Lock, Stock and Secret Baby

by Cassie Miles

  In an old building like this, there would be strict regulations about setting off fireworks, but the Pyro staff had come up with their spectacular special effect—the so-called wall of flame.

  Blake had seen it online, but the real thing was more impressive. A shimmering, translucent curtain of red, orange and yellow strips rose slowly from the back of the stage. Lights flashed against it. A wind machine rippled the fabric. From the audience, it would look as if a wall of flames consuming the theater.

  Behind his keyboard, Pyro screamed about how “The Twenty-Four” would take over the world. Blake caught sight of his quarry.

  He pursued, jumping over cables on the floor and shoving people out of his way. Smoke billowed around his feet.

  The area behind the scrim with rising flames allowed light to bleed through. Blake spotted the other man. Diving, he tackled his adversary, knocked him to the floor, flat on his belly. He shoved his guns into his belt and disarmed the other man. Finally, he had this guy. Finally, he’d get some answers.

  The music stopped. The stage went black.

  From the auditorium, the audience screamed for more.

  Backstage, dim safety lights cast minimal illumination. Blake heard voices around him, felt hands pulling him off their friend. Instead of fighting one man, he was battling a mob.

  He heard a shout from his left. “Police. Freeze.”

  A hand grasped his shoulder and pulled him back.

  Blake wrenched free before he lost his grip on the gunman, but the guy had seen his chance. He struggled, put up a hell of a fight. “Back off,” Blake yelled. “I’m with the cops.”

  His words had no effect. The rest of Pyro’s staff swarmed him, dragged him off the man he had pinned on the floor. It was tempting to use the gun to clear the area, but these others might be innocent.

  On his feet, Blake reacted by instinct. Using the butt of the gun, he whacked one guy in the head. Another doubled over in pain when he unleashed a hard jab to the gut.

  In the shadows, he saw somebody moving to help him, pulling the attackers away from him. There wasn’t enough light to see who was on his side, and Blake’s only concern was to catch the gunman who attacked in the basement, to prevent him from fleeing.

  The lights came back up. He saw the man fighting on his side. Vargas. His nemesis. What the hell?

  Blake pointed to the gunman who was escaping. “Stop him.”

  And there was Eve. She jabbed her stun gun into the man’s side, and he went down.

  AN HOUR LATER, Eve sat on the edge of the stage with her feet dangling. She’d always prided herself on being observant, but she hadn’t been able to produce much in the way of useful information when questioned by Detective Gable. Too much had happened too fast. The shooting. The music. The chase. The wall of flame.

  Her brain was still sorting through the details.

  The aftermath was equally confusing. An ambulance raced in and picked up the man who Blake shot in the basement. He was expected to survive, thank goodness. Other paramedics treated the various people injured in the backstage brawl.

  The other man—the guy Blake risked his life in pursuing—was in custody, not talking and demanding a lawyer. Who was he? The rest of Pyro’s staff claimed they didn’t know. According to them, these two jerks in sunglasses had joined their crew a few hours ago. Were they all lying? Gable and the other police were still sorting out witness accounts, taking names and checking identifications.

  She exhaled a sigh, and her shoulders slumped. Close to midnight, her energy was running low, and she wished she could take another Da Vinci–style power nap.

  Vargas came up behind her. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He sat on the edge of the stage beside her. In his jeans and denim shirt, he looked casual but still expensive. His left hand was wrapped in a bandage. “Are you all right, Eve?”

  “I wasn’t injured.”

  “You handled yourself well.”

  Though raised on military bases, she tended to be more of a pacifist. Not a fighter. She hadn’t expected to enjoy using the stun gun, but when she had zapped the bad guy and he had gone down, she’d felt a kind of thrill.

  That exhilaration was long gone, replaced by the frustrating awareness that they still had too many unanswered questions. She wanted answers, starting with Vargas. “Why are you here? At lunch, you told me that you didn’t know any of the others, including Pyro.”

  “I saw him at the funeral. Thought I might take advantage of the concert to meet him. It was a bad idea.”

  She’d seen him join in the fight when Blake was struggling with the gunman. Vargas had taken his side, which meant he was an ally. Or was he? She knew better than to trust her genetic half brother. “A bad idea? Why?”

  “Because Pyro has left the building.” He shrugged. “According to his staff, he always ends his concerts the same way. The big finale with smoke and flames. Then, he’s gone.”

  “I doubt he vanished into thin air.”

  “The police can’t reach him on the phone. Supposedly, he goes underground after a big performance. They might not hear from him for days.”

  In her opinion, Pyro’s convenient disappearance meant he was fleeing the scene. Coupled with his connection to the two thugs who broke into her house, Pyro was beginning to look a lot like the person who had killed Blake’s father. Unfortunately, circumstantial conjecture wasn’t proof.

  Vargas cleared his throat. “Did you get the information I e-mailed to you?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Her guard went up. She needed to be careful about how much she revealed. “It’s difficult to decipher, but I saw that you and I share the same mother. Your father, however, is unique.”

  “I noticed that, too. I was the only child from that sperm donor.”

