by Lexi Blake
A single brow arched. “Party?”
Yep, she was working on her reputation. “Yes, I go to parties.” At least she did now. “I have one tonight, so I’ll see you on Monday.”
“You’re taking Sunday off?” The poor man looked like the world had shifted on him.
“I have a lunch date. I told you about it.”
“I would assume it won’t last all day.”
“Only if I’m lucky,” she replied pointedly.
His face flushed and for a moment he seemed to not understand. Then he backed away and she could see the shock in his eyes before he buried it under the veneer of professionalism. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you Monday then. You…have fun this weekend.”
Carter left without a backward glance. He was such a prissy man, much like a lot of the academic types. He was more focused on the job than the people they were trying to help. She’d known a lot of Carters. Somehow he’d latched on to her when she’d come to work at the foundation, and he’d been helpful at first. It had been nice to have someone who lived in the same building and was willing to show her around, but over time she’d gotten to realize he was pretty much a misogynist asshole. If her newfound sexual freedom made him put her in the same basket as the Annies of the world, she would happily go and bring a bottle of wine.
She should bring a bottle of wine to River’s. She shouldn’t show up empty handed.
That thought made her glance down at the envelope again. She should head out and stop somewhere along the way to grab a bottle. Red went with Italian, right? She might ask someone.
As she thought about the dinner, she opened the envelope and drew out the single sheet of paper.
If you want to know where the money went, meet me at Casa Loma where the Duchess overlooks the troops. 2 p.m. Next Friday.
What the hell did that mean? She stared at the note. It wasn’t signed and there was no Dear Rebecca. Just those words printed on plain white paper.
The money. Fuck. There was over a million dollars missing and she’d been praying it was nothing more than an accounting error. Now it looked like not only was it not some kind of mistake, but something sinister.
Had she lost that file? Had it fallen out of her tote bag?
Or had someone taken it?
She grabbed the note and shoved it into her purse, the one nothing ever fell out of. It was time to go and talk to the security guards, to see if they had any video footage of whoever had sent the note.
After running down the security guard, she had a name. The note had been sent over by bicycle messenger and the security guard had recognized the young man who’d brought it to him. Arik Wheeler was a frequent visitor to the foundation. She’d been told he worked for several courier services, but this time the paperwork had been from City Messenger Toronto, one of the newer companies in town. She’d tried to call, but no one had answered, the business closing early on the weekend.
This mystery would have to wait until Monday when she would go straight to the head of accounting and start unravelling whatever the hell this was. She wasn’t an accountant. She’d wanted to get a grasp on what was happening before she brought in her bosses, but this had officially gone over her head.
If she wasn’t an accountant, she damn straight wasn’t an investigator.
Frustrated, she closed up her laptop. It was getting late, much later than she’d planned on leaving. She glanced out the windows of her office and noted the street lights had come on and evening had fallen across the city. From her office, she could see the sparkling lights of Toronto.
Saturday night in the city.
She wondered if Owen was out and about, enjoying his first few nights in a brand-new town. Her lips curled up as she imagined all the women who would likely think about fainting so the handsome Scot would catch them.
She packed up and for a moment thought about falling back into routine. It was right there, the instinct to call and explain that she’d changed her mind and couldn’t do dinner this evening. She could stop at the café and grab a salad and watch the same movies for the hundredth time and fall asleep on the couch. In the morning, she would call Lawyer Larry and let him know she had a work emergency and she could spend tomorrow here, too.
It was comfortable. It was safe, this routine of being alone.
It was cowardly and not what she’d promised the woman who’d given birth to her.
With a long sigh, she vowed to try. Tonight she would be all social and sparkly and meet River and Jax’s friends. Tomorrow she would smile and see if Lawyer Larry was at least a lust match.
She put her purse over her shoulder and opened the door to leave. She stepped out into the hall and realized how quiet it was. It wasn’t like she didn’t leave after everyone else did on a regular basis. She was usually the last one left with the singular exception of the janitorial staff and Chuck, who ran night security. But there was always ambient noise. There was the hum of printers left running or the heater. Not tonight. An eerie silence filled the space, as if sound could have weight.
Becca stopped, listening for something, anything that might tell her someone else was in the building because in that moment she realized she was being watched. She could feel it, knew it as surely as a rabbit knew a wolf was around, its eyes searching for prey.
But she didn’t hear a sound. No one moved or even breathed. There was absolutely nothing that let her know that instinct deep inside her was telling the truth. She glanced around and not a damn thing moved in the wide bank of cubicles that dotted the floor.
Of course those cubicles could also hide a person.
What the hell was she doing?
It was ridiculous. She shouldn’t have watched that stupid horror movie with her stepmom the last time she’d come into town. Melissa loved them. They gave Becca bad dreams and apparently made her paranoid that there was a serial killer in her office.
Her shoes clicked on the marbled floors, echoing through the space.
That was the moment when the lights went out.
