Covert Intents: A Branson Family Novella

by Janie Crouch

  Rachel was currently ABD —all but dissertation— in the literature Ph.D. program. Once she had completed her dissertation, she hoped to apply for a job at Virginia State, to stay here in D.C.

  But rumors flying around that she had affairs with colleagues? That would not help her in her job hunting. Not to mention the thought of kissing Ryan on a regular basis did nothing to her libido whatsoever. Rachel was not interested and would let him know next time she saw him.

  She took the metro to campus, making it just in time for the nine o’clock class she taught. Normally she would’ve stopped by her office, had another cup a coffee, been more prepared for her day. But she was late. Last night had thrown her for a loop and she was still feeling its effects this morning. Most college instructors didn’t come in on Fridays unless they had to. Rachel had to since she was low man on the totem pole and had a class.

  The class wasn’t bad as far as freshman lit went; the only difficulty was that it only met once a week, so it was nearly three hours in length. By the time the class was over, Rachel was feeling the effect of her unpreparedness even more. She didn’t think the students had noticed, but she didn’t plan to let it happen again.

  She needed to focus on school and not on Seth. Or on Ryan. She needed to just focus on her work and let everything else go. Rachel was quite good at avoiding reality when she wanted to —give her a book and she could get lost for days— so she shouldn’t have any problem now.

  She took the stairs —still not quite ready to take the elevator— the three floors up from the classrooms to the level that held her office. She dug inside her bag to find her office key but as she pushed it in the lock, the door slid open before she could turn it.

  Why was her office door unlocked?

  Rachel walked cautiously into the space. “Hello?”

  Her office, like those of most the graduate assistants, wasn’t very large, maybe twelve feet squared. There was barely room for her desk, a bookshelf and another small worktable.

  Nobody could be hiding in here, unless they were under her desk. She walked quickly around to look.

  Nothing.

  Of course, nothing. She was letting the fact that she hadn’t gotten any decent sleep last night take another toll on her. She’d just left her office unlocked. It happened.

  Okay, she didn’t ever remember doing that before, but it could’ve happened.

  She set her two bags full of books and class materials down on her desk and shrugged off her sweater. She needed some coffee and something to eat. Both could be found in the break room down the hall.

  The break room was a great place. A fridge, microwave and pretty fancy coffee maker took care of her hunger and thirst needs. But mostly Rachel liked it because of the stacks of books everywhere. There were bookshelves in rows, in essence its own library. The large freestanding shelves were haphazardly placed all over the room, almost creating a maze.

  All the books people couldn’t fit in their offices were placed here. And they were everywhere: the shelves, stacks on floors, tables, windowsills.

  Rachel had always loved books, and loved these, even if most of them had to do with computer science. She felt like this room had more character than any other she’d been in on campus, so hanging out here was never a problem.

  She grabbed her coffee and warmed up leftovers and headed back toward her office, still trying to shake her spooked feeling. But between what happened in the elevator yesterday, and lack of sleep last night, she just couldn’t get rid of it. Normally she loved that no one was around on Friday. Today it was just making her nervous.

  She’d eat her lunch then go home. Forget about her posted office hours. Students never came by during office hours anyway. And this way she wouldn’t have to worry about running into Seth or Ryan.

  Walking faster with her new plan in mind, she turned the corner to find her office door cracked open again.

  Sheknew she had closed it when she left for the break room.

  “Hello?”

  She pushed the door open all the way. There was a man standing behind her desk. All the drawers in her desk were open and the textbooks she had brought up from the classroom were spread out all over.

  She kept herself very close to the door so she could run if needed, but relaxed marginally when the man had the same green coveralls Seth normally wore.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  The man moved behind her desk slightly. “I’m with maintenance. Just a routine search of offices for any pests or rodents.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know you guys did stuff like that.” Or know why he would be looking through her drawers for bugs. “You’re not the normal guy who works this floor.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “No, I’m not normally on this floor.”

  “Yeah, Patrick usually works here. Where’s he today?” There was no Patrick working here, as far as Rachel knew. There especially wasn’t one who worked on this floor in the last two months. Rachel didn’t know why she lied. All she knew was that this guy was lying too.

  He shrugged. “I talked to Patrick a few minutes ago. He’ll be up here to help with some of the other offices in just a few.”

  She needed to get out of here, to call security to figure out what was going on, but her cell phone was in her cardigan pocket.

  “I’ll just go work somewhere else. Get out of your hair so you can do your job. Can you just toss me my sweater?”

  The man turned his back to her and reached down to get her sweater off the back of her chair, but when he turned back around, instead of handing her the jacket, he had a gun in his hand.

  She took a step back.

  “Where’s the chip?” He made his way around the desk, the gun still pointed directly at her.

  “What chip?”

  “You’re Rachel Branson, right? This is your office?”

  “Who are you?”

  The man took a step forward and grabbed her arm, eyes flinty. “Where is the microchip?”

