“I owe you an apology,” she said to Kupfer without preamble.
He grimaced. “I spoke to Zach Cage at length. He says you’re a computer hacker. Bravo on your acting abilities, because you had me convinced that not only were you a scientist but that you understood the importance of my work.”
Ike flinched but said, “You weren’t wrong. I did my postgrad work in a lab like yours. And I understand more than you’d think.”
Kupfer didn’t look convinced or cooperative. “You’re too young to have lost a child to DMD.”
She shook her head. “My brother had Down syndrome. He died when he was fifteen.” She glanced up at William, and he saw something move in her eyes before she focused on Kupfer and said, “My family fell apart afterward, just like yours, and a big chunk of it was my fault.”
IKE WAS AWARE OF THE speculation in Kupfer’s eyes, but it was William she focused on when he took a half-step toward her, eyes dark.
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “Don’t pity me. Or him. Donny was…” She paused, remembering his laugh. “He was perfect. A gift. He deserved better than a sister like me.” She’d never said those words aloud before, though she’d repeated them often in her heart. Getting them out there now was both freeing and depressing, and her heart hitched slightly when she said, “By the time he was three, he’d had six operations, fixing heart problems and a malformation in his digestive tract. My father’s insurance plan wasn’t that good, and when Donny was ten, my mother had to get a job to help pay for the next cardiac surgery.” She stared down at the darkening streets, watching the traffic. “I baby sat. At first I hated it. Frankly, until then I’d spent as little time as possible with him, but the little guy grew on me, fast. He was…”
She trailed off, trying to find the words, talking to herself now as much as to the others. “He was fun. He had a great sense of humor, even when he wasn’t feeling well. He loved baseball and animals.” And for some reason, he’d loved her, as well. Never mind that she was too tall and thin, that she hadn’t grown breasts like the other girls and didn’t care about clothes and music the way they did.
Her parents had urged her to fit in and make friends. Donny had loved her just the way she was.
“What happened?” Kupfer asked.
“He got sick again, too sick for them to operate. They needed to get him stabilized first, and he wound up staying in the hospital. Two, three weeks he was there without much change. My parents were always either at work or at the hospital with him. I…I got fed up. They missed something of mine.” She shook her head. “I can’t even remember what now — maybe a science fair or something, it doesn’t really matter — but I’d convinced myself it was the most important thing in the world. I lost my temper and shouted at my mother when she called me from the hospital, then I ran upstairs and locked myself in the linen closet, thinking…” She trailed off and shook her head. “Hell, I don’t know what I was thinking — probably that she’d be scared when she rushed home to make sure I was okay and couldn’t find me. Only she didn’t come home. I sat in there for hours, waiting, getting madder and madder, until I finally cried myself to sleep.”
She felt William approach, felt the good, warm weight of his hand on her shoulder. She knew she should shake him off, that he wouldn’t have offered the gesture if she’d been dressed in her normal clothes, if they’d been under normal circumstances. But she didn’t, instead drawing comfort from him when she continued. “They didn’t come home until the next day, and my mother yelled at me when she found me in the closet.” Ike remembered the words spoiled, selfish brat and couldn’t argue. “Donny’s heart had given out. He was fifteen years old.”
William’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. “And you were, what, sixteen? Practically a kid. Give yourself a break.”
“I didn’t say goodbye. After we buried him…” She broke off and swallowed hard. “After, my parents and I barely spoke for the next couple of years, until I went off to college. I never went back.” A tear broke free and trickled down her cheek, but she let it lie in an almost calculating move as she turned to Kupfer. “So, yeah, I understand why you’ve dedicated your life to DMD research. And, trust me, I understand why this press conference is important to you and to kids like Jeremy out there. So please. Let us help you.”
KUPFER’S EYES reflected surprise, but he inclined his head. “Then maybe I wasn’t as wrong as I thought.” He flicked a glance at William. “Are you Vasek or Caine?”
“William Caine. We’d like to ask you a few questions about your former partner, Dominic Firenzetti, and about the researchers on the fourth floor of this building.”
But even as William led Kupfer through the questions, his mind was split, with one part of him focused on the interview and one part of him trying to assimilate the information Ike had just given him.
It explained more than she probably knew.
“Dominic was brilliant,” Kupfer said. “He was — or rather is — far smarter than I, though it took me some time to realize that, since he focused many of his energies on things other than our research.”
“When did that change?” Ike asked. “When did he become interested in the work?”
Kupfer frowned. “I’d say about six months before I discovered he was embezzling the grant money. He became friends with an investor. Something Smith. After that, suddenly Dominic was in the lab every day, sometimes on weekends, totally focused on the gene therapy vector we were building at the time.”
That got William’s attention. The name wouldn’t get them far, even with Ike’s undeniable talents, but it was a start. “Do you think this Smith had something to do with the turnaround?”
“Most likely.” Kupfer plucked the stuffed toy dog from his desk and tossed it from hand to hand in what looked like a habitual gesture, revealing a small framed picture that had been hidden behind the dog. It showed the same blond woman, only without the boy, making William think Lucille Kupfer wasn’t as much of an ex-wife as the eight-year-old divorce would suggest.