She stopped, the place going dark, and then she could hear someone breathing. It came from her left, low and rattling through the room. Someone coughed and she took off, her heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through her veins like wildfire.
She raced for the bank of elevators, the light above the doors the only illumination in the building. She wouldn’t be able to get in the elevators, but it was the only light to be found so she ran for it.
She could feel it; something was there behind her. Something was chasing her and if it caught her…
The elevator doors opened and a flashlight beamed in the darkness.
She stopped, her feet planted to the floor, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe.
“Dr. Walsh?” a familiar voice rang out. “We’re having some problems with the lights on this floor. Are you all right?”
Chuck. Her hands shook as the lights came back on and the world went from terrifying to normal in the space of a heartbeat.
Chuck clicked off his flashlight and concern showed on his face. “Dr. Walsh?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m okay. I just got a little scared. Is anyone still here?”
He slid the flashlight back into the belt around his waist. “There are a couple of researchers working in the cancer center. And Frank from human resources is sleeping in his office again. I know I shouldn’t let him do that but he’s been having…”
She was being paranoid. She shook her head. “If I was Frank’s wife, I would have kicked him out, too.” He was a jackass, but he wouldn’t scare her like this. “The lights went out and I could have sworn I heard someone coughing.”
A sound rattled through the room and she nearly jumped.
Chuck sighed. “It’s the heater. You don’t notice it when everyone is here and talking. We need to have it fixed. I’m sorry, Dr. Walsh. Come on and I’ll escort you down. I promise I’ll talk to maintenance the first thing Monday morning.”
She nodded and didn
’t argue with him. She did notice the heater. That hadn’t been the sound that frightened her, but she was being silly. She started following him toward the elevator. She glanced back and could have sworn she saw a shadow move in the rear of the building.
But it was nothing more than her eyes playing tricks on her. She could describe easily how the brain filled in spaces, how memory could make the mind twist and turn and see things that weren’t actually there.
She went through it in her head as she forced herself not to give into fear, not to look back to make sure that thing she’d felt before wasn’t still there. Wasn’t waiting for the lights to go out again.
She banished the fear and promised herself she wouldn’t let it affect her.
Chapter Eight
Owen glanced up at the clock and realized she was late. Fifteen minutes late. The party had started at six thirty, with Jax mixing cocktails while his pretty wife laid out her appetizers.
Damn him, but he’d forgotten River was a vegetarian. There was cheese but no meat, and a shocking amount of green stuff.
He was hungry and it wasn’t all about food. Since the day with Rebecca, Owen Shaw had realized how empty his life had been, and he suddenly wanted to fill it.
Fill it with her.
That woman had done something to him, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was happy about that.
“She’ll be here,” Robert said before popping a marinated olive in his mouth.
Owen shrugged. “Or she won’t. Maybe you were all right and I fucked this up.”
He’d been thinking about it every second since she’d blown him off. He’d been careful when they’d crossed paths, merely giving her a smile and a breezy hello.
“God, don’t get broody,” Robert groaned. “I need one of the Euros to have a sunny disposition. Sasha threw a plunger at me earlier today, and I swear he was trying to impale me. I often wish McDonald had more carefully screened her experiments for personality.”
Owen stared at him. A shiver went through him. He dreamed about it at night, about that moment he couldn’t remember, the one that had changed him utterly. In those nightmares, he saw the needle coming his way and looked up so he could see the face of the doctor who would take everything away from him.
He’d talked to Ariel about the dreams. What he’d never told her was that every time he looked up to take in Dr. McDonald’s face before she erased him, he’d seen his own staring back.
The person in his nightmares was always, always himself.
“I don’t understand how you joke about it,” he said quietly. “I know I laugh and play along, but inside I’m not. Inside I think maybe I’m more broken than the rest of you.”
Why the fuck had that popped out? He hadn’t even had more than two sips of the whiskey and soda Jax had placed in his hand.
Maybe that was the problem. He wasn’t drinking enough. He wasn’t following his usual pattern, and it was fucking with him hard.
He was about to chuckle and pretend he was joking when Robert put a hand on his shoulder.
“No, brother, it’s only that I’ve been broken longer than you,” he said solemnly. “I’ve been broken for years, and you’ll find that if you let it, some of those broken pieces will heal. They won’t be the same, but you’ll find ways to cope that aren’t about trying to obliterate yourself. Ezra talked to me this afternoon. He’s optimistic that this is going to work better than our original plan.”
“I don’t know about that,” he admitted, storing Robert’s words for later examination. Was he trying to obliterate himself? Was that why he got drunk and thought about starting fights he knew he couldn’t win? He’d been in a bar brawl in Colorado and a fierce joy had lit through him when he’d realized how serious the man he’d fought had been about trying to kill him. It had occurred to him that this might be an excellent way to go out.
Not fade away. Never fade. He should go out in a blaze of glory.
“Stop it with the doubt, man,” Robert said. “There’s no place for it. When Dr. Walsh gets here, you need to charm her. This is all about forgetting everything but the mission.”
