“Hello, Beth.” She heard the words echo and turned.
He was right behind her, near the tail of a car she had just passed. The smile on his face seemed smug, and even though he still wore his geeky dark-framed glasses, she could see the handsome undercover agent beneath the disguise.
She pulled the phone from her ear, pushed the button to end the call and slid it back into her purse.
Nervously, she looked around. They were still on Corcoris Pharmaceuticals property. She saw no one else around, but she had no idea if someone could be sitting in his car watching.
As he reached her, Daniel stayed in character, modifying his smile to look even more dorky. “I saw you a couple of times cleaning today. How did it go?”
“Fine, sir,” she said, looking meekly down toward the floor. “Busy. There was a lunch meeting, you know.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know.” And then in more muted tones, he said, “Randalf’s Restaurant in Redondo?” Redondo Beach was a town about fifteen miles from Moravo Beach. Randalf’s was a family-style chain restaurant. It wouldn’t be hard for her to find, but it wasn’t a likely venue for anyone who could possibly recognize her.
She nodded once. “Have a nice evening, sir,” she said loudly. She stepped up her pace toward her car—both to end their conversation...and because she really looked forward to their next one.
At Randalf’s.
Chapter 10
This probably wasn’t a good idea, Beth thought as they followed the hostess through the family restaurant to one of the farthest tables from the door. She was still relieved that it was so distant from what had once been her usual environment, but it had taken some time to drive there, especially in traffic.
The walk through the half-filled place gave her even more time to think, and she’d already had a lot of think time in her car.
Getting together with Daniel to talk? That was fine. He was fine, and that was part of the problem.
They definitely needed to find a way to compare notes. Would it be better to do it by phone when they weren’t together? Probably not. As with lunch yesterday, someplace like this was preferable, and at least this far from the Corcoris facility they could be more relaxed. Sort of. Even so, they stayed in character, in the remote possibility they ran into someone they knew.
Daniel still wore his glasses. She had buttoned another nice blouse over her cleaning T-shirt for now, as she’d been doing while off the job.
In case they were spotted, it might not be so bad for a geeky techie to look brave enough to date an introverted member of the cleaning crew and appear reluctant to have anyone else know about it.
In fact, she was mulling over the possibilities of allowing their alliance to be noticed since it appeared that they were going to spend more time together and it was always possible that somehow, somewhere, they’d be seen.
But she hadn’t fully thought out the ramifications yet. And even if she decided it was a good idea, maybe tonight they should have gone to Daniel’s place or hers, considering what they intended to discuss. Who needed anyone eavesdropping?
And yet she couldn’t fully buy into that, either. After the last time they’d been alone at one of their residences, they’d made a big mistake: engaging in sex. And not just any sex. The mind-blowing kind. The kind that—
“Here we are.” The hostess gestured toward a small secluded table in a corner. She handed them each a menu.
Beth hoped she wasn’t blushing, though her face felt hot.
“Thanks,” she said as Daniel held her chair out for her.
“You okay?” he asked in her ear, so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. Instead of cooling her off, that only made her flush more.
“Fine.” She immediately started studying the menu as if she had been looking forward to reading it, watching over its top as Daniel sat down across from her. He held his menu, too, but he looked not at it but at her.
And smiled that sexy, smug, nongeeky grin again, as if he knew what she was thinking.
Beth remained silent while she scanned the menu, decided what to order and calmed herself. No matter how sexy Daniel was, this, like their other meetings, wasn’t a date. They were, in effect, business associates dedicated to the same goal. That was all.
Business associates who’d engaged in sex...
Business associates who would separate forever once their mutual goals were met.
“I think I’ll have their pot roast dinner,” she finally told Daniel, as if he had asked. She looked up to see him still reading his menu.
“Steak,” he finally said. “I’ve had grilled steaks at other Randalf’s before, and they’re not bad.”
“What would you like to drink this evening?” That was a server, a friendly young woman whose blond hair was pulled back into a bun.
Beth decided on a wine. Some kind of alcohol to try to relax a bit seemed like a good idea. Daniel tacitly agreed by ordering a beer. They ordered their meals, too.
Then it was time to talk.
Daniel regarded her with his intense blue eyes behind those glasses. “I heard some interesting things at lunch today. I gather you did, too, while cleaning the ladies’ restroom.” He smiled. “Too bad I wasn’t there.”
“Yeah, you could have hidden in a stall and no one would have known it was you.” Beth allowed her sarcasm to show. “But it was definitely too bad that I couldn’t sit in on the lunch. That could have been more appropriate.”
“Right. A member of the cleaning crew joining the esteemed Corcoris execs and their guests.” He wasn’t bad with sarcasm, either.
She laughed. “Okay, enough. How about a bit of realism? And sharing.”
“And sharing,” he agreed.
But before saying anything else, she glanced around. Fortunately, the few tables nearest theirs weren’t occupied. Maybe it was a good thing that they were eating this late.
