Detour

by Kurtz, Sylvie

  Wyatt’s jaw flinched. “Don’t play the guilt card on me.”

  Low blow, I know, because his shoulders were already stooped with the weight of all the guilt he’d taken on.

  “The error Sofia died for is somewhere in that plant,” I said. “Getting to it is the only way we’re going to get to the truth. No one’s going to invite us in there. No one’s going to hand it to us.” I pointed in the direction of the plant. “Someone there has too much to lose if we uncover the truth.”

  Wyatt pinched his temples with one hand as if he had a major headache coming on. “Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that we do this. The place is huge. There’s no way we could get to the information we need without attracting attention.”

  There wasn’t going to be a “we” but he didn’t need to know that yet.

  “There’s a big move happening tonight,” I said. “And that makes it the perfect time to sneak in unnoticed. The movers are on a dinner break right now.”

  “How do you know they haven’t quit for the day?”

  “Because of the stacked cube-farm parts waiting outside the building. They all have to be up and filled before folks show up for work on Monday.”

  Wyatt turned a knife over and over on the plastic tablecloth. “How are we going to know what to find and where to find it?”

  I took a long drink of water. “I have Sofia.”

  His whole body jolted as if I’d shot him. “Sofia is dead.” And so was his voice.

  “Yes, she is.”

  He stared at me long and hard.

  “I know you loved Sofia, Wyatt. But I need her to stop haunting me. I want her voice out of my head, her fears out of my bones, her face out of my dreams. Finding her answer is the only way I can do that. Can you understand that?”

  Giving him a chance to collect himself, I forced another bite of food onto my fork. “I have a plan.”

  Wyatt shook his head. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “That’s fine by me.”

  He swore under his breath. “You’re more trouble than a green horse.” Growling, he jabbed his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes. “Give it to me.”

  So I did. Unedited.

  The dark erased the warts that daylight accentuated. Even bathed in security lights, the whole plant took on a softer look, a deceptive tranquility. The breeze whispering through the trees in the park behind us provided a soothing background symphony in complete opposition to the tension coiling neat rows of knots into my muscles.

  In the privacy of the dark, as we lay on our bellies silently watching the static scene in front of us, the smell of the loamy earth only inches from my nose had my skin crawling with the imagined germs invading my bloodstream.

  Block it out, Sierra. Mind over matter.

  I wasn’t sure which was worse, my obsession with the dirt seeping into my pores or how highly aware I was of Wyatt beside me. The warmth of his body. The steady rhythm of his breath. That wasn’t helping the tension.

  But mixing pleasure with business was always wrong.

  Sofia lay down beside me, sandwiching me between her and Wyatt. His side was broiling hot; hers freezing cold.

  “Once the next security Jeep goes by, I’ll have fourteen minutes to reach my first aim point,” I said.

  Wyatt braced binoculars to his eyes. “I’m not liking this.”

  “Tough.”

  The Jeep puttered by on the narrow ribbon of road that hemmed the plant and disappeared around the assembly building. I rose to my feet and hiked the backpack to my shoulders.

  Deep lines sculpted Wyatt’s face as he watched me prepare. “It doesn’t feel right, you going and me staying here.”

  I didn’t have time to smooth ruffled male-ego feathers. The window of opportunity was small and it wouldn’t open this easily again.

  “I’ve got it covered. Besides the uniform I got is too small for you.” I’d made a concession to his desire to help by having him stop at a Radio Shack and buy a communications system for us. I inserted the earpiece and twisted the wire-thin mic in front of my mouth. “Testing, testing. One, two, three.”

  “Coming in loud and clear.” Brisk disapproval guttered through his voice.

  “Look,” I said, “the best way you can help me is keep an eye on the patrols and give me a heads-up if I’m cutting it too close. It’s harder to hide two people than one.”

  “You’re a woman. You’re going to stick out.”

  “Times have changed. Even in Texas. And social engineering is what I do for a living.”

