Acceptable Risks

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  Jason turned, smiling, and she knew even though the real answer was hell, no, eventually it would be okay.

  “Nils is still here.”

  “That’s something, at least.” She yawned and sat up, throwing her bare legs over the edge of the bed. She still wore her tank top and had put her underwear back on before they fell asleep. She picked up her bra from the end post of the bed and put it on, replacing her tank with a T-shirt Jason tossed her. “Are we going to talk about last night?”

  His smile faded and he handed her a small, chipped mug of coffee. “Not now. After this is all over.”

  Lark sighed and accepted the mug. “We could just call it a mistake and be done with it.”

  The silence rang with denial. Lark wasn’t sure how much came from him, and how much from her. She’d never deliberately avoided relationships, but had never realized how truly empty and superficial they’d been. In just a couple of days, she already cared more for Jason than anyone else outside her family.

  She should be terrified, and somewhere inside was frantic resistance. But she could barely feel it under the buzz of pleasure and hope.

  But judging by the chasm Jason had set between them, he didn’t feel the same. Any residual contentment disappeared. She should let it go, at least for now, but her mouth wouldn’t stay shut. “Jason, age and my father are not good reasons to avoid a relationship with me.”

  “Sorry the coffee’s black. We don’t keep cream or sugar here.”

  “It’s fine.” She sipped the coffee and set the mug on the floor to pull on her jeans. “Boston and DC aren’t that far apart, either, and—”

  “I’m not shallow, Lark.” His voice was low, hard. “You’re right, those don’t matter. This is about far more serious things that we won’t talk about until this is over.”

  She understood, then, what he really meant. While she’d been struggling to overcome fantasies of a future with him so she could sleep, he’d been pondering their present. He thought he wouldn’t survive, or that she wouldn’t, and he didn’t want either of them to make promises. That was the smart way to handle it, except it didn’t matter. She knew that it would hurt just as much if he died again, whether he told her he cared about her or not.

  But a sudden shaft of sunlight through a high window reminded her that time was a precious commodity. People were in danger, not just them. So she pretended to drop it, to wait until a more appropriate moment. And hoped her deep dread didn’t mean there wouldn’t be one.

  She finished dressing and sat cross-legged on the bed, cradling her coffee. “What is this place?”

  “It’s an old farm my parents own. They planned to retire here but decided they missed being near the conveniences of the city too much.”

  “It’s stocked.”

  “They use it as a hideaway from time to time.”

  “Oh.” She tried not to think of the condom he’d found last night, and then wondered if they knew he was alive. “Have you talked to them since you got out of the lab?”

  He shook his head and drained his mug. “No time. They’re traveling, anyway. Matt’s kept them from getting too worried about me.” He offered her a refill. She nodded, and he split the remaining coffee between them and then leaned against the wall, well out of touching distance.

  “Why did you come after me?” he asked after a moment.

  At first, she didn’t know what he meant. It seemed so long ago that she’d first gotten on his bike. “You hadn’t checked in. Don’t argue.” She shook her head, tired. “It’s done. Did you get anything out of Nils before I got there?”

  “Not as much as you did. They want Gabby because of me, and the RT-24 data so they can sell the formula to someone.”

  “Why did they take my father, then?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing ties together, at least not neatly. Abducting Matt doesn’t further Isaac’s agenda to destroy his reputation. He has to be out there facing the damage in order for it to hurt.”

  “But his disappearance during a sensitive time does damage.”

  He grimaced. “We need more information. Did you get anything from the drive?”

  “Oh, my God, yes!” She jumped off the bed and dug in her back pocket for her list. “Look!” She handed the crumpled pages to him.

  He unfolded the lined paper and scanned the names. “What am I looking at?”

  “I found this list—some party list, according to the file name. But when I read them, I found correlations.” She explained how the first and last names were one-off, leaning close and pointing to the page. How did he smell so good after everything they’d done over the last twenty-four hours? “I recognized my aunt’s name, and that triggered it all. I wrote the original list on the back, with the strikethroughs.”

  Jason flipped it over, then back. His frown deepened. “I recognize some of these from Hummingbird.”

  “Maybe people Isaac tried to get on his side?” A trace of excitement buzzed through her. This could be their first solid lead. At least, something they could act on.

  “Maybe,” Jason mused. “Most of the Hummingbird people are crossed off. Your aunt isn’t.”

  “I know, and neither is Carl. But only if you assume the last name is the pertinent strikethrough.”

