Cold Truth

by Susan Sleeman

  “How can you be so sure?” She tried to focus on his face, but panic had her gaze darting around the room.

  He set the phone on the table. “I’ve dealt with plenty of crazies in my career, and they all had one thing in common. The need to feel powerful. When you don’t play, this guy loses all power.”

  His explanation did nothing to calm her mind, and tears welled up in her eyes. “He has power over Kevin.”

  “Yes, assuming he really does have your brother. But he had that power before he called you, and obviously he needed more. Or needed something from you. Trust me. He’ll call back.”

  Trust him? Could she? She focused on him. “At least you know I didn’t make up the caller.”

  “True that,” he said, but distrust remained firmly seated in his eyes.

  Distrust of Kevin or her? Or both? “You still believe Kevin took the toxin, and it seems like you think I’m involved, too.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Seriously? How can I be making these calls? Or even why?”

  He blew out a noisy breath. “You could have programmed a computer to place the calls at regular intervals. As to why? To draw the focus from your brother to this mysterious caller, giving Kevin time to go into hiding.”

  She had to admit he made sense, and she could understand his position. She didn’t like it, but she could see it. And she didn’t like that he aimed his distrust at her. She was a woman of her word, and she wasn’t used to having her honor called into question.

  She glanced at him. He ran his hand through his hair. Maybe he felt the same frustration she did. Maybe he didn’t like the way she was treating him, either. And maybe that would get in their way of finding Kevin.

  She couldn’t risk it. “What say we call a truce to our lack of trust in each other and keep an open mind no matter what happens?”

  He tilted his head in thought. “I’m glad to try it.”

  “Again with that,” she muttered. “A response that isn’t really a response.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “You. You’re good at answering, but saying nothing to give me a hint of who you are.”

  His razor-sharp focus returned. “You know all you need to know about me already. At least everything you need to know to work with me. Now if you’re aiming for something personal, I should tell you right up front, I’m not the dating kind.”

  “I…I…I...Ooh, you’re infuriating,” she finally got out. “What makes you think because I want to know something about you that I want to date you?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Her face heated. “Of all the…”

  “Look, if I’m not reading the signals wrong, you’re attracted to me.” He held up a hand. “It’s okay. I find you mighty attractive, too. No harm in admitting it for either of us as long as we don’t try to act on it. That wouldn’t be good for the investigation.”

  She started to argue, but her phone rang.

  He snatched it up and handed it to her. “This time agree to the game.”

  She nodded. “Hello.”

  Coop leaned close again.

  “Want to play a game, Kiera?” the caller asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, but hated that she had to say it. “But how do I even know if you have Kevin?”

  “Let’s start playing, and you’ll be sure in no time flat. I’ve prepared some fun chemistry puzzles for you. Let’s start with the first one. Ready?”

  “Yes,” she said, but she was no more ready for this puzzle than she’d been for someone to take her brother captive.

  “I’m a device used to extrude a polymer solution or polymer melt to form fibers,” the voice said.

  “That’s simple. You’re describing a spinneret. But how will that help Kevin?”

  “Figure it out, and you’ll have your first chance to locate him. But don’t delay, Kiera. You have to solve it before I call again.”

  “When will that be?”

  “You have twenty-four hours.”

  “No. No! You haven’t given me enough to go on. That’s not enough time.”

  “I know you like a challenge, so I’m giving you one. Tick tock, Kiera. Get moving and you will find your brother…before the deadly toxin finds him.”

  Kiera dropped the phone and grabbed the back of a barstool. Her gaze flitted around as if searching for something, but Coop had no idea what she hoped to find. He did know that she looked like she would drop to the ground any moment, so he took her elbow and helped her over to the sofa. She didn’t squirm or complain at all, but sank down on the plush cushions. After her stubborn independence, this behavior bothered him more than if she’d voiced her dislike of his touch. After all, she’d made it clear that she didn’t much respect him or his opinion of her brother.

  She settled down and stared ahead as if in shock.

  “Kiera.” He sat on the coffee table to be at her eye level. “We need to focus on the call.”

  “I am.” She lifted her wounded eyes to his. “I think the caller really has Kevin.”

  “Agreed. I’m glad to help you find him. But don’t expect any help with the chemistry clues. That’s foreign to me. It did seem like the caller knows you, though.”

  “What?” She blinked her lashes as if trying to focus.

  “He said, ‘I know you like a challenge.’ He’d have to know you to say that.”

  “And I suppose that means you believe even more that I’m involved in this.”

  “We agreed to let that rest, remember? All I’m saying is that the caller seems to know you. Doesn’t mean you know him. He could be an acquaintance of Kevin’s, and he told the caller that you like a challenge. I’m assuming that’s true. About the challenge, I mean.”

  She nodded. “But he’s talking life or death here. I’ve never faced that kind of challenge.”

  Coop held her gaze to convince her of his sincerity. “I don’t know you well, but you’ve already proved your strength when you held your own with Gage and me. Not many people do. I’ll bet you can overcome this shock and figure out the caller’s identity.”

