by Rita Herron
Finally, deciding he’d done all he could until he searched Denise’s office, he stretched out on Sarah’s blue-flowered couch, frowning at her ceramic cat collection, the lace doilies on the fragile antique sofa table, the romance novels and children’s books on the shelves. He’d never met anyone like Sarah Cutter.
She was such an odd mixture of sweetness and toughness…and sexuality. Her house, her job, her good nature all screamed of family and hearth and home. Of commitment.
While his only commitment was to his job.
But her soft, sultry dark hair and luscious curves made his mouth water. And those eyes—those vibrant, beautiful eyes had secrets in their depths, secrets of a hunger she’d long denied, of a passionate woman ready to give herself to a man. But it should be the right man. Not him. Unfortunately when that heated look touched him, his honorable intentions disintegrated.
He could hear her voice in his thoughts, a voice he imagined sounding like the soft, husky strains of a blues singer, a voice that would sing to his soul and whisper erotic promises in the night.
A voice, that though silent, would splinter his emotions as well as his heart if he let it. Was she undressing now, running her fingers over the pale soft skin that he wanted to touch? Combing her hands through those long dark tresses that he imagined skimming across his bare belly when they made love?
Frustrated, he cursed and stared at the ceiling, knowing he probably couldn’t sleep tonight for thinking about the two women in his life—his sister whom he dearly loved but couldn’t find, and Sarah, the woman he wanted but couldn’t have.
CLAYTON CALLED the next morning to say he had obtained the court order, giving Adam access to CIRP’s research facilities. They would have to be accompanied by someone from Seaside Securities, but at least he could get into Denise’s office.
And the private security company had finally sent a consultant over to install a system in Sarah’s apartment.
“I want the best system you can put in.” Adam ignored Sarah’s glare.
“We’ll take care of it today,” the man agreed.
Sarah handed the consultant a note. “Bill me for the system.”
Adam frowned, sensing the tension between them had as much to do with the night before as the fact that he’d taken control over her safety. They drove in silence, his thoughts replaying the morning. Sarah had barely acknowledged him at breakfast, making him feel about two feet tall for the way he’d acted the night before, but one day she’d realize he was right. She’d be glad he hadn’t taken her virginity and left her in the dust with broken promises and bitterness between them.
Bill Wood, a burly man with a dark mole on his left cheek and shiny gold rings on four fingers waved them through security at CIRP and led them to Denise’s office and the connected lab. Dr. Bradford gave them a guided tour of the facility, pointing out the various labs, explaining that some of the security measures had been installed to keep the public safe. CIRP also had projects located in an building and one on Nighthawk Island which required special decontamination measures, so those were off-limits. Adam spotted nothing out of the ordinary, other than a few gray doors which were sealed and required special approval to enter. Of course, he sensed they were seeing only what Bradford and Seaside Securities had approved for them to see. Finally, Wood escorted them to Denise’s office and the adjoining lab.
“Your sister was working on a project to aid in the cure of Alzheimer’s,” Bradford explained, elaborating slightly.
“Is that the only project she was involved with?” Adam asked.
“It was her top priority.”
Sarah studied the facility, but she hadn’t reacted to Bradford’s voice, so Adam assumed he probably wasn’t the man who’d abducted Denise. Clay probed through a few of the metal drawers, frowning when they revealed standard lab equipment.
“Can we see Denise’s research assistant’s desk?” Adam asked.
Bradford looked perplexed, but Wood unlocked the desk. Adam scoured through it. Notes about Alzheimer’s, several kinds of experimental drugs, a log of facilities willing to test the drugs in clinical trials— everything he’d expect to find. Disappointed, he asked to see Gates’s locker.
Adam grimaced as the metal door swung. On the inside of the door, the research assistant had taped dozens of snapshots of Denise. And judging from some of the compromising shots, she hadn’t known Gates had taken them.
