Untraceable (World of Danger Book 2)

by Beth D. Carter

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2019 Beth D. Carter

  ISBN: 978-0-3695-0061-8

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Audrey Bobak

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  Many thanks to everyone at Evernight Publishing, and to my dear friend, CR Moss.

  For Mike.

  UNTRACEABLE

  World of Danger, 2

  Beth D. Carter

  Copyright © 2019

  Prologue

  Nineteen years ago…

  JD Harlan sat at his desk, going through paperwork, when Mason Lake hurried into his office. He closed the door behind him, locked it, and then held out a zip disk.

  “What?” he asked warily.

  “You need to see what’s on this.”

  JD took the disk, looked it over, and then slipped it into his zip drive. “This is encrypted information.”

  “Was encrypted information,” Mason corrected. “Click on the first folder and look at those surveillance photos. Who’s walking beside Paddy O’Connor?”

  It took a moment for the data to come up, but once it did, ice filled JD’s soul as he stared at the man walking beside the Irish IRA leader. “My father.”

  “Yep. More importantly, not Denton Slidell. Now look at where they’re walking.”

  JD recognized the area, the unmistakable setting where Paddy O’Connor took his last breath. The IRA leader had been shot in the side of the head, killed instantly moments before he was due to negotiate a peace treaty with the Irish government.

  “But we saw the video,” JD whispered.

  “The video had to be doctored,” Lake replied quietly. “Anyone with skill can splice and alter surveillance video.”

  JD grappled with the information bombarding him, trying to process it quickly. “So my father … had an innocent man executed in an effort to ruin a peace deal.”

  “I’m sure Slidell probably wasn’t innocent, but in this instance, your father is the bigger traitor. JD, you have to call the Secretary of Defense. And we need to tell Lee.”

  JD shook his head. “No. Lee doesn’t need to know this.”

  “But… Now we know why Denton’s men went after him for information! Lee has a right to know why his father was tortured to death three years ago.”

  They stared at one another. JD could see the condemnation shining bright in Mason’s dark eyes, but on this, he wouldn’t budge. Already his mind turned with the steps he had to take to deal with the situation.

  “You don’t understand,” JD finally said. “This is bigger than us.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Mason said, frowning. “Keeping a secret from Lee makes me wonder what secrets you’re keeping from me.”

  “It’s simply a need-to-know basis, and right now, Lee doesn’t need to know. His life has been torn apart enough over this. We’ll handle this situation internally.”

  “So you’re not going to call the Secretary?”

  “There’s too much we’ve done as a black ops unit for the government to let this slide by,” JD explained calmly. “We could both be implicated. Yes, my father needs to be dealt with, but we’ll do it quietly and efficiently. Off the grid of the government’s reach.”

  “What does that mean?”

  JD looked back at the photos, at the man who plainly wasn’t Denton Slidell, the man accused of killing Paddy O’Connor, and then at the man who clearly was his father.

  “There’s a lot that Joseph David Harlan has to atone for. Let’s make sure he can never hurt anyone again.”

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  The first time Mae Sawyer had laid eyes on Joseph David Harlan the Second, lightning struck. Literally. A freak electrical storm hit just as she had sat down at her desk on her first day of work, striking the nearby transformer which had plunged the whole building into darkness.

  Emergency lights had come on, people went rushing to and fro. Then the company’s generator kicked on and Mae had seen the most perfect specimen of man ever to grace the planet. He’d strode through the lobby like a Roman god, forceful and mighty and barking orders like he’d been ordained king. She’d sat at her cubicle, mouth hanging open, admiring the six-foot-four heavily muscled body of her boss. Everything about him screamed dangerous even though he’d worn an impeccably tailored suit and high polished shoes, and had a neatly trimmed beard. No one could mistake the hard glint in eyes so deeply blue they looked like glittering sapphires, or the determined length of his stride. Even his hands, although manicured to perfection, had fisted with purpose. Then he’d disappeared behind the door separating the busy office administration of his securities firm from the back offices no one was allowed to enter. Mae had never been the same since.

  Since that electrifying day, she’d worked hard, staying late whenever she had to or running errands that weren’t necessarily in her job description, waiting for any chance to see her enigmatic boss. Joseph David Harlan the Second was admired by many but when she’d tried to find out information or even Googled his name, she always came away with the same basic facts. He’d been born to the wealthy Harlan family and grew up in New York’s high society that entailed all that money could buy. His mother had died in a freak boating accident when he was twenty. He’d finished his business degree early and had a stint in the military before taking over his father’s security firm. He might have been born with more money than Croesus, but Mae couldn’t help but admire him as a self-made man. As much as he might be on people’s tongues, he was an enigma to the world. He never did interviews. He wasn’t on social media. And, as far as Mae knew, he had never formed any long-term attachments to women. All the society gossip sites showed a new woman on his arm in every photo.

