God's Eye

by Scudiere, A. J.

  After a few moments she got it together enough to answer without sounding like she’d just finished the Boston Marathon. Picking up the phone, she smiled at the ID. She sighed his name. “Zachary.”

  “Hey, baby, where are you?” It was a whisper that reached into her and made her feel safe. Almost beyond her control, her knees threatened to give way and her heart settled into a steady rhythm. His voice sank into her like old wine. “I called the office, but I’ve been getting voicemail all morning.”

  She almost lied. Almost said she’d been at the library doing research, that her cell had been off too. But something inside her clenched at the thought of lying to him. Her tongue spoke the truth. “I stayed home this morning. I’m only heading in now.”

  “It’s eleven thirty.” He seemed shocked by the time. Then again, probably everyone at the office was wondering if she had the Ebola virus. Katharine was never absent. She liked that Zachary seemed to know that about her even though she’d never said it. “You aren’t ill?”

  She opted for a combination of lie and truth. Since she’d already told the office that she thought she had a stomach bug, she went with that, just a little. “Not anymore. I had a really bad night last night. I wasn’t going to be of any use to anyone until I got a little sleep.” Ultimately a little was all she had gotten. But it would have to do.

  “Were you sick?” His concern ran deep in her, as did the same clenching feeling that she shouldn’t lie to him. But this time she did anyway.

  “Maybe. I had a really bad dream; it kept me up half the night.”

  “Bad dream, huh?” He seemed to be mulling it over. Something in his voice made her wonder if he’d heard the lie. She was truly a bad liar. But what reason would he have to suspect anything other than what she said? She was a great girlfriend. Other than a few wayward thoughts here and there, she didn’t want anything to do with anyone other than him. The only reasonable thing she could be covering up would be another man. And it wasn’t that. It was just that what she was covering up wasn’t reasonable.

  She couldn’t tell if he was trying to catch her in a fib or just trying to be helpful. But he offered to come over that night, and insinuated that he could help her sleep better. Katharine laughed and accepted. He would help her sleep better, but probably not the way he was intending. His presence alone would allow her to rest.

  The thought pressed into her mind that maybe he could stay all night. That way the thing likely wouldn’t come; Katharine had developed the creepy idea that it wanted her. After all, it hadn’t presented itself on any of the nights when Zachary had been here. And if it did get brave and show its face again, Zachary would see it. Then she would know she wasn’t crazy.

  She told him she couldn’t wait to see him, but that she would have to work late to make up for missing the morning. She’d come knock on his door when she got home. She then hung up before he could say anything else.

  Katharine thought it might be the first time she’d ever taken charge with a man.

  A sense of the inevitable settled over her as she finished dressing and did her hair. She couldn’t call it peace, but the tension that had held her tight enough to snap under her own stress had ebbed away during Zachary’s call. She was in a better a state by the time she went down to her car. She hit the drive-through window at a fast-food restaurant on the way into work and brushed the crumbs from her skirt as she stepped out of the car.

  She faced her coworkers in the hallways as they headed out to lunch. She could tell a few were disbelieving that she was coming in so late. Others had perhaps assumed she was just coming back from lunch. Katharine didn’t say anything.

  She picked up her messages from Lisa and entered her office, where Allistair stood up to greet her. He came around from behind his desk and planted himself directly in front of her. Deep dark eyes looked her up and down, slowly assessing. She wondered what he saw.

  His voice slid over her like honey, setting off a flare of heat she hadn’t expected. “You look good.” His finger came up and her breath caught as he traced her cheekbone. “But you look tired. Rough night?”

  At least that was a question she could answer honestly. “Yes. I needed more sleep or I wouldn’t be good for anyone.”

  He nodded, his eyes cast down. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” But she understood the words even as her mouth asked. What she didn’t understand was why he was sorry. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I thought you might have had a touch of my stomach flu from yesterday.” Too late, she remembered the lie she had spun, standing at her counter with the kitchen knife clutched in her fist. It had been a good lie, but she hadn’t remembered it when it counted, had she? “Maybe, but I don’t see how it’s your fault. It wasn’t like we were kissing or anything.”

  The sudden flash of heat in his eyes was unmistakable. Her body answered back by dropping the bottom out of her stomach and making her insides flutter. But he hadn’t said or done anything. Though she wanted to, she couldn’t respond to something unsaid or ungestured. As quickly as it had come, it was gone, and Allistair turned away, saying he was glad she was feeling better.

  He pulled a stack of files from beside his computer, turned back to her, and followed her around behind her own desk. He was now definitely in her personal space. Did it mean anything? She flicked a glance at his face, but he was all business, the fire of a moment ago entirely gone. His voice was steady and even as he told her about what he’d found that morning. Katharine was forced to turn from her wayward thoughts and try to concentrate.

  Stopping himself mid-sentence, Allistair then went to close the door, saying he’d found something important. Something that even Lisa shouldn’t overhear. Katharine waited, intrigued.

  Though the door was closed, he came back to stand behind her desk, right beside her. She fought the frisson of energy that shot through her at his nearness. Just that one look and she was turning to jelly around him. What was wrong with her these days?

