Covert Threat (A Gray Ghost Novel Book 5)

by Amy McKinley

  “You always open the door without checking to see who it is?”

  I rolled my eyes then turned my back on him and headed into the kitchen. “Okay, Dad.” I got it—he and Carl were worried about me. But it had to be the other company trolling me. One year, they’d replaced all our lights with strobes. Carl was forgetting the stuff that sometimes went on. Initially, I had been upset about my computer being touched and thought the message was strange, but there had to be an explanation. It had to be someone playing tricks with Sandy’s help.

  As I poured coffee into a travel mug, he bent over and picked up one of my gym shoes. “What’s this? You went jogging?” He held my damp running shoe, and a few grains of sand fell from the sole.

  With a slap to his hand, I moved the smelly sneaker away as annoyance sizzled through me. “Look, I agreed to you shadowing me back and forth to work. I’m not answering to you about everything I do. This is not negotiable and completely unnecessary.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. I rode the anger, refusing to let him distract me with his impressive biceps, which had grown even bigger in that position. “It’s probably some ridiculous game Zen is playing. They’ve pranked a few of our team members before when there was a prize to win. Did Carl tell you about that?”

  He smirked. “Yeah, I know about the research-money competition. I also know that Carl’s college buddy runs the other company, and they have an unhealthy competition once a year. The other pranks weren’t like this. And you know it.”

  “Doesn’t mean a screen-saver prank is unheard of.” I was worried about my overactive imagination—the mirror episode was a prime example. I wasn’t willing to let him know, as it made me look crazy. Maybe I was under too much stress. If something significant happened, I would tell him, but even I wasn’t ready to fully acknowledge my craziness.

  “I’m ready. Let’s go.” I turned my back on him to grab my bag from the table. Panic held me prisoner. It wasn’t there. Maybe I did hear someone enter earlier, and they’d stolen it.

  Slowly, I turned to face Trev. He reacted. A hard glint shone in his eyes, his lips pressed into a firm line. He took a step forward, and his hands curled around my arms as he pulled me toward him. “What’s wrong?”

  Okay, that reaction was different and revealed a side of him that was downright scary, but oddly, not to me. His nearness eased the fear swimming in my gut. I told him what was missing. “My keys and my purse were right there on the table. I even saw them this morning before I went running. I know I didn’t move them.”

  “Was your door unlocked when you came back?”

  “No.”

  “Did anything else unusual happen last night or this morning?”

  I should tell him at least one thing. “I thought I heard the door open when I was getting ready, but it was nothing. I searched the house.” I settled on part of the truth. The mirror still seemed too personal. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him, especially since I’d had such a hard time believing it myself, and we barely knew each other.

  “Let’s see if your stuff is somewhere else in the house.”

  I followed him until he stopped in front of the living room couch. I peeked around. What the hell? My bag was on the coffee table.

  No. I knew I didn’t leave the bag there. Sheer panic flooded my system, and I turned to face Trev. “It wasn’t here before. I swear.”

  His face gave nothing away, aside from the intensity in his eyes, which didn’t seem typical for him. He was easygoing and charismatic. “You heard the door open when you were in your bedroom?”

  “Yeah, but the doors were locked, and I searched the house. No one was here. I thought it was my imagination, but now I’m not so sure.” A shiver ran along my skin.

  He gave my arm a gentle squeeze. “Give me a few minutes.”

  I jerked half a step forward, reached out, and gripped his hand with my own. “You’re leaving?”

  “No.” He pulled his hand away and guided me to the couch. “I’m looking through your house one more time. I want you to go through your purse and make sure nothing is missing.”

  That made sense. I opened it up and dumped the contents out while he went from room to room. It wouldn’t take long. The house was small.

  As I was putting everything back, he sat opposite me.

  “Nothing’s gone.” My hands trembled as I put the strap on my shoulder, tightly clutching my keys in my other hand.

