by Lexi Blake
She wasn’t going to think about that man…that monster again. He had no power over her. “I’m fine. I had too much coffee, that’s all. I’m going to get ready for the meeting. And thanks for trying to look up that paperwork.”
She stayed there while Cathy went to work. Becca sat there trying to convince herself that the past was in the past.
After all, she’d just found her future.
* * * *
“What do you mean the money leads back to Becca?” Owen felt his whole body go tight as Phoebe’s words sank in.
“I mean the money was moved from her research accounts to her charitable foundation. It was run through a Swiss account, but the numbers match up,” Phoebe replied over the connection through the computer. She was sitting in her beautifully decorated office in the middle of downtown Dallas. Phoebe Murdoch was a lovely woman with dark hair and intelligent eyes. She was wearing glasses and looked far more like the accountant she’d claimed to be for years than the CIA operative her accounting job covered for. She had a degree in accounting and had worked many jobs untangling financial data for both the Agency and then McKay-Taggart.
She reminded him a bit of his Becca, but he did not like what she was saying.
It wasn’t true.
“You haven’t had a long time with that data,” Robert pointed out.
The gang was all here. All except Tucker and Sasha, who were working at Huisman, and Nina, who had a shift at the café.
“She’s had days with it.” Ezra sighed and sat back. They were at Ezra and Tucker’s place across town. It was a nice-sized apartment with a view of the CN Tower. Tucker was right. Ezra was definitely a minimalist. There was no furniture in the living room, merely this long table and a bunch of folding chairs. It was his version of a conference room on the run, Owen suspected. There were two large white boards on wheels. One tracked where the central players were and everything they knew about Hope McDonald’s operation. The other had information on Rebecca Walsh.
He hated that board, hated the fact that she’d been pared down to nothing but facts and theories about how involved she’d been in McDonald’s research.
He could answer that. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Phoebe leaned toward the camera. “Owen’s right. I’ve only had a couple of days with this but I wanted to let you know the preliminary results. According to what I’ve found, that money moved from one of her accounts to a single Swiss account, and then to her charity in the form of donations. They were done as wire transfers, so I can’t compare signatures, and obviously the Swiss do not share information on their account holders. Adam might be able to figure it out, but we try to keep the boss out of jail for hacking.”
Jax might be able to do it, and it wasn’t like he wasn’t already wanted for even worse crimes. But the truth was he didn’t need to see someone else’s name on the account to know that it wasn’t hers.
“She didn’t do it,” he insisted. “If she did it, why would she have asked me to come to you? She gave me the data. She gave me permission to give it to you.”
“I don’t know,” Phoebe replied. “Maybe she’s being set up. Does she have enemies?”
He held on to that thread. “Of course she does. The same one we have. Levi. This is his plan. He’s going to go to her and offer to not turn her in if she hands over that damn box McDonald sent to her.”
“It sounds like something Levi would do,” Ezra agreed. “It’s straight out of his playbook. He knows how to gain leverage and then use it to his own ends.”
Phoebe was shaking her head. “These go back almost a year. I thought you said Levi didn’t find out about the package until a couple of months ago. Whoever is doing this has been planning it for far longer than a few months.”
Dante leaned forward. “Could Mr. Green have known about the doctor for longer? Solo got us the intelligence, right? Could she have lied?”
He didn’t want to believe that of her, but he certainly didn’t believe Becca was a thief. “We have to consider it.”
Robert gave him a “what the hell” look. “I don’t think Solo would lie about this. She doesn’t have a reason to.”
“She’s always got a reason,” Ezra said, his bitterness soaking through his tone. “However, I still have some sources at the Agency I trust and they confirmed what Solo told us. Levi didn’t know there was anything but a professional connection between Walsh and McDonald until a few weeks before the Colorado op. Not even that fucker can backdate bank transfers. Not in that way.”
“I’ll keep looking into this,” Phoebe promised. “It doesn’t make sense that she would turn this over to a forensic accountant if she knew she was the one who’d done it. But I will tell you that her charity foundation was on shaky ground before this influx of cash. I’m not sure how she wouldn’t know about the money and question it.”
“You said they were donations.” He wasn’t about to explain that Becca’s attention was on her research and she struggled to divide her focus. She wasn’t a multitasker. She gave everything she did one hundred percent of her attention. From what she’d told him, she was close to making her breakthrough. She wouldn’t question the donations. “Were they done anonymously?”
“Of course,” Phoebe replied. “Another thing that should have made her suspect something was going on. Large anonymous donations should have tipped her off.”
She didn’t think that way. “Rebecca is naïve about a lot of things. She’s also an optimist.”
“She’s let you believe that,” Ezra pointed out. “Owen, you’ve known the woman for a week, but you’re acting like she’s utterly incapable of doing anything wrong.”
He was on thin ice. He could practically feel it under his feet. One wrong move and they would pull him. He couldn’t let that happen. “I was giving you my opinion. I might not have known her long, but the time we’ve spent together has been intense.”
“The time you’ve spent together has mostly been in bed,” Dante pointed out.
