by Amy McKinley
“And since I’ve flown her a couple of times and live close to Thorn Pharmaceuticals, Rich thought I’d be the best man for the job?”
“He did. And I want to stress that Jules is invaluable to my department. The company. No one can do what she can. I want her protected even if this turns out to be some strange office prank.”
“What exactly happened?”
Carl shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants. “It sounds odd to worry about this, but I don’t like to take chances with my employees’ safety, especially hers. There was a message that said ‘remember me’ on her computer, scrolling across her screen on repeat. It was in that old-school bright green on a black background. It was unsettling.” Carl seemed worried.
“Do you have an idea of who could have done it and what it could mean?” It didn’t seem overly threatening to me, but I didn’t have all the details yet.
“That’s the weird part. Since we are a privately owned company, our security is tight, like government-level secure. It had to be someone on the inside unless our servers were breached, which would be next to impossible, but everyone likes Jules. I’ve never heard a negative word about her.”
“You’re the boss, though, and you might not hear everything. You know how people are. Unless complaints were brought directly to you, there’s no way for you to know for sure if someone has a problem with her.”
Carl rocked back on his heels, pausing for a moment. “I see what you mean. We’ve kept this breakthrough in strict confidence between our team and a select few military personnel. Our IT department has assured me that no one accessed our servers from the outside. Even so, I had them make changes to tighten security further. I have a bad feeling about this. Jules was the one to administer a new vaccine to two groups of soldiers.” He shook his head. “What if one of the personnel members she came into contact with learned about the restricted procedure and is sending her the message? There were a few people not on the list that were talking with her.”
Someone laughed in the distance, and I glanced to where the rest of Carl’s team had gathered in a picnic clearing before facing him again. “So you think it could be one of the soldiers she came in contact with? One who had above average hacking skills and had a crush on her and is stalking her?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. It’s just that the message seemed personal. It rattled her. Jules was white as a sheet. Then she got an intense headache.”
“Do you think she knows who is behind this but isn’t telling you?”
“No.” Carl sighed, his face drooping, and he suddenly looked as though he’d aged five years. “Jules suffered a tragedy when she was young. Because of the trauma and a head injury, she can’t recall anything from before that time.”
“And you think this has something to do with the message on her screen?”
“No, I don’t. I think the message has to do with someone who developed a weird obsession with her. I just felt the need to explain a little about her past and the cause for the headaches… They also happen when she’s stressed.”
“I understand.” Chris had suffered a head injury, too, and had described such discomfort if he tried to remember before the memories were ready to resurface. “The headache was probably either from the stress of the potential threat or because her memories were close to the surface. Maybe before she was ready?”
“Yes. She was frightened, but that’s not something she would admit. I think the shock gave her the headache.”
I widened my stance and crossed my arms over my chest, eager to find out what it was he wanted. “What exactly are you hiring me to do?”
“If you agree, I’d like you to guard her. Drive her to and from work. Try to figure out how someone got access to her computer. With your connections, it shouldn’t be hard to weed out who’s targeting her, especially if it was someone she encountered prior to or after administering the injections. I need you to make sure nothing happens to her.”
“So a bodyguard.”
“I know you were a Navy SEAL and about the private security company you’re a part of. I think you have the skills necessary to keep her safe.”
It took about two whole seconds to make up my mind. I needed something to do outside of the women’s self-defense classes I was teaching, which I was doing because I felt like I needed to empower women, given what my mom had gone through. Aside from that, I was free, and boredom was not my friend—it never had been. Plus, she was an enigma, and I was determined to figure her out.
“We can sit down and iron out the details after the team-building meeting scheduled for the rest of the day, if that works for you.” Carl’s eyebrows appeared to climb his forehead as he waited for my response.
“I’ll want to bring some of my guys on to help me narrow down the list of suspects.”
Carl grinned. “Whatever needs to happen. She is the jewel of this company. The work she is doing has pulled us leagues ahead of the competition, securing Thorn Pharmaceuticals as one of the top research and development companies around. I can’t afford to have anything happen to her.”
Sweat dripped from my face and rolled down my chest until it hit my sports bra. My body ached in a good way. Imagine Dragons crooned in my ears, and I dropped the mat to the floor before sitting on it. Bending forward, I grabbed my toes and stretched. The pain from the day before was gone, except for the bruise on my shoulder blade. I’d decided to put the plunge into the ocean behind me. I’d done the meditation exercises that I’d learned and practiced for years, and I felt better.
Switching positions, I pulled my heels in and leaned over my bent legs and toes, humming to “Bad Liar.” An odd note filtered into the chords, and I yanked an earbud out to listen.
The doorbell rang again. Weird—I wasn’t expecting anyone. I rolled to my feet, went to the door, and opened it. Tall, muscular, and handsome filled my field of vision.
“What are you doing here?” I crossed my arms over my chest, annoyed that he’d caught me sweating through my sports bra and running shorts.