  An observation wasn’t an answer. Tomorrow night when she finally talked to Dr. Prentice, she’d get closer to the truth. “In the psychological profile, you showed several extreme behaviors.”

  “My ratings were high.”

  So were Pyro’s. “Do you have any idea what behaviors were being measured?”

  “I’m aggressive,” he readily admitted. “And I’d rate high in organization. I’m an effective public speaker. Also, I have musical talent and an exceptional ability with numbers.”

  “I wouldn’t give you high marks for modesty.”

  “I’m confident with good reason.” He grinned. “I get results.”

  She thought of the traits for antisocial personality disorder. “Would you call yourself ruthless?”

  “I wouldn’t. Others would.” He reached over and patted her hand—an uninvited attention that made her want to pull away from him. “Before my twentieth birthday, I was a millionaire. What does that say about me?”

  “That you’re not a pussycat?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  Blake joined them, taking a seat on her other side. Stage dirt smeared his sleeveless white T-shirt, and she noticed a couple of bruises on his bare arms. The eyeliner had left dark smudges on his face. He reminded her of a warrior, embattled and heroic.

  Leaning around her, he spoke to Vargas. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you. I appreciated your help.”

  “The least I could do,” he said. “Eve was the one who really saved the day.”

  When they both looked at her, she was embarrassed. “Shucks, boys. It was nothing.”

  Vargas asked, “What have the police found out?”

  “They have basic identification,” Blake said. “The two thugs are from San Francisco. No current warrants, but they’ve both got criminal records.”

  “How did they get backstage?”

  “The stage manager said they told him they were pyrotechnic specialists, studying the act to come up with new special effects. They flashed a bogus contract.”

  With his right hand, Vargas smoothed the white streak in his black hair—an unnecessary gesture because his hair wasn’t out of place. She wonder
ed what it would take to shatter his smooth façade. An accusation?

  “Statistically,” she said, “Dr. Ray’s psychological profiles show that you and Pyro had much in common.”

  “Not surprising,” Vargas said. “Even if we don’t share the same DNA, we were designed to be high-functioning.”

  “Designed,” Blake said with disgust. “I hate that idea.”

  Simultaneously, she and Vargas asked, “Why?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at her genetic half brother. Knowing that she was speaking for both of them, she said, “There’s nothing wrong with scientific experimentation.”

  “I’ve got nothing against science,” Blake said. “But I’m not an experiment. My life is a hell of a lot more than a sperm and egg that got mixed together in a petri dish.”

  “That’s your father’s thesis,” Vargas said. “He always said that upbringing and environment are more important in psychological development than genetics.”

  “My dad didn’t get involved in this study for science. He did it for love.”

  She marveled at the beautiful simplicity of his reasoning. “Dr. Ray loved his wife and wanted to give her a child, even if it meant dealing with Prentice. When you were born, he loved you, too.”

  In his way, Dr. Ray had loved all of them, all the subjects in the study. He followed their development—year by year—with an interest that was more than statistical.

  And one of them had killed him.

  She turned to Vargas, determined to shake his overwhelming confidence. “You and Pyro have other similarities. You’re both musically talented, both successful in your field.”

  “Stop right there.” Vargas gestured to the auditorium that lay before them. The lights were up, showing the litter on the floor, the dirty walls and the rows of beat-up seats. “I wouldn’t call a performance in this third-rate venue an example of success.”

  “Pyro has a following,” she said. “All those screaming fans think he’s a star.”

  Vargas scoffed. “He’s a prancing moron leading others of his ilk.”

  “And you have something else in common,” she said. “Both you and Pyro knew about the study. That’s why he sings that song about the twenty-four—the superheroes who are going to take over the world. How did he find out? Do you know?”

  “I don’t,” Vargas said. “It could be that Pyro and I are flip sides of the same coin.”

  Or maybe, just maybe, Vargas was lying. What was that description of sociopathic behavior? They could look you in the eye and tell you what you wanted to hear. Their idea of truth was defined by whatever was best for them.

  “Here’s the good news,” Blake said. “Detective Gable says we’re free to go.”

  He rose to his feet, grasped her hand and pulled her upright. Standing, she realized that her legs were a bit wobbly. In some ways, this had been the best day in her life—the day when she finally lost her virginity. In others, this twenty-four-hour period had been exhausting.

  Blake smiled down at her. “Tired?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Get some rest,” Vargas said. “A woman in your condition needs plenty of sleep. Don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything. That goes for both of you.”

  Blake shook his hand. “Thanks, again.”

  As Vargas strode off the stage, she snuggled against Blake’s chest. “Sleep sounds really good to me.”

  “I don’t want to drive all the way back to the burbs,” he said. “We’ll stay in a downtown hotel tonight.”

  She thought of crisp sheets and chocolate mints on the pillow. “Wonderful.”

  Halfway down the street to the car, she was hit by an insight. “Vargas is up to something.”

  “I’d agree,” Blake said. “Even though he took my side, I don’t trust—”

  “He said that a woman in my condition needed sleep.”

  “And?”

  “I never told him I was pregnant.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Spray from the steaming hot shower pelted Blake’s shoulders and ran down his back, soothing the minor bruises from his brawl at the theater. Staying in a downtown hotel had been the right decision; he was so tired that he might have fallen asleep at the wheel driving back to his dad’s house, and it would have been a shame to wreck that beautiful Mercedes.

