Never Tempt Danger

by Denise Robbins

  “What does it do? Does it do tricks?” He set DANGR on top of some papers. “Does it sit, rollover, bark?”

  “Oh, ha—ha.” She snatched the robot up and held it against her breasts.

  “I’m kidding. But what can it do?”

  “Nothing yet. I still have to do the programming.”

  Lucas rested a hip against the table and crossed his arms over his chest. “Isn’t it supposed to be able to get into tiny places? That thing,” he gestured with a wave of his hand toward her chest. “That thing is too big to fit through a crevice of a building.” He lifted a quizzical gaze to her.

  “Why me?” Gilly rolled her eyes heavenward. “It will morph into other shapes once I stop talking with you and start coding.”

  “What shapes?” he asked with eagerness in his voice.

  Hm. Lucas was truly interested. Okay, she would show him. Placing DANGR back on the desk, she shifted a few things, made a turn here, did a rotation there, and voila!

  She grinned in satisfaction as Lucas’s jaw dropped and he gaped at what the tiny mechanical dog had morphed into…

  “It’s a caterpillar.”

  “Yup. Kind of a big caterpillar but all the sensors I’ve attached kind of mimic how a caterpillar uses the little hairs on its body to sense things around it and perform based on what it senses.” She shrugged. “It’s kind of the perfect neural network example.”

  His gaze never leaving the robot insect, Lucas gave a silent nod.

  “If the crevice is higher up in the building then the robot needs to be able to go airborne.” Once again, she pushed here, pulled there, and made receptors react. Tada! The caterpillar now has wings.

  “It’s a dragonfly.” Lucas reached out and touched the iridescent wings. “Fascinating.”

  He straightened and looked directly into her eyes. Gilly felt herself flush at the heat his gaze generated inside her.

  “What about underwater? Won’t it look weird or suspicious to have a tiny dog or a caterpillar swimming in the ocean?”

  “I’m so glad you asked.” She pulled herself away from warm lavender eyes and did her magic one more time.

  “An octopus.” Lucas knuckled one eye and moved around the desk. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. “I never knew you could do this.” His hand swept out over the desk. “I mean the skill and knowledge to accomplish something of this magnitude that could affect so many people, save so many lives is mind-blowing. Your father would be so proud.” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I’m so proud of you.”

  His compliment caught her off guard. What he said struck home. The work she did could affect millions of people, of soldiers, and save thousands of lives. But was the cost of one more life lost, especially Lucas’s or her own, worth all the unknown names and faces the robot might save worth it? She didn’t know how to answer him. Licking her lips, she swallowed and said the only thing she could. “It’s not done yet.”

  Lucas pressed warm lips to hers, invaded her mouth with his tongue. He tasted of minty toothpaste. Quickly, the kiss turned hot and she had a need for more of him. With a great deal of will power and strong forearms, she broke the embrace. “I’ve got work to do.”

  He nodded and took a step back. “You’re right. You have to do your magic on the robot and computer, and I have to see what I can dig up on the people that worked for your boyfriend.”

  It was Gilly’s turn to retreat. She hadn’t thought of Jimmy last night when she and Lucas made love, she hadn’t thought of him this morning even when she worked on DANGR, but the unknown caller and Lucas threw him out there between them.

  “We never got to the part where you gave me background on the folks that worked on the project.”

  “Uh, yeah,” she answered with her eyes downcast. That was not the only thing they hadn’t gotten to. They never had dinner last night either. She managed to convince him that they needed sustenance after round three, but when they made it to the kitchen, instead of real food, Lucas pulled out a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream and two spoons. When they polished off the ice cream, they had dessert. She would never look at his kitchen table the same way again.

  “Are you blushing?”

  Her head snapped up. “Huh? No! Don’t be ridiculous.” She waved a hand in the air, brushing his comment away.

  Lucas chuckled and moved into her space. “You’re beautiful when you blush.” He stroked a finger across her cheek.

  “Hush.” She swiped at his hand.

  Dropping his hand, he smiled at her. “When can you take a break?”

  “I took one yesterday.” Damn! Her face heated again.

  “Come on. I need to get some information from you about your staff.”

  “It is not one of the engineers. It couldn’t be. They all respected Jimmy.” Moreover, she thought, that caller had not been one of them. None of the engineers had a weird accent. That didn’t exactly matter, the caller could have disguised his or her voice.

  “You’re thinking with your heart and not your head.”

  Gilly bristled.

  “You know I’m right. You need to take a step back and look at the situation from an outsider’s perspective, from a government agent perspective.”

  Anger bubbled up inside her. “I’m not a twit, Lucas. I know how to do my job.”

  “Then do it,” he growled.

  Ooo! Her fingers curled into a fist at her side and the vision of slugging him and wiping that smug smirk off his face flashed in her mind.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  His perception startled her. Not that she would have hit him, but the thought was comforting.

  “Shall we grab a bite to eat?”

  Food. Her stomach rumbled.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said grinning.

  “Yes.”

  “How about burgers on the grill?”

  Again, her tummy answered for her.

