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“For communicating, but nothing for an abduction.” She tossed the mangled napkin onto her plate. “You know Olaf went into hiding when he felt the snare tightening.”
“It was worldwide news. Of course, I know.” He reached across the table and entwined his fingers with hers. “When I heard that, all I could think of was you and your safety, and now here I am contributing to the danger.”
Her heart fluttered when Gray said things like that to her, but pretty words didn’t mean much. She hadn’t been able to count on him before. He’d bolted once and he might do so again when he got what he wanted from her. It might be even worse this time if he felt guilty over his complicity in hacking into secure systems, but this time those systems belonged to rogue government employees, not the good guys as Gray had assumed.
Just because his family was so plugged into government service didn’t mean all those nameless, faceless bureaucrats roaming the halls of Washington had the best interests of this country as their number one priority…or as any priority.
She disentangled her fingers from his. “You’re not endangering me. I was onto this conspiracy before you arrived in New York, although I have to admit the data I stumbled on piqued my curiosity even more when I realized the person at the center of this swirling controversy was none other than your commander, Major Denver.”
Gray cocked his head to the side. “You surprise me, Jerrica West.”
“Why?” She slid her hands from the table and tucked them between her bouncing knees. Had she revealed how crazy attracted she still was to him?
“You remembered my Delta Force commander’s name. I guess you were listening to me.” He brushed his fingers together over his plate, a smug little smile playing about his lips.
Listening? She’d hung on to every word out of his mouth, never quite believing he was truly hers or would stick around. And she’d been right.
“You had some interesting stories, yourself.”
“I thought…” He shrugged his broad shoulders, and a tide of color rushed into his face.
She narrowed her eyes. “You thought what?”
“Once I learned about your line of work, I thought your interest in me had more to do with what I could reveal about our defense than me personally.” He thumped his fist against his chest.
“You said something like that before and it’s idiotic.” She grabbed her purse and shot up from her chair. “Let’s go.”
He followed her toward the door so closely she could feel his warm breath stirring her hair. For a good-looking guy, Gray had a surprising number of insecurities. His well-connected family had mega bucks, and she’d figured it always had him wondering if women wanted him or his family’s wealth and connections.
With her own stash of cash in the bank from the settlement and the modest way she lived, he’d never been able to accuse her of going for the gold, so he’d made up another reason that she’d be interested in him.
She tossed her head and flicked her gaze at the many women tracking his progress out of the coffeehouse. Did the man have a mirror?
When they hit the sidewalk, she took his arm. “I’m worried about Amit. We have to find him before they hurt him.”
“Or break him.”
“That’s not going to happen.” She pulled him toward the subway station. “Olaf’s army is loyal. We don’t break.”
“You may not break under the gentle, monitored, legal questioning of the government, but that’s not what we’re dealing with here. If these are government agents, they’re not your mother’s government agents.”
She tripped to a stop at the top of the stairs leading to the platform. “Your mother’s, maybe. They’re exactly my mother’s and my father’s.”
As she trotted downstairs, tears blurred her eyes and Gray put a steadying hand on her back.
He ducked his head to hers. “Sorry. Stupid thing to say.”
When they boarded the train, she gripped the pole and swayed toward him as the car moved forward, her eyes locking onto his dark blue ones.
She shuffled closer to Gray, almost whispering in his ear. “Amit’s in danger, isn’t he?”
“You’re both in danger.”
“I have to tell Olaf. Maybe we should go to the Dreadworm offices now.” She chewed on her bottom lip, all the sweetness of the lemon cake gone.
“And get followed? Not a good idea.” He pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Stop doing that. You’ll make it bleed.”
“You’re right. Now is not the time to go running off to Dreadworm. That’s what they’d expect.” She slid a gaze to the side. “Someone could be on our tail now.”
The train squealed as it rolled into their stop and the force threw her against Gray’s chest. She rested there for a few seconds, long enough for Gray to balance his chin on top of her head.
“We’ll figure this out. We’ll find Amit.”