  He shook his head. “After work, we’re coming back here, and I’m going to install some outdoor cameras and motion-sensor lights.” He stood. “Come on, let’s get you to work.”

  I let him pull me to my feet, and we headed out the door. Doubt crept in. Could I have moved my stuff?

  He flashed me his signature crooked grin as he held the car door open for me. “Everything will be okay.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  Thank God for work. I was lucky that I loved what I did, which made the day fly by. The virus was definitely a hemorrhagic RNA virus, ancient in origin. Sasha’s death had not been an easy one. It wasn’t a virus we had encountered before, and it didn’t have a cure—that’s where the antibodies came into play. Our first battery of tests would unpack the virus itself. The next step was to see if the virus would be able to infect genes with the delta-32 mutation.

  Before I knew it, Trev was texting me that he was parked in front of the building. I glanced at the time and realized it was time to pack up for the day.

  After shutting down my workstation, I went back into the lab to straighten up. “It’s getting late, Fran. Let’s call it a day.”

  When she turned from the vials we had lined up, I felt immediately guilty. She looked exhausted. Her usual sleek bob was a mess, half moons hung beneath her deep-brown eyes, and her usually pale skin looked drawn.

  “Are you okay?”

  Fran offered a tired smile. “I am. Just a late night.”

  I tucked the last vial into the specimen container then picked it up.

  Fran intercepted with a wide grin, infusing some life back into her expression. “You know better than that, Grace.”

  “We’re still doing that?” I’d never lived it down. I’d tripped one time too many and lost hours of work, and Fran started calling me Grace for the lack of it that I possessed.

  “Of course we are. I’m not pulling an all-nighter because you think you can safely put this away—across the room? There are so many things you could trip over. Like your feet.” She winked. “I’ve done too many of those with you.”

  Grumbling, I washed out the beaker and placed it on the shelf with the others. “Fine.” It was embarrassing as hell but true. “But you can stop calling me Grace. No need to give my unfortunate clumsiness a nickname.” I leaned a hip against the counter and waited for her to lock the fridge storage where we kept the tool kit for the military. If needed, the vector—also known as a genetically engineered carrier—had a thirty-day shelf life without refrigeration.

  Once everything was safely stored away, she came to my side. “You know I love you, right? I keep things real, and you love that about me.” She chuckled. “You’re a klutz and a space case, but it’s not because you truly lack grace. It’s because you’re brilliant, and your mind is constantly coming up with amazing solutions.”

  My eyes went blurry, and I blinked away the excess moisture. She was sweet. I was fortunate to have her as an assistant and a friend. “Thanks.”

  She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “It’s true. I’m lucky to be able to work with you.”

  “Now you’re just kissing my butt.” We hung up our lab coats and headed out. “Reviews are coming up, aren’t they?”

  Her eyes went wide. “What? I forgot all about them.”

  I burst out laughing as Fran feigned surprised innocence. I would be in charge of her review, and it was fun to make her sweat a little. “Later, Franny.”

  She shook her head before turning toward a little café we occasionally ate at. “Later, Brainy,�
� she said over her shoulder.

  I scanned the cars parked in front of the building until I found Trev’s black Range Rover. He got out, and I sucked in a breath, thankful that Fran was already out of sight. That morning, she’d harassed me with questions about him, what it had been like to be rescued by him and to be in his arms. I’d shut it down quickly, and she hadn’t brought it back up yet, though I knew it was a matter of time. It was annoying but revealed how I felt around him—off-balance. I didn’t want to admit it to Fran or myself.

  As he came around the SUV, I stepped closer. Damn that crooked grin—it suited him, and I understood why so many women made fools of themselves around him. Not me, though. I wasn’t going to fall prey to his charm. Careful not to brush against him, I avoided the hand he offered to help me into the vehicle. Because honestly, from my previous experiences with him, tingles followed every place he touched. “I’m fine.”

  “Just offering a hand, Brainy.”

  I jerked my gaze back to his. “Are you making fun of me?” Fran was allowed to tease me—we had history. I didn’t know him, not really.

