He shifted on his feet, his stance relaxed as he pinned her up against the wall. Her hands were wedged between them. She took her breath in tiny gusts to avoid the contact that normal inhalation would bring between their bodies. And that was the only reason for her light-headedness, damn it. She finally got her eyes to obey the messages from her brain and looked up. Her brain felt like marshmallow again. Hot, smoking marshmallow. Think.
“Wait, what about Richard Bates?” She’d met the billionaire CEO at the launch of the research project. “He’ll vouch for me.” Her fingers wriggled. She wished her hands were free. She wanted to scrabble against the wall behind her, as though she stood some chance of scratching her way through the plasterboard and brick.
Luke shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. “Richard Bates identified you,” he informed her. He cocked his head to the side. “How do you know him?”
“I’ve only met him briefly. He told me I reminded him of his daughter.” She glanced again at his lips. She couldn’t help it.
“He’s wrong about me. They’re wrong,” she insisted, and tried to keep her tone light, calm. Luke might be gorgeous, but she was getting a distinct predator-prey vibe from their conversation. She felt like a mouse being toyed with by a leopard. A large, sexy, intense leopard. Who was after the stolen Visi-suit.
“We have to get it back.” God only knew what hell would occur if that suit got into the wrong hands. What she knew about the covert weapon was classified, and she could only assume she had access to need-to-know data only. Its full capability was probably even more lethal.
He stared at her for several moments. Silent.
Maggie didn’t look away. She couldn’t. All she could do was breath in those tiny gusting breaths that wouldn’t oxygenate a flea and pray he would believe her.
Finally he pushed away from the wall. He withdrew a weird looking plastic bit from his pocket and unlocked her restraints.
“It seems everyone believes you took the suit,” he said conversationally as he crossed over to a cupboard in the kitchen and removed a little white tin. He withdrew a small bowl from another cupboard and filled it with water.
Her head tilted back against the wall and she took in a deep breath, relaxing at their new distance. Her arms dropped to her sides. She could breathe now, and maybe think, without his presence distracting her.
“Well, everybody is wrong. I don’t know anything about a break in at TI, and I didn’t know the Visi-suit was stolen until you told me.” Or so he said. What if this was some elaborate ploy to get her to give up information about the suit? Who was this guy, really? What did she know of him? She couldn’t trust him.
He gestured for her to take a seat as he crossed to her, carrying the tin. She recognized the red cross on the top before he flicked the lid open.
That is not your garden-variety first aid kit. Inside were syringes, scalpels and vials of liquids. What kind of torture was he cooking up? After the incident at the warehouse she didn’t know how much she more she could handle.
“Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” he said in that calm, conversational tone.
She clenched her fingers, her knuckles white against the dirty dark fabric of her skirt. She’d managed to survive one encounter with a rough criminal. She’d survive this too. Although Rupert was quite nasty, she got the impression that the man now kneeling in front of her was infinitely more dangerous.
She held her breath as he opened the container. Her muscles tensed. She was ready for it. Whatever he was going to hit her with, she would run, or fight. Either way, she was ready. He pulled out a—cotton ball? Her brow wrinkled.
He dipped it in the bowl of water and raised his hand. She flinched, her arms flying out to brace herself against the sofa.
He frowned at her movement and then sighed. He gently dabbed at the cut on her lip. She gaped, as much from astonishment as to help with his ministrations. He was giving her first aid? Maggie sat still as he cleaned her cuts and grazes.
“How are you connected to TI?” he asked softly as he pulled a tube of Hirudoid Cream out, and squeezed some onto a finger. He proceeded to rub it gently into the bruise on her cheek. His touch was warm and soothing, his face close. She could see faint laugh lines around his eyes, see the shadow of stubble on his cheek and chin. His expression was intent, yet tender. Could she ask him for help? Would he believe her?
No. She had a contractual obligation to secrecy. If she disregarded that and talked about the project, she could face the very charges stacking up erroneously against her now.