  “Carl’s the boyfriend?”

  “Ex boyfriend.” Had he sounded edgy about that? “Are there any employees not crossed off?”

  He studied the list again. “One. One of the on-site security team.”

  Lark pointed to the plus-two next to the name, like a party notation indicating he’d be bringing two other people. “Probably someone else, too, not written on here. I don’t know why he’d note it like that, though.” She pressed her lips together. Logic said Isaac had only gotten to Nils and the one or two other people whose last names weren’t crossed off, rather than all the others. But that meant her aunt and Carl were conspiring against her father.

  She sat heavily on the bed again. “Stuart had access to my greenhouse. He probably gave Donald the codes, which allowed him to come after me and the plants.” She didn’t know why that bothered her so much. She wasn’t close to Stuart. Still, they worked together. Had similar goals. What had probably been a shrug-worthy business transaction to Stuart still felt like a betrayal, and it marred what her work life had been. Made her wonder if she could go back to BotMed…assuming she had that choice in the end.

  Jason smoothed her hair, and his quiet empathy brought a lump to her throat.

  “Let’s go talk to Nils,” he said.

  Lark forced the sadness to convert to anger. It welled, hardening her muscles as well as her emotions. She stood and clenched her fists, stalking to the doorway.

  “I’ll beat it out of him.”

  * * *

  Jason trailed Lark into the main barn. He understood the betrayal she had to be feeling, and he’d let her vent it on Nils if she needed to. The guy had earned a little torment. But she’d done good work, figuring out the list. It gave them leads. They’d need them. Nils wasn’t as knowledgeable as he pretended, and Jason doubted he had anything else to share.

  When he got to the stall, Lark had opened it and stood over Nils. The guy reclined in one corner, trying to look like he wasn’t cowering. When Jason appeared, Nils half-crawled to the side, away from Lark.

  “Hey, JT. I smell coffee. Can I have some?”

  Jason didn’t answer. He braced his legs wide in the stall doorway and folded his arms.

  “Okay, that’s the way it’s gonna be. I get it.” Nils rolled back to sit and rested his arms on top of his updrawn knees, a nonchalant pose belied by the constant darting of his eyes everywhere but at Lark. “I’m not tellin’ you nothin’.”

  “Sure you’re not.” Lark stepped closer. “Ella Darron.”

  Nils looked blank. “Who’s that?”

  “You know who that is. I want to know what she has to do with you and Isaac.”

  “I never heard of her.”

  Jason believed him. Th
e guy was far too transparent to lie effectively. Jason was starting to wonder how he’d lasted so long at Hummingbird.

  “What about Carl Frankel? Stuart Reinhart?” Lark rattled off one name after another. Nils just kept shaking his head.

  “Fine.” Lark looked around, then raised her head to scan the barn outside the stall. She spotted something, shoved past Jason, and stalked back in with a pitchfork in her hands. “How about you just tell me what you do know, and I’ll stop trying to lead you.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Nils held up his arms to ward off the tines she aimed at his chest. “Come on, now! I told you stuff!”

  “Tell us more.”

  Nils eyed Jason, then Lark, then the pitchfork. She jabbed it at him, poking his arm.

  “Ow!” He rubbed it, scowled, heaved a huge sigh. “Fuck. Okay. I told you, Isaac doesn’t tell me everything. I don’t know anything about those people you said. All I know is that Hummingbird has this nerve regeneration therapy that helped keep Jason alive and stuff, but it makes him hurt.”

  Jason kept his features schooled when Nils said that. He hated anyone knowing his weaknesses. Lark knows, and it doesn’t bother you anymore.

  “And?” Lark pressed Nils.

  “And that’s it. I told Isaac, he found a buyer, and he said this was all he needed to take you all down. I swear, that’s all I know.”

  They had a buyer who intended to use a medical breakthrough designed to help people to cause them pain instead. Jason wasn’t a scientist, but guessed that adjusting one element of the compound, or adding one minor thing to it, would be enough to turn the pain of regrowth and the irritation of light touch into true agony. He couldn’t let that happen if he had the power to stop it.

  Lark hovered for a moment. When she feinted with the pitchfork, Nils flinched but didn’t say more. Either he was telling the truth and didn’t know anything else, or he was afraid enough of Isaac to keep it to himself. They would get no more out of him.

