MaryJanice Davidson - UC Anthology - Sweet Strangers

by UC Anthology(lit)

  "Really, Renee."

  "Uh…" She fell back on her trademark statement. "It's been a crazy week?"

  "What in the world are you doing back here? Tell me you didn't come here to return PaceIC."

  "Uh…"

  "And after all the trouble I went to," Dr. Foster scolded, folding her arms across her chest and looking not unlike a stern schoolteacher. "Disabling the security sensors and slipping it into your bag and telling Dr. Jekell you used your security access to steal it. Then you bring it back?"

  "Oh, here we go," Eric muttered. He tightened his grip on her hand. Good thing, too, because she was suddenly in a punching mood.

  "I don't care if you are bigger than me," Renee snapped. "I'm kicking your ass all over this conference room! D'you have any idea what you've put me through?"

  "Irrelevant."

  "What?"

  "Oh, sorry," Dr. Foster said coolly. "Irrelevant means unimportant, or immaterial. It's—"

  "I know what it means, IQ!"

  "Maybe you could help us out," Eric panted, restraining Renee with difficulty. "We're trying to figure out why your boss has gone completely crazy over PaceIC."

  "Ah, so that's why you're here. And I just thought you were looking for a convenient place to couple."

  "Our coupling is none of your damned business!"

  Dr. Foster stepped back to avoid Renee's kick. "It is when you do it in the corporate boardroom. I swear, I will never understand why people who are reasonably intelligent… never mind."

  "Did you hear that?" Renee said to Eric. "She called us reasonably intelligent!" She pretended to wipe away a tear. "So touching… but I promised myself I wouldn't cry…"

  "Enough facetiousness."

  "I have no idea what you just said," Renee admitted.

  "If you're thinking you'll break into Dr. Jekell's office and crack open his laptop, you'll never get into the system, not with all the upgrades he's forced on us in the last seventy-two hours. Consider yourself lucky I happened to see you on the monitors before anyone else."

  "How could you—"

  "I have a feed into my computer station in the lab," she explained. "It runs five minutes ahead of the feed Security gets."

  "You bitch!"

  Foster didn't blink. "If you're going to work for a sociopath, it pays to have information before he does. Count your blessings I came ahead to warn you. Now please leave, and be sure to take PaceIC with you."

  Renee restrained herself from saying, "Nyah, nyah, we didn't bring it, so there!" Instead, she glowered at IQ and worked on prying Eric's fingers from her elbow.

  "Why?" Eric asked.

  Foster had already turned to leave, but now she paused and turned back. "He doesn't want to sell it," she explained, pushing her glasses farther up onto her nose. "Didn't you know? The biggest pacemaker manufacturer in the world is in China, and they made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Bury PaceIC, let them make the clunky mechanical pacemakers for another ten years, and they'd make it worth his while."

  Renee practically heard the click as everything—finally—fell into place. "So for a pretty penny he keeps the lid on PaceIC?"

  "Six billion."

  "Damn!" she and Eric said in unison.

  "Per year."

  "That sneaky son of a bitch." Eric wasn't entirely able to keep the grudging admiration out of his tone. It wasn't lost on Dr. Foster, who fixed them both with a freezing glare.

  "I didn't work eighty-hour weeks for six years so that conscienceless bastard could hide my invention from the public. So people who can be cured with a single injection must suffer through an invasive operation that doesn't always work. So the Jackal can make money."

  Yikes. Renee refrained herself from taking a step back. Foster—the Ice Queen herself!—looked like she was going to spontaneously combust. Her glasses had slid down her nose again, and she batted them back up in a quick, savage gesture. Her hand, Renee saw, was trembling.

  She had nice hands, for a lab geek. Long, with the thin tapering fingers of a pianist or surgeon. And why would those shaking fingers make her think of the personnel files in Security? Sure, she read everyone's files when they were hired, and read them again when she had Random run background checks on them, but why was she thinking about that now?

  She was the only fourteen-year-old in my college sophomore advanced chem class.

  Sure, Foster was a genius, everyone knew that, but why couldn't she get the mental image of Dr. Foster's personnel folder out of her head?