Kupfer continued, “When Dominic left, he took some of his work with him — the sequences to a couple of viral constructs and a few other things. To be honest, I didn’t make a big deal of it. I was just happy to have him out of the lab with relatively little drama. But the other day when Miss Roth —” He caught himself. “Miss Rombout drew my attention to his name, I realized the constructs he took contain some of the elements in the adjunct.”
“So maybe Dominic knew he was onto something, and this Smith paid him to steal it, thinking it was closer to completion than it really was,” Ike suggested.
William shot her a look and a subtle head shake. True, they were protecting Kupfer, but that didn’t mean the researcher was completely above reproach. It didn’t pay to share anything more than absolutely necessary. Which is why, when William brought the interview to a close after learning very little about Drs. Johnson and Leon, he didn’t ask permission to plant a small audio bug in Kupfer’s office. He just did it.
IKE SPENT THE remainder of that day and into the evening holed up in her hotel room. Not because she was following Max and William’s orders to stay out of sight but because she wasn’t in the mood for people. She felt like a stranger inside her own skin. She was reacting rather than acting, and that wasn’t like her at all.
Worse, she couldn’t get William’s voice out of her head. Even though the earpiece, wire and camera were gone, along with the surveillance vehicle, she kept hearing his whispered comments in her mind, kept feeling the shimmer of his heat on her lips.
He’d gotten under her skin. She didn’t know exactly how or when, but he’d snuck past her defenses and become important. And that was a problem because they were teammates on opposite sides of an issue. He wanted her locked away until Odin was brought to justice. Too bad, though, because she intended to be there when the snake went down — hell, she intended to be the one with a foot across his throat. That put her and William directly at odds. Never mind that he
wanted a woman who didn’t exist.
As if on cue, a quiet knock drew her attention to the hallway door, sending a jolt of heat through her system. Still wearing the navy outfit she’d chosen for their lab visit, she crossed the room and opened the door.
It wasn’t William. It was Max.
“Oh,” she said, far more disappointed than she should have been. “Hey.”
“Want to grab some dinner?”
She glanced at her watch and was surprised to see that it was well past suppertime. Even more surprising, she wasn’t particularly hungry, for food or company. “No, thanks. I’m going to keep pounding the info superhighway. There’re only about a billion people named Smith to choose from. And besides, tomorrow’s going to be a big day.” They planned to be in place several hours before the press conference, along with the two HFH operatives Zach Cage had sent to protect Kupfer.
Max hesitated, looking at her long and hard before he nodded. “Okay. See you in the morning.”
She closed the door on him, then pressed her ear to the panel. He stood for a moment before he turned and headed down the hall. His reluctance to leave her, coupled with the furtive sounds now coming from William’s room next door, only served to confirm her suspicion.
The menfolk thought they were putting one over on her. Well, she’d show them.
She yanked open her suitcase and dug down to the single familiar outfit she’d brought with her. Feeling a buzz just beneath her skin, she stripped out of conservative navy and pulled on basic black. The dark jeans slid on like an old friend, as did the black turtleneck and short biker jacket. Her feet almost wept with relief the moment she pulled on her boots, and when she stood and inhaled, she felt almost normal for the first time in a week.
Then she got a look at herself in the mirror and cringed because the woman who stared back at her remained a stranger. The clothes were right, but her hair was long and light, too close to her natural shade for comfort, and her face was skillfully made up with blush and lip gloss that was far too soft for the hard-edged outfit.
She looked more like a fake now than she had while wearing a dress.
“Hell,” she muttered and dived into Eleanor’s makeup bag for something that would make the Mary Sue in the mirror disappear.
She was tempted to cut off the hair extensions, but she didn’t have enough time, so she settled for pulling her long hair back in a tight ponytail. Then she scrubbed off the makeup and went with her usual swipe of mascara, wishing it were black rather than medium brown.
That helped matters, but her face still looked naked, so she sucked it up and applied a bit of Eleanor’s darkest lip gloss.
“Not bad,” she said and watched the woman in the mirror shape the words with painted lips. “Just one more accessory.”
She popped the false bottom on the suitcase and pulled out a small .22, along with a wallet containing an ID, credit cards and a permit to carry concealed, all in the name Ike Rombout. Checking the safety and clip, she tucked the gun in the small of her back, beneath the biker jacket, and jammed the paperwork in a pocket.
Armed and dangerous, she strode to the connecting door and knocked, primed for a fight. There was a pause before the door opened to reveal William, wearing dark clothes and a resigned expression.
Ike planted herself squarely in front of him and lifted her chin. “Either I go with you or I follow you. Your choice.”
He didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t headed for the Markham Institute to look around the fourth floor. He gave her a long look up and down, and she wasn’t sure how to interpret the change in his eyes before he said flatly, “No. You’re not coming with me and you’re not following me. I’m not letting you get yourself killed on my watch.”
“Nobody asked you to watch me.” She held up a hand when he would’ve contradicted her. “Yes, I’m sure Max made you my protector, but as I believe I’ve said before, he doesn’t have the right to decide what I’m allowed to do and what I’m not. You don’t have the right. And Zach Cage might technically be my boss, but that doesn’t even give him the right to control me.”
