Edge of Honor: An EDGE Security Novel

by Loye, Trish

  She moaned and his cock hardened more than he thought possible. Desire seared him. He pushed her up against the wall, wanting to feel her lithe body pressed against his. He skimmed one hand down to her hip. He wanted to lift her, to feel her legs wrap around his waist while he sank into her over and over again. He was drowning in her.

  No.

  He pulled back from the kiss, trying to orientate himself. He leaned his forehead against hers, his breathing uneven. They were in the hotel lobby for fuck’s sake. What was he thinking?

  She hadn’t yet opened her eyes. Her mouth was swollen and so fucking sexy from his kisses. He wanted to dive back in.

  But not here.

  Not now.

  He almost groaned with his decision. Why couldn’t he just take what she offered? He nuzzled below her ear and her head fell back, granting him better access. Fuck, she smelled delicious. He wanted to peel her out of all that silk and bare her smooth curves to him.

  She wanted him just as much as he wanted her, he told himself. Why shouldn’t two consenting adults have a night of fun?

  Because it can’t be anything more than one night. Not with him. Not until Spider was caught. Besides, he’d need way more than one night with her.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, pressing his lips one last time to the soft skin by her ear. She shivered in his arms and he almost groaned. He stepped back.

  She blinked twice. “Sorry?”

  “I shouldn’t have kissed you.” Because now he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything except the memory of her lips and her soft curves pressed against him. He was so fucked.

  She looked down. “Oh. I understand.” Her hands fluttered over her sari, adjusting folds that didn’t need to be adjusted, never once looking up at him.

  Bollocks. What was this?

  “Charlie, look at me.”

  She sighed, straightened her shoulders, and looked him in the eye. “What?”

  She’d donned her armor, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He wanted to pull her back into his arms and kiss her senseless, but he couldn’t. He had a mission. They both did. And they couldn’t afford to be distracted.

  He clenched his jaw. Time to get professional. “It’s late. I’ll walk you to your room.”

  * * *

  Charlie’s heart thundered in her chest. They didn’t speak as Jack walked her to her door. Embarrassment crawled over her skin, making her want to hunch away from it. But she held her head high and stared straight ahead, not acknowledging the man beside her.

  She decided a few things on the horribly long walk back to her room. It was time to face facts. Jack wasn’t interested in her. Maybe he’d kissed her tonight, but obviously he’d satisfied his curiosity and was done with her.

  Well, so was she. She was done throwing herself at him. And she was done with trying to figure him out.

  “Sherlock?” he asked as she opened the door to her room.

  She didn’t turn. She couldn’t face him. Tomorrow she’d be able to face him. Just not tonight.

  Her throat tightened, but she forced the word out almost normally. “Yes?”

  A long moment passed, where neither of them moved. Then she heard him sigh. “Goodnight, Charlie.”

  “Goodnight, Jack.” She entered her room alone.

  11

  Charlie woke the next morning to a ringing phone. She peered at the hotel phone. It wasn’t ringing. The sound was an old-school ringtone, but not the double ring of an English landline.

  She frowned. It was six in the morning.

  It was coming from the bedside table drawer. She pulled it open and an older-model smartphone lay inside. Had a previous occupant left it? The ringing echoed through the room now. Unease shivered though her. Maybe she shouldn’t answer it.

  She scrubbed a hand over her face. What should she do? With a grimace, she reached for the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” a digitally modified voice said. Though voice wasn’t the right word. Voices. The tone switched from male to female, old to young, hoarse to bright in seconds and blending them all at the same time. The effect distracted her by making her think she could almost identify one voice before the next replaced it. “Do not take so long to answer the phone next time. I saw you hesitate.”

  “Saw?” She blinked. Adrenaline surged, clearing her head completely of sleep. She sat up, her gaze darting around the room. This wasn’t a phone that had simply been left behind. It had been planted. And not only that, but the voices implied they had cameras watching her as well.

  “Don’t try to find the cameras,” the voices said.

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “I work for someone important, and they want you.”

  She curled her knees up to her chest, grateful that she slept in a T-shirt and boxers. “Want me for what?”

  “Why, that giant brain of yours. We want you, or more specifically your micro-bugs.”

  “Screw you,” she said. “Why should I give you anything?”

  “Because we have your aunt—”

  She was out of bed and in the hall pounding on her aunt’s door before the voice could say anything further.

  “Bua, open up!” she yelled.

  A digitized sigh came over the phone line. “Say something to your niece.”

  Her aunt’s voice came over the line, quiet and tremulous. And unmodified. “Charlotte?”

  “Bua?”

  The digitized voice was back. “She is fine. For the moment.”

  Anger speared her and she stiffened. “Anyone can record a voice. How do I know you even have her?”

  “Check your phone.”

  The phone in her hand dinged. A picture of her aunt, still in her deep purple sari, came up. She’d been tied to a chair and gagged. Her eyes looked slightly swollen. From crying? Or had someone hit her? “Bastard. I’m going to kill you when I find you.”