She’d figure out a solution to this problem, just like she always did. But maybe…She wondered if he would release her if she gave him some general information. She sighed. It was worth a try.
“Tek-Intel, the Department of Defense and the University of Washington are working on a research project together. I’m a librarian. I work on ways of making the accessing of information easier. I was brought in to help with the communication of that research.” It was a complex relationship, but her part in it was simple. Get the information out to the stakeholders.
He placed more ointment on his finger and touched her neck. Maggie’s breath caught in her throat as her eyes flicked up to his. His touch was warmer now, and although her neck was sore from Rupert’s attack, other emotions came to the fore, smothering the pain beneath an unfamiliar tidal wave of reaction.
His fingers caressed her skin, and she watched him watching their contact. Where before his touch had been brisk and businesslike, now it was a slow stroke, a gliding touch that left a trail of heat slithering down her throat and creating a languid pool in the base of her tummy.
Her eyes met his clear blue gaze. One gesture of humanity from this stranger and she was ready to do all sorts of things with him, and let him do all sorts of things with her. Good grief! Was she suffering from Stockholm Syndrome already?
Her hand fluttered to her throat as she rose from the couch and tried to put some distance between her and the man and the unwanted sensations he awoke in her.
“Thanks, I can take it from here,” she told him, hastily rubbing in the ointment and ignoring the painful ache her hurried touch wrought.
He eyed her for a moment, his expression a combination of interest and something else she couldn’t name, before he blinked, shuttering his emotion with the ease of a light switching off, the warmth replaced by a grim darkness.
“So you have access to the research at TI.” He packed away the supplies.
Maggie frowned as she stepped away from him. What was he talking about? She squelched her reaction to Luke and concentrated on what he was saying. He thought she’d stolen the Visi-suit. Apparently, so did the police. And those thugs who had abducted her. They all thought she had something to do with it. The whole mess was starting to make sense to her now.
Luke put the first aid kit away, emptied out the bowl and disposed of the used supplies, all the while keeping an eye on his prisoner as she chewed on a thumbnail.
“So that’s what they wanted.” She turned to pace the living room floor.
“They? Oh, you mean your cronies back at the warehouse, huh? So you were double-crossing them.”
The woman shook her head so hard the last pin finally gave up its fight. Her bun unraveled, and Luke watched the honey-blond locks tumble to halfway down her back. He clenched his fist. He wanted to touch her hair. Smell it. Did it smell of vanilla, like the rest of her? Was it as soft and silky as her skin?
She looked at him over her shoulder, and glared at him. “I didn’t steal the suit.” She frowned. “I wouldn’t steal anything. I know the damage it causes.” She continued to pace. “Oh, crap, this is a nightmare.”
Luke folded his arms. “Tell me about the suit, Viper.”
She whirled around. “Stop calling me that,” she snapped. “My name is Maggie. Use it.”
Luke’s eyebrow rose. He’d seen her frightened and meek. He’d also seen her surprised by an unwanted attraction. Her face
was an easy read. She was confused, but she’d also felt desire at his touch. She wasn’t able to hide it. He was glad she’d put some distance between them, because he sure as hell hadn’t been capable of doing it. Now he was getting a glimpse of fire. He wondered what she was really like. What was cover, and what was true Margaret Kincaid?
“Okay.” He bowed his head. “Maggie. Tell me about the suit.”
She raised her hands, palms out, her face puzzled. “Look, I’m just a librarian. I don’t know very much about the Visi-suit. I just set up the VRE for it.”
Luke frowned. “VRE?”
“Virtual Research Environment,” she clarified. “Tek-Intel approached the University of Washington with a research grant in conjunction with the Department of Defense. My job at the library is as an Information Services Librarian. I look at ways to help people access information. We set up a virtual lab so that our students and faculty, Tek-Intel’s staff and the D.O.D. could work together, from their own premises.”
