Lost and Found (Masters and Mercenaries: The Forgotten Book 2)

by Lexi Blake

  Tucker’s eyes widened and he held up his hands as though surrendering as he looked Big Tag’s way. “I double wrapped. I promise.”

  “See that you continue to do so,” Big Tag said sagely. “Condoms for everyone. Well, except Robert and Owen. Unless you’re planning on experimenting. Or really getting into your role as a couple.” He leaned forward. “I know you can’t get pregnant, you two, but I still advise wearing condoms until you’re absolutely certain you’re willing to commit to each other.”

  Robert sighed and rolled his eyes. “Sure, boss. We’ll do that.”

  Big Tag frowned. “You’re no fun.”

  He’d learned how to handle Taggart. He gave the boss a smile he didn’t truly feel. “Robert wishes he could get into all this. And might I add, as husbands go, Robert makes a handsome one.”

  Robert’s lips quirked up slightly. “Thank you, Owen. I agree. I think we’ll be a lovely couple.”

  Big Tag’s laughter boomed as he stood up. “Well played, gentlemen. Don’t ever tell Adam though. Guy’s known me most of his life and still can’t resist taking the bait. I’m going to get home. I feel the sudden need to prank his ass. I’ll figure out something. You’re dismissed. I need to talk to Fain before I leave. Ariel, if you’ll join us in the office, I would appreciate it. Don’t fuck up, boys.”

  The words weren’t for him. They were meant for Robert and the rest of them. He couldn’t fuck up. His only job was to back up the better operatives. As long as he stayed awake when he was supposed to, he could do his part.

  How long before he could open the bottle of whiskey he had back in his motel room? Five o’clock? Would four be too soon? He’d gotten good at looking perfectly sober even when he damn well wasn’t.

  He knew he should stop, but he didn’t dream when he drank himself to sleep.

  How had he known about the blue of the Caribbean? It struck him suddenly that he hadn’t read about it. When he’d thought about Ezra’s eyes, he’d seen that blue in his head, had known he could see his feet, practically felt the heat of the sun and heard the surf.

  He’d been to England, Dallas, Colorado, DC, and now Toronto. None of those places had a warm beach. The closest he’d gotten to a beach was his screensaver.

  “You okay?” Robert was standing in front of him. The rest of the group was starting to shuffle out with the exception of Sasha, who was still sleeping.

  He shook his head. It must have been from a dream. Sometimes he dreamed he’d gone places he hadn’t. Typically the dreams ended with some form of brutality, some terrible death that turned out to be his fault. “I’m fine. I’ve got the movers ready for tomorrow. Nina helped decorate. She picked stuff out of a catalog. Turns out I’m crap at it.”

  Nina shrugged. “You’ve got a guy’s guy taste, meaning none whatsoever. He was way more interested in a big telly than anything else. And he was planning on skipping the couch and buying two loungers.”

  Robert stared at her. “And that’s bad, why? I don’t get the point of decorative pillows.”

  “No one is ever going to buy that you’re a couple if the place looks like a frat house,” she pointed out. “And I know perfectly well that gay couples can have bad taste, too, but it’s rare that both men in a couple are clueless. Trust me. I’ve done right by you both. I don’t suspect Becca will care about your furnishings, but she is very observant when she wants to be. Don’t forget that.”

  “You’ve spent time with her?” He couldn’t help but look back at the wall. Her picture was still there. He wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t not look at her. Perhaps it was mere curiosity. Her life was so different from what he knew of his own.

  Or maybe it was the fact that there was something in her eyes, something that threatened to pull him in.

  He was glad now that they’d changed the picture. He could handle this Rebecca Walsh better than he had the glowy, smiling one.

  “I’ve talked to her, but it’s busy in the mornings,” Nina said with a thoughtful look on her face. “I’m working the later shift a few times this week. She stops in after work and usually picks up dinner at eight p.m. She calls it in at seven thirty and walks over before she heads up to her place. That’s when you’ll have your best shot at running into her. I’ve got to warn you though, from Ariel’s profile she’s standoffish with men. I think it’s a smart idea to go the friendly route.”

