Nothing in her life was going the way she had planned. She had thought Curt’s infidelity the cruelest blow—until her father was killed. She hadn’t planned on running the Institute alone. And she certainly hadn’t counted on falling in love again.
Falling in love?
She jerked away from Kyle’s embrace as if she’d been burned. Hadn’t she learned anything from her disastrous marriage? If she gave her heart to Kyle, he could walk away when his informant was caught. Or worse yet, what if he insisted on tying her father to the Black Order?
She felt ripped apart. Half of her wanted to fling herself back into Kyle’s strong arms. The other half wanted him to go away. The distinctive chime of the front doorbell saved her from making a choice.
KYLE BENT OVER the gleaming dining-room table to study the aerial photographs and layouts of the Institute that Monty Slater had spread there. Slater’s arrival had interrupted Kyle’s discussion with Laura, but it was just as well. When Laura had pulled away, Kyle had been tempted to draw her back, to reassure with kisses the doubts that clouded her magnificent eyes. Better, however, that Laura remained angry with him. Her indignation would keep him at a distance, the best place for him if he wanted to keep a clear head and his wits about him.
Resolved to focus on his assignment, Kyle turned his attention back to Slater. The retired FBI agent, now head of his own security service, still dressed the part of a government agent. Instead of the customary Montana uniform of jeans, he wore a dark business suit, dazzling white dress shirt and muted silk tie. The clothes couldn’t hide, however, his muscular build and obvious fitness, extraordinary for a man in his sixties, or the slight bulge of a firearm holstered beneath his jacket.
Slater raked his slender fingers through his graying blond hair and pointed to the aerial photograph. “Daniel gave me this and the other layouts when I met with him at the ranch this morning. We put together a proposal to augment your current security, but Daniel insisted you have the final say.”
Kyle nodded. “What do you suggest?”
“First, two-man teams at the gate.”
“Agreed,” Kyle said. “The gate’s a weak point.”
Slater drew a well-manicured hand around the perimeter. “And two-man teams with K-9s to patrol the fence.”
On the other side of the table, Laura spoke. “The sheriff says the terrorists cut the fence to steal the D-5.”
Slater cast a questioning glance at Kyle.
“You can speak freely,” Kyle said. “Laura’s one of the good guys.”
Kyle met her blue-eyed gaze head-on, silently reminding her that he had no suspicions where she was concerned. She blushed prettily under the force of his stare and turned her attention to Slater.
The security man nodded. “The sheriff could be wrong about the fence.”
Alarm deepened the red in Laura’s cheeks. “What do you mean?”
Slater shrugged. “It’s equally possible the fence was cut to make it look like an outside job. Someone on the inside could have forced the locks on the storage refrigerator and carried out the D-5 in their car. Your gate guard says he hasn’t been instructed to inspect personal vehicles.”
“It may seem like locking the barn door once the horse has escaped,” Laura said, “but I think those storage areas in the lab should be protected.”
“I agree,” Slater said. “Teams of three in three shifts twenty-four/seven at the lab.”
“That’s going to run into a big chunk of change,” Kyle noted.
Slater shrugged. “Good protection doesn’t come cheap. Every one of my employees is thoroughly checked and vetted.”
“Cost doesn’t matter,” Laura insisted. “I just want everyone and the biological weapon samples kept safe until these terrorists are behind bars.”
“Then may I make another suggestion?” Looking more like a banker than an ex-agent, Slater smoothed his tie and buttoned his jacket. He turned to Kyle. “Daniel says you’re bringing your daughter to live here.”
“Only if I can guarantee her safety.”
“Understood,” Slater said. “That’s why I want to place Bonnie Shapiro in this house.”
“Won’t a bodyguard send a signal to the informant that we suspect an inside job?” Kyle said.
Slater shook his head. “Bonnie won’t be associated with security. As far as the rest of the people here are concerned, you’ve hired her as a combination nanny-housekeeper.”
“What can Bonnie do in looking after Molly that I can’t?” Laura asked.
