by Julie Miller
The bedroom loft on the second level was dark, and she hadn’t heard Damon go up the stairs so she doubted he was asleep. The kitchen and living room were empty, the bathrooms unoccupied.
“Damon?” Her voice echoed off the tall windows and granite-and-steel decor, reinforcing the isolation she felt. If she could get this lonely chill after only a couple of hours in the penthouse, how must Damon feel living here 24/7? Compassion twisted in her heart and made Kit even more determined to track down where he might have gone.
She paused in the kitchen to pour two glasses of milk, hoping a little bit of noisy activity would capture his attention. Had the man gone somewhere without telling her? To visit Helen at the hospital, perhaps? Was he out in the night, lurking in the shadows, waiting to rescue someone else whose life was in danger? Or was she the only troublesome neighbor on that unique to-do list?
Curiouser and curiouser.
If she could find Henry Phipps with thirty stories of the Sinclair Tower to search, she could find Damon Sinclair on the top two floors. Padding along the hallway in her stocking feet, Kit carried the two glasses toward the private rooms where Helen lived, and where Damon had instructed her to make herself at home for the night.
Helen’s room held nothing but Kit’s own discarded clothes. The bathroom was empty, a small reading room was dark. “Damon?” She knocked on a door across the hall and discovered a pantry filled with food stores and cleaning supplies. But no scientist. “Hmm. Maybe you do materialize and vanish out of thin air.”
Not likely. What was she missing here? Another secret passageway like the one on the thirteenth floor? But she could find no hidden archways, no suspicious velvet drapes.
Kit wandered on down the hall to the steel door at the end marked Fire Exit. Dead end? She stopped and drank her milk and considered what she knew about the man. Not much, beyond having an aversion to people and a diehard need to pay off any debt he felt he owed. He had a brilliant mind, a penchant for secrets, a seductive voice that matched the shadows he loved so well, scarred-up hands and that moon-kissed hair.
And he radiated a clean, masculine scent that reminded her of sex and science and…
Kit sniffed the air. “That scent.”
A familiar awareness stirred inside her, making her itchy inside her skin. Damon had been here. Recently or often, or both. Had he paced the hallway near Helen’s rooms, worrying about the grandmotherly figure since her attack?
Or…
Kit polished off her milk and tucked the empty glass beneath her arm. Then she braced her hand against the crossbar on the door. This was either another one of Damon’s secrets or… “You’re going to be really ticked when I open this and all the building alarms go off.”
Kit squinched her face together and pushed.
CLICK.
She cracked one eye open. No alarm.
She opened both eyes and stared out onto the landing of a black steel staircase that doubled back on itself and descended into the darkness beneath her feet.
“Damon Sinclair, man of mystery.” She was at once intrigued and rightly cautious about the man’s eccentricities. She stepped out onto the steel grating and ran her fingers along the railing. Unlike the passageway on the thirteenth floor, this stairwell was clean—spotlessly so—indicating regular use. But who dusted a fire escape? “Hello?”
Kit called into the darkness without really expecting a response. She felt along the wall for a light switch, but found none. She supposed a man with Damon’s keen sense of perception didn’t need a light to find his way through the shadows. He’d proved that at the hospital, and earlier tonight at the Black Hole Café.
“Damon? Are you down there?” She was already on the third step before she paused to rationalize why she was investigating shadows. Something more than curiosity drew her toward the most secret of places in Damon Sinclair’s dark domain.
There were certain things they needed to discuss before either of them turned in. Like, what did he and Matt discuss while she’d been in the shower earlier? Was he going to press charges against her brother for testing his computer skills on SinPharm’s database? Did Damon have any idea who would want Kenny Kenichi dead? Did he think the same person would come after Matt now? Clearly he believed there was some sort of danger, or he wouldn’t have insisted they stay the night within the extra security of his penthouse. Did he think the attempts on her life and Helen’s were related to Kenny’s efforts to hack his way into Damon’s private work files?
