Midnight Promises (Midnight series)

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Metal was very carefully washing it with an antiseptic solution and applying an antibiotic cream. “No, you’re healing really well.”

  She met his eyes. “I had really good care.”

  He nodded. “That you did.”

  “About the clinic,” she said and Metal tensed. “I don’t remember the whole thing very clearly but I got the impression that it was an...unorthodox clinic. Am I right?”

  “Hmm,” he said, body language wary.

  “Well, I’m all for unorthodox particularly when it’s in a good cause. Do you think that later I could make a donation? I accepted a contract from a company that’s keeping the Midwest fat. Do you think your doctor friend would mind if I donated the proceeds of that contract to the clinic? I’d be grateful and it would make me feel a whole lot better.”

  Sean relaxed. He applied fresh sterile gauze and was taping the edges. This strip of gauze was much smaller and she didn’t feel like The Mummy so much anymore.

  “I think he’d really appreciate that. As a matter of fact—”

  His cell, which he kept with him at all times and was on the bathroom counter, played the refrain of “Don’t Stop Believing.” “That’s HQ. Probably calling us in.”

  Yes. Good timing too. Felicity felt worlds away from the wounded woman who’d stumbled into Lauren’s home, bleeding and exhausted. The wound was healing quickly. It didn’t hurt at all. She was rested and had eaten well. Better, actually, than when she was at home.

  Just surviving had taken all her strength but now? Now she was ready to fight back. Go on the offensive. Darin DNA was courageous DNA. Her father had managed to escape from a totalitarian government. She was not going to play the victim.

  She wasn’t a warrior like Metal. But she was smart.

  “Yes,” she said. “Take the call and let’s go.”

  Chapter Nine

  Metal answered his cell with one hand while holding on to Felicity’s waist with the other.

  “Metal.” Midnight.

  “Sir.”

  “Come in to HQ. We have airport footage.” Metal felt a savage rush of pleasure course through his system. Footage. Footage meant a visual. A visual meant step one in catching the fucker who’d hurt Felicity.

  “There in twenty, sir.”

  “Wait.” He heard what sounded like a growl at the other end of the line. “It’s snowing, Metal. I want you and Ms. Ward there in one piece. There’s no ticking bomb on this. Drive like someone normal.”

  “Normal?” Metal asked philosophically. “What’s normal? Psychologists say—” but he was talking to air. Midnight had hung up.

  “So what’s up?” she asked, picking out an outfit from the clothes Lauren had brought over.

  Metal watched with sorrow as Felicity dressed, covering up that lovely body. But they had to go out and she had to be dressed to do that. He observed her carefully as he helped her put on a turquoise sweater and black pants. Her movements were smooth and seemed pain-free.

  Lauren had packed several changes of clothes in the suitcase. The two were more or less the same size, except Felicity was perhaps two inches taller. The clothes fit. She looked like a million dollars.

  Even better, she dressed without wincing once.

  “Okay, like I said, we’re going into my company’s headquarters. My bosses will be there and I think Jacko will be there too. We’ve got that footage from the airport—legally—and we’re hoping you can pick the guy out.”

  “There will be hospital footage too,” she said, pulling all that long, lovely blond hair up in a ponytail. She looked like a college student just out of high school. Fresh and bright and shiny. And determined.

  Miles away from the wounded, panicked woman who’d fallen through Lauren’s door three days ago.

  She looked so beautiful. So smart and determined. This was a woman worth saving. Worth protecting. Nobody would ever hurt her again. He was a warrior and he worked for a company of warriors. Together with his team at ASI they were going to find this guy, figure out what he wanted and either waste him or hand him over to the cops.

  Metal would rather just waste the fuck, but Bud might not approve.

  “I don’t know if they’ve got the hospital footage yet. We’ll go with what we’ve got and start to track this fu—this guy down.”

