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“Oh, so they’re amateurs, then.”
“Definitely not. Their track record is impressive, to say the least,” he answered. “Don’t worry, I vetted them pretty well.”
“So why exactly are they doing it for free?” she asked, perplexed. Deacon smiled wide.
“I guess that’s a question you’ll just have to ask your bodyguard.”
Chapter Three (#ub851eade-8731-5468-91ba-2834fc312a97)
Traffic.
Here it was again.
Jonathan looked out his rental’s window and snorted.
“Welcome to New York City,” he said to himself.
He’d been stuck in standstill traffic for the last half hour thanks to a fender bender that had escalated to the point of the cops being called. It had made the two lanes of traffic that had been moving along nicely stop dead.
Unnecessary. Annoying. Unpleasant.
It probably didn’t help that he could use all three descriptors for his current client, Kathryn Spears. Instead of waiting for him at the airport like Nikki and the woman’s father had agreed on the night before, Jonathan had landed to a voice mail from her saying she’d gone ahead to the hotel.
Because, in her words, “I really need some better coffee.”
After ten more minutes of waiting, traffic finally started to pick up again. Jonathan had spent the time while he waited going over the route to the hotel in an attempt to not get lost. He’d been to New York before and he knew the frustration of getting turned around this close to Times Square. Thankfully he avoided any misdirection, a feat considering if he had missed the turn into the hotel’s parking garage—an almost hidden entrance due to the sidewalk that was barely sloped for a car to drive up—he would have had to take a series of left turns until he made his way back. Costing him more time away from fulfilling Orion’s end of the contract.
He parked, sent a text to Nikki to let her know he’d finally gotten in and collected his bag. It contained a suit, pressed and folded, along with a myriad of pristine yet flexible clothing. It was light but had everything he needed for the Friday-through-Tuesday stay—not the longest contract he’d done nor the shortest. But, as he’d told Nikki, it would be his last. In his mind he went over the layout of the building as he rode up in the elevator. Above the parking garage, there were four floors. A lounge area branched off the lobby on the first floor with guests having access to a twenty-four-hour gym. There were two sets of stairs on opposite sides of the building with two elevators positioned next to them, diagonal from the lobby front desk. The front entrance led directly to the sidewalk that ran along the street.
Jonathan hadn’t stayed at the dismal pink-painted hotel before, but Jillian had walked him through its layout before he’d left. It was nice to know what he was going into versus going in blind. Orion agents prided themselves on being prepared—though that wasn’t always easy, considering people often did surprising things—and since Orion’s expansion three years ago they’d gotten better at it. Even when a contract changed at the last second.
He looked at his reflection in the elevator door and let out a grunt. Not getting the best sleep the night before and catching an early flight, he hoped the client didn’t notice the dark circles beneath his eyes. He blamed the chatty man who’d had the aisle seat next to him. It made him wonder if Kathryn was like that, recalling what he had been told initially by Nikki at Mark’s engagement party.
“I wouldn’t ask you to take this one, since, for one, you just got back, and, two, you just asked for a desk job. But the man requesting our services was so concerned...I could almost feel it myself.” Nikki’s eyes had traveled to the wall at that. It was a blank space, but he knew on the other side was her real target. A single picture of a young woman. The reason behind Orion’s origin. The woman who had changed their lives, whom Nikki, Oliver, Mark and Jonathan couldn’t have been what they were now without. The woman they hadn’t saved. “He lives in Florida but heard about us through one of Thomas’s recent clients. His daughter has been receiving some really troubling letters.”
“His daughter?”
“Yes, a scientist—book smart but maybe not exactly up to par on the common sense. Her father, Deacon—what a name—says she’s pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, but he’s completely freaked. She’s due to present her research at a convention in New York City on Sunday and he’s worried the person or persons sending her the letters—to her home, I might add—might try to cause her harm before she can make it there.”
“And that’s where we come in.”
“Hopefully that’s where you come in.”
Jonathan respected his boss and friend too much to turn the request down on the spot. Though he had been on the fence about it until the next day.
When she’d shown him the pictures of the letters Deacon had faxed over, they’d made a chill run up his spine despite his calm.
“Okay, I’m in.”
And he’d stayed in even after the call had come in that said scientist refused to have more than one bodyguard around. Never mind her safety was in question.
The doors slid open and Jonathan made his way to check in with a suddenly sour mood hanging over his head at the thought of Kathryn Spears. Other than the basic information about her, he really didn’t have much to go on, but he had already formed an opinion about her.
She was controlling, apathetic and had an ego. There were no doubts about it.
“Welcome, and how may I help you?” chirped the front desk attendant. He looked to be in his early twenties. His name tag read Jett.
Jonathan set down his bag and started to take out his ID.
“Check-in for Jonathan Carmichael.” He passed his driver’s license over as well as the company credit card, having done the hotel check-in dance many times before. Another part of this routine was his next question.
