“Why didn’t you just wait ’til the storm passed?” Carly asked and then immediately yawned again.
Dani dug her nails into her palms. Carly wasn’t doing well. “You look really tired tonight. Why don’t I let you get back to sleep? We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Carly’s voice was almost a whisper. Carly fell back into the pillows behind her.
Danie’s chest tightened. Carly never gave up this easily. She hated going to sleep. Even at the ripe old age of ten, she still put up a major fuss about going to bed. She always made a joke about her illness. “I’ll have time to sleep when I’m dead. Too much to see and do.” Until tonight. To see her give in so quickly made Dani’s stomach cramp. Nausea rose in her throat, and it wasn’t from seasickness. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t eaten. “Okay, Squiggles. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Carly smiled and waved, then the screen went black.
A sob escaped Dani’s lips. Carly hadn’t even fought about being called “Squiggles.” She was losing her battle. Her little body was giving up. Tears ran down Dani’s face. She pounded her fists on the coffee table. She needed to work harder, faster. She needed to find a relative for Carly. Carly wanted to meet family. Real family. The software had to work!
The tears that had started slowly now raced in torrents down her cheeks, mimicking the rain outside. She was failing. For the first time in life, her talent wasn’t enough. Her whole body convulsed with her sobs.
“No!” she said as she got to her feet and violently swiped at her cheeks. She would not give up. She would make it happen. She would fix the software and find Carly’s birth family. They were out there.
Dani took a deep shuddering breath and walked to the bathroom. Her face was all blotchy and red. She was not one of those pretty criers. She was an ugly-cry kinda girl, and she was okay with that. Those pretty-cry people weren’t really feelin’ it as far as she was concerned. But Gage would soon be back, and she didn’t want to answer any questions.
Her breath was still jerky from her sobbing, so she tried to calm down. She went out to her duffel and dug out a T-shirt and boxer shorts, her sleeping attire. She would grab a quick shower and get to work. She had lots to do yet tonight. As she turned and was walking back to the bathroom, someone pounded on the door.
Dani froze. Gage had taken his medallion. She’d been watching him in her peripheral vision. The pounding happened again. A muffled voice yelled, “I know you’re in there.”
Chapter Eight
“Hey buddy, what’s gives?” Gage asked. He’d seen this guy banging on the room door the moment he’d rounded the corner. His first instinct was to ditch the to-go containers in his hands and pummel the guy, but he held off. If this was one of the guys after them, he wanted an opportunity to talk with him before he reduced him to a pile of broken bones.
“Ah, whaaat? None of your fuckin’ business, man.” The guy started pounding on the door again. “I know you’re in there. Let me in, bissshhh.” The guy staggered back a step and bumped into the wall behind him. He turned and saw Gage again. Frowning, he tried to stand up straight. “I said leave me the fuck alone. Are you sshupid or somethin?”
“Buddy, I think you’re a bit mixed up.”
The guy turned full to face Gage. “You don’t want to get in my faace, man. Thissh is between me and my girlfriend,” he said while poking himself in the chest. Then he pointed at Gage. “You sshay out of it.”
Gage took a deep breath. After the day he’d had—hell, after the last month—he really just wanted to bounce the guy off the walls and step over his body on the floor. It would be a great stress relief, but it wouldn’t be a fair fight. Sometimes it sucked being a good guy.
He sighed and looked down at the containers he had in each hand. The food was getting cold. “Look, buddy, you got the wrong room. Your girlfriend isn’t in there.”
The guy looked puzzled. “How do you know?”
“Because that’s my door you’re banging on.”
The guy looked at Gage and then turned and looked at the door again. He looked up and down the hallway. “Ssshit. I’m on the wrong floor. Sssorry, buddy.” When the guy took a step forward, Gage promptly moved out of the way to let him by. The guy mumbled “sssorry” again and staggered down the hallway.
