by Lexi Blake
He hadn’t needed audio either. “She was angry with him. There was a lot of tension on both sides, but she was the truly angry one. I know she had security keep him out of her hospital room. She was alone in there the whole time. Not a single visitor.”
He’d thought about sneaking in to see her but decided not to try his luck. He was already the group fuck-up. It would be worse if he also became the one who got his arse hauled to jail.
He’d learned a bit about his boss’s ex-wife. She was alone in the world. She was an heiress who’d chosen to turn her back on the life of privilege that could have been hers.
The door opened and he watched two figures moving through the shadows toward the conference table. He would bet a lot those two were women, and that Robert was about to lose his shit.
“I don’t want to talk about Solo. Now that we’re here in Canada, someone else will take over the surveillance of Levi Green. I want to know where that asshole is at all times. He’s the one who sent us here, and I’m sure at some point he’ll show up.” Ezra slid the photo back to him and clicked the remote, changing the image on the wall of their borrowed office. “Now that our subject matter experts are here, we can get down to real business. Ladies, welcome.”
Ariel Adisa walked in wearing a perfectly tailored suit that managed to be both modest and ridiculously sexy since the woman wearing it couldn’t be anything but sexy. Her dark hair was in gorgeous curls that seemed to form a halo around her. The stark white of her suit showed off how beautifully dark her skin was. She was an utterly fascinating woman, but he’d always known she had a thing for Robert. The second woman he’d met only briefly. She was a new hire to the McKay-Taggart and Knight team in London.
“Ariel?” Robert stood up and despite his obvious shock, moved to pull her chair out.
She nodded cooly his way. “Robert, it’s good to see you again.”
“It’s surprising to see you,” Robert said, stepping back. “You’re supposed to be in London.”
“You weren’t kidding, were you?” Nina Blunt sank into the chair beside Ariel with a shake of her head.
Ariel sighed. “I mentioned to Nina that you wouldn’t be happy to see me.”
“It’s not that I’m not happy. It’s that it’s dangerous,” Robert replied.
Ariel waved that off. “It’s Canada. Nothing bad ever happens in Canada. Now that Bliss place, I steered clear of. Do you know what the per capita murder rate is? You’re lucky any of you came out of there alive at all. Hello, Tag. Thanks for flying me over. It was lovely.”
Big Tag grinned. “That was my personal plane, of course. Only the best for my London team.”
Tucker groaned. “He just admitted he steals his sister-in-law’s planes. Case’s brother-in-law is a billionaire, and he must really love his sister to put up with Big Tag.”
Tag shrugged. “That’s fair. Now how about we shelve the romantic drama for now, though I fully expect to get regular updates from one of you.”
Robert frowned the boss’s way. “There’s no drama. Let’s move on to Dr. Walsh. I’m sure that’s why Dr. Adisa is here.”
The picture changed from that asshole Green to a woman in a white jacket, her brown and gold hair in a slightly messy bun. She wore a pair of tortoise shell glasses and a plain black dress. She smiled at the camera, the restrained expression of a professional.
Thirty. Rebecca Walsh was thirty years old and running her own department at one of the world’s most elite research facilities.
Had Rebecca Walsh been the one to help Hope McDonald erase his mind? Was he looking at the woman who’d helped rid him of his past?
“She’s pretty,” Tucker murmured.
She was, but in an oddly bland way. There was nothing that stood out about her. Her skin was blemish free, her face nicely symmetrical. He couldn’t tell a thing about her body. The only thing that stood out to him was the look in her eyes. Those eyes were big and brown and soulful.
This was the woman he would live close to for the next however many weeks or months it would take for them to do what they needed to do. Robert would be the one to befriend her. Jax and River were already living on the same floor, keeping an eye on things. Nina was her brand-new daily barista.
He and Robert were the last pieces to slide into place. They were going in as a couple. A newly married couple. He was not looking forward to it. If Owen had his way they would be the least affectionate newlyweds in history.
“Dr. Adisa has been studying our target.” Fain was all business again. “And Ms. Blunt has been setting herself up to be a part of the target’s daily life.”
Tag leaned in. “For those of you who haven’t met her, Nina Blunt joined the London team a few months ago. She used to work for Interpol. She’s an expert analyst, and we’ve brought her in to help us deal with Dr. Walsh. You’ve all met Ariel.”
Ariel knew him well. She’d been his therapist while he’d lived in The Garden. She’d helped them all.
Nina was a pretty woman with auburn hair. She was exactly the type of woman he would usually hit on, but since he’d seen Jax lying there on the floor of the underground research facility known only as The Ranch, he’d drawn in on himself.
This was serious. Jax had almost died. This wasn’t about a good time or finding as much pleasure as he could. He could die and he had zero idea who he was. He could die before he’d ever lived.
Before he’d had a chance to be more than the man in that file, the one who’d betrayed his friends. The one he was almost certain none of them truly trusted. It was precisely why he took the background jobs. He was with them, but not. Never quite one of the lads.
“I’ve written a report on her with the aid of Nina,” Ariel explained. “I’ve sent it to your emails for your perusal. Most of my observations are based on research. I haven’t met Dr. Walsh, but she’s been written about quite a bit. I relied on Nina for more personal observations. She’s an odd one. Quite complex and intriguing.”