  Without giving him a chance to argue further, I scanned my intended path. Starting slow, I took off trotting for the maintenance shed, my first goal. Hugging the meager shadows along the side of the building, I caught my breath and took a survey of the area around my next goal—the assembly building.

  “I’m at the shed,” I whispered.

  “Got you in my sights.” A heartbeat thrummed. “Coast looks clear.”

  Keeping as low a profile as I could, I made my way to the assembly building. When the guards at the rolling doors had their backs turned for a cigarette break, I took a chance. My heart hammered hard until I made it safely to the other side.

  “I can’t see you anymore,” Wyatt said.

  “I’m on schedule.”

  I blended with the shadows of the building until I reached the staging area for the cube-farm wall sections.

  “I’m going in now, Wyatt. I’m going to have to hide the earpiece till I get inside.”

  “I hate this.”

  “I know.” He was used to taking on the protector role. That was a habit he was going to have to break. “I can take care of myself.”

  I stowed my backpack behind a trash barrel.

  My opportunity to flow into the work pace came up a few minutes later. As if I belonged, I reached for one end of a panel a mover with a compact body was struggling to heft. “Here, let me give you a hand.”

  “You’re new?” Sweat darkened his dirty-blond hair.

  “Tonight’s my first night.”

  He laughed. “Hope you got a good back.”

  “Like a mule.”

  The armed guard at the loading dock didn’t even glance my way.

  I let my carry-partner lead the way to the freight elevator and up to the second floor. The stink of new beige carpet—that perennial favorite of industrial buildings—fouled the air. Banks of fluorescent lights gave the room—with all the size and charm of an airplane hangar—a look of midday.

  “What number?” A supervisor with a clipboard asked.

  “G-15,” the mover answered.

  “Over there.” We duck-walked to the appointed spot. I followed him to the door, then turned in the opposite direction.

  “Where you going?” my partner asked.

  “Ladies’ room. Shouldn’t have had that extra cup of coffee with dinner.”

  He nodded and kept heading toward the freight elevator.

  I reinserted the earpiece. “Okay, Wyatt,” I whispered into my collar. “Directions to HR.”

  “Turn right, then take the stairs to the first floor.”

  Donning transparent Latex gloves to hide my prints, I sneaked down the stairs, staying aware of the location of the security cameras. With my cap low, my hair hidden and my body size beefed up with padding, identifying me wouldn’t be easy, but I wanted to give the least amount of data to work with.

  “Where to now?” I asked Wyatt as I neared the bottom of the stairs. On the first floor, only the security light at the end of the corridor shed any light.

  “Turn left and go toward the front of the building. It’s the office with all the glass windows.”

  Glass windows and security doors. From the folds of my padding, I extracted a small maglite and a code-breaker device. I stuck the maglite in my mouth and inserted the device’s leads into the lock. Sweat wormed its way down my back. My pulse kicked into overdrive as the device took longer than expected to punch out the code.
>
  Holding my breath, I opened the door, entered and relocked it.

  “Personnel files, Wyatt?”

  “Try the file cabinets in the cubicle at the back.”

  Staying low, I wound my way there, unlocked the cabinet. My lock-picking skills weren’t as rusted as I’d thought. Then I pawed through the files.

  I looked for Glenda’s and Sofia’s, photocopied the contents and stuffed them into my shirt. “I still need to know who’d taken over Sofia’s position,” I told Wyatt. “I’m not finding an organization chart in the files. I’m going to try the computer.” I sat at the farthest computer station from the door but all that got me was more frustration. The thing was password protected, and I didn’t have the time or the technical ability to hack.

  As I pondered my next move, footsteps plodded out in the hallway. I pressed the computer’s sleep button but the screen remained bright and a droning whirr kicked up. The shadow of the guard loomed closer. Shoot, he was going to see the glow from the computer screen. Pulse pounding in my ears, I sank below the level of the desk and pulled the plug. The computer screen went black.

  The guard paused at the door and flashed his light all over the office.

