The Descartes Evolution

by N. J. Croft

  He nodded to the man sitting at the bank of monitors. “Gary. Anything happening?”

  “No, sir. It’s all quiet.”

  Luke made to move away, but on an impulse, he sank into the seat next to Gary instead. He leaned across, punched in his security code, and switched the monitor to the bedroom in the apartment.

  An image of Jenna curled up on the bed filled the screen. She must have showered; she was wrapped in a white towel, her hair damp about her shoulders. At first, he thought she was asleep, she was so still. But her eyes were open and staring.

  He switched off the connection and turned to Gary. “I want you to have someone watch the penthouse apartment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Make sure no one goes in or out. Except me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Luke rose to his feet and hurried from the room, punching in Callum’s number while he waited for the elevator. “What’s happening?”

  “It was definitely murder, not suicide. I’ll get a report to you by morning.”

  Luke felt no shock at the words. In fact, he’d been expecting them. “Did they get the body out?”

  “Yes.” Callum replied. “I’ll make sure we get a copy of the autopsy report, but I’m betting it won’t come up with anything other than suicide.”

  “Did you pick up any prints?”

  “Nothing suspicious. These guys were professional. We did get the hard drives off Merrick’s computer and his laptop and phone, so we’ll get the lab analyzing them to see if we can’t find something. But I’m guessing the place had already been gone through.”

  “That’s what I came up with.” The elevator arrived and he stepped inside.

  “But the fact they set the place to blow suggests they thought there might be something still there. If there is, we’ll find it. How’s the woman?”

  He was pretty sure the question didn’t arise from any concern about Jenna’s well-being. “Sleeping,” he snapped. Then he sighed. “Look, Callum, I’ve not gone soft on you—I’ll do whatever’s needed. But I don’t think force would work with her. Did you see the report from the man who tortured her?” It had made interesting reading.

  “Yeah. He reckoned she wouldn’t have broken. But everyone talks in the end.”

  “Not everyone. There’s a small proportion of people who respond differently. They reach a point where they’re physically unable to talk. A sort of stubbornness.”

  “You think she’s one of those?” Callum asked, his tone skeptical.

  “The report said she became angry rather than scared as the interrogation went on.”

  “I still think you should keep it as an option.”

  Maybe as a last resort, but he didn’t actually believe she could tell them anything. “We’ll dig into Merrick’s background first. I have a feeling if we can find a link between Merrick and Jenna it will give us something to work on. At the moment, everything points to the link being her father.”

  “Stefan’s already investigating him. We should have the information by morning.”

  As the call ended, Luke ran a hand through his hair. The elevator hadn’t moved, the doors still open. Although he was exhausted, he knew he wouldn’t sleep. He needed something to take his mind from the woman upstairs. He’d been about to press the button for the penthouse; now he changed his mind.

  He needed to work.

  Chapter Twenty

  “We lost the men we sent after Carson’s lead.”

  Lauren glanced up at the words. “What? How the hell could you lose them?”

  Mark shrugged, a casual lift of his shoulder beneath the designer suit. “They didn’t report in. We’re trying to trace them now.”

  “Fucking brilliant. And?”

  “Merrick is dead.”

  In the end, she’d decided the risk wasn’t worth taking and had given the order to have him removed. “How?”

  “Don’t worry. It appears that the professor committed suicide. An affair with a male student gone wrong. The student killed himself tonight as well—tragic. The professor was distraught.”

  She studied her assistant, but his face remained expressionless. He could have been talking about a simple business deal. Mark was handsome, intelligent. He was also a sociopath, which was the characteristic that had landed him the job.

  “Do you want any of the details?” he asked.

  “No, this was more in the way of cleaning up loose ends that should have been cleared years ago.”

  He frowned. “Why weren’t they? It’s unlike you to leave loose ends.”

  She gave a small smile. “Would you believe sentimental reasons?”

  Mark’s eyes flashed with amusement. “No.”

  His response didn’t surprise her. “Show no weakness” was the motto she lived by. Today, people did not leave the Conclave unless it was in a permanent manner.

  But she hadn’t always been quite this hard, and Merrick had been a friend as well as a colleague. Back then, she’d allowed him to walk away when the project he was working on was terminated. Had even employed him since on a casual basis.

  Why had he surfaced now? With Descartes coming to fruition, the timing was certainly suspect.

  “So what have we got? A small town GP who carries out an internet search on Professor Merrick and Descartes. The doctor is interrogated but knows nothing. Or almost nothing. Just a single lead, who appears to be a nobody. Except our men disappear when they go after her. What’s the link?”

  She rubbed her hand over the smooth skin of her forehead. Mark moved to stand behind her, and his fingers massaged her shoulders, digging in to the solid muscle. For a minute, she closed her eyes and allowed the tension to drain away.

  God, it felt good.

  Another reason she had employed Mark—his magic fingers.

  She opened her eyes and shrugged him off. He stepped back.