  Rachel had no idea what he was talking about. “Listen, I know I work on the floor with mostly computer faculty, but I’m a literature instructor. I don’t know anything about microchips and stuff like that.”

  He took a step towards her, arms raised to strike. They both heard the bell of the elevator chime and creaky wheels of a cart.

  Seth.

  The man quickly peeled off his coveralls and grabbed her by the arm again. He kept his gun pointed at her ribs, the clothing covering it from view.

  “You’re coming with me. If you say anything to anyone as we leave, I will kill that person and shoot you in your kneecap. Got it?”

  Rachel nodded, not trusting herself to talk. She couldn’t allow Seth to get hurt.

  He led her out of her office, closing the door behind them. It didn’t take long before she could see Seth and his cleaning cart down the hallway near the elevator, coming toward them.

  “I have to say hi to Patrick, or else he’ll get suspicious. We always say hello to each other.” She didn’t want to take a chance on Seth getting shot just because he said hello to her.

  As they neared Seth, the man gripped her arm tighter. Seth was whistling, although stopped when he saw Rachel and the man.

  “Hi Patrick. Have a good weekend, okay?”

  What was she doing? Calling him by another name wasn’t going to do anything but confuse Seth. There was no reason he would think something was wrong, he would just think she’s crazy.

  She prayed he wouldn’t bring up last night or their kiss. She glanced up at his green eyes. His face was neutral, but his eyes were just slightly narrowed.

  “See you later Dr. Branson. Have a good day.”

  Seth had caught on that something wasn’t right. He never called her Dr. Branson, ever since she had explained she wasn’t a doctor yet. Not until she finished her dissertation. He always called her “Dr. Almost-Branson.”

  But what was he going to do, squirt the bad guy with window cleaner? The man had a gun. Seth
had a custodial cart.

  Rachel didn’t know what microchip the man wanted, but she didn’t have it. And she knew leaving the building with him would be disastrous. She’d have to take a chance that the man wasn’t willing to shoot her since he thought she had something he wanted.

  They were coming up on the break room. It was the only room on the floor Rachel knew of that had two doors. It was her best bet.

  She pulled from the man just as they passed the door.

  “Hey—“ he lurched for her, but missed.

  She ran into the room and pulled down a huge pile of books on the table by the door. Although he wasn’t shooting, she realized the books weren’t slowing him down.

  She ducked behind one of the large shelves, but knew it wouldn’t take long for the guy to find her. She needed a way out. She dipped her head around one side and didn’t see him so stepped all the way around the shelf.

  He was standing right there. “There you are.”

  He lunged for her again, but just as he was about to grab her he went flying through the air landing diagonal to her.

  Seth was on top of him, somehow having managed a silent flying tackle from the side.

  “Be careful, he has a gun.” Rachel wasn’t sure how she could best help Seth. This guy was obviously a trained criminal.

  But it didn’t take more than a few moments to realize Seth didn’t need much help. He was giving as good as he got.

  “Get out, call security,” Seth muttered between taking a punch right in the gut and flipping around on the ground so he could elbow the guy in the face.

  Rachel turned to run, but the thug grabbed her ankle and pulled hard, sending her sprawling to the ground. Rachel scampered away but the battle between Seth and the guy knocked into the bookshelf causing huge piles of books to topple over onto her. She cried out as the heavy books cascaded down.

  And the entire shelf was about to fall on her.

  “Rachel!” Seth let go of the guy and dove for her, deflecting some of the books with his arm. He slowed the falling bookshelf, arms straining from the awkward angle where he lay on the floor, giving her time to get out of the way.

  The man took advantage of Seth’s distraction and fled.

  Seth pushed the falling shelf in another direction then jumped to his feet to steady other shelves as they began to topple.

  Once they were secure, Rachel watched in shock as Seth pulled a small gun out of a holster at his ankle and took off after the thug.

  The books that had hit her had nothing to do with how her world was spinning. One thing she knew for sure, Seth Hardings was not just a janitor.

  CHAPTER SIX

  By the time Seth was able to make it into the hall, the guy was gone. Seth had no idea who he was. Definitely not someone who worked in this building, he’d made sure he was familiar with all the faces he might run into.

  He got out his phone and sent a message to Omega. He needed back-up here right away, not necessarily for safety but definitely to gather any evidence from the room that could be found. Seth didn’t want this left to the local police.

  What the hell did the guy want with Rachel?

  When he’d seen her come down the hallway that close to another man his hackles had immediately raised. But mostly that had been because he hadn’t liked Rachel being that close to another man.

  Not that Seth had any real say over who she was close to. But damned if it hadn’t caught him off guard and made him mad. He did not like seeing her close to any man that wasn’t him.

  He would’ve ignored it thinking he’d just been wrong about what type of person she was, if she hadn’t clued him in.

  The moment she called him Patrick, it was like everything had shifted and fell into place. Seth saw the strategically placed clothing over the guy’s arm that was obviously concealing a weapon. He saw Rachel’s pinched face.