  She gave him a funny look then put on the coat Lauren had brought over. Her own coat was bloody and torn. Metal frowned. The coat was pretty but looked thin. And he didn’t have anything that wouldn’t float on her. “You going to be okay with that coat? Doesn’t look to warm to me. It’s snowing outside.”

  She smiled. “I’m 100 percent Russian. Snow is my natural habitat. I’d die in Texas or Florida.”

  Well, maybe. But Metal reached into the hall closet and pulled out a long black scarf, sniffing it surreptitiously. It passed the sniff test so he wrapped it around her neck about ten times then tied the ends together. He stepped back to admire his handiwork and kissed her on the nose. “You look fabulous.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” She scrunched her nose up at him. “I’m not sure I can move. I feel like Iron Man in his suit.”

  Metal frowned at her. Something was missing. “Gloves! God, I hope Lauren included gloves in her care package.” He rummaged around and found a pair of cashmere-lined black leather gloves. Bless Lauren. “None of my gloves would even remotely fit you.”

  He put them on Felicity himself and it pleased him on some deep and complicated level that he was making sure she would be warm and comfortable on their way to finding and wasting the fuckhead who’d attacked her.

  But she needed to be not just warm and comfortable—she needed to be unrecognizable.

  He dressed for the outdoors then grabbed her by the shoulders. She realized this was serious by the expression on his face. “Metal?”

  “This is the way it’s going to work.” He pulled a fold of the scarf up over her mouth and nose and pulled on a black wool watch cap, completely covering her hair and pulling it down to her eyebrows. He grunted with satisfaction. Only her eyes showed. Then he put a pair of his winter goggles on her. Nothing of her face or body was identifiable. Even a full face photograph wouldn’t help anyone in identifying her. “From the moment you step outside my house until we’re inside my headquarters, you’re going to have the scarf around your lower face, the watch cap pulled down over your forehead and you’re going to wear those goggles. It’s going to be uncomfortable in my SUV. Are you okay with that?”

  Her gaze was steady. “Of course.”

  His heart swelled. His scarf was itchy and though it passed the sniff test it sure didn’t smell like roses. Ditto the watch cap. She was going to be uncomfortable the entire way but she wasn’t complaining in any way. Good girl.

  “Jacko’s more paranoid than I am. He’s got this film he found on the internet and he coated the windows of his vehicle with it. It’s perfectly transparent to the naked eye from inside the vehicle. From the outside looking in, you look a little indistinct. But the great thing is that the windows are impenetrable to cameras. I have no idea how it works but I do know it works.”

  “Probably the film induces pixilation,” Felicity said. “Pretty neat.”

  “Well, that film is going onto the windows of my SUV and the house as soon as I can manage it. In the meantime—” he pointed his finger at his scarf and the cap, “¾you’re going to have to make with the improvised burka. Sorry.”

  “It’s in a good cause.” She took his hand and his heart swelled again. She shouldered her laptop backpack and turned to the door. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Felicity had no idea what to expect on reaching Alpha Security International, where Metal and Jacko worked. She knew it was a security company, of course. The Security in the title was clear. They declared up-front exactly what they were.
Totally unlike most IT companies that made a point of hiding what they did in the title. They had fun muddying the waters, calling their company Xanadoo or Purple Hat or EonWonk.

  She had an idea of what a security company did, of course. God knows she’d been around enough U.S. Marshals and FBI agents.

  Security companies provided security and the people who worked there were no-nonsense people and she imagined they worked in no-nonsense surroundings.

  Boy, was she wrong about ASI.

  When Metal drove them through gates set in eight-foot concrete walls in what looked like a rough part of town she was expecting industrial flooring and the smell of sweat and leather. Not that different from a start-up IT company. Maybe without the lollipops in big glass jars, skateboards and Foosball. These would be serious adults, after all.

