by Grady, D. R.
He sent that message to the team, because it was cause for concern. Then, after he finished his survey of the area, entered Helena’s lab. She didn’t see him at first, because she was working at a huge hood in the furtherest corner of the room. But everyone else was in sight. Or mostly. One of the jerks worked in a glassed in area to the right and slightly down the hallway.
The hallway led to an office area crammed with desks. He kept his body language casual as he seated himself at Helena’s lab bench, but took in everything. The overall atmosphere in the lab upped his sense of impending doom.
There was something not quite right here.
Helena finished what she was doing and soon cleaned up the sterile hood. It was when she turned to walk away from the hood that he noted she didn’t seem surprised to see him.
She smiled, and it warmed him. He’d like to bask in that warmth all day, but he kept alert because the feeling of non-wellbeing increased.
As though he hadn’t a care in the world, he watched her stroll across the lab toward him. She stopped at various places to store the items she carried. When she reached him, he read in her eyes that she wanted to kiss him but refrained.
“Is it four o’clock already?”
“Nearly so.” He smiled at her.
Without appearing to do so, he detected menace from someone on the other side of the bench. He wasn’t obvious about it, but performed a thorough scan of that sector followed by the entire room.
Both women and one of the new men occupied that quadrant. The three idiots were on the other side, one of them still working in the glassed room off the hall. That left the other new man who was seated at the computer behind him. He hated sitting in the middle of a room like this, with someone behind him.
As soon as Helena approached, he backed up until his back was to the wall, the door to his left. Everyone was in clear view now. The new man at the computer was closest, although he could be on Helena in seconds.
“I have to record what I’ve done today.” Helena indicated a notebook on the bench.
He nodded. “Take your time.” He meant that literally. It was a prime opportunity to observe everyone.
He started with the man at the computer. He was the younger one, and seemed intent on the computer screen. The young man was busy writing something because his fingers flew across the keys and it wasn’t gibberish on the screen. To him it was, but the scientific words displaying across the glowing screen probably made sense to other scientists.
Still keeping the man in his periphery, he settled on the younger woman whose bench was right across from Helena. He pretended to keep watch on Helena, which wasn’t much of a pretense. But he also watched Anna Barstow.
Although he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, something about her bothered him. He tugged out his phone and pretending to check it, sent the SEALs a message about her. Without any sound or flash, he took several photos which he then sent.
Wishing he could also take a snapshot of the ominous atmosphere in this lab, he assimilated the information all around him. This was supposed to be a safer place for Helena, his mother, and Jorge than the palace. That’s why his team and Aleksi wanted them here until they finished securing the palace. Now he wasn’t so certain.
Helena leaned over her bench and wrote furiously. She rose a few times to retrieve pages from the printer nearby.
She snipped edges and taped the pages into her lab notebook, with the air of one who has done this multiple times. Then she made notes and wrote for a while. The older man and woman were also busy doing the exact same thing.
The younger woman… maybe that’s what bothered him. She wasn’t doing anything although on the surface she appeared busy. In the time he’d been here, she had flipped through her lab notebook, then another book. Written some things down on a notepad, rearranged some items on her bench, then wiped the bench down. Not once did her eyes stray to the clock on the wall across the lab.
The man who’d been working in the glassed-in room finished up there, because he wiped down the bench, then shut out the light and turned left to saunter down the hall. He disappeared into the office area. One of the other idiots soon followed him, carrying several pages and a lab notebook. The head jerk was seated at a bench behind Helena’s, not far from the computer. There were several books spread out around him and he worked steadily at whatever he was doing.
No one talked, and other than Barstow, everyone stayed busy. With one last piece of tape, Helena secured the final page then recorded some additional notes, dated the page, added her name and lab number then closed the book.
“I’m finished,” she announced. She rose to gather a few things, remove her lab coat, and then momentarily disappeared down the hallway to the office before she returned carrying her purse. The older woman followed her out of the office. Barstow remained seated. She watched the proceedings, but appeared not to.
His eyes narrowed, he continued his own surveillance. Again, nothing was outright wrong, but he didn’t like how she pretended to be busy while apparently keeping track of everyone.
Helena stopped in front of him and smiled again. His heart stalled before he took her hand and waited while she said goodnight.
Then he swept her out of the lab and took his first real breath since entering the space. They didn’t speak as he hurried her down the stairs and out of the hospital, across the parking lot, and into the car. After she hooked her seatbelt, he asked, “How do you stand being in that lab all day?”
“I know it’s only for a week.” Helena shrugged and he stared, because there was no other option.
“You’re beautiful.” Because he couldn’t help himself he leaned forward to capture her lips with his. She tasted as delicious as he remembered.
“Where did that come from?”
“What?”
“That comment.”
He stared into the face he intended to see for the rest of his life. “Because you are definitely the most beautiful woman on earth.”