“What Owen is saying is he’s the only one who knows her on any kind of an intimate level,” Ariel said. “I only know her from what I’ve read and the brief period of time I got to spend with her before Owen dragged her off.”
“She was the one who dragged me,” he corrected. She’d known what she wanted and she’d gone for it. That was Becca Walsh.
Ariel sent him a wry smile. “Nevertheless, I didn’t get to spend the time I’d hoped to with her. Still, I think I would tend to agree with Owen on this. She’s too smart to give herself away like that. I think her morality is like many highly intelligent people. I’m not saying she isn’t a good person. She absolutely is. She gives a lot of herself to her work, and her work is good. She believes in her work. She believes in it to the point that she could have some situational ethics concerning it.”
Ariel was right. She only knew Becca on paper. “No, she’s not that woman.”
“Owen, we know she worked with McDonald,” Dante said. “That’s a fact. From the report Solo sent Big Tag, she spent time with McDonald in Europe. A whole summer working with her.”
“She was working at Kronberg Pharmaceutical. McDonald just happened to be there, too,” he pointed out.
Ezra leaned toward the laptop. “Phoebe, I would love for you to delve deeper into this. If someone is setting up Dr. Walsh, I’d like to know who and why. And if you can come up with any way this helps out Walsh, I’d like to know that as well. I’ll let you get back to work.”
Phoebe nodded. “Of course.”
Owen understood the underlying message. Ezra wanted whatever he said next to stay in the family, so to speak. Phoebe was connected to them, but she wasn’t a part of the immediate team.
When the screen cleared, Ezra looked to him. “Did you read the same report I did?”
“Of course he did.” Robert was always stepping in front of anyone who fucked up. The big brother of them all.
He couldn’t hide behind Robert this time. “I did read it. I understand
that she likely had some kind of a working relationship with the woman, but Becca Walsh wouldn’t have supported McDonald’s research. She didn’t even stay the entire summer. She walked out in late July and gave up her grant.”
“Which means she might have gotten a hint of what McDonald was working on and left,” Robert agreed.
Dante shook his dark head. “Then why on earth would McDonald have sent her that box?”
He was sick of hearing about that bloody box. “We don’t know what’s in it. It could be shite Becca left behind for all we know.”
“Levi Green doesn’t think so,” Ezra pointed out. “He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t think whatever is in that box is important. The only thing McDonald did that was important was her research and the formulary for the drugs and protocols for the therapies she used on you and the others.”
“You’re wasting your breath. He won’t believe you,” Dante said nonchalantly, as though he didn’t particularly care about the outcome of this fight. “He’s too far gone. He thinks he loves the girl.”
“I like the woman,” Owen corrected. “I like her a lot and I’ve gotten to know her.”
Dante leaned in, his dark eyes pinning Owen. “Like she’s gotten to know you? You’ve gotten to know the real her? Have you considered for one moment that she could be playing you the same way you’re playing her?”
Robert held out a hand, trying to stop Dante from pushing this confrontation further. “Give him a break. He didn’t go through what the rest of us did. He doesn’t think everyone is out to get him.”
“How does he explain that the CCTV of the night she claims she was being stalked has been erased?” Dante asked. “Something happened that night and she’s covering it up.”
He knew what they’d found, or rather hadn’t been able to find. “Then why mention it to me?”
“You are naïve then,” Dante said with a shake of his head. “Or you’re thinking of finding a way out. This could be a way to leave this shitty life of ours. And if she was a wealthy doctor who happens to have something the very man who could ensure no one comes after you wants, then that would obviously work.”
“What exactly are you accusing me of?” Because there was no way to mistake that for anything but an accusation.
“Hey, calm down,” Ezra said.
Robert looked like he was ready to get in between them if he needed to. “No one is accusing anyone of anything.”
“Oh, I disagree,” Owen said, watching Dante. “I think he’s got very specific thoughts about what I’m doing. Say it out loud, mate.”
Dante shrugged and sat back. “I’m merely pointing out the obvious. You aren’t one of us. You got stuck with us. You don’t have the same problems we have and you have a history of betrayal. A man like you would take the first chance he can find to get out.”
“That’s not my assessment of Owen at all,” Ariel said, her voice going cold for once. “And you should understand I knew the man before he lost his memory. I worked with him. He was a good man who made one mistake, and he made it out of love for his mother and sister.”
Dante’s eyes took her in. “You think the rest of us don’t know there’s a traitor among us? Ezra thinks he’s so quiet when he speaks, but I hear him. I hear him talking to Damon and Taggart. Some of the things that happened in Colorado… Levi Green knew exactly where to be, and that means someone told him. One of us. We were the only ones who knew.”
Robert had moved closer to Ariel, as though he thought Dante might attack her.
It wasn’t Dante Robert should worry about. Anger rolled through Owen. Anger and guilt made a toxic cocktail in his gut. They’d been talking about him? He knew there had been questions about what had gone wrong with the Colorado op. Levi had seemed to know where they were at all times. They’d been careful about covering their tracks, but somehow Levi had shown up or sent his men in to show up at precisely the right times and in the right places.
They thought it was him. Of course they did.
“We weren’t the only ones who knew,” Ezra corrected. “Levi had a plant and so did the Agency.”