Luke continued to frown. “How is that possible?” He couldn’t help it. He found the concept intriguing. She was intriguing.
She approached him, gesturing gracefully as she spoke. “Think of it as a social networking site for researchers. They get to share data, research results, conduct experiments, etcetera, and communicate extensively in real time. It’s a more efficient and secure tool than simply emailing and web posting.”
“So you have access to the research?”
“I have restricted access. I’m monitoring the VRE as a project myself. If it goes well, we can use it in other areas, like medicine.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand though. Why do people think I did this?”
Luke sighed. Back to the “Little Miss Innocence” act.
“You were tracked,” he told her. “Your intrusion into the Tek-Intel network was noticed. They couldn’t stop you, but Tek-Intel was able to trace your access. You forgot to hide your Internet Protocol address.” He shook his head. That was practically Hacker 101. Bates and his staff had sent him all their information regarding the theft. He knew how she’d hacked her way through their various firewalls and into their network. He glanced at a monitor on the wall. Perhaps if he confronted her with the evidence she’d realize there was no way out and drop this pretence.
He stepped back to a keyboard, typed in some code, and a nearby screen changed from a news anchor to the black and white image of a glass room, a security guard standing next to the door.
“We were sent this from Tek-Intel. It’s their CCTV footage from last night.” He hit play. She came up beside him, her head tilted back as she squinted at the screen. He could see her out of the corner of his eye. Her neck looked long and graceful, her profile seductively inquisitive. But he couldn’t allow her to distract him.
A figure dressed in black, sporting a long, light-colored braid over one shoulder crept up behind the guard. Light gleamed on metal as a silenced revolver was drawn. The gun jerked. The guard jolted and fell to the floor. The long-legged figure stepped up to him and fired another shot into the head. The guard’s body twitched twice and lay still. Maggie gasped, and a hand flew to her mouth. Luke shifted to watch her. He wasn’t sure if her horror was from seeing the action on the screen, or the fact that she’d been caught on tape.
The figure scurried to the door and typed in a code at the access panel. The door slid open. The figure looked back down the hall, and the footage froze on the image of the face. A window popped up, and a stock security pass image, as well as Maggie Kincaid’s driver’s license photo appeared. The three images were identical.
He turned to Maggie. “Well?”
She gaped at the screen, then at him, then back at the screen. “It’s not me.”
“It looks like you.”
“I know it looks like me, but I swear, that’s not me.”
Luke frowned. Well, the image was a little grainy. The quality was surprisingly poor for a cutting edge technology developer such as Tek-Intel, but there was no denying the similarities, especially when teamed with the technical fingerprint she’d left behind.
Maggie shook her head slowly, and he could see the muscles clenching in her jaw. “I. Don’t. Believe. This.”
She whirled around and paced toward the couch, then back to him, her hands clenching and relaxing. “What is happening? It’s not me. I wasn’t there. It’s somebody who looks like me, but it’s not me.” He could hear the panic in her voice.
Luke blinked. “That is obviously you on that tape. You have access to the TI network. It was your top secret, protected pass codes that were used to break into the security system. Your technical fingerprint left when you did it. And you’re in the footage. It’s all you.” She was arguing, when the evidence was right in front of her.
“Let me get this straight. I crack Tek-Intel’s state of the art security network, but forget to disguise my IP address, which is pretty much like leaving a calling card. I go to the trouble of dressing up in a black outfit, presumably to blend in with the night, but forget to hide my hair. And I break into a guarded lab with my hair in a braid, a braid that would leave me vulnerable in a physical encounter?” Maggie scoffed.
Luke nodded. “I said you did it. I never said you were smart about it. Admittedly, with just one of these details, I’d be skeptical, but when all the evidence starts to add up, I can’t ignore it. Neither can the authorities. I have to follow the lead.” He shook his head. “Are you trying to use the ‘Oh, it’s not me, Judge, it’s my doppelganger’ defense?” He couldn’t believe it.
