Covert Attraction

by Linda O. Johnston

  Chapter 4

  Gasping internally, Beth wished she could retract her words.

  Not the thought. Oh, no. There was something about this man that didn’t feel right. He wasn’t the geeky lab guy she’d originally thought—the one that Corcoris apparently believed he was, too.

  He had helped her when Corcoris had appeared, almost as if he knew who she really was and intended to keep her safe.

  That couldn’t be the case, and yet she felt he wasn’t what he seemed any more than she was.

  His reaction now wasn’t what she’d have expected, either. He laughed aloud, but only for a few seconds. “I could ask you the same thing, Beth.” He drew out her name as if he knew it wasn’t her real one. Despite the mirth that radiated from his blue eyes beyond the confines of his glasses, there was an intensity in them that nearly made her stand and run away. Leave his presence as quickly as possible.

  If this had been an actual date with someone she’d just met, she might actually have fled.

  Especially since she’d felt a little reluctant to go to a restaurant at all—a public place where she might run into someone who’d known her before. But this one wasn’t close to where she’d lived, and she had never been here before. Plus, she trusted her new ID, including how she looked, at least somewhat.

  Besides, leaving here wouldn’t work. She would see Daniel again at the pharmaceutical company, and she couldn’t flee the job that provided at least some camouflage while she sought the evidence to save her family and give her her life back.

  She’d imagined using him somehow. Was he instead going to try to use her? And if so, how?

  She made herself laugh a little, too, then looked down at her hands in her lap and whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m just a little confused. I—”

  “I’d feel a bit confused, too, if I hadn’t spoken with Judge Treena before.”

  Shock radiated through Beth. She was glad that her eyes, now huge, were focused downward. She didn’t want to meet his gaze, not until she managed to get control of herself again—the way she had been taught to take control while changing her persona under the aegis of...Judge Treena.

  She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath, then looked at him with an assumed expression of confusion on her face. “You spoke with a judge? Are you involved with a lawsuit? Or—”

  A server came over and placed the drinks they had ordered on the place mats in front of them. Beth wished she’d ordered something stronger than an iced tea. Maybe a glass of wine. Better yet, straight whiskey. A lot of it. But it was only midday, and she would have to return to the company and continue her cleaning work.

  Daniel had ordered black coffee, no cream, no sugar, no latte or mocha. Nothing gooey or effeminate.

  Nothing light or effeminate about him, either, no matter how geeky he had first struck her on the job. She moved her gaze up enough to watch his hand as he lifted his coffee cup to his mouth. It was taut. Wiry, with long, agile fingers. It looked strong, strong enough to do a lot more than merely conduct tests on pharmaceuticals and write the requisite reports.

  Strong enough to suggest he used those hands for a lot more than the basics a dedicated scientist could do.

  She wondered, just for an instant, what that hand would feel like on her bare skin.

  She closed her eyes quickly, both to interrupt her train of thought and to keep herself from laughing aloud the way he had done.

  She really had nothing to laugh about.

  Who was this man? And how did he know about Judge Treena?

  Was he one of the security guys Her Honor supposedly sent to check on her family? But if so, what was he doing at Corcoris? And how would he know about her?

  His strong lips began to move. “I’m sure you know that Judge Treena doesn’t preside over an actual courtroom, or at least not usually,” he said. “She’s essentially my boss. Yours, too?”

  He made the last a question. Even if she wanted to answer, she wasn’t sure what her response should be.

  Judge Treena did, in fact, give her orders of sorts. But they were to instruct her. Protect her.

  And now she was, at least to some extent, ignoring them. Possibly to her own detriment.

  But who was Daniel McManus, really?

  And did she dare to ask him again?

  She bought herself a little more time by taking another sip of her iced tea. Then another.

  “So...are we going to have a conversation here?” Daniel’s deep voice still sounded calm, yet there was an edge to it.

  “Well, sure,” she responded, but was glad the server arrived just then with a basket of rolls, distracting them for a minute.

  How should she play this? Just because Daniel had mentioned Judge Treena, said he had spoken with her, didn’t mean he actually had. He was implying that he was on Beth’s side. Had even acted as if he was, back at the labs.

  But was he? Or was this some kind of ploy to make her reveal herself?

  If nothing else, she again focused on what she had learned over this past year or so: trust no one.

  Well, almost no one. She did trust Judge Treena and those few people she had met thanks to the judge’s help in setting up a new persona for her. She had to.

  And she would always trust Milt Ranich in the slight chance her former ally at Corcoris, who’d hinted at all that was wrong there and then disappeared before she did, was still alive.

  Seeing Daniel’s curious gaze still fastened on her gave Beth the impetus to act. “Excuse me.” She pulled her napkin from her lap and placed it on the table. “I need a pit stop. I’ll be right back.” That was too much information, but it should buy her a few minutes away from this man.

  “Sure,” he said, but his smile looked both irritated and smug somehow. Surely he couldn’t read her mind—about the phone call she needed to make immediately.