Chapter Ten
“I had no idea.” Dr. Bradford’s expression of shock mirrored the horror Sarah felt at seeing the shrine of photos. A few were candid shots of Denise at work bent over a microscope. Another photo showed her climbing from her car, but a more disturbing one followed. Denise lay in bed wearing a shimmering green nightgown. Even more upsetting, the photo had obviously been taken by someone looking in through her window.
Did Denise have any idea her assistant had been infatuated with her? That he had violated her privacy by spying on her?
Adam’s normally bronze complexion paled beneath the fluorescent lights. Bradford reached out to pull one of the pictures from the door, but Adam stopped him.
“We need to photograph it for evidence,” he explained, his voice gruff with emotions. “Where is Gates?”
Bradford looked rattled. “I assumed Denise gave him a couple of weeks off since she wasn’t going to be around.”
Sarah hugged her arms around her waist, aching to reach out and comfort Adam. He squared his shoulders, his mask of professional detachment in place, but she knew he must be hurting inside. She had never met Denise, yet she could hardly bear the thought of how the woman might be suffering.
What if Donny Gates had revealed his feelings to Denise, and she had rejected him? Could he have gone over the edge and kidnapped her and… No, she couldn’t think like that. They had to find the woman; her cries lingered in Sarah’s mind. She had felt Denise’s fear. She had to ser alive.
Clay phoned the crime lab. “We may be able to match his fingerprints with some found in Denise’s apartment.”
“Right. And I want a full background check done on Gates, all his priors,” Adam said. “Get his mental history back to when he was born.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Clay said.
“I’m taking Sarah to her godfather’s house, then I’m going to Gates’s apartment.”
“I’ll call for a search warrant and meet you there,” Clay said.
“I’ll go with you,” Sarah wrote.
Adam shook his head. “No, if Gates is there, it might get dangerous. I want you someplace safe.”
“But what if I can identify his voice?”
“Once we have him in custody, I’ll send for a car. You can come to the station and ID him.”
“Then take me home.”
“No, I don’t want you to be alone,” Adam said in a low voice. “You’ll be safer at your godfather’s.”
Sarah heard the air of authority in his voice and hated relinquishing control of her life. But she didn’t have a death wish, either, so she relented, vowing to protect herself the only way she knew how, by retreating into her silence.
ADAM HAD NO IDEA that time could move so slowly, but the drive to Gates’s small rental house seemed like an eternity. Twisted images from past cases filled his mind. He prayed Denise had not met the same fate as some of the stalker victims he’d seen on file.
Thankfully, Sarah was safe, and Clay had pushed to get a search warrant so by the time he dropped Sarah at Santenelli’s and arrived on Skidaway at Gates’s rental house, they could search the place.
He would have broken in if he’d had to.
He just prayed they found evidence that Gates hadn’t killed her.
The house sat on a patch of land that smelled of the marsh, its lawn dry and overgrown with weeds, the shabby exterior exhibiting evidence of the damage salt air and tropical storms could inflict on painted wood.
He knocked on the weathered door three times, then called out, identifying himself and Clayton a
s the police. Not surprised when no one answered, he jimmied the worn lock and slammed his weight against the thin wood, knocking it open the second time.
Darkness shadowed the interior, hazy lines of sunshine slanting across the room through the mini-blinds.
“Gates, it’s the police,” Clayton called out again. “If you’re here, show yourself now.”
Adam waited, his hand clenching his weapon. Several seconds passed, tension filling the air, yet no one appeared. Finally, Clayton flicked on the overhead light.
Adam scanned the room. Although the carpet and furniture appeared old, the air of neatness about the room suggested Gates either had a daily maid or an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Magazines were arranged alphabetically on racks, as were CDs. Pillows sat at precisely matching angles. Pictures of shellfish and sea organisms lined one wall near a six-foot aquarium of exotic fish.
Not too odd for a research assistant, he supposed. But something seemed off.