  I also knew about her folks.

  "Dr. Foster. Didn't I read somewhere that your folks died of heart failure? Both of them? Like, within a year of each other?"

  Instantly, Foster was calm again, almost glacial. The transformation was startling to watch, and Renee felt Eric take her hand again. This time, she let him. She even squeezed back.

  Dr. Foster smoothed her hair back with her palms, then stuffed her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. "It doesn't matter now," she said, perfectly calm. "If you don't mind some advice, Renee—"

  "Advice from the woman who turned my life into a train wreck? Sure, bring it on."

  "—take PaceIC to my friend Jennifer."

  "Turn it over to the FDA?"

  "No, to Jennifer, who happens to work for the FDA. She's actually quite a good scientist. She has the skills to reverse engineer it and see that an appropriate company—ah—finds it and puts out their own version within the year. Anodyne can still make plenty of money off it, they just won't be able to hide it for a decade."

  "Well… that seems like a good plan, but… why me? Why didn't you take care of this yourself? Why wreck my life?"

  "It doesn't seem terribly wrecked," she said, looking Eric up and down.

  Renee ground her teeth. "Well, why not go work somewhere else? Why destroy my reputation just to stay here?"

  "Better yours than mine," she sniffed. "And I still need Jekell's trust I have more work to do here."

  She neatly sidestepped Renee's crescent kick. "You don't have time for this nonsense," she added emotionlessly. "They're here."

  Renee stopped in mid windup, just as Eric grabbed her elbow. "Argh, you're cutting off the circulation. Ease up."

  "Did you say they're here?"

  Renee looked up at him. "After you had that fight with Random, when he knew you weren't going to help him, you went back to your hotel room."

  "Sure, I had to. Because—"

  "Giving Random plenty of time to put a tracer on your rental car. He'd know what it looked like; he probably met you at the airport."

  "Well, yeah, but come on. You're saying he just drives around with a box full of tracers, so anytime he wants he can just—oh, shit, of course he does, he works for the Prince of Darkness. Shit. Shit!"

  "Enthralling. But ultimately boring. Good luck," Dr. Foster said, and walked out.

  "Christ," Eric said, shutting the door behind her and hurrying to the window. "That's the most terrifying person I've ever met."

  "And she's on our side. I think. Remind me to track her down and wring her neck later. Stupid, stupid! I should have realized Random would have a way to keep track of you. God, where is my head this week?"

  "Don't be so hard on yourself," Eric said, peeking through the blinds. "You've been distracted. Falling in love will do that."

  She snorted. "Sure. That's exactly what the problem is. Me, I'm starting to think I deserved to get bounced from Security."

  "Oh, quit it. I had ten years with the NSA and it never occurred to me to put a bugkiller in the rental car, so don't feel bad."

  "Actually, that does cheer me up a bit. But now what, ace? I mean, no way am I giving PaceIC back now. Which is probably something I shouldn't share with Peter or Dr. Jekell."

  "No shit. What's the quickest way out of here?"

  "The front door."

  "Besides that."

  "Well… we are only two stories up…"

  "Forget it. I'm done with stunts for the day."

/>   "There's a private elevator in Dr. Jekell's office; it dumps us off in the back and we could slip out that way."

  "Fine." He grabbed her hand and ran out the door and down the hallway. She noticed for the first time that he had buttoned his shirt wrong, and put a hand over her mouth to hide the grin.

  "What a day," he groaned.

  "Welcome to my world."

  "What kind of locks do you have on these offices?"

  She jogged beside him. Hand in hand! Aww, it was so romantic. If she wasn't a nervous wreck about Random practically breathing down her neck, she might have taken a minute to appreciate the situation.

  But now that she knew what was at stake—the cardiac health of zillions of people!—she felt like she would vomit very soon. Possibly within the next two minutes. It had been confusing, but less frightening, when she just thought Jekell took her for an ordinary thief.

  "Renee?"

  "Sorry—um, just standard locks. It's a lot harder to get into the files and the computers than just the doors."