  Or maybe he could.

  “Hurry back, though,” he added. “Our food will arrive soon.”

  She considered fleeing, letting him pay for that food and not having to deal with him again.

  During this lunchtime. And that was the problem. She would still have to deal with him this afternoon and on an ongoing basis at Corcoris.

  She didn’t assure him that she would hurry or even that she would return. She felt sure he knew it already. Especially when, after standing, she glanced back and saw him lift his coffee cup toward her in a toast.

  Why did she find that smug gesture anything but irritating?

  And she hated that it, combined with his gaze at her through smiling, partly closed eyes, struck her as too damned sexy.

  She fled toward the ladies’ room.

  * * *

  Daniel knew he shouldn’t have acted so amused. But at the moment, he enjoyed watching Beth—Andrea?—flee toward the restroom.

  She had to wend her way around crowded tables, moving her attractive hips and more to stay out of the way of gesturing patrons and servers with their arms filled with loaded trays. In her colorful shirt and slim pants, Beth’s form couldn’t have been more fun to watch.

  Somehow it seemed sexy. She seemed sexy, even fully clothed in that not particularly alluring outfit. Or maybe it was just the way his curiosity was ramped up about this mysterious woman that made him want to know more about her.

  Including what she really looked like...

  His thoughts were interrupted as the guy who’d been serving them put a plate down in front of him. It held the pastrami sandwich he’d ordered. Smelled good.

  His “date” had ordered the house salad, and it appeared delectable, with shredded chicken over a bed of fresh lettuce and other salad veggies.

  He hoped she would hurry back to enjoy it, but at least it wasn’t anything that would chill or spoil in her absence.

  The thoug
ht had struck him, as she’d seemed so eager to leave, that she might not return.

  But whoever Beth was, she had to have some degree of intelligence, since Judge Treena was helping her.

  That intelligence—or at least her common sense—might be limited, since she apparently was also currently ignoring the judge’s orders.

  Yet so far, Daniel had gotten, and still believed, that there was a lot more to that lovely woman than he had yet seen.

  He looked forward to finding out all there was. Not to mention making it very clear that, whatever her reason for being at the Corcoris facility, she had better not interfere with what he was there to do.

  He took a bite of his sandwich—even as his eyes continued to stare in the direction Beth had gone.

  * * *

  Fortunately, the restroom was down a fairly secluded hallway. Beth would have preferred going outside or nearly anywhere else, but the only doors beyond the ladies’ room were for the men’s room, and one that said Employees Only.

  She’d get no privacy in either one.

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket—not the one for calling her family, but the one that Judge Treena had tried to reach her on. She faced the wall, leaned toward it to try to wrap a small mantle of privacy around herself.

  Taking a deep breath to calm herself—and to prepare for what would undoubtedly be a difficult conversation—she pressed first the button to turn it on and then the one that went directly to Judge Treena’s number.

  As busy as the judge was, Beth didn’t expect to reach her immediately...no matter how much she wanted to. She was surprised, therefore, when the phone was answered right away. “Where the hell are you, Jones?”

  Almost against her will, Beth felt the corners of her lips twitch into a small smile. No matter how peeved Judge Treena was, no matter how much she might want to kick someone’s butt, she apparently never forgot to use the new cover names of the people she helped.

  “In the area where I said I might be going.” That was another thing that Treena’s subordinates had made clear. Never answer anything directly—at least nothing that could make it easy for someone eavesdropping to learn something you didn’t want them to know.

  Like your location.

  “Where you’re not supposed to be.” The judge’s tone was ominous, and when someone passed behind Beth close enough to cause a slight breeze at her back, she startled.

  “I understand your feelings about this, Your Honor, but I hope you understand mine, too. My family—”

  “I get it.” The judge sounded curt, but then she said, “You know my team is approaching this from some other angles, too. We’re keeping an eye on your family, for one thing, and also getting cooperation from the local cops. Plus, we understand that your folks are about to leave town for a while. And we’re doing something else—something that will eventually resolve the situation.”

  Beth hesitated. This sounded like a good lead-in for what she wanted to ask. “That’s what I wondered. Hoped. But I hope you realize that I also have to do what I think is best. I’ll try to stay out of trouble. Out of the way of whatever you’re doing—as long as I know what it is.”

  She hoped the judge would say that nothing at all had been started yet...or, alternatively, that she’d sent a guy named Daniel there to fix everything.

  As if he could. Although if anyone could, she wanted to believe that the man who’d appeared to play games with Preston Corcoris and prevail—at least this once—might be able to do anything.

  “So that’s where we are,” the judge said. “You want to be brought into my core group who’s told about each operation on a need-to-know basis.”

  It wasn’t a question. In fact, it sounded as if Judge Treena was scoffing at her, letting her know that even if that was what Beth wanted, she could want it forever without achieving it.

