Trouble with Nathan

by Anna J. Stewart

  “Me, either. Give me a few with the kid’s computer.” He pulled out a small flash drive. “Thanks to one of Malcolm’s programs, I should be able to get beyond their firewall and leave them a few presents. I should know where Manville’s office is in a few.”

  “Yeah.” Laurel shrugged out of her coat and draped it over the back of one of the chairs with her purse, wandering the expansive room. She shivered, not liking the feel of this place at all. An obsessively arranged array of framed photographs and maps took up most of the space on either side of a triple-wide bookcase behind an obnoxiously ornate and polished desk. There was nothing personal here, nothing that gave her any insight into Miles Trailavan and how they might deal with him, aside from an ego-sized name plaque sitting on the edge of the desk. The only other thing that caught her attention was a glass case on the corner of his desk housing what looked like three handblown shot glasses. One was upside down as if in surrender, the other had a thin layer of what looked like black carbon dust coating it while the third remained pristine and untouched in the middle.

  She didn’t see anything of interest on the shelves of the bookcase, just typical leather bound editions of books that looked to have never been opened. Showpieces, not memories, not favorites. Just . . . cold. And the photographs, most of which were black-and-white, displayed a surprising social life, one he took pride in given the brass plaques beneath each noting dates and names. Dignitaries, Fortune 500 company CEOs, a former governor standing next to . . .

  An all too familiar skeletal form that reminded her of the Grim Reaper minus the scythe.

  “Nathan?

  “Yeah, I’m nearly done downloading. Malcolm’s program will destroy any video anywhere on the network within an hour. I was able to get into the main server and hack into Trailavan’s computer. I can’t find a listing for Alastair’s office, though.”

  “Nathan, come here.” That she could sound so calm stunned even her. Her ears roared as she stared into the frames.

  “What is it?” He hurried away from the computer to join her at the wall.

  She pointed at one of the plaques, her mind puzzling around the words as if she were caught in a whirlwind of letters and confusing information. “That’s Manville.” She tapped a finger against the glass. “Even if I hadn’t met him five years ago, I’d have recognized him from the photo your father gave me.”

  “So?” Nathan frowned. “We knew Alastair and Trailavan were connected, remember?”

  “No. Nathan, you’re not hearing me.”

  The computer beeped. “Download’s done.” He hurried back to Eric’s desk and started pounding on the keyboard while Laurel examined the bookcase more closely, the unease she’d been struggling against expanding into full-fledged panic. She ran her fingers along the edges of the shelf. There, in the middle section, center shelf. She flicked the switch.

  And jumped back as the panels separated, exposing a large metal door secured with heavy hinges and an industrial keypad.

  “Laurel, what did you—”

  “It’s him.” She grabbed the name plaque, knocking over the glass case holding the shot glasses. Three shot glasses . . . three old “friends.” She could barely breathe. “Nathan, there is no Miles L. Trailavan.” She grabbed hold of his arm as he joined her. “It’s an anagram. For Alastair Manville.”

  Instead of sharing her panic, a determined light flashed in his eyes. “You mean this is Alastair’s office?”

  She nodded. “We need to get out of here.” This was too close to the fire. She wasn’t ready, they weren’t ready to face Alastair head-on, not without a plan.

  “We’re not losing this opportunity,” Nathan insisted.

  “What opportunity?” Laurel all but shrieked. “Unless you have some psychic insight into what the code to this monstrosity might be—”

  “Maybe I do.” He punched in 9-7-7-6. The lock clicked. He pulled down on the lever and wrenched open the door.

  Her head went light. Laurel sagged against him. “How did you—”

  “Helpful Eric has a password notebook in his top drawer. Almost every listing has those numbers.” He grinned. “I took a chance.”

  The small metal-encased room was lined with shelves filled with aged and pristine artifacts, some she recognized from her work with TransUnited. All those pieces that had never been recovered, all the reports she’d been forced to provide. This was what she’d helped to do. She swallowed the nausea in her throat.