“Thank you, but go look at Karis.”
After firing up the engine he headed out of the parking lot. “No, thank you.”
“She’s the most beautiful woman on earth.”
His lips curled up at the adamant tone in her voice. “She’s beautiful, yes. But you’re more so.”
Her lips curled up then. “You’re biased.”
“Maybe.” He knew what he knew and this woman was it for him. Ever since that momentous occasion when he looked at her and saw not Helena Dubrinsky, but Helena Dubrinsky. That day he had tasted fate and knew she was his.
Since she appeared a bit uncomfortable with the conversation, he changed the subject.
“What’s up with that woman, the one across the bench from you?”
Chapter 30
“Which woman?” Helena blinked at Vlad’s abrupt conversational change. “You mean Anna?”
“The woman who sits across from you.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“The entire time I was there, I watched her acting busy, but she didn’t do any work.”
Hmm, now that was an interesting observation. “I didn’t notice that about her.”
“What did you notice?”
“I just wonder if she is who she pretends to be.”
Vlad pulled over under a shade tree and turned fierce eyes on her. “Can you explain that?”
“She acts like she’s shy and gauche, but I don’t believe she is.” She watched the cars passing by. “It’s like she’s wearing a mask.”
Beside her, Vlad stiffened. “I need more, Helena.”
She sensed she had his undivided attention. “Do you want me to drive?”
“No. I need you to answer my question.”
“I looked up while we were working and talking today and noticed she was staring at me. She was smiling, but her eyes were…” She struggled to come up with a better word than cold, but failed.
“Were what?”
“They were like yours when you use your war face.”
He exclaimed something she didn’t catch. “What else?”
“She reminds me of the women who were in the lab before. Two-faced, but in a much more menacing way.”
“More menacing how?”
She bit off a nasty rejoinder and instead grappled with how to best explain. “Like if the place was on fire, I could see her locking people inside the burning room, not helping them run to safety. Or if there’s a car coming, I could almost see her shoving someone in front of it.”
Vlad watched passersby on the sidewalk. When he turned to look at her, she was a little scared by what she saw in his eyes. Not for herself, but for the unlucky Anna if she ever crossed his path.
“Like she’s mentally unbalanced or like she’s a sociopath?”
“I’d veer toward option B, but I don’t think we can discount option A, either.”
“So a little of both.”
Her nod was slow in coming. “Yes, although I can’t say in what quantities either of those are.”
He yanked his phone out and hit a few buttons before holding it to his ear. “I’ve been talking to Helena and been in the lab again. Definitely do an in-depth, complete background on Barstow. Yeah. No, Helena and I are both getting the same vibe that something isn’t right there.
“The picture I sent, use that first to identify her, because her name might not be Anna Barstow. Right. Okay. I’m driving Helena to her place now.” Vlad ended the call.
She watched him take in everything around them, completely aware of their surroundings. Even, she guessed, what was happening on the neighboring roofs. It would be a scary life to have to know all this information.
Not that as a female she didn’t usually take note of dangers, but what Vlad did went well beyond that. He was checking things, running data in that brain of his, and working out logistics she had no idea about. After their surroundings apparently met with his approval he merged with traffic again.
“Tell me about Charlene.”
She blinked because that was a strange request. “Why?”
“I’m interested in your opinion.”
“Charlene seems genuine.” Thinking about that lady, she flipped back through her first impressions. “She seems to know what she’s doing in the lab.”
“What about Barstow?”
Her eyebrows bounced as she thought about that. “I didn’t take notice.”
Vlad didn’t answer as he coasted to a stop at a traffic light. “Can you remember anything Barstow did today that looked like actual work?”
“I don’t know. I was busy.”
“Tomorrow, can you watch her, unobtrusively?”
“Yes. I might anyway because she bothers me.”
“Your instincts are good.”
She glanced at him but he was watching traffic. “Thank you.”
When the light changed he turned right and then found a parking spot immediately. They hadn’t taken the usual route back. This was a totally different way from the day before.
Vlad strode around the car and helped her out before following her into the building and up the stairs.
“You don’t take the elevator?”
“No, I figure taking the stairs is great exercise.”
He nodded.
When they reached the top she unlocked her door, aware of the huge man behind her acting like a human shield. Is this what celebrities endured? She took a moment to feel sorry for them if so.
Once inside, she tucked her keys into her bag then stored it away. Vlad was busy performing a search of the flat. She meandered into the kitchen to check the fridge.
The casserole she had stuffed inside last evening looked like it was thawed. She preheated the oven.
Vlad seated himself at the bar.
“So you’re my bodyguard until Beau gets home?”
He slid off the stool and stalked toward her. She wasn’t in the least bit afraid of this man. Instead she stared up at him, wondering if the heat in her eyes matched that in his.