  He frowned before shutting my door. Once he was back in the driver’s seat, he turned to me. “Not maliciously. But yeah, I was teasing you. Your boss couldn’t stop talking about how valuable you are to the company, and then your assistant called you Brainy. Seems like a good nickname.”

  I shifted in my seat, wondering where a wormhole was when I needed one. “Carl is obsessing again, his eyesight firmly on the company profits. I’m not better than any of the other people working for him.”

  “I picked up dinner and a temporary camera for your doorbell.”

  I let him change the subject, relieved to be off that topic. “Temporary?”

  The light turned, and he punched it, shooting us ahead of the other cars. “This one will do the job in a pinch, but my brother will come through with much better and more reliable ones. I’ll install those tomorrow.”

  My stomach growled. I pressed my hand against it, hoping he hadn’t heard.

  No such luck. “Hungry?” Laughter practically dripped from his question.

  “I forgot to eat lunch. What did you pick up?”

  He pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine. “Chinese. Hope that’s okay.”

  “MSG?” I’d texted him back earlier today when he’d asked if I had any food allergies or dislikes. He knew about my MSG sensitivity, but I wanted to make sure, as the repercussions from it weren’t pleasant.

  “I know a guy there. He swore they didn’t use any.”

  “Better not have. If they lied, you’ll be taking care of me while I’m suffering from a massive migraine.”

  “You got it.”

  I hopped out of the truck before he could come around and help me. After I unlocked the door, we walked inside.

  Trev put a couple of plastic bags on the kitchen table and the rest on the counter. I set two plates and glasses of water on the table and rummaged through the bags, pulling out containers of food and wondering how much he thought I would eat.

  We piled our plates high with Kung Pao chicken, fried rice, wontons, and egg rolls then dug in, comfortable with the silence. After almost half of the food was gone, mostly consumed by Trev, I couldn’t stifle my curiosity anymore. “Why did you take this job? You’re a glorified babysitter and chauffeur. I know you have skills better used elsewhere that make driving me to and from work laughable.”

  He finished chewing and set his chopsticks down. “There was this look you had the day I fished you out of the ocean. Haunted. Lost. It reminded me of an aspect of my past.” He flashed a closed-lipped smile. “That’s a story for another time.”

  My body stiffened when he mentioned the vulnerability he’d glimpsed from me that day. But he seemed to have his own demons, and though intrigued, I decided to let it drop—mostly. “What can you tell me about your past?” Since I couldn’t tell him much about mine, thanks to the amnesia, I wanted to hear his.

  “This will probably offend your sense of ethics.” He winked. “My brother is off-the-charts smart when it comes to anything technological. When we were young, he’d hack into the school computers and alter the financial-aid records to get my family through hoops so we could get things like free lunch, waived registration fees, those types of roadblocks. It made getting an education and eating possible.”

  “Was he older or younger?”

  “Older, but not by much. Anyway, one day, I wanted to mess with him. As I said, Chris was—is—crazy smart. Of course, he’d aced every assignment in his tech class. So I hacked into the school’s system and changed the last one from an A-plus to a C.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You didn’t.”

  His eyes sparkled with mirth. “Oh, I did, and he was pissed. As soon as he saw it, he beat my ass.”

  “Wow.” They had to have been a handful for their parents. I laughed with him at the picture he’d painted. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  My smile fell from my lips. “I had a sister.”

  “Had?”

  “When I was young, my family and I were in a boating accident in Italy, where we lived. My mom and I moved to the States after. I was barely a teenager, and it was too hard for her. The accident… There was an unexpected storm, and the water was so rough. The day of the collision, I lost my dad, my sister, and my memory of everything before.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged. “My mom and I were thrown over together. So many had fallen overboard like us. Another boat was going too fast and couldn’t turn quickly enough in the choppy water. They lost control and slammed into the side of ours. And the waves—God, they were huge that day. Anyway, I hit my head pretty bad. I mostly can’t remember what happened before I fell over. Everything started from bits and flashes but then turned mostly normal once I was fully conscious in the hospital bed.”