Gage waited until the guy had turned the corner before stepping in front of the door. He put both containers on one arm then opened the door. One look at Dani’s face, and he almost dropped the food. Her eyes were golf ball-sized and filled with terror. Gage’s chest felt like he’d taken a hit to his bulletproof vest.
“Are you okay? It was just a drunk on the wrong floor,” he said as he set the containers on the dresser and turned back to Dani. It took everything he had not to wrap his arms around her. He wanted to make her feel safe.
Her color was gray, and her teeth were chattering. Her cheeks were all blotchy. Her body shook as she took a deep breath. Maybe he shouldn’t have left her alone at all. From the looks of her, she’d been truly terrified. Fuck. He needed to do better. Protecting her also meant keeping her from being in a constant state of true terror. At least it did to him. No one should have to feel that. Ever.
Dani avoided eye contact with him. “I’m fine,” she managed to get out, but her voice still sounded funny to Gage, like she’d been crying for a while. Shit, how long had that asshole been banging on the door? He deeply regretted not pummeling the drunk for terrifying Dani.
“He’s gone. It’s okay. You’re safe.” He gave in to his need to reach out to touch Dani and moved toward her with his arms rising from his sides. He saw her freeze. He’d noticed her turn to stone when her old landlord had hugged her as well. She obviously did not want to be touched. He stopped moving and dropped his arms.
“I was just going to take a shower,” she said as she gestured toward the bathroom.
“Okay. I, ah, brought some food in case you were hungry.”
She turned and glanced at the containers but made no move toward them. “Um, thanks. I think I’ll take my shower and maybe eat after.” She still avoided looking him in the eye.
Gage ran a hand through his hair. The old lady was right—this poor girl had been through the wars and was very much scared by it. His gut churned.
“You go ahead. Do whatever makes you happy. The food will still be here when you get out.” He tried to give her a smile, but she didn’t bother looking at him, just headed directly into the bathroom and locked the door.
Gage sat down hard on the chair he’d vacated earlier. Dani was a mess. She needed some help. Maybe more than he could give.
Deal with the problem at hand, he reminded himself. The best thing he could do for her was keep her safe until they got back to New York. She could finish the software there. Yup, that was the smart play.
He tried to distract himself by studying the room. The walls were off white with bright floral prints in bold colors. The king-size bed dominated the room with its pale comforter that had a colorful throw artfully tossed across it. The TV on the dresser, a state-of-the-art flat screen with the remotes lined up underneath, was directly across from the bed. The food was getting cold, but he’d lost his appetite.
Finally, he grabbed his phone. He could stare at the walls all he wanted, but he needed a distraction and probably some help. He’d put off calling his brothers long enough. There was a mole for sure. It wasn’t the first one they’d had to deal with and chances were good it was on Drake’s end, not Callahan Security.
He listened for a moment to make sure the shower was still on. He didn’t want to go out on the balcony; it was raining buckets. Hearing the water running, he hit the buttons on his burner phone to call his brothers.
“Callahan,” the voice on the other end answered.
“Yes, but which one? You said we need to say our full names to identify ourselves clearly,” Gage said. A small smile spread across his face at hearing his brother Logan’s voice.
“Gage! Where
the hell have you been?” Logan’s voice was tight.
Gage laughed. “I’ve been all over the place. I’m exhausted. Sorry I didn’t call sooner.” He heard a click and some muffled sounds. “Are you still there?” Were they too far out of port now for the call? Had he waited too long? “Logan?”
“I’m here and—”
“I’m here too, bro. You had us worried!” his younger brother Mitch’s voice boomed across the line.
“Yeah, I figured as much. Sorry about that. It’s been a bit crazy.”
“It only takes a second to send a text or make a phone call, at least according to my other half. She yells at me about it all the time,” Mitch said with a laugh.
Gage grinned. No doubt Alex was keeping Mitch in line. She was a tough one. Gage loved her for it. “I know but”—the smile slid off his face—“to be honest, a few things have happened, and silence seemed to be the best option.”
