Her next move? Bed. Tomorrow morning, she had an appointment, and then a quick run to the store, and then, back to the computer. Back to Guardian Knights. Back to sticking her nose where didn’t belong.
She smiled. Just the way it should be.
3
Asher
He almost missed her. Movement from her apartment building got Asher’s attention, and through half-closed eyes, he idly watched as a woman made her way down the steps. His gaze zoned in on some nice-looking calves, then upward along the lines of a snug yet not overly tight-fitting navy-blue skirt, then a billowy silk blouse with an oversized sash hanging from the collar tied into a loose bow. An olive-green pea coat completed the ensemble. It was only when he glanced up into her face that he jolted upright.
His frumpy wallflower, Ellie, had transformed herself into a woman who could pass herself off as a model. He watched in amazement as she walked briskly down the sidewalk, head held high, no hint of self-consciousness or shyness emanating from her. Asher’s astonishment finally gave way to action, and he slipped out of his truck, his wariness, his boredom, his annoyance at the task fading as he followed her from a discreet distance. God, it was difficult enough to keep his eyes off her ass.
Damn, what a transformation! Will the real Ellie Jespersen please stand up? This woman he was watching stride confidently down the street was the same wallflower who liked to hide herself in flannel pants and oversized sweatshirts?
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t his job to critique her clothing. His job was to keep an eye on her, but so far, nothing she had done elicited much interest. Until now. Jackson had Tansy monitoring some of her online activity, but he hadn’t reported anything alarming. Either they were barking up the wrong tree or she was exceptionally good at hiding her digital footprint.
He followed a discreet distance as she turned down West Broadway, passed a police station and then, directly across the street on the corner, entered a diner. A gas station with a convenience store kitty-corner to the diner was his best chance of watching unobserved. He made his way to the front window as he watched her sit down at a booth by the diner’s front window.
Asher stood casually in front of a magazine rack facing that window, giving him the opportunity to pretend to browse. He was more interested in what the hell the girl was doing than the porn and muscle magazines front and center.
Moments later, a man slid into the booth across the table from her. Asher frowned. The same guy from last night? No, this man was thicker and shorter. From his vantage point, a glimpse of a business suit under an overcoat was the only thing Asher could really determine. The man didn’t remove his coat.
He glanced around, then pulled his cell phone from his pocket, tapped his camera icon, aimed his camera out the window, quickly zoomed, and then clicked off several pictures. Asher forwarded them to Jackson, thinking that he’d be able to ID the guy, then returned to watching. The man spoke briefly to Ellie, barely letting her get a word in edgewise, then gave her a shake of his head. A pointed finger. A warning? The man looked angry, but Asher couldn’t be sure. Words were exchanged and then the man abruptly stood and walked out of the diner in the opposite direction from which Ellie had approached it.
For a moment, he was tempted to follow the man, to see where he went. Who was he? He took a step toward the front of the convenience store and changed his mind. His job was to watch Ellie. Just then, she rose and also left the diner, this time hitting northeast toward the harbor, away from the police station, away from the direction the man had taken. She glanced over her shoulder a couple of times, and he ducked back into the gas station.
She looked nervous, but why? Asher let her get a half block lead, and then followed. When she glanced back over her shoulder, he bent his head and slouched his shoulders, just another pedestrian. She seemed to be taking a roundabout way, idly turning down one street, then another. Would she eventually make her way back to her apartment, or did she have another destination in mind? Who was that man? If she was concerned she was being followed, then why agree to meet someone in her own neighborhood?
A sudden movement out of the corner of his eye stole his attention. They were walking along a residential street filled with rowhouses, but the approaching corner and intersection held a few businesses: a liquor store, a small grocery, a dry cleaner. He frowned, trying to keep an eye on both Ellie and the man who emerged from a florist on the corner on the opposite side of the street. He’d casually looked around until his gaze had also latched onto Ellie. Coincidence? No fucking way. Not with the way he was mirroring Ellie’s trail.
It wasn’t the man she had just met at the diner. The man that had been looking at her apartment last night? The man he had chased into an alleyway? He couldn’t be sure, not without getting closer, and he didn’t want to risk it. For now, he would hang back. Maybe he was being overly suspicious. Maybe the man wasn’t following Ellie at all. Then again, maybe he was—
Shit! He’d been paying too much attention to the man and allowed Ellie to get an entire block ahead of him. In time to see her climb onto a bus headed for downtown. The man who appeared to be following her didn’t break stride, but continued on, several moments later entering a donut shop.
Asher paused, pretending to talk on his phone as he inwardly cursed and questioned his next move. Catch the next bus? Pointless. He had no idea where or when she might get off the bus. Shaking his head in self-disgust, he turned around and began making his way back to her apartment building. He’d behaved like an amateur, but what could he have done differently? Just how many people were following his girl? He made a face. And when in the hell had she already become his girl? He turned down a residential street and lifted the phone to his ear again, pretty sure he would get reamed out by Jackson when he reported in.
He tapped his speed dial.
“Yeah?”
“I lost her.” Silence. “At any rate, she got on a bus heading into downtown.”
