by Cathie Linz
Keeping her gaze on the theater across the street, she sipped her latte.
“How are we supposed to work together given the circumstances?” he demanded.
“I didn’t say it would be easy.”
“I’m a former Marine. We don’t do easy.”
“But you believe in teamwork, right?”
“When we’re sharing the same mission, yes. Not with—”
“—the enemy?” she inserted.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
Her gaze moved to his mouth, his sinful mouth. He’d done some darkly sensual things to her in Italy with that mouth of his. And his recent kiss proved that what they’d shared in Positano hadn’t been a fluke. The physical chemistry was still there, stronger than ever.
“Is that look for me or for my brownie?” he asked.
“Your brownie.”
“You want?” He held up a small piece to her lips, daring her to take it. “How badly do you want?”
She turned up her nose, which only made his fingers brush her bottom lip and her chin. She couldn’t let him see how much he got to her. She had to keep her head here and not get pulled into his magnetic field.
“How badly do you want?” she said.
“I’ve got the brownie. You don’t.”
“Yes, but I’ve got the file on your father’s case, and you don’t.”
“And you’re willing to share?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Not the entire file.”
“Why not?”
“Because if my father found out . . . he wouldn’t be pleased.”
“If his company has nothing to hide, then he shouldn’t mind.”
“I am willing to share some information.”
“Go ahead.” He sat back in his chair.
“Only four people worked closely on this particular biofuel project. Your father was in charge of it. He had two other chemists working with him at the research facility in Joliet: Dr. Fred Belkin and Dr. Nolan Parker.”
“I already knew that.”
“Fred died of a brain tumor last year.”
“Again, old news,” he said.
“Did you know that several former employees of American Research Corporation’s research facility had or have brain tumors? They’re presently suing the company.”
“So? What does that have to do with my father’s case?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said.
“Are you insinuating that my father may have had a brain tumor and that’s what made him embezzle money?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. And what about Nolan Parker?”
“What about him?”
“What role did he play in this whole thing? Have you talked to him?”
“Not yet. I know from his earlier statements that he firmly believed my father was guilty.”
“What reasons might Nolan have for saying that?”
They spent the next half hour talking about possible scenarios without reaching any conclusions. To her surprise, she enjoyed brainstorming with Caine. Once he set his hatred for her father aside, they were able to work together well.
But how realistic was it to expect him to feel any other way if he blamed her father for his dad’s death? What if the situation was reversed? How would she feel if she thought his dad was responsible for her father’s death? The idea gave her chills. And not the good kind.
Why had Caine kissed her earlier? Had it been to distract her? Or to make her fall for him harder?
Working with him didn’t mean that she trusted him any more than he trusted her.
She looked out the window. “They’re coming out of the theater.”
“Weldon?”
She shook her head. “I don’t see him.”
They waited until the last person had departed. No Weldon.
Caine checked his watch. “Gotta go. I’ve got things to do.” He stood and made a hasty retreat.
She wanted to follow him, but she had things to do herself. The first was to check out another lead a few blocks away. The corner tavern looked like hundreds of other Chicago neighborhood bars. This one was next to the “L” elevated train tracks and had a Singleton’s Tavern vintage wooden sign that she would have expected to see outside some English countryside pub. Stepping inside, she discovered the place wasn’t very busy. A blue and white neon sign behind the bar touted the fact that Pabst Blue Ribbon was on tap here.
“Are you looking for the Geek Meet group?” the bar-tender asked.
She nodded.
He tilted his head. “In the back on the right.”
Faith walked back to the accompaniment of the “L” roaring by outside, making the floor vibrate.
A woman greeted her at the door to a large, quieter room. “Welcome.” She looked down at her clipboard. “We’re glad you’ve joined us. And your name is?”
“I didn’t sign up ahead of time. Is that a problem? Weldon told me it would be okay.” Faith scanned the name tags on the table beside her. Sure enough, there was Weldon’s Hi My Name Is self-adhesive name tag.
“Well, we normally like people to sign up beforehand, but we do have some extra space tonight, so you’re in luck. There is a cover charge.”
Faith paid the amount and headed for a table where a few other people were already sitting. A red and white checked oilcloth covered the folding table, and folding chairs provided the seating. She sat and filled out her name on the supplied adhesive name tag. She was just writing the last letter in her name when a guy bumped into her elbow with his backpack, causing her to smear her h.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, taking his backpack and setting it on the table.
His name tag said he was Marvin, but his voice said he was Caine.
Chapter Ten
The geeky newcomer didn’t look like Caine, not with the white T-shirt and orange and green diamond weave sweater vest he wore over it. His shoulders were slightly hunched, and his hair was totally rumpled—not in a sexy way but in a hasn’t-seen-a-comb-in-a-week way. He blinked myopically from behind a pair of glasses held together with tape at the right hinge.
He was good. She’d give him that. But what did it say about her that she didn’t need a costume to come to the geek gathering and fit right in? Her white blouse and khaki Capri pants were pretty conservative. Maybe too much so? Was that what gave her inner geek away?
