Watch Over Me

by Lucy Monroe

What he observed now was a team lead security guard who had not been on duty when Casey had arrived that morning. He knew for sure she hadn’t been on duty because he’d stopped at the security desk to ask if they knew where in the building Nisha was. As the expert on exotic materials, she was in other scientists’ labs more often than her own office.

  The team lead, denoted by a different uniform shirt, had been a man. Casey had thought it odd because Ramirez was always on duty as the team lead on the day shift. He’d made a mental note to ask Lana if she knew what was going on, but then his curiosity had flown the way of cuckoos when Nisha had agreed to go out with him.

  Ramirez was currently accompanied by two guards Casey had never met. He knew all the staff at ETRD by name, or tried to. It kept his observation skills sharp and, he hoped, improved his interpersonal relationship skills. He’d never seen these two.

  Add the previous anomalies to the newly discovered fact that someone wanted Lana’s enzymes for spurious purposes and he had a situation that didn’t imply efficacious results.

  Ramirez glared at him. “Is she around?”

  “No.” Technically that wasn’t a lie. Lana wasn’t around that growing room. “Is it something I can help you with?”

  “No. Where is she?”

  Now, that was another interesting anomaly. Everyone at ETRD knew that talking to Casey was as good as talking to Lana and vice versa. Unless it was a management decision that was needed and even then, most of the scientists would run stuff by Casey if Lana was busy.

  “She’s having coffee somewhere with the new security chief. He’s jonesing for her.” So, that was a half blatant lie, but he could always apologize later if it had been an unnecessary one.

  Ramirez’s eyes narrowed and she looked around the room as if expecting Lana to suddenly appear. Casey could feel the sweat break out on his palms. If the guards checked the other growing rooms, they’d find his boss and he’d be busted. But not before he had a chance to alert security.

  If he pressed the panic button again and it turned out to be another false alarm, he’d feel like an idiot. But he wouldn’t let that deter him. Somebody wanted Lana’s enzymes and Casey had a bad feeling about the usually surly security guard and her companions.

  “How long will she be?” Ramirez asked.

  “I don’t know. An hour, more maybe. I think she likes Myk.”

  “No doubt. You pushed the panic button when you found them kissing yesterday, didn’t you?”

  He felt his face heat. “Yes.”

  “We don’t have an hour,” one of the guards said. Casey was rapidly drawing the conclusion the security guards were fake.

  Ramirez glared the man into silence and then locked gazes with Casey. “Where are the enzymes kept?”

  “You mean the ones for the Oryza sativa and Phaseolus vulgaris?”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “The enzymes Dr. Ericson is working on right now,” one of the bogus guards added helpfully.

  This was definitely not looking good. “Why do you want to know, Ms. Ramirez?”

  She pulled a gun from behind her and pointed it at him. “Because I want them.”

  He saw guns on TV all the time, but looking down the barrel of one was nothing like that. It scared the hell out of him. The weapon in Ramirez’s hand looked black, cold, and deadly. The expression in her eyes wasn’t much better.

  “We have some in the refrigerated storage in the lab.” If he cooperated, maybe they would leave. Without Lana.

  “Lead the way.”

  He left the growth room, praying all the time that Lana wouldn’t choose right then to come out of the other one. His boss was a really great woman. She’d given him a chance when a lot of lead scientists had ignored his credentials because of his youth.

  And she’d become a good friend since then. She didn’t think he knew, but she’d been hurt before for her science. He wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, but she’d said a few things that could only be interpreted in one direction.

  He wasn’t going to let her be hurt again. Not if he could help it.

  He tried to sidle close to the panic button on his way to the cold storage, but Ramirez told one of the other guys to keep him away from it. The guy did it with a shove to Casey’s back that sent him stumbling forward right into a lab bench.

  He righted himself and glared at the guard, but didn’t antagonize them with words.

  He scanned his thumbprint to open the refrigeration unit. The lock clicked and the door’s seal released with a long hiss. He pulled it open. He grabbed the samples they wanted, knowing the enzymes wouldn’t do them any good. Not unless they wanted more rice or beans for dinner.

  “Okay, here you go.”

  “Take it,” Ramirez told one of the fake guards.

  “What about him?” the guy asked with his chin pointed toward Casey.

  Ramirez didn’t answer, but gave the guard closest to Casey a look.

  Casey felt a sharp blow on the back of his head and then the world around him went dark.

  Chapter 15

  Lana came out of the growing room and took off her gas mask. Casey wasn’t in the lab and that surprised her. Measuring growth on the Lathyrus odoratus usually went faster.

  She was cataloguing her own data when Mykola came into the lab closely followed by a man she’d never seen. He had dark hair and looked like he should be wearing army fatigues, not a suit.

  Mykola’s expression was as grim as she’d yet seen it.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “The security guard that was fired, Ramirez, she has a distant family tie to Anibal Vega.”

  “So? We’re all related to each other if you go back far enough.”

  “So, if she was feeding Vega information, he knows about most of Elle’s security measures.”

  “Because the security staff was kept in the loop.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But you can’t be sure she has anything to do with Vega. Having family ties wouldn’t necessarily mean she’d ever met any of her Vega relatives. I’ve got distant cousins I wouldn’t know from a rock star if they crossed the street in front of me.”