Clay moved to the kitchen while Adam slowly combed the bedroom and bath. The bed was meticulously made, three towels hung at exactly the same levels.
So far, no sign of Gates or Adam’s sister.
But the scent of death hung in the stale, cold air.
His lungs tightened as he moved to the spare bedroom. A neat desk, topped with a meticulously labeled file organizer occupied one corner. A tall swivel chair faced the wall, the back of the chair faced toward Adam so he couldn’t see if it was occupied. His gut instinct told him something was terribly wrong here. The foul odor grew stronger as he approached the chair. His stomach rolled when he spotted a wall of pictures in the corner by the man’s desk—all pictures of Denise.
He circled the chair and his heart pounded.
Gates was slumped over in the chair, his head dropped forward, his chin resting on his drool-stained shirt, a hypodermic on the desk, a piece of paper in his hand. Adam knew without looking that it was probably a suicide note.
WHAT WOULD ADAM find at Donny Gates’s apartment, Sarah wondered? More pictures? Something to tell him where Denise was being held?
Something to confirm she was still alive?
Her own nerves on alert, Sarah found the maid and begged some hot tea, then tried to relax in the den, but the comments that reporter had made about the microbiologist’s death and her father’s disturbed her. He’d hinted that there might be a connection or at least a similarity between their stories. Both had intended to sell their findings to a foreign government. Both had ended up dead with their reputations damaged.
She wanted to talk to Sol. He would tell her the truth. A noise, full of static, filled her ears and she pressed her hands over them, trying to discern the sound. A man’s voice? A woman’s? The sounds broke and faded.
What in the world was happening to her? Could she still be hearing Denise and the man?
“Do you want to rest upstairs for a while, Ms. Cutter?” Hilda asked.
Sarah shook herself back to the present and signed, “No, I’ll wait in the study. I want to talk to my godfather when he gets home.”
“Fine, just let me know if you need anything.”
Sarah thanked her and took the steaming cup of Earl Grey to her godfather’s study, her gaze taking in the wall of bookshelves filled with research material and reference books. Sol also had a small collection of leather-bound classics along with golfing books. He’d sworn when he retired he’d become a pro golfer, but Sarah had laughed. Her godfather had never excelled at sports, only in academics. He’d been ruthless in negotiating contra the research center and was known for being able to entice financial support from the most reluctant entrepreneur. He even kept scrapbooks of all his deals and the various companies he had helped to get off the ground.
She removed several of the scrapbooks from the shelf and began to thumb through them. A few clippings identified smaller research companies she hadn’t heard of, most of them medically related. Finally, she found the book containing articles about the hearing device her father had been working on. The first two praised his work for the government, but offered no details about the hearing device.
The photo of her godfather and Arnold Hughes drew her eye and she shivered again, wondering again why Hughes made her feel so uncomfortable.
Fresh pain cut through her, but she forced herself to read the damning articles about her parents’ death, her eyes blurring with tears at the pictures of their burned house, the two gray caskets, the graveyard. She barely realized she was crying, but the tears dripped down her cheeks onto the plastic covering the photos. Reaching sideways for a tissue from the end table, the scrapbook slipped and fell from her lap. She retrieved the book, but a folded, yellowed newspaper clipping slid from beneath one of the pages, the article dated 1982, a year after her parents’ deaths. Curious, she opened the faded paper, a gasp escaping her at the headline: “Research scientist and suspected treasonist Charles Cutter, who was accused of murdering his wife and setting the explosion which caused his own daughter’s hearing loss, is thought to be alive.”
Chapter Eleven
“Nothing in the kitchen.” Clay entered the spare bedroom, stopping abruptly at the sight of Gates’s body. “Oh, damn.”
Adam leaned his head into his hands, frustration and panic clawing at him.
“Suicide?” Clay asked quietly.
“Looks that way.”
Clay’s gaze landed on the shrine of photographs. “Holy mother of—” Clay caught himself. “I wonder if Denise knew.”
