Damned If You Don't

by Linda J. Parisi

  That was certainly plausible. “I see.”

  “Now either this someone wants to try to selling the formula Morgan created on the black market, or we have a really sick psycho on our hands.”

  Hmm. Jack’s logic makes sense. That’s not good.

  “Tell her to come in. We’ll talk it over,” Ian decided.

  “That would make finding the bastard who did this very happy,” Jack answered, cutting him off. “It would stop you from searching for him. Or her.”

  “I see.” Jack had another really good point.

  “As far as I’m concerned, she’s done nothing wrong. She’s caught in a mess she can’t get out of.”

  “All right, Jack. I tell you what. I can check with my sources and with Interpol to see if anyone’s heard about a possible formula for sale. But you don’t have much time. Right now my superiors still think you’re playing the game to find out if she’s more than just a suspect. If you don’t come in soon, I’ll have to go by the book.”

  “She didn’t do anything wrong,” Jack insisted. “Give me some time, and I’ll prove it to you.”

  Ian sighed. Sometimes Jack could be as stubborn as a mule. “So what do you want to do?”

  “First, I want immunity. Immunity in writing. Not just a promise but in fact. In return, Dr. Mackenzie’s agreed to become the bait.”

  “I don’t know, Jack.”

  “In my opinion she’s a hero.”

  “That’s an opinion of one.”

  “Ian, I don’t think you’re listening real well this morning.” Jack’s voice had dropped, and Ian knew that tone all too well. “I’m not going to dick around with this. Immunity. Got that? And not just a promise. In return, she’s agreed to become the bait. She wants to nail the bastard who is doing this to the wall.”

  Ian hated to ask but had no choice. “Think she’s using you?”

  Jack bit out a bitter laugh. “Other way around, compadre. I was using her to get at the truth.”

  “You were supposed to.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Ian thought about their conversation for a moment. “You wouldn’t be thinking of going out there and playing vigilante, would you? Because that would make me very unhappy.”

  “Tough.”

  “Mike won’t like it either, Jack. That would make him very unhappy.”

  “And your point is?

  “This isn’t the army anymore. You can’t just go out and do whatever the hell you please. Mike’s not going to agree to put a civilian in the line of fire unless she’s under our protection. And you know he doesn’t want you rolling around playing Wyatt Earp.”

  Jack snorted, and Ian knew exactly what his friend thought of his warning. “Tell him she’ll be under my protection and I’m better than Wyatt Earp ever was.”

  Ian sighed. Ian knew how good Jack was. He’d have been an excellent field agent if his heart hadn’t been broken by the army. No, that wasn’t right. By circumstance and decisions that were made beyond his control.

  “He’s not going to understand.”

  “Then make him understand!”

  Double crap. There was only one reason he could think of that Jack would put his life on the line for this woman.

  “Jesus,” he muttered as horror filled him. “Don’t tell me. You’re in love with her to boot?”

  Dead silence greeted him. Then Jack answered, “My life. My business.”

  Oh this was not good. “Bad move, Jack. You won’t be able to stay objective.”

  “That’s my problem, not yours. You just get Mike’s okay and let me worry about the rest. Until then, consider me hostile. I’ll call you in twenty-four.”

  Ian sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Do better, Ian. Otherwise, I’ll play this my way. And if I do, people are going to end up hurt. Even dead. I don’t want that, and neither do you.”

  In spite of their friendship, Ian felt a tiny shiver run down his back. He wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of Jack’s ire, and he knew Jack meant business.

  “All right, Jack. We play this your way for now. Twenty-four.”

  He didn’t hear Jack’s sigh of relief as much as he felt it. “Thanks, old buddy.”

  “You’re welcome. Just remember, it’s her life too.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Morgan’s heart hurt. More than hurt. Her whole body had emptied, leaving a gaping hole inside. She looked up from her computer screen, dragging her brain with her.

  Jack opened the door of the hotel room. “Hey.”

  Oh wonderful. A peace offering. At five forty-five in the morning. Then she spied the bag and smelled the coffee. One point for him.

  “What are you doing up?” he asked.

  She watched his gaze flip over to the clock as he handed her the bag. Then he moved away and sat down at the table. His distance made her sad.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” she answered.

  “Neither could I.”

  For different reasons. “I don’t want to think anymore, Jack,” she confessed.

  He played with his coffee cup before catching her gaze with his. “I know. But running away from a problem isn’t going to solve it. The truth will still be waiting for you.”

  “Truth? You lied to me. So many times I’ve lost count.”

  His lips quirked, and she read the self-loathing in them.

  “True. Is it going to change anything?”

  He had a point. “No.”

  “Listen, I don’t want what’s going on inside of you right now to fester.”

  “And how do you know what’s inside of me?”

  “Because betrayal comes in all forms. But this isn’t about me and what I’ve done or about you and what you’ve done.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “What I did to you was unforgivable. You won’t ever be able to forgive me. You feel what you did to that woman was unforgivable. So you need to accept both and move on.”

  Could she? Did she want to? God, she was tired of fighting with herself. “Someone used my discovery to kill another human being? Are you telling me I shouldn’t be angry about that?”

