She also looked unspeakably beautiful.
“Hey,” she said into the silence and it jerked him out of whatever it was that made him stare at her. Luke quickly ran a hand along his chin just to make sure his tongue wasn’t hanging out and shot to his feet.
“Hi. Hey. You look great! Fabulous. Ahm … I mean you look like the shower did you good. Showers are great. Food’s arrived.” She can see that, you moron. Quit while you’re ahead.
He held out a chair at the small dinette table and held his tongue.
“Thanks.” Hope sat, turned her head to smile up at him. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”
Fuck. Since when being in a room with a beautiful woman made him tongue-tied? Since fucking never. He always kept his head — the big one and the little one — strictly under his control. Plus, he would soon be working at a place where a whole bunch of his colleagues were married to beautiful women he would see often. And in his old life as a cop, his boss, commissioner Bud Morrison, was married to a good-looking woman. And an heiress. Not that you’d know it from Claire Morrison’s behavior.
So he should be used to female beauty. No reason to feel like he had two left tongues.
He sat, lifted the covers of the dishes and oh, man. The pepper steak and fries gave off smells almost as good as Hope coming out of the shower.
She leaned forward over her plate, closed her eyes, sniffed. “Oh wow. That smells delicious.” She was smiling, but her hands were trembling.
It knocked that clumsiness right out of him. “When was the last time you ate?” His voice came out harshly, almost as an accusation.
“Ate?” Her dark brows drew together in confusion, as if she didn’t recognize the word at first. Her eyes rolled up and to the right, trying to remember. “Ahhh … I was really anxious waiting for Kyle’s analysis results and my stomach just closed up. And since — since the accident. No.” She drew in a deep breath. “Since Kyle’s murder, and the murder of Geraldo, I’ve had two protein bars and a sandwich. There was food on the plane apparently but I just fell asleep.”
“I want you to eat every single bite,” he said seriously.
“Yes, mom.” Hope rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.
Picking up the bottle of wine, he half filled her glass then his. Only a finger for him. They were safe, but still. “It’s a good red from Napa Valley. Have you ever been?”
She sipped and sighed. “Oh man, yes, that’s good. Nope,” she answered his question. “Before today, actually, I’ve somehow never been further west than Chicago. I told you that when I got accepted at Stanford, my folks just went wild.” She put down the glass, eyes distant. Then shook herself. “God knows why. They insisted on me studying in Boston so hard I just gave in. That was when I thought maybe … maybe they wanted to see more of me. So weird, when we barely saw each other all the years I was at boarding school and MIT. But turns out they didn’t really want to see more of me. They just had a thing about travelling out west, I guess. Why are you still wearing your shirt? It’s warm in here.”
Luke knew how to switch gears. He had on a heavy flannel shirt that doubled as a jacket, and it was warm in here.
“I’m armed.” He watched her face carefully and saw the barely concealed wince. “I will stay armed. And I’ll sleep with my weapon close by. I didn’t want to freak you out, so I kept the shirt on.”
She was silent a moment, searching his eyes. “Considering the fact that you’re armed for me, to protect me, I think I will allow you to take that hot flannel shirt off. And by the way — thanks. Felicity texted me you’re volunteering to help me? You’re not a part of her company? I didn’t quite get it.”
“It’s a long story.” Long and sad and infuriating. “I am — was — a cop, ex-military, and my contract with the police force ends at the end of the month, but I’m on leave. And ASI has recruited me and I’m slated to start in two weeks, but am not officially on the payroll yet. So I guess, like an actor that’s between parts, I’m an operator between jobs.”
She cocked her head. “There’s a story there you’re not telling me.”
There was. He didn’t tell it to many. It was painful. “Hmm. It’s sad and bad.”
She looked him in the eyes. “I know all about sad and bad,” she said softly. “Tell me.”
He wrestled with himself briefly and lost. He was going to tell the story. For the first time, he suddenly realized. Everyone he knew had lived through it with him. He’d never told it to an outsider.
