“But she’s there now?”
“Yes. I called the police, but I can’t talk to them. They’ll think I did it!”
“Did you?”
“No, of course not.”
I touched his shoulder in an attempt to keep him calm, thinking how impressed Hayden would be. In reality, I wanted to run the other way. Innocent people did not wake up in bed beside a dead body. But I could see the wheels turning in Hayden’s mind as Peter walked up behind him and whispered something in his ear.
We were taking this case.
“Amelia? Take him upstairs. Let’s get him out of public view.”
I immediately did as Hayden said, leading the man to the elevators. I could feel the eyes of the other employees and visitors waiting at the security desk, watching us move. The elevator doors opened immediately, thank goodness.
I guided him inside and punched the number for Hayden’s floor. He would want the potential client in his office where he could interrogate him without too many prying eyes.
The man didn’t say a word on the short ride. He reeked of blood, that coppery smell filling my nose and refusing to leave. I crossed my arms over my chest, grateful that I hadn’t eaten a heavy breakfast this morning. It was a run day, but my alarm didn’t go off so I missed out. If I hadn’t, I would have had eggs and bacon and toast for breakfast and that would have been on its way back out by now.
The doors opened and I led the way to Hayden’s office, pushing open the door and flipping on the lights.
“Take a seat. I’ll go get a rag so you can wash up a little.”
“Thank you,” he said politely.
He should be polite. He was in a sticky situation.
I walked down the hall to the bathroom and stood in front of the sinks for a moment, leaning against the porcelain basin until I felt like I could breathe again. Then I splashed a little water on my face, trying to get the smell of blood out of my nose.
This was a little intense, even for Dragon.
I wet a couple of paper towels and took them back to Hayden’s office, handing them over to the stranger sitting there. He wiped his hands, not really looking at them, at me, or anything else. He seemed to be in some sort of daze.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Rowan.” He looked up at me, finally focusing on something other than his own shock and fear. “Rowan McGregor.”
“I’m Amelia Kelmeckis. I’m an operative here.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said, that brogue stronger than ever.
If it weren’t for the circumstances, he might have been the kind of guy I would have looked twice at in a bar. He was tall, not muscular but strong. He had dark hair and the greenest eyes I think I’d ever seen. And he was handsome, his jaw wide and strong, his nose long and narrow, his body screaming masculinity. I don’t know what it was, his big hands or his wide chest, but he did seem very, very masculine.
But he was also covered in blood.
Hayden arrived a moment later, breezing through the door like my knight in shining armor. Peter was behind him, a fangirl kind of look on his face when his eyes fell on our guest.
“Mr. McGregor,” he said, holding out a hand, “it’s an honor to meet you.”
McGregor’s eyes widened. “Yes?”
“Better circumstances would be more ideal,” Peter said, “but I’ve been following your work since you graduated from MIT.”
“And you are?”
“Peter Bradford. My sister owns this place.”
“Of course.” McGregor stood, extending one partially clean hand toward Peter. “I’m aware of your work, Mr. Bradford. You were making some pretty exciting advancements at Bradford Technology before you disappeared.”
Peter bowed his head slightly. I waited for the tension that normally came over his expression whenever someone mentioned his past, but it didn’t happen this time. He actually smiled.
“I appreciate that. But your work … without you, artificial intelligence wouldn’t be quite what it is today.”
“I don’t know about that.”
McGregor tilted his head a little, clearly trying to look humble, but not quite making it. It was pretty obvious that he felt the praise was deserved. That arrogance, that level of narcissism, was familiar. I didn’t like it.
Hayden cleared his throat. He’d taken a seat on the edge of his desk, leaning forward just slightly as he watched the testosterone fest going on in front of him. McGregor sat back down in the chair he’d taken when we first came into the office, dropping the bloody paper towels into the wastebasket.
“Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened, Mr. McGregor?” Hayden said.
McGregor looked down at his hands where they were clasped in his lap. Humility came over him now, but I wasn’t sure if it was real or contrived. He cleared his throat a couple of times before he began speaking.
“I went to a party last night. It was a business party, one of those cocktail things where you drink too much and try to get some one on one time with the most important donors and executives. I don’t remember drinking very much, but I was a little unsteady when I went home.”
“And you went home alone?”
“Yes. Very much so. In fact, I remember lamenting that fact because I had intended to spend some time with a new young intern who’d joined the robotics lab not long ago, but she didn’t show up to the party. So, yeah, I went home alone.”
“The woman in your bed … did you recognize her?”
“Never set on eyes on her.”
McGregor shivered. Again, I wondered if his reaction was genuine or fake.
“What exactly did you do?”
He shook his head. “I woke up and felt sticky. The room was dark. I turned on the lights and she was just lying there …”
His voice broke a little. He reached up and ran his hands over his skull, disrupting the way his hair lay over the top of his head. Then he looked up, his eyes resting on Hayden’s face.