And why the hell was it so wrong for them to kiss each other when he’d gone out of his way to hold her hand—to hold her—as though there was something very personal going on between them?
Finding the answer to any one of those questions justified the risk of following the hidden staircase to see if it led her to Damon. Besides, it would be rude to close herself off in Helen’s room without even saying thank you and good night.
Either her eyes were getting as adept at seeing in the dark as Damon’s were, or there really was a light shining at the bottom of the stairs, casting a dim glow through the metal gratings beneath her feet. She curled her toes into each step, trying to decide whether descending into the unknown would be as wise a move for her as it was for the foolish heroines who populated horror movies. “As long as I don’t fall down if I have to run away,” she reasoned out loud, buying some courage with a stab at humor.
By the time she reached the second landing, the light had taken shape and grown brighter, drawing Kit like a beacon. There was a door down there, made of glass and steel. The light shining through it seemed artificially bright in the pall of the stairwell. But as Kit reached it, she could see the treasure hidden inside the room—tables, lab equipment, a bank of computers, a row of monitors suspended from the ceiling, walls lined with white boards that had mathematical equations and chemical diagrams sketched across them in a powerful scrawling hand.
It had been more than a year since Kit had seen the inside of a laboratory, and she’d never been inside one this complex and completely stocked with the latest equipment. The goodies inside that lab were more exciting to her than a dozen roses from the most ardent suitor would be to any other woman.
“Wow.” She braced her hand against the door’s steel frame and peered through the window. She could bet this state-of-the-art retreat didn’t show up on any public blueprint of the Sinclair Tower. This was where the great Dr. Damon Sinclair created his miracles. This must have been the site of the explosion and fire that had cost him his eye and eventually his wife. But nothing inside looked damaged now.
Except, perhaps, for the tall, lean man hunched over a table set with three different microscopes at the far side of the room.
The lab coat he wore hugged his broad shoulders like a second skin and created a stark contrast against his black turtleneck. But it wasn’t the bleak fashion choice or even the taut strap of his eyepatch cutting a dark stripe across the back of his silver-blond hair that made Kit catch her breath with a mix of trepidation and concern.
It was the blood staining the cuff of his left sleeve.
What was he doing in there?
“You really are a mad scientist.” She mouthed the words, bathing the glass in the fog of her breath.
As soon as she whispered, Damon stilled. His shoulders tensed and his jaw angled to the side, as though he’d sensed her presence. Kit quickly wiped the glass clean with the sleeve of her robe and retreated to the base of the stairs. But there was nowhere to run from the piercing scrutiny of that deep-blue eye as he turned and spotted her. No place to hide as he rose and strode across the length of the room.
There was nothing more compelling than the sight of all that focused intensity bearing down on her with such purpose.
Kit swallowed hard and held tight to the metal railing. Her breath came in a stuttered gasp. And for one foolish moment, something feral and feminine and too long neglected awakened inside her. She wanted Damon Sinclair. Wanted more than his protection, more than a tha
nk-you check. She wanted his brain, his body, wanted whatever heart he had left inside him.
She wanted him to want her in that same crazy, inexplicable way that was tearing at her soul.
Oh, man, she’d made some pretty bold choices in her lifetime. But falling for Damon Sinclair, trusting him despite his eccentricities, wanting a man who’d made it clear that he would never confuse sexual chemistry with something emotional was crazy. Plum crazy. Maybe she was the mad one here.
Damon pressed a button and the door slid open. A wave of cold air from inside the lab washed over her like a bucket of reviving water. She had to think here, not just…want.
Kit summoned a friendly smile. “This setup is totally amazi—”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
The scowl on his expression might have made a different woman turn tail and run back up the stairs. But Kit only knew a perverse urge to touch his mouth to see if she could coax the grim line into a smile. “That’s the second time you’ve greeted me that way. A girl could get a complex.”