  “Of course not. But I want you to think this through for a moment. What I am telling you is that you had no more control over someone stealing your work and using it than I had over being forced to keep my silence.”

  Morgan didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Guilt soured the coffee sitting in her stomach.

  “You’re not going to believe me right now, but there’s only one way for me to explain.”

  “Do your worst,” she challenged.

  “The caveman who picked up a dinosaur bone didn’t automatically think to himself, ‘Hey, this would be a great thing to bop old Bruno over the head with.’ He said to himself, ‘Hey, this is going to help me put dinner on the table.’ It wasn’t his fault that Bruno didn’t like Charlie and that Bruno figured out if he could bop dinner over the head, he could bop Charlie too.”

  A cartoon picture of cavemen running around with dinosaur bones started rolling around in Morgan’s head, and she started to laugh. Then she started crying. Jack had managed once again to put things into Jack-like perspective.

  He half lifted out of his chair to go to her, then thought better of it and sat down. But she recognized his dilemma by the way he tried very hard not to crush his fist around his coffee cup.

  “I know,” she replied, finally getting herself under control. “And without those bones we’d have probably become extinct. I just don’t understand why there always has to be a catch, a caveat to life.”

  “I don’t know, Morgan.”

  At least he’d taken her at her word and not used kitten.

  He shrugged again, his fingers twirling his coffee cup in place. “So what are you doing up so early?”

  Morgan didn’t answer right away. She had no idea how to feel anymore, what to do, or where to begin. She wanted them back the way they’d been and that could never be. “Trying very har
d not to remember yesterday. Can’t you go away again for a while?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Near defeat she queried, “Anyone ever tell you that you’re beyond a royal pain?”

  “Yes.” He laughed gently. “My mother.”

  “Egads! You have a mother? Poor woman.”

  His face registered surprise as he answered, “I’ll have you know my mother loves me.”

  “She has no choice.”

  Glad for the chance to zing him, Morgan sat back in her chair and caught his gaze with hers. He tipped his head in acknowledgment.

  “When you started talking about how bad this mess really was,” she began, half speaking out loud. “And I was able to see past the horror, I started thinking. You said the FBI was targeting other companies that were performing research on the same type of process.”

  “I did.”

  “I mean, I’m supposed to keep up with that kind of stuff, but worrying about the competition wasn’t high on my priority list. I was spending fifteen-hour days in the lab. So I went downstairs for a while. I’ve been checking the Internet.”

  “The Internet? Why not ask me? I would’ve gotten you a list of possible suspects from Ian.”

  “The reason is that I wasn’t looking for the obvious. I was looking for a piece that I might be able to fit into the puzzle. A scientific piece. A paper or an abstract that might connect to my work.”

  “Any luck?”

  “No. It’s been rather slow going. Part of the problem is that I don’t have access to every database on the Net, and most of the databases want you to sign up for their services before they’ll let you download a file. So far I’m coming up with a major dead end.”

  “At least you tried.”

  At least they were speaking with each other, and it didn’t feel like razors were slicing her insides.

  “If we could just find out who was in the market for something like this.”

  “I’ve already asked Ian to check.”

  Stunned, she didn’t know what to say. She’d forgotten it wasn’t just the two of them against the world anymore. There were more players, and a whole lot more at stake than she could ever have imagined.

  “I thought you didn’t want him to know about me just yet.”

  “I figured we needed the help, so I called in on my friendship. He gave me twenty-four.”

  “I see,” she said. “Do you think whoever used this woman as a guinea pig has already sold the formula?”

  He pursed his lips in thought. “No. Not yet. Why are you asking?”

  Morgan hesitated, hating that she did. It was hard to deal with someone when every time she said something, a niggle of doubt crept into her brain. But that was what lack of trust caused.

  “I was cutting through several departments one day. In a hurry as usual. I overheard one end of a telephone conversation that may be important. I mean, I just realized it might be important.”

  “Do you know who was talking?” Jack asked. She could hear the interest in his voice and the tight control on his emotions that made his response

  “No. There were too many instruments running. It was too loud, and I was too far away to tell.”

  “What makes you think it’s relevant?”

  “Because at first I thought it was someone, you know, having an affair. The voice sounded…the conversation was…”

  “Intimate?” he pressed.

  “Pornographic.”

  “All right,” he replied, his tone thoughtful. “What else?”

  “Then I figured whoever it was, in spite of the tone of the conversation, was possibly talking to someone else about one of our distributors in Europe. The end of the conversation was distinctly about one of them, a company called Gateway. Maybe this person was looking for a market.”

  “Possibly. But I still don’t think whoever it is has found one yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Sam hasn’t gotten all of his zeroes. He’s still looking for us. So it stands to reason, his client doesn’t have his or her zeroes either.”

  Morgan nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “It does, but just remember, I’m still not sure if we’re not dealing with a serial killer. We can’t rule out that possibility yet.”

  Morgan shuddered. “I know.”

  She took a deep breath and let the air out in a soft rush. In spite of hating him for betraying her, Morgan’s desire to make things right let her confess, “I need to do something, Jack. I need to fix this.”