This time his expression was a snap to read, because his frustration was a mirror of her own. He sighed heavily. “I don’t want to control you, Ike.”
Sure you do, she thought. That’s what men do. But aloud she said, “Then let me come with you. I can help.”
“You’ll distract me. I’d be so worried about looking after you that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the job.”
She shrugged. “That’s your problem, not mine.” She gestured down at her black pants. “See? No dress. Just think of me as one of the guys.”
He bit back a bark of laughter and then stepped in and leaned down until they were practically nose to nose. “Let’s get one thing straight. Even when you’re at your most annoying, I’ve never mistaken you for a man.”
This time when the heat flared it didn’t die down. Instead kindling a traitorous warmth deep inside her, one that reflected the growing spark in his eyes. I want you, it said, but I won’t accept you as an equal.
Too bad, Ike thought, because that kind of wanting wasn’t enough for her. And though she wasn’t sure where the thought had come from, it fit in a way her skin, her new hair and her old clothes didn’t.
Not stopping to absorb the realization, she said, “Why can’t you see that we’re both doing this for the same reason? You feel responsible for Sharilee’s death, so you’re determined to protect me. Zed died because of me, so I’m determined to help you bring Odin down. It’s the same. We’re the same.”
“I’m not trying to keep you alive because of what happened to Sharilee,” he said quietly. “Maybe I was at first. But now I’m worried about you because I think the world would be a poorer place without you in it.”
That brought Ike to a stuttering halt and punched a fist beneath her heart. She swallowed hard, more affected than she ought to have been when she prided herself on not needing anyone’s approval but her own.
She stared at William, who was closer than she’d thought, so close she could feel the heat of his body against her skin. His eyes held silent entreaty. Do this for me, please. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
“Thanks,” she said, still shaken by the idea that he could like her for who she was, then slowly realizing that he didn’t. He liked the idea of her but couldn’t handle the reality, which was that she wouldn’t stay in his shadow, no matter the circumstance. So she stepped away from him, away from the tempting warmth and the promise of a sanctuary that came with conditions. “I appreciate the thought more than you can know. But that doesn’t change anything. I want to do this, William. I need to do it. So you choose — am I going with you or am I going on my own?”
He stared at her for a long moment, so long she thought the answer would be no. Then he cursed and turned away, saying over his shoulder, “Have it your way. Just don’t slow me down.”
Chapter Nine
Not only did she not slow him down, William was forced to admit, she sped things up by bringing him directly to a rear stairwell door he hadn’t seen before.
At his inquiring look, she shrugged and said, “I pulled the schematics. Trust me, I was going in with or without you tonight.”
There was no sign of surveillance, no alarm as they slipped into the stairwell and climbed to the fourth floor. Granted, the Markham Institute wasn’t exactly high on the security scale, but Odin was nothing if not thorough. If there was something to protect on the fourth floor, it would’ve been protected. The lack of response bothered William, making him think they were on a wild goose chase.
Or walking straight into a trap.
“Wait,” he said once she’d bypassed the keypad and opened the door to the fourth floor. “Let me go first.”
He expected an argument. She surprised him by stepping back.
Drawing his weapon, William slipped through the door and into a darkened hallway, which was lit only by emergency lights that gleamed small p
ools of brightness on the waxed floor. The air smelled faintly stale, but that might’ve been his imagination.
He waited a beat but didn’t hear anything above the faint hum of blowers and automated machinery. Gesturing for Ike to follow, he stepped into the hallway and let the door close and latch, then indicated that she should lead. If she’d memorized the schematics for the building, she’d know where the offices were located, and that would be the best place to start.
Moments later they were inside a roomy office with Dr. Minor J. Johnson stenciled on the door.
Ike took a seat at the neat-looking desk, pulled the computer keyboard into position and glanced up at him. “What do you think?”
He briefly debated the wisdom of accessing the institute’s intranet, then gave her a go-ahead gesture. “If they didn’t notice us breaking in, they’re not likely to log the computer access until business hours tomorrow, and by that time it’ll be pretty much over one way or the other.” Either Odin would have made his move and been captured or they’d be back to square negative one, with precious few leads and no idea as to his next target.
William refused to consider the third possibility — that Odin would strike and escape — because based on his note Kupfer wasn’t the only target now. Ike was in danger, too, and William didn’t intend to let the bastard hurt her.
She’d made it clear that she didn’t want to be his responsibility, but that was too bad, because somewhere along the line she’d become exactly that. He wasn’t sure when or how she’d sneaked past his defenses, but there she was, lodged in a place that had been closed off for a long time, longer perhaps than he’d even been aware.
Whether she liked it or not, he intended to keep her safe — or die trying.
“Get going.” She made a shooing motion, then turned back to the computer. “I’ll need ten, maybe fifteen minutes if I’m going to be sure I don’t leave tracks.”
“You’ve got ten,” he said, feeling the seconds tick beneath his skin. The lack of an alarm suggested there was no manned security in place, but could be a remote system to call the cops in the event of a break-in.
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