  “Cartels rely heavily on family connections, and Ramirez didn’t strike me as supremely loyal to ETRD.”

  “Being surly does not equate to approving a conscienceless megalomaniac’s business practices.” They should get Casey in here. He was better at human scenario prediction than she was. “Wouldn’t she have made a bigger effort to ingratiate herself into her job if she was spying on ETRD for the cartel?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not taking any chances that she leaked information to the cartel. We’re upping security until we know how much of it has been compromised. You and Casey are going to have bodyguards twenty-four/seven. And not members of ETRD’s current staff. Speaking of, where’s Casey?”

  “In the Lathyrus odoratus growing room.”

  “The one that doesn’t stink?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to bring him out here so we can debrief him on protocol from here on out?” Mykola asked the stranger he’d brought with him into the lab.

  “Sure thing.”

  “So, is he Casey’s bodyguard, or mine?” Lana asked.

  “Casey’s,” Mykola bit out. “I’m your bodyguard.”

  Man, was he snarly. “But you’re lead on the case.”

  “And you are the primary target. Don’t worry, I’ve got a backup for the times I need to be somewhere you aren’t.”

  “I wasn’t worried. I just…this isn’t how you usually run a case, is it?”

  “You’d know so much about that?”

  “Practically nothing.” She gave him a wry frown. “But I can guess.”

  “Your guesses are smart ones, doc. I’m taking lead on your personal detail because no way in hell am I letting another man spend the night in your apartment.”

  “Oh.” That was good. She really didn’t want a stranger living with her. She wan
ted Mykola.

  But that was a whole other issue entirely.

  The bodyguard came out. He had a clipboard, an employee ID badge, and a cell phone in his hand, but no Casey. “The only things I found in that room besides plants are these.”

  Lana shook her head. “No. That can’t be. Casey wouldn’t leave his badge behind. He can’t get into secured areas of the building without it, including our lab.”

  “Could he be in one of the other growing rooms?” Mykola asked.

  Lana was shaking her head even as she headed for the growing room not being used at the moment. They were prepping it for a new cycle with the enzymes, but there was no reason for Casey to be in the room right now. Still, where else could he be?

  But when she went inside it was empty, as she had expected it to be.

  When she came out, Mykola was on the phone and he didn’t look pleased. “Get your happy ass in here right now,” he growled into the phone.

  “Mykola, what’s going on? Where’s Casey?” Lana asked.

  Maybe he was with Nisha. She should have thought of that possibility first off, though Casey leaving his phone and ID badge behind in the growing room made no sense to her. But he was a young man in love. They did crazy things, according to songwriters and poets.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Try Nisha.”

  Mykola nodded, immediately picking up the phone and asking security to patch him through to the other scientist.

  When she could tell from Mykola’s side of the conversation that Nisha had not seen Casey since first thing that morning, something inside Lana went icy. She was jumping to ridiculous conclusions. She had to be. There was no reason to believe Casey hadn’t just decided to go get coffee, or something.

  He’d left his badge and cell phone behind because he was still floating on the cloud of Nisha’s acceptance of their date. And he was just being spacey. It happened sometimes. He’d left his cell phone behind more than once.

  It used to really upset Lana. The ETRD-furnished phones had GPS locators in them. She felt safer for him when Casey had his on his person.

  “Mykola?” she asked in a voice she knew pleaded with him to tell her that her assistant was okay.

  She hated that. She didn’t want to think the worst. She didn’t want to live afraid. Not for herself and not for Casey.

  “The guard we had posted outside your lab said no one entered or left while he was on duty.” Mykola’s grim expression had darkened by several degrees. “He just amended that to three security guards coming inside and leaving about ten minutes later.”

  “I didn’t see any security guards,” Lana said, her brain screaming at her to do something while her heart froze in her chest. “I was in the enzyme growing room.”

  “The security officer said Casey didn’t leave with the other guards, but he isn’t here,” Mykola growled.

  “He’s left his cell phone lots of times, but he wears his ID badge on a neck lanyard. There is no reason for him to have taken it off,” she said through numb lips, fear leaving its foul taste in her mouth.

  The ETRD security guard arrived, out of breath and looking very, very nervous.

  She didn’t recognize him, but unlike Casey, who seemed to know everyone, she rarely registered the faces of the people around her.

  Mykola towered over the hapless guard. “You said no one came into this lab.”

  “I thought you meant people besides security personnel.”

  “Did I make that distinction?”

  The guard looked around with a desperate expression, but no help was forthcoming. “No.”

  “So, three guards came in?” Mykola asked in a deadly quiet voice.

  “Yes.” The guard nodded, as if his affirmative would not be enough to convince Mykola.

  “Who?”

  “Uh…” The trapped expression that came over the guard’s features did not bode well.

  Lana’s nails dug painfully into her palms.

  “I don’t think you’re going to like the answer.”

  Lana wanted to scream at the man to just tell them.

  Mykola simply glared. All silent, scary intimidation.

  “It was, uh, Ramirez and two guards I didn’t recognize.”