  “Look up Paul’s file,” Wyatt said. “Whoever took Sofia’s place was hired before he was promoted, so they’d be in his supervisory responsibility list until he moves up to his new job.”

  “Good idea.”

  When the guard’s footsteps retreated, I headed back to the files and got what I needed.

  I paused next to the office door and listened for the guard. Nothing.

  “Where to next?” I asked Wyatt and double-checked the hallway.

  “Stairs. At the end of the corridor.”

  I was halfway down the stairs when I heard a metal door clang two floors up and laughter drift down. I had to force myself to act slowly and with care as I reached the basement bunker door. I used the code breaker to get into the bunker. Like the first floor, the basement was mostly dark. The cube farm created an eerie landscape silhouette against the dim glow of the security light.

  I readied my maglite. “Which one was Sofia’s cube?”

  “Three rows over, five cubicles down.”

  Two desks, two sets of shelves and two file cabinets crammed the small space of the beige cubicle. “Which desk was hers?”

  “The one on the right. But someone else has probably taken it over.”

  “And taken over her project, too.”

  I crouched beside the cabinet, maglite between my teeth, and groped for my pick set.

  “Try Leann’s desk,” Wyatt said. “Employees aren’t supposed to keep keys at their desks, but not everyone follows the rules. Look under the phone.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Rolodex.”

  “Not there.” Ice stippled my right side as if Sofia was hanging over my shoulder.

  “In the program coffee mug.”

  Sure enough, there was a key under the variety of pens.

  I opened the cabinet and slid out a drawer. “What am I looking for?”

  “An engineering journal. It’s a soft-sided brown book.”

  “Got it.”

  “Look for December and January of last year and the HART program number I gave you.”

  “I don’t see anything past with that program number.”

  “Then they must be in the Mosler safe.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “In Paul’s office.”

  I followed his directions to Paul’s office, growing tenser by the minute, expecting a guard to come by on his rounds. Boxes waiting to be moved to Paul’s new office hid the safe. I maneuvered my way around, disturbing as little as I could. The safe looked like a bulky file cabinet. “The code breaker isn’t going to work on this spin dial.”

  “Look on his secretary’s desk,” Wyatt said. “She can never remember the combination, so she writes it down on the back cover of her agenda.”

  Armed with the code, I punched in the numbers. Just as I grasped the engineering journal bearing Sofia’s name and the correct date and program, the elevator binged into place in the hallway. Steps echoed on the bare linoleum. The code buttons crunched. The door slid open.

  Shoot. Not good.

  I stuffed the journals and the data file under my shirt, doused the maglite and frog-walked my way out of Paul’s office.

  “Sierra? What’s going on?”

  “Someone just walked in.”

  One set of lights went on, then another. I lost my cover of darkness.

  My breath came too fast. My head was going light. My heart throbbed violently. I recognized the pressure on my chest as panic that would have me gulping for air if I gave it a toehold.

  Sofia, stop it!

  Her fear was paralyzing me. So I blocked it out, swallowed it down and forced my attention to my feet, to keeping them moving, one in front of the other. I hadn’t come this far just to get caught.

  Using the concealment of the maze of cubicles, I kept out of the intruder’s way.

  Rounding a corner, my sleeve caught a protruding piece of metal and ripped.

  The plodding footsteps halted. “Who’s here?”

  Cold fear sparked my nerves. Paul’s voice. A flash-fire of pain burned along the cut on my upper arm.

  A warming overhead fluorescent light pinged. Paul grunted and went on his way.

  I reached the stairs, made my way back to the loading dock and stuffed the Latex gloves into my pocket. I spotted a pile of protective padding and grabbed it to hide the cut on my arm and the blood seeping through the sleeve. The guard nodded at me as I dumped the padding in the truck. I headed toward the staging area, then, seeing the coast clear, trotted to my waiting backpack.

  I reversed my previous course and snaked my way past the assembly building. “See any patrol Jeeps?” I asked Wyatt.