A slow smile spread like sunshine across Slater’s aging face. “No disrespect intended, Mrs. Foster, but Bonnie is six feet, a hundred and eighty pounds of pure muscle. She’s trained in all the martial arts, she’s an excellent shot and there’s nothing on this planet she’s afraid of.”
Laura frowned. “She won’t scare Molly?”
Kyle had wondered the same thing, but Laura had beat him to the punch in asking. Her obvious affection for Molly was only one of the qualities he admired in Laura, and at her aggressive concern for his daughter, he found his objectivity slipping once again.
“Bonnie is wonderful with children,” Slater said. “She’s just returned from South America where she guarded the children of a U.S. diplomat in Chile.”
Kyle still had second thoughts about bringing Molly to the Institute. He loved his job and was committed to it, but he wouldn’t place his child in danger. “Even if Bonnie is the best, she has to sleep sometime. Who’s going to guard Molly then?”
“I have another agent who can pose as your chauffeur. I notice there’s an apartment over the garage. He can live there during the day, but spend nights inside the house. That way you’ll all sleep easier.”
Kyle glanced at Laura. “What do you think?”
She gave Slater one of her megawatt smiles. “You seem to have thought of everything. If Kyle agrees, your plan sounds good to me.”
“How soon can you have everyone in place?” Kyle asked.
Slater began rolling up the photographs and diagrams. “Tomorrow morning—”
In the foyer behind them, the front door opened and slammed against the inner wall with a bang. Kyle moved swiftly between the dining-room door and Laura. From the corner of his eye, he saw Slater reach beneath his jacket for his gun.
Before Slater could draw, a short plump woman with dark hair laced with gray stumbled into the room. Laura stepped around Kyle and went to her.
“Zahra, what’s happened?”
The woman’s dark eyes were wide with fear, and she waved her hands in agitation. “Lawrence.”
“What’s happened?” Kyle asked. “Is Dr. Tyson ill?”
Zahra shook her head, and tears pooled in her eyes. “He’s gone.”
Laura placed her arms around the older woman. “Gone?”
“Disappeared,” Zahra sobbed. “No one knows what’s happened to him.”
Chapter Nine
Kyle took the hysterical Zahra Tyson by the arm, led her into the living room and settled her in a comfortable chair. Laura and Slater followed.
“Want me to call the sheriff?” Slater asked.
Zahra shook her head. “Gary—my husband’s research assistant has already called him.”
“Call Daniel,” Kyle asked the security man with a pointed look.
Slater pulled a cell phone from his jacket and stepped out onto the front porch to make his call.
Laura perched on the arm of the chair and hugged the grieving woman’s shoulders. Kyle admired her warm compassion and calm demeanor in the face of Zahra’s distress. Laura was more than just a pretty face. She had a heart of gold. He cursed inwardly. She was too good a woman to suffer all that fate had thrown at her.
“Now, Zahra,” Laura said soothingly, “tell us exactly what happened.”
The woman pulled a tissue from the pocket of her sweater, wiped her red-rimmed eyes and blew her nose. “Lawrence didn’t come home to lunch.” She forced a watery smile. “Sometimes he gets so immerse
d in his work, he forgets what time it is. So I telephoned the lab and asked Gary to remind him. Gary called back a few minutes later and said he couldn’t locate Lawrence, that he must be on his way home.”
Zahra’s hands shook, and she clasped them tightly in her lap. “After a while, when Lawrence still hadn’t arrived, I called the lab again. Gary said he’d look for him.”
“Maybe he drove into town,” Kyle suggested.
“We only have one car. It’s in the condo garage.”
“He could have caught a ride with someone else.”
The older woman shook her head and swallowed a sob. “Gary called the gatehouse. The guard said no one’s left the compound all day.”
Laura patted Zahra’s hand. “At his age, he could have had a small stroke that disoriented him, and he’s wandered off. We’ll find him.”
The sudden ringing of a telephone startled them all.
“I’ll get it,” Kyle said with an encouraging smile. “It’s probably your husband, wondering where you are.”
He hurried into the kitchen where he could talk on the extension without being overheard.