Maybe now was the time. Maybe now he had some distance. And to a sympathetic audience, as well. She was looking at him with sadness in those intelligent eyes, but interest as well. A good combo.
He was going to do this.
“Okay. I was in the military for almost ten years. The Army. Most of that time I was in the Rangers, which is —”
“SpecOps,” she said gently. “Yes. I could at one time recite the Ranger Creed by heart. At the NSA Emma, Riley and I worked with General Orenson to develop a …” She stumbled, bit her lips. Whatever they had developed, it had probably been highly classified. “Develop something for them.”
He smiled. “The General was something else, wasn’t he?”
She smiled back. “He was. Tough but fair. Also a lightweight when it came to alcohol. We did a really good job and completed it the day before he was retiring. He invited the three of us out to dinner and Riley drank him under the table. It wasn’t hard to do.”
Luke laughed out loud. The General had been a good guy, very strait-laced. The thought of a female nerd drinking him under the table was good gossip. Next time he met with his Ranger teammates he was going to pull that story out. It would get him a couple of beers, at least.
Hope leaned forward on her elbows. “So —” she prodded. “You were a Ranger?”
“Yeah.” Luke nodded. “I liked being a Ranger. But my dad started having a few health issues. And then he had a heart attack.”
She nodded. “And you were close to your father.”
Ah … Christ. She wasn’t even aware of the longing in her voice.
“I was. He recovered but I knew I needed to be around him. So I resigned my commission and applied to join Portland PD. My dad had been a cop all his life. I knew the ropes already and hell, I grew up with half the force. My dad was really good friends with the Commissioner, Bud Morrison.”
She was watching him carefully. “You liked being a cop, too,” she said gently.
He bowed his head. “I did. A lot. I like being useful. After a few years on patrol I passed the exam and got my badge. Assigned to Homicide.”
“Homicide,” she said softly. “I’ll bet you were good at that too.”
He gave a half shrug. “I solved my fair share of cases. Had good backup at Portland PD, which is well run. And then I ran into a case that nearly broke me. A young college student, brutally raped and murdered, her body left under a bush in Washington Park.”
Hope’s mouth fell open. “I remember reading about that case! The Sigma Phi Five! That poor girl! What she suffered! And at the trial, it turned out the policeman —” Her eyes widened with horror. “You! You were the policeman!”
Luke couldn’t stop the spurt of anger. Still. He thought he’d gotten rid of most of it, but nope. “I was.”
“They — they crucified you on the witness stand. I remember that.”
He nodded. “We solved the case, thanks to quick DNA analysis. There were five of them, but we only found the DNA of four of them on the body of the young girl. The fifth was a bystander. He was guilty. He was there and he didn’t stop them. But he didn’t rape her. The other four had really powerful fathers. One a sitting Senator, two tech billionaires and a famous actor. The father of the fifth kid, the one who didn’t actually do anything but was just there, was just a high school teacher. The kid took the fall for all of them.”
“The four got off scot-free,” Hope said. “I remember that. And I remember that they were guilty in everyone’s eyes.�
��
“Except for the jury, because they hired the best legal muscle in America and they cast doubt in every direction, like some evil sorcerer’s dust. And some fell on me.”
She nodded. “I remember. It was in all the newspapers for a while. I don’t normally pay attention to true crime, but this was unavoidable.”
Luke’s back teeth ground. He should be over this. He was starting a new life, a new job, but it still burned. They’d gone over his military career with a fine-tooth comb and though there wasn’t anything to find, they’d manage to dig up a fellow Ranger from under a rock who’d testified that Luke had disobeyed orders once and had stolen arms from the armory. It wasn’t in any way true, but they made it sound true. Jacko’s father, Dante Jimenez, who was a former DEA investigator, found out that the Ranger suddenly had a hundred grand in his bank account.
The lawyers had dug up nonexistent dirt on the office that analyzed the DNA, on the coroner and on the chain of evidence.
But most particularly they came after him with everything that $700-dollars-an-hour lawyers could throw at him.
