “After getting so many complaints about the noise, Malik and I snuck away to the greenhouse last night. That man knows what to do with his cock. That’s for sure. I’m surprised I can walk today.”

  What was Samantha supposed to say to that? “I’m happy for you.”

  Kristi shrugged. “It will all be over when they leave. But in the meantime, I’m going to take what I can and enjoy myself. That’s what you should do, too.”

  * * *

  Thor stood outside the small conference room with Segal, going over their plan. “You’re the one with the interrogation experience. You should take the lead.”

  Segal shook his head. “You start. Let me watch his reactions. I’ll step in if I think it’s necessary.”

  “Just remember this isn’t a war zone. Lance is a civilian with legal rights. We can’t touch him. If he asks for a lawyer, I’m not sure what we’ll do.”

  There were no lawyers. Shields thought the stakes were so high and the situation so unusual that they might have more latitude than they would back home. Thor didn’t know much about the US legal system and had to trust her.

  “Keep him distracted and off-balance,” Segal said. “Hammer him with questions, one after the other.”

  “Okay. Let’s do this.” Thor opened the door and walked inside to find Jones standing behind Lance, whose wrists were still bound. Thor sat across from him, Segal standing in the background. “Yesterday, you told us you went back to your room at midnight. You lied to us. You went to the computer lab. Why?”

  “I just wanted to catch up on email. After that, I went to my room.”

  “He’s lying,” Segal said.

  “Care to try again?” Thor leaned closer. “This time, give us the truth.”

  Lance glared at him, indignation on his face. “I did check my email.”

  “Lying.”

  “What else did you do?” Thor looked the bastard in the eyes. “If we have to, we’ll confiscate your computer and your phone, hack in, and see what we find. I’m giving you a chance to tell the truth. You were caught red-handed breaking into Dr. Park’s room. Do yourself a favor and come clean.”

  Lance was sweating now, perspiration beading on his forehead. “I’ll lose my job.”

  “Oh, brother, that ship has sailed,” Jones said. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t spend the rest of the winter locked in your itty-bitty room.”

  Lance looked from Jones to Thor. “Hardin wouldn’t do that.”

  “He suggested it.” Thor let that sink in. “What were you doing in the computer lab late the night Patty was poisoned.”

  Lance’s face crumpled, and Thor knew he was close to breaking.

  Thor pushed harder. “You lied to us. Witnesses saw you there close to the time when the military satellite was hacked.”

  Lance went pale. “It was hacked? You think I …”

  “You’re the IT expert on station. We know you lied about where you were that night. The Pentagon is very interested in you, man. It doesn’t look good.”

  Lance broke. “I hacked into Patty’s email.”

  That wasn’t the answer Thor had expected. “You hacked into your girlfriend’s email. Why would you do that, Lance?”

  �
�I thought she was seeing someone else. I didn’t go back to her room with her that night. She claimed she had work to do. Every night that week, she said she was busy. But she wasn’t in the Dark Sector Lab, and when I went to her room, she wasn’t there either—or she didn’t answer.”

  Segal stepped forward. “What did you find in her email, lover boy?”

  “Nothing—just the usual shit between her and Sam, emails from the university, messages from her parents.”

  Segal sat. “You hacked into your girlfriend’s email because you were jealous. I find that interesting, don’t you, guys?”

  Thor had to agree. “A jealous lover.”

  “Jealous men do all kinds of reckless things,” Jones said.

  “Why did you lie to us about where you were that night?” Segal asked.

  “I knew it would look bad.”

  Segal nodded. “Yeah, it does look bad. What did you do after you hacked Patty’s email? Did you confront her, pour some methanol in a nice bottle of wine for her?”

  “No!” There was fear on Lance’s face now. “No, I didn’t kill her. I really liked her. I could never have done anything to hurt her.”

  Segal kept at him. “Hacking her email wasn’t an act of love. You just admitted you were jealous. Today, you broke into Dr. Park’s room to steal Patty’s journal. That’s stalker behavior.”

  “I just wanted the journal so I could see if she’d written about anyone else.”

  “That still matters to you even though she’s dead?” Thor had never been able to understand why some men treated women like property. “Wouldn’t you rather live with the good memories than dredge up more pain for yourself?”

  Lance squirmed. “Wouldn’t you want to know? What if this guy—whoever he was—had something to do with her death? Maybe she wrote about him. Maybe all the answers are there.”

  Segal got them back on track. “What did you do after you hacked Patty’s email, Lance? Did you fight with her? Did you grab some methanol from the LO arch?”

  “No! I went to her room. I knocked. She didn’t answer. Then I went to bed—and that’s the truth. The next morning, I heard that Sam had found her and taken her to the infirmary. I went to see what had happened, and … she was dead. I couldn’t believe it.”

  His shoulders slumped, and he began to cry.

  Thor stepped out of the room with Segal. “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s telling the truth. Also, now we know that something unusual was going on with Patty—an affair or something else. We need to retrace her steps, find out what she was doing and who she was with that last week. We need that journal.”

  “It’s locked away with the package.”

  “You already secured it.” Segal looked pleased. “Perfect. When we’re done questioning the rest of the people on Shields’ list, we should read through her entries for her last week. Maybe she can give us the killer’s name.”

  Thor was pretty certain Samantha wouldn’t like this. “Let’s get our stalker here back to his room and confine him there until we sort through this.”

  They had four more persons of interest to question if they were going to make it through Shields’ list today.

  * * *

  Samantha struggled to concentrate as she recycled the fridges on the SPT, her thoughts jumbled, her emotions tangled. When she wasn’t trying to figure out who’d killed Patty, she was ranting at Lance in her head—or remembering the feel of Thor kissing her, touching her, driving himself into her. And, wow, was that a rare elliptical double-ringed galaxy?