  Nathan stepped toward the small table in the center of the room and the security coded briefcase on top of it. He reached for the dials.

  “Nathan, no.” She grabbed his arms as he walked into the room. “There’s no way it’s this easy.” Alastair wasn’t stupid. He was a chess player. He planned every move ahead.

  He’d been planning every move for years. She looked behind her to the chess board.

  The tipped-over queen. Laurel dragged her gaze up the wall to the small camera perched in the top corner, red light blinking as the lens focused and whirred toward them. “We have to go. Now.”

  “It has to be the crown,” he insisted. “What else would he keep locked up in there?”

  “Of course it is, and trust me, this is exactly what Alastair hoped for. Leave it alone!” But it was too late. Nathan grabbed hold of the handle and yanked it off the table.

  The alarm that ripped through the air had her covering her ears. Lights inside the vault flashed as the bookcase began to slide closed. She dived back, dragging Nathan with her, but his arm got caught as the vault door was pushed closed. “Drop it!” Laurel yelled, barely able to think above the screaming bells.

  He let go and tripped back as she grabbed her purse and jacket and raced toward the fire exit.

  ***

  “How well do you know this security system?” Laurel asked as they plunged down the metal stairs to the lobby floor.

  “Well enough that I sent the designers a few emails about its flaws.” Nathan glanced back to see her clutching her shoes, purse, and jacket against her chest. Sixteen floors suddenly felt like six hundred. Damn. He should have listened to her about the crown but he’d just wanted this over. “But it won’t be of much help to us in this instance.”

  “We have to find a way out of here.”

  “I’m way ahead of you.” An exaggeration. His excursions as Nemesis hadn’t done much to prepare him for escaping a fully occupied, security-enriched fortress of a think-tank conglomerate. They were going to have to wing it.

  They slowed down as they reached the lobby floor. He pressed himself against the wall so he could angle a look out the small pane of glass in the stairwell door. Above them the alarm continued to clang as he felt the vibration of a door slamming shut as shouts and orders echoed. He looked at Laurel, huddled behind him, and pressed a finger against his lips. She glared at him like a cranky three-year-old.

  He placed his hand on the doorknob, ready to dash through the lobby. Two armed security guards emerged from the office beside the reception desk. He jerked back and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Shit.”

  “What?” Laurel shoved him aside to see. “Well, hell.” She sagged back against the wall.

  “Do you have a lighter in there?” He gestured toward her bag.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  He stared at her.

  “Yeah, yeah. Give me a sec.” She dug into the tote that matched her shoes and pulled out an old-fashioned Bic. “Maybe if I had some hairspray we could blowtorch our way out.”

  He pointed at the sprinkler head in the ceiling before he stooped down. “Get on my shoulders.”

  “We really need to work on your sense of timing.” She hiked her dress up to her hips, exposing white lace panties underneath. “Head down and focus please.” She shoved his head forward and slid one leg over one shoulder, then the other. She braced her hands on th
e wall as he pushed himself to his feet. Damn. The muscles in his neck and shoulders protested.

  “Aim the flame—”

  “Shut up.” She flicked the lighter open, letting out a sharp shriek as water exploded into her face. The electronic blast of the fire alarm battled with the screeching whine of the security system. Nathan felt her slip to the side and dipped down so she could get off him. They watched as the security guards ran past the emergency door toward the main exit.

  “I told the company there was a flaw in their system.” Doors slammed open in the stairwell and people scrambled out and down. He could hear feet pounding their way toward them. “All the sprinklers are connected,” he told her. “Set one off, they all go off. I guess they don’t read their email. Take the wig off.” He yanked it off her head and she shoved it in her bag. “You ready?”

  “What do you think?”