A gentle chime went through the apartment and he was shocked at how his whole body seemed to go on alert.
River winked his way as she headed for the door, Buster hard on her heels.
Jax had found something special in Colorado. He’d found a family, was building a home, and it had nothing at all to do with some house. Jax’s home wasn’t found in four walls and carpet. It was there in River. In the way she smiled at him, in how she believed so much in him she’d walked away from everything she’d known.
The life that had been Jax’s nightmare was now an adventure.
“Hi, I’m sorry I’m late,” Becca was saying as River let her in. She was wearing a white shirt and a black skirt that was somehow professional and righteously sexy. A sweet-looking black and white cardigan completed her uniform. Pink gloss made her lips shiny, and she’d let her hair down. It hung around her face in thick tendrils that made him want to sink his hands into it and force her to look up at him.
He hadn’t topped her, and he craved that in a way he never had before. He’d trained at The Garden because it had taken up the lonely hours. He’d enjoyed the D/s sex he’d had, but he hadn’t understood the need to be in control until tonight.
“You’re not late,” River said, accepting the bottle of wine with a gracious smile. “Jax’s boss isn’t even here yet. I barely put out the appetizers. You’ve met Owen, but I’m not sure if you know his friend, Robert.”
He watched as Becca’s shoulders went stiff and straight and she turned slowly. Her eyes were wide when she took him in. She had not been expecting him. And then he saw the moment she decided to brazen her way through. Her lips curled up in a smile and she reached out a hand to him.
“Hello, elevator friend. I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said and there was a hint of something in her eyes.
Something that told him this wasn’t a pleasant surprise.
But there was something deeper, something almost afraid. Maybe more than almost.
Fuck. He could play the game. He would enjoy the seduction game with her, but if she was scared, he couldn’t overcome that. He had no idea why she would be afraid, but he’d talked to enough women to know she might have her reasons.
He briefly took her hand and attempted to make his expression as gentle as possible. “It’s good to see you as well, Dr. Walsh.”
Her eyes flared briefly as though she hadn’t expected him to use her title. “You can call me Rebecca. Or Becca.”
He took a step back, not wanting to crowd her or make her feel like he was in her space. He had no idea what he’d done to scare her. She hadn’t seemed scared of him when they’d passed in the hall, but she’d obviously changed her mind, and he wasn’t going to push himself on any woman. Not even for a mission.
There was pursuing a woman who wanted to be chased, and then there was stalking a woman to make her feel small, to let her know she was nothing but prey. He wasn’t ever going to do the latter.
But standing in front of her made him ache. He nodded her way. “All right then, Rebecca. I’m going to refill my glass. It’s good to see you again.”
He turned and walked back toward the kitchen, well aware that Robert was staring at him like he was insane.
He could hear Robert telling her hello as well and then River was there, smoothing things over and telling Becca about the menu for the evening.
“Hey, have you decided to play this low and slow or something?” Robert whispered the question as he entered the kitchen.
There was a swinging door between the galley-like kitchen and the living room, but there was also a large open space over the sink. He was sure it had been designed so whoever was left with cooking duties could still be a part of the activities in the living room, but it was also useful for spying.
Jax’s head came up from where he was cutting limes. “Low and slow? Like a brisket?”<
br />
“Like a man who just totally blew off a woman,” Robert replied with a frown on his face. “I thought you were going after her. I’m not sure both of you playing hard to get is going to work.”
One of Jax’s big shoulders shrugged. “Robert should know.”
Robert’s eyes rolled. “This isn’t about me. This is about the op, and Dr. Walsh is the op.”
“I think we might have to go a different route.” He poured himself more whiskey. It might be time to go back to what worked for him. He’d never once scared away the whiskey. “She was afraid of me.”
That seemed to flummox his friends.
“You’re reading her wrong. I think she was surprised to see you.” Robert grabbed a glass of his own. “Jax didn’t tell her you would be here tonight. I told you sometimes women get skittish after sex. You have to go out there and be charming.”
“No, she was afraid. Something scared her. That wasn’t embarrassment.” She hadn’t been embarrassed at all when she’d walked away from him that night they’d been stuck in the lift. She certainly hadn’t been the morning after. That morning she’d been in control. This evening there was something tentative about her.
“Why would she be afraid?” Jax asked.
“It could be anything.” Robert stared out into the living room as though considering the problem. “Something her ex-husband did. There might be some trauma there. Ariel didn’t mention that there had been violence in the relationship, but she can’t tell everything from her files.”
“Becca filed an HR report against one of the other doctors at the hospital where she did her residency.” He’d spent the day going over and over her file, everything they knew about her. He’d even tried to read one of her papers, something on how plaque affected memory, but he had no idea what half the words had meant.
She was smart and dynamic, and she’d had a few bumps along the way. The HR claim, the divorce. Tucker had mentioned there was gossip about Becca and Paul Huisman at work. Some people said she was sleeping with him. Others said they hated each other because she’d taken his job.