  “Ramirez, who no longer works here?” Mykola asked through gritted teeth.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “You let a guard who no longer works for ETRD and two strangers into Dr. Ericson’s lab. And you didn’t call me?”

  “I didn’t know that, at the time. I mean about Ramirez. I just started working here a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know all the officers on the other shifts.”

  “But you recognized Ramirez?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are now aware she was fired yesterday.”

  “I wasn’t. Not until I got up to the station and read today’s updates.”

  “You hadn’t read the updates when you came down to stand guard outside Dr. Ericson’s lab?” Mykola asked dangerously.

  “I was uh, I’m uh, well, see, I’m buying a house and I had to talk to the loan officer this morning first thing. I could have lost the lock on my loan, sir.”

  “When you discovered your error, why didn’t you call me?” Mykola asked.

  The guard looked away. “I didn’t want to admit I’d messed up like that. I’m new on the job and Ms. Gray raised the bar on standards for our behavior. I love this job and I was really looking forward to the training we’re all going to take.”

  “You’re going to have a hard time paying that mortgage you are so eager to get without a job, aren’t you?”

  The security guard looked sick.

  Mykola glared. “When the three guards left, you are absolutely sure it was the same three people?”

  “Yes, sir. Definitely. The only difference was they were pushing a transport cart.”

  “And you didn’t find this odd?”

  “Uh, well, all the guards know that we’re more grunt labor than anything. I mean we get asked to move stuff around the facility all the time. We’re expected to be like James Bond or something, but we’re treated like janitorial staff. Ramirez was saying so all the time.”

  “It never occurred to you that you were being asked to move highly sensitive research from one place to the next because far from being grunts, your company sees you as highly trained assets capable of ensuring the security of their projects?” the bodyguard asked.

  Mykola snorted. “Highly trained, my ass.” He took hold of the security guard’s shirtfront. “Or are you? Are you as idiotic as you appear, or part of the conspiracy to take Dr. Ericson’s assistant from the building?”

  The guard blanched, but cold certainty settled inside Lana and she ignored the rest of what he had to say. She turned to her computer and pulled up a program she had hoped she would never have to use.

  Mykola was saying something about getting footage from the security cameras when the GPS map filled Lana’s screen, soon followed by a blinking dot. A moving blinking dot. Her relief was so great, she had to grab the bench so her knees didn’t buckle.

  She turned to Mykola. “Get him out of here.” If the man was in on Casey’s kidnapping, for she was now sure that was what had happened, she didn’t want him learning of her backup plan to cover Casey’s absentmindedness about his cell phone. “You won’t let him go, though. Right? In case he is involved?”

  “No, I won’t let him go.” Mykola turned to the bodyguard. “Collins, secure this man in the storage annex next to Conference Room B. Don’t let anyone see you.”

  “You can’t do that. It’s against my constitutional rights.”

  Mykola grabbed the hapless ETRD security officer again, this time by his upper arms. “Listen closely, if Dr. Billings is hurt because of you, a violation of your rights is the last thing you’re going to have to worry about.”

  The bodyguard left with his charge.

  Lana swallowed tears that threatened to steal her ability to speak. “Don’t bother with the c
ameras,” she told Mykola.

  He turned to her, ignoring her computer screen, his whole attention on her face. “Listen, sweetheart, we are going to get him back. Don’t give up.”

  “I’m not, but I know where he is.”

  “How can you?”

  She indicated the computer screen behind her.

  “But he left both his badge and cell phone. How is he sending a signal?” He looked at her with respect tinged with concern. “You Lojacked your assistant just like you let Mr. Smith do to you?”

  “Yes. It’s in his watch. I gave it to him for Christmas last year. It’s got lots of gadgets. He loves it.”

  “Does he know?”

  “About the GPS locator?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” She defied him to criticize her. “I never invaded his privacy, but he was at risk just like I was. And he kept leaving his cell phone behind. Not that it wouldn’t be the first thing a kidnapper would throw away if he was taken. His badge only works in the building for location, but they left that anyway.”

  “They probably didn’t want anyone knowing when they took him.”

  She nodded, barely holding it together.

  Mykola rubbed her back. “We are going to find him.”

  “Yes. Before he gets hurt.”

  “Before he gets hurt,” Mykola promised, that mixture of pity and respect on his face.

  Then he grabbed his cell phone and dialed. “Brett, mobilize your people. We’ve got a GPS lock on Casey. He’s moving South on I-5. I want to be in a position to retrieve him when the kidnappers stop.”

  “Are you going to call the police?” Lana asked.

  “Kidnapping is a federal crime. If we call it in, the FBI gets involved.”

  “And that’s bad?” she asked.

  “It’s unknown. I trust Brett’s men. I know what kind of training they’ve had and what their priorities are.”

  He didn’t know those things about FBI agents. He was putting Casey’s retrieval and safety above everything, even his own case.

  “Okay. Go get him, Mykola. Before they hurt him because he can’t give them what they want.”

  “We will.”

  “You won’t leave him in custody so you can assess the situation?” That seemed to be what federal agents did, but she knew Mykola wasn’t acting like your typical agent.