  His voice again broke into her thoughts. “I found only one person who looks like they’re embezzling funds from the company.”

  Katharine waited.

  “It’s entirely possible that there’s an alternate explanation, because I can’t figure out how she’s doing it. Also, a really good embezzler wouldn’t show off what they’d stolen. She’s hardly doing that, but she is living well above her means with no visible other income.”

  Katharine’s heart sank.

  He handed over a thick file on Mary Wayne. “She’s in payroll, so she has access to everything she needs to get the job done. She also got a more thorough security check because of the payroll job, so we know a little more about her than some of the other employees. I don’t know if you know her–”

  The touch of Katharine’s hand stilled his tongue, or maybe it was her slumped shoulders. “I hired her when I was in HR, then I trained her for her current position.”

  Bending at the knees, Allistair lowered himself until he squatted beside her chair, his gaze searching her face until she finally looked at him. “You like her.”

  “I did,” Katharine admitted.

  “It isn’t your fault.” His hand settled on her bare forearm, the skin-to-skin contact at once both very casual and far too personal. Heat flowed from him into her. And with it came the belief that maybe it wasn’t her fault. It was the first time she had admitted that she truly felt responsible. She had hired Mary Wayne, over a few other choice candidates. She had liked the woman personally. Although they had never been friends–Katharine knew it wasn’t proper to allow herself to be friends with an employee–she had thought she understood Mary Wayne.

  She had clearly been wrong. Two separate searches had brought Mary to the forefront of the investigation.

  Allistair had been watching the thoughts cross her face, and Katharine decided it was past time that she packed up her personal concerns; she could take them out later in a personal space. His hand slid across her skin as he removed i
t from her arm, the touch electrifying even though it had been accidental.

  His voice only added to the rush of heat in her. The heat was followed quickly by confusion. How was this man affecting her so much? She seemed to have a schoolgirl’s crush on him–the way he just looked at her and she felt it to her toes. But the feelings were far hotter than anything she had known as a teenager. There was something magnetic about him, and he was in her office leaning over her desk, his voice a brush of hot sweet air against her ear. She was helpless in his gravitational pull.

  She pushed the words she needed past her lips in an effort to appear as though he wasn’t having any effect on her at all. “What do you recommend we do?”

  He sighed and something low in her melted. Katharine fought to ignore it.

  “I think we should keep looking through our files, see if we can find where the money is going, or how it got out in the first place. And I think we should hire a private investigator and have Mary Wayne followed.”

  “A PI?”

  “I assume she’s the same suspect that you came up with. That’s why you haven’t mentioned anyone else. It would explain the look on your face.”

  Katharine nodded. “She’s also the same suspect that my father and Toran Light came up with.”

  “Then I would guess that you checked for extra bank accounts that were linked through Light & Geryon but held by Miss Wayne.”

  Again Katharine nodded.

  “You checked around to see if she had a boyfriend or renter or someone else on the mortgage to that house she shouldn’t be able to afford?”

  “All that, and, as best we can tell, there haven’t been any deaths in her family to give her an inheritance, nor did she win the lotto.”

  “Yeah.” He ran his hand through his dark hair in a thoroughly masculine gesture. Katharine wished she hadn’t noticed. “I looked for those, too. But a professional is going to have much better access to her personal information than we do. And that way, if she catches someone following her, she won’t come up to the car and say, ‘Miss Geryon, what are you doing sitting outside my house at night?’”

  Katharine had to laugh at that one. She actually giggled at the image of herself on a stakeout, cold coffee in one hand, binoculars in the other. As stupid as the image was, it drove home a point: she had no idea what she was doing when it came to gathering personal information on someone. “You’re right.”

  They spent the afternoon calling two PIs they found in the phonebook, another her friend had used once, and a fourth her father recommended. They managed to interview two of them and finally went with the one her father had requested. Patricia Sange was a great choice. Katharine and Allistair agreed that Mary would be less likely to suspect that a woman was stalking her than a man.

  Finding the PI took up most of their afternoon. Allistair stayed late even though Katharine told him he was excused. He said he was new to the area, and what else was he going to do anyway? She didn’t say it but she appreciated the company. The building was mostly cleared out by six thirty, and those that stayed did so because they wanted to work uninterrupted. So the place was a ghost town after seven. Usually it didn’t bother her, but after last night she would have likely invited the janitor in to play solitaire on Allistair’s computer just to have someone else in the room.

  Truth be told, if she had her choice of someone to stay with her she would have picked Allistair anyway. He wasn’t the biggest or brawniest guy she had ever met, but he was solid. He looked like he knew how to throw a good punch. More importantly, he looked like he wouldn’t shy away from things he couldn’t just hit. The hell beast wouldn’t visit her with him here.

  Of course, when she went home she’d be–

  Her brain cut off mid-thought. She’d be with Zachary, that’s what she’d be. Her boyfriend. The one she’d completely forgotten about while taking the measure of the man across the desk.

