Blindsided

  Valerie blinked, already regretting her animus toward the woman who’d helped them so much already. “For what?” she asked, mentally adjusting her first impression of Tara.

  “Weapons trafficking, accessory to murder, and kidnapping. For kidnapping her. You might have read about it in the papers a few months ago.”

  “Jesus.” Valerie sat up, enjoying that his gaze locked onto her breasts when the covers slipped from her torso. “That was her?” When she’d read the article, Valerie had wondered how a woman could get so easily sucked in by a man she’d only known for a few days. Now she understood. And she remembered some of the details of Tara’s escape. “She’s kind of a badass, isn’t she?”

  He laughed. “She’s definitely more than meets the eye.” He toyed with the satin edge of the blanket where it skimmed Valerie’s stomach, sending shivers through her. “I recognize the loneliness in her. And I think she’d like to help. She’s been asking Kurt to let her get more involved in ops, to take advantage of her non-threatening appearance, but so far he’s refused.”

  “And you think she can help somehow. Create a diversion or engineer her way inside, maybe?”

  “Exactly. Who can resist a beautiful woman?”

  Valerie nodded and forced a smile. Maybe he pined after a woman he couldn’t have. A woman who wasn’t scarred. Or wanted for espionage. Was Valerie his consolation prize for the one he really desired?

  “Hey,” Scott said. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing.” What guy wanted a needy, clingy, jealous lover? None.

  “When I said that, I was thinking of the time you talked your way past the guard at Janus.” He cupped her breast and skimmed his thumb across her nipple, setting off tiny sparks of delight that shot straight to her core. “You’re the only one I want, V.” How did he read her so well?

  She sighed with pleasure and lay back—all thoughts of scars and other women long gone—arching up as his mouth replaced his hand and he sucked. A moan came from deep in her throat, wanton and desperate.

  “Do you believe me?” he asked, trailing his hand into the curls between her legs.

  “Yes,” she said on a gasp.

  He stroked her sensitive flesh, bringing her nearly to climax before he stopped and whispered into her ear, “You sure?”

  “Yes, God, please.”

  Chuckling, he kissed her hard and sent her over the edge with his fingers. “I love you, Valerie Sanchez. Only you.”

  I believe you.

  She rolled and rose to her knees, still breathing hard and feeling the unsteady euphoria of her body’s reaction to his hands and mouth. And his words.

  Yanking the sheets down to his knees, she straddled him—still careful of his stitches—and sank immediately onto his straining erection. They groaned in unison.

  His look of surprise turned to pleasure, then alarm. “Condom,” he said, his voice strained, lifting her hips with a grimace.

  “Oh, dammit.” She reached for one of the packets from the dwindling pile on the nightstand and sheathed him, returning to the joyride with a grateful sigh.

  He loved her, and she was a fool to question it.

  Tara Fujimoto hadn’t had sex in six months—and how about that for an amazing record, ladies and gentleman? Her best friend Jenna would be so proud—but she had recognized the scent of lovemaking the moment she stepped through the doorway of Dan’s apartment.

  At least someone was getting some.

  Now she sat across the rickety dining table from Scott and Valerie, trying not to gag on one of the bagels she’d brought at how cute they were with their “accidental” touches and excessive eye contact. As much as she wanted to fault them for bad timing, that would make her a hypocrite.

  She was the queen of bad timing and bad choices. Hands down.

  Besides, she was desperate to help. Not only because Thanksgiving was lonely with her sister in Ohio visiting her husband’s family and Jenna in South Carolina with her new husband, but because she’d been itching to prove her worth outside of the office for months. God knew she would never be anyone’s bodyguard, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t use her looks and the fact that men—hell, everyone—underestimated her to Steele’s advantage.

  This was her opportunity to prove to Kurt that she deserved a chance in the field and, bonus, help a friend in the process.