  Because the other route would have been the romantic one. “If she’s not friendly, I’m not sure how Robert’s supposed to work his way in.”

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t friendly. She’s quite nice.” Nina gestured to the tablet on the table. “Read Ariel’s report. She’s got some ideas about how to get close to the target. I think she’s obsessed with her research, but she’s not cold. She seems worried about something to me.”

  “Do you think she’s capable of working with Dr. McDonald?” Tucker leaned against the desk.

  “He means work with her knowing what she was doing.” Jax had slid his phone into his pocket. “Do you think Dr. Walsh would have helped McDonald torture us?”

  Nina seemed to think about it for a moment. “Dr. Walsh is consumed with her work, and Ariel and I believe she’s motivated by losing her mother as a young woman. From what we’ve dug up, it’s obvious to both of us that she’s trying to find a cure because she watched her mother die. I don’t think she would actively harm someone, but if the damage had been done, she would likely use the research. She would justify it by thinking the pain and suffering could bring about something good.”

  “The ends justify the means,” he murmured. Unfortunately, in this case, he’d been the means. His life, his health, his past—those had been the currency that bought the research.

  Except when he thought about it, they hadn’t. How terrible was it to know that his pain had been about revenge? At least the others had a reason to have gone through what they did. He’d been a loose end she’d needed to clean up.

  He looked back at the woman on the screen. Who was she? Villain or innocent player in a game she couldn’t imagine?

  It wasn’t his place to find out.

  He sat back as Robert began talking about the mission. It was time to fade into the background.

  Chapter Two

  Becca Walsh stared at the man in front of her. Jimmy was only two years younger than she was, but there were times when it felt like there were decades between them. He stood there in his perfectly pressed slacks, his button-down, and hair he’d likely spent hours getting to look like the wind had swept it back. He was young and single and obviously ready to mingle.

  And he was obviously insane.

  “Go over the side effects again, please,” she said. Had he really thought she wouldn’t read that sucker?

  He flushed as though he’d actually thought he might get away with it. “Mild headaches, upset stomach, diarrhea, hair growth, drowsiness…”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “That is not what you said the first time.”

  The man sitting beside her chuckled. “You know she has ears, Jim. You were never going to get that past her.”

  Paul Huisman had a slight French accent, having been born and raised in Quebec. In the beginning she’d found it magical. She’d considered the idea that they might be good friends, the type who talked in bed and stuff. But she’d been on a sexual sabbatical. She’d promised to give herself two years after her divorce to get her head on straight, and that had proven to be a godsend. Sleeping with Paul would have been disastrous. He was fastidious and fussy, everything she didn’t want in a man. He’d also been angry when his father had passed him over in favor of her when he’d named a new lead in Neurological Research. They were friendly, but she knew he’d sent a report to his father detailing all the ways she wasn’t right for the job. Still, so far he’d backed her up when she needed him.

  She glanced down at the preliminary reports on the new drug they were testing. It had been a long shot in the first place, but Jimmy Lao, while young an
d shiny, was also incredibly smart and one day might revolutionize drug therapy for stroke survivors.

  But this was only his first try, and it wasn’t going to work.

  “Extreme hair growth in female patients,” she pointed out. “According to this, some of them actually grew beards.”

  “Don’t forget the chest hair.” Paul was shaking his head. “And why on earth would it cause the urine to turn pink?”

  “Some of them were hairy to start with, and it was really more of a magenta color. At least it was according to the women in the group. They were very precise about the color. I thought pink covered it. I think it was a side effect of the high beet content in the supporting meds.” Jimmy bit back a frustrated groan. “Sorry. It seemed to work well in the rats. I’ll be honest, it’s not as effective in humans. It’s not doing anything I hypothesized. The results were roughly the same as the drug therapies we use now.”