  Metal himself had undergone a metamorphosis from really nice super sexy teddy bear to badass Captain America the instant they walked out his door. Some kind of switch in his head had flipped and he was like a robot that had three hundred sixty degree situational awareness and was absolutely ready for anything. She’d watched without saying anything while he put on a shoulder holster under his parka. Driving, he constantly checked rearview mirror, sideview mirrors and out both windows in a regular pattern. It would have been absolutely impossible for anyone to take them by surprise. He was silent as they drove, which didn’t surprise her. It was snowing and if she drove in this kind of weather while watching out for bad guys she’d be in a nervous sweat.

  Metal relaxed marginally once they were inside what turned out to be a compound.

  As soon as the gates rolled back together behind them, and Metal helped her down from his vehicle which wouldn’t have been out of place patrolling in Iraq during the war, they entered coolly elegant and perfumed premises, about a billion miles from what she’d been expecting.

  They entered a long corridor with terracotta tiling and terra-cotta sconces, lined with huge enameled planters full of thriving ferns interspersed with lemon trees. As someone with a black thumb, Felicity appreciated what it took to keep plants alive. A lot.

  There were several doors along the corridor but Metal went straight for the central door on the left-hand side.

  A discreet brass plaque was to the right with ASI in black italics. Metal didn’t knock or do anything. The door slid open of its own accord as soon as they were close, which was pretty neat. Had they simply been following the video cameras from inside or was it a facial recognition program?

  She was running through what kind of software would be necessary for a facial recognition program for a company that had a wide clientele when she stepped through and barely stopped from gasping.

  The lobby looked like a movie set for a sci-fi film, Minority Report maybe. Deep earth tones with neutral accents, dark wood and brass, a smooth flow to the furniture, so that it took a moment to realize this was business premises. The actual reception area was such an integral part of the look that she started when someone behind a space-age desk stood. It was a young guy, very fit, friendly looking.

  “Hey, Metal,” he said, “both bosses are waiting in the main office.” He nodded at her. “Ma’am.”

  “Great, thanks, Ron.” Metal had his hand at her back and escorted her through three sets of glass doors then stood for an instant in front of a big smooth wooden door with no insignia until it, too, slid open.

  The main office was vast and that amazing decor continued here, too, though the look had been melded with utility. High-end monitors everywhere and the familiar ozoney smell of electronics. The room was colder than the rest of the building. Of course. There must have been at least three hundred thousand dollars worth of electronics in that room and they had to be kept cool.

  “Felicity!” Lauren jumped up from a chair in the immense room, ran to her and hugged her. “I’m so glad you see you looking so well! So I guess Metal’s been taking good care of you, huh?”

  The tone was warm, caring, absolutely not suggestive but Felicity lit up like a stoplight at the memory of Metal’s tender loving care. Lauren held her shoulders and stepped back, eyes widening at Felicity’s megablush.

  “Oh.” Lauren blinked. “Oh!” Her eyes rounded and her jaw dropped. She whirled to Jacko but he was busy conferring with two older guys. They both had “boss” stamped on their foreheads in invisible ink.

  One handsome, one ugly, both scary-looking. Definitely guys you wanted on your side. Felicity hoped with all her heart that they were on her side. Jacko was on her side because of Lauren and Metal was definitely on her side because...well.

  But these two?

  Her heart was beating a little faster. These guys could help or not. She’d called in a bomb alert in a major airport and she’d stolen an ambulance. Who knew how they’d react to that?

  Well, maybe she could soften them up with her thank-you gift.

  “Honey.” Metal bent low and murmured in her ear, exerting a little pressure to the small of her back with his huge hand. He hadn’t stopped touching her since their arrival through the back entrance of his work premises. Even now, he stood so close behind her she could feel his body heat. Living reassurance.

  Felicity would have thought that he would want to keep things discreet, for professional reasons, and was perfectly prepared to have him treat her like a stranger. But no. His entire body language proclaimed that they were a couple.

  The two scary guys behind the two huge desks stood up and walked around to her. “John Huntington,” the good-looking scary guy said and shook her hand gently.