  She studied Allistair–he was working hard, typing and reading like there was no tomorrow. For a moment she wondered if he was faking–just tapping keys while he was really looking at porn. She wondered if his facial expression would give him away. But just then, he looked up at her and flashed her a grin that blanked out her mind again. Lord, that smile was devastating. Katharine quickly averted her eyes, trying desperately not to be pulled into whatever gravitational force the man held sway over.

  She turned back to her own research. Allistair’s work had yielded a few good leads on the gem mine as well as the info they needed to dig further into MaraxCo, WeldLink’s parent company. They had to have the reports with recommendations to the board in two days. She was uncovering the last of what she needed on the mine. Tomorrow she’d have time to make a pretty presentation out of it.

  The gem stock research was turning out to be fairly cut and dried. The mine had cheap local labor. The best anyone could tell, the gem source ran deep. But mines were always a gamble that way. This one looked like a good bet. She gathered data on the number of workers and the wages they were earning. Then she added her stamp of approval on a large stock purchase before Allistair’s voice once again broke into her thoughts as he recommended Chinese delivery.

  Half an hour later, they were taking a break with cardboard cartons and chopsticks–which Allistair used very well and Katharine used to make a fool of herself. But she tried to keep it together and eat while Allistair regaled her with his research between bites.

  “The reason we were having trouble finding the info is that we were looking in the wrong direction. Metal works of MaraxCo’s style do not make sewing fripperies.”

  “Fripperies, huh?” She couldn’t help but grin, even though the chicken smelled delicious and she just couldn’t seem to get a single bite to her mouth. The chopsticks thwarted her at every turn. Her mother’s insistence on proper etiquette mandated that Katharine would never be so uncouth as to eat Chinese food from a box. Katharine’s own sense of pride recoiled just as much at the thought of giving up the proper hold and using the ends of the sticks to stab the little suckers.

  Allistair seemed not to notice her struggle. She didn’t know whether that was a blessing or not. His voice pulled her away from her thoughts of chopsticks. “The pins that MaraxCo produces are firing pins.”

  “Like in guns?”

  “Exactly. And they just patented a new method of pouring the molds that uses only two-thirds the metal and produces the pins almost twice as fast.”

  Katharine mulled that over for a minute. “Then MaraxCo could take a big chunk of the market.”

  Allistair unknowingly taunted her by taking a huge bite of his sweet and sour pork. “Does the company frown on purchases like that?”

  Katharine blinked. What did he mean? “Investing in new technology that will likely make the stockholders as well as Light & Geryon a ton of money?”

  “No, I meant firearms.”

  “Oh … no.” She tried again for another bite.

  “Then I guess we’ll all get rich.” He grinned. “How long before you ask for help with those things?”

  She sighed. “That obvious?”

  With a perfectly straight face, he answered, “Of course not.” Then proceeded to take the chopsticks out of her hand and mold her fingers around them correctly.

  Katharine wanted to pay attention to what she was learning, but it was as though the rest of the world disappeared into clouds beyond the two of them. When she tried the new hold for herself, her fingers slipped and again she dropped the piece she was after. Allistair demonstrated, but instead of watching his hands, she watched his mouth. Only for a moment did she even consider yanking her thoughts from the foolish path they had wandered.

  She watched his lips as they curved into an angelic smile and, because she was watching his mouth, she didn’t see the flash of sun in his eyes or the movement that brought him closer. Her body responded, sending its own flare of heat to the heavens, as he entered her space.

  Still sitting against the edge of her desk, she leaned for
ward, reaching for him as surely as he was reaching for her. Their mouths met, devouring each other in their need. She felt him slide between her legs, his body pressed up against hers. She could feel him, hard and heavy, moving against her. His hands searched out the edge of her blouse and slipped up underneath. He was everywhere, and she wanted to respond in kind, wanted to touch him, feel the man beneath the skin. But she was held in place, her hands flat against the desk behind her, the only way to stay upright under his touch. He tasted of ambrosia and his hot touch brought her skin to life, his name escaping past her lips like a prayer.

  It must have been the sound of his own name that snapped him out of whatever spell they were under.

  “Katharine” was the only sound he made as he jerked away–almost as if by an unseen hand.

  She went cold with the shock of it. In the split second it took him to mumble an excuse and leave her there, she saw that the buttons on her shirt were undone. Her skirt was pushed up nearly to her waist. And tendrils of hair had fallen from where she’d pulled it back.

  She was draped across the front of her own desk, open to God and man. If anyone had walked in on her right then, there would have been no doubt about what she had been doing, only whom she’d been doing it with. Allistair was long gone.

  CHAPTER 7

  Zachary pushed through the veil. His wings folded in, disappearing as he became the Zachary that Katharine recognized–as he became, for all intents and purposes, mortal. He didn’t really notice the loss of his wings, nor that his fingers had shortened, his legs straightened, and his size shrunk to that of a human. He was too busy gritting his forming teeth and waiting through the intense pain.

  He would have bet that he’d eventually get used to it, but he didn’t bet. A good thing too, because he would have lost that one. Each time it was worse than he remembered it, like a human trauma. Although he figured it was like human trauma because it was human trauma–it faded with distance. Just enough to almost be a shock each time it hurt so bad.