by C. J. Miller
Based on his medical insurance claims, John Conrad was in-house. A call to the front desk, and Griffin was informed Mr. Conrad could have visitors. If she and Griffin could walk in, so could Incognito. If they hadn’t already approached him, they must not have connected Arsenic to John Conrad, or Arsenic was too far gone to be of use to them. Whoever Arsenic/John Conrad had been before working on the Locker had been scrubbed from official government records.
How had Zoya known so much about Arsenic?
Griffin parked their rental car and walked to the visitor’s entrance.
Griffin took her hand in his. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Haven’t slept enough and I’m hungry, but I’m fine.” She was high-strung, thinking about Arsenic, Lawrence and Zoya. She couldn’t sleep well.
Griffin looked apologetic. “I forgot about food. We’ll eat soon.”
An orderly pushed a man in a wheelchair into the patient visiting area. Though his eyes were open, the man didn’t move his head to acknowledge her. No flash of recognition in his eyes. He was frail and still.
He wasn’t Arsenic. Even considering the hard years of living in a rehab facility poststroke, this wasn’t him. “This is John Conrad?” she asked the orderly.
The orderly nodded. “I’ve been taking care of Mr. Conrad since he arrived. He doesn’t get many visitors. I was happy to hear some old friends were coming to see him. I will be honest with you, though. He doesn’t recognize many people, so please don’t be hurt if he doesn’t know who you are.”
Kit faced Griffin and shook her head. “It’s not him. We’ve made a mistake. This is the wrong man.”
The orderly frowned.
Griffin’s mouth drew into a hard line. “We’re sorry to have wasted your time.” He guided Kit out of the building.
“I don’t understand this,” Kit said. “Zoya said Arsenic is alive, but that was not him.”
“Are you sure? Do you want to look again?” Griffin asked.
Kit shook her head. “It wasn’t him. I’m certain of it. What now? Where do we go from here?”
“If he’s the wrong man, then the right man is out there somewhere, and we have to find him before Incognito does.”
* * *
Kit hated sleeping in hotel rooms. She missed her bed and her family. She missed her routine. The one comfort was the sound of the water from the Chesapeake Bay lapping against the shore. They were only a few hundred feet from the waterline.
Griffin had gone to buy food. He’d wanted her to go with him, but she needed time alone. She’d promised to keep the door locked and not open it for anyone.
Arsenic was somewhere in the world. Was he willingly working with Incognito? Kit hadn’t stayed in touch with anyone from the Locker project. It had seemed safer, and she had been advised not to.
Kit trudged to the bathroom to brush her teeth before bed. She stumbled and fell against the doorjamb, catching herself with her hands. When she righted herself and looked in the mirror, she saw a familiar face. Turning slowly, her heart hammering hard, she met his ice-cold gaze.
Arsenic.
Chapter 9
Nothing in those eyes was vacant. Arsenic was the same as she had remembered. Too thin, tall, with sharp eyes and a beak-shaped nose that reminded her of a hawk.
He aimed a gun at her head. “Why are you looking for me? What do you want?”
How had he known? “It’s me, Kit Walker. Lotus. Zoya told me to find you.” Kit could say this without selling Zoya out, since she was dead.
“I know who you are. Where is Zoya?” he asked.
Sadness tightened her throat. “Dead.”
“You’re lying!” His voice lacked conviction.
She wished she was. “Incognito is hunting us. Killing or capturing everyone who’s worked on the Locker. Incognito followed us to Gamer Con. Zoya’s husband sold us out. He planned to hand us over to Incognito but ended up killing himself and her.”
Arsenic’s eyes narrowed. “I told her not to go to Gamer Con.”
What was the relationship between Arsenic and Zoya? He spoke of her with a closeness and softness in his voice.
“I’m sorry for your loss. It was truly awful,” Kit said.
“How did you escape them? Did they follow you?”
Arsenic’s arms were lifted above his head, and the gun clattered to the floor. Griffin had moved so quietly, Kit hadn’t heard him enter the hotel room. Griffin shoved Arsenic into the dresser.
Griffin held the gun on Arsenic. “Who are you?”
Kit stepped in front of Griffin, causing him to lower his gun. “Griffin, stop. This is Arsenic. He’s scared, too. He’s here to find out why we’re looking for him.” Though he had broken into her hotel room and pointed a gun at her, she sensed he wasn’t planning to harm her. He wanted to protect himself.
Griffin grabbed Arsenic and hauled him to his feet. “Talk fast.”
“You came looking for me. I needed to know why,” Arsenic said.
Griffin released Arsenic but didn’t take his eyes off him.
Arsenic laughed, a sick, maniacal laugh. “Building the Locker was a mistake. I shouldn’t have signed on for the project. I should never have let anyone have it. It’s too strong. It can be used for the wrong reasons.”
“It’s protected the United States’ networks for years,” Kit said carefully. Lawrence had implied the US was using it for nefarious purposes. Kit wasn’t naive, but she believed that the work she had done had been in support of a country she loved. Had she been wrong to believe it was being used for good?