“It took a second before it settled into my mind what I was looking at. The shadows along her neck … they hid the deep cut that was there. I touched her and rested my hand on her bare stomach, trying to remember how she got there. Her skin was still warm, but her head moved when I touched her and there was something about the way it moved …”
He shuddered.
“I jumped out of bed and called 911 without really thinking about what I was doing. But then I realized they would think I’d done it. The knife was lying on the bedside table, right next to the lamp. I probably touched it when I turned the light on. I knew … and if they arrested me, they could have me deported.”
“You’re not a citizen?”
“I’m not. I’ve been living here on a work visa. I took a citizenship class, but I haven’t taken the oath. I didn’t have time.”
“Do you have any enemies?”
Peter snorted at this question. Hayden glanced at him, clearly annoyed by the interruption.
“This man has created software that takes robotics to the next level.” Peter laughed. “Of course he has enemies!”
McGregor glanced at Peter, a soft smile on his lips that made me think of the smile my dad often sported when he was berating me or my sister for one perceived slight or another. It made my opinion of this stranger dip considerably.
“I do have enemies,” McGregor admitted. “Most notably my rivals within my own company.”
Hayden studied this stranger, curiosity written in the angles of his handsome face. I bit my lips as I watched him watch McGregor, loving this side of him. Hayden was an introspective sort of guy at the best of times, but he often got this expression on his face when I knew he was trying to assess a situation or a person or a person’s motivations. It softened the angles of his face, making him seem slightly less unapproachable. It made me completely infatuated.
“What do you mean, rivals in your own company?”
McGregor shrugged in an almost effeminate way.
“I mean
, my company likes to pit its employees against one another in order to increase the sense of competition and, hopefully, production. I often meet expectations before my coworkers, so I make more money and have more benefits at work. This has angered the people working in my department and the office can often be hostile. If I were to be deported, my coworkers would directly benefit.”
“Anyone else?”
McGregor waved his hand in the air. “There are lots of people competing in my field. Any of them who are aware of my advances—which would be most, since I recently published in a scientific journal—might want me to disappear.”
“But couldn’t you continue your work in Ireland?”
“Of course. But not right away, and that would give them all time to catch up.” McGregor leaned forward, smoothing his hands over his thighs. “This industry is very fluid. New advances change the game nearly every day. If I were out of the game for just a week or two, it would change the playing field. That could be what whoever did this might have been after.”
The wheels were clearly spinning in Hayden’s head. I knew he was weighing the danger to Dragon in harboring a fugitive against the benefit of helping this client. It wasn’t like Dragon hadn’t put themselves out for a client before, but it was always a client Dragon believed was in the right. This man was a stranger.
If anyone wanted my vote, I’d say we should just call the cops and have them come get this fool.
“If we were to help you,” Hayden said, his expression not changing at all, “we would contact a lawyer on your behalf, find out what they think, and possibly, arrange a controlled meeting between you and the police. At the same time, we would run an investigation into the situation to determine if the killer can be identified.”
“What about me?”
“You would be placed in a safe house until such a time as we determined that either you should be handed over to the police or that the motivation behind this event was proven to no longer be a danger to your wellbeing.”
McGregor seemed to consider that idea for a moment. Then he sat back and sighed.
“I’m completely at your mercy. I have nowhere else to go.”
Hayden pushed away from the front of his desk and gestured for me and Peter to join him in the hall. Once the door was closed, I saw Hayden glance down the corridor to the door of Waverly’s—our former head of technology—office. She’d been put on administrative leave some time ago when someone managed to get a virus into our software that allowed them to find out where certain members of our team were hiding clients in safe houses.
I wondered if he was thinking about the breach, or if there was something more personal going on. There were rumors that Hayden and Waverly were lovers, but I couldn’t quite believe it.
Not my Hayden.
“I know what you think,” Hayden said, glancing at Peter. “Beyond his software capabilities, do you think there’s any truth to what he’s saying?”
“Yes.” Peter wrapped his arms around his chest and studied Hayden. “You know I wouldn’t weigh in on a case like this unless I knew something about it. This guy … he is incredibly important to the future of robotics. I’m surprised that no one has tried to take him out before this.”
Hayden nodded. “I’ve actually heard of him.”
Peter’s eyebrows flew up.
Hayden laughed. “I’m not as closeted as you think I am. Sam rubbed off on me a little.”
A cloud of grief crossed Peter’s face as Hayden mentioned his dead fiancée. Sam—the lady who had Waverly’s job first—was before my time with Dragon, but she was apparently Megan Bradford-Murphy’s best friend from childhood, so Peter—as her brother—would have known her well, too. All in the family, or something like that.
Made me wish I knew more about computers than just how to check my emails.
Hayden took a deep breath, clearly attempting to come to a conclusion. Then his eyes fell on me and I stood a little straighter, consciously trying not to look too obviously moony-eyed.
“We have to assume all our safe houses have been compromised,” Hayden said. “For that reason, I’m going to have to ask you to do something completely out of the realm of appropriate.”