  She clutched her hands together and continued to blink as if trying to wake from a nightmare. “But who could it be? I can’t come up with a single person who might want to hurt Kevin or taunt me like this.”

  “Could be a coworker,” Coop said the first thing that came to mind. “We’re already doing background checks on disgruntled employees at Oceanic—specifically recently fired ones who Kevin may have had an altercation with. But there could also be a current employee who’s out to get him and trying to frame him for the theft.”

  “If he got into it with anyone at work, he never told me.” She released her hands, a good thing. Her fingers were turning purple. “And that would be odd. He tells me everything.”

  “If what you say is true, he didn’t tell you that he succeeded with the toxin.”

  “I wish you would believe me.” She sighed. “It’s hard to consider working with you if you distrust me.”

  He wished he could believe her, too, but he had to rely on physical proof and only physical proof. Not his gut feel for this woman. “Do you want to work with us?”

  “Want to? Honestly, no. Not when you don’t trust me, but I think it’s the best option to find Kevin, so I’ll do it for him.”

  He didn’t much like adding to her distress, but he had a job to do and could make things easier for her. “I’ll try to be more open-minded going forward. And you joining us in the hunt for your brother puts a check mark in the positive column for you, too.”

  Tortured eyes rose to meet his gaze. “How’s that?”

  “If you didn’t want him found you wouldn’t help us.”

  “Right.”

  “And now that we’re going to be working together, we should make a plan of action. I’ll have Gage ask Oceanic about current employees.” He tapped the notes app in his phone and recorded the item on his To Do List. “What about Kevin’s personal life? Anyone there who might want
to frame him for the theft?”

  “What personal life?” She sighed. “Our jobs are demanding and neither of us have much of a life outside the lab.”

  Coop understood that. His work took his all, too, and he had little time for relationships or social events. Even if he did have the time, he wasn’t inclined to get into a relationship. Since an IED had nearly paralyzed him in Afghanistan, he realized that life could end in the blink of an eye. Couple that with a failed relationship, and he didn’t do long-term anything anymore. Live in the moment was his motto now. Live on the edge.

  “Sounds like you wish your life was different,” he said, hoping to get her to drop her defenses and open up with him.

  “I do and I don’t. I mean the work is fulfilling, but I don’t have many friends. And with Kevin living here, it can get lonely.” She took a long breath. “Of course, I have my parents, but they’re not the same as friends.”

  Was there a rift between them, and did it factor into the theft? If not, he suspected she would use daddy’s money to hire an investigator to find her brother.

  “You’re close to your parents, then?” he probed.

  “More my dad than mom, but yeah.”

  “Did you check in with them to see if Kevin contacted them?”

  She shook her head in slow, sorrowful arcs. “I didn’t want to worry them until I knew what was going on. There’re older. Had us in their early forties. Dad has a heart condition, and I’m afraid the stress could be too much for him. Now I don’t know what to do.”

  She sighed and met Coop’s gaze. “What would you do? Would you tell your parents?”

  Not going there. “I’m hardly the person to ask that question.”

  “Not close to your family?”

  He shook his head and left it at that, simply watching her as she warred with what to do.

  “I guess I’ll sleep on it tonight and decide what to tell them.” Her forehead furrowed. “What do we do next?”

  “You give me permission to access your phone for the caller’s phone number, and I get our team to run it down.”

  She nodded. “I’ll need to unlock it.”

  He retrieved her phone and wasn’t surprised to see her hand trembling when she held it out. She was still really shaken up. He had to admit he was starting to believe her story. She seemed honest and straightforward, but then, once upon a time a woman who’d acted the same way had duped him. Took his heart and stomped all over it after dear old dad had given her an ultimatum. Quit slumming with him or dad would cut off her finances. She chose daddy and what his money could do for her.

  Same could be true of Kiera. Her innocence, her conviction could all be an act. At least if she was blowing smoke, it didn’t affect him personally. Not the way Waverly’s decision had ripped his gut open.

  Kiera watched him, looking like she wanted to say something, but quickly turned her focus to the phone. She tapped the screen and brought up her recent calls before passing it back to him.

  He scanned the call log, lifting his head after viewing the listings. “The recent call isn’t from the same phone number as this morning.”

  “Odd.” She leaned over the screen.

  He caught a whiff of coconut, but forced himself to ignore the fresh scent to stay on topic. “The caller could be changing phones. Meaning tracing him won’t be easy. Still, it’s worth running down the numbers.”

  Coop dialed the team’s electronics expert, Eryn Calloway. He quickly requested her help in tracking the numbers then texted them to her. Eryn was the best of the best at her work, and if anyone could trace the numbers, she’d do so. However, it could be minutes or hours, even days before she located any information.

  He laid Kiera’s cell on the table. “While we wait on Eryn, our next step is to get the team together and brainstorm this spinneret clue.”

  Kiera glanced at her watch. “I’d appreciate that, but isn’t it kind of late for a meeting?”

  “We’re used to getting called out at all hours of day and night.”

  “Then thank you.” She took a breath and rested a hand on his arm. “And thank you for agreeing to help me. I’d be lost without you right now.”