“Dr. Foster?” an unfamiliar male voice asked.
“Yes.”
“This is Gary Bowen.”
Kyle pictured the red-haired, hyperactive young man he’d met at the morning staff conference, the assistant with the gambling problem. “Have you found Dr. Tyson?”
“No, sir. But we’ve discovered Dr. Tyson isn’t the only thing missing.”
The urgency in the research assistant’s tone was impossible for Kyle to overlook. “Someone else is gone?”
“Wayne, the other lab assistant, went to the refrigerated storage locker a few minutes ago to collect some vials for Dr. Kwan. Another sample’s disappeared.”
Icy apprehension spread through Kyle’s gut. “More D-5?”
“Worse, sir. An especially nasty mutated form of anthrax. There’s no antidote for it.”
Kyle leaned his head against the cold stainless steel of the refrigerator door. If the Black Order was behind the theft, they now had two lethal biological weapons in their arsenal.
He turned his attention back to Gary. “Mrs. Tyson said you’ve called the sheriff.”
“Yes, sir. He and a team of deputies are on the way.”
“I’ll meet you at the lab shortly. Have the staff do a quick inventory of the other storage areas. Make sure nothing else is missing.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kyle hung up the receiver and turned at the sound of footsteps. Monty Slater walked into the kitchen, his face grim. “I’ve talked to Daniel. He and Frank are on their way. Frank will say C.J. called and asked him to help search for Dr. Tyson. He’ll bring Daniel along as a friend who volunteered. That way, the Confidential agents’ cover won’t be compromised.”
Kyle filled Slater in on Gary’s phone call.
The security man grimaced. “I’ll step up our plans and have those extra guards in place this evening.”
Kyle flashed him a rueful smile. “A little late for that, isn’t it?”
“At least you’ll have more security while you and the sheriff conduct your investigation. You don’t want to lose any more biological weapons.”
AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, Kyle tramped the inside perimeter of the compound fence with Daniel and Court, looking for signs of Dr. Tyson, while the sheriff’s deputies searched the lab and condos. Laura had stayed at the house with Mrs. Tyson. The uneven terrain made Frank’s limp a little more pronounced, but it didn’t slow the big man down. Daniel hiked beside him, a Winchester rifle ready in the crook of his arm, ostensibly for rattlesnakes.
“Odd that Tyson should disappear the same day you showed up here,” Daniel said.
“He was agitated at the meeting this morning,” Kyle said. “Accused me of being a fraud.”
With a look of alarm, Daniel straightened from his scrutiny of the path. “He didn’t believe your cover?”
“He didn’t believe I am experienced enough to function here. Whether he suspected I’m not really a scientist working in biological warfare, I couldn’t tell.”
“Hey, guys!” Frank shouted from a few feet ahead. “Take a look at this.”
Kyle and Daniel hurried up the path that paralleled the inside of the fence to where Frank stood beside a scrubby bush. When they reached him, he pushed aside the branches to reveal a man-size hole in the chain-link fence.
Daniel leaned over and inspected the breach. “Bolt cutters.”
“This isn’t where the Black Order entered the first time?” Kyle asked.
Frank shook his head. “That was closer to the condos, and that gap has been repaired.”
Daniel ran his finger over a severed wire. “There’s no oxidation on the metal. These cuts are recent.”
Kyle nudged an object in the grass with the toe of his boot. “Here’re your bolt cutters. I’ll have the sheriff’s boys bag them for prints.”
Frank frowned. “You think an intruder dumped the tool once he was inside?”
“From the angle of these cuts,” Daniel said, “looks like someone was going out, not coming in.”
“That leaves us with two possibilities,” Frank said. “Either Tyson’s been kidnapped, possibly by someone who came in over the fence—”
“Gary Bowen said there was no sign of a struggle at the lab,” Kyle reminded him.
“The other scenario,” Frank added, “is that Tyson’s our informant and he’s making a getaway.”
Kyle moved away to keep from contaminating the area for the crime technicians and settled on a large boulder. “I don’t get it. I don’t see how my arrival here could have spooked anyone. My cover is sound.”