Or if she found out the hard way, Adam thought, hearing the unspoken question. Maybe she’d rejected Gates and he had snapped. Worse, what if he’d taken her whereabouts with him to his grave? “I can’t believe the SOB was such a coward he killed himself,” Adam said.
Clay made a disgusted sound. “Fits the profile of these sickos.”
Knowing he dare not contaminate the evidence, Adam used a handkerchief to lift the note and read it.
“I loved you, Denise. I can’t live knowing you don’t want me. I’m sorry we couldn’t finish the research together. But we will be together now. Because there is only love in heaven. Forever and always. Love, Donny.”
“I’ll have the crime lab analyze it,” Clay said, “make sure it was typed on his computer, see if there are any other prints.”
Emotions overpowered Adam as the meaning of the note sank in.
THE ARTICLE trembled in Sarah’s hands as she read on.
New evidence has come to light in the mystery surrounding Charles Cutter, a scientist on the cutting edge of research for the U.S. government. Evidence corroborates the fact that he was negotiating to sell copies of a high-tech listening device to the Russians when his wife and a co-worker discovered his intentions. While Cutter was believed to have died in the explosion that killed his wife and injured his daughter, police now believe that the body of the man found in the explosion did not belong to Charles Cutter, but to a detective hired by the research company who was on Cutter’s tail. Authorities speculate that Cutter faked his death, absconded with the data and is hiding out in a foreign country.
Sarah tried to steady her breathing as the shock of what she’d read settled in. Dear God, was her father alive? If so, why hadn’t Sol told her?
Footsteps sounded on the hardwood entrance and she jerked her head up, shocked to see Sol and Arnold Hughes approaching. Hughes was a tall man with broad shoulders and a wide-set jaw. An air of authority radiated about them that Sarah had always admired and feared at the same time.
The second she saw the frown on Sol’s face, though, fear overrode her admiration.
“What are you doing, Sarah?”
She held the article toward him, then signed, “Is it true? Is my father alive?” Her lips quivered as she fought tears. “Did he fake his death?”
Sol and Hughes exchanged concerned looks. Sol pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, then shook his head, and sat down, putting his cane aside. An age-spotted hand covered her trembling one. “No, honey
, your father is not alive.”
“What about this article? The police thought the man’s body in the fire belonged to a detective.”
“One officer questioned the body, but dental records proved the man was your father. Later, the police verified the findings and closed the case.” Sol stacked the scrapbooks. “I should have gotten rid of these a long time ago. I’m going to burn them now.”
“No.” Sarah caught his arm.
“Sarah, stop it,” Sol said in a harsh voice.
Sarah pulled at his hands, releasing him long enough to sign. “Don’t, Sol, I need this connection to my past.”
“But these books are filled with horrible reminders of what your father did to you and your mother.” Sol’s eyes softened with worry. “Sarah, it’s not healthy for you to obsess over it now.”
“I need to know the truth.” She turned to Hughes and scribbled on a pad, “Tell me about my father. Sol never wanted to talk about him when I was growing up, but I need to know everything.”
“This won’t do you any good.” Sol gestured toward Hughes. “Please wait in the living room while I talk to her.”
“I’m sorry about your father, Sarah.” Hughes made a sympathetic sound. “When we first met, he was a good man. But he let greed get to him, and there was nothing we could do.” Hughes patted her shoulder, then left the room.
Sarah’s throat clogged with emotions. Maybe her father had been a traitor, had been the horrible man they painted him to be, but the reporter’s comments about the microbiologist nagged at her. “What about Jerome Simms?”
The vein on the top of Sol’s forehead throbbed. “Who?”
“He was a microbiologist who worked at the research center. He supposedly died in a boating accident, but that reporter said his death was suspicious—”
“Why the hell have you been talking to that reporter?”
“I didn’t. He called and mentioned to Adam—”