  It was the first time she’d ever uttered a death threat, but fire filled her and she meant every word. She would find this person and end them. The voice chuckled and the digitized sound of a myriad of voices laughing sounded more than wrong. It sounded evil.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “I already told you. I want your tech.”

  “Is this Spider?” she asked.

  “I always wondered who thought up that name. I quite dislike it.”

  Ice slithered down her spine. Spider had her aunt.

  The door across the hall opened and Cat stuck her head out. She wore a tank top and a pair of old jeans. She held a gun in one hand and glanced up and down the hall before crooking an eyebrow at Charlie.

  “Everything okay?” she asked. “I heard yelling.”

  She opened her mouth to tell her everything when the voice spoke through the phone. “If you tell her anything, your aunt dies.”

  They could see her in the hallway. She glanced down the hall at the security camera. Spider must have tapped into the security system, just like Gears had.

  “Yes,” she said to Cat finally.

  Cat’s eyes narrowed and she opened the door more fully. “You’re a horrible liar.”

  Her phone dinged again. Reluctantly, she pulled the phone from her ear and glanced at the picture. Her aunt hadn’t moved, but her wide eyes radiated fear, and someone just outside the picture frame held a Glock to her head.

  She must have made some sound, because Cat was there, reaching for her phone. Charlie snatched it away before she could see, before she did something irreversible. “Don’t!”

  “What’s going on, Charlie?”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly—too quickly, by Cat’s continued frown.

  The voice spoke over the phone to her. “If she finds out, I will kill your aunt and disappear. It will be weeks before you find her body.”

  “I understand,” she said into the phone, while her mind raced with possible lies she could tell Cat, anything to get her to back off. She couldn’
t let her aunt be hurt or killed because she wasn’t in control of herself. She took a deep breath. “It’s just a…a family matter…to do with my dad.”

  “I thought you didn’t have a dad.”

  She felt a bit safer with that question. She nodded. “He stays in India. We’re…not close.” And that was the understatement of the year.

  “It sounds like you have daddy issues.” The voice laughed in her ear. It took everything in her not to growl a curse into the phone.

  Cat frowned, concern in her eyes. “Is he okay?”

  She forced a shrug. “I’m trying to find that out. It looks like my aunt has already left to go to him. I’m going to go get dressed now.”

  “Of course,” Cat said. “Should I tell Blackwell you’re leaving?”

  “No,” the voice said in her ear. “I need you at the conference. You’re just going out for some fresh air this morning.”

  “No,” she said, pulling the phone from her ear and repeating what the voice had said.

  Cat still frowned at her, then stared at the phone in her hand. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Another of my aunts.” The lies came easier now. “She’s in India. I’m holding…while she’s checking with the doctors.”

  Cat’s eyes widened. “Shit, Charlie. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so bad. Take the time you need.”

  Her gut wrenched at her friend’s words and compassion. She hated lying to her. But she nodded and kept her face carefully blank. She opened her door.

  “Charlie?” Cat called.

  She turned back.

  “Take precautions when you go out. Wear the wire and keep your phone close,” she instructed, opening her door. “You’re still in danger. Make sure Jack is with you if you leave the building.”

  “Wilco,” she said, forcing a smile. Cat’s frown deepened, and Charlie turned away before she could ask anything else.

  She entered her room and put the phone to her ear. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Get your micro-bugs. Don’t bring your phone or wire. Lose your bodyguard. You’ll take the Underground. Go to Embankment station and get on the Northern line. I will call at seven. Make sure you’re on the Tube by then.”

  “I’m getting dressed. You’d better not have put any fucking cameras in the bathroom.”

  * * *

  Charlie got ready in less than five minutes, throwing her hair into a ponytail, putting on jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved T-shirt and her black leather jacket. She stuck the burner phone into her messenger bag along with her gun and discreetly slid her shocker in, too. She deliberately left her EDGE phone and wire in the room and headed for the second floor, where all the different technologies had been locked up and left under guard.

  She approached one of the two men standing guard at the entrance to the room. She held up her ID badge. “Dr. Charlotte Singh. I need to access my work.”

  One of the men scrutinized her badge and nodded. “Follow me.”

  He unlocked the metal fire door and entered the vault-like room. Metal shelving lined it, with a long metal table in the center.

  “B21,” he said, nodding to the second shelf from the bottom on the right side.

  Her tech was in the twenty-first slot. The metal briefcase sat next to a locked box on one side and another briefcase on the other. She grabbed it, signed the sheet the guard held on a clipboard, and left the room.

  Cat waited outside the room when she exited. Gears must have been watching the security cameras and alerted her. She held Charlie’s phone and wire. “You forgot these.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” she said, taking them. “This thing with my father is distracting me.”

  Cat studied her and Charlie forced herself not to look away, not to look guilty.

  “Stay on target,” Cat finally said. “We can’t track you without the phone and wire. And why are you wandering around without Jack?”

  “He’s probably still asleep. I don’t usually leave my room until closer to eight.”

  Cat’s frown deepened, and she nodded at Charlie’s briefcase. “What are you doing? I thought you were going to clear your head?”