“We’re okay,” Daniel said. “We can talk.”
“Yes, but we’ve got some sensitive things to discuss, and I don’t like being out in public.”
“Me neither. Wanna come to my place?” He leered, and she laughed.
“Yes, actually, I do.” She realized that, after all, it would have been a better decision. “Or my place. Somewhere private. But—”
“But the last time we didn’t only talk,” he said. “And that’s the problem.”
She felt her heart sink. He considered that amazing sex a problem? Well, actually, she did, too, under the circumstances. But that didn’t matter. In fact, she had a sense that Daniel McManus, undercover agent of the CIU, must enjoy a challenge. So she would challenge him.
“It is,” she agreed. “And we can discuss things here tonight as long as no one’s too close. But I think we need to schedule regular meetings at your place or mine—as long as we’re careful. In fact, plan on my place tomorrow evening, okay? We can bring in pizza or whatever if you want to eat there. But we’ll just talk.” She had intended to challenge him but saw his return dare in the way he raised his brows and shot her a suggestive grin. “Just talk,” she reiterated.
“Fine.” The word came out casually, and he took a slow swig of beer, still staring into her eyes in a way that made her insides start to simmer.
Just who was challenging whom?
Well, no matter. Maybe this way they’d both feel more like competing to stay cool than engaging in sex.
As their server placed food in front of them, that moment was lost—which suited Beth just fine. Her pot roast, flavored just right and with an appetite-tweaking aroma, had been served with delicious-looking steamed vegetables and a dollop of mashed potatoes, and she tried to dig in.
But she wasn’t really hungry. Nerves—and sensual awareness of Daniel—outweighed her need for food.
Nothin
g appeared to be in Daniel’s way, though. His steak had similar side dishes, and it smelled even better than her dinner. “So,” he said after taking a couple of bites. “First things first. How’s your meal?”
“Good,” she said. “Yours?”
He nodded. “Fine. Now tell me what you learned in the ladies’ room.”
She had been expecting that, but she almost snorted with laughter at the way he’d phrased it. “Nothing I didn’t already know,” she managed to say. “I’ve been— Never mind.” But then she grew serious.
She’d actually wanted him to start their conversation by telling her what he had found on the computer, if anything. But they’d get there. She would be the one to start.
“The most interesting thing was a couple of lady physicians who seemed to almost storm into the bathroom,” she told him.
Daniel’s expression immediately grew interested.
“Did they say anything?”
“Yes. I’m not sure if they’d been sitting at the same table, but I got the impression that they both needed immediate potty breaks because of the way the discussion at the luncheon was going. I gathered from the bit of conversation I heard that some Corcoris exec had been praising CorcoTrim, apparently calling it one of the company’s newer medications and saying how wonderful it was that it was now on the market and that it would soon become the country’s foremost diet drug. If I understood what they said, and didn’t say, they’d both already prescribed the stuff to some of their patients, and several of them suffered some pretty bad side effects not listed in the company’s warnings.”
“The same kinds of problems?”
Beth realized how much difference that might make. If each patient had different issues, that wouldn’t necessarily indicate that the company’s testing could result in any of the problems becoming anticipated risks that would need to be added to warning labels, let alone suggest that the medicine shouldn’t be sold at all. The issues could have been related more to the individual patients’ quirks than the product.
“I’m not sure, but they both indicated their patients had been hospitalized.”
“Okay, then. My next step, when I get on the computer, will be to dig even deeper to see what I can find on internal reports and emails on CorcoTrim.”
“Then that’s not one of the products that you were investigating when you checked the computer today?”
“Unfortunately, no, although I’d hoped to. The passwords I...found...led me to some interesting stuff, though.”
She looked at him as he took a bite of his steak, waiting for him to continue.
And there was that teasing, sexy look on his face again. The guy obviously wanted her to push him for answers.
“Hey, I thought this was a game of ‘you show me yours, I’ll show you mine,’” she grumbled, then realized the dual connotation of that phrase. She felt herself reddening again, especially when he once more shot her that damnably sexy smile. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “I do.” He swigged some beer, then straightened. “Okay, let’s get serious. Here’s what I found when I ‘accidentally’ plugged in Georgine Droman’s password—some email correspondence from the boss that didn’t exactly order her to modify some reports on quality-control test results for CorcoBiotica before sending them to the FDA but told her to recheck the test logs to verify what she found.”
“The boss meaning my pal Preston Corcoris?”
“Exactly.”
“I remember Georgine’s name from when I worked there before,” Beth said. “I’m not exactly sure what she does at Corcoris, though.”
“That I found out easily enough—and in fact, as a techie dabbling in combining chemicals to figure out new products, I’d heard of her, too. She’s now the director of quality control.”
“Interesting,” Beth said slowly. “I gather that the reference was to the handwritten notes I heard about when I worked here before that are jotted down in a prescribed format in the manufacturing building by date, time and results and initialed by whoever did the review. Could you tell from the emails if she did indeed ‘recheck’ those logs and make sure the reports jibed with them?”