He grinned and hooked his hands above his head on the top of the doorway in the position men seemed to universally take to drive women nuts or cause spontaneous drooling. It worked. My heart rate kicked up a notch. Muscles bulged in his arms, and his eyes sparkled. He knew what he was doing. I narrowed my eyes. It’s not gonna work.
“Remember the conversation Carl had with us before you left?”
Shoot. I did, and it was silly. “Do you think this is necessary?”
“Your boss does.”
He grinned, and I backed up a step and tripped over my own feet. Dammit. He caught my elbow to steady me. He was too big, too handsome, and just too much. Having him in my house was not okay. I didn’t need distractions, and he was one.
“I’m fine.” I pulled my arm away, not thrilled about the zaps of awareness that danced along my skin from where he’d held me. “Come in, I guess.”
His smile widened at my obvious irritation, which only further flustered me. He closed the door behind him, and my irrational temper flared. “Make sure you hear the click when you shut the door. If not, it’ll open if there is a strong gust of wind.”
The hairs along my arms raised in uncomfortable awareness of how much space he seemed to take up in my small beach house. “We need to establish ground rules if I’m going to agree to this.”
“Do we, now?” He chuckled.
I sucked in some air. I needed patience to deal with the situation, which was occurring before seven in the morning. It was seriously too much for Carl to put on me. I held out a hand and started ticking off on my fingers what I would allow. “First, you are not going to go to work with me. Second, I’m not sure what encompasses bodyguard hours, but I’m not okay with you sleeping here. Third…” Shoot, what else do I want? My mind went blank. I needed coffee. I was still tired. I glared at him before turning and stomping into the kitchen to start the fuel necessary to function.
“So no third.”
&nb
sp; I jumped, not having heard him enter the kitchen behind me. When I glanced at him over my shoulder, I caught his grin as he stood in the entryway. I rolled my eyes.
“Any other demands?”
“Yes. I’ll think of more.” I filled my cup with coffee then pointed at the mug to see if he wanted any. He shook his head. After adding cream and cinnamon, I waved my hands, ushering him back into the other room. “What is it you’ve been asked to do for this job?”
“Drive you to and from work, make sure you’re safe, and look into the screen-saver incident. Sounds easy enough.”
“Oh, okay. So you’re not going to be around all the time?”
“Not unless something changes, no.”
That didn’t seem too bad. I didn’t like it, but I could put up with his presence for a while. The weird screen-saver prank would fade from memory, and Carl’s worry would blow over. Then I’d be back to my normal routine of working and running, rinsing, and repeating. Distracted, I pointed at the kitchen. “I’ve got to get ready for work. Help yourself to food or coffee.”
I left him standing in the living room. I closed my bedroom door and leaned against it. What the hell am I going to do with him following me to and from work? Scrubbing my face with the bottom of my shirt, I groaned. He was sex on a stick, and the women in my office were not immune. He couldn’t come up to look into the screen-saver issue. We wouldn’t get any work done if he was around. I grinned. He and I were going to set some more ground rules, no matter what he’d agreed to with Carl.
After a quick shower, I threw on some clothes, ready to head back to the living room to have a chat with Trev. I stepped in front of the mirror and froze. Holy shit. The glass was steamed up except the words “remember me before it’s too late” written across it.
This isn’t funny. I sucked in a breath, left the bathroom, and pressed my back against my bedroom wall. My head throbbed as a headache spontaneously struck. I left my room and made it halfway down the hall before stopping. Did I really see that? I had to be sure. With the way my head pounded, I couldn’t be sure. Tiptoeing back to my room, I made my way to the bathroom and stood before the mirror. Nothing was there. No words. It had been my imagination. It had to be.
Several hours passed while I worked in the lab, effectively banishing all thoughts of Trev and the imagined mirror incident, at least for the most part.
I had planned to tell him when I’d first left my room, but that changed when I went back into the bathroom and the writing was gone. I’d even run the sink until steam coated the surface once more, but nothing appeared. It had to have been my imagination. I was too embarrassed to confide in anyone about it. I would have to make an appointment with my therapist. She would know what was going on. It was probably just stress.
“Jules! Fran!” Carl’s bellow momentarily halted work in the lab.
Questioning gazes from colleagues clashed with ours as we stepped away from the table where we were working. I answered their silent inquiries with a shrug—their guess as to what had him all riled up was as good as mine.
Fran bumped my shoulder. “Any clue what this is about?”
“None.” Exiting the lab, we rounded the corner to Carl’s office.
A deep frown etched lines across his forehead and bracketed his mouth.
“What’s going on?” A sense of dread stirred in my gut. He looked distressed, an expression he rarely wore.
“I just got off the phone with Dr. Mikhailov. He’s hoping for aid in solving a major problem in regards to a tragedy they’ve suffered.”
“Okay,” Fran murmured as she looked back and forth from Carl to me.
“One of his lab technicians, Sasha Orlova, was working in the field where a dead body from centuries ago was discovered in the melting permafrost in the Yakutsk region.” Carl scrubbed his hand over his face before his wide eyes met mine. “Sasha was exposed to the infectious pathogens by villagers who were in contact with the thawed gravesite before the scientists recovered the body. At least that’s what we’ve determined.”