“What do you mean?” Logan’s voice had switched to his crisp lawyerly speak.
Gage hesitated for a second then mentally shrugged. “So, you know Drake didn’t want to give me info about the hacker, Dani. Well, that’s because he didn’t have any. She kept him in the dark about her location and played him every chance she got.
“When I pressed him, and he gave me vague bits of information, like he thought she was in Berlin, or she’d mentioned Paris when they spoke, Drake was doing his best to help. I followed up on every clue and ended up running around Europe. Drake was pissed and so was I.” Gage got out of the chair and peeled back the curtain with one hand. The rain pounded on the glass doors. He let the curtain drop.
“The thing is, I wasn’t the only one there. A couple of times I thought I saw the same men. I thought maybe they were following me, but then I arrived at a location where her IP address had pinged, which of course, was another false trail, and they’d been there first. They weren’t following me. They were tracking her, the same as me.” Gage sat back down in the chair.
“There’s a leak is what you’re saying.”
Gage was always impressed on how quick Mitch’s brain worked despite his deceiving surfer style.
“That’s my fear.”
Logan said, “And you were worried it could be on our end.”
“I like to think that’s impossible, but I couldn’t rule it out entirely unless I cut off contact and the guys still showed up.”
“So the guys showed again, right?” Mitch asked.
Gage switched the phone to his other ear and ran a hand through his hair. “Yup, they showed up. In Juneau, Alaska, where Dani was hiding. They must have gotten to town right before I did, because they had already broken into her place and stole what they thought was the software.”
“Oh, shit!”
“You said it, Mitch. And that’s not all. Because they thought they had the software, they actually killed a woman they thought was Dani. Hit and run.” There was silence on the other end of the phone. Gage didn’t blame them for taking a beat. He heard his brother Logan curse softly.
“Is Daniella okay?” Logan asked.
That was a loaded question for sure. “Dani. She goes by Dani. She’s okay for now.” He hesitated and then shrugged. “I need you to do background on her, though. There’s more going on here, and she’s not exactly sharing any information. I think she might have a clue who’s behind this. She said ‘no’ when I asked her, but I’m willing to bet she’s not in the dark like she says.”
He heard Mitch chuckle. “A woman not telling one of us the full story? No way! Couldn’t possibly happen.”
Gage laughed. After what his brothers had gone through with their significant others recently, he should know there’d be more to Dani’s story. “Yup, it’s shocking. Anyway, get me any details you can find on her so I am better prepared. Any luck on finding out who these people are? Did Drake or Janet come up with anything?”
He heard Mitch sigh. “Not so far. He’s trying, Logan’s trying, hell, we’re all trying. Whoever’s behind the attempt wants to keep a very low profile. It seems it’s okay for some tech companies to have a basic facial recognition software, but they don’t want the high-level stuff to be widespread.
Mitch sighed. “Only companies that deal in some sort of national security are allowed to have it. Airports, airlines, things like that. So I guess we can assume it’s not someone involved in something above board.”
“Sounds logical,” Gage agreed.
Mitch continued. “We’ve been sort of asking around, but everyone is keeping mum on the subject. I get it. If you were trying to steal software that most governments have but don’t want to share, would you tell the world? It would just put a big ol’ target on your back.” Mitch sighed again. “My question is, how did these people find out about Drake having the software?”
Logan piped up, “Which brings us back to a leak in Drake’s company. Whoever the leak is will know who’s after the software. Identify the leak and—”
“We identify the bad guys,” Mitch finished his brother’s sentence.
“Huh, well, I guess you two need to start investigating Drake’s people. It shouldn’t be too hard. I doubt he’s telling the world about Dani. No more than a handful of people would have access to any information about her or the software.”
“If that,” Mitch said. “I’ve worked with Drake for a while now. There are very few people he would trust with this info. Maybe only three to five, tops. We’ll start looking into this right away.”