Finally, Jackson spoke. “Nothing we can do about it now. We’re still working on identifying the photo of the man you sent. Head on back to her apartment building. Keep an eye out for these men. Descriptions?”
Asher provided Jackson with what little he knew of the older man she had met in the diner as well as the one he thought might have been following her just now.
“Well, get back to it. I’m not liking this much. Tansy was able to access one of the files she got into last night. It triggered a tickler.”
“To what?”
“The sub. That photo of us in the conning tower. Remember?”
Shit. He remembered the photo taken in the conning tower of the sub during one of their training missions, before their last job in Afghanistan. Some guy working with the NSA had also been on the sub and had taken the photo. An innocuous one at that, displaying a scowling Jackson, Asher in profile, and Declan and Logan studying a navigational chart, the captain of the sub standing nearby, smiling. Nothing to identify any of them as belonging to DARC Ops, nothing identifying the sub. Every one of them had a legitimate and aboveboard reason for being on the sub. Or so it would seem if anybody bothered to dig deeper. No identifying information about the sub, timeframe, location, or anything else was included, but it was a photo that Jackson had had a fit over. It’d been taken just before one of Asher’s first missions with the team.
Why, and more importantly, how, had Ellie Jespersen accessed that file? What was she up to? That was exactly why Jackson wanted him to keep an eye on her. Was she working on exposing them? Had she somehow found out about their clandestine activities, and was she working to out them?
“I remember,” Asher said, then disconnected the call. His job had just taken a turn. The woman was up to something, and he wasn’t sure what. To be quite honest, he wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do about it if, for some bizarre reason, Ellie Jespersen was planning on doing an exposé of sorts on their team.
Once again, Asher returned to his truck and then drove around the block once
before sliding into a spot that had just been vacated, half a block down and diagonally across from Ellie’s apartment building. The thought that he wasn’t thinking of her as “the suspect” or “the target” entered his mind, but he forced it away. She was just Ellie.
The minutes passed, then several hours. He never saw her return to her apartment from the front entrance, but he grudgingly prepared to settle in for another long night. Darkness slowly fell over the city. What if she—
Asher jerked when he saw movement at the front of the apartment building. He squinted, blinked, and then sat upright. Ellie! How the hell did she get into her apartment without him seeing her? Shit! The fire escape! He slammed his hand down on the steering wheel, calling himself all sorts of stupid. His distraction with Ellie had almost led to him losing track of her for the second time in a single day.
By the time she flew down the stone steps to street level, he was scrambling out of his truck. Wearing jeans, a T-shirt covered with a flannel shirt, but no jacket, Ellie Jespersen looked frightened. Even in the encroaching darkness, her face was pale, her eyes wide as she glanced behind her as she quickly began to head north along the sidewalk. Wherever she was going, she was in a hurry.
What the hell was her—she cast another worried gaze over her shoulder. From across the street, paralleling her and maybe twenty yards behind, Asher turned to look in the same direction. A few pedestrians, an older woman, a young couple, a man wearing an off-the-rack suit . . . his heart skipped a beat, and he narrowed his eyes at that man. He was similar in build to the man he’d chased down Ellie’s fire escape earlier that day.
The man following her maintained about a half a block distance, but every time she accelerated her pace, so did he. On the other side of the street, Asher maneuvered himself slightly between them, not wanting to attract undue attention by increasing his pace to the point that whoever was following Ellie would notice him, too.
He kept his eyes locked on her. Looking to see if the other man was still following would only give him away. By the look on her face, it was obvious that he was.
Suddenly, Ellie dashed across the street at a half jog, eliciting an annoyed honk of a car that barely managed to avoid her. He picked up the pace. Asher cut into a narrow alleyway between a mom-and-pop hardware store and some type of office. Both were roughly three-story brick buildings that allowed little light into the narrow alley, offering him adequate darkness to pick up his pace. If he could cut her off at the next street—
Out of nowhere, he slammed into something, something soft, something that uttered a startled cry and bounced off of him and began to fall. He reached out his arms and grabbed at that something, preventing—
“Let me go!”
A woman’s voice hissed up at him, garbled with a combination of fear and fury. A stabbing pain in his shin prompted him to glance down in confusion until he realized that the woman he was holding had already pulled back her foot, preparing to slam the toe of her tennis shoe into the same shin.
“Stop it,” he growled, his hands wrapped around her upper arms, easily encompassing them. “I’m trying to help you, damn it!” He cringed as her foot once again made contact with his shin. He tried to back away while still holding onto her. “I told you, I’m—”
It was like holding onto a wet fish, twisting, squirming, flopping this way and that. Her feet were everywhere. One of her knees came up in an attempt to strike his balls. He barely twisted his hips away just in time, taking the brunt of her knee on his upper thigh. He swore, and tightened his hold on her arms. Ellie opened her mouth, eyes wide as she stared up at him, trying to make out his features, prepared to scream.
Quickly, offering her no chance, he flipped her around, pressed her back up against his chest, and stepped deeper into the shadows of the bricks, close to a dumpster, one hand clamped tightly over her mouth. He bent down to whisper in her ear.