“Is something wrong?” He took another step closer, filling the doorway, silhouetting his face and shoulders, forcing her to imagine that his expression matched the urgent concern in his voice. “Is there a problem with Matt?”
“No. He’s zonked upstairs.”
“Then go to bed.”
“I’m too keyed up to sleep.” Even though she’d showered and changed into her flannel pajamas and robe, Damon was still fully dressed in the same dark jeans and fitted sweater he’d been wearing at the Black Hole. She wasn’t the only night owl up prowling the hidden recesses of the Sinclair Tower. “I thought you might like some company.”
“I’m working.”
“At two in the morning?” A moment’s hesitation made her wonder if he was rethinking his Garbo-esque claims for wanting to be alone. And when he didn’t actually tell her to go away again, Kit seized the advantage. She closed the distance between them and pushed the glass of milk into his hand. “I thought you might want something to drink, to help you decompress after all the excitement tonight. Besides, the carton was almost empty and I didn’t want it to sour on you. I can run downstairs and get some milk from the diner in the morning.”
Up close, she could see him studying the glass in his hand as though either the milk or the kindness was a foreign concept to him. When Kit felt his gaze shift to her, she had the idea that she might be the foreign concept to him.
“You really need to go to the grocery store. Or is that something Helen does for you so you don’t have to go out? Of course, you’ve been going out a lot more lately because of…well, we don’t really seem to know who’s behind these scrapes I keep getting into, do we?” The moment that remembered fear crept into her consciousness, Kit quickly changed the subject. “This level isn’t accessible from the public stairwell or the elevators, is it?”
Chatty, curious neighbor, standing in the semidarkness outside a hidden laboratory? Definitely a foreign concept, judging by the way he watched her like a specimen beneath a microscope.
“How did you find me?”
“Deductive reasoning. I didn’t hear you leave the penthouse, but you weren’t anyplace I could see, so you had to be someplace I couldn’t see.” She grinned as she tried to peek around him into the lab. But those shoulders and attitude guarded the entrance and kept her at bay. “May I come in?”
“You don’t belong here.”
“Mr. Kronemeyer warned me that I should stay off the upper floors of the building. Is this why? So no one discovers your private lab?”
The blue eye narrowed. “The crew before Kronemeyer’s built this lab to my specifications. He doesn’t know anything about this place. He’s got no business threatening you.”
So the guard dog’s hackles were up on her behalf. Damon’s protection was comforting—but not quite the relationship she wanted with her intriguing neighbor.
“Kronemeyer’s just a grumpy butt who works and worries too much.” She waved aside the fear and anger she’d felt when he’d forced her off the thirteenth floor. “So what are you working on now?”
“Getting rid of you.” He raised the glass to his lips, taking the sting out of his gruff answer.
Kit laughed. “Careful, Doc. Somebody might find out that the only thing you’re hiding up here is your sense of humor.”
“I am not one of your community projects. You can’t fix me.”
“Do you need to be fixed?”
“Don’t.”
The deep-pitched word fell into the shadows around them, filling the quiet with an edgy awareness that chased away teasing humor and pricked goose bumps across the back of Kit’s neck. “Don’t try to help you? Or don’t care that you’re hurting?” She nodded toward the smears on his cuff. “By the way, you’re bleeding again.”
He returned the glass and backed her toward the stairs. “Good night.”
When he turned away, assuming she’d meekly follow his edict and march back up the stairs, Kit slipped past him. She brushed against his heat and strength and darted beyond his outstretched hand into the center of the lab.
“Kit.” She heard his footsteps in quick pursuit. “Dammit, woman, you don’t belong here.”
She took in every piece of equipment she could identify, and made note of the ones she couldn’t. A quick read of the walls revealed prospective formulas that were both carbon-and silicon-based. She ducked around a table to escape his reach and get a look at the familiar images on the television monitors. The street in front of the diner. The darkened lobby. The elevator and hallway at Damon’s penthouse door.
Kit didn’t know whether to admire the