  “Okay, I’ll start the grill and then get the burgers ready while you get the condiments and dinnerware.”

  Gilly inclined her head and spun away. A hand on her forearm halted her departure. She glanced over her shoulder.

  “While we’re cooking and eating you will provide me with whatever information you have on your employees.”

  He released her.

  “They’re not my employees.”

  “Really?” He lifted a brow.

  “Ugh!” She threw her arms above her head and strode out of the room. “Men!”

  “So…” His sentence trailed off, leaving the single word hanging in the air between them as she stepped out onto the deck.

  Her hackles went up but she refused to take the bait. Instead, she stood on tiptoes and peered over his shoulder, watching Lucas flip not two patties, but four. Uh-oh! He was making his ‘double-trouble double-decker’ burgers.

  “You want cheese or extra-cheese on your meat?”

  “Extra, please.” She dropped down to the flat of her feet and moved over to the teak table where a pitcher of raspberry iced tea sat. She poured a glass for Lucas and an even bigger glass for herself. The ‘double-trouble double-decker’ consisted of two lean all beef patties with or without cheese, and his secret ingredients. Gilly had yet to learn what the secret ingredient mixture consisted of, but what she did know, was that the burger was hot and spicy, and would blow her socks off. Good thing she wasn’t wearing any socks, she thought, and took a big gulp in preparation for the meal to come.

  Lucas turned from the grill and grinned. “Already afraid of your fate?”

  She set her glass down and wiped her wet lips with the back of her hand. “No,” she lied. Wait! He was talking about the burgers, wasn’t he? She narrowed her gaze at his back when he returned his attention to the burning meat.

  The next time Lucas faced her, he held two plates, each with burgers on buns and an ear of corn-on-the-cob. He sat next to her, placed a plate in front of her and then began adding condiments to his meal. Gilly did the same.

  Th
e first bite was excellent, the perfect blend of spicy and mesquite. The second bite was even better. When she took the third mouthful, her eyes started tearing and her mouth hit the heat red zone. Gilly picked up her glass of iced tea and glugged it.

  “Too hot?”

  “No,” she rasped.

  “So…”

  In spite of the jalapeno peppers scorching the back of her throat, she focused on Lucas, waited for him to finish his sentence. She knew he would and it had nothing to do with food.

  “Tell me about the people you worked with on this DARPA contract.” He reached under the table and extracted a notepad and pen.

  Her eyes widened in surprise at his preparedness. And why did he not have to gulp down something cold to quench the fiery heat of the burger?

  “I’m going to want everyone’s full name and any other pertinent information you have on them.” Lucas took a drink of tea and spoke again. “Scratch that. I want everything you know about these people whether you think it is pertinent or not.”

  “I still say you’re wrong,” Gilly protested. When Lucas glowered at her, she rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She repeated the names of all of the engineers she mentioned last night before other things interrupted the conversation. She even provided him the spellings of each name.

  “Tell me about Allen.”

  “Allen is a QA engineer. He has a degree in electrical and mechanical engineering. I would say he’s typical of a QA guy.”

  “How so?”

  She finished eating the buttery corn and answered. “He’s non-confrontational, relatively quiet. He would rather send an email and wait for someone to respond instead of visit the desk or call the engineer who he thinks has an issue with the work.” Sitting back, she sipped her tea, and contemplated the thin quality assurance engineer who wore the ugliest ties she had ever seen. “He wears these dreadful ties that no sane person with taste would ever consider wearing.”

  “Is he married?”

  Gilly searched her mind for the answer. “Yeah. He’s only been married a couple of years.”

  “Could be the wife buys the ties and not wanting to hurt her feelings, he wears them.”

  “Really? Guys do that?”

  “Duh! Of course we do. We love our women, so yeah, we do things like that to keep the peace.”

  Hmm. Had Lucas ever done that for something she had given him? She gnawed her lower lip in thought.

  His laughter brought her attention back.

  “Quit wondering.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, right. In answer to your unspoken question, no, I have never worn anything you gave me just to keep the peace.”

  Hmm.

  “Where does Allen live?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to concentrate and find the answer. “Fairfax,” she answered opening her eyes.

  “How did he come to work for you?”

  “He was recommended by the lead QA engineer, Tim.” Gilly took a small bite of her burger, hoping to stave off the heat.

  Lucas shuffled through his papers and scribbled a note. “Tell me about Tim.”

  “Great QA guy, excellent communicator. Jimmy had worked with him in the past and highly endorsed him for the role.” She shrugged her good shoulder. “He was right. Give the guy five minutes and if there was a bug to be found, Tim would identify it, analyze it, and provide enough feedback that an engineer would know exactly where in the code the issue resided.”

  “That’s pretty impressive.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “His marital status?”

  “Married with one daughter who has a learning disability. She is the cutest little girl you have ever seen. All these blonde ringlets of hair make her look like a modern version of Shirley Temple.”

  “Okay, let’s move on to Mark.”

  “Mark is an engineer with a ton of software development experience on both a user application and hardware drivers. He has been involved in networking solutions, infrared solutions for various industries, even video gaming.”

  “He sounds like the odd man out in the group.”