  He’d tried to reassure her, but wasn’t sure if she even remembered he normally called her “Dr. Almost,” and even if she did, if she would figure out he understood she was under duress.

  It had been smart of her to make a play at the break room, but all those damn books were dangerous. His heart had caught in his chest at the sight of them falling on her. He jogged back down the hall now to make sure she was all right.

  She had made it off the floor and was wisely hiding behind another shelf when he entered.

  “Rachel?”

  “Are you okay, Seth? I wasn’t sure what I should do. I called security.” She hesitated just the slightest bit.

  His cover had to be blown. It had to be. She was too smart not to have figured it out. But he still tried to keep his words neutral. “I’ve also called some people to have this place processed and checked for prints. The guy wasn’t wearing any gloves.”

  “His gun is over there too.” She pointed toward a row of bookshelves.

  Seth nodded. He’d seen it when he’d walked back in. Hopefully the prints and running the gun would provide some information.

  He crossed a little closer to her. “Are you okay? Did the guy hurt you in any way?”

  “Not as much as some of those statistical analysis texts did when they fell.”

  He could already see a large bruise forming on her forearm where she’d raised it to protect her head. Good thing she had or they’d be on the way to the hospital right now. He reached out and touched the arm she was cradling, stroking it gently.

  “Better statistical analysis than a bullet,” he murmured, caught once again by her deep brown eyes.

  She seemed mesmerized for a moment too, before shaking it off and taking a step back. “I guess you don’t have to clean this up, do you?”

  “We shouldn’t touch anything until the police arrive.”

  “You know what I mean, Seth. If that’s even your real name.Youare the police.”

  Seth sighed. He couldn’t give Rachel all the information about the case, but he could at least answer the basic questions she was getting at.

  “Yes, I am law enforcement.” He didn’t give any more info than that about who he worked for. Some information wasn’t his to share. “And yes, my name is Seth. But my last name is Harrington, not Hardings.”

  “Harrington.” She continued to cradle her arm as she processed this information. “And you’re on some sort of a case. That’s why you’ve been working as a janitor.”

  They weren’t questions.

  “Yes. But I can’t go into any details right now.”

  “Does it have something to do with a microchip?”

  Seth’s eyes whipped to hers. “Why do you ask that?”

  “That’s what the guy with the gun was asking about. He wanted me to give him a microchip.”

  “Do you know anything about that?”

  She shook her head. “I had no idea what he was talking about. I figured he just had me confused with someone else on this floor. I came into my office and he was going through my stuff.”

  Why would he have been searching Rachel’s office? It would’ve only taken the slightest bit of background info to know she wasn’t even part of the computer engineering department.

  Seth stepped out into the hallway and then began checking office doors to see if they had been forced opened. Maybe the guy had just been hoping to get lucky by searching all the offices. But even as the thought formed Seth knew that wasn’t the case. It would be too sloppy and take too long.

  No other door but Rachel’s had been forced open. She followed silently behind him as he walked to her office.

  She’d interrupted the guy during the search, that was obvious. But something as small as a microchip? It could be anywhere.

  Not that Rachel would have it anyway.

  “I don’t know why he would think I would have something like a microchip. I’m not even sure I know what a microchip looks like.”

  Seth turned and saw her huddling against the doorframe of her office entryway. Her face was pale, eyes too large in her face. She was still holding her arm against h
er body and honestly looked like she might fall over any second.

  Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she was crashing hard. Seth took a few steps toward her, in case he needed to catch her. She looked pretty unsteady on her feet.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  She nodded, but leaned a little more heavily onto the doorframe. “I just…”

  When she trailed off Seth finished for her. “You’re coming down from the adrenaline rush. It can be pretty overwhelming.”

  “Yeah, I don’t feel so good. Plus I didn’t have lunch.” She pointed to the leftovers she’d set on a small table by the door. “Or coffee.”

  Seth helped ease her in to a chair by her desk and grabbed the plastic container.

  “It’s still pretty warm. Think you could eat a little bit? That will help regulate your blood sugar.”

  She just stared at him for a long time before taking the food.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m just trying to adjust to words about blood sugar and adrenaline coming out of your mouth, Mr. Custodian.”

  Seth pursed his lips. Yeah, he deserved that.

  His phone buzzed. It was a message from Omega. The locals were arriving. They would hold the crime scene until the Omega forensic team could get there to process it. No word about Seth being under cover would be mentioned, nor about what happened. The locals would just be told it was a burglary gone wrong.

  As long as he could convince Rachel to keep quiet.

  “I’m going to meet the police officer. There will be a forensic team combing the crime scene soon. As soon as there’s a federal agent there to supervise I’ll come back and get you.”

  “Will I need to talk to the police?”

  “If you don’t mind, it would be better if you didn’t. We’re treating this as a burglary.”

  She had set her food aside but was sipping her coffee. “I still don’t understand everything that’s going on here.”

  Her big brown eyes stared out at him. He walked over to her almost not of his own will and crouched down beside her.

  “I know. And I’ll explain what I can. But not here.”