As she pulled away from him, strands of her hair clung to the scruff on his jaw, connecting them for seconds longer, seconds she needed to collect herself.
They hustled down the sidewalk, shoulders bumping, and she’d never felt so safe—except for the last time Gray had been with her in New York—before he found out what she did.
When they reached her building, one of the other residents pushed through the door and held it open for them, nodding at Jerrica. She gave him a hard stare.
The door closed behind them and Gray watched her curiously. “You don’t know him?”
“I do, but he’s never seen you before in his life. How’d he know you were with me?”
Gray raised his hand clasping hers. “Maybe this is a hint.”
“You never know. I could be your captive.” She studied Gray’s face, but he didn’t even roll one eye. That attack had scared him as much as it had her.
They clumped up the stairs, their boots filling the staircase with noise. Jerrica placed her hand against her door and turned the first lock.
She froze as icy fingers played up her spine. Then she hissed between her teeth. “Someone’s been here.”
Chapter Four (#udd91938a-3a8b-5848-8720-801a1eaf13f8)
Gray’s muscles tensed and he stepped between Jerrica and the door. He bent his head to hers, his lips brushing her ear. “How do you know?”
“This lock.” She circled a piece of tarnished metal with her fingertip. “It locks from the outside with a key. I locked it when we left, and now it’s not locked. The other two lock automatically when the door closes.”
“Unlock the rest and stand back.” He hovered over her shoulder as she shoved her key into two more locks, clicking them open.
Earlier, he’d taken one look at that line of locks on Jerrica’s door and figured he’d have better luck coming through the window. Had someone else come to the same conclusion and then left through the front door?
Or was that someone else still waiting inside?
As he pushed into the room, he clutched the gun in his pocket and tensed his muscles. A breeze ruffled the curtains at the window—the same window he used earlier.
“You didn’t leave a window open a slice, did you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Stay back.” Nobody had jumped out at them or appeared with guns blazing, but that didn’t seem to be their style. The guy in the alley had had an opportunity to stab Jerrica when she first went out there, but he’d wanted something else.
He pulled the gun from his pocket and followed it into the room, raking his gaze from side to side. Jerrica’s possessions, in place and undisturbed, belied the presence of an intruder.
Tipping back his head, he scanned the loft. From his vantage point, nobody had disturbed Jerrica’s neat space. If it weren’t for that lock and the window open a crack, they’d have no reason to believe anyone had compromised her apartment.
Together, they walked into the guest bedroom downstairs and Gray checked the closet and the bathroom.
Jerrica gasped and his finger tightened on the trigger.
“My laptop’s upstairs.”
Lunging after her, he reached out to grab her but she twisted away from him and stomped up the rest of the stairs. He had no choice but to follow her, his panic causing him to pant.
As Jerrica dove for the laptop on the nightstand, Gray threw open the closet doors. The mostly dark-colored clothes shimmied on their hangers. His hands plowed through the materials, skimming leather and denim and soft cotton, but no intruders crouched in the recesses of the closet.
He took a step back and bumped into the foot of Jerrica’s bed where she was sitting cross-legged, hunched over her computer.
“They didn’t take your laptop? That’s weird.” His eyes darted around the neat, bare room, as impersonal as a jail cell, and he took a deep breath. “Are you sure someone broke in?”
She raised her gaze from the laptop and her green eyes narrowed. “I knew right away. I always secure that lock. They underestimated me if they thought I wouldn’t notice that, the window…or other things.”
“Such as?” Again, his gaze wandered around the spare room.
“I can’t explain it to you—it’s the placement of a book, the angle of a cushion. They didn’t want to leave a mess. Didn’t want me to think they’d been here.” She dug her fingers into her black hair, and pulled it back from her face with one hand. “That’s why they left my laptop.”
“If they didn’t take anything and didn’t want to scare you by tossing your place, then what?”
She flicked her fingers at the computer. “They’re going to track me through this.”
Gray’s heart jumped. “How would they do that? Can they do that?”
“Keystrokes.”