  “Merrick didn’t actually know anything about the current project.” Lauren tapped her pen on the desk. “You had someone watching him? I take it there was nothing suspicious about his behavior?”

  “Nothing obvious. He did have a visitor earlier today who didn’t fit his usual pattern. I’ve sent the pictures to your monitor.”

  Her computer screen flashed to life as he leaned across and punched the keyboard. A photo of a woman filled the screen. She was beautiful, flawless, with pale blond hair pulled into a loose chignon that showed off her perfect bone structure, a full mouth, and blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. There was something familiar about her, though Lauren couldn’t place her and was sure she had never seen her before.

  “Who is she?”

  Mark tapped a few keys. “Shit.”

  “Don’t tell me—more good news?”

  “Her name is Jenna Young. Which just happens to be the name of the doctor’s patient—Carson’s lead.”

  Lauren sighed. Loudly. “And no one put this together before now.”

  “The information just came through.”

  “What do we have on her?” Drawn by that sense of familiarity, she glanced at the photo again. “She doesn’t seem the type to take on three of our men.”

  “She’s twenty-six, lives in London, and works at the National Museum of Anthropology.”

  “Hmm. I suppose there might be a legitimate reason for visiting a professor of biochemistry.”

  “This is her companion, though the woman met with Merrick alone.”

  A photograph of a man replaced the woman on the screen.

  “Nice,” she said. He was somewhere in his thirties, tall, lean with a narrow, handsome face. Something clicked into place as she looked at his eyes. Shock rippled through her. She had an almost photographic memory, and a name flashed into her mind. “Lucien Hockley.”

  “Really?” Mark murmured. “We have him down as a Luke Grafton. Own
er of Grafton Securities, a multinational security firm. According to Merrick’s assistant, he arranged the meeting to discuss some research into biotechnology with the professor.”

  “No, that’s definitely Hockley.”

  “So who is Lucien Hockley?”

  “He’s supposed to be a dead man.” Her headache was back. “Sit down. We may have a problem.”

  Mark sank into the seat opposite but remained silent as he waited for Lauren to continue.

  “Lucien Hockley supposedly died in a car explosion ten years ago along with his wife and baby.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, getting her thoughts straight. Though she could have pulled up the file, she preferred to remember it for herself.

  One of those little shivers of instinct ran through her—this was something important. Her skin prickled with reaction, and she rubbed her hands down her arms. “Lucien Hockley’s father was one of the Conclave’s mistakes. You know how we work. Each member identifies another potential member. That’s how we grow. It’s up to them to make the contact and to decide whether they are a suitable candidate for recruitment.”

  Pausing, she stared at the photo. Lucien was the spitting image of his father.

  “James Hockley was identified. It was one of the few occasions where the system failed.”

  “Why?” Mark asked.

  “On the surface, he was perfect. The Hockleys were old money, which James Hockley had multiplied many times over. The family was into everything—oil, property, even arms manufacture. Which is probably what made him appear the perfect candidate.”

  “But?” Mark prompted.

  “James Hockley was one of those rare creatures, a wealthy man with honor.” Lauren shook her head. “It was obvious if you did your research. The man was a goddamn war hero, but the member recruiting him was so sure he was landing a big fish he looked no further than the surface. Hockley pretended to go along with it long enough to find out about the existence of the Conclave, then threatened to expose us. He was dealt with.”

  “What happened to the member who tried to recruit him?” Mark asked with genuine curiosity.

  Lauren’s lips curved into a smile. “Oh, he was dealt with, as well.” The Conclave didn’t like mistakes and did not accept stupidity from its members.

  “So how does the son come into this?”

  “Lucien Hockley reacted badly to his father’s death. He was eighteen at the time, and he left home and joined the French Foreign Legion.”

  Mark sat bolt upright in his chair. “How wonderfully melodramatic. I didn’t know the Legion existed in real life. I thought it was just in the movies.”

  “No, it exists, and it’s one of the toughest training grounds a soldier can have. By all accounts, Lucien thrived there. He joined at the lowest level, but a man like Lucien Hockley isn’t born to be a private. He worked his way up through the ranks, got a couple of awards for bravery.”

  “You sound like you admire him.”

  “There’s a lot to admire, if you like that sort of thing. Anyway, he obviously grew out of it. He returned home at twenty-four with a wife he’d picked up in England and a baby daughter. We kept an eye on him but never considered him a threat until he started asking questions. The decision was made, and we had confirmation of the hit.”

  “Instead, it appears he survived.”

  “Obviously. But his wife and baby were killed, and he’s been out there all this time. A man with a mission.” Jesus, just what they needed.

  “So what do we do?”

  “First of all, find him.” She slammed her fist down on the desk. “Shit. Why did this happen now?”

  Descartes was her baby. She’d planned it from conception. Despite those early, disastrous experiments, she’d seen the potential and persuaded the Conclave to go forward with this. Now only days from seeing the results, the whole project was in jeopardy.

