Edge Of Danger

by Cherry Adair

  Gabriel shut his eyes for a moment, rubbing a hand across his face. “But until then, you believed that he was me.” How could she not. For all intents and purposes the man who had just tried to kill her—again—hadbeen Gabriel Edge.

  “Hell, no, I didn’t.” Eden looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “Ofcourse I knew it wasn’t you. I knewthat the second he touched me. If some—doppelgangerme touched you, wouldn’tyou be able to tell the difference?”

  Yeah. He would. With every fiber of his being. When he was close to this woman his heart filled to bursting. His blood pounded through his veins making him feel more alive than he’d ever felt in his life.

  No! What the fuck am I doing?Gabriel thought, horrified that he had almost given in to the sweet temptation of loving her.

  No fucking way could he allowany kind of emotion to creep up on him. Minor detail that caring for her would bite him in the ass.

  Eden caring for him would kill her.

  “Probably,” he said, intentionally offhand. He rolled off the bed, schooling his features, reining in all emotion. Shutting off, and closing down from her. Making sure she believed he didn’t care, and trying to convince himself of the same thing.

  Several seconds of silence throbbed between them. “Probably?” she asked dangerously, climbing off the mattress on the opposite side. Her hair was a wild, dark nimbus around her flushed face as she glared at him across the rumpled sheets.“Probably?”

  Gabriel stuffed his shirt into his waistband. He met her eyes. Kept his cool. Impersonal. “I’ve met Verdine. He isn’t a wizard.”

  “Are you one hundred percent positive of that? BecauseI’m one hundred percent certain that itwas Jason. He had the same mannerisms, the same smell, the same way of…walking.It was Jason all right. And looking back, when he impersonated Dixon Ithought there was something vaguely familiar about him. Again, small mannerisms. His smell…His cocky attitude. He even called mebabe !” She pulled a face, making him want to leap the bed to grab her up and kiss her senseless.

  Step away from the table,he reminded himself.

  She straightened her shirt, which had twisted around her body, exposing her flat tummy and the dimple of her belly button. Gabriel wanted to kiss her there, where her skin was soft and ultrasensitive. Instead he bent to pick up the ceremonial claymore she’d tried to use on the wizard. How the hell had she managed to lift the damn thing?

  “I’m not discounting the possibility,” he told her. “God only knows I didn’t sense him either time he was here.” He propped the sword against the bedside table to replace over the bed later, then straightened. “So the fact that I didn’t sense Verdine was a wizard when I saw him in your lab is very possible.”

  “Let’s take it as a given that he’s the bad guy. Why would he go to all the trouble of killing Dr. Kirchner, and trashing the lab, and now…this?”

  She bent to pick up her shoes. “Besides,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed to put them on, “he already owned Rex and all the research that went into it. This isn’t logical.”

  “Terrorism rarely is.”

  “True. Because he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s a bad guy? Because he’s smarter than the average person? Smarter than all the other wizards in the land? There are other wizards in the land, right?”

  “Several thousand,” he told her with a small smile. She filled his heart to bursting, this woman with her steady brown eyes and quick mind. This scientist with the springy dark curls and smooth, pale skin and her soft mouth made for kissing.

  She shrugged. “Because hecan ?”

  Gabriel would have his team run with it. “How badly did he hurt you this time?” he demanded, walking around the foot of the bed. Heading for the door, not for Eden. Or so he convinced himself.Step away from the banquet.

  “He got one hit in.” She smiled faintly as she finished putting on her shoes. “I kneed him in the balls.”

  That’s my girl,he thought with ridiculous pride. “Good for you,” he said mildly. “But did he hurt you?” Fury had built inside him until he was ready to tear down the walls in search of this new wizard who could be anyone he damn well wanted to be.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Gabriel raked her with another all-encompassing glance. Her hair was messy, just the way he liked it. Her eyes were still a little wild, the pupils dilated, and her mouth was pale, but he knew she was tough. She’d have to be for what was coming next.

  “Want to see what I’ve done with your Rex?” he asked, changing the subject.

  She ran her fingers through her curls, then dropped her hands to smooth the short pink T-shirt that rode just above the waistband of her jeans. “Sure.” She gave him a steady look from dry eyes. “Why the hell not?”

  He reached out a hand to touch her, to reassure her, but curled his fingers into a tight fist and dropped his arm instead. This way was better. Instead he shimmered them to the lab.

  “Here.” He pulled out the duplicate of her ergonomic chair. “Take a look. See if I’ve missed anything.”

  Without looking at him, she sat down, scooting the chair closer to the desk, tucking her feet, in those sexy-as-hell high heels, around the base of the chair. Absently she adjusted the height to suit herself, then settled her fingers on the keyboard, scrolling through pages and pages of codes, her eyes moving as she read.

  “Hmm. Yeah. That’s good. Hmm. Hmm. Okay…” She keyed in an adjustment, then continued reading, totally engrossed in what she was doing.