A sense of dread warred with my need to unravel what’d happened. I could read his body language clearly. Whatever Orlova had encountered, which had been frozen and preserved so long ago, hadn’t resulted in a positive outcome.
“She’s dead.” He cleared his throat as I dropped like lead into a chair in front of his desk. “Dr. Mikhailov is imploring us to contribute our expertise so that his employees stand a chance of survival. I met him at a conference a year or so ago. Jules, he heard of the research and findings you’ve conducted surrounding monoclonal antibodies. It might help them.”
“How did she die? What were her symptoms?” I had to know to even hypothesize a course of action.
“Dr. Mikhailov thinks it could have been a strain of hemorrhagic fever. We’re not sure which one. It could have been an ancient variant we haven’t yet seen.”
If it’s one we haven’t encountered before, we might not have a defense for it. My stomach clenched at the thought of what Sasha would have experienced before she died. Fast-acting hemorrhagic fevers caused severe dehydration, nausea, and diarrhea, and as the symptoms worsened, victims often experienced severe pain. It could’ve attacked her pancreas and liver along with damaging blood vessels and causing massive hemorrhaging. It wasn’t a pretty way to go.
“What’s happened to the villagers and the scientists working on this find?” Fran asked.
Carl cleared his throat before pulling himself together, all business once again. “They’ve been quarantined—”
“They want access to our military-grade tool kit?” No, that wasn’t it. They wouldn’t have known about that project. “They want the antibodies to combat foreign pathogens.” Shock had slowed my processing time. My second answer made the most sense—I knew it would create the best-case scenario for their survival.
Carl nodded. “They’ve delivered sealed samples for us to run tests on. As quickly as this infection has seemed to spread, we need to be extremely careful.”
“I understand. When can I start working on it?”
“Immediately. The biopsies were sent over by secured courier this morning. I’m assigning you and Fran to spearhead this, and a separate team at Zen will work on discovering a cure as well. We’re combining forces to help them.”
To help us all. Undiscovered viruses or plagues would affect more than that tiny region. It could become a world problem. “Are there any other companies involved?” I couldn’t imagine that Carl’s company, Thorn Pharmaceuticals, and his rival, Zen Pharmaceuticals, were the only two willing to offer their time.
“I’m unaware of who else is involved. Let’s do what we can on our end.” Carl rapped his knuckles on his desk. “Get to work.”
Fran and I stood and filed out of Carl’s office then made our way toward our workspace. She turned to me and spoke in a hushed tone. “We’re going to have to work fast. You know what this could mean, right?”
I mentally prepared for the hours of intense work we would do today and kissed the run I planned along the beach tonight goodbye. A sense of urgency coated my response. “Yes, a potential outbreak.”
Exhaustion clung to my movements from the long hours in the lab the day before as I wrung out my dark-brown hair before wrapping it in a towel. The combination of the melting permafrost ramifications and the small amount of sleep I’d gotten made me shaky and anxious about what else could happen. Flashbacks from the message on the mirror the day before taunted me, and a slow ache built in my head. I can do this. Taking a deep breath, I looked at the mirror. Condensation coated the unspoiled surface. I sighed in relief. Nothing stared back at me.
I took a deep breath then walked out of the bathroom and picked up my phone. I’d left a message for Trev about when I would be ready. We’d agreed the day before that he would shadow me everywhere except on my morning runs. I wanted those for myself—I needed some time on my own.
I heard a muffled click, which pulled me from my room and into the hallw
ay. “Trev?” It sounded like a door, but I’d locked the front entrance. He wouldn’t have let himself in, I didn’t think.
Goose bumps crawled over my skin. It was creepy—I was either hearing things, or someone was in my house. With my phone clutched tightly in my grasp, I went from room to room. After clearing the kitchen, I breathed a sigh of relief. My mind was playing tricks on me again. No one else was there.
I did a quick time check and cursed when I realized I only had five minutes before Trev would arrive. Back at my closet, I stood in front of my clothes, at a loss for what to wear. I never had that problem, and I wondered what my deal was, given that I wore a lab coat every day. There was no reason to put on a skirt, even though I liked the pretty pale-yellow-and-blue-flowered print. It certainly was not because I would see Trev. My face heated.
I settled on pants and a blouse. After blow-drying my hair, I put on a minimal amount of makeup. The doorbell rang, and I dropped the mascara brush. Shit. A smear of black marred the white sink. I shoved the wand back in the tube and tossed it onto the counter. I’ll clean that later.
I yanked open the front door, and my pulse kicked up a notch, which was not okay. He leaned against my doorframe, his eyebrows furrowed, and I took a step back, wondering whether he was irritated. I couldn’t focus. With a jerk of my head, I let reality slap me in the face. He was not for me. I recognized the attraction for what it was—he made me feel safe and protected. After all, he had saved me from drowning.
After rationalizing my reaction to him, I flashed him a brief smile as I ticked through the list of what I had to do for work. “Coffee.” I waved him in. “I need some. You?”