  "Good. Here." He gently pushed her against the wall, out of the way, then raised a leg and kicked, hard, just below the doorknob. "Ow!"

  "Probably should have put your shoes back on after we had sex," she suggested helpfully.

  "I think I just broke my foot."

  Don't laugh. It probably hurts like hell. Don't you dare laugh.

  She cleared her throat. "Here, stand back, I'll take care of it."

  "Like Hell. I'm a modern man, but even I've got my pride." He stared down at his bare feet. "All right, we'll do it together, on three. One… two… three!"

  The door flew inward with a satisfying crash and they jumped inside. Renee turned just in time to see Peter Random running straight toward them, and the short, bulky form of Dr. Jekell was right behind him.

  She slammed the door shut, but of course it wouldn't lock.

  "The elevator is behind that door, there; it looks like a coat closet. Foster was right, here they come!"

  Eric wrenched open the door, already reaching for the buttons, and saw the elevator doors.

  Along with the out of order sign taped across them.

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  « ^ »

  "Shit!"

  "You say that a lot," she commented.

  "Actually, I don't. Just today, I guess. What kind of a top executive doesn't get his personal elevator fixed?"

  "The cheap kind."

  He spun away from the doors and got behind Jekell's desk. He set his weight and began to push it across the carpet. Renee was impressed; the thing was mahogany and weighed as much as a Volkswagen. She moved out of the way just as he slid it against the door, which promptly rattled in its frame.

  "Cough it up, you bitch!" Dr. Jekell.

  "Come on, Renee, quit jerking us off." Random.

  "It's nice to be popular," she commented.

  "Assholes," Eric muttered. He was walking in a tight circle and she noticed the way his gaze flicked from one spot to another—door, door, window, bathroom door, ego wall, picture frames, window. Assessing targets. It was kind of sexy, if nerve-racking. She was pretty sure he hadn't been doing that while they were horizontal in the conference room, but there was no way to—"Thank God you ran into me today."

  "Oh, I was just thinking that," she said sarcastically. She flinched as the door rattled in its frame again. Jekell was short, but built like a fire hydrant and about as thickheaded. She had no doubt he'd get the door open in the next few minutes, especially with Peter Random's help. "Let's blow this joint, what do you say?"

  "Working on it," he muttered.

  She crossed the room, jerked up the shades, and pointed. "Look. That building? It's the custodian's storehouse."

  Eric came swiftly to her side and looked down at the small, square building on the ground. "What is that, about a ten-foot drop?"

  "Yeah. Then we can get to the ground from that roof, and hotfoot it to the car. It'll hurt, but we probably won't break anything." She shoved the window, but it only popped out about six inches.

  "Renee, let us in right now, you fucking bitch!"

  She flinched. She couldn't help it. In her entire life, no one had ever spoken to her like that, in a tone of such venomous hatred. Certainly no one she'd ever worked for.

  Eric was looking at her with some concern, and she forced a smile. "Kind of sounds like my grandpa before we put him in the home."

  "Uh-huh. Stand back." He picked up the desk chair and, when she stepped away, swung it into the window, which shattered with a satisfying crash. He pulled off his suit jacket, which made his misbuttoned clothing and mussed hair even more noticeable, and laid it over the windowsill. "Lie down over this. I'll lower you down."

  The desk started to slide away from the door and she could hear Peter and Jekell grunting as they braced their weight and pushed. Renee climbed through the window, wriggled around, and hung from the sill. Eric grabbed her wrists and lowered her as far as he could reach, then let go. She dropped about eight feet to the roof of the shack and rolled away, giving Eric room. He hit the roof about three seconds later.

  "Have I mentioned how much I fucking hate heights?" he asked through gritted teeth, helping her to her feet.

  "No. Really? You hate heights? But today you've been—"

  "Following you through every damned window in the world, God help me." He looked up at the window they'd just climbed from, and shuddered. "At least it wasn't as far as it was when we jumped to the skyway this afternoon."

  "Yeah, yeah. Come on, let's get down. I doubt those two will follow, but…"

  "Come back here, you bitch!"