  He looked back and saw she was drenched from head to foot, her dress sticking to her like plastic wrap, water cascading over her bag perched on her head. Damn, even angry and soaking wet she was beautiful. As screwed as they were at this moment, he hadn’t felt this alive in years.

  He reached behind him, held out his hand, and waited until he saw the flood of employees arcing around the stairs. He pulled open the door and let some of them through before dragging Laurel behind him into the crowd that would carry them out the emergency side exit. By the time they hit fresh air, a good fifty people broke ranks and emerged from SylEctus with a cavalcade of protests and cries of disbelief.

  Nathan led Laurel down the side path and behind a cement pillar just as a black stretch limo pulled into the red zone in front of the building. “That has to be Manville,” Nathan whispered as Eric dived to open the door. Laurel wedged herself between him and the pillar to look at the man who stepped out of the back of the car.

  Tall and on the too-lean side, Alastair Manville reminded Nathan of a monster movie scientist on the verge of madness, shock of white hair included. The fact that Manville shoved Eric aside and plunged into the building with a manic expression on his tight face told Nathan one thing.

  There was something inside SylEctus Manville wanted.

  “Let’s watch from the car,” Nathan said, taking Laurel’s hand tightly in his.

  “What? Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?”

  “Not yet. There’s something I want to see first.”

  ***

  It took seventeen minutes from the time Alastair Manville walked into the flooding SylEctus building until he walked out again, the oversized metal briefcase clutched in one hand as he climbed back into his limo and drove away.

  Nathan took a deep breath. “Well, that’s one problem solved.”

  Laurel shifted in the passenger seat to face him “What problem would that be?”

  “The evidence Manville has against you. That surveillance footage he’s been holding over you has been scrubbed.”

  “We don’t know that.” Could she sound any more disbelieving? Where was her faith in him? Okay, yeah, he should have left the case alone. But still.

  “If the video isn’t destroyed yet, it will be the second Manville tries to view it on any networked device. That virus Malcolm wrote destroys all video code. By the time they figure out what’s infected the system, the statute of limitations will have expired.” One small victory.

  But they still didn’t have the crown.

  “You were careless,” she accused. “And sloppy. And Joey—” Her voice broke.

  “We were running out of time and I made a split-second decision.” He didn’t need reminding he could very well have put her daughter in danger. “It could have gone either way.”

  “If this is how Nemesis operates I can’t believe you guys haven’t been caught. There was a camera in that vault, Nathan! Nothing you say can fix what happened in there. Nothing you do—”

  “Want to bet?” He reached across the console and grabbed the back of her neck, hauling her against him and kissing her as if his life depended on it. It took some coaxing, and more than a few well-placed touches of his free hand, but she softened in his arms even as her hands fisted in his shirt.

  “You scared me, Nathan,” she whispered.

  “Sorry.” He brushed his lips against hers, wishing she’d understand, believe, how much he cared about her. And Joey. “But I bet I can scare you again.”

  She closed her eyes and dropped her head forward. “I don’t think my heart can take it.”

  “I think it can.” He tilted her chin up and smiled into those amazing, accusing, frustrated brown eyes of hers. “I love you, Laurel.”

  “You—what?” She blinked.

  “You heard me. And it’s important you realize and understand that because we are in this together from here on. Yes, I screwed up, but we’re going to fix it. All of us. Understand me?”

  He loved her? What on earth was wrong with the man? Her cell phone droned in her purse. “That’s Manville,” she whispered with enough awe in her voice to kick his ego up a notch.

  “The man has a horrendous sense of timing. Go on.” He gestured to her bag. “Might as well get this over with.”

  She pulled out her phone. He saw her hand tremble as she clicked the speaker on. “Yes, Alastair?”

  “Checkmate, Miss Scott.”

  And he hung up.

  ***

  “Good thing I got us a late checkout,” Nathan said as they squished their way through the lobby of the Fairmont, ducking past the registration desk in the hopes of staving off curious looks. He glanced at his watch. “It’s going to take me a couple of hours to thaw out in the shower. We need to hurry up and get back to Lantano Valley. The plane will be ready for us by three.”