  But Beth would not let herself be deterred. Not when her family’s safety was at stake.

  And possibly her own.

  “That’s right, Your Honor. You can look at it this way, since I do. If it’s need-to-know, then if it potentially affects me, I do need to know.”

  She was surprised when she heard a bark of laughter on the other end of the phone. “For someone who needed to start over in a whole new life, you still have a lot of nerve, Jones.”

  Beth smiled. “I guess so. And if you could just answer one question for me now, it would really help—so I’ll know if I’m in even more trouble at the moment.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I take it that this line is secure?” Despite her own waffling before, she figured the judge would have a better sense of how safe talking to her was. And whatever happened, whatever the answer to her question happened to be, Beth didn’t want this conversation to lead to a really bad result.

  “It is,” Judge Treena responded.

  Beth didn’t hesitate. She definitely wanted an answer, and she wanted it now. “There’s a guy here who seems to be trying to help me, but I don’t know whether he’s real, whether I should trust him. Is—”

  The judge didn’t let her finish. “His name?”

  “Daniel McManus.”

  “Trust him,” Judge Treena said. “He’s one of ours.”

  * * *

  They were talking about the same guy. Judge Treena felt certain of it after she talked with Beth a little longer.

  At least the woman was astute enough to get more information before trusting just anyone who happened to act as if they were allies. Including how to make sure he was who he said he was.

  But that still didn’t satisfy Treena.

  After hanging up the phone, she leaned back in the tall desk chair in her office at the headquarters of the U.S. Marshals Service in Washington, D.C., and sighed.

  Why didn’t people obey orders, especially when their own best interests were involved?

  But she had come to know the woman who was now Beth Jones well over the months of revamping her identity and giving her a new life. Beth had made it clear how much she cared about and missed her family.

  She also clearly gave a damn about the situation that had led her into flight—and it could affect, harm, a whole lot of civilians if not handled right.

  Besides, over the course of her legal career, Treena had met all kinds of people, especially when she was a public defender. A lot of them were vile, but every once in a while someone captured her pity because of the horrid situations they found themselves in with no escape other than possible death.

  That was one reason she had fought to help those who couldn’t help themselves. Had used family connections to join the U.S. Marshals Service and to found the Identity Division, which was composed of the Transformation Unit and the Covert Investigations Unit.

  The Identity Division allowed Treena to help those in need leave their perilous lives despite their inability to produce evidence that would get them into witness protection. Via the TU, Treena gave the successful petitioners each a new identity for their protection. She directed an elite undercover CIU team to find that evidence in their stead.

  Real evidence, not the hearsay or circumstantial or logical speculation that the petitioners usually came in with.

  Evidence that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the people terrorizing them.

  And she had been extremely fortunate in obtaining funding, via official sources, grants, rewards for capture and prosecution of the guilty, and even donations from some of those people the ID Division had saved and who had gone on to better lives. She hadn’t had to scrimp on any of the many activities in which the division engaged, including protection and investigation.

  Now Treena glanced at the wall to her right, in the direction of the White House. It didn’t hurt that her cousin—distant, yes, but family just the same—happened to be POTUS, the president of
the United States.

  Enough rehashing, she finally told herself. Time to plan.

  She stood to look out the window toward Pennsylvania Avenue. She liked Agent Daniel McManus, thought he was more than able to handle his undercover assignment at Corcoris Pharmaceuticals. But when she had selected him and gotten him the training to seamlessly fit in at the company, she hadn’t counted on having a distraction possibly get in the way—in the form of Beth Jones.

  Things could get even more interesting now. Might even work better. But in case they didn’t, she needed a plan.

  * * *

  “So how’s your sandwich?” Beth had just sat back down across from Daniel and picked up her fork.

  He couldn’t say why exactly, but she looked different. Not as tense, maybe. Not as remote.

  Which told him, rightly or wrongly, that she’d done as he had anticipated and called Judge Treena about him.

  That could be a good thing. Or not.

  “Good. I hope you don’t mind, but I took a bite of your salad. I think it’s better than my sandwich.”

  He hadn’t taken a bite, but he wanted to see her reaction. The former Beth, before whatever she’d done in the past few minutes, wouldn’t have yelled at him, but she’d have appeared upset, no matter whether she tried to hide it. Tense. Unsure how to handle the situation.

  This new Beth, though?

  “You should have asked first. I’d have let you try it, but it’s my salad. My decision.” There was a belligerence in the way she stuck out her full lower lip ever so slightly. Daniel had never considered belligerence sexy, but he’d not seen it before on Beth Jones’s beautiful face.

  “You’re right. Want any of my sandwich?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Just a corner to try. One you haven’t already taken a bite out of.”

  He wanted to smile. Even laugh. This conversation wasn’t about their lunch, but it was somehow about their relationship.

  Hell, they had no relationship, although the thought struck him as provocative. No, what they had was interaction between two people who were business associates of sorts. Unwilling ones, at least from his perspective.