“No. No. What the hell?” She was frantic, clicking the mouse. “Stop. Stop.”
Bending over her shoulder as he gazed at the screen, Mike curled his lip. “Shit. Your document has an encryption program.”
“But—“ She clenched her hands. She was more than disappointed. Her subterfuge, her efforts, all her pulse-pounding attempts to download files and this—this mess was what she got?
“We should have waited. It’s normal for anyone hiding intel to tack an encryption program on the computer. Anyone who wants data has to plug in a code to get the real McCoy.”
She froze. “Will Mayhew know I copied it? Can he?”
“Depends on how he loaded the program. Have you ever opened this set of documents before?”
“Yes.”
“But in the office?”
“Yes. On that same machine.” She covered her eyes with her hand. “Oh, hell.”
“Hey, don’t panic.” He raised her chin. “Let me send this file to Tampa.”
“You think your friend can read it?”
“With the gizmos that Holden has in that office of his, he could translate the Dead Sea scrolls.”
She reared back, awed. “You think?”
“I know.” He arched his brows. “Whaddya say? Shall I send this over?”
She had no other options. Leave and take the drive with her? Right. To whom? No one she knew could unscramble a code quickly or at will. Refuse? Hardly. What good would that do her? She needed help and courtesy of her fairy godmother also known as Omega’s new client, she had it in the flesh and blood of Mikael Lyons. She would not look a gift horse in the mouth. “Do it.”
He nodded. Taking the flash drive from the USB port, he walked it over to another computer on the other side of the room and typed a few letters to get a version of email that looked more like a military log. He sat down in front of the three-foot wide screen, typed a quick message and folded his arms. In a second, a reply drifted across the screen in red stencil-like letters.
Mike spun to face her. “He’ll be back to us in a few minutes. We need to give him time to work the software and apply it to your documents. In the meantime, you can fill me in on Mayhew. His background. Why you suspect him. Where he gets his authentic art.”
She nodded. “Well, let’s see. Vincent Charles Mayhew. Born Paris, nineteen-seventy-six.”
“Forty years old.”
“Bingo. Parents, Cristal and Richard Mayhew, Junior, of Paris, Washington and Dublin. Cristal Brusson, French, born in the Loire valley, art director of Musée des beaux-arts d'Orléans until her death twenty years ago. She was an expert in French Royal Academy art. Richard Mayhew Junior who is American, age seventy, is the only son of an American Army colonel of same name who was stationed in Paris after the Allies ran out the Germans in nineteen-forty-four. Mayhew, Senior, worked with art reclamation for a joint task force of American, British and French governments.”
“Reclamation of works the Nazis confiscated?”
She nodded. “Both Mayhews, Senior and Junior, were and are known for obtaining art for wealthy private individuals whose art collections are zealously kept for their eyes only. The oldest Mayhew was very secretive about his work for the Allies. So secretive, in fact, that many suspect he had saved a secret cache of Nazi stolen art for himself.”
Mike blinked. “Wow. That takes balls.”
“Big ones. No one has ever found hard evidence that he kept anything. But his son over the past few decades sold a few paintings whose provenance was questionable. He sold them privately, so it was not possible to verify their authenticity.”
“Whose work are we talking about?”
Becka wiggled her brows. “Reports say that the Mayhews have dealt with, among other lesser bits and pieces, a Degas, a Matisse and two drawings by Picasso. Hitler hated Picasso.”
“So Vince may be selling stolen art but also now fencing forgeries of it?”
“Right.”
“How did you first suspect him?”
“An Impressionist expert on Mary Cassatt came to Coldwell in London after seeing a painting Mayhew had here for sale. She said that she had looked very closely at the painting of Amalie by the Sea when she was here on vacation last Christmas to visit her brother. She said that Vincent Mayhew had been most kind to her and showed her the work on three separate occasions. She pretended, of course, that she was interested in buying it. She said the brush strokes left much to be desired. And the yellow color was too orange to be a true work of Cassatt.”