“Okay, sounds good. Email me what you can find out about our hacker and keep me updated on the rest,” Gage said. “I’m not sure I’ll have access all the time, but it should come through when we’re in port.” He glanced at the door. The water had stopped about a minute ago, so he wanted to get off the phone.
“Wait,” Logan said. “Where are you? When are you flying home? Is there anything else you need?”
“I’m on a cruise ship, believe it or not. Nothing else was leaving port. We are in Ketchikan tomorrow, and then we get into Vancouver a day or two after that. I’ll send you the info. It might be helpful to have backup when we get off the ship.”
“Why are you on a cruise? Why not just fly home?” Logan asked.
“There was a storm, and I didn’t want to wait since we were sitting ducks. This was the only thing leaving town.”
“Well, it’s certainly a novel take on making a quick getaway,” Mitch said with a laugh. “At least it’s a boat. You love boats.”
“Sailboats. I love sailing. Cruising is not really my thing,” Gage lamented “Too many tourists with selfie sticks snapping pictures all the time. People even take pictures of their food. Seriously.”
“Nothing wrong with a picture of food if it’s presented in an aesthetically pleasing fashion,” Logan sounded slightly insulted.
“Says the chef.” Mitch’s laughter came down the phone line. “Could be worse, big bro. You could be in a fishing boat, having to sleep with the fish.”
“Har har,” Gage said as he shook his head, but he was happy. His brothers were worried but happy and, most importantly, getting along. That was what he promised his mother before she died. That he would take care of his brothers and make sure they got along.
Mitch piped up. “We’ll be there to meet you in Vancouver. Have fun on your cruise. Take advantage of all the interesting things onboard. Think of it as a mini vacation of sorts.”
Logan’s voice was serious when he said, “Be very careful, Gage. We still have no idea what we’re up against.”
“Will do. Talk later.” Gage hung up the phone. He felt better knowing he would have backup in Vancouver. Maybe Mitch was right. There was slim chance that anyone looking for them would find them on a cruise ship, especially after Dani had hacked in and changed their names. As long as his brothers didn’t mention it, he could relax until Vancouver.
The door opened behind him and he looked over to see Dani standing in the middle of the room. She was all dewy faced with a lot more color
in her cheeks. Her long dark hair was still damp and curling slightly as it hung over her shoulders and down her back.
She was wearing an old black T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts with kissing lips all over them. Both of them clung to her every curve, and she had some amazing curves. To see them accentuated took his breath away. She was stunningly beautiful. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat.
“I…think I’ll skip eating if that’s okay with you,” Dani said. Her voice still sounded rusty to him, but it was better than before.
“Uh, yeah. I kind of lost my appetite as well. It’s getting late, and it might just be time to grab some sleep.”
Dani glanced at the bed. Her eyebrows lowered a bit, and she nibbled her bottom lip. Gage couldn’t help but notice. Those lips were so delicate looking, so delectable. He wanted to taste them. Her scent drifted to him, and he found himself surrounded by it. The wildflowers were back. Shit. He shot out of the chair, making Dani jump.
“Sorry, leg cramp.” Jesus, he sounded like an idiot. “Don’t worry about the sleeping arrangements.” He passed her and walked to the closet by the cabin door. God, she smelled divine. Get your shit together.
He grabbed the extra pillows off the top shelf and then walked past Dani again, moving purposefully around the far side of the bed. “Here. We’ll put these between us. That way we won’t run into each other in our sleep.”
Her glance flew between him and the pillows. Slowly, she nodded. “Okay.”
Worry lines eased in her expression, but fatigue was taking over. Her shoulders were slumped and her eyelids droopy.
“Which side to you want?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled.
She nodded again and went to the side closest to the wall. She pulled back the sheets and slid into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. Gage dropped the pillows behind her. Then he went around and turned out most of the lights.
Hit and Run: A Thrilling Novel of Romantic Suspense (Callahan Security series Book 3) Page 5