Daniel squatted on his muscular haunches beside Kyle and chewed thoughtfully on a blade of dried grass. “Maybe Monty and his security truck rattled the informant.”
“Slater didn’t get here until after lunch,” Kyle said. “According to Tyson’s wife, he was missing a good hour before that.”
Daniel’s brown eyes narrowed. “Maybe somebody tipped off the informant that Slater was coming, that security would be tightened.”
“Impossible,” Kyle said. “We’re the only ones who knew, unless you think Slater leaked it.”
“I’d trust Monty with my life.” Daniel’s expression was fierce with loyalty. “In fact, I have, several times in the past.”
Frank looked uncomfortable. “There’s one other person who knew about the plans to increase security.”
“Who?” Kyle asked.
Frank didn’t meet his gaze. “Laura.”
“Aw, get real.” Kyle shook his head. He didn’t even have to think about Frank’s accusation. He felt the answer deep in his gut. And his heart. “Laura’s no traitor.”
“Then we’re back where we started.” Daniel stood and tossed the blade of grass aside. “There’s only one way to get the answers we need. We have to find Tyson.”
A COMPLETE EXAMINATION of the perimeter and the surrounding woods revealed no sign of the elderly scientist. Nor did the deputies turn up anything in their inspection of the lab and condos. A swiftly moving cold front complete with icy rain and gathering darkness brought an end to the search. The deputies suspended their investigation for the night, Daniel and Frank drove back to the Lonesome Pony and Kyle returned to Laura’s house.
He entered through the rear door and shed his wet jacket in the mudroom, careful to conceal the papers in its pocket. He hoped he’d never have to tell Laura about them. The sheriff had given him copies of a file they’d found in the back of a drawer in Lawrence Tyson’s desk. The papers implicated both Tyson and Josiah as collaborators with the Black Order. Kyle knew that if Laura found out about her father’s complicity, it would break her heart.
Laura met him in the kitchen. “Any luck?”
He shook his head. “We found a breach in the fence, but no sign of Tyson.”
With a tender smile that made him regret the discovery of Josiah’s treachery
even more, she lifted her hand to his cheek. “You’re a block of ice. I’ve built a fire in the family room. You can thaw out there, and I’ll bring you something hot to drink.”
Thankful for the glowing heat, he collapsed his tired bones onto the deep sofa that fronted the fireplace and propped his damp boots on the coffee table. He could hear Laura moving around in the kitchen behind him, and a moment later she handed him a steaming mug.
“Hot buttered rum,” she said.
He gave her a grateful smile. “Woman, I think you just saved my miserable life.”
She grinned. “Now we’re even.”
She curled into the corner of the sofa next to him, kicking off her shoes and folding her long legs gracefully beneath her. Her beautiful features settled into somber lines, and her eyes darkened to midnight blue. “What’s going on, Kyle?”
He sipped his toddy, and its hot warmth flooded through him. She’d laced it with enough rum to supply a battleship. “Looks like Tyson was either kidnapped or stole the anthrax and took off on his own.”
He couldn’t tell her that, from the papers in the file that were found in Tyson’s office, the latter appeared most likely. She’d find out soon enough. And then she’d have to learn about her father’s guilt, too. When that time came, he hoped someone else, maybe Daniel, could reveal the awful truth. Kyle couldn’t stand the thought of hurting her, and it would be even worse if he was the one who had to do it.
She wrinkled her forehead. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“What?”
“That the Black Order’s had the D-5 for over a month, and they haven’t used it. They haven’t even threatened to use it—not that I’m not glad. It just seems strange.”
Kyle nodded. “Daniel and Frank and I discussed that, and we have a theory.”
She leaned toward him, and the scent of orange blossoms blended with the aroma of buttered rum. He wanted to draw her close and hold her, to protect her from the pain she was sure to suffer when she learned the truth about her father. He draped his arm around her shoulders, and she scooted easily to his side with her head against his shoulder. Her presence was even more effective than the scalding toddy in driving away the cold that gripped him.
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