by Julie Kenner
Their conversation lasted a few minutes longer, with my dad stalling and my mom encouraging. Finally, he kissed my mom’s cheek, then brushed the pad of his thumb under her eye. My stomach twisted. I knew I was ripping them to pieces, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Not yet, anyway.
Finally, they headed to the front entrance. I slipped out of the restroom and followed, staying out of sight as I watched through the window. The doorman hailed a cab, and Mom and Daddy got in. And then they were gone. Thank God.
As soon as the cab pulled away, I moved back toward the sofa, still keeping a sharp eye out in case Lynx decided to make an appearance. I’d thought that Stryker would be back by now, and I was starting to get nervous.
I was just about to say screw it and head up to the room myself when the elevator doors slid open once again and Stryker strode toward me, his face all hard lines and angles.
I met him in the middle of the lobby and he took my arm, propelling me out the front door. “What happened?” I asked as we moved.
“He was gone by the time I got there. The door was kicked in and room was tossed, totally trashed. Presumably, he expected your parents to be there. Looks like he’s losing his cool.”
I think I nodded, but I’m not sure. Mostly, I was numb. My head was buzzing, and I was trying to hear words past the static. My parents were alive, but by how much?
“Do you think he’s still here?”
“No. I think he bolted. But that doesn’t mean he won’t be back.”
“Right,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
We left the hotel and walked the few blocks to a Starbucks, where we could sit and regroup. We took a roundabout route, entering front doors and going out the back, Stryker looking over our shoulders the whole time. I might not be sure about a lot of things these days, but I was certain we weren’t being followed.
I ordered us coffee while Stryker fired up the laptop. As I was waiting for the drinks, my cell phone rang, and I grabbed it. The caller ID showed Warren, my sometime study buddy. I considered letting voice mail take it, but I wanted to hear his voice. Any voice from my normal life, actually.
“Hey, Warren.”
“Hey yourself. Where’ve you been? I called your apartment.”
“I’ve been out,” I said.
“Hot date?”
I laughed. “You could say that.”
“Well, then forget it. I just wanted to see if you wanted to go in with me on a tutoring gig. Fifty bucks an hour. I thought you could use it.”
I could, but there was no way I could say yes. “Let me see what happens with this guy. Can I let you know later this week?”
“All the slots might be filled by then,” he said, “so no promises. You can try, but don’t hold me to it.”
“Trust me, Warren,” I said. “I’m becoming pretty adept at living in the moment.”
Warren started to ask me about my date—he wanted all the juicy details—but the drinks were ready, and I used that as an excuse to hang up. As soon as the dead air hit, I felt a wave of loneliness. I turned, searching for Stryker, a smile coming automatically when I saw him. I wasn’t alone. And thank God for that.
When I got to the table with my latte and his coffee (plain, black, I mean, why even bother with Starbucks?), he already had a browser up.
“What are you doing?”
“The only thing I can. Since this math stuff isn’t in my head, I’m plugging it all into Google. Maybe something useful will spit out.”
“Worth a try.” I scooted my chair next to his and peered at the screen over his shoulder. He called up www.google.com and typed “Catenary New York” into the search box. Pages and pages of hits came up, but nothing jumped out as being useful.
“Okay,” Stryker said after we’d scrolled through a dozen pages. “I’ve got another idea.”
This time he typed “Catenary Saint” into the search box.
“I thought you said he was the archangel.”
“He’s the patron saint of soldiers,” Stryker explained. “If nothing pops up, I’ll try archangel, but I figured this would get more hits.”
He might have been right. The search returned pages and pages of results. I wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic, but I started skimming again. A publishing website. An encyclopedia entry about the Gateway Arch, a biography of an architect.
I blinked, my eyes skimming back up the page. The Gateway Arch. Of course!
“That one,” I said, tapping on the screen. “That’s it.” I threw my arms around him and leaned in, planting a kiss on his cheek. “You’re brilliant. I should have thought of it, but I guess I’m too tired. Thank God for the Internet.”
“Happy to be of service,” Stryker said. “Do you want to clue me in on the answer?”
“Saint Louis.”
He stared at me blankly.
“The Saint Louis arch? The famous landmark? That’s a prime example of a catenary curve. That’s got to be our answer. Saint Louis.Saint Michael.”
A slow smile lit his face, and I was struck again by how incredibly sexy the man was.
He reached over and stroked the back of my neck, then stood up and started to rub my shoulders. “We make a good team,” he said in a whiskey-rough voice. It was a good thing we were in Starbucks, because if not, we would have wasted a lot of time while I jumped the man.
“But what about it?” he asked, and suddenly I didn’t feel so brilliant anymore. “We have two saint names now, but what do we do with them?”
“Pray?” I suggested.
“Besides that.”
I shook my head. “I have no idea.”
“Saint Louis. Saint Michael. Angels.” I could feel him shake his head. “Other than the general idea of a church or religion, I don’t have a clue,” he said.
“Well,” I replied helpfully. I took a sip of my latte, hoping the caffeine buzz would inspire me. Nope.
“Maybe we missed something,” he said. “Some clue that we’ve just overlooked.”