Nina leaned forward. “I’ve been here for a couple of weeks. I’m working at the coffee shop at the bottom of the building Dr. Walsh lives in. One of the things that stands out about our target is her devotion to schedule. I would say she’s got a mild form of OCD because that happens often with genius-level intelligence. But it also might be a simple habit she’s gotten into because she’s quite busy. It should make her easy to monitor. I’ve included that schedule in the report. The third week of every month is a bit different because that’s when she works on her second job.”
From what he understood she was involved in some kind of volunteer effort to teach kids science. He was certain she was a good teacher, but how did a woman who hadn’t had a childhood, from what he could tell, truly connect to kids?
“I agree with Nina,” Ariel said. “Dr. Walsh has gotten into a routine, but I also think she craves something to take her out of it from time to time. Her volunteer work proves she’s got a sense of humor and fun.”
He wasn’t sure how much fun the kids had listening to lectures on science. She didn’t look like the kind who would teach kids how to blow up soda bottles. She would likely read from a prepared report and then wonder why the kids had fallen asleep.
“Which is precisely why I think finding a new friend could be the perfect way to get close to her,” Nina admitted. “In her previous jobs, she usually had a close group of friends, but most doctors her age are finishing up internships or finding fellowships. What I basically mean is they move around a lot. Because of her youth, she struggled to find close friends, but she’s certainly had a healthy social life up until recently. Do you want to go over the salient facts before we get into specifics?”
He opened the attachment and glanced through it as Ariel spoke.
“Dr. Walsh began showing signs of genius when she read at the age of three. By the time she was five years old she was working complex math and her father brought in a tutor.”
“Her father is Leland Walsh?” Tucker whistled.
&
nbsp; “You say that like it means something.” Owen flipped back, trying to figure out who the bloke was.
“Leland Walsh invented a surgical technique that revolutionized the way we deal with brain tumors.” Tucker always sounded different when he talked about medicine. More competent. And then more scared because they were all almost certain he’d worked with Dr. Hope McDonald, evil mistress of the mind. Dead but not forgotten. Except by him, since she’d died after she’d dosed him but before he’d woken up.
“So she comes from a family of doctors?” Robert asked.
“Her father, grandfather, and two uncles were renowned surgeons,” Ariel explained. “Not that her mother’s side of the family wasn’t full of brainiacs. Her mother was a professor. She taught psychology and ran a women’s shelter. Rebecca chose to go into research, specifically into researching the brain and memory and how degenerative neurological diseases affect memory.”
His eyes lit on a specific fact. It was listed in the middle of the bio Nina had prepared, but it stuck out to him. “Her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.”
Nina nodded, but her eyes held a certain sympathy. “Yes, when Rebecca was nine, but from her accounts, she wasn’t told about the diagnosis until later, roughly nine months before her mother died. She spoke about it at a conference. It was a quite moving speech. She and her future stepmother cared for her mother at home until she passed.”
“Her future stepmother?” Robert asked.
“So her family life is rough, I take it.” He couldn’t imagine how the girl had taken that. Mum dies and dad marries her nurse?
“She’s quite close to her family,” Nina corrected. “She was the maid of honor at their wedding three years after her mom died. She’s close to her young sister, and from all accounts enjoys spending time with her father.”
“Must not have been close to her mum.” Owen didn’t get it. Not at all.
Ariel was frowning his way. “She was a teenaged girl who put aside her needs to keep her mother out of a nursing home. I would say she proved her love for her mother. As for being close to her stepmother, well, funny things happen to survivors. Sometimes they cling together. Until you’ve lost someone, you can’t judge how others react. Honestly, even when you have, you know damn well you shouldn’t. Grief is different for everyone.”
Tucker leaned over. “I think you should be quiet now. She looks pissed.”
She looked annoyed, but then he could do that to a woman.
He’d lost two someones, but he didn’t understand grief. How did he cry and ache for two people he couldn’t remember? “I’m sorry. I was surprised. Of course I don’t know anything at all. Please continue.”
“She doesn’t seem to have a large social circle here in Toronto. I’m surprised she has many friends at all since when she would normally have been forming her social identity, she was thrown in with much older students. She was much younger than the average student at the schools she attended. She would have been an outsider at best, a target at worst,” Ariel said.
“A target?” Robert asked. “What do you mean? I understand she’s our target, but why would her school friends want to investigate her?”
Ariel’s lips tugged up slightly. “It’s always odd to be reminded of how your memories break. You know so much about the world, so many facts, but often normal experiences are gone and with them the street-like knowledge that’s second nature to the rest of us.”
“That’s shrink talk for you’re a shiny new baby,” Big Tag explained.
“What she’s saying is Rebecca Walsh was so young she couldn’t relate to the other students,” Ezra explained. “Even though she was certainly smart enough to be in a class with them, emotionally she wasn’t ready to run in their circles.”
Sometimes he still felt like that. “You’re saying that even though she’s bridged that gap now, she still isn’t comfortable in social situations? Has trouble making friends?”