  “Clear,” Wyatt said.

  I was just crossing the road to the shed when a white truck with some sort of blue swash turned the corner, its headlights seeking me out.

  “Hurry,” Wyatt yelled.

  No way I could outrun the truck, as lumbering as it was, and movement would draw the driver’s attention to me. I dropped and rolled onto the grass, then remained as still as a speed bump while it rumbled by, its wash kicking up dust into my eyes. Once it turned the next corner, I slithered my way to the shed. Timing the return of the patrol, I trotted to where Wyatt waited.

  “That was a rush,” I said, hands on knees to catch my breath. Man, had that ever felt good. I’d missed this adrenaline kick that spiked my blood and gave me such a high.

  Wyatt grabbed me by both arms. “That was the most idiotic thing I’ve ever seen anyone do in my life.” The look in his eyes bore both the dark remnant of fear and the light spark of relief. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

  Then he leaned toward me and captured my mouth fiercely. At the hot insistence of his kiss, a shudder ran from my scalp down to my knees, turning them to mush. Even worse was the way I sought to deepen the kiss as naturally as if I’d known him forever.

  Attraction wasn’t supposed to happen. Not between us.

  How easy it would be to use Sofia’s familiarity with Wyatt to allow this to go further, to keep the adrenaline rushing. Too easy. Besides, I’d never been the one-night-stand type. When it came to relationships, I wanted long-term and steady. I wedged a hand between us and pushed myself away, regret yawning in my chest.

  “Sofia…” I breathed.

  That magic word had him withdrawing. Slipping back into memories? Steadfast in his love for the woman who’d given me a second chance at life. He needed someone, but not me. I’d forever remind him of his loss.

  “You’re bleeding.” Face tight, Wyatt had body and emotions clearly back under lock and key.

  “It’s just a scratch.”

  He stuffed his hands in his back pockets. “Did you get the files?”

  I patted my stomach, then pulled them out and transferred them
to the backpack. “Got them.”

  Giving me a wide berth, he grabbed the backpack. “Let’s get out of here before anyone notices anything’s gone.”

  Chapter 9

  “About what happened out there…” Wyatt stood outside his office door, one hand choking the doorknob. Moths bumped drunkenly against the spotlight throwing yellow light over the yard.

  “Heat of the moment,” I said, refusing to look into his eyes. The kiss was just a kiss, and the discharge of adrenaline rush had felt pretty damn good. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Wyatt scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t talking about the kiss. I was talking about the idiotic risks you take.”

  Sofia gasped as if Wyatt had sucker-punched her.

  I glared at Wyatt, the remnant of adrenaline still frizzling through my veins. “Let’s get something straight. There’s nothing idiotic about the way I do my job. The risks I take are calculated, and I’m damn good at what I do. I’m not one of your Southern belles who need a man’s protection.” Tonight I’d proven that the old Sierra was still alive. I wasn’t going to let her go.

  “Sofia brought you to me. I’m not going to let anything happen to you while you’re investigating her death.” He jammed the key into the lock. “No more solo outings.”

  “Back off, Wyatt. I already have a pain-in-the-ass brother. I don’t need another.”

  In one quick move, he backed me up against the wall and caught my face between his palms. “Since we’re setting things straight. What I’m feeling right now isn’t the least brotherly, Sierra.”

  Static sparked along my skin like the air before a lightning strike as he leaned against me. He captured my mouth and plumbed it as if he had all the time in the world. Pleasure thrummed in my throat, but somewhere deep inside reality kicked in. Like Leo and Van, Wyatt wanted to control my life.

  I came up for air. “Sofia…”

  He shook his head. “This is between you and me.”

  No kidding, I thought, still looking for breath. There wasn’t an inch of space between us, and everything I was missing pressed hot and hard against my belly. For the first time since Leo, I wanted a man—this man—and knew on an impossible level that we could rock each other’s world. How could that be when we were so wrong for each other?