  There was a time when she’d thought about hooking up with Scott. After the disaster with her last boyfriend, she was done with muscle-bound guys who loomed over her. Scott was totally hot, but…safe. Except that, even though he studied her openly in a way that could mean he found her attractive, he’d pretty much drowned her in friends-only vibes since he started at Steele back in June.

  Probably Kurt had given every guy there the “hands off” speech, which she appreciated, even though it was unnecessary. But beyond that, there’d never been any spark for her in Scott’s eyes. Admiration maybe, but nothing more.

  Then again, she was damaged goods and all the guys knew it. They’d been treating her with kid gloves since the whole thing with Colin blew up. Hah, literally!

  She took a sip of coffee to cover her inappropriate smile.

  “Thanks for bringing breakfast,” Valerie said. “We’ve been brainstorming for the last few hours and completely forgot about eating.”

  Brainstorming? Is that what they were calling it these days? “Of course. The Bagel Hut is on my way over, and they’re actually open through lunchtime today.”

  Scott frowned at her, his pale brows coming together. “Are we messing up your plans?”

  “Nope.” She held herself erect. “I don’t have to be anywhere until five.” She was on the evening shift for Thanksgiving dinner at the women’s shelter, which mainly meant cleanup duty. It would last an hour, tops. The little kids would help and they’d make each other laugh, and she’d go home happy and tired and feeling lucky again.

  A perfect day.

  “So, how can I help?” Tara asked.

  Valerie leaned forward, wiping her lips with a paper napkin. “I need to get inside Aggressor to retrieve a thumb drive. Normally, I’d come up with a con to talk my way inside, but these guys know me and Scott.”

  “You want me to talk my way in?” Her pulse picked up with excitement and a healthy dose of fear, but Valerie shook her head.

  “Even if you could, which I think would be hard during such a quiet weekend, there’s no door you could use to let me in without setting off an alarm. And it’s too difficult to explain where the drive is since you’re not familiar with the second floor. I’d like you to distract the guard while I hop the turnstile.”

  “The place should be pretty much deserted today,” Scott said. “We’ll need to verify, but on weekends and holidays there are usually only two security personnel on duty.”

  “I’ve worked a lot of extra hours there,” Valerie added. “One guy makes the rounds on the half hour while the other mans the desk in the lobby. The rest of the time, they’re both at the desk.”

  “Which means we want to time it so only one guard is downstairs.” Scott popped a piece of bagel in his mouth and washed it down with a sip of coffee.

  “We just haven’t decided the best way for you to distract him without raising too much suspicion,” Valerie said.

  Scott nodded. “Or how to keep him busy long enough for Valerie to find the drive and get out.”

  Tara could do this. In the last few months, she’d faced down men with guns, the intrusive press, and her lying ex. One security guard should be a piece of cake. The fact that she was aiding fugitives was irrelevant. She was already on the hook for helping them.

  And Scott was a trusted friend.

  “When is shift change?” She smiled. “I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Chantilly, VA

  Thursday, 6:27 p.m.

  JUST BEFORE SIX-THIRTY THAT evening, Valerie hid behind one of the evergreen hedges that wrapped around the Aggressor office bu
ilding. It was strange to be back at the place where this had all started, back where she wasn’t welcome anymore. Anger surged through her and she took a deep, slow breath to calm herself.

  There were three cars in the front parking lot, a large black truck, a red Corvette, and a blue Passat that she knew belonged to Harry, the computer operator who’d been working when she finally hacked Westgate. The only cars in the back lot were Aggressor work vehicles. So, she probably didn’t have to worry about running into Vishnu in accounting, or anyone else besides the guards and Harry.

  As if they weren’t enough to worry about.

  Less than twenty yards away, Tara parked a noisy brown Celica with dents that dated back to Bill Clinton’s presidency in the fire lane in front of the entrance. Magnetic signs on the car’s side doors read DELIA’S CATERING, and a gray plastic cover obscured the license plate.

  Valerie had no idea how she had procured the signs on such short notice.