“It does those things, but once it’s been compromised, it’s a failure. A six-hundred-million-dollar failure. Every day some young hotshot comes up the ranks and learns a new way to break into systems. Ways you and I never thought of and using technology that didn’t exist five years ago. How can anything protect itself against that?” Arsenic asked.
“Will you help us counter Incognito’s attempt to gain full control of the Locker?” Kit asked.
Arsenic shook his head. “I don’t want to get involved with another Locker. It was hard enough to get out the first time.”
Kit tried to keep up, but she was missing an important part of the story. “How did you get out? We were told you had a stroke.”
“Months of planning and many allies. I tried to pull Zoya out, too, but she refused. She had already fallen for Lawrence and declined to leave the project and go underground with me.”
Kit heard the grief in his voice. “I didn’t realize you and Zoya were so close.”
“She’s my daughter.”
Surprise rolled over her. She hadn’t before made the connection. A fresh round of grief struck her thinking of how Arsenic must feel to learn about his daughter’s death in this way.
Arsenic took a tissue from the box on the dresser and blotted his bleeding nose. “A friend at the inpatient clinic calls me when someone shows up to visit me. Can’t be too careful.”
“How have you stayed hidden?” Kit asked.
“I waited until someone fitting my general description was admitted to the hospital. Then I gave him my government-issued new identity that I was supposed to use when I finished the project. I forged a fresh one for myself, one the government was unaware of.”
A simple matter for someone like Arsenic. He was smart and well-connected. “If we find and stop Incognito, then the threat against you will be eliminated.”
“One quality that I liked about you, and one of the reasons I picked you for the project, is that you’re naive. Your innocence is refreshing. There are no good guys or bad guys, just people who have an agenda. Stopping Incognito won’t mean that I can live my life on the grid. Someone will always want a piece of me.”
But not everyone was willing to resort to violence
and kidnapping to meet their objectives. “If Incognito uses the Locker against us, they’ll have access to the United States’ classified intel. They’ll know names of undercover operatives and mission secrets.”
Arsenic shrugged. “So what?”
“If covers are blown and information made public, agents and operatives will be killed,” Kit said.
“That’s a risk every operative for the United States knows,” Arsenic said. “I’ll make a deal with you. Don’t blow my cover. As far as Uncle Sam knows, I’m incapacitated and won’t recover. Don’t follow me. Don’t alert anyone that I’m alive. If you grant me this favor, I’ll consider helping you.”
“Consider helping us?” Kit asked.
Arsenic’s face was unreadable. “I’ll be in touch when I’ve made a decision.”
Kit exchanged glances with Griffin.
“If that’s the best you’re offering, then fine. We’ll keep your secret,” Griffin said.
Arsenic nodded once and left their hotel room.
“What do you make of that?” Griffin asked.
“He is a little peculiar,” Kit said. “But I think he’ll help us. I think he’ll do the right thing.”
“We need to head back to California,” Griffin said.
“No rest for the weary?” Kit asked, already knowing the answer.
“You can sleep on my shoulder on the flight.”
Sleeping on his shoulder was like sleeping on a rock. “Not as comfortable as you might think.”
“You can lie across my lap,” he said.
That had interesting possibilities. “Could we sleep here tonight?”
“If Arsenic knew we were here, then someone else might know,” Griffin said.
Kit took a deep breath. Another plane flight. “Can I at least negotiate for a coffee?”
* * *
Griffin preferred spending the night in a safe house more than he liked a hotel room, and as safe houses went, this one wasn’t bad. Arsenic’s appearance was a testament to why they were safer under the radar. Griffin had used a fake identity provided to him by the West Company to check into the hotel room in Maryland, but Griffin would not underestimate Incognito.
Griffin watched Kit pushing food around her plate.
It had been a long flight and he was tired, but until she slept, he wouldn’t either.
“Two more people died. How many more will because of this project?” Kit asked. Reality was catching up with her.
“As many as Incognito kills until we stop them,” Griffin said. Which could be dozens. Incognito had come too far and had proven nothing would slow them down.
Kit circled the small wood table and pushed it away from him. She sat in his lap and laid her head on his shoulder. “Hold me. Please.”
He rested his arms against her waist. Hugs were okay. She didn’t have anyone else to confide in, no one else whom she could talk with about what had happened. This was a friendship hug. Griffin liked the scent of her hair, and her body pressed to his felt good. He wouldn’t let this morph in to anything else. “The woman who prefers the computer above all else is asking for human contact?”
Kit kissed the tip of his ear. “I could have been killed today. I could be killed tomorrow. I suppose that’s always been true, but with assassins gunning for me, the probability is higher than random chance.”
She had her arm around his shoulders, and the other hand stroked his face. Comfort and friendship were shifting into decidedly sexual territory. It happened when they were alone and when she touched him. Heat scorched him. Sleeping with her was off the table, and everything leading to that point had scared her.