“Stop fighting me,” he ordered. “The guy that’s been following you. He just entered the alleyway.”
She froze. Carefully, Asher backed up against a dumpster, deep in the shadows. He held his breath. She seemed to sense him do so and followed suit. Footsteps entered the cement alleyway, then paused. Seemingly forever. Then, finally, they backed away.
Asher’s heart pounded as he maintained a tight hold on Ellie Jespersen, one arm clasped tightly just beneath her breasts, his other hand still tightly clasped over her mouth. Hot air from her nose wafted against the back of his hand, and her ass tucked up against his upper thighs. His balls tightened and he cursed inwardly. Her head came up to about the notch in his neck, although he was slightly hunched over, for all intents and purposes enveloping her in his embrace. After several moments, he thought it would be safe to—
He barely bit back a startled cry as she slammed the heel of her foot onto his instep. Instead of letting go of her, he tightened his grasp and heard the oomph as he squeezed the air out of her lungs.
“Are you fucking nuts?” he growled.
She tried to say something behind his hand. For brief instant, he felt the warmth of her tongue against his palm and then a tickle of teeth. A tingle in his dick. Damn, he hadn’t expected this kind of reaction to the little firecracker. “You bite me or spit in my hand, I swear to God . . .” he whispered harshly into her ear. “Don’t you get it? I’m trying to help you!”
She muttered softly behind his hand, twisting fiercely for a moment, and then sagging as if giving up. He still didn’t trust her. “If I take my hand away, do you promise not to scream?”
She nodded. “I know that guy’s been following you. I know that you’ve gotten yourself into some kind of trouble. I don’t know what it is, but eventually, he’s going to find you if you keep moving around your neighborhood. My truck’s nearby. We can get out of here for a while. What do you say?”
She said nothing, not only because his hand covered her mouth, but because he hoped she was actually listening to him. For all she knew, he was one of the people following her. For all she knew, he was nothing but a predator, a kidnapper, someone who would whisk her away with the promise of safety and take her to a park, rape her, and then slit her throat.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but I mean it. I’m trying to help you.”
Nothing. He softened his voice, slowed its cadence. “Ellie, will you let me?”
4
Ellie
Ellie struggled to swallow, but couldn’t even work up enough spit to do so. Her heart pounded and her mouth was so dry it felt filled with cotton. The body she was pressed up against was rock hard, massive, and intimidating. Struggling with him would be a futile endeavor, but her every instinct compelled her to try.
Nevertheless, her paltry efforts had gone unrewarded. In return for her abuse, he’d merely tightened his grip.
Was he telling the truth? How could she even know? Did she take a risk on avoiding her shadow on the streets or agree to go with this stranger?
Ellie froze. The noises she’d heard in the hallway outside of her apartment the night before might not have been so innocent after all. Had her apartment been compromised? Had she?
The questions whirled through her brain. Just minutes ago, she had stared in dumbfounded amazement at her computer, more specifically her bank account. Her balance showed zero funds. She knew damned good and well she had several thousand dollars in that account, but it had disappeared.
No doubt about it. She’d been hacked. But by whom? Had someone figured out who she was? The Guardian Knights? Or one of dozens of well-known hackers that commonly cruised the dark web? Even employees of the State Department or major organizations were there. Hackers were always hacking. Coincidence?
No. Her money wouldn’t instantly disappear, and if she could get her hands on her computer, she could get it back. The moment she did, she’d pull it out of the bank. These days, it was safer to keep your cash under your mattress than it was in a bank account.
“Well? Whic
h is it to be?”
The deep voice in her ear repeated the question. Warm breath against the side of her neck caused a tingle to race down her spine. And not a bad tingle at that. Despite her precarious circumstances, she couldn’t help but feel the slightest shiver of desire. The body behind her was well muscled and warm. Offering protection. She’d never considered herself prone to be a damsel in distress, but yet here she was.
Finally, she nodded.
“You better mean it,” he said.
With that, his grip on her mouth loosened. The first thing she did was lick her lips, then she opened her mouth slightly to make sure it would work, her jaw aching. She tried to turn and look up at him, but his grasp on her prevented it. “Who are you?” Her voice came out in a whisper.
“Not important right now,” he replied, equally quiet. “What is important is getting you out of here. To my truck. It’s not far from here.”
Who was he? How many people were following her? Supposedly good guys and bad guys? Why? All questions she would be sure to ask as soon as they made their way out of this dark and smelly alley. Oddly, she didn’t feel nearly so frightened by this man as she had by the one she’d noticed following her, twice already. Coupled with her hacked computer, it didn’t bode well. She was still wary of her supposed rescuer’s intentions, but she allowed him to keep a loose grip around her upper arm as he made his way through the alleyway. His footsteps were so light they made no sound at all, something she tried—and failed—to mimic. Ellie left her guard up, prepared to jerk her arm from the mystery man’s grasp and bolt at the slightest suspicious move on his part.
Her mind racing with unanswered questions, she paused when he did at the end of the alley, carefully glancing up and down the dark streets. Her street. One that no longer felt safe. Not for her. No safe haven, no anonymity.
Dark Deception (DARC Ops Book 11) Page 3