  Tara exited the car dressed in black chinos, tennies, and a thick jacket with a red scarf around her neck. Her sleek hair was mostly hidden under a baseball cap that would block her face from the surveillance cameras, and black eyeliner had been applied with a heavy hand, making her look somewhere between sixteen and twenty.

  She jogged across the concrete pad and rapped on the glass. On weekends and holidays, an employee badge was required just to open the doors.

  Garth’s deep, jovial voice carried to Valerie’s hiding spot. “You lost?”

  “No, I have a delivery. Thanksgiving dinner for you guys from—” Tara squinted at a clipboard “—Meseret? Did I say that right?”

  “Uh, yeah.” He sounded surprised and maybe a bit wary. “Seriously?”

  “There’s a message,” Tara said as she flipped to another page on her clipboard and angled it to see in the light. She was good at this. “Thanks for working on your holiday. We appreciate you.” Her high-pitched voice telegraphed casual boredom. “From Duncan Hollowell and everyone at Aggressor.”

  “Huh. Hey, Rog. Mr. H’s secretary sent us a turkey dinner.”

  Roger’s reply was muffled, but sounded positive.

  “There’s a ton of food,” Tara called through the doorway with a thousand-watt smile. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  In the bright light coming from inside, Valerie could see Tara’s gaze track Roger’s movement toward the elevators. Perfect. He was going on rounds now and would be gone for about fifteen minutes. Valerie and Scott had watched the guards through the plate-glass front window for hours earlier in the day to verify that their routine hadn’t changed since she worked there. The men were pretty consistent.

  Now the tricky part.

  “Hang on,” Tara said to Garth. “I’ll get your stuff.”

  She returned to the car and tossed the clipboard onto the front seat. With the turn of a key, she opened the hatchback and withdrew a foil-covered metal tray, one of several she’d promised to return to the catering company on behalf of the women’s shelter. Instead, she was going to have to replace them.

  Steam rose above the tray, thick like smoke in the cold air. Garth had stepped outside to hold the door for her. He looked around, resting his other hand on the gun at his hip, his body rigid with alertness—and probably from the cold, since he wore no jacket.

  Tara executed the fall so beautifully that even Valerie didn’t see it coming, and she’d been waiting for it.

  “Oof,” Tara uttered as she landed on her hands and knees on the concrete. The metal tray lay upside down a couple feet in front of her, oozing a beige goop. “Oh, shit,” she said, her voice shaky and tearful.

  Damn, she was good. Valerie couldn’t have done it better herself.

  Garth released the door and rushed to Tara’s side. “Are you okay?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  With the guard’s focus on Tara, Valerie dashed toward the door, grabbing it just before it shut, and slipped inside the warm lobby. The camera would capture her, but by the time anyone realized what she’d done, she’d be long gone. After that, it wouldn’t matter.

  Assuming all went to plan.

  “I ruined your potatoes. I’m so sor—” Tara’s voice was cut off when the door shut.

  Heat blasted from an overhead vent as Valerie raced toward the turnstile and used the cabinets on either side of the entrance to vault her legs over the retractable gates and hit the ground running. She didn’t break her stride until she reached the stairwell at the end of the hall.

  Once inside, she held the door until it closed, forcing it to shut slowly and quietly. Then she hauled ass to the first landing beyond the second floor and pressed herself flat to the wall out of sight. Her heart threatened to beat right out of her chest, and her breath was loud as a buzz saw in the echoey chamber.

  Holy shit, I’m in! Her knees turned to jelly, and she sat hard on the lowest step, holding her arms above her head like a runner after a race in an attempt to slow her breathing.

  Within minutes, the access door below her opened and heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. Valerie held still, certain that her pulse would give her away like in that Poe story she’d read in high school.

  “Second floor,” Roger muttered. The first-floor door clicked shut.

  “Copy,” Greg said, his voice tinny through the radio. “I’m out front. The delivery girl tripped and fell. The potatoes are down.”

  Roger grunted in what could have been irritation or amusement. “Stay alert. I’ll make this a quick run.”