  “I understand, Morgan. And I promise you we’ll make this right.”

  She watched Jack close his eyes and realized she wasn’t his only problem. “What about your buddy Sam? He might end up going to jail.”

  She watched Jack frown and open them. He snared her gaze with his, as open and honest a gaze as she’d ever recognized. “He’s responsible for his actions. He’s created his own problems, and he’s going to have to get himself out of them.”

  Morgan nodded, trying hard to believe that she had his loyalty. “Was this all about money, Jack?” BioClin. His buddy Sam. Her voice broke as she repeated, “Was it really all for the money?”

  He winced at the pain in her voice. “I don’t know.” He took a deep breath. “But I swear to you. As God is my witness. Knowing you don’t believe a word I’m going to say. I’m gonna find this bastard. Or bastards. They’re going to get Jack. And they’re going to get justice.”

  * * * *

  A dim light cast eerie shadows along the wall, glancing off a bank of stainless-steel doors and gleaming countertops. Rows of cabinets lined the opposite wall filled with beakers and test tubes waiting to be used. Evenly spaced work areas, now silent before the day began, waited patiently to start their work again.

  Only the sound of a man’s heavy breathing broke the silence.

  Anton Dvorak sat straight in the cushioned vinyl lab chair, his hands tied behind his back. He shivered with pleasure as a long red fingernail parted the folds of his once perfectly pressed dress shirt. His tie held his hands, just tight enough so he couldn’t break the bond, just loose enough to allow blood to flow. He’d learned the hard way not to fight. The knot tightened if he struggled.

  She’d left him squirming in his chair for hours once when he protested.

  That insidious finger drew lazy swirls over his abdomen. Go lower. Go lower.

  He dared not even whisper his plea for fear of her reprisal, not the least of which would be an abrupt end to his night of pleasure.

  Her finger traveled aimlessly, and Anton sucked in his stomach, holding his breath in the hope her finger would slip. Just one touch, one graze of skin on skin. He released the air slowly, knowing she would never make that kind of mistake.

  A hint of perfume danced through the air. His nostrils widened to catch every delectable morsel of scent. The finger of both pleasure and pain dipped just below his waist, reminding him of the prize.

  But, oh God, the torture.

  His cock strained for contact, swollen until he was certain it would break. She’d opened his shirt and pants and allowed him to be free, yet there was no freedom in this room, only submission—and the insanity of reward.

  Anton swallowed hard as she blew a soft breath over his straining flesh. She strutted her body in front of him, dressed in red lace, her breasts pushed up until they overflowed their confines, her dark thatch shiny and wet from his oral ministrations.

  “That was good, Anton. Very good. You have a talented tongue. But not good enough. And you know if you don’t please me, then I won’t please you.”

  Words tumbled to the tip of that talented tongue. Words like one touch, one suck, one millisecond in that warm, wonderful, haven of femininity. His lips parted, his chest heaved. He stared at her crotch as if by thought he could bring the prize to him.

  She laughed.

  Merciful heavens, she laughed. Today was going to be a good day. Today she wouldn’t watch him shame himself with that derisive smile on her
face. He hated that smile.

  Oh the joy. Today she was going to let him in.

  His cock jumped in answer, and she crooned to the organ. Her palm cupped his balls, and he shuddered. He didn’t dare come now. He bit the inside of his cheek, welcoming the pain. He couldn’t come now. She’d deny him for days if he did.

  He reined in his mind, concentrating on chemical equations, performing routine calculations in his head. She rolled his balls between her fingers.

  Ah God. She was doing it on purpose. There was that grin again.

  “Bitch.”

  She laughed. “You cannot come until I come at least two more times. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. It was a test of wills. A battle of the sexes.

  She straddled him. She rubbed her hot, wet core all over his erection. Without giving him a chance to protest, a chance to breathe, she lifted up and thrust herself all the way down on his cock. She started riding him like a horse, up and down, each movement sheer torture, incredible delight. But he didn’t dare come. Not yet. Not until she did. Two more times. Then she would give him the reward he so richly deserved.

  But in every battle there were ebbs and flows. It was his turn to make her sweat. Literally and figuratively.

  “Sam Ormond has a partner. A guy named Jack Kent. He’s with Mackenzie. I’m positive they know what happened.”

  His lover didn’t even break stride, just kept pumping up and down with her mouth parted and her lips glistening in the dim light. A tiny thrill of fear helped take the edge off his lust and Anton was able to keep his composure as she played with her nub and then orgasmed all over his thighs.

  She lifted one leg and climbed off him, her face still an unsatisfied mask of desire. Not for him. He’d understood that long ago. For sex. And more sex. And more sex. She pushed her mound over his face, nearly smothering him in an attempt to quench the unquenchable. He stuck his tongue out and lapped at her core. She ground her thighs against his face, begging and pleading until she came one more time.

  Thank God, he thought. He’d withstood her demands. Again.

  “That’s your problem, Anton. Not mine.”

  He frowned. “But you told me all we needed to do was find a buyer. You told me it didn’t matter if the process worked or not. By the time anyone found out, we’d have our money.” Fear and concern caused him to start to shrink. “You told me we would make a fortune.”