  Lark backed out of the stall and Jason secured the door again. “Like I said last night, we’ll lock him down.” He led the way back to the office-bedroom. Once they were out of earshot of Nils, he added, “We have a couple of leads. We need to track down Ella Darron.” He gathered up saltines and beef jerky from the trunk and a jug of water from a shelf. “Do you know how to get a hold of her?”

  “No.” She took another jug off the shelf and followed him to the storeroom, where he grabbed a bucket and a roll of toilet paper. “I haven’t seen or talked to her in years.”

  “Okay, tomorrow we’ll have Caitlyn check the call logs at the office. If Ella called Matt there, the number was recorded.”

  She followed him to the stall and waited as he dropped the items in and re-secured the door.

  “We’ll be back in a couple of days,” Jason told Nils, who looked a little panicky. “Or we’ll send someone.”

  “Yeah, someone dangerous,” Lark growled through the bars. She looked adorable, but Jason bit back his smirk. He didn’t think she’d appreciate it.

  “What will we do in the meantime?” she asked when they got back outside.

  “We’re going to Boston.” Jason climbed into the truck and started the ignition. “You have some contacts up there we need to talk to.”

  * * *

  Matthew and Isaac both instinctively froze when the gun went off. Matthew spun, certain he’d see Gabby’s lifeless body on the ground, but John still aimed his pistol into the air, one hand locked around Gabby’s arm.

  Before Matthew could move, before his heart could even start beating again, Isaac yanked his arms back and snapped cuffs on him.

  “Nice try,” he gloated, but scowled when his phone rang. He didn’t look at the display before barking, “What!” into it. Everyone stood watching him while he listened to the caller, John shifting his handgun back toward Gabby as if to ensure Matthew didn’t move.

  Isaac said too little to tell Matthew anything, and hung up after only a few seconds. “I have to go back to the city,” he told John. “Let’s get these two back inside. I’ll be back to finish things.”

  “Problems?” Matthew asked mildly.

  “Nothing to do with you,” Isaac assured him, glancing at his watch.

  “You can go ahead,” John said. “I’ve got these two.”

  Isaac didn’t look convinced.

  John waved the pistol near Gabby’s ear. “I mean it. He won’t risk anything when I’ve got this.”

  Isaac opened his mouth, but when his phone chimed again, he made a half-impatient, half-threatening gesture at John, and stomped off to his car.

  Matthew watched him go with regret. That was their way out of here. Or it would have been, if they could get away. He eyed John, calculating ways to overpower him, but even with John gone soft, Matthew didn’t think he could beat him with his hands literally tied behind his back. He’d have to wait until they were inside again, and…

  John, who’d been watching the taillights of Isaac’s car until they disappeared down the lane, holstered his pistol and let go of Gabby. She flinched away, but not far, and looked confused.

  Matthew shifted when John walked toward him, trying to keep the man in front of him and position himself between their guard and Gabby. But John held up a key before circling around behind him. A moment later, the cuffs fell away.

  “He’ll be a couple of hours,” John said gruffly. “Stay on guard, though, ‘cause it’ll take you longer than that to get to civilization.”

  Matthew didn’t state the obvious, but he at least had to ask why. “You don’t have a way out of here, either. You can come with us.” He sensed Gabby’s reaction to that, but had to make the offer.

  But John shook his head. “I don’t like what Kemmerling’s doing. But I can get out without making an enemy of him. He won’t want an employee who gets overpowered so easily.” He smirked, and Matthew smiled back.

  “You really want to do that?”

  John nodded stoically and led the way inside. Matthew gestured for Gabby to stay in the yard, and followed his former employee back into the cabin.

  “How do you want it?” he asked him, setting his body.

  John grimaced. “Don’t tell me. And make it convinci—”

  Matthew walloped him. And then he made it convincing.

  * * *

  “I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Half an hour of questions, badgering and threats, and Carl still wouldn’t admit he’d had ulterior motives in trying to weasel his way back into her life. Lark wished she’d brought her pitchfork, though she doubted they would have let her check it on the plane.

  “Look, Carl,” she began again, but Jason caught her wrist and tugged her away from her ex-boyfriend’s desk. They’d had to track him down at work, which wasn’t that unusual for a Sunday. “What?” she barked, whirling on him. He looked as implacable as ever, where she was certain she had a wild-eyed, wild-haired look that wouldn’t convince anybody to tell her anything.

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Jason said. “We might as well let him get back to work.”

  “Thank you.” Carl picked up a pen and flipped open a file folder. “I just don’t know what—”