  A click to the next photograph showed the man and woman together against the backdrop of the spires of Cambridge University, where she had studied. Where she had met Merrick and John when they had all been undergraduates.

  The couple weren’t touching but there was a sense of togetherness about them. They were well matched, both tall, good-looking. Her gaze was drawn to the woman, and that same sense of familiarity washed over her.

  What was her role in this and her connection to Hockley?

  “I want to know everything about Jenna Young. Get me a report by morning.”

  A ripple of unease ran down her spine. It couldn’t be.

  That project had been terminated. Twenty-two years ago.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Luke had spent much of the night working until the details blurred and Stefan had told him to piss off and get some sleep. He’d meant to take the elevator straight up to the apartment and his own room, but instead found himself heading back to the control center.

  He had no intention of going to her again tonight. From now on, he’d maintain his distance. Callum was right. What did he really know about her?

  Even so, he found himself switching on the monitor to her room, where she lay curled up on the bed, still wrapped in the towel. It looked like she hadn’t moved in over three hours, her eyes wide open and staring.

  A wave of tenderness washed over him. The feeling shocked him to the core. He wished he could deny it, but if life had taught him one thing, it was to face problems head on and never ignore them. Jenna Young was a problem. The question was—did he allow her to become a bigger problem? Or did he get rid of her before that could happen? He could hand her over to Callum. Callum would keep her safe if Luke asked him.

  But he couldn’t do it. He needed her close by.

  Finally, he acknowledged that she moved something inside him, something he hadn’t felt since Leah. He waited for the surge of pain that always accompanied thoughts of his dead wife, but the pain had become a distant memory muted by time into a dull ache.

  Jenna was here, now, in the present. Maybe Callum was right—he was about to rejoin the human race, and his timing was as bad as it could get.

  He wouldn’t allow himself to care. That wasn’t who he was, but at the same time, this didn’t have to be a catastrophe. Jenna was involved with Descartes, and his best bet of finding out how, and using that to his benefit, was to keep her close and earn her trust.

  He switched off the monitor and headed up toward the penthouse.

  …

  The door clicked open, and a figure stood silhouetted in the brighter light from the hallway. Jenna didn’t move, but her pulse sped up, and every muscle locked rigid. But once she recognized Luke, the tight knot of tension inside her unwound a little.

  She scrambled upright, holding the towel across her breasts, and glanced at the clock on the table beside the bed. Over three hours had passed, though that seemed impossible.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Luke didn’t answer. He stepped into the room, and the door swung shut behind him, leaving them in the dim light spilling out from the bathroom. Hands shoved into his pockets, he crossed the room to stand beside the bed and stared down at her.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Has something else happened?”

  “I wanted to check you were all right. Are you?”

  At the question, the tension inside her snapped. Apart from her father, in her whole life, no one had really cared how she was. That was her fault; she kept people at a distance. Her illness had always been a secret, an invisible barrier between her and anyone who might come close. But Luke knew. Although they’d known each other only a short time, he probably knew her better than anyone else alive.

  Before, she hadn’t been able to cry. Now, tears poured down her face. She sniffed, trying to hold them back.

  Luke sank onto the bed beside her, pulled her onto his lap and into his arms as he had done the night befor
e. That same sense of safety engulfed her, and she curled herself into a ball and gave in to the flood of anguish that washed over her.

  He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just held her tight.

  In the end, she ran out of tears. Exhausted, she leaned her head against his chest. The sense of safety vanished to be replaced by something new. A slow heat burned into life low down in her belly as she squirmed in his arms, needing to get closer, and for a moment, they tightened around her.

  Loosening his hold on her, he sat up straighter. His hands slid around her waist so he could lift her and place her on the bed. Bereft, Jenna wanted to reach out for him, to hold on to him. It was more than not wanting to be alone; she no longer wanted sex with some anonymous stranger as she had in the past.

  She wanted Luke.

  He rose to his feet and peered down at her, his eyes gleaming in the darkness, and she stretched out a hand to him. “Don’t leave me.”

  When he didn’t move, she dropped her hand to the knot holding the towel at her breasts. Her fingers trembled, refusing to behave, but finally the towel loosened and fell away, leaving her naked before him.

  Logically, she knew she was beautiful but had always felt flawed. Now she held her breath, waiting for him to respond, half expecting him to walk away.

  “Please, Luke.”

  His hand went to the buttons of his shirt and slipped the top one open. Some of the tension inside her relaxed as he slowly stripped the shirt and tossed it to the floor. He was lean but powerfully built, the muscles ridged over his abdomen.

  Some sort of scar ran down his right side, and a tattoo decorated his right arm, but she couldn’t make it out in the dim light.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

  At his words, her gaze flew to his face to find him watching her as though he could see inside her mind. She shook her head because she wasn’t sure about anything anymore. But at the same time, she reached out for him…

  Their lovemaking was hard and fast and fierce and forced everything else from her mind. Afterward, he collapsed and rolled onto his side, dragging her with him.