Ariel nodded. “She might be awkward at times. You’re going to have to be patient with her.”
“I don’t know about that,” Nina mused. “I’ve talked to her and I was surprised at how nice she seems. She ordered a vanilla latte instead of her normal plain latte. I mentioned it and she told me she’s on a quest to expand her horizons. She seemed enthusiastic about it. I know it’s only a shot of vanilla, but it’s outside her routine. I think she might welcome some new friends.”
“She loves animals,” Ariel pointed out. “She doesn’t have a pet right now, but I think that’s because of her long hours. She spends her breaks at a dog park, though she doesn’t own one.”
Jax gave her a thumbs-up. “Buster to the rescue. No one can resist his manly smell. No, seriously, River’s at the groomer’s right now. We’re getting rid of his stink. He thought a skunk would be a good playmate. It was really terrible.”
“Preach, brother,” Tag said. “Bud is not smart about the fuckers. They get him every time. I swear there’s a family of them living on our property and they’ve got a bet on how many times they can spray my dog. They only got Kala once. We had to go to family therapy after that.”
“What’s her financial situation like?” Fain asked, clearly ready to get the meeting back on track.
“The family is wealthy, but it was earned through white-collar jobs, not generational money,” Nina replied. “She received scholarships to pay for her schooling. Her education was unconventional, to say the least. She graduated from high school at the age of twelve. College by the time she was fifteen. She went to medical school from there.”
He glanced back at the photo. How hard had it been to always be the youngest person in class? To stand out in such a way? “What about her relationships with men? The basic info says she was married at some point.”
“Yes, but it didn’t last three years. He was a doctor, too,” Nina explained.
Dante uncharacteristically showed some interest. He was staring down at his folder like he gave a damn for once. “Why did they divorce?”
“I believe he left because he couldn’t handle her success,” Ariel explained. “She won her first Wolf Foundation Prize and when she accepted a prestigious position with the Huisman Foundation, they divorced. Her research is funded by the Huisman Foundation primarily and various pharmaceutical companies who have an interest. The Huismans are an old, venerable family here in Canada. From what I can tell, they fund everything she asks them to. She works closely with the son, Paul. He’s a neurologist as well.”
“She worked with McDonald before she joined the foundation?” Owen asked.
Big Tag nodded. “Dr. Walsh worked closely with McDonald at Kronberg Pharmaceuticals. She was brought in to assist with a project. The nature of their true relationship is unclear. It’s something I’m interested in learning more about. But I’m also interested in Walsh’s other job. How the hell does that fit into her profile?”
Ariel grinned. “Like I said, it proves she’s got a sense of humor.”
Fain hit a key on his computer and the picture of Walsh changed from a sedate doctor to…a woman in spandex and a cape. Gone were the glasses and professional bun. In its place was a superhero costume that clung to her every curve. Yep, the white jacket had hidden a nice set of breasts, and that smile on her face, so controlled before, was now wide and warm and inviting.
“Meet Captain Neuro,” Nina said with a chuckle. “She goes into elementary schools and teaches kids about brain health. She’s been doing it for about a year now, and every school in Toronto wants her to come in. There’s talk of her doing a local kid’s show about science.”
He’d sat up in his chair because he hadn’t expected that. He’d only read about her many accolades, all her intellectual awards. Somehow on paper she’d seemed cold, probably aloof, but this woman had a glint in her eyes. This woman practically glowed with something he didn’t understand.
She was beautiful. Which woman was she in real life?
Big Tag sighed. “Don’t tell my girls we’re
going after a female superhero. They’re all about Wonder Woman right now. Do we think her side project offers us a way into her work world?”
Ariel flipped it back to the first picture, and Owen was surprised at how disappointed he was. “No, I just thought it was fun. And we should remember that she’s the kind of woman who spends her time helping kids. She’s not merely ambitious. She’s kind, too.”
“Or it’s good cover.” He couldn’t help himself. It didn’t make sense, that smile of hers. She’d lost so much, grown up far too fast. The smile had to be the cover. The smile hid the real woman underneath.
“Cynical,” Tag said with a nod. “I like it. Keep that healthy suspicion up, Shaw, and you’ll do fine. Still, it doesn’t hurt to know how she spends her time. Does she have a foundation she works through, or is her volunteer work done through Huisman?”
Nina glanced down at her notes. “She set up one in her mother’s name. The Sonja Project. Her father helped her but she runs it.”
Fain nodded Taggart’s way. “Jax will start looking into the financials. His cover is he’s working for an investment firm anyway. Hopefully we can get her talking if everything goes our way. I don’t know how much Dr. Walsh knew about what McDonald was really working on. That’s something I’m hoping Tucker can uncover. He’s interning with the foundation. He won’t be working directly with Dr. Walsh, but I’m hoping he can get close enough to some of the employees that he’s a part of the rumor mill.”
“I’ve already met a nice doctor lady,” Tucker assured them all.
“And by met her, he means he slept with her,” Jax added helpfully.
“I’m not cleaning that up,” Dante huffed as he sat back. “Next time you will all be janitors. I hate this job. Sasha is not good at it at all. He will get us fired.”