  He was always the first to work and the last to go home. In fact, he might even live in his office, for all she knew. The back offices were strictly off-limits except for contracted customers, officials, and his two business partners, Lee Masterson and Mason Lake. She often wondered what he did back there and if it resembled anything like Batman’s Bat Cave or Superman’s Ice Fortress.

  Over the months, she’d melted every time he walked through the administrative side, watching him, studying him, and ignoring the fact that most people might call it borderline stalking. Mae liked to think she was admiring him from afar. Semantics aside, she sat in a cubicle that faced the glass wall partition that separated the offices from the lobby, so she was able to admire him whenever he walked through the front of the building. She worked as a secretary to one of the sales associates, mainly punching in data. A nine-to-five job that wasn’t very challenging but held overwhelming benefits, the main one being the divine man currently heading out of the lobby and into the back offices.

  “Oh my,” she whispered, her mouth going dry and her panties going wet.

  Mae sucked in a deep, ragged breath as her eyes followed his lithe walk. She couldn’t help but drool a little over the exceptionally toned physique. The chest and shoulders of chiseled marble. The narrow waist tapered down into thighs that flexed hard muscle with every step and a perfect, rock-hard ass. A quiver fluttered in her belly as her usual daydream of him exploded in her head—ru
nning her hands over every square inch of the perfect hunk, her tongue lapping over every plane of delicious skin. Her imagination shocked even herself, although she had no illusions that Joseph David Harlan the Second even knew she existed.

  Then something amazing happened. He turned and looked at her. After a year of ogling him, of having steamy dreams about him that always left her panties soaked, he turned his head and finally took notice of her. She blinked and sat up straight, her heart thundering so badly in her chest she thought she might be having a heart attack. Those beautiful royal-blue eyes met hers, held her gaze, and did a quick look over her features before turning away. She almost melted in a puddle of goo.

  He greeted two men who stood near the reception desk and shook their hands. As he led them toward the door to the back offices, she was unable to tear her eyes away, urging him to look at her again. But he either didn’t pick up her mental coaxing or had decided she wasn’t worth a second look because he didn’t glance in her direction again. Instead, he typed in the code that opened the opaque security door and gestured for the two men to enter before he followed after them. Breath swooshed back into her lungs.

  “You better calm down,” said her co-worker, Renee Hammond, who sat in the cubicle next to hers.

  Mae fanned herself. “Hunky Harlan should be labeled a lethal weapon.”

  She relaxed back into her chair, a fine sheen of sweat covering her forehead. Her knees knocked together, an after-effect of her crazy infatuation. His mere presence reduced her to a pile of quivering female hormones and she could only imagine what he’d do to her if there was ever a chance he’d talk to her.

  Or kiss her.

  Oh Lord, he looked at me!

  “Shame on you,” Renee teased. “You know, he probably has some nasty habits. Like a farting problem. Or he picks his nose and eats the boogers.”

  “What the— No! He’s perfection.”

  Renee gave her a pitying look. “He’s a man, which by definition means he’s an asshole. The sooner you learn that fact, the sooner you’ll be happy.”

  Mae blinked and turned back to her computer screen. She didn’t know what to say to that bit of dark wisdom. “Well, all I want for Christmas is him under my tree, decorated with a big red bow and nothing else. If it comes with farts and boogers, I can deal with that afterward.”

  Renee shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her work. Mae had ended up training Renee, who’d been hired a month ago, when another worker had broken both legs in a freak tripping accident and had gone on disability. Although she didn’t really like her co-worker, she made sure to stay amicable. Their job mainly consisted of typing up contracts for various shipments on the export side of the company.

  The two clients left with Mason Lake escorting them out, so she missed a repeat sighting of Hunky Harlan, as she’d nicknamed him in her head. Over the year, she’d seen his right-hand man several times and she’d always wondered about him because Mason didn’t look like a personal assistant. First of all, he never wore a suit, preferring black turtlenecks even in the hot July heat. He never smiled, never talked, and looked like he wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone. His black hair was buzzed, giving his Native American features a harsh almost fearsome appearance. He looked more like a bodyguard than an assistant.

  After that, the day passed by unexcitingly until four fifty-five. Just as she was beginning to close up her desk, Mae’s supervisor, Leroy Abernathy, came out of his office and made a beeline for her.

  “Mae! I’m so glad I caught you,” he said. He was a short man, balding on top with a little rotund belly. But he was a great man to work for, very nice with an even nicer wife. She considered herself very lucky to have found this job.

  “What’s up, Mr. Abernathy?”

  He held up a folder. “The JAC Project. Mr. Harlan wants the contract typed up and ready to read by tomorrow morning to present to the clients. He just finalized it a few minutes ago.”

  “You want me to stay, I take it.”

  “The meeting is first thing in the morning,” he said apologetically. “And it’ll have to be proofed before then.”

  Mae gave him a brilliant smile and held out her hand. He’d had her at Mr. Harlan. “I’ll email you the copy tonight so we can correct any revisions first thing tomorrow.”