Luke had had to hire lawyers of his own and had exhausted his savings and, worse, his father’s savings. They’d been about to dig into the small trust fund his grandmother had left him when the trial ended. The four rapists and murderers got off scot free. The fifth kid was convicted of manslaughter, sentenced to ten years and would be out in four.
The pressure on Luke had been horrible. His father had died two weeks later of a coronary. He’d died, essentially, of a broken heart.
His boss, Bud Morrison, the Commissioner, had been ready to wage war on the four men and Luke realized that Bud was willing to lay his job on the line.
Luke had been broken, he didn’t want Bud to be broken. Because if there was one lesson he’d taken away from the whole sorry mess, it was that money talked. Loudly. The men, together, had several billion dollars in assets and they felt they could do what they wanted and fuck everyone else. Bud wasn’t bending, so Luke quit.
Bud hadn’t been happy and had been vocal about it, until Luke told him he was accepting a job at ASI. Bud stood down because it was a good place to be.
Luke knew he’d carry some of the dirt of the trial around for the rest of his life. But the men he knew and respected knew the truth and that was enough for him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, and laid her hand over his. It was a simple gesture, but comforting. “It must have been hell.”
“Yeah, it was. I lost my father, who basically died of a broken heart. I lost my job, which I loved. But I’m moving on to ASI, which is a really good place to work. And those four kids are psychopaths. Sooner or later they’re going to hurt someone else and then the law will fall on them like a ton of bricks.”
“Good.”
“Enough about me.” Luke meant it. He was sick of thinking of the past. Right now, he wanted to focus on her story, which was dangerous, and was dangerous right now. “I think we should finish our meal.”
She waited a moment, searching his eyes, then nodded. “Sure.”
She dug in, enjoying the food. The shower and the hot food were doing their work. Color bloomed on her skin. The white brackets around her mouth disappeared.
She didn’t feel the need to fill the airwaves with her voice, which Luke found restful.
She’d taken one bite of the blueberry cheesecake and was rolling her eyes in delight when Luke’s cell rang. He checked. Felicity. “Gotta take this. Felicity, hey.”
Hope’s eyes shot to him. She put down the fork and he put Felicity on speakerphone but not video. He placed the phone against the bottle of mineral water so they could talk hands-free.
“Hey, Felicity,” Hope said quietly, leaning forward to speak into the cell’s microphone. “How are you feeling?”
“Hey back,” Felicity said. Her voice sounded tired. “There are still three of us in one body. Not easy. Just checking in. How are things going there?”
“I’m feeding her,” Luke answered.
“Good. I imagine that between the death of a friend and intruders in her home, she hasn’t been able to eat properly in a while.”
Hope leaned forward a little, affection blossoming on her face. Luke knew how she felt. Felicity always thought of others before she thought of herself. “Thanks for everything, Felicity. I owe you for this. I honestly didn’t know where to turn.”
“No problem, honey. You’ll find my company full of good guys who are remarkably good at dealing with trouble.”
“Just what I need,” Hope said, with a glance at Luke.
Luke gave a half smile. That was an excellent description of ASI. Good guys who were good at dealing with trouble.
Felicity sighed. “I’ll be helping you guys some more as soon as I fend off a DoS attack. Wily thugs are attempting to crash through our cloud servers. Luke, you know what a big piece of business our cloud computing service is.”
He did. It represented 10% and climbing of ASI’s corporate income. Felicity had designed it all.
“You’ve got an ongoing attack?” Hope frowned. “Who do you think it is?”
“The Romanians, I think,” Felicity answered. She sighed heavily, audible over the speaker. “The Timisoara gang. They’re good. It’s a massive attack.”
Hope sat on the edge of her seat, took the phone from Luke. “Talk to me,” she said softly.
Luke deliberately hadn’t switched to video out of respect for Felicity. He stacked the plates and put them outside the door for the room service staff to pick up while he listened to Hope and Felicity talk geek.