  She stood up and moved around to the young man. She knew how it felt to fail. Sometimes she thought it was her primary job. But it was important to pull yourself up off the floor, shake off the dust, and try a-freaking-gain, as she often told her kids. “This is your first try. It never works the first time. This, my friend, is the start of many, many failures. I want you to think of them as another brick in the yellow brick road. You get me?”

  He stared at her like he wasn’t exactly sure how to respond. Not a big Wizard of Oz fan, then. “So I’m not getting fired? Because you read the part about the homicidal thoughts, right?”

  “I’m fairly certain if I’d started growing hair between my toes, I would have homicidal thoughts, too.” She’d discounted those. It had only been two subjects, and all the murderous intent had been aimed toward Jimmy. Totally understandable. “Go back to the drawing board. And check and make sure all your patients go back on normal therapies. Follow up with their primary doctors and ask them to continue to check in with us so we’re certain there are no long-term effects.”

  His shoulders came down from around his ears. “Thank you, Dr. Walsh. I’ll do that. And I’ll get my team back to the drawing board. We learned a couple of things this time around. I wrote it all up for you and would welcome any notes or ideas. Thanks, Dr. Huisman.”

  He practically bounced out of the room.

  “Was I ever that young?” Paul asked with a long sigh.

  “I think I am that young and I’m asking myself the same question,” she admitted. She glanced up at the clock. Almost time to go home. She would sign all the paperwork she needed to sign, say the same things she always said—have a great evening, lots of plans, don’t party too hard—then she would get on the subway and go three whole stops to Spadina, get off the subway, walk exactly eight hundred forty-two steps to her building. She would get her normal Wednesday dinner order of a chicken salad sandwich and chips. She would ignore the bar next to the bistro with its too loud music and boisterous university students. She wouldn’t think about the fact that they were in there eating poutine—which sounded disgusting and gross, and god she wanted some because it was delicious—and she would go up to her lonely apartment. She would turn on the news and eat her dinner and tell herself that this weekend she would do something fun.

  She would end up right back here. She would work all weekend.

  It was time. It was time to stop worrying about making another terrible decision and…probably make another terrible decision. Anything was better than standing still.

  “Have you thought about the fact if you weren’t in charge of a whole department, you might have more time for a life?” Paul asked.

  They were back to this? “I have more control over my research this way.” She shoved the paperwork into her briefcase. It was time to start her sad schedule. She certainly wasn’t going to break it so Paul could try to talk her into giving up her position. Again. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I might be a little late.”

  Maybe she would stop and have breakfast. There was a place down the street that had an all crepe menu she’d been meaning to try.

  He leaned back in his chair. He was an attractive man in his late thirties with chestnut-colored hair and intelligent eyes. “You’ll be here by seven o’clock tomorrow.”

  “Probably. I do need to check on Mickey and Minnie.” She shouldn’t even try to fool herself. She wouldn’t go sit down for breakfast. She wouldn’t spend her weekend sight-seeing. She’d been living in Toronto for two years and she’d barely gotten out of The Annex. For a wild day, she would head over to the University of Toronto and give a guest lecture.

  The days were starting to seem endless. And bland. At first her “sabbatical” had been good for her. She’d healed from her divorce and gotten into the swing of her new work. She’d concentrated on her research and the charity she and Melissa and Dad had started. But now it was wearing on her…and that was good, too. It was good to want something.

  “You have interns to do that,” he pointed out, standing up and preparing to go as well. “We just brought on four more. I hired them myself. Two women and two men. One of the guys is interesting, a bit older than our usual. Tucker is a second-year medical student. He’s not a moron, so I’m sure he can make sure your rats are still alive overnight. He could even check on them over the weekend.”

  It was precisely why they had student interns. “Let’s see how it goes.”

  “All right, I know a no when I hear it. Well, I’ve got to get to Emmanuel’s school. There’s been another incident with that boy. I swear that Parker kid is a terrible influence on my son.”