  Mr. Abernathy beamed. “Thank you, Mae! I won’t forget this.”

  She knew he wouldn’t. That was another benefit of the job. She might be salary but bonuses were common to those who went above and beyond the expected duties. And because Mae had nothing else in her life but work, she volunteered a lot. What else was she going to do at home, anyway? Television? A date with her vibrator again? She saw Renee closing up her cubicle and sent the other girl a wan smile.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Renee asked.

  “I’ve got one more thing to type up and then I’m out of here,” Mae answered.

  Renee gave a concerned look at her watch. “Well, okay. But try to get out of here as soon as you can.”

  “Why? Is something the matter?”

  “Oh!” Renee shrugged and smiled. “Since we’re paid salary, I don’t them to take advantage of you, of course!”

  Mae waved a hand. “Not a problem. I’ll only be another ten minutes at most.”

  “Okay, then. See you tomorrow!”

  Various people waved at her as they passed and the lights were shut down to conserve energy, but the dark office rooms didn’t bother her in the slightest.

  Although the export contract was straightforward, there were a few addendums she had to type up in a separate report. As she finished up and emailed everything to Mr. Abernathy, she turned and hit her phone with her elbow, and it flew onto the floor.

  “Darn it,” she muttered. She crawled under her heavy mahogany desk, searching with her hands in the dark for the black phone.

  A noise made her pause. She stopped, listened, and heard feet walking on the ceramic tile floors in the lobby. She peeked over the table and saw two men dressed in black, with black ski masks hiding their faces, and they carried very large guns.

  Her heart exploded in fear. She ducked back under her desk, not knowing what else to do. Luckily, her computer faced away from them and the screensaver had come on after five seconds, but she couldn’t just stay there doing nothing. They were being robbed! Her mind raced and she took a deep breath to try to halt all the jumbling thoughts racing helter-skelter. She needed to hit the emergency button. Every desk was programmed with one, linked to Harlan’s own security team, but to do that, she’d have to reach up on her desk to her phone.

  Cautiously, she raised her head again, her eyes finding the dark figures easily in the gloom. One figure had taken position behind the receptionist’s desk. The other one crept closer to the opaque glass door that separated the back offices. Without hesitation, he punched in the code and the door opened, but then the man retreated to take position around the side wall.

  How had they known the code?

  Mae saw the door close quickly and realized that by opening it, it must be reported somehow in the back. Harlan would come investigate. At that moment, she saw his form appear through the opaque glass. He opened the door and looked around, frowning. He glanced at the wall panel, examining it. The gunman took aim, catching Mae’s attention.

  They were going to shoot him! They were going to shoot her Hunky Harlan! That realization drove her to jump up to warn him, without thought to her own safety. She ran around the glass partition as fast as possible.

  “Watch out!” she managed to say right before she felt a sharp sting in her back. Immediately, her body seized as electricity shot through her and her legs crumpled. Harlan’s arms caught her. Her body felt numb, weightless. Unmovable. She’d been shot. Dear Lord, was she dying? The last thought that floated in her mind was if she was dying, at least she was going to die in his arms.

  Chapter Two

  JD cracked his eyes open. The dark room had only a single illumination glowing off to his le
ft, giving enough light for him to stare at an unfamiliar, gray metal ceiling. He blinked and winced. Fuck! His head hurt and his mouth was dryer than cotton. A metallic taste lingered in the back of his throat.

  What the hell did I drink last night?

  A second later, awareness flooded back in with memories of being attacked. He sat up, ignoring the throbbing inside his skull. The light came from a battery-powered lamp sitting on a small nightstand, and he reached for it. That was when he discovered that he lay on an ordinary, military-grade cot in a small hexagonal room. White walls, white floor, white ceiling … it all screamed of a kidnapping.

  Where the hell was he? The last thing he remembered was sitting at his desk and then the alarm to the connecting door was triggered, and then … holy Christ! He swung his gaze around and it landed on another cot, where a body rested upon it. Rising, he inched over and discovered the still knocked-out body of the woman who had tried to warn him. She lay supine with her long dark hair pillowed around like a cloud, and she still wore her work clothes. Bulky sweater, long skirt. She certainly didn’t seem like the kidnapping type.

  He felt for a pulse in her neck. The warmth of her skin sidetracked him for a moment and he ran his fingertips over the silky area where her heart beat strong and steady. He’d seen her earlier in the day, before the attack, and something had prompted him to look up her employee information. Mae Sawyer. He knew her name, her address, and her past work history. What he didn’t know was if she was part of the plan to kidnap him or, if she wasn’t, why in the hell would she jump in front of a stun gun? He ran his fingers up her neck and over her cheek. Her background check had revealed she’d been adopted from China as a baby, to a middle-aged couple. Had gone to community college and had come to work at his company a few years ago. There were absolutely no red flags in her life.