Christ. Deep math. He’d been good at math in school but not like this. This was scientist-level shit. Well, if Hope could help, that would be great. He knew the company was under attack at least three or four times a month. They did a lot of government work, kept a lot of secrets. Felicity had put a magic spell around their computers but the spell was breaking down.
He tuned back in.
“So the parameters change on a randomized basis, second by second. Basically it would take a quantum computer to crack it. I’ve got the whole thing on my laptop. I’ll send it to you as soon as we’re done.”
“Oh man.” Felicity breathed a sigh of relief. “If it works, we’ll be eternally grateful. Just name your price —”
Hope threw up her hands, though Felicity couldn’t see her, an expression of horror on her face. “No! God no! I can’t begin to thank you and your company for what you’re doing for me! Consider it a down payment on what I owe you. In fact —” she glanced at Luke. “I don’t know what the plan is for tomorrow, but if I have some down time could you throw some problems that you should be working on my way? I get itchy when I’m idle and I would love to help you out.”
Silence. “I don’t know …” Felicity said finally.
“You know my security clearance when we were at the NSA.” Hope put a wheedling note in her voice. “It was the highest possible. But at any rate, if you want, send me routine stuff, send me scut work, anything. Something. Have me do the cyber-equivalent of alphabetizing your spice rack, polishing your silver. Mopping the floors. Pleeeeeze?”
Luke didn’t smile because it wasn’t a smiling situation, but it was hard not to. Hope had hitched herself onto the arm of the couch, one leg swinging back and forth. She looked like a twelfth grader begging to go to the movies. She was irresistible.
Felicity didn’t resist.
“OK. I hate hate hate this, but I really can’t take care of our work load right now.” Luke heard Metal’s deep rumbling voice in the background. “Temporarily,” Felicity said firmly. “It’s just temporary. So yeah, if you can take care of some work for me, I’d be grateful.”
Hope pumped her fist. “Yes! Just send it over, I’ll take care of whatever you throw my way, and be grateful for it.”
“Don’t be too grateful, Hope.” Felicity was fading fast. Her voice was thready. Luke stood, knowing Metal would put an end to it in a moment. “One of the t
asks is to analyze worldwide usage data for a new social media app that wants to replace Facebook. We’re expected to study the security aspect. It’s terabytes of data.”
“I eat terabytes of data for breakfast.” Hope had watched Luke rise and rose herself. “Listen, let’s get off the phone. I’m sending you my security software and you send me the Facebook wannabe data.” Her voice turned sober. “Take care of yourself.”
“As my husband would say, roger that.” The connection closed.
Still standing, Hope turned to Luke. She opened her mouth to say something but it turned into a gigantic yawn, instead.
“Okay, princess, time for bed,” Luke said. She blinked owlishly, nodded and picked up her laptop.
Like for Felicity, her laptop seemed to hold some kind of magical property for her, not to mention being a security blanket. Luke had serious respect for Felicity. She always did amazing work, did it fast, perfectly and with a smile. Everyone liked her a lot and depended on her more than they were comfortable admitting.
Maybe for a while they’d found themselves another Felicity. Dark-haired, green-eyed, smaller, but just as smart and just as nice.
And incredibly beautiful.
Luke shut that thought down immediately because his body responded in a rush of blood to his groin. A hard-on for a young woman who was locked up with him and whose life was in danger — maybe from her own father — wasn’t cool. He needed to keep it in his pants. Not that he’d had any problems reining it in at work before. But there was something about this fairy-like woman that got under his skin.
“Going to bed,” she mumbled and Luke stepped right in her way. There were things he had to tell her and she had to pay attention.
He stood in front of her long enough to get all of her attention. He needed to reassure her.
“So, Hope. This is the way it is. You can sleep in as long as you want,” he said. “Breakfast will be any time you want. I just need you to know that you are as safe as safe can be here. The hotel’s security team is alerted and will let me know if anyone comes up to this floor or if there are any issues at all. The door is reinforced and alarmed and I am armed. Nothing — and trust me when I say nothing — will happen to you.”
Midnight Kiss Page 5
