The Hacker

by Herkness, Nancy

  So they wouldn’t even get to share the limo one last time.

  “Good idea,” she said, pushing up out of her chair. “Might as well begin as we mean to go on.” Platitudes were useful when your heart was ripping itself in two. Really, how had her heart gotten involved in this anyway?

  Leland had his phone out and frowned at the screen as he typed.

  “My apologies, ma’am,” Tully said, his cowboy persona reappearing as he stood. “I can get a little intense when I’m on a case.”

  “It’s a pretty intense case,” Dawn said. “Will you at least let me know what’s going on when you can? Work It Out is, well, more than just the place I work.”

  Tully nodded. “I could tell by the way you spoke about it. And about Ramón Vazquez. I assure you that I’ll do my best to keep the takedown as quiet as possible.”

  “I guess if Ramón and Vicky are involved, the gym will have to close.” The tears welled in earnest. She pinched the bridge of her nose to fight them back.

  “You won’t have any problem finding another job,” Leland said, looking up from his phone. “You’re an excellent trainer.”

  He knew that wasn’t the issue. Did he think he had to make it so crystal clear even here that they were no longer together?

  He nodded and held up his phone. “Your ride will be here soon. I’ll go with you down to the lobby to make sure it’s the right car.”

  “Just give me the license number. I can take it from there.” She couldn’t bear to be alone with him in the elevator, knowing that he could let her go so easily.

  Leland walked beside Dawn down the hall toward the elevator. She seemed so small and vulnerable and feminine with her hair swirling loose around her shoulders. Not the warrior-athlete he had trained with or the wildly passionate lover he’d brought to orgasm in the pool. Now he understood that she had good reason to be fearful. He’d felt her stiffen and struggle to shift positions at times when they made love. Although he’d swear she felt less that way the longer they were together.

  Now his reckless, thoughtless actions had brought her terror roaring back to life. A dagger thrust of guilt slashed through his gut.

  “As long as I stay away from you and the gym, you’ll be safe,” he said, trying to convince himself as much as her. He hated that he had brought danger back into her life, but even more, he hated feeling helpless to protect her.

  He wanted to wrap her in his arms and shield her from the criminals with his own body. Or at least to whisk her away to his Manhattan townhouse with its sophisticated alarm system and full-time security guard. But they’d all learned a lesson about supposedly unbreachable security from Alice and Derek’s run-in with another cybercriminal. Being in Leland’s home might put Dawn in the crosshairs instead of safeguarding her.

  Tully was undoubtedly correct in his assertion that keeping them separate was the best possible defense. And Leland would make sure that his partner sent undercover bodyguards to shadow Dawn, just in case.

  He keyed in the unlock code and pressed the button to summon the elevator. He had no intention of letting her get in the town car without checking to make sure it was the one he had ordered. But he’d learned that arguing with Dawn wasn’t always the best way to get things done. So he stood beside her as they waited.

  He was surprised by her silence but not by the tension that showed in the clench of her jaw. She usually covered up her anxiety with smart remarks. This time it must have closed up her throat in the way letting her go tightened his. He started to slip an arm around her shoulders but then considered that his uninvited touch might trigger her. So he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he said as the doors opened. He flattened his palm against the doorjamb to hold it so she could enter first. Then he followed.

  “I told you not to come down with me.” There was an edge to her voice that bothered him.

  “You’re not getting in any car until I know it’s safe.”

  As the elevator descended, she looked at him, her eyes bleak in a way that made his heart twist. “Safety is an illusion.”

  He wanted to punch the wall. “There will be a bodyguard with you at all times, I promise.”

  She shook her head. “If the gym suddenly has a bunch of new members who have that intimidating look in their eyes like Tully, that will just make it worse.”

  “Tully’s people are better than that. Someone will be there, but you’ll never see them.”

  The elevator glided to a stop. As soon as the doors opened the smallest crack, Dawn slid through them and headed across the lobby.