“Can you tell me if my friend has checked in yet? The name’s Kathryn Spears.”
The man looked back up and without missing a beat nodded.
“About an hour ago.”
That surprised Jonathan.
“You remember her?” he asked.
“Yeah, the first thing she did was ask for coffee that was actually good.” Jett didn’t seem to be offended by the question. “I sent her to a café a block over.” His eyes went over Jonathan’s shoulder. “I guess she found some.”
Jonathan didn’t have to follow the man’s gaze too far. Walking through the front doors, Kathryn had a cup between her hands and no trace of a smile across her lips. She met his stare with recognition he didn’t expect and made a beeline for him.
“Mr. Carmichael,” she said, stretching out her free hand. There was no question in the greeting. “Glad to see you finally made it.”
Despite himself he grinned.
“Miss Spears, glad to see you were able to get that coffee that was so important.” They shook and he was once again surprised by the woman. Not only was her grip firm, but she held it longer than necessary, squeezing tight as she answered.
“Two coffees, actually.”
They dropped hands but his grin stayed. Even though he’d been shown her picture before he’d left Orion, the still of the woman sitting behind a desk covered in papers didn’t do the woman before him justice. She was attractive, sure, but there was something else there that caught and held his attention. An unspoken element that he couldn’t yet place or define.
Suddenly, Jonathan Carmichael was intrigued by his client.
“I would have waited for you,” she continued, voice notably cool, “but I’ll be honest, I think you being here is a bit unnecessary.”
Jonathan let out a laugh at that, considering earlier he had thought the same about her.
“Don’t you want to play it safe rather than be sorry?” he asked.
Kathryn’s lip quirked up at the corner. Her smile wasn’t humorous.
“I’d rather not have to worry about a bodyguard following me around everywhere, watching my every move while I get ready for one of the largest career moves of my life.” She popped her hip out to the side a fraction, he noticed. “That would be my choice if I’d been given one.”
Jonathan couldn’t decide if the way she spoke was born out of ego or frustration, but he definitely felt a chill wafting from each word. Part of him instantly felt the need to defend his skills and the company that was more than just his employer but an important part of his life. However, Jett was obviously still listening in, so the bodyguard went a more judicious route.
“The Orion Security Group doesn’t force clients to hire them,” he pointed out. “It was your father who did that, and you consented. As for watching your every move while I’m on the job, I can assure you that—if I’m doing said job correctly—my eyes won’t be on you but on your surroundings, trying to keep you safe. So if you have a problem with this arrangement, it’s your father—and really, yourself—you’ll need to be speaking with.”
Kathryn didn’t immediately respond. When she did it was clipped, definitely chilly.
“Noted. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to do some work up in my room.”
She started to turn to go—already testing the boundaries of his job as her bodyguard—when Jonathan smiled once again.
“Hey, I’ll walk with you on the way to mine.” She gave him a questioning look. “Oh, didn’t your dad tell you? He requested we have adjoining rooms.”
Jonathan might not have known the scientist long, but he knew he’d struck a nerve with that comment.
It was going to be an interesting few days.
* * *
KATE DIDN’T WANT to wait for the bodyguard. No matter how attractive he’d turned out to be. The picture she’d been forwarded from her father and Orion’s Nikki Waters had shown her a lightly tanned man who looked like a stock image a website might use to show an everyman, not a bodyguard. He had seemed flat, one-dimensional. Someone who would easily blend into the background and, hopefully, not bother her.
However, in person she’d been surprised to see that maybe she’d misjudged him in that department. His dark blue eyes had depth, his facial features were sharp and his goatee was trimmed and neat, matching the jet-black hair that stood an inch or two high. He wore a gray tee and jeans and he wore them well. When he turned back to the desk attendant, she even spotted the bottom of a tattoo on the back of his upper arm, peeking out under his sleeve.
Maybe Jonathan Carmichael wasn’t the type of man to blend.
“This is a massive invasion of privacy,” Kate commented as she led them into the elevator. Like the hotel, it was dated. She pressed the second-floor button and hoped above all hopes that it didn’t get stuck. Her nerves had been rubbed the wrong way, annoyed at her father and the man next to her. Getting trapped in the small space with him would most likely incite a flurry of rudeness from her. She was already having a hard time being polite without the added close proximity.
“Again, I’ll remind you that your father hired Orion and you agreed,” he said, not looking at her but obviously surveying the elevator. He was tall enough to reach up and push against the ceiling—trying to do what, she wasn’t sure.
“I meant the adjoining-room situation,” she corrected.
Jonathan stopped his inspection and gave her a dry smile.
“Just because there’s a door there doesn’t mean I’m going to use it. I don’t even have a key. We just wanted the rooms to be close, and since it’s an older hotel they just happen to share a door.” His eyebrow rose. “Unless you want me to get you a key?”
Kate felt heat crawl up her neck.
“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t need or want one.”