“You lost me, just like you always do with this stuff.” He sank to the bed and an unexpected flash of desire scorched his flesh as he remembered the last time they’d been on this bed, in this room.
Jerrica gave no sign that the memory had crept into her databank. She ducked her head, her straight hair creating a curtain around her face as her fingers flew across the keys.
“The intruders probably loaded a program on my laptop that’s going to send anything I do straight to them—anything I look up, any emails, any programs I run. That’s what I’d do. It’ll be like they’re looking over my shoulder while I work.”
“You think you can find it?”
She peeked at him through the strands of her hair and snorted, causing the black curtain to flutter about her face. “No problem.”
As Jerrica sank farther into the zone, Gray slid from the bed and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going to head downstairs and see about securing that window so nobody, including me, can get into your place that way again.”
Jerrica murmured without looking up.
He’d been in this situation with her before and knew better than to disturb her.
Jogging downstairs, he skimmed his hand along the bannister and jumped off the last step. He curled his fingers under the window and shoved it open the rest of the way. He leaned out, looking down into the street from the third-floor drop.
The tree abutting the building offered wily climbers, like him, access to the ledge running along the side of the apartment building. He couldn’t get rid of the tree, but he could do something about the ledge and the window itself.
He pivoted away from the window and into the kitchen. He threw open a few cupboard doors until he found a bottle of olive oil. Too bad Jerrica didn’t have cooking spray, but he didn’t expect to find anything that unnatural in her kitchen.
He unscrewed the lid of the bottle as he walked back to the window and then drizzled the contents along the ledge below. A slick surface wouldn’t allow someone the grip he needed to hang onto the side of the building. He set the empty bottle on the counter and tipped back his head, calling up to the loft.
“Do you have a hammer and some nails?” He had to yell twice before Jerrica emerged from her fog.
“What?”
“Hammer and nails? Where do you keep your tools…if you have any?”
“Toolbox on the floor of the front closet. Why? Never mind. Carry on.”
Crouching before the closet, he clawed through the coats and scarves hanging to the floor and wrapped his fingers around the handle of a metal toolbox. He dragged it out and flipped open the lid.
Jerrica kept the toolbox as neat as everything else in her life—every nut and bolt had its place. He messed them up before selecting several long nails and a hammer, wrapping his fingers around the black rubber encasing the handle.
He returned to the window and nailed it shut. As he tapped the final nail into place, Jerrica appeared behind him, her hands on her slim hips.
He met her gaze in the window’s reflection.
“You just nailed my window shut.”
“That’s right. Nobody can get through it.”
She reached over his arm and traced a nailhead with her fingertip. “Someone could smash it.”
“And crawl through jagged glass? I don’t think so.” He turned to face her and they stood chest to chest, neither of them moving or pulling away. “Besides, I poured oil on the ledge. Nobody is going to be able to hang on it or stand outside the window long enough to be able to break it or cut it.”
Her eyes widened and he got the full effect of those green orbs. “You poured oil on the outside of my building? What is this, 1066 and you’re defending the castle?”
“It wasn’t hot oil. It’s an effective method—as long as it doesn’t rain several days in a row.” He pulled on his earlobe. “Your building manager isn’t going to suddenly power wash the building, is he?”
“Did you actually get a look at my building while you were scaling it? I don’t think it’s been washed in a hundred years. Wait. What kind of oil?” She spun around, her black hair lashing his cheek.
He rested his hand on her shoulder as he pointed to the bottle on the counter. “Olive oil.”
“Are you securing my building or making hummus?”
“Hummus?” He sniffed. “Why would I make hummus? It’s the only oil I could get my hands on. If you were a normal person, you’d have some cooking spray on hand. That would’ve been a lot easier to use.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Cooking spray has chemicals you don’t want anywhere near your food.”
“I’m sure it does.” He raised his hands. “Don’t ruin cooking spray for me like you ruined red meat.”
“Does that mean you gave it up?” Turning her head, she raised one hopeful eyebrow.