“And what happened to the painting?”
“It was purchased before I could get here and have myself hired.”
“Did you ask Mayhew about it?”
“No. I wouldn’t want to show my hand that way.”
“Instead? What have you been doing?”
“Watching how he works, who comes into the shop, getting friendly with him so that he invites me to his little dinner parties.”
A play of emotions swept across Mike’s face. Ruefulness, distaste and jealousy were replaced by a smirk. “Anything more than that?”
Gratified that she could get a rise out of him concerning other men’s interest in her, she decided not to give in to gloating. She wouldn’t play him that way. Never had. She doubted preening would get her anywhere anyway. “Nothing. He’s not my type.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a little too self-impressed for my particular taste. I prefer a humble man.” That was bull. She preferred this man, cocky, aggressive, ripped and whip smart. Humility was probably not even in his vocabulary. She knew it all over again the second her gaze swept Mike’s gorgeous blue eyes and the shock of blond hair, the tan, the muscles of his arms, his pecs. Christ, he was a feast. And most poor women were starving. Me, mostly.
She shifted in her chair. Too aware of him, her body got all wet and swollen remembering what it was like to be carried around in those arms, caressed by those hands and invaded by that big, bold body.
She cleared her throat. She’d be a little more honest with him. “One more thing. Not to my liking. He does orgies.”
Mike grimaced. “As in what precisely?”
“Do we have to discuss this?”
He nodded, his gaze warm on hers. “You bet we do.”
“For the humor or the leverage?”
“Humor now. Leverage if we need it to persuade him to talk.”
“Right.” She looked away. Shook her head. Got up and walked to the window to gaze out on the garden, filled with the dark green leaves of rose bushes that climbed the trellis of the gazebo. “This kind of thing is what I don’t like about my job. I have to dig up the dirt on all kinds of people and put it down in black and white.”
“But you’re an investigator, Becka. To find the truth about people is not so much peeping as it is reporting.”
She crossed her arms. “I’m glad you can look at it so circumspectly.”
“I have to. I’ve spent my own professional life preparing for the elimination of liars, frauds and murderers. If you don’t know everything about them—what they eat, where they sleep, who they love—you stand less chance of finding them and taking them down.”
“When I started this kind of work, I told myself I was catching criminals. That was a good thing. But I have my moments when I question if I’m being more destructive than I need to be.”
“Is that hesitancy left over from anger you felt when your dad was under investigation?”
He was direct and she flinched at it. “Of course it is. I need to detach. From Mayhew. My work. Coldwell. But that’s tough. I’m caught in a circle. I love the work, but I hate the company, the drama, the paperwork. I hate my boss, too. He’s too impressed with himself and for little reason. His operatives do the work. I thought I’d like being out of the government. That I’d really get off being a fraud investigator for a private company but now I can’t tell if it’s all just…I don’t know…something weird about me.”
“Like what?�
� he asked, his consoling voice seeping into her.
“I’ve taken jobs because I was offered them. People like me. Too much, maybe. I sometimes tell myself I should become a grouch, shave my head and wear denim jumpers and white crew socks.”
He snorted. “Oh, that would work well.”
“I’ve had three jobs since college and hated them all. Actually, I hated my supervisors. I want to work at what I’m good at. Finding liars and jerks. But I don’t take direction well and I’m cranky. Fact is, I don’t play well with most others.”
“No sandbox for you, then,” he said with sympathy in his tone. “Maybe you need a few months off. Take time to think about your future.”
“I wish I could. But no rest for the salary-woman.” Her father’s imprisonment for mishandling campaign funds and bribery had eaten through most of the family’s assets. Her mother’s confinement to a mental institution had taken the rest. Becka had had a golden childhood filled with upper class Washingtonian privileges, and from them, she’d gained her education, her social network and her savoir faire. But no wealth. She had nothing to fall back on but her own talents. “I have to work. Need to. For money and my pride.”