A key in the door broke up the potential kiss and she sighed in frustration. Vlad echoed her sigh.
“There’s enough casserole for you and your friends if you’d like to invite them to dinner tonight.”
He brushed a curl off her cheek. “They’d like that.”
She smiled and really wanted to kiss him. “So would I.”
Beau paced into the kitchen. He greeted Vlad with a nod. “I can’t stay for dinner.”
“You have plans?” She had expected this.
“I’m taking Molly out.”
Vlad turned away to call his friends. “He’s calling his friends. I should have invited them before now.”
Beau shrugged. “They wouldn’t think anything of it.”
That made her feel marginally better. Vlad joined them by then. “They can actually come. It’s been so busy they haven’t had time before.”
The last of her misgivings evaporated. She tugged out some bread and made a salad then popped the casserole into the heated oven. She also dug through her freezer and came up with a Rurikstani cake that she left to thaw on the countertop.
Beau hovered and she nearly ran him over when she turned. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you have suggestions as to where I should take Molly tonight?” They discussed the possibilities while Vlad retrieved something from the car.
She didn’t get the sense that he was unsure of himself. He wasn’t. This was Beau. Staring at him, she decided that he just wanted this to be right.
When Vlad returned, Beau said goodbye and after a conference with Vlad, left. She hoped his evening with Molly was nice. She planned to quiz him on it tomorrow.
As soon as Beau left, Vlad backed her against the wall for a kiss that was definitely a private one. Since they weren’t in a public place, she twined her arms around his neck and returned it full fold. In the back of her mind though, she worried. It was great to kiss. Wonderful, even.
Before she could worry further on that topic, someone knocked on the door. It was loud in the stillness of her flat. Vlad released her with reluctance.
It didn’t take him long to reach the door and open it. He greeted the three men standing there.
One of them made a comment and he swiped at his lips, slanting her a look that made her grin. When she rubbed her lips, it was obvious she didn’t have much lip gloss left. Vlad must be wearing it now.
She greeted each man by name. “I’m sorry I haven’t invited you before this.”
Ben smiled. “Now is the perfect time.”
She returned his smile but saw the look he darted at Vlad. They carried on an entire conversation in that one look. When she glanced at the other two men she was aware that she was the only one who remained unaware of the topics in that silent discussion.
Since there was nothing she could do about it, she smiled at the four large men in her sitting room and escaped to the kitchen to check the casserole. It wasn’t quite bubbling yet, but close. She set the table, placed the fresh bread in a basket, and added lemon to the iced tea. Since three of these men were Americans she thought they would appreciate the beverage.
She invited them to sit down and soon placed the food on the table. The casserole bubbled nicely and the salad looked crisp. There was no doubt that all three Americans were looking forward to the meal. When she glanced at Vlad, she caught him watching her. A little smile teased his lips.
There wasn’t time to question him as they sat down and gave thanks for the meal. All four men dug into the food with an eagerness that made her a little sad for them.
The food disappeared rather quickly. It was quite a validation of her cooking skills. When they talked, which wasn’t much, because all four men seemed happy to be eating her home-cooked meal, the talk was desultory.
She stood to clear the plates, and all four helped her. Dessert didn’t take long for her to assemble. She added pudding, fruit, and whipped cream to the tha
wed European cake to create a traditional Rurikstani dessert.
Vlad noticed the confection immediately. He asked right away and looked pleased when she verified. “I have been hungry for this.”
“Then you’re in luck.”
“What is it?” Ben eyed the creation with interest.
“I don’t care what it is, I just want a large helping,” Derek said.
She sent him a laughing look. “You may have as much as you like.” She arranged five plates, hers the smallest, the other four large. The plates didn’t remain in front of her for long.
She explained to Ben what it was, and was rewarded by both Vlad and Derek’s moan. “It’s amazing,” Derek decided.
“This is even better than I remember.” Vlad scooped up another bite.
Thinking of Beau, she set some aside for him and placed the remainder on the table. It was wonderful to see all of it disappear.
The men insisted on doing the dishes and made her sit in the living room. She didn’t argue. They appeared capable and Vlad had helped before. It didn’t take them long before they joined her.
“We’re looking into this Barstow woman,” Ben said.
Since no one glanced furtively at her and then looked away, she must be welcome to take part in this discussion. It made her feel like a part of the team.
Derek leaned forward. “You have reservations about her?”
She nodded before she told them what she had mentioned to Vlad.
He added a few additional details.
Beaumont tugged a small computer out of a bag. She gave him the password to get online and soon he was scrolling through screens so fast she gave up trying to watch.
“There is something suspicious here.” Beaumont flipped through the screens again.
He scrolled through some pictures, selected Anna’s, and then sent it through a program she had never seen. The program acted like a scanner as lines swept over the woman’s face. “I tried to do this earlier but the program needed some updates.”