  Random thoughts popped inside his brain. Vargas knew more than he was telling. Having him show up at the concert where the two thugs made their final play had been more than coincidence. If anyone was clever enough to be a criminal mastermind, it had to be Vargas.

  But Pyro had fled the scene. A classic admission of guilt?

  And what about Latimer? His contact with Prentice was damned suspicious, and he had a strong motive to suppress the information in the Prentice-Jantzen study.

  One of those men had killed his father. If Blake hadn’t been so tired, he might have reached out and grasped the solution.

  Getting out of the shower, he dried himself off and wrapped a towel around his waist.

  In the bedroom, the lights were on, and the flat-screen television showed a late-night talk show. Apparently, Eve had been trying to stay awake. Swaddled in a terry-cloth robe, she sat on top of the quilted bedspread. In her limp hand, she held the TV remote, but her eyes were closed, and her head drooped forward. She reminded him of a kid, struggling to stay up past bedtime. “Oh, Eve,” he murmured, “what am I going to do about you?”

  The connection between them grew deeper with every moment he spent in her presence. Truly, he thought of her as a partner. She was brave, smart and damn good-looking. Her hair, still damp from the shower, fell in blond tendrils to frame her lovely face. Gently, he kissed her forehead and took the remote from her hand.

  He turned off the television. Silence filled the room. They would be safe tonight.

  When he repositioned her under the covers, she murmured but didn’t waken. He threw off his towel and slipped into bed beside her. Still asleep, she snuggled into his arms.

  Being with Eve felt right. If she’d been awake, she would have pointed out the logical objections to why they couldn’t be together. His work in Special Forces required him to travel all over the globe. She was pregnant, and the father of her baby might be the man who had killed his dad. If awake, she’d tell him that they’d only been together a couple of days and he’d get over her.

  Blake knew better. He trusted his feelings more than the facts. His heart told him that Eve was the woman he wanted. She was his destiny.

  He dropped into a deep, peaceful sleep.

  Later that night, still in a dream state, he felt her supple, naked body resting in his arms. He caressed the curve of her slender waist, marveling at the satin texture of her skin. When he stroked the flare of her hips, she moved closer to him.

  Stretching, she molded her body to his. She planted a moist kiss in the hollow of his throat. Unsure of whether he was awake or asleep, he accepted the fantasy. In the sweet, silent darkness, he made love to her.

  IN THE MORNING, Blake awakened gradually, aware that he was sleeping in a strange and luxurious bed. He reached across the sheets, expecting to find Eve. She was gone.

  His eyelids popped open. Where was she? Had she vanished like a dream? An irrational sense of bereavement shot through him. He didn’t want to lose her, didn’t want to be apart, not even for a minute.

  Leaving the bed, he went to the closed bathroom door and pressed his ear against it, listening. He didn’t hear water running. “Eve?”

  “Oh, good. You’re up. Come on in.”

  He pushed open the door and saw her, fully dressed and alert. She sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor with her laptop open in front of her.

  He asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I didn’t want to turn on a light and wake you.” She beamed a smile. “I was wide-awake and figured I could use this time to update a project at Sun Wave.”

  “You’ve been working?”

  “Sure. With my cell phone and m
y computer, I can do most of my work from any location.”

  “Anywhere?” he asked. “Even on the other side of the planet?”

  “Or from outer space.” She closed her laptop and stood. “But if we’re going that far, I’d like to get breakfast first.”

  Aware that he was naked, he retreated into the bedroom and gathered up his clothes. The glimmer of a plan took root in his mind. If all she needed for work was a computer, there was no reason why she couldn’t come with him when he returned to the Middle East. Of course, he wouldn’t take her into an active combat zone. But there were safe places.

  While he showered again and dressed, he came up with a plan for the day. First, breakfast. Then, shopping. His clothes from last night were filthy with backstage dirt, and Eve probably felt the same way about her clothes. Maybe he could convince her to buy something more attractive than a T-shirt.

  He came out of the bathroom into the large bedroom where the curtain was open. Sunlight poured through the window; it was after ten o’clock in the morning.

  Eve sat at the cherrywood desk with her laptop open in front of her. He came up behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders and peeked at the computer screen, expecting to see an indecipherable array of equations. Instead, he saw typed paragraphs.

  Leaning down, he kissed her cheek. “What are you working on?”

  She turned her head and kissed him back. “We got a reply from Dr. Puller. He found a statistical key to decipher your dad’s information. It was an old form used by the military to measure personality traits.”

  “This should be interesting.” In the course of his military service, Blake had undergone a vast number of surveys and tests for both physical and mental ability. The results were usually annoying. He stood at the window and looked out. They were on the tenth floor and would have had a nice view of the mountains if there hadn’t been another tall building in the way.

  “Dr. Puller interpreted the numerical codes. He wanted to be sure we understood that this kind of statistical survey isn’t an exact science. The traits indicate potential behavior rather than fact. For example, a person might have a leaning toward creativity but it doesn’t mean they’ll become an artist.”