He had to keep control. Did she know what she was doing?
She shifted then, moving astride him. She rocked her hips into his.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
“You look so hot in jeans and a T-shirt,” she said. “I need to feel your skin against mine.”
He went hard at the idea and shifted his hips away. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” He set his hands on the seat of his chair. He could not reach for her again, not in friendship or for any other reason. His control would snap and he would have sex with her. She had asked him to. She had done things to imply she wanted him and her current position left little to the imagination. But he couldn’t. Her virginity was a red flag waving back and forth, warning him to keep away. Leaving her untouched was another objective he had added to the mission.
“I get hot just looking at you,” she said.
His body hardened to a painful degree, and his brain shifted into full-on lust. Desire clamored at him to strip them naked. Logic slowed him down. He couldn’t sleep with her. His mission was to protect her. His doubts about his ability to do that pressed on him. He had managed so far, but how much of that was luck?
Sleeping with a man for the first time was an experience she should have with someone special, someone who would treasure the memory, love her and give everything a woman like her deserved the first time: flowers, promises and romance.
In the safe house, they had two borderline uncomfortable beds, no wine and no champagne, and no love between them.
“Tell me what you like,” she said, reaching between them and rubbing the front of his jeans. They had been down this path before. If he let her continue, she would stop. She would become nervous, and he wouldn’t have to do anything. He’d let her burn herself out.
In his current state, he wanted nothing more than to get her on her back and pound into her until she was chanting his name. Instead, he would keep his hands on the chair. She could say whatever she wanted and he would play this game, but he would not touch her.
“I like what you’re doing,” he said.
She shivered. “What about your favorite position? Do you like a woman on top? Or do you like being in control?”
“I would ask you that question, because every position feels good to me, but you don’t know what you like,” he said.
“You could help me figure it out,” she said. She licked her bottom lip. “I’m a big fan of experimentation.”
A little further and she would freak out and stop. This wasn’t how she’d want her first time. “How do you want me to do you first? Against the wall with your legs around my waist? Or on the bed, on your hands and knees, being slammed into from behind?” he asked. He meant the words to be crude because to imply that sex between them would be anything more than a physical act was wrong.
Her eyes grew wider and he waited. Any moment now, she would stop.
“Whatever you want to do, I want you to do it hard.” She reached into his pants and he went almost mindless.
She wasn’t backing down, and he was past the point where he could stop this. He removed his shirt, knowing she liked him bare-chested.
She smiled and ran one hand over his chest, her other hand still in his pants, stroking him. “Hard and hot.” She kissed his skin, running her mouth across every inch and then skating lower until she was face-to-face with his arousal.
She unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and then pulled him free.
Now she would back off. No way was this happening.
She looked at him and traced his length with her fingertip. She sucked in her breath. A woman had never looked at him this way, thinking, pining for it.
“Kit, consider what you’re doing.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t done this. But I think you’ll let me try.”
Some men might find an experienced woman sexier, but the awe in Kit’s face and the wonder in her eyes was enough to send him over the edge.
She stuck out her tongue and licked his tip. His right hand left the chair and forked into her hair. She hollowed her cheeks, sucking just the tip, and his body bucked involuntarily. He worked to keep
himself pinned to the seat. Then she put him further into her mouth. He let out his breath in a hiss.
The heat and suction of her mouth were incredible. She wrapped her hands around the base, and her mouth and hands moved in sequence.
He should have stopped her long before now, but her bobbing head and the sensation rolling over him made that impossible.
Then she lifted her eyes and met his gaze. He went off. Realizing it might be too much for her, he pulled her away. She had a look of shock and excitement on her face.
“I did it,” she said. “Did you like it?”
What could he say to her? She seemed vulnerable, anxious for praise, and he wanted to find the right words. “It was phenomenal. Great technique.”
“I’ll have to try that again.”
Possessiveness hit him like a knife to the stomach. He pulled her against him. “You will not do that with another man. Not while we are together.”
Kit touched the corner of her mouth. “Then you and I will do that again.”
“Will you let me do the same to you?”
He reached into her pants, slipping his hand over her panties, and found her wet, almost dripping through the silky cloth. “You want more. You want me.”
He wanted to push his fingers inside her and give her a series of orgasms that would leave her dizzy, but knowing he was the first man to do this with her, he wanted it to be tender, as well.
“I told you I wanted you.” She sounded breathless, and her cheeks were flushed with excitement.
Promising himself this wouldn’t escalate into intercourse, he stood, swept her into his arms, and laid her on the narrow bed.
“Is this okay?” he asked, needing to know she hadn’t changed her mind.
She touched his hair, softly, combing her fingers through it. “It’s okay. I’ll tell you if it’s not.”
He pulled her shirt over her head and brought his hands to her breasts. He squeezed them together, perfect handfuls, and lowered the fabric covering them. He kissed the pert tips, sucking them into his mouth and enjoying the sounds she made. She arched under his touch.