She sensed him behind her. The warmth of his body shut off the cool draft from the air conditioner. She stiffened, yearning for his embrace and ridiculing herself for her weakness.
“You can do this.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed her back against his huge hot chest. He thrust one of his legs between hers and settled her totally against him. He nestled his lips against her ear. With tender care, he slipped his hands beneath the white linen of her suit jacket. “I’m going to help you.”
The implications flew through her mind, searing her with desire for him and what he offered. “For a night? A day?”
He stroked the bare skin of her midriff “As long as you need me, I’m here.”
She tilted her hips backward against the erection he sported. Her insides were swimming with want. “That’s the problem.”
“What?” he asked on a breath of sound. His hands were too warm, too busy stroking upward into dangerous territory.
“I’m your assignment. Your job.” She said the last word like it was venom.
He froze. “Don’t be insulted.”
“Well, I am. You have to be assigned to me for me to see the whites of your eyes.”
“I should have called. Even when I was in the hospital, I wanted to.”
She listened, hard, struck by so raw an admission.
“Becka, give me the chance to correct that.” He kissed his way down her nape, one of his hands tangling in her hair and pulling her head to one side while he licked her skin. “Please, let me.”
If she let him, where would her pride go? Because if he left her holding nothing again, she’d wind up wounded. Angry at herself. “Like I have a choice.”
“The client wants you safe. You’re too alone on this.”
Her body warred with her mind as she shut her eyes to the temptation to give in to the reassurance of his hands and his lips. She sagged against him.
“It’s true. I’ve been a jerk.” He traced the swell of her hips and twirled her around to face him. “So many times. Especially last summer. I need to make it up to you.”
Her heart did a somersault.
“You’ve got that look on your face,” he said with sweet laughter in his tone as he thumbed her cheeks.
“What look is that?”
“The ‘I can’t help but want you, Lyons’ look. Don’t deny it.” He brushed his lips over hers, seduction in the lack of his kiss. “I want you, too. Badly.”
Wanting now was not the same as having forever. And since last summer, she had schooled herself to deny she’d ever wanted him.
The phone buzzed.
Her vision cleared. “Saved by the bell,” she said slowly.
His blue eyes held regret and compassion. “We’ll come back to this.”
Not if I can help it. “Answer your phone.”
He steadied her on her feet and picked up his cell. “Yeah, Grey. What do you have?”
Her head whirring, she watched Mike for a few minutes as he said, “Yes,” and “No” and “Okay then.”
By the time he clicked off, she had her breathing and most of her libido back in harness.
“What did he say?”
Mike winced. “Can’t open your files. He’ll try again with another program, but right now? We have no liftoff.”
Shit. “Does he see any indication that the encryption software will tell Vince if I jimmied with his files?”
“No idea.”
Jumpy with that uncertainty, she told herself she had little time to close this investigation. She had to act quickly. How?
She ran a hand through her hair and swung around to consider the climbing roses in Lucille Lyons’ garden. She knew what she had to do now to gain the evidence she needed that Vince was fencing forgeries. And she had to get it done because she had worked too long and hard to simply walk away from the problem. Besides, she wanted to part with Coldwell on best of terms, no matter what she decided to do after she resigned. Whatever that was….
She rubbed her hands together. She’d find something she loved. Other people did. And to get there quickly, she needed to end this job—and this unscheduled interlude with the man she should never even give the time of day to.
She spun to face Mike who had this goofy look on his face of…what? Longing? No, Becka, don’t lie to yourself.
“What are you thinking?” he asked her, blinking and replacing his expression with one of concern.
“Vince has another computer in the back storage room of the shop. It’s older and slower, but he uses it. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some of these same files on that machine. So my big question is, do you think this encryption software would work on a machine that’s maybe five or ten years old?”
“I doubt it, Becka. This stuff is fancy and requires memory up the yang.”