“Good. Then there shouldn’t be a problem.”
The elevator doors slid open and Kate hurried with her coffee to her room down the hall. Jonathan was right behind her with his bags.
“I’m going to look in your room, okay?” he said as she pulled out her key card. “I’d like to know the layout, just in case.”
Kate wanted to argue, but was trying to channel her inner Spears’ manners. She still rolled her eyes.
“Sure, why not?” She opened the door and swung it wide for the bodyguard. “Knock yourself out.”
He moved past her, bags still in hand, into the room. For a moment she worried about her more intimate things being left out in the open, but it was a baseless fear. She was meticulous, a trait that had bled over from her professional life into her personal one. She’d already unpacked and sorted her things.
“To be honest, I expected something different,” Jonathan said, apparently okay with his inspection.
“Something different?” she repeated. “Like a man in a mask lying in wait?”
The corner of his lips pulled up a fraction.
“I meant I expected to see, I don’t know, test tubes and beakers on the nightstands. Aren’t you a scientist?”
Kate walked over to the small desk in the corner and leaned against it. She felt a twitch try to pull her own lips into a small smile, but she tamped it down.
“Generally labeled, yes, I suppose.” She took a sip of her coffee. “What else do you know about my work?”
If Jonathan knew about her project, she was sure she’d have seen some kind of reaction to her question. However, the man simply shrugged.
“If you’re asking do I know what you’re currently working on—why you’re here for the convention—I don’t. Orion tries to look into a client’s life without being intrusive. Our analysts dip into your past and present to try to find potential threats, but we don’t overstep. Your father and Nikki made it clear that, as far as your work goes, the only person who can tell me about it is you.” He paused, tilting his head slightly. “And I suspect that that information is something you won’t be sharing with me.”
Before Kate could stop it, the image of a bloodied woman tied to a chair flashed across her vision. Head bent over, body beaten. Her last breath having already left her body hours before.
The image was something she’d had to confront for a long time. It twisted the very core of her heart.
“No,” she said, voice turned to ice. “I won’t.”
Chapter Four (#ub851eade-8731-5468-91ba-2834fc312a97)
Jonathan wasn’t invited to stay past the woman’s answer. He didn’t want to, either. Kathryn’s voice had gone steely, her eyes almost to slits, and even from his spot across the room he’d been able to see her breathing change. Whatever she’d just experienced, it pulled his curiosity to the forefront, but he kept his mouth shut. What was behind her dark eyes was something darker. Something he had no business seeking out.
His room was to the right and was an exact replica of hers. The adjoining door was placed between the desk and the dresser with its TV on top, locked tight with a key card swipe on the handle. It was true he didn’t have the key to it, but he doubted he’d be able to get one if he wanted it. Kathryn Spears wasn’t hiding the fact that his presence was something she neither wanted nor thought she needed.
“Hey, Nikki, this is Jonathan,” he said into his phone after he’d unpacked, leaving a message after the beep. “Just made first contact with Miss Scientist. Let me say, you picked one hell of a last contract for me.”
Jonathan unpacked quickly, not as neatly as he’d noticed said scientist’s room to be, and reflected on what he knew about the woman next door. He hadn’t been lying—it wasn’t much. Nikki had received the reports from the analysts and made the decision to only tell him what he needed to know in an effort to preserve some of Kathryn’s privacy. What Jonathan knew was that the scientist was dedicated to her work and that work was a secret.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t curious as hell as to what it entailed.
A quick knock on his door pulled him from his thoughts. He was surprised to see Kathryn standing on the other side. Her expression had softened, but only slightly.
“I want to apologize for being frosty,” she greeted him. “I just, well, my work is a sensitive topic and this convention is very, very important for my career. My father tells me that sometimes I tend to get a little too into the zone and can lose sight of my manners.” Jonathan hadn’t expected an apology. “So, why don’t you come with me to the Chinese restaurant a few blocks down and we can get reacquainted?”
“I appreciate the offer, but you know as part of my job I’d go anyway,” he pointed out. Kathryn gave him a wry smile.
“I’m inviting you to eat with me,” she corrected. “Not sit creepily behind me like a weird stalker.”
Jonathan stepped back to retrieve his wallet and walked out into the hall. As she shut the door, he snorted.
“You apologize and then call me a stalker. I feel like you don’t often apologize to people.”
Kathryn crossed her arms over her chest, smile gone.
“I don’t.”
The walk down to the lobby and out to the street was silent. Their conversation hadn’t stalled. It had stopped completely. Jonathan walked at her side but kept his eyes in a constant sweeping motion of their surroundings. It was late afternoon and the streets were packed even tighter than when he’d first driven in. Gaggles of pedestrians crowded the corners of blocks and only half waited for the Walk sign to flash green before darting across the street. Jonathan wondered if Kathryn had been to the city before. She walked with purpose and little doubt. Jonathan followed without question or comment.
