by Lucy Monroe
“Right.”
“You’ll get it, Casey. One of these days.”
“How can you be sure?”
“My family is made up of brainiacs. Don’t let Elle’s job fool you. She’s as smart as the rest of them. Hell, even my Special Forces big brother has a degree in biochemistry. He was going pre-med but discovered talents in another area, I guess.”
“But they’re probably all gorgeous and confident like Ms. Gray.”
Myk snorted at that description of his sister. It might be accurate, but come on. This was his sister Casey was idolizing. “She’s special, all right,” he said with sarcasm overlying his sincerity.
Casey didn’t notice the sarcasm. “I’m not like that.”
“Sure you are.”
“You don’t know me. How can you say that?” The kid looked so hopeful.
So, Myk looked him straight in the eye and told the truth. “Because Lana really cares about you and she doesn’t get close to many people. That makes you special already.”
Casey seemed to mull that over for several seconds and then nodded. “Thanks. I never looked at it that way before. Lana doesn’t have a lot of friends because she rebuffs people. I forget that sometimes and think she accepts my friendship because she doesn’t have any other options. But she does.”
That knowledge seemed to make Casey really happy. “Uh…she told me I should ask this woman out. You know, that I’m interested in.”
“Why don’t you?”
“She’s older than me. I don’t care, but what if she does?”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“She’s so smart.”
Oh, man. Seriously? Dr. Casey Billings, child prodigy, was worried about being brainy enough? “So are you.”
“She’s gorgeous.”
“I’ve been told on good authority that the boy-next-door look really works for women.”
“You have?”
“Yep.”
“By who?”
“My former DEA partner. The man and you could have come from the same gene pool and before Elena roped him in, that man dated his way through half the female population of southern California.”
“You’re not just saying that? Making it up?”
“Scout’s honor.”
“Were you a Scout?”
“I was, as a matter of fact. An Eagle Scout.”
“Wow. That’s cool.”
“It was then.”
“You don’t think so now?”
“There are a lot of years and even more experiences between the boy I was then and the man I am now.”
“Lana likes you.”
“I know.”
“You like her, too.”
“I do.”
“You’re honest. That’s really cool.”
“When I can be.”
“It must be hard to have a deep core of honor and do undercover work.”
The kid really was insightful. “You know a lot about me.”
“I work with Lana. She thinks out loud.”
“Is this woman you are interested in honest, too?”
Casey nodded vehemently. “Yes.”
“Then if you ask her out and she says yes, you’ll know she wants to go. If she says no and that it’s because she doesn’t date coworkers, you’ll know she’s being truthful.”
“But I still won’t have a date with her,” Casey said glumly.
“No, but you’ll know you have a chance.”
“You mean I shouldn’t just give up. Respect her boundaries?”
“There are boundaries and then there are obstacles you need to overcome.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A boundary is her telling you she doesn’t like you that way and she doesn’t want to see you. An obstacle is her believing you’re a bad risk because you work with her or that you’re too young. You just have to show her that she’s wrong.”
“Wow. You really know women.”
“I really know how to go after what I want.”
“My boss doesn’t stand a chance, does she?”
“Nope.”
“I prefer the term colleague. We collaborate, Casey. Even if I am technically your boss.” Lana was eyeing them both with an expression Myk could not quite decipher.
Her countenance was no more readable when she opened the door to her apartment after he followed her home.
He’d snuck into her building, though it was admittedly a little more difficult than the average “secure” apartment building in the same price range. He wasn’t surprised she’d chosen a secured community after what she’d been through, but he was impressed with her acumen in choosing this one.
He’d only had to knock once before she opened the door.
She gave him that unreadable look. “I thought you might come up. Though I was expecting to get a visitor call from the security desk downstairs.”
“I wouldn’t be worth my badge if I couldn’t sneak past a one-person security desk.” Even if said desk had a bank of video monitors receiving feeds from several cameras set around the building.
“I shopped around a long time with Mr. Smith’s help before I found this building. It’s got better security than most.”
The mention of Mr. Smith yet again set Myk’s hackles rising. “I agree, but nothing is foolproof. Not even my sister’s systems.”
“Because there’s always someone you can buy off,” Lana said, repeating his words from earlier.
“Exactly.”
“Maybe you’re wrong, maybe there isn’t a single person on the security force at ETRD that could be convinced or coerced into betraying the company’s secrets.”
“If that was true, the Vega Cartel would not have your notes.”
She sighed before leading him into her living room. “You have a point.”
“Nice place.” He wouldn’t have thought a head geek like Lana was into interior design, but her home looked put together enough to have been done by a professional.
It was definitely her style, though. A trio of framed prints of black-and-white early versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse graced the wall above the fireplace. The sofa, loveseat, and armchair were all Disney yellow. The throw pillows were black-and-white images of other Disney characters. The coffee table and end tables were glass tops on red enamel painted metal bases.