  "Boy, would I like to shove the barrel of my gun in that guy's mouth," Eric muttered.

  "Where is your gun?"

  "I don't have a carry permit for this state," he admitted sheepishly.

  She laughed; she couldn't help it. "Not very heroic."

  "What, obeying gun laws? Au contraire."

  It was a perfectly still night, not a breath of wind, and thus she could hear very plainly when Jekell uttered the words that froze her blood: "Shoot them, you idiot."

  "Get to the ground," Eric murmured. "Quickly." He stood protectively in front of her while she hurried to the edge of the roof.

  Random's voice was uncharacteristically nervous. "I'm not shooting a woman, no matter how big a pain in my ass she's been."

  "Give me that!" Jekell sounded far more focused.

  She got down, rolled over, and slid over on her stomach. Again, Eric gripped her wrists. "You know him better than I do," he said, lowering her down. "Will he shoot?"

  They both heard the whine of bullets at the same time. She saw Eric's shirt collar twitch and screamed at the near miss.

  "Guess that answers that," he said lightly.

  She took a deep, gulping breath. So close! Three inches to the right and his blood would be raining down into her face. "For sixty billion dollars, he'd shoot his grandma. Now let go and get down here!"

  They heard a tussle, and Random shouting. Then another shot.

  "Shit! Felt the wind of that one, too. Off you go." He let go, and for the twentieth time in six hours, she dropped. Her luck finally caught up with her; she felt the stab of pain race up her ankle and settle in her knee.

  "Hurry up!" she cried, trying to stand and failing. "Get down here!"

  Jekell appeared interested in emptying the clip into either one of them; luckily, like most desk jockeys, he was a terrible shot. Still, she was terrified and wouldn't relax until Eric was beside her on the ground. Funny. She thought she'd been scared before today, but that was nothing to how she felt now, while the man she loved was dodging bullets.

  The tree behind her was shaking, but that was the only evidence that the Jackal was killing anything. She imagined the near misses were dumb luck—hers and his.

  Eric landed beside her with an "Oof!" and grabbed her hand. She yelped when he tried to pull her to her feet. "What's wrong? Are you h
it?"

  "My ankle. Landed wrong—can you believe it? Get—hey!" He bent and scooped her into his arms like a child. "Eric, for crying out loud, I weigh a ton. You can't haul me around like a toddler."

  "Watch me."

  He took two steps, and then the spot beam was in their eyes and he nearly dropped her.

  "Police! Hold it right there!"

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  « ^

  "Ummmmm."

  "Good?"

  "Ohhhh, yeah. Do that again."

  "Beg me."

  "Please, please do that again. I'll die if you don't."

  Eric leaned forward and dropped another Godiva truffle into her open mouth. Renee chewed, her eyes rolling blissfully. Chocolate was better than codeine, any day. Besides, her ankle hardly hurt anymore. A mild sprain, at worst.

  He smiled at her. "Chocoholic, huh?"

  "Let's put it this way: I need it like diabetics need insulin."

  "I'll keep it in mind." He rolled over on his back and stretched. It was the next evening. Renee had had about fourteen hours of sleep; they were comfortably ensconced in the Hyatt and had just gorged themselves downstairs at the Oceanaire Seafood Room. She was quite sure she would never be able to look at a crab leg again.

  After the police had taken their statements and let them go, Eric had insisted she accompany him to a new hotel. He checked all the exits and made her swear up and down she wouldn't slip out on him in the middle of the night. It was touching, as only rampant paranoia can be.

  He yawned and pulled her close for a quick snuggle. "I still can't believe Dr. Foster called the cops," he said to the top of her head.

  She swallowed the truffle and looked longingly at the gold box beside Eric. No, eight was probably enough. "Me neither. Here I thought she left us on our own, when she was actually sending for the cavalry. Thank God. I thought Dr. Jekell was going to have an embolism on the spot."

  "He's lucky I didn't kick his ass on the spot," Eric said darkly. "Piece of shit crook, shooting at my girl."

  "Actually, it looked to me like he was shooting at you. Badly, of course, but still…"