  “Douglas Kowalski,” the ugly, scarred scary guy said and, alarmingly, held out his hand. Felicity looked at it for a second. It was huge, scarred like his face, raised veins on the back. She needed her hands for keyboarding. If he squeezed her hand it would take a month to get the hand back to normal.

  But he, too, held her hand in a gentle grip for a few seconds then gave it back to her.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said to both. They were really hard to read, not that she was an expert in male psychology. Or even female psychology, for that matter.

  Still, most people either wore their emotions on their face or it was clear they were hiding something. Not Huntington and Kowalski. Their faces simply gave absolutely nothing away.

  There was a silence that would have been awkward if anyone showed awkwardness, but no one did. Except for her. She was cringing inside.

  “So, um.” She fidgeted, met Lauren’s eyes. Lauren gave her a sweet smile. Okay. “I, um, I understand that you have footage for me to go over. More than that, I, um, I understand, or rather Metal told me that, um, you guys are willing to help me.” Her voice went up, as if it was a question, even though Metal had made it clear that this wasn’t in doubt. The entire resources of his company, and apparently they were considerable, were going to be used to help her figure out why she’d been attacked and above all, to track the man down and bring him to justice. And it was all free of charge. She was a hacker and she often worked free, like all hackers, but more for the thrill of a new problem than anything else. This wasn’t a new problem, this was the oldest problem on earth. A woman in trouble.

  “That’s right, Ms. Ward,” the ugly one—Douglas—said. “We’re here to help and we’re going to be Skyping with a close friend who works at the Portland PD. So why don’t you sit down and we can get started.”

  She hoped with all her heart that the Portland PD guy didn’t want to slap handcuffs on her.

  “I’d say I don’t know how to thank you—” She held up her hand when both John and Douglas opened their mouths. “But actually I do.”

  Felicity handed John the thumb drive she pulled out of her pocket. He took it, looked it over curiously, handed it over to Douglas, who looked it over carefully too.

  Felicity pointed to the drive. “That’s a little program I wrote.”
Actually, it was a great program and worth a lot of money if she wanted to monetize it, which she didn’t. “Do you guys have an IT tech you trust? One who is really good?”

  John nodded. “We outsource our IT. We use Rajiv Anand of XTY.”

  That lobe in her head where geekhood reigned lit up like a Christmas tree. “Oh great! He is really, really good. So...I just gave you a security program. Tell him I’ll buy him a vintage 1977 Pac-Man machine in pristine condition if he can break into it. If he can’t, then that program is yours. And your in-house computer security will be completely impenetrable.”

  The two men looked at each other, then Douglas left the room with the thumb drive.

  “So, Ms. Ward—”

  “Felicity, please.” Felicity was her name of the heart. The name she’d chosen for herself. Ward had been picked by the government computers.

  John nodded soberly. He was really quite handsome if you overlooked the fact that he could probably kill you with his pinkie. He looked like a pirate with good teeth. Of course Metal could probably kill you with his pinkie too. She leaned back a little and smiled inwardly to feel his solid bulk behind her. He didn’t want to kill her with his pinkie.

  “Felicity.” John swept Metal and Jacko with his glance. “Let’s look at the footage from the airport. It just arrived and we got it only through a friend of a friend. They’re still really pissed at the false bomb alert.”

  She froze just as she started sitting down in front of a monitor and keyboard. Three men were looking at her. Lauren had disappeared somewhere. “Uh. Sorry. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

  “Oh!” John scowled. “Good God, don’t misunderstand me. That was really quick thinking. I wasn’t blaming you, I was just saying why it took us a while to get the footage. Actually you were amazingly quick-witted. You saved your own life. That’s worth a little chaos at the airport. So let’s look at it. We’re expecting the hospital footage any moment.”

  Any moment? If she hadn’t been recovering and, um, otherwise engaged with Metal, she’d have had that footage yesterday.