  “Will do.”

  The second-floor door opened with a soft swoosh and a click from the auto-close mechanism, and then shut a few seconds later with a clang.

  Valerie exhaled hard, her limbs shaky, and started counting the seconds on her watch as the large hand stuttered in a circle. Now came the hard part. She and Scott hadn’t been able to reconnoiter the guard’s inside routine, so she had to make an educated guess and hope her luck held out.

  After a minute, she descended the half flight of stairs and took a deep breath before carefully turning the handle and opening the door just enough to see through the crack.

  The long corridor led to the accounting department’s offices on one side, and the computer operators and hackers’ desks on the other. Her stomach was tied into knots, and she forced herself to focus so she wouldn’t hyperventilate.

  Two minutes later, Roger exited the doorway on her right and ambled across the hall. Without looking her way, he entered the accounting section. Perfect.

  She opened the door just enough to slip through and pressed her foot and hands against it until it closed with a soft thud. Not waiting to see if Roger noticed, she sprinted along the corridor, running on her toes for maximum quiet, and veered into the computer room.

  A camera overhead was trained directly at the doorway. She could only hope Tara had managed to keep Garth distracted long enough that he wouldn’t see her on his monitor.

  Valerie’s body was in a steady state of hyper vigilance, heart running on overdrive, limbs shaky. She usually controlled her nerves better, but the stakes had never been so high before. If she were caught…

  Shaking off the fear, she ducked to the right and circumnavigated the outer ring of cubicles that blocked the Fish Bowl and Harry’s workstation from view. She’d stashed the USB drive just outside the Fish Bowl, hoping that even if Duncan had every desk in the building searched, he’d never look inside the cubicle wall.

  Coming around the far side, she emerged behind and to the left of Harry, her steps silent on the tan Berber carpet. She avoided getting directly behind him so he wouldn’t catch sight of her reflection in his monitor.

  The graying operator bobbed his head in time to the music that must be coming through his headphones, lazily moving his mouse in small gestures as colorful tiles dropped from the top of the screen. Since computer operators were mainly there to monitor systems and handle issues, the job could be slow. They were allowed to surf the Internet as long as they didn’t
visit porn or other inappropriate sites.

  Keeping him in her peripheral vision, Valerie moved into the cubicle where she’d hidden the drive and pried the cap off the fabric screen’s metal support. The small USB device was taped to the inside of the tube, right where she’d left it.

  Relief made her tremble. Don’t let down your guard yet.

  Tucking the drive into the back pocket of her jeans, she pressed the cap into place and peeked around the corner. Harry sat, oblivious, tapping his foot on the base of his rolling desk chair.

  She closed her eyes for a split second, and then reopened them and crept around the corner, briefly visible if the computer operator turned around. Within seconds, she was shielded from view and racing back toward the stairs.

  Now all she had to do was get out of the building.

  Sitting on the sidelines while Valerie entered Aggressor was one of the hardest things Scott had ever done. Once she was inside, so many things could go wrong and he wouldn’t be there to help. What if the other guard caught her? Or the computer operator on duty?

  Breathe. It wasn’t like he hadn’t worked overwatch on missions before. That had been his fucking job. But this time he was unarmed. If things went sideways, he couldn’t just take out the threat.

  Then again, he didn’t want to shoot Garth or Roger. The guys were innocent in all of this.

  Visible through Scott’s high-powered binoculars, Tara continued her charade by enlisting Garth’s help to carry the remaining trays inside the building. She had executed the plan perfectly, and the guard had fallen for it. Scott wouldn’t hesitate to tell that to Kurt on her behalf. He owed her big time, for this and everything else she’d done to help him and Valerie.

  Now, she needed to get the hell out of there.

  He glanced at his watch. The roving guard should be back within the next three minutes. Scott would text Valerie when Tara was gone. Until then, Valerie had to hide out at the bottom of the stairwell on the first floor, in a small space under the stairs.