For all the bright color and the Disney theme, it wasn’t cluttered with tchotchkes that would have made it feel over the top.
“Thank you.”
He shrugged. “You don’t like acknowledging there are basely selfish people in this world, do you?”
“Not working for the same company I am. Honestly? It’s an unwelcome reminder that your life can be bought for five hundred dollars.” She indicated he should take a seat. “Would you like a drink?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” He settled onto the sofa, which was surprisingly comfortable.
Even more surprising was that she took the other end rather than sitting away from him. She was not a woman who hid from her feelings. He liked that.
“Five hundred dollars? Are you talking about the bet you’ve got going with Casey? Which you are going to lose, by the way.”
“Arrogant.” She shook her head, but a smile tilted her lips. “No, I wasn’t talking about Casey.”
“What then?”
The ghost of a smile became a memory. “I was dating him.”
“Who?” But he had a bad feeling.
“The boy who sold me out to the Kurdish rebels as the answer to their chemical warfare prayers.”
Well, shit. “You were dating him?”
“A couple of times. We even had sex. It wasn’t great. Maybe that’s why he preferred five hundred dollars and a few pills of E over me.”
She’d lost eight months of her life and endured horrors only she knew about for a lousy five hundred bucks. Wasn’t that just like life? Damn it, anyway.
She shrugged, as if to say it wasn’t that big of a deal. “I g
uess you would see that kind of thing a lot working for the INS. One person valuing another person’s life in terms of a few dollars and/or drugs.”
“Yes.” Though he would never tell her about drug lords who considered children expendable in their efforts to make a few more dollars, or coyotes who would take not only the money but the lives of the people they promised safe passage across the border. “How do you know how much the Kurds paid for you?”
“Because I asked.”
“Your captors?”
“No. My former boyfriend, after I got back in the States. I looked Artie up. I wanted to see his face when I told him what I’d gone through.” She stopped talking, looking haunted.
“It didn’t work out that way, did it?”
Lana shook her head. “I was going to regale him with every indignity, each moment of terror, each horror perpetrated against me to gain my cooperation in creating weapons I don’t believe in.” She hugged herself, her eyes developing a suspicious sheen. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell him about my ordeal because he didn’t care. I could see it in his eyes. He didn’t even try to lie when I asked what he’d gotten for information about me, for luring me to a place where it was easy to kidnap me.”
“Was he wasted?” It was just a guess, but she’d said the man had accepted E as part of his payment. No way had he been setting himself up as a dealer with a few pills of Ecstasy, which meant they were for Artie’s own use.
“Yes.”
“Figures.”
“Does it? I sure wasn’t expecting it. He wasn’t an addict when we were in school. At least I don’t think he was. I certainly didn’t know he did drugs, but when I went to see him? He hadn’t bathed in days. His apartment was a sty. He couldn’t focus. He could barely stand up. He was a mess. An ugly, pathetic mess whose once-intelligent brain wasn’t capable of basic addition, much less dealing with the conundrum of a woman he thought he would never see again standing on his doorstep.” The tears in her eyes spilled over and she dropped her chin, her hair falling like a curtain between them. “Even after everything I went through, I think I ended up better off than Artie. I wanted to hate him, but all I could do was pity him. Talk about pathetic.”
Her shoulders shook, though her crying was silent.
Myk was terrible with a woman’s tears, but he manned up. “Come here, sweetheart.”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine in a minute.”
To hell with that. He reached out and hauled her into his arms, careful not to hurt, but refusing to be denied.
Far from fighting being in his arms, Lana buried her face in his chest. “I really wanted to hate him, Myk.”
“Just like you wanted to hate the men who died when you made your break for freedom.”
“Yes,” she whispered against his chest.
He tucked her more securely against him and rubbed the feminine line of her back. “I’m not a hugely religious guy, sweetheart, but Papa is a good Ukrainian Orthodox and he taught us that the Bible says to love your enemies. I think your ability to feel compassion for yours is a strength, not a weakness.”
“But I killed those men.” She looked up, her eyes filled with a pain he understood. “What does that say for my beliefs about war?”
“It says that you’re no martyr. They had no right to take you prisoner, or torture you until you did what they wanted.”
“I never said I was tortured.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The sobs came then, interspersed between revelations that tore at his heart and fed the ball of fury against injustice inside him. So many innocents hurt because people with power pushed their agendas forward without thought for what or who they destroyed. Drug lords, slavers, corrupt leaders, they all made the world a damn mess. But then there were people like Lana.
A woman who felt sorry for the man who had betrayed her and mourned the men who had died in her bid for freedom.
“You make the world a better place,” he whispered against her hair as she sobbed. He didn’t know if she heard, but he had to say the words. She deserved them.
He let her cry it out, never once telling her to hush or let it go. Who knew if she’d ever talked this out with anyone? He felt nothing but honored that she’d chosen to open up to him.