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “Doppelganger? You want a doppelganger? I’ll show you a doppelganger.” She walked up to the keyboard. Luke’s hand shot out.
“You do realize that’s not the only copy, right? Just in case you’re trying to delete it?”
He almost laughed when she rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Check Google for Miss April Hotrod.”
Luke frowned. What the hell is she trying to do, now? He couldn’t figure out what her aim was. But he was interested to see how her mind worked. He opened up a web browser and searched for Miss April Hotrod.
He clicked on the first entry, then stood back as an image filled the screen. His jaw dropped.
“Well, will you look at that.” Maggie stared down at him from the screen, a come-hither look in her eyes, her mouth pouting sexily as she sprawled naked over a nineteen sixty-eight Ford Mustang. He swallowed. He loved nineteen sixty-eight Ford Mustangs.
“Nice wheels,” he observed. He looked at the angry woman standing beside him. “Should have known you were wearing a costume today. No way a young woman would really dress like that.” He eyed the collared shirt, the sensible skirt and flat shoes.
Her mouth dropped open and his eyes narrowed. She looked kinda, well, hurt, for some reason.
Her mouth closed with a snap, and she pointed to the screen. “That is not me. That woman’s name is Kandy Karamel.” She grimaced.
Luke looked at the screen again. The woman was beautiful. Sexy. He looked askance at Maggie. Then back at the screen. It had to be her. Same color hair, same full lips. He shrugged.
“Looks like the same woman to me.” He looked closely, then back at Maggie’s undone shirt. She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, her cheeks reddening. Well, nearly the same. The woman standing beside him was certainly well endowed, but he estimated her assets had been airbrushed and enhanced in the image on the screen. And she had green eyes in the photo instead of the gray eyes shooting darts at him now.
“You’re a woman of many talents,” he admitted. Damn, she looked hot up there.
Maggie groaned. “It isn’t me.”
She gestured to the screen, and Luke caught sight of her bra again. She did have great breasts and didn’t need the alterations worked on the image on the screen. He sighed as he realized he was staring. Oh, he was going to hell.
“Search Kandy Karamel, if you like. It isn’t me in that phot
o, just like it’s not me on that film.” Her voice rose.
Luke shook his head. “Nice try. Interesting idea, though. Try to make yourself look as plain-Jane as possible after doing a shoot like this, create uncertainty about your identity. Brilliant. Any jury would find it difficult to believe you’re the same woman when you’re wearing that get-up.” He pointed to her clothes and lack of makeup.
Maggie’s arm dropped to her side, and her shoulders slumped. Luke thought she was about to cry. She took a deep, shuddering breath. His eyes fell to her bosom again. Yep, hell. He forced himself to make eye contact.
“I need to call my mother,” she said, resigned.
“Yeah, like I’m going to fall for that one. Let me guess, you call your sidekick, one who still trusts you, and tell him to sell or destroy the prototype?”
Soulful eyes stared at him. “My mother is very ill. Please, let me…” Her voice trailed off as she looked over his shoulder.
Luke turned around to see what had caught her attention. One of the news channels had stock photos of the slain detectives on the screen. He grabbed a remote and turned up the volume.
“…in Seattle’s University District. Traffic was delayed for several hours while police investigated the crime scene.” A female reporter spoke earnestly into the eye of the camera. “Librarian and suspected spy, Margaret Elizabeth Kincaid, escaped custody with the help of three masked men. When informed of her daughter’s situation, Lillian Kincaid collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. Police are on the hunt for Margaret Kincaid.”
A photo of Maggie popped up on the screen. “If anyone has news of Kincaid’s whereabouts, please contact the police. Do not approach, she is considered armed and dangerous. In other news, two bodies were discovered at an abandoned warehouse…”
Luke pressed the mute button. Dangerous. He had to remind himself of that fact. Maggie was Viper. She’d killed a security guard, and organized the murder of the two detectives, and that was just in the last twenty-four hours.
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