“Welcome everyone. My name is Sharon, and as you know, you’re here for our monthly Geek Meet gathering. Let’s get things started with a few icebreaker questions. Raise your hand if you think the Mercedes symbol looks like an eclipsed conformation.”
A dozen hands went up amid laughter.
“Great.” Sharon smiled. “How many of you barbecue on your Bunsen burners?”
More laughter, fewer hands.
“Okay, how many of you get excited when asked, ‘What punctuation mark are you?’ ”
Faith’s hand shot up. She knew her place in the punctuation hall of fame. She was definitely a question mark. Always had been.
“How many of you know the Dewey decimal number for mathematics?”
Again her hand shot up, as did several others. “It’s 510,” she said.
“How about Melvil Dewey’s birthdate?”
“December 10, 1851,” a guy at the neighboring table shouted out before Faith could.
“Right. Which leads us into the next step—board games.” Sharon pointed to a pile of them on a small corner table. “Trivial Pursuit or Scattergories. Take your pick. One game per table.”
Faith grabbed the last Scattergories and brought it back to her table. Yes, she was the Trivial Pursuit champ at the library, but those boxes were all taken.
“Good choice,” a guy in an MIT T-shirt at her table said. “I hope you’re good at this game. We need to get a win tonight.”
“You’re a librarian, right?
” the woman on the other side of him said. “I saw you put your hand in the air for those librarian questions. My name is Mia, and I’m a chemist,” she added.
“So when she hears ‘ABS’ she thinks about acrylnitrilbutadiene-styrol copolymer instead of antilock braking systems,” MIT guy said. “My name’s Ed, and I’m a chemist too.”
“Do either of you know Weldon Gronski?” Faith asked.
They both shook their heads.
Faith discreetly checked the rest of the room, looking for Weldon. Half the attendees were women, so that knocked them out of the running. None of the remaining geeks looked like Weldon.
Caine aka Marvin moved his backpack off the table and dumped it onto the floor under the table with klutzy clumsiness. “Sorry,” he muttered without looking anyone in the eye.
“Do you know how to play this game?” Faith asked him.
He nodded.
She kicked his ankle, not hard enough to hurt him but enough to get his attention. She regretted it a moment later when he slid his hand onto her thigh under the table. She immediately put her knees together, which only served to trap his hands between her legs. Big mistake.
He wiggled his fingers against her.
“Is this your first time, Marvin?” Mia asked.
He nodded again, keeping his chin tucked against his chest. Meanwhile his fingers were tucked against Faith in the vee between her thighs, doing wickedly naughty things to her.
Her face and her entire body were on fire.
“Are you okay?” Mia asked her. “Is it too hot in here for you?”
Faith was incapable of making a reply. Tilting her head back, she briefly closed her eyes as her internal fireworks exploded. She tried crossing her legs. More fireworks.
Marvin/Caine took a sheet of paper and fanned her face with one hand while his other seductive hand remained under the table between her legs. The thin cotton of her Capri pants provided little protection to his erotic finger play.
“Everyone ready to play now?” Ed asked.
Faith reluctantly removed his hand from her body and returned it to his own leg before hastily pulling back her own hand and keeping both on the table in front of her. No more playing for her. What had she been thinking? Dumb question. Thinking had played no part in what had just gone on under the table. That had been purely physical. Purely, divinely physical.
Her body was still humming. No, not just humming, it was singing an operatic aria in Dolby stereo.
How was she supposed to concentrate after experiencing an orgasm in public? She didn’t know where to begin. She couldn’t even speak yet. At least she was no longer panting, and her tablemates had stopped giving her curious looks. None of them looked like they had a clue what she’d just gone through. She certainly hoped not.
“So,” she stuttered, “uh everyone uh everyone knows . . . uh . . . how to . . . uh . . . play . . . right?”
“Oh yeah,” Marvin/Caine said with a naughty grin. “I know how to play. I’m good at games. Really good.”
Her laser look shot him the message, Touch me again, and you’re a dead man.
The lazy look he bestowed upon her said, Message received and ignored.
“We know the rules,” Ed said. “You fill out a category list with answers that begin with whatever letter comes up on the dice.”
“There’s only one, so actually it’s a die,” Mia said.
“I knew that.” Ed sounded defensive. “To continue, you only score points if no other player matches your answer. The one with the most points wins. Okay then, everyone ready? I’ve got the timer set. Faith, will you roll the die?”
She did and then said, “The letter is N.”
“Start!” Ed enthusiastically shouted.
Faith stared down at her category card and quickly started writing—beginning with a boy’s name and moving on to U.S. cities to pro sports teams and presidents. Ned, Nevada City, Nuggets, Nixon.
But the category that provided the most heated exchanges in that first round was insects. “Nabis capsiformis is a pale damsel bug,” Ed said.
“You made that up,” Marvin/Caine said.
“Google it,” Ed retorted.
“What about Nezara viridula?” Marvin/Caine gave Mia an intimidating stare.
“It’s a southern green stink bug,” Faith replied on Mia’s behalf. “I Googled it.” She held up her BlackBerry. “And gnat is spelled with a g,” she told Caine.