  “Dawn!” He lengthened his stride to catch up with her before she reached the front exit. He stepped between her and the doors, trying to read her face. But it was set in a blank mask. “I want to kiss you.”

  Some unreadable emotion flashed through her eyes and was gone. “A goodbye kiss. Sure. Why not?” She tilted her chin up, closed her eyes, and stood like a statue, a carved goddess with golden skin and dark, satin hair.

  “Don’t worry, darlin’.” He ran his hands up and down her arms as though to warm her. “We’ll keep you safe.”

  “Just kiss me,” she said, her eyes still shuttered. “We need to go our separate ways.”

  He didn’t know what else to do, so he stepped forward to bring their bodies together in the lightest of contacts. Bending, he brushed her lips with his. A shudder ran through her, and then her arms were around his neck and she was pressed against him the way he wanted. Her mouth was hot and inviting as she opened to him. A tiny whimper broke from her throat as their tongues met, the sound sending a jolt of desire into his belly.

  As he skimmed his hands around to pull her harder against him, his phone chimed with a message. She threaded her fingers into his hair while she devoured his mouth for a brief moment. Then she twisted out of his embrace in one swift movement. He wanted to hurl his state-of-the-art phone on the floor and grind it into the marble.

  “That must mean the car is here,” she said, but she stood looking at him as though she’d never seen him before. He could almost feel her gaze traveling over his body, burning wherever it touched.

  Her hair was rumpled from where he’d plunged his hands into it, her lips were wet and red from their kiss, and her eyes were huge and lit with the same arousal he felt.

  “The hell with the car,” he said, reaching for her.

  She took a step back and shook her head. “A goodbye kiss. That was it.”

  She pivoted and yanked open the door. He grabbed the heavy steel frame to hold it for her and followed her onto the city sidewalk. A black sedan waited by the curb.

  “Don’t get in until I check the plates,” he said, walking to the front of the car and comparing the license number to the confirmation on his phone. It matched. “Wait,” he said as Dawn reached for the car door. He came back to tap on the front passenger window to indicate the driver should roll it down. “What’s your full name?” he asked the young man behind the wheel.

  “Tigran Ohanian, sir. I’m here for KRG Consulting.”

  “You need to forget that last part,” Leland said. “No one but me and your boss needs to know that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Leland nodded and held open the sedan’s back door while Dawn slipped onto the leather seat.

  “Thanks.” She looked down to fiddle with the seat belt.

  He wanted to slide onto the seat beside her and break through this strange distance between them. But he knew Tully was right. “Goodbye, darlin’. I’ll miss you.”

  That got her to look up. “Right back at you,” she said in that smart-mouth Jersey girl way he found so beguiling. But there was a sadness in her eyes.

  She reached for the handle and tugged at it so he had to close the door.

  When the sedan pulled onto the half-empty avenue, a strange panic squeezed the air from his lungs. He tried to tell himself that it was his apprehension about entrusting her safety to other peo
ple when it should be his job.

  But as the car swerved around a taxi, his body swayed with it. Because when Dawn had climbed into the back of that sedan, she’d taken some part of him with her.

  Chapter 14

  Dawn stared at the ceiling of her bedroom, waiting for her alarm to go off so she could stop trying to sleep. The sheets and blankets were a mess, tangled by her wrestling match with the churning nausea that Leland’s easy relinquishment of their relationship had left in her gut.

  She knew their separation made sense from a security standpoint, but couldn’t Leland have raised at least one objection? All he’d talked about was her safety. There was no sign of the desolation that had swept through her when Tully decreed they couldn’t see each other any longer.

  At the rooftop pool, she’d felt so close to him. The sense of intimacy had lured her into telling him the sordid truth about why she was the way she was. Maybe it had been too much for him to cope with. Too messy and too emotionally demanding.

  Maybe he couldn’t deal with that on top of mourning for his mother. She should cut him some slack for that.