“No problem,” I said, always willing to do anything Hayden asked of me.
“I want you to take him to your place and keep him there until we can find a better place to put him.”
My heart sank. That was not exactly what I was expecting Hayden to say. But I couldn’t say no.
“All right.”
Hayden touched my shoulder. “I know this is asking a lot. Hopefully it won’t be for longer than a day. Then Megan and I can figure out a place we can send the two of you that would work better.”
Hayden turned to Peter. “Can you arrange for some clothing and whatever for this guy? We’ll need to bag up his clothing. I’m sure the cops will want it.”
“We should talk to a lawyer before we do anything.”
“Already done. I called Wallace before I came upstairs.”
I felt like a fly on the wall, listening to a conversation that I had no inside knowledge of. Who was Wallace?
“Have you called Megan?”
Even as the words came out of Peter’s mouth, Megan herself stepped off the elevator. She looked like the consummate executive, dressed sharply in a khaki business suit complete with dark heels. It was easy to forget that she was a mother of two young children who spent most of her days in jeans, chasing her kids around her massive house in the suburbs.
“Having a powwow without me?” she asked, a teasing light in her eyes.
“Always,” Hayden said, slipping an arm familiarly around her waist as she stopped to stand beside him.
They had such an easy way with each other. I was surprised there weren’t rumors about them having some sort of affair. But her husband worked here from time to time, helping out with covert operations that required a little added muscle. And when they were in the same room together, it was pretty obvious that Megan and her husband, Luke, were deeply devoted to one another. But, still, it would be nice if Hayden’s face didn’t light up every time she came into a room.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
Once again, I was just an observer. But observing Hayden wasn’t all that bad. I could do it all day.
Chapter 2
Rowan
The moment they stepped out of the door, I stood and began to pace, working out some of the nervous energy that had been building in my chest. I felt as though I might explode if I didn’t move or find an outlet.
I couldn’t believe this was happening!
She was dead and I was covered in her blood. The smell permeated everything. I wanted to vomit and scrub my skin raw. I wanted it gone. But I knew that no matter how many showers I took, no matter how carefully I worked to free myself of this smell, of this sight, of the stickiness, that it would still be there.
My soul was covered in her blood and there was nothing I could do to rid myself of it.
They had told me no one would get hurt. But she was dead and her blood was all over me.
I picked up the drying paper towels that woman had brought me and scrubbed at my hands again. There was still stain on my thumbs, in the creases of my palms. No matter how hard I scrubbed, they wouldn’t go away.
I began to pace again even as I scrubbed at my hands. I could see it all unfolding in my head again. Rolling over, feeling the wetness of the blood against my hands, my chest. I could feel her cooling body against mine. My head wanted to believe I’d gone to bed with a lover the night before, but wakefulness reminded me I hadn’t. And then the smell filled my nostrils and reality slowly began to seep in, telling me that this wetness was not normal, that this smell was wrong. And then I flipped on the lamp and …
I don’t think I’d ever jumped that fast in my life.
And when I saw her face, I knew what was happening. And I knew I was in more trouble than I’d ever suspected.
The first c
all I made this morning wasn’t to the cops. But it wasn’t helpful. In fact, it might have just made things worse.
I needed to get out of this place. What were they doing out in the hallway? Why didn’t they come back and do something? I needed to go. I needed to hide before they found me.
Time passed incredibly slowly. It felt like I waited in there for hours on hours. In reality it was probably no more than thirty minutes, but the tension of every second of those minutes weighed heavily on my shoulders. I almost felt as though I couldn’t hold myself up any longer when the door finally opened.
“Mr. McGregor,” a beautiful blonde woman said as she approached me, her hand held out in greeting. “I’m Megan Bradford-Murphy. I own Dragon Security.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Murphy.”
She looked me over, a flicker of concern in her eyes as she noted the blood on my clothing.
“We’ve already contacted a lawyer on your behalf. He’d like to meet with you, but we’d like to move you to a secure location first.”
Relief rushed through me at those words.
“Ms. Kelmeckis will escort you to a safe house. Once there, we’d like for you to remove your clothing and place it in an evidence bag so that the lawyer can give it to the cops.”
I inclined my head slightly. “I understand.”
“We will arrange a meeting between you and the lawyer later this afternoon.”
“Okay.”
“We’ve also spoken to the police and they have agreed to allow you to remain in our care for the duration of their investigation as long as we make you freely available to them for interrogation.”
She studied my face with gorgeous blue eyes that distracted me briefly from the tension that continued to weigh heavy on my shoulders. “For that reason you will have to remain in Ms. Kelmeckis’ company until we inform you that you are no longer under suspicion of murder.”
“I understand.”
“We have put ourselves on a ledge for you, Mr. McGregor. It is imperative that you follow our instructions to the letter or we will be forced to turn you over to the police.”
Her tone was gracious, her expression friendly. But her words cut straight through me as though she’d said them with a razor sharp tongue. Being turned over to the cops was the last thing I wanted.
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