Round two proved to be just as competitive, with Marvin/ Caine racking up points. Faith had heard that Marines were ultracompetitive, but she’d never been eyewitness to that trait until now. Caine’s undercover geek persona was clearly proving to be more and more difficult for him to maintain. He was drawing too much attention.
Before round three, she knocked his pencil to the floor, forcing him to lean under the table to get it.
“I’ll help you,” she said before diving under the table to join him. “You’re a geek, remember?” she whispered. “Stop being such a Marine.”
“I am a Marine.”
“A former Marine,” she corrected him. “In danger of blowing your geek cover.”
“You two okay under here?” Ed asked as he bent down to check out what was going on. “We have extra pencils on the table, you know.”
“It was his good luck pencil,” Faith said.
“It didn’t help him spell gnat correctly,” Ed pointed out.
Caine growled.
Faith elbowed him, reminding him that geeks don’t growl unless someone challenges their equations.
“Let’s resume the game.” Ed sat up.
Faith shot Caine a warning look and put her finger to her lips. She then sat up so fast, she got dizzy. Caine took his time.
Ed said, “You never did tell us what you do for a living, Marvin.”
Caine shot the guy a look that said, I eat pompous lizards like you for breakfast.
“He can’t talk about his work,” Faith said.
Ed raised a bushy eyebrow. “He told you that under the table?”
Faith nodded. Caine wasn’t the only one who could perfect a look of intimidation. As a librarian, Faith had that look down pat as well. And she directed it full force at Ed. “He’s doing top secret research.”
Ed made the mistake of laughing. “And you bought that?”
Faith grabbed Caine’s arm to stop him from leaping over the table and shoving Ed through the wall.
To her surprise, Caine seemed very calm.
She wasn’t sure that was a good thing, however. He then casually rattled off a chemical equation so complicated-sounding that she was stunned. Ed seemed equally flummoxed. Jane Austen may have seen people flummoxed, but that facial expression was pretty hard to come by these days,
Ed shut up, and they played round three without any further problems. Unexpectedly, Faith ended up with the most points and won the game. Her prize was a Librarian Action Figure. It seemed her former profession followed her wherever she went.
Caine also followed her. She had to ask, “What did you say to Ed?”
“Something my father taught me.”
“Whatever it was, it worked. I assume you’re here because you spoke to the same former coworker who told me about Weldon’s interest in this group,” she said in an undertone.
Caine nodded and slung his backpack on with renewed confidence. The slouch was gone. But Weldon’s unclaimed name tag remained on the table. He’d been a no-show yet again.
“What’s next?” Faith asked Caine.
“You go home and play with your Librarian Action Figure, and I solve this case.” He strode off, leaving her standing there shaking her head. The man was clearly clueless if he thought she was giving up that easily. She was a Mighty Question Mark in the world of punctuation superheroes. She had not yet begun to fight.
Okay, she was heading home now because she was clearly mixing her metaphors along with everything else. It had been a long day and an even longer evening. Time to regroup after overe
xplosure—er overexposure to Caine.
She’d only had a glass of Chardonnay, so she couldn’t blame her messed-up thoughts on her alcohol consumption. This was all Caine’s fault. That orgasm had scrambled her brains. He was the reason she had to hail a cab instead of taking public transportation home.
But the car that pulled up at the curb beside her wasn’t a taxi. It looked remarkably like Caine’s black Mustang.
The door opened as he shoved it from inside. “Get in,” he growled.
“I’d rather not.”
“Do not make me come get you,” he warned.
She was no fool. She got in the car. “Clearly you don’t want this night to end. Why is that?”
“Because I’m not going to leave you on some strange street corner to find your own way home in the middle of the night.”
“First, it’s ten p.m., not the middle of the night. Secondly, this is not a strange street corner. We’re on the edge of Wrigleyville. It’s a good neighborhood. You know what they say about Chicago . . . that it’s a big city made up of small-town neighborhoods. My Streeterville neighborhood has its own feel and history. It got its name from Captain George Streeter. He’s actually got a pretty neat story.” Faith was babbling, and she didn’t care. “In 1886 his boat ran aground on a sandbar in Lake Michigan just offshore. He and his wife turned the boat into a houseboat and just lived there. He sold portions of the sandbar to contractors looking to dump rubble left over from the Great Chicago Fire. Eventually the landfill took shape, and since the old maps of Chicago showed the city limits ending at the old shoreline, Streeter declared the area the District of Lake Michigan and made himself governor. Then he sold small plots of the filled-in land, and a shantytown developed there. The ritzy inhabitants with mansions on the nearby Gold Coast were not happy campers, and they tried to get rid of him. But he hung on until his death in 1921. The city then used a loophole in the law to take the property from his third wife. It turns out Streeter hadn’t divorced his first wife, so the marriage to his third wasn’t legal. The city moved in and took over the land. But the Streeterville name remained.” Realizing she sounded like a history groupie, Faith paused. She had to stop thinking like a librarian and more like an investigator.