  Oh, man, he’d felt like a heel before, but now? Now he felt like a first-class jerk. She was tugging at every emotion he could muster, and he wanted to trust her so badly, but his job had to come first. It always had to come first and a pair of captivating eyes wasn’t going to change that.

  4

  Confidence. Exactly what Kiera needed now that four additional strapping men who carried their intensity like a sword were facing her. Her poise had evaporated the moment they’d stepped into the team’s conference room and dropped into chairs around a long table.

  The room with the lingering scent of popcorn filling the air was located in a building about the size of a gymnasium. Training facilities took up most of the space, and this conference room was situated in the back. She was glad to see bottles of water sitting in front of each chair as her mouth had gone dry at the intensity oozing from these men.

  They were all dressed very similar to Coop and Gage. These weren’t the type of guys she hung out with, and she had no clue why they all favored pants with big cargo pockets, but maybe it allowed them to carry items on their missions.

  Coop moved across the room and placed a hand on the shoulder of a blond man with a reddish beard. “This is Riley Glenn. He’s a former sniper with the Portland Police Bureau.”

  She shook hands with the only blond in the room, a man who seemed to have less intensity than the others, but still was commanding.

  Coop stepped to the next guy, whose close-cropped, jet-black hair gave him a formidable and imposing appearance. “Former Green Beret, Jackson Lockhart.”

  “Ma’am.” He gave her a nod of acknowledgement.

  “And last, this is Alex Hamilton.” The guy had brown hair, a square jaw covered in stubble, and a piercing look that made her uncomfortable.

  “He’s a former recon Marine,” Coop added. “Our last team member, Eryn, will join us on the phone since her daughter is sleeping. FYI, she’s a former agent and cyber security professional with the FBI.”

  Coop gestured at an open chair. “Go ahead and take a seat.”

  Kiera complied and took a long drink of water as she repeated each name in her head to commit them to memory. Or maybe to keep her unease at bay while Coop dialed Eryn and the rest of the team continued to stare at her. He put Eryn on speaker and quickly brought everyone up to speed on her situation. Eyebrows rose, and she’d have to be blind not to notice their skepticism.

  Gage made eye contact with Coop. “You listened in on the recent call?”

  Coop nodded. “And we have twenty-four hours to figure out what this spinneret has to do with Kevin’s whereabouts.”

  Gage shifted to peer at Kiera. “Let’s start with you explaining what this device does.”

  She rested her hands on the table and blew out a breath, hoping her nervousness would flow out with it. “A spinneret extrudes a polymer solution or polymer melt to make synthetic fibers for use in many industries.”

  Gage frowned. “In more basic terms, please.”

  “The device extrudes liquids to form fibers. It’s similar to the process for producing cotton candy.”

  “Okay that’s clearer.” Gage gave a clipped nod. “Now what do you think it has to do with Kevin?”

  What indeed? “Other than it’s a chemical process that chemists like Kevin are familiar with, I have no idea.”

  “Would it be related to the biotoxin he’s working on?” Alex asked.

  “Not likely.”

  “But clearly your caller believes it’s important,” Coop said. “This guy could work in an area of chemistry that uses a spinneret. Can you tell us what area that would be?”

  “Manufacturing and chemical engineering would be the most common jobs.” She reached for the water bottle and took a long drink.

  Riley leaned forward, intensity repla
cing his easygoing demeanor. “Do you know any chemical engineers?”

  “Sure, but no one who also knows Kevin.”

  Gage shifted to face Coop. “We should get clarification from Oceanic on their employees’ job titles. If they employ chemical engineers, we’ll need their files to look for a connection to Kevin.”

  Kiera appreciated Gage’s suggestion, but she didn’t know how effective it would be. “I can see where you’re going with this, but honestly every chemist would know about a spinneret. And odds are good that there aren’t any chemical engineers at Oceanic. I don’t want to waste time tracking down job titles when we should be figuring out what the actual clue could mean.”

  Gage’s eyebrow rose. “You have something in mind?”

  She twirled the water bottle in the condensation ring on the table and considered his question. “Maybe we should search the Internet for chemistry spinneret. See if we get any related hits.”

  “As the web guru, normally I’d volunteer,” Eryn said. “But I know you’ll want to project this on the screen. Can someone else do it?”

  “I’m on it.” Riley went to one of a bank of computers lined up along the wall.

  Kiera sat back to wait, and tried to relax so she could better ponder the clue. Thoughts pinged around her brain, and she discarded them as useless until one built into a solid lead.

  “I have an even a better bet,” she said, drawing everyone’s attention again. “Go to ChemSpider.com. They have a webzine called Spinneret. Maybe the people in charge of the webzine have a connection to Kevin. Beyond the fact that he subscribes to the RSS feed, that is.”

  “Bring up the website,” Gage directed Riley.

  He entered the URL and the webpage with a cool blue-and-white background filled the screen.

  Coop rolled his chair closer to the television and peered up at it. “Tell us what we’re looking at here, Kiera.”

  “The site holds a database where you can search for chemical structures from hundreds of data sources.”

  Coop cast her a questioning look.

  “Structures are the arrangement of chemical bonds between atoms in a molecule,” she explained.