  Natalie had warned her about what kind of man Leland was. Dawn had stupidly thought she’d gotten past the workaholic and found the lonely person inside, the one who longed for a connection.

  She let out a bitter laugh. At least Leland’s desertion kept her mind off the danger she might be facing from Vicky and Ramón.

  As soon as she thought of her boss as a bad guy, her stomach roiled with another wave of nausea. That betrayal went nearly as deep as Leland’s. How could the man who had coaxed her into believing she could have a normal life turn around and sell implements of death on the black market? It just didn’t compute.

  That last word reminded her of Leland, hollowing out her chest with loneliness. She groaned and slammed her fist into the pillow next to her. It was time to drive away the heebie-jeebies with the one thing she had learned could save her: intense, strenuous, violent exercise. So what if she wasn’t due at the gym for another two hours? She needed to sweat.

  An hour later, she was propped up against a weight bench, her gray workout shirt plastered to her body by sweat, her rubbery legs stretched out on the floor, while she chugged the second bottle of water since she’d arrived. She nearly choked as she tried to swallow and catch her breath at the same time.

  She wasn’t sure sprints on the treadmill, pounding the heavy bag, and practicing tae kwon do moves had done anything to fill the void Leland’s absence had opened up, but they’d sure worked the tension out of her body. Mostly because her muscles were too exhausted to tense up.

  “You’re here early.”

  Dawn started as Vicky’s slightly nasal voice came from behind her. The other woman walked around the bench and stood close enough that Dawn had to tilt back her head to look her in the eyes. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  Vicky scanned down Dawn’s perspiring body with a look of distaste. “I hope you’re going to clean up before your first client arrives.”

  Dawn knew she shouldn’t poke a rattlesnake with a sharp stick but Vicky pissed her off. Dawn had never been anything other than professional at the gym. “Actually, I thought it might inspire my clients to work harder if they saw how much their trainer sweats.”

  “At least don’t get in the pool without showering.”

  Dawn had considered a relaxing float in the pool, but when she’d looked at the glassy expanse of blue, all she could see was the powerful ripple of Leland’s shoulder muscles as he stretched out his arms to pull himself swiftly through the water. “No worries. Swimming wasn’t on my agenda this morning.”

  “So did your client find his cell phone?”

  It turned out her muscles weren’t too exhausted to tense up after all. She pushed up from the floor to stand, deciding that Vicky had too much of a psychological advantage towering over her like that. “Yeah. It was in his car. It had fallen down between the seat and the center console. He had the darned thing on mute so he couldn’t call it.”

  “You’d think he would have looked in his car first.”

  “You’d think.” Dawn shrugged and swiped her sweat towel over her face. “I’m going to shower so I can look good for my first client.”

  Vicky didn’t acknowledge the dig. “I hear you got pretty chummy with him.”

  “Who? You mean Lee Wellmont?” All her stress-busting exercise had been for nothing. Now every nerve in her body was on screaming red alert. She had no idea where Vicky was going with this. “There’s no rule against hanging out with clients.”

  “No, but I hear you were pretty hot and heavy at Carmella’s.”

  “Hot and heavy?” They’d barely spent any time there. “We just had dinner.” Actually, only antipasto.

  “Hey, I don’t blame you. He’s a long, tall drink of water.” Vicky was trying the girlfriends-exchanging-confidences-about-men tack now. Except they weren’t girlfriends. “I’d be interested in getting hot and heavy with him too, if I wasn’t in love with Ray.”

  A sense of unease nagged at the back of Dawn’s mind. “It didn’t work out any way.”

  “Yeah? Men are shits. Except Ray.” Vicky flicked at the air with her fingers and Dawn couldn’t stop herself from staring at the glittering leopard-spotted manicure. A tremor of fear ran through her.

  “So are you still going to train him?” Vicky asked. “Or should I assign him someone new? Chad has some openings.”