  Crap. She thought fast. “I forgot that I had an early-morning breakfast with…Dr. Fong. He wanted a closer look and he’s on our list of suspects.”

  “You still up to meet with him?” Cat asked.

  “Of course,” Charlie said.

  “I have to brief Blackwell, otherwise I’d go with you. I’ll wake up Jack and send him to you. Where will you be?”

  “Coffee shop on the ground floor,” she said. It had a door to the outside.

  “Good. Make sure you wear the wire. Gears will be watching.”

  She nodded, her pulse racing as she forced herself to walk casually away from Cat. It was half past six. She was going to have to run to get to the Tube on time, but first she had to ditch her wire again.

  On the ground floor she entered the coffee shop, cognizant of Dante watching through the hotel’s security cameras. There wasn’t one in here. She smiled. This could work. She punched in Dante’s number.

  “Gears, I’m going into the coffee shop, meeting with a suspect. I won’t be able to talk for a while.”

  “Keep your wire in your ear. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “I’m good,” she said.

  The cafe offered a selection of pastries and breakfast sandwiches. Beyond the counter were little white-topped circular tables, each surrounded by two or three wrought iron chairs. Ferns and other potted plants dotted the edges of the room. The whole cafe gave off a French bistro feel. Which was odd, since they were in London. She got in line and ordered a breakfast sandwich and a coffee.

  “Oh, man,” Dante said in her ear. “I totally need breakfast. I’m starving over here. Cat hasn’t brought me food yet.”

  Charlie didn’t reply since it would look like she was talking to herself. She took her sandwich and picked a table in the corner. The leaf of a large fern brushed her shoulder as she sat. She pulled the heated sandwich out of the tinfoil bag and placed it on a napkin. Then she pulled her wire out of her ear and shoved it in the bag, making sure to fully seal it inside.

  Within moments, her phone rang.

  “What’s up, Gears?” she asked innocently.

  “I’ve lost your signal.”

  “Must be where I’m sitting,” she said. “My guy is here. I have my phone with me. I’ll call if I need anything.”

  “I don’t like this, Q.”

  “It’s fine, Gears. Gotta go.”

  She swiped the call off and turned off the ringer. She took the foil bag and her phone and stuck them under the leaves of the fern. With a quick glance around to make sure no one noticed her, she pulled on her hoodie from her messenger bag.

  Two women went out the side door and onto the street. She followed them out, sticking close enough to the women that if any outside cameras saw them, it would look like she was a part of their group. After about thirty feet she lengthened her stride and passed them, moving fast toward the Underground. She had only minutes until the Tube came.

  * * *

  Jack eased from his running pace into a light jog. The hotel was just ahead and he needed to cool down. It was closing in on seven. He had time for a shower before he showed up to escort Charlie around today. He liked to be at her room about thirty minutes before she usually poked her head out, just in case she decided to go to breakfast early.

  He slowed even more, ignoring the side glances from passersby.

  He wore only his running shorts and had taken off his shirt thirty minutes before. Most men didn’t run in just shorts in downtown London, but he got too hot in a shirt. The scars on his body sometimes attracted attention. Like now.

  Both men and women watched him, the women more appreciatively—that is, until they saw the scar running down his chest. Then their eyes widened and they glanced away. He had plenty of scars. Every soldier did. But this one was still vivid, even after two years. A reminde
r of that night in Iraq.

  He waited another block, regulating his breathing and letting his skin cool before throwing on his gray T-shirt. He’d run hard for the last hour, trying to rid his thoughts of Charlie.

  It hadn’t worked. Maybe he should have just kept kissing her last night until they’d ended up in his bed. Images of her naked and lying beneath him made his blood surge southward.

  No. He needed to keep control. Spider might still show up, and he couldn’t be distracted by anything or anyone.

  He was about a block from the hotel and dodging early-morning commuters coming up from the Tube when a woman wearing a black fleece with the hood up drew his eye. He faded into the crowd, slowing his pace even more, lowering his gaze slightly without taking his eyes from her.

  Jeans hugged her curves and boots completed her outfit. She carried a metal briefcase. Charlie was trying hard to look inconspicuous, and not doing a great job of it.

  He suspected he’d recognize her no matter what she wore.

  His gaze narrowed on the briefcase. Was she carrying her technology outside the hotel? He moved closer to the wall of the building beside him, letting the flow of the crowd come between them.

  She didn’t look up, or notice him as she hurried forward with a phone to her ear. She took the stairs down to the Underground.

  He looked at the hotel and then back at Charlie, who’d almost disappeared among the press of people. He trotted down the steps after her. She was in such a hurry that she didn’t even notice him following her.

  She swiped a payment card and entered the station proper. He hopped the turnstile, not wanting to waste time purchasing a ticket, and followed. When she jumped on a train, he stepped through the crowd and into the car beside hers.

  She scowled as she spoke into the phone, clutching the briefcase with her other hand. Within three stops she stood to disembark. He walked to the door of his train. When she got off, he waited a moment before following, blending into the crowd once again.

  Tufnell Park Station. Why would she be here?