But Solo hadn’t known all their plans. She hadn’t been there every second of the day.
“Solo knew Jax was going into those woods,” Ezra continued.
“She didn’t know exactly where he was going,” Dante pointed out.
“Neither did Owen,” Robert said tightly.
“Ah, but he was there at the end. He made sure he was.” Dante sat back as though enjoying himself. “If I remember correctly, he was also the one who helped Jax put together his pack. It would have been easy to slip in a tracking device. He then could have retrieved it at the end.”
“I helped Jax, too.” Robert’s whole body had gone stiff and Ariel stood up behind him, her hand going to his shoulder. “You want to accuse me?”
“Ah, but you were far away at the end,” Dante crooned. “You weren’t in the two places where it would have been easy to cover your tracks. Owen was.”
“Owen is the only one of us who can fly a fucking helo.” Ezra’s voice had gone low.
It didn’t matter. He could point out the logic all day long, but the truth was he had betrayed them all and they would never forgive him.
“Yes, he’s excellent at using his resources.” Dante wasn’t giving up. “Now he’s going to use the good doctor to save himself. Rebecca Walsh was in on it. That’s why she’s hidden the box. We’ve looked for it everywhere. In her home and her office. She’s protected it because she’s going to use it. She’s not some innocent. She’s a bitch like her mentor, and Owen is going to ride her all the way home.”
He wasn’t sure what happened next. He saw red, a violent mist that shut out everything else. He went over to the table and had his hands around Dante’s throat in a heartbeat. It felt good. His throat was warm and muscular, but Owen had righteous anger on his side. He slammed Dante to the floor and held the man down as he started to choke the life out of him.
Yes, he was seeing red at the moment, but he wanted to see blue. He wanted that fucker’s face to turn blue.
Someone was yelling, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Dante’s mouth couldn’t spout shite about Becca again. He didn’t care what anyone said about him. He’d earned their scorn, their mistrust, but she hadn’t.
“Owen! Stop it,” Robert was saying.
“Owen, I need you to calm down.” Ariel knelt down beside him. Her voice was soothing. “You don’t want to kill Dante. Not really. I know who you are, Owen Shaw.”
No one knew who he was. He didn’t fucking know. He wanted to be the man Becca thought he was, the one she could count on.
Dante’s eyes had started to bulge and the fight he’d shown was slowing down, but Ezra had an arm around Owen’s neck. He managed to snap his head back, making hard contact with his boss’s chin and causing him to curse and let go. Pain flared but Owen didn’t let up.
“Owen, please,” Ariel implored. “If you do this, you can’t go back to her. If you do this, Ezra has to turn you over. Becca will be alone. She won’t have you to protect her.”
Those words seeped into his brain. They worked some kind of magic on his hands as he fell back, letting Dante go.
Dante coughed, but was on his feet in a heartbeat, trying to come after him.
Robert caught the other man. “No fucking way. You are going home. Now. I’ll have Tucker stop by your place to check on you.”
Dante looked savage as he stepped back. “Don’t bother. I can take care of myself. It’s obvious whose side you’re on, Robert.”
Ezra sighed as he got to his feet. “There are no sides, but it’s obvious we need to have some serious talks. Come on. I’ll take you back to your place. And Owen, you can’t tell Rebecca Walsh what we found out today. I want a couple of days for Phoebe to figure out what’s happening before you tell Walsh what we know. And that’s an order. I expect you to follow it.”
He shot Robert a look that plainly t
old him to take care of it from this end.
Owen didn’t know that he wanted to be taken care of, but Ariel had been right about one thing.
Becca needed him. He might have to protect her from his own team.
Except they weren’t his team.
“Owen, do you want to talk about it?” Ariel got to the floor, sitting down beside him.
“Man, you have to know we don’t think that of you,” Robert said.
Did he? Hell, if he was in their position, he might think it, too.
He forced himself to get up. “No, I’m fine. I’m going home. I have to take a shower. I have to pick up Becca soon.”
He walked away without looking back.
Chapter Thirteen
Something was wrong with Owen, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. He’d been perfectly sweet. He’d been waiting for her at the time they’d agreed on. He’d taken her to dinner and asked about her day, listening patiently as she likely went way too much into how plaque was formed in the brain. Way too much.
It had been an exciting day and it had taken her too long to figure out that his smile didn’t come close to reaching his eyes.
Now they were ensconced in her apartment and she wondered how to tell him she planned on going to the meeting Friday afternoon. She was wondering if she should tell him at all since there was something in his eyes that told her he’d had a rough day.
Maybe it was time to play the submissive. Wasn’t it her job to soothe him? He protected her. She soothed and calmed him. That was the exchange they’d agreed on, and he’d definitely done his job. She wasn’t sure she’d been doing hers. She’d been far too into the sex and pleasure and affection to remember he needed things too.
He locked the door behind him. “I think I might head to my place for the night, love. I’ve got a headache and I worry I’ll keep you awake.”
Yes, something had definitely gone wrong with his day. “Or you could sit down and let me take care of you. After all, I am a doctor. Can you describe it to me? The headache, that is?”