  Gilly shook her head. “He’s a freakin’ genius. All you have to do is tell him what you want and he will spend night and day designing the best solution.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “No.” Regret tinged her voice. “I don’t know where anyone is. I just left, walked away the day Jimmy died.” She rubbed at her temples. “It should have occurred to me.”

  Lucas peeled her fingers away from her head and clasped them with his. “You did not do anything wrong. You did everything right with the exception of running from Mickey and me.” He pressed warm fingers to her lips when she opened her mouth to explain. “You were right in what you did because one or more of these people,” he said shaking the paper, “could be a killer.”

  She tugged her hand back and dropped it to her laptop. “I just can’t picture one of the engineers shooting Jimmy in cold blood and in such a distant manner. If it was one of them it would make more sense if he had been shot up close and personal.” She took a deep breath and continued. “Every single one of them adored and respected Jimmy.”

  “Even Jennifer? And what about Daniel? Why kill him?”

  Her front teeth bit into her lower lip. Did Jennifer? She had to, otherwise, why work with or for a guy who was your ex-boyfriend? Yeah, just look at her and Lucas. They continued to work together even after they broke up. Although it had been less often than before, they had still managed to respect each other for their talents.

  “You don’t want to picture the shooter as one of them.” Lucas stroked her windblown hair. “Open up that wonderful mind of yours and you might see everything clearly.”

  Her gaze met his and she wondered if he was talking about him or the murderer. He was not projecting anything so she wasn’t certain and she did not want to ask.

  Lucas picked up the pen. “Back to Mark.”

  Air escaped her lips and blew her bangs up. “Mark is single, but I think he has a live-in girlfriend. What was her name?” She tapped a finger against her mouth. “Melanie. Yeah, that’s it.”

  “Mark and Melanie.” Lucas chuckled.

  “It is kind of funny,” Gilly agreed giggling.

  “It’s beyond weird.” He shook his head. “Any idea of where M&M live?”

  “Ha! M&M.” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “They live in Reston, Virginia. A condo.”

  “Tell me about Daniel.”

  Her brows jumped up her forehead. “Why? He’s dead.” Oh! That sounded so harsh.

  “In spite of his living or non-living status, he obviously was involved somehow.”

  “Daniel was a really sweet guy, very shy, but hard working. I think he worked more than most of the engineers because he processed things in-depth or more slowly. I’m not sure which. Either way, he mostly worked on the design and structure of the robot. He would have been the guy that designed and decided on the materials used in the construction of Morpheus.”

  “Hmm.” Lucas scribbled words down on paper.

  “What?” His rumble irritated her.

  Lucas peered up at her. “Just that he’s the first person you mentioned who was responsible for the physical aspect of the robot. Was he the only one?”

  “N…no.” She swallowed the thick lump that started to choke her. “Jimmy.”

  “And?”

  Hand to her chest, she tried to calm her rapid beating heart. “Me.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  He sat unmoving as the impact of her words hit him. Jimmy, Daniel, and Gilly were the only ones who knew how to build the robot. A sense of dread washed over him, sending a bead of sweat trickling down his spine. The shooter had killed two of the three people with that particular skill. Was that the reason someone was after her? Did he want Gilly dead or alive? Did whoever was after her think she was more controllable than the other two? That a woman was weaker?
Apparently, the killer and would-be kidnapper had no clue with whom he tangled. He had seen Gilly kick ass. She had come close to kicking his butt a time or two when they worked out together. Hell, if she had his background, she would probably be a better shot.

  “Not probably, definitely.”

  He glanced up and pinned her in a narrow-eyed glare. “Get out of my head,” he demanded through gritted teeth.

  “I wasn’t in it.”

  “Gilly…”

  “I’m sorry,” she told him in a quiet tone. “I did not mean to intrude. Sometimes your mind just broadcasts so loudly.”

  “Fine.” He inclined his head and returned his attention to his pen and paper. “How did Daniel and Jennifer know each other?

  “From the project.”

  “That’s it?”

  “As far as I know they had never met until coming to work for me and Jimmy.”

  “Were they friendly?”

  Gilly tilted her head in thought. “Not that I am aware of. No one ever went out after work unless Jimmy or I initiated the event.”

  Weird. In his experience, people who worked closely for months naturally gravitated to at least a lunch or drink out every once and a while. “How did they both get asked to work for your competitor?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t know that Daniel did. We only have Jennifer’s word on that.”

  “True.” He scratched a note down to verify Daniel’s employment with Robotics FX. “What was Jennifer’s role on the project?”

  Whether Maureen realized it or not, her distaste for the blonde woman showed in the set of her jaw and the slight narrowing of her eyes.

  “Jimmy brought her onboard as a senior engineer. She coordinated the whole effort between engineering and QA.”

  “Like a project manager,” he interjected.

  “Sort of, only she went beyond that. She also helped Jimmy take my draft design and minimal code from the prototype and turn it into what was Morpheus.” She paused. “With everything except the neural network,” Gilly added.

  “When you introduced us at the store in Georgetown, you said she had a past relationship with Jimmy. How past?”