Later, he retrieved his laptop and bags from his car while she slept the sleep of the exhausted on the sofa. He set his computer up on the dining room table, a retro table with a Formica top and metal frame. The four chairs were covered in glitter red vinyl. The prints in here were in color, but were still Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
It was another cheerful room that he was doubly impressed Lana had been able to create after what she’d gone through in that Kurdish prison lab.
He was checking his e-mail when the cell phone buzzed against his hip.
He read the caller ID and grimaced before answering. “Myk here.”
“Agent Chernichenko, how are things going?”
“I sent a report last night, Whitmore. I will be sending another one in a few minutes.”
“I’m used to my agents calling in occasionally.”
“I prefer e-mail, sir.”
“You’d prefer to be working for just about anyone else.”
Myk didn’t bother to deny it.
Instead of being offended by Myk’s silent agreement, Elle’s former boss chuckled. “You’re very loyal.”
Again, that was self-evident, so Myk didn’t see the need to add verbal agreement.
“I’d like to think your loyalties extend to The Goddard Project.”
“If you didn’t think they did, you shouldn’t have hired me.”
“If I didn’t think they did, I wouldn’t have.”
“Did you call for a reason, Whitmore?”
“Is that any way to talk to your boss?”
“When my boss is wasting my time, it is.”
“You’ve got a real chip on your shoulder.”
“No, what I’ve got is a woman I refuse to lose to a stinking drug cartel. I need to spend my time working the case, not trading verbal barbs with my superior.”
“You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.”
“I’d rather you gave me confirmed locations on Anibal Vega and his lieutenant.”
“You assume he won’t delegate oversight of this job further down the food chain?”
“That’s what my gut is telling me.”
“Are your instincts as good as your sister’s?”
“Better.”
Whitmore laughed again, this time with a lot more humor. “Your sister would contest that.”
“No doubt.”
“Have you been in contact with Alan Hyatt?”
“The agency’s research virtuoso?”
“Virtuoso. He’ll like that one. Have you spoken to him?”
“I’ve e-mailed him and it looks like I’ve got an answer in my in-box.”
“So, it’s not personal that you don’t call in? You really do prefer e-mail correspondence.”
“No, it is. And yes, I do.”
“Watch it, Myk. I respect cowboy agents with the balls to back up their attitude as much as the next man, but I won’t allow a lack of respect from my agents.”
“I may not like you, Whitmore, but you can damn bet I respect you, or I wouldn’t be working for you.”
“You needed an agency to back up your attempt to protect your sister.”
“I could have gone independent.”
“But you chose not to.”
“Elle isn’t the only one at risk here.”
“Underneath all that bluster, you’re an idealist, aren’t you? You want to catch the bad guys and put them away, not just protect your sister.”
“Lana’s the idealist.”
“The scientist on the alchemy project?”
“Yes.”
“You’re on a first-name basis with her?”
“I don’t like to stand on ceremony.”
“Smith said she might be a pr
oblem when it comes to curtailing outside activities to protect her.”
“Did you tell Mr. Smith that I was here on a TGP case?” Myk asked instead of responding to Whitmore’s comment.
“We spoke about it, yes. You and I agreed you would tell Elle and Frank the truth. I assumed Smith would be brought into the loop sooner than later.”
“Regardless, you should have warned me you were going to contact Mr. Smith and what the nature of your conversation would be.”
“I don’t think so.” Oooh, now his new boss sounded pissed.
But Myk was in the right. “I am the agent in charge on this case, which makes all contact with principals under my jurisdiction. While you are my boss, you are not working this case. Any contact you have with Mr. Smith, or anyone else connected to ETRD for that matter, needs to be reported to me. From this point forward, I want all communication with Mr. Smith run by me before you engage.”
Several seconds of silence met Myk’s words. Finally Whitmore sighed. “I don’t like admitting it, but you’re right. At least about my needing to report the conversation I had with Smith. I’ll have an e-mail detailing it off to you within the hour. However, I have no intention of getting your approval prior to speaking to Smith, or anyone else.”
“If you and Smith are old friends, that’s your call, but I don’t want you discussing the case with him.”
“He owns ETRD. Of course I’m going to discuss the case with him.”
“TGP isn’t here in response to a request from him. That makes him a principal, not a liaison.”
“The hell you say.”
“Take a step back and consider for a second here, Whitmore. This is the third TGP case in little more than a year centered on the same company.”
“What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying. I’m saying that Mr. Smith has access to all the technology at his brainchild as well as contacts we can’t begin to guess at.”
“You think he’s a suspect?”
“I think he can’t be ruled out just because he used to work with you.”
“Smith would never sell his own people out that way.”
“Right.”
“He’s going to laugh his ass off when I tell him you suspect him.”
“You tell him and I’ll instigate an internal audit of TGP.”