  “Mostly?”

  I worried my lower lip with my teeth, weighing the idea of opening up to him as he had with me about his brother, at least a little, and it hadn’t painted him in a favorable light. I could try to be vulnerable to him too. “While I was in the water before you pulled me out, I had a flashback of that day in Italy.”

  “What did you remember?”

  He hadn’t moved since I’d started talking. The intensity had returned, pushing his easygoing persona to the backseat. The man before me exuded a barely leashed power—it was overwhelming, intimidating.

  “I was confused,” I said. The images flashed again, and I flinched. “When I looked at the boat, it wasn’t the same sailboat, but the one I was on with my parents. In one blink, they were on the deck, blurry—my dad and sister. In the next, they weren’t. I couldn’t tell where I was, whether I was in the past or the present, or what was going on.” I shrugged again, pushing the images away. “That’s it.”

  “Don’t downplay what you experienced. That day was traumatic. Being in a similar situation and remembering what you saw in the last moments before losing part of your family had to be horrifying.”

  I nodded. Nausea churned in my stomach, and I pushed my plate away. I was done. I couldn’t eat another bite, fearing I would throw it up.

  “My brother, Chris, experienced amnesia when a mission went wrong. He had headaches if he tried to force the memories to return before his brain was ready. But they did come back. Maybe your mind is letting you know it’s time to remember.”

  “Maybe. I’m not so sure.”

  “Go easy on yourself. The memories will come back when you’re ready for them.”

  My stomach lurched, and fear danced along my spine. I didn’t know why, but I was afraid he was right.

  The next morning, Carl called me into his office for an update—not on my work, but on what was happening outside of the office, if anything. His large mahogany desk sat between us, overflowing with reports. I pushed the toe of my ballet flat against the back of the desk, simultaneous
ly smoothing the flowered skirt that peeked through the buttons I’d left undone on my lab coat.

  I should have worn the gray-and-black flowing skirt rather than the floral one. They were the same length and so very comfortable, but my mood called for darker colors that morning. It had not been in my closet. Maybe it was at the dry cleaner’s. I could have sworn I’d picked it up, but maybe not.

  Carl cleared his throat.

  “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

  “I asked if anything has happened outside of the office. Anything at all that you found unusual.”

  “Just a misplaced purse. It turned up in another room.” I wouldn’t be taken seriously by anyone at work about that. They knew me too well. Still, it had been on the table. I was sure of it. As for the missing skirt, I wasn’t going to tell him as it was probably at the dry cleaner’s. Same with a sweater I couldn’t find. Besides, he suspected one of the soldiers I’d vaccinated, and I couldn’t imagine what a guy would do with my skirt.

  He waved it away. “That’s not unusual, Jules.”

  Right, of course it wasn’t. I scowled at him. “Don’t you get a report from Trev? What’s this really about?”

  “Yes, I do. This is about keeping you safe if one of the soldiers has an unhealthy obsession with you. I also want to hear firsthand if you’re worried about anything.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Carl ran his fingers through his short graying hair. “Good. Trev’s team reported back about the soldiers from the first test group. They checked out.” He leaned forward, and his features tightened. “I’m glad to hear about that, but you’re going to have to put up with Trev guarding you for a while longer. I have a bad feeling, and it’s better that we’re proactive about your safety. With the disease threat in Russia, we’ll need to add the building’s surrounding area or lab onto his radar.”

  “We’re helping. I doubt anyone from the Russian facility would be a threat. And they’re not even here.” I pushed to my feet. “Trev mentioned he teaches classes during the day. We’re both busy, Carl. I’ll be fine at work.” There was nothing more to be said. After a few more words exchanged and wishing each other a good night, I headed down to the lobby, texting Trev as I went that I was ready to leave. His response was fast and curt: Stay inside. Stuck in traffic—accident. Be there soon.