“Hmm. So if this fails, I could get the files off the computer in the back room. ” She was ready now with a way to escape this house and ready as she’d ever be to quash her raging need to have him naked in the nearest bed. “Tomorrow is another day, Lyons. And as for tonight—“
“Yeah? What?”
She had to keep herself centered. Breathe deeply. Take one step and another to get this job done. Not dwell on mistakes. “Do you keep a set of clothes here, sailor boy?”
“Like what?”
“Like a sport jacket, trousers. Something a guy wears to a classy dinner party overlooking the Potomac in August.”
“Yeah. I clean up nice and pretty. Why?”
She waggled a finger at him. “We’re dining tonight.”
“With Vince?”
“Exactly.” She breezed from the back room, down the grand staircase.
“Objective?”
“Info. Proximity. Opportunity.” In the kitchen her phone was vibrating on the island. “I need to solve this quickly now that you’ve raised red flags on my case.”
“We can win Oscars for our performances.”
“And our lies?” she asked with heartache lurking in her words.
Mike was right behind her. “Stop that.”
It was tough not to punish Mike for not loving her the way she did him. Hell. Get over yourself.
“It’s Vince,” she told him, reading the screen of her phone. She didn’t answer, waiting instead to see if he’d leave a voicemail. He did. She listened to his brief message. “Sure enough. He’s worried about me.”
Mike rolled his eyes.
“Too bad.” She hit the shop’s number, tapping a toe in impatience. “Hi, Vince. I just missed your call. Sorry about that…. Yes, I know. But I wanted you to know too that I am so sorry about my friend’s gorilla tactics.”
Mike pulled a face.
“Yep. I know it didn’t look wonderful with the senator there, but hey, there wasn’t much I could do. You saw my friend. He
’s rather…yeah, he is.”
Mike bared his teeth at her.
“Yep. Used to getting his way. I hadn’t seen him in more than a year and he thought he could just grab me up and run off. Old high school prank that he never outgrew. I know. I’ve chewed him out. He won’t do it again. Yes. He is in town for a long time.”
Mike spread his fingers, all eight of them.
And she clutched. She hadn’t seen him since two were amputated. The ones missing were his pinky and ring finger on his left hand. He was right-handed so these were not a huge loss, but he’d suffered. He’d had a terrible bout of pneumonia and lost his spleen to surgery. Worst of all were the burns that had required extensive treatment. And the PTSD, all of which his grandmother had told her about in detail. He was a wounded vet and she must treat him with more consideration. She’d be kinder.
“Um. What?” she asked Vince, trying to get back on track. “How long is he in town? Ahh—”
Mike lifted his shoulders.
She glared at him. “In town. Hmm. Not sure. Two weeks maybe. And tonight? Absolutely. Yes. I am still planning on coming.”
Mike grabbed her hand and mouthed, Me, too.
But she smiled like a cat and said, “Thank you. And of course, I hope you don’t mind if I bring my friend.”
“Friend,” Mike grumbled. Then he turned and trudged to the refrigerator and fished out a bottle of bubble water.
“Of course, I’ll bring him. That way, he’ll be able to apologize to you in person. Yes, yes, if there’s still commotion at the corner of M and Wisconsin—”
Mike looked up at her, pausing as he poured himself a tall glass of water.
“D.C. police got a shooter? Terrific. Any word on who it was? No, no TV here. My jungle friend doesn’t believe in modern technology.” Chuckling at her own bad joke, she winked at Mike and snickered. She had to break out of here, focus on work to distract herself from falling into an erotic afternoon with Lyons. “Hmm. A teenager. Okay. Good to know. What happened with the senator? He bought the piece? Fabulous. Well, no, if you don’t mind, I don’t think I’ll return to work. We might not have a lot of walk-ins what with all the commotion from the shooting and traffic is probably at a standstill. It is? Makes sense. The police will take their time with marking the crime scene. Yes. How do I know? Oh, you know. I watch a lot of crime investigation shows. Call me an armchair forensic scientist. Right.”
The Omega Team: The Lion (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 4