  He materialized his phone into his hand. “I’m calling in this new intel.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Sitting on the edge of the desk, he punched in the 911 code for Sebastian at T-FLAC HQ and filled him in.

  “Positive ID on Verdine?” Sebastian asked. Gabriel could hear him keying the data into the computers on his end.

  “Yeah. Anything?”

  “Not a damn parking ticket. Where the hell did this guy come from?”

  “Good question.” Gabriel observed the muted light from the monitor shining on Eden’s face, tipping her long lashes pale blue, and making her lips glisten. The flickering light also showcased the dark fingerprints on her pale throat, and her swollen cheekbone where she’d been struck.

  “More important,” Gabriel said harshly to Tremayne. “Where’s the son of a bitchgoing ?”

  “Everyone is on the alert. We’ll figure it out sooner than later. How’s the bot coming?”

  “Good.” He watched Eden make adjustments on the keyboard, her slender fingers sure and knowledgeable as she scanned and read what he’d done. “Keep me posted on any anomalies worldwide. He wants Eden dead. He’s failed twice. He doesn’t want the bot replicated, that’s clear.”

  Her shoulder hitched slightly at his words, but she didn’t stop scrolling. Gabriel completed the call, then stuck the small phone onto his belt. “How’s it coming?”

  “Fine.”

  “Hungry?”

  “Three McDonald’s cheeseburgers, small fries—no, make thatlarge fries, and a chocolate shake. Hell. Super Size me.”

  “Apple pie?” he asked, lips twitching.

  Her fingers flew as she frowned at the screen. “Sure. What were you thinking here? Never mind. If I do this. And this…and this. Yeah. There.” She held down the scroll button and stared at the monitor narrow-eyed. “Two apple pies.”

  Gabriel conjured a double order of everything, waiting until her nose twitched before he reached out and unwrapped a burger. He wrapped the bottom half in a napkin and nudged her shoulder. Hating that she jumped when he touched her. “Here, eat while you work.”

  “Mmm.” She took a bite as she read, then used her left hand to key in data. “We need a vehicle for this.”

  “If you can think it,” he bit into his own burger, “I can build it. I’m going to turn on CNN. If I keep the sound down will it bother you?”

  “A sonic boom doesn’t bother me when I’m wo
rking.” She picked up her shake, stuck the straw into it, then took a drink, all on autopilot. Not once did she so much as glance at him.

  Addicted to the news, Gabriel turned on the plasma TV hanging on the wall, keeping the sound low, and dragged a chair up closer to his other addiction. Dr. Eden Cahill.

  Right now, if she were a caricature, she’d have steam and flames shooting out of the top of her head.

  She was as mad as fire, and he admired her restraint. He knew she had a temper. The crying earlier had been just as much fury as it had been hurt at his casual disregard for what she’d wanted him to say. Or so he told himself, keeping his attention fixed on the screen. A car bombing in Cape Town. He read the crawler on the bottom of the screen while they rehashed the event that had occurred the day before.

  This situation could be a hell of a lot worse. She could bedead. The thought chilled him like an Arctic frost, all the way to his marrow.

  “Turn it up!” Eden said sharply, pushing away from her chair to stand facing the TV. “Turn up the sound!”

  Gabriel did so. He glanced from the big screen to Eden’s white face and rose to stand beside her.

  “If anyone recognizes this child”—the attractive blond anchor’s face was replaced by a video; a little boy, carrying an oversized backpack, walking away from the camera—“please call the number on your screen. The amateur video, shot by Patty Benson of Idaho, shows a child approximately five years old, dressed in jeans, a royal blue T-shirt, and red baseball cap, walking across the parking lot at three this afternoon in Yellowstone Park.”

  Eden grabbed Gabriel’s forearm. “That’s Rex,” she whispered through bloodless lips.

  “The child was not part of the tour group, pictured here. No other vehicles were in the parking lot, and no one has reported the boy missing. Authorities now suspect foul play as hour seven of the search continues with no sign of the child, and no missing person report filed.

  “In further developments in the suicide bombings in London this morning, we turn to our overseas correspondent, Chandler Landry—” Eden’s grip on Gabriel’s arm tightened. “Rewind it.”

  The film immediately scrolled backward until she said hoarsely, “Stop.” She bit her lower lip, her gaze fixed up at the TV.

  Together they watched a group of adults and children leave the large, air-conditioned bus and walk to the guardrail to observe one of the active geysers. From the left of the screen the child in a red baseball cap appeared, and, hanging back a little, joined a small group of kids on the observation platform. CNN had a lighted oval around the child in the red baseball cap.

  Gabriel narrowed his eyes as he watched it. At the end of the piece he started it again. He turned to glance at Eden. She looked devastated. He put his arm around her, rubbing her skin beneath her short sleeve. “I didn’t see a robot.”

  She licked her lower lip. “It’s the boy in the red cap. The unidentified childis Rex.”