  “Great.” She squirmed against the back of the elevator. She hated feeling . . . soggy. And angry. Would these knots in her stomach ever loosen? “We have to come up with a new plan.”

  At least the break with Alastair had been quick. The fallout? Laurel gnashed her teeth. That remained to be seen. Checkmate. She’d show him checkmate.

  “Sounds like you’ve already got some ideas.”

  “I do. I need to talk to Joey.”

  “We’ll call as soon as we get to the room.”

  “This isn’t a game anymore, Nathan. Alastair’s all-in now. He doesn’t have anything to lose.” While she’d never had so much to lose.

  “It was never a game,” Nathan said with a hint of offense in his voice. “And I’m done apologizing. What’s done is done, we’ll fix it and move on. I’ll call my dad, fill him in, and have him rally the troops at Sheila’s as soon as we’re back.”

  “Sounds good.” She looked down at the shoes she’d splurged on a few weeks ago and bid them a sad, sodden farewell. She’d really liked these shoes.

  “Hey, guess what?” Nathan turned a matching grin on her that tilted her heart upside down. “We’re in another elevator. Think I could get away with hitting the emergency stop on this thing?”

  She took the erotic offer as his need for a distraction. It was only a matter of time before Cassidy Wells sent him the information he was waiting for—before the reality he’d been clinging to these last few years was blown apart. “I think we’ve had enough alarms for one day, don’t you?” She stretched out her hand and breathed easier when he weaved his fingers through hers. Whatever she had to do. She bit her lip as they walked out of the elevator side by side. “Maybe we can find a few extra minutes before we leave if we double up in the shower—what’s wrong?”

  He tugged her back as they approached their door, which was ajar. “Wait here.” He splayed his hand over her stomach and pushed her behind him and against the wall.

  She shoved back. “Would you stop doing that? It’s not like you’ve got a bazooka in your pocket. If someone’s waiting for us—”

  “Someone is.” A deep voice from insi
de the room said as the door swung open.

  Laurel gasped and lifted her chin. Even in her distracted state, all she could manage do was mouth a “wow” in his direction.

  Midnight black hair, striking blue eyes, and a natural bronze to his skin that called to mind cruises on the Mediterranean and villas on the edge of the sea swept over her like a summer breeze. His looks were a bit contradictory to the black jeans, T-shirt, and sublime leather jacket draped over an abundance of shoulders and abs. “I was beginning to think I’d have to send out a search party for you two,” the man said as he gestured them inside and closed the door. “Rylan Price.” He gave them the once-over and cocked his head. “Either you forgot your flippers or your appointment at SylEctus didn’t go as planned.”

  “We ran into a few problems.” Laurel kicked off her shoes and dumped her sopping bag and coat onto the floor by the door. “Nice to meet you, Rylan. Did you two compare notes on lurking in people’s hotel rooms?”

  “Rylan, Laurel Scott,” Nathan said. “I thought you were going to call . . . hang on.” He stopped in the middle of discarding his own jacket, swiped damp hair out of his eyes. “I know you. You’re that art expert who came to Lantano Valley to authenticate the paintings for my father the night of the Oliver job. But I thought—”

  “Thomas Brosnan.” Rylan gave a slight bow before sitting back on the edge of the love seat. “I was afraid I’d have to sneeze for you to recognize me.”

  “Oh, man.” Nathan laughed and looked at Laurel as if he didn’t understand why she didn’t get the joke. “He was the most socially inept goofball I’ve seen in years. You had me completely fooled. I take it Dad called you in at the last minute?”

  “Jackson wanted to make sure you had all the angles covered.” Rylan’s eyes sparked in that same way Nathan’s had on their way into SylEctus. “Felt good having a hand in taking down that douche bag Chadwick Oliver. Glad it all worked out.”