“Good thinking. That’s what I suspect, too—that the notes, once scanned into the computer, are somehow doctored before being used in the reports. But unfortunately, that was what I was looking for when I heard you greeting our great and powerful boss out in the hallway. I had to work fast to get out of the email and do the magic I know that hides that it had been compromised.”
“Then you do know how to do that?” Beth felt her shoulders relax. Not that she’d kept them tense from the time she tried to let Daniel know that Corcoris was headed his way, but there’d been a part of her inside that had been worried.
“Of course. Do you think Judge Treena would have let me go undercover anywhere without cyber protection as well as other kinds?”
“Not our Judge Treena,” Beth acknowledged with a smile.
They ate silently then for a couple of minutes. They had both gotten hints of directions in which they could go to look for evidence that would let the world know what at least some people at Corcoris Pharmaceuticals did so the company would turn a profit: ignore safety issues and somehow hide questionable—or worse—test results from the FDA.
Beth was determined to find out more—more that was provable. And she was glad she now had an ally who was not only on the same wavelength but who also had skills and access that she couldn’t easily achieve.
“What are you thinking?” Daniel finally asked.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she responded, “but, okay, I’ll answer you first. I’m just thinking I’m really glad we’re working together on this. But even so, we need to make plans about how to proceed. We both have our roles at Corcoris that we’ve been using, but I wonder if there isn’t a more efficient way to handle what we’re doing.”
“That’s pretty much what I was considering.” Despite his glasses, Daniel had a businesslike and challenging expression on his face now. Not especially sexy, and yet it attracted her.
Did she really go for guys who seemed driven to utter success on a project? Or just this guy, and this project? After all, it was, at the moment, her life.
Maybe her family’s lives, too.
That thought shot a dart of fear through her. She was making some progress. But was it fast enough to ensure their safety?
How could she know without being in closer contact with them?
But closer contact could harm her—and them.
“What are you thinking?” Daniel’s sharp question brought her back to the moment.
She bit her lip. “I’m really proud of how much we’re achieving, but—”
“But what?”
“Is it enough? Is it fast enough? Is—”
“You’re worried about your family.” His voice was soft, and he reached his hand across the table palm up, inviting her to place hers in it.
She did. “Yes,” she answered. “I am.”
“And Beth Jones can’t call them as often as Andrea Martinez would like to.”
She nodded sadly. “I know from them and from Judge Treena that there’s at least some security around them, but they haven’t left town the way I’d hoped.”
“Well, next time I report to Judge Treena, I’ll ask her to find a way to give them further incentive. That’s something that CIU can help with—maybe making reservations for them, paying for some of their expenses, whatever.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Daniel responded. “Moving them for a while might cost less than providing some protection where they are.”
Tears of relief filled Beth’s eyes but she blinked them away. Relief was premature. But at least knowing she wouldn’t be the only one urging her family to go
someplace safer, at least for now...well, that was good.
Even so, she had an urge to go around the table and give Daniel a big grateful kiss. But she restrained herself.
“And you’ll tell me her response and what’s being done to encourage them to leave faster?”
He nodded. “Of course. And it should be okay for you to continue to contact them now and then in the same way Judge Treena and her identity-changing gang worked out for you before.” He tilted his head slightly as he observed her with those inquisitive blue eyes. “The team did provide a way for you to get in touch occasionally, didn’t they?”
She nodded. “Yes, a prepaid phone. That’s how I knew they were being threatened in the first place.”
And why she had chosen to disobey Judge Treena’s orders and return here.
“Right. Okay, then. I’ll check with the judge first thing when I get up tomorrow. And you’ve got to realize that her quid pro quo may mean that you’ll need to leave and let me do my job.”
Beth glared at Daniel. “Is that what you want, too? I thought we were helping each other.”
The gaze he leveled on her in response was unreadable. “I’ll tell her that so far at least, you’ve seemed more of an asset than a liability.”
“Gee, thanks.” Beth’s sarcasm poured out once more, disguising the hurt she felt that he wasn’t expressing more satisfaction with what she’d hoped was turning into a mutually beneficial effort.
“You’re welcome,” he said easily, apparently deciding to ignore her snipe at him. “There’s probably no easy way to pass along at work tomorrow what Judge Treena says, though.”
Almost as if a whole wave of new diners had just entered the restaurant, the tables around them suddenly filled.
Beth knew that the best way to continue for now was to act as though they really had chosen to remain as teammates—which, in a way, they had, at least for the moment. That meant they should discuss what their next moves, respectively, should be. But here and now wasn’t a good place to get into that. Not while it would be so easy for them to be overheard.
“All right, then,” she said, “tomorrow night we’ll start meeting at our respective apartments to recap what each of us has done and to plan what comes next.” That should be vague enough so that even if they were overheard, no one would know what she was talking about.
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