  “It, um, wasn’t exactly amicable, so I don’t think he’s coming back to the gym.”

  “Shit! That’s why I don’t like trainers and clients socializing.”

  Dawn gave Vicky an apologetic grimace. “Yeah, I’m really sorry about that.” She decided to go with Vicky’s pretense that they were friends and gave her a knife-edged smile. “Do me a favor . . . don’t give him a refund if he asks. He doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Sure thing, hon.” Of course that would suit Vicky’s profit-driven little soul. “It sucks that you got burned.”

  More than she had any idea of. “You said it. Men are shits.”

  The other woman turned and swayed away on her silver heels. Vicky would have reprimanded anyone else who dared walk on the gym’s pristine wood floor in stilettos, but the owner’s wife had special privileges.

  Dawn slumped onto the cushioned weight bench, elbows braced on her knees. She mentally reviewed her date with Leland at Carmella’s. There’d been a hell of a lot of sexual tension and she’d fed him one bite of antipasto from her fingers, but no one could call that hot and heavy.

  Cold shivers walked down her spine as she realized that there must be a security camera somewhere in the gym’s basement. That’s how Vicky knew they’d been sexually involved. She’d seen them down there.

  A hot flush of embarrassment rose in her cheeks. God, she hoped the camera was in the hallway and not in the storage room itself. She sure didn’t want that video posted on Twitter.

  However, there was nothing suspicious about having sex with your client in the basement storeroom. In fact, it might have worked in their favor, since it gave them a valid reason to be spending extra time together.

  But why would there be security cameras in the basement hallway? There hadn’t been in the past. That’s why the trainers used it for the occasional tryst. The two basement exit doors were alarmed, but those were the only security measures known to the staff.

  There was no reason for subterranean cameras because there was nothing of value down there. Just some basic storage for cleaning supplies, cases of water, and worthless old athletic fixtures. Plus all the systems that ran the gym: HVAC, the pool’s filtering equipment, electric panels, and plumbing. Given the dimensions of the gym above it, Dawn figured the basement encompassed a lot of space that she’d had no desire to explore, since it seemed exactly the kind of creepy place that might trigger her.

  All that space that no one ever went into.

  The perfect place to store lots and lots of guns.

  She
stared down at the wood floor between her feet, as though she would be able to see what lay underneath it. Had Tully, with his FBI training, already thought of this possibility? Is that why he had wanted a layout of the gym?

  Another chill shuddered through her as she pictured crates filled with pistols, rifles, and submachine guns piled below the soles of her sneakers, waiting to be sold into the hands of drug dealers and other bad guys who wouldn’t hesitate to use them.

  Whether Tully had thought of it or not, she should tell him about the security camera. Although explaining why she knew about it would be embarrassing.

  Except he’d told her not to contact KRG, Leland, or him unless it was an emergency. She had a suspicion that he’d said that to keep her from trying to participate in the investigation. For her own safety. She got that.

  She stood up and paced across the weight room to see if the fridge was fully loaded with water bottles. It was and she muttered a curse word. No excuse to go down to the basement to bring up a case to restock it. She just wanted to see if she could find the security camera that had caught Leland’s and her visit belowground. Nothing more.

  She was definitely not going to look for clues that would show recent illegal activity. That would be stupid.

  But she would check back on the fridge later in the day.

  At two o’clock, Dawn shrugged into a sweatshirt and headed for the front door. She needed to get away from the cloud of malevolence that now seemed to permeate the gym, at least in her imagination. As she passed the front desk, she said to the daytime receptionist, “I’m going to grab a salad at Eat Healthy. You want anything?”

  “No, I’m good, but I’ve got a package for you.” The young woman disappeared below the desk and came up with a medium-size cardboard carton, which she set on the glass top.

  “For me?” Dawn frowned in perplexity. Sure enough, the carton had her name and the gym’s address on it but no return address and no visible postage. “How did it get here?”