  She kind of thought it was nice Emmanuel had found a friend. He was a weird kid, but then she’d been one, too. Something about him though…there was an odd darkness in the kid even though he was barely seven years old. “Don’t be too hard on him. It’s rough being the smartest kid in class. He’s younger than the rest of them, right?”

  “Only by a year,” Paul replied. “He’s bored. He should have been promoted to a proper grade for his intelligence, but his mother…well, she’s against it. I barely managed to get her to agree to let him move forward a single class. You were lucky you and Gary didn’t have children when you divorced.”

  Yes, lucky. Not that Gary had wanted children with her. He’d wanted her help in getting his career off the ground, and then he’d left her for his intern.

  She wondered if this Tucker kid was handsome. After all, it wasn’t like she was looking to get married again. A good time though…

  They walked toward the doors and she shook off the ridiculous thought. She was not dating another doctor.

  “Have a good evening, Rebecca,” Paul said with a nod as he took himself down the opposite hall.

  She trudged toward her office, a weariness invading her bones.

  “I called your order in,” her assistant said. Cathy was packing up for the day, shoving her planner into the big bag she carried. Sometimes Becca was utterly fascinated with that bag of hers. It seemed never ending. She could pull almost anything out of it. Need nail clippers? Ask Cathy. Forgot your pen? Cathy had fifteen, and in every color imaginable.

  She also had something else in that bag. A long list of eligible bachelors. Cathy was something of a matchmaker.

  “Why don’t you come home with me? I’ve got a roast that’s been cooking all day,” Cathy said. “I know having dinner with my kids, and Bob regaling you with stories of his latest policy sale isn’t what a young woman would consider fun, but at least you won’t be alone.”

  No, she would be surrounded by a happy, functional family, and that would depress her even more. “Thank you, but I’m truly fine. I have a bottle of wine and some movies I’ve been meaning to watch. I’ll talk to my dad and maybe hop on the computer and Facetime with my baby sis. I’m good with my plans, but maybe not this weekend. Maybe this weekend I should make other plans.”

  Cathy stared at her for a moment as though she knew what she would say next. “Please tell me you’re letting me off the leash.”

  Becca had to lau
gh. For two solid years, Cathy had been trying to set her on a new love path. She didn’t really want a love path, but a friendship with benefits path might be nice. “Find me a decent guy who isn’t intimidated by female success and doesn’t want to immediately impregnate me. Don’t you laugh. Men get desperate at this age. They know they’re losing their looks and they’re getting a little paunchy in the middle. The old bio clock is ticking.”

  It was precisely why she wouldn’t let Melissa set her up. Melissa only knew doctors, and she wasn’t going there again. It wasn’t that Gary had been an out-and-out asshole. He’d simply needed to be the one who shined in the relationship. He’d been hyper competitive, and having his wife beat him out for a fellowship had been the last straw. He should have had a backbone and divorced her before he started sleeping with his intern, but he had impulse control issues. He’d already married the intern, gotten her pregnant and, if rumors were true, was cheating on her with a nurse.

  And she’d thought he was Prince Charming. Yes, she’d needed these two years to figure out what she wanted, and it wasn’t Prince Charming. Prince Knows Where the Clitoris Is would be welcome. Or maybe SuperOrgasm Man was a better name.

  Cathy’s hands fluttered, her excitement evident. “I have the perfect man. He’s a lawyer and divorced but not bitter divorced. Well, not anymore. He’s a nice man, and I think he’s as lonely as you are.”

  “He sounds terrible.” He sounded like a lonely sad sack, but then she was, too. She’d eaten the same damn chicken sandwich every Wednesday night for two years. “I don’t suppose you know any hot geek boys who just want to have sex.” She should be more specific. Her people could be slow on the social uptake. “Who knows how to have sex.”

  Comic Con was coming up. Maybe she should show some cleavage and see what she could drag out of a Walking Dead panel.

  Or she could pray Cathy knew what she was doing.