  He rewound again. Looking at the monitor he said grimly, “Jesus. It looks completely human.” He turned to her. “You invented a soulless, calculating machine with the capability of doing untold harm to mankind? Jesus fucking Christ, Eden! You made an invincible goddamned killer robot look like an innocentchild ? What thefuck were you thinking?”

  He couldn’t be half as disgusted and appalled at what she’d done as she was herself.

  “Don’t—” She put a hand up to stop him from speaking again. “You know thatanything can be made into a deadly weapon in the wrong hands. I’m not defending my actions, Gabriel,” she told him quietly. “I believed what I wanted to believe because I wanted to, no,needed to, prove to myself that I was just as good as they said. I—” She swallowed the painful lump in her throat. “I let my ego blind my common sense.”

  “Hell, sweetheart,” he said less harshly. “You have a Nobel Prize, and more awards and accolades than twenty people. What in God’s name were you trying to prove? You must have known that no good could come of something like this.”

  “I never intended to make this advanced technology public. You have to believe me. It was just for my own gratification that I went as far as I did. I had no idea—”

  “Water under the bridge,” Gabriel said grimly. Frowning, he started pacing the small lab. “What is the son of a bitch up to?” Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. “Why steal a robot and let it roam around Yellowstone dressed like a tourist kid on a day trip?”

  Eden raked her fingers through her hair. “He was dressed like that before,” she said absently, thinking back to the last time she’d seen her creation sitting on the floor of the lab playing ball with Marshall.

  “Well, except for the backpack.” She watched Gabriel in the dim glow from the television screen.

  “Which has nothing to do with its superhuman strength,” he murmured as he returned to pacing. “Yellowstone has to have some sort of merit as a target. So far, nothing Verdine has done has been random. I don’t think he’d start now.”

  The silence was heavy between them as they watched the screen.

  “Rex just took off the backpack,” Gabriel noted. “Not for comfort. I’m assuming he can’t feel pain?” He was only being halfway facetious.

  “No. When I designed him, I was thinking about the stamina to fight a fire for days on end. Or perform surgery for hours and hours. I was only thinking about the positive aspects of invincibility.”

  “Why Yellowstone?” he asked himself out loud.

  “Rex is strong,” Eden answered, eyes fixed on her monitor, fingers flying over the keyboard. “He can dig. He can climb. In. around. Over. Up.” She paused, brow furrowed in concentration. “He doesn’t really need any equipment to perform. Everything is built in. The only reason for the backpack would be to carry something too unwieldy, or too large for him to hold.”

  Gabriel jerked his hand away. “My God. The son of a bitch is going for the water supply.”

  “What?” Eden frowned. “Why? Topoison it?” When Gabriel nodded, she swiveled around on her chair to fully face him. “What would he hope to gain? Why use a robot to poison people? Couldn’t your garden variety suicide killer do that? There are dozens of ways to terrify, even kill people, that don’t require a robot. Especially one of Rex’s capabilities. It’s as if he’s showing off for the world to—what?” She demanded when Gabriel had the look of a man having a lightbulb moment.

  He held up a hand, and used the other to open his phone and punch in three numbers with his thumb. “The robot is in Yellowstone Park,” he said into the phone. “The missing kid report is our bot,” his eyes pinning Eden in place.

  Not that she needed pinning. She was frozen with fear and overwhelming guilt. Was Rex supposed to drop something into the water supply in the park? And if so,what ?

  God. It could be absolutely anything. Rex could handle chemicals and compounds that not even another robot could handle.

  “Verdine is going for the aquifers in the park,” Gabriel said into the phone as if he were reading her mind. “He’s using Yellowstone as a staging area,” he told Sebastian, but his eyes fixed on Eden’s horrified gaze. “My guess is he’s giving potential buyers a taste of Rex’s capabilities to jack up the price.

  “He’s sending in the bot to taint the water supply. The aquifers in, around, and under Yellowstone National Park feed into virtually all the natural water sources that supply the western United States.”

  Listening to his side of the conversation, Eden didn’t agree. “Overkill,” she told him. “That’s like killing an ant with an atomic bomb. Dropping poison down a geyser doesn’t require an indestructible robot.”

  Gabriel acknowledged her observation with a wait-a-second lifted finger. “What chemical compounds have been reported missing worldwide in the last thirty days?” he barked into the phone. “No. Stronger than that DZ7 stolen from the Chechnian rebel camp. Stronger than that as well. We’re looking for a powerful liquid nerve toxin or bio weapon. Something so powerful it couldn’t be handled by a normal
robot…Look for unlikely components that have this potential when combined. Substances that are out of the norm. Yeah. I’ll wait.”

  “Tell me more about this damn thing,” Gabriel demanded flatly, still holding the small phone to his ear.

  Eden swallowed nausea. Just because he’d extracted the data from her didn’t mean he’d had time to look at it. And even if he had, Eden doubted anyone but an AI scientist could make out anything more than the overview.

  “It has a simple and efficient algorithm using configuration space to execute collision-free motions. In other words—nothing is going to stand in his way.”