  Grief. Fear. Rage. Lust. Fascination.

  It was like having a head full of ping-pong balls in constant motion.

  She double-checked her work at every step as she performed the last calibrations to get the telescope scanning again and then verified the readouts on the computers. But still, her thoughts kept drifting.

  Thor had called her beautiful. He’d made her feel beautiful.

  It will all be over when they leave. But in the meantime, I’m going to take what I can and enjoy myself. That’s what you should do, too.

  Kristi’s words came back to Samantha, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

  She couldn’t get too attached to Thor—or his kisses. He would be leaving soon, going back to his life of jetting around the world. She would be here until her flight back to Chicago in November. There was no chance that their relationship would outlive their time on the ice.

  Thor is temporary. Science is eternal. Remember that.

  Yes, but science didn’t make her scream the way Thor had. If he hadn’t covered her mouth, she wouldn’t have been able to show her face in the galley for breakfast.

  Sweet heaven.

  She set the telescope to scan a new sector, raw data flowing into the computers, her focus slipping again.

  Was Lance the killer? Part of her hoped he was because then the mystery would be solved. But the thought that someone Patty had loved might have ended her life was too awful. It was also terrifying to think that Samantha might have been friends with a murderer, sharing meals with him, splitting bottles of wine, talking about her research, trusting him with Patty’s heart.

  There was another thing. When the killer was caught, Thor would leave.

  He’s not going to stay here until November, so get that idea out of your head now.

  Yes, she’d stupidly let herself fantasize about that. Months of nights with him—great sex, conversation, companionship. But it wasn’t going to happen. Her time with him would end soon. This was just a fling, a few weeks of stolen joy.

  A burst of radio static made her jump.

  “Dr. Park, this is Isaksen.”

  “Samantha here.”

  “Are you ready to head back?”

  She glanced at the clock, saw that it was almost six. “Yes. I’ll wrap up.”

  “I’m on my way, over.”

  She rebooted a computer that had slowed to a crawl then checked all the connections between the telescope and the computers. By the time Thor knocked at the door, she was ready.

  He stepped inside, removed his mask and hat. “We need to talk.”

  That sounded serious.

  “Okay.” She sat, motioned to Patty’s chair.

  But Thor remained standing. “I’m going to read the last week of entries in Patty’s journal.”

  “You want to read Patty’s journal?” Samantha stared at him.

  He stood there, still in his parka, mask and hat in his hands. “It’s for the investigation. I wish I could explain, but I can’t.”

  “You can’t even give me a vague idea?”

  Thor seemed to wrestle with this. “We have reason to believe something unusual happened that last week of her life, something she didn’t share with anyone—not you, not Lance. We’re hoping she wrote about it there.”

  Samantha tried to remember the last week of Patty’s life. It seemed like it had been so long ago now. Had something happened? Had Patty been caught up in something without Samantha knowing anything about it? “Why are you telling me? You have the legal authority, right?”

  “You and I have a personal connection, so I’m telling you out of respect. Not telling you would feel like lying.”

  And that right there was as good as foreplay.

  “Thanks.” She stood. “That means a lot to me.”

  His gaze stayed on her chair, his lips curving in a smile. “I had a fantasy about you on that chair.”

  “You fantasized about me?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  She looked back at her chair.

  He laughed. “It’s not the chair, Samantha. It’s you.”

  Samantha’s heart skipped a beat. She walked over to him, slid her hands up the front of his parka. “What did we do in my chair?”

  He wrapped an arm around her, palm in the middle of her back, a lop-sided grin on his face. “You straddled me and rode me until you came.”

  Heat flared between her thighs. “Well, the chair is here—a
nd so are we.”

  He touched his forehead to hers. “I didn’t bring a condom.”

  She was about to say something about how sad that was when she remembered. “Well, I have a similar chair in my room.”

  His lop-sided grin became a sexy smile. “Is that so?”

  15

  Thor sat in Samantha’s chair, her back to him, her thighs straddling his, their gazes fixed on her mirror—and the erotic sight of his cock sliding in and out of her. “See how beautiful you are?”

  She stared at their reflection as he withdrew then thrust into her again, burying himself completely. “Oh! That’s so … hot.”

  “Fuck, yeah, it is.” It turned him on every bit as much as it did her, her body gripping him tightly, the slick friction muted by the condom—but still incredible.

  He built up the rhythm stroke by stroke until he was pounding into her from below, one hand caressing her breast, the other reaching around to stroke her clit.

  “Oh, Thooooor…” She moaned out his name, the nails of one hand digging into his forearm, the other reaching back behind his neck, her gaze still on the mirror. “Yes.”

  He willed himself to relax, to savor the sensation of being inside her, lust for her pounding in his chest, his nuts drawing tight. He needed to hold out, to last, to make this good for her, for Samantha.

  He whispered her name, punctuating his words with kisses, his lips finding the curve of her shoulder, the sensitive skin beneath her ear, her earlobe. “Åhhh, Samantha. You’re… too… much.”

  He could tell she was close, her breasts flushed and swollen, her breathing ragged, every muscle in her body tense.

  Her eyes drifted shut, her head falling back against his shoulder, her body arching to press her breast deeper into his hand.

  He couldn’t help but groan, aroused to the breaking point by her gesture of sensual surrender, her head rolling back and forth on his shoulder now. Then her breath caught, her eyes went wide—and she shattered, biting her lip to keep from crying out.

  His hips a piston now, he drove her climax home, falling over that bright edge with her, orgasm burning through him, white-hot and incandescent.