“Possible,” I agreed. Right then, I was open to any and all suggestions. “Okay, let’s think.” I tugged the laptop toward me and pulled up a clean document, then started typing. Stryker sat down again, his head near mine, just close enough to distract as I made a list:
Pigpen message
HTML note about finding the antidote
The parking space. The car. Led to Harbor Lights Cruise.
Found. The watch. Led to
Restaurant/coat check/the bottle in the jacket pocket. Led to
Givenchy!! and saint medal
“Anything jump out at you?” I hoped so, because I wasn’t seeing any patterns there.
“Sorry, no.”
“Dammit,” I said, fighting a rush of fatalism. “We’ve missed something. But I don’t know what. I haven’t got any idea what’s key anymore.” I ran my fingers through my hair and leaned back in the chair, scared, frustrated and angry with myself for not finding the answer.
“We’ll get it,” he said, taking my hand.
His sweetness just about melted me. “I told you I could do this,” I whispered. “I stood right in front of you and told you that this was my thing and that I could figure out these codes and…dammit.” I spit out the last, and a nearby businessman looked up from his coffee and Wall Street Journal, startled. Well, sorry, buddy. But I was having a bad day.
“You will do it,” Stryker said. “Not in your nature to fail, remember?”
I made a face. “Maybe I’m about to learn the hard way.”
“No way. We’re still winning this thing. You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Thanks to you.”
He pressed a soft kiss to my lips, a kiss that I wished I could lose myself in. “We’re a team, Mel. We’ll figure this out. And we’ll do it together.”
Chapter
52
S tryker meant what he said. They were a team. A simple fact, but one that surprised him anyway. He hadn’t truly been a member
of a team since he’d left the Corps. More recently, he’d been working alone, shouldering full responsibility to protect his charges, be it a corporate executive or a briefcase filled with corporate secrets.
He’d expected the same when he’d gotten sucked in with Mel, but he’d had to face a hard reality. With this gig, he couldn’t go it alone. Not only was Mel not the type to simply follow orders where her ass was on the line, but he also didn’t have the skills to get her through this by himself. He needed her as much as she needed him. And in the end, they would get through this together. At the moment, though, he wasn’t exactly sure how.
Beside him, Mel finished the last of her latte. “Thanks for putting up with me,” she said. “Now isn’t that your cue to tell me to quit being morbid and whiny and to get to work?”
“Quit being morbid and whiny and get to work,” he said, somehow managing to keep a straight face.
With a curt nod, she reached into her purse and pulled out the original message. She passed it to him. “See anything? A watermark? A tiny notation in a corner? A hint of something odd that doesn’t seem to belong?”
He held the paper up to the light, but all he saw were the blocks and dots. “I think it’s a grocery bag,” he said. “But the paper’s clean. There’s not even a store name stamped on it. No manufacturer’s mark. Nothing.”
“Prestige Park,” she said. “P.P. Peter Piper?”
“Picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
“Very cute.”
“Set it aside for now,” he said. “Maybe something will click once we look at the other clues.”
“The hyperlink. The message about the antidote. Were you able to trace it?”
“Nope. One of those free websites. I know a guy who knows a guy who could check the IP address of the uploading computer. Doesn’t help.”
She frowned. “But if you know the IP address, does that mean we know where his computer is?”
“Yes and no. Library computer. Manhattan.” He watched the excitement on her face fade, and he wished he’d delivered better news. “I think it’s a dead end.”
“Guess so.” She drew in a long breath. “So when did you learn all this?”
“Just a bit ago. My computer geek friend sent me a text message.”
“Right.” She frowned. “So if the IP address is useless, that leaves the message. It was long. There could be a dozen clues hidden in there.” She navigated back to the bookmarked site. “Of course,” she went on, “I don’t have any clue what those other clues could be.”
They were both silent, looking at the message, both equally uninspired.
“Okay,” he said. “What’s next?”
“The car.”
“We went over it pretty thoroughly. Do you think we should take it to a mechanic and hook the system up to diagnostics?”
“No. I don’t know.” She started doodling on a napkin. “I just don’t think the clues would require us to involve other people, you know? And it’s not like we can run a car’s diagnostics without getting a garage involved.”
“Good point.”
“Let’s run through the whole list and decide. Who knows how much time we have before he finds us.”
“Car and parking lot,” he said.
“Right.” She made a note. “After that, we got the watch.”
“I’d say we already analyzed that clue to death.”
She didn’t argue, but she pulled the watch out and dangled it in front of her. “We haven’t ripped the innards out yet. Should we?”
He considered the question, then nodded. “We probably should.” He started to close up the laptop. “But not here. I think it’s time to move on.”
“Right,” she said, shoving their papers into her tote and grabbing the shopping bag. He hooked the laptop case over his shoulder and headed for the door.
She moved ahead and was just about to open the door when he put his hand on her shoulder and tugged, effectively stopping her. She turned to him, her gaze quizzical, but he simply nodded across the street.
“We stayed too damn long.”
Chapter
53
O h shit, oh shit, oh shit.
I scrambled backwards, stumbling over Stryker’s feet as I tried to get away from the doorway before Lynx looked up and saw me. This time, there was no mistaking him. The man was right there, standing at the curb waiting for the light to change.
He looked up, our eyes met, and he smiled.
If Stryker hadn’t been holding on to my arm, I swear I would have collapsed right then. My legs went numb, and I forgot how to run. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The light changing, Lynx coming, his hand slipping into his coat, the glint of metal as it emerged again.
“Go.” Stryker yelled. He shoved me backwards, then grabbed onto me when I stumbled, tugging me with him as he raced back into Starbucks. “Back door?” he yelled to the barista. Her eyes went wide, but she nodded and pointed, and we raced in that direction.
I expected a bullet in my back, but none came, and when we burst through the back door into the alley, I paused long enough to catch my breath and utter one word: “Gun.”
Stryker nodded. “I saw. I don’t think he’ll use it in public.”
I glanced around. We weren’t in public now. Other than the rats and roaches, we were the only ones in the alley.
Stryker read my thoughts. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
I nodded, trotting alongside him as we scrambled down the alley toward the street, sideswiping piles of stinky garbage and alley cats, who’d come to do something about that rat population, I hoped. In just a few hours, my life had gone from Givenchy to garbage. Not exactly upwardly mobile, and I seriously hoped this wasn’t a portent of things to come.
The street in front of us was blessedly busy, and we raced toward the taxis and cars, all moving at a typical Manhattan snail’s pace.
“Taxi!” Stryker reached the street before I did, and his hand was out and up. A yellow cab pulled over, and Stryker motioned for me. Breathless, I raced the rest of the way, emerging onto the crowded sidewalk in time to hear a high-pitched whine and Stryker yelling, “Down!”
He threw himself onto me, and my elbow slammed against the concrete. I screamed in pain as Stryker rolled over, ending up in a crouch. I barely had time to register the movement before he had me under his arms and was tugging me into the waiting taxi.
As the car pulled across two lanes of traffic, I saw him.Lynx. Right there on the sidewalk, not ten yards away. His eyes seemed to burn a hole in me, and when his mouth moved to form exaggerated words, I shivered, because I understood exactly what he was saying: “Next time.”
Chapter
54
I t wasn’t until we were in the taxi that I realized I’d been hit. Or, rather, Kate had.
A perfectly round bullet hole right in the side of my beautiful Kate Spade bag. Just looking at it made me queasy. Both because I’d end up consigning Kate to the trash, and also because I knew that a few more inches to the left, and the hole would have been in my belly.
Thanks to Stryker, though, I was whole, and I scooted over the bench seat toward him, wanting his strength to keep on protecting me, this time from the heebie-jeebies of such a near miss.
Stryker told the driver to take us to the Crowne Plaza, and as soon as we arrived and checked in, I tossed my jacket over the back of a chair, then peeled off my jeans, leaving me in nothing but a tank top and underwear. I’d like to say that my only motivation was comfort, but I’d be lying. We were in a hotel, we weren’t racing the clock, and I wanted a second go-round with this man. I wanted it bad.
In the Plaza, I’d been just as desperate, but that had been a need for sex, for physical coupling. Stryker had been a bonus in that he was hot and sexy and totally turned me on, but I had to admit he hadn’t been the point, even if he had been the inspiration. I’d just needed to get laid.
Now, though…
Well, now I wanted the man. I wa
nted him to hold me and kiss me and laugh with me. I wanted his hands on my body. I wanted his tongue in my mouth and his cock inside me. And I wanted it bad enough to toss subtlety to the wind.
Stryker had been watching my little striptease, and now he came over, tugging me down onto the bed and rolling me onto my stomach. He straddled me, his large hands working the kinks out of my shoulders.
I could feel his erection pressing against my rear, followed by his mouth pressed hot against my ear. I moaned, already desperate and ready.
He didn’t say a word, and neither did I. He just touched me, stroking my shoulders, then he rolled me onto my back and cupped my breast underneath my shirt. Wildly, he pushed the material of my tank up, then closed his mouth over where his hand had been, his tongue flicking at my nipple.
His fingers snaked down, easing inside my panties. And as he explored me further, my body quivered with pleasure and I knew without a doubt that despite everything, this was going to be one fabulous afternoon.
Chapter
55
I woke up slowly, rolling over to curl up next to Stryker. Instead, I found an empty bed. Confused, I bolted up, looking around the now-dark room.
I found him standing in front of the window, the curtains open, the lights from Times Square glistening on his naked body. I propped myself up on an elbow and watched him, feeling sappy and sentimental and thoroughly sated. For now, at least, Stryker was all mine, and I liked that. I didn’t know what would happen after the game—if I survived—and I didn’t want to think about it. All I wanted was to live in the moment. To take all the pleasure and comfort Stryker was willing to give.
He shifted, the muscles in his back rippling as he turned to look at me, his somber expression morphing into a delighted smile at finding me awake. “Well, hello,” he said. “Good nap?”
“How long did I sleep?”
“A few hours. I got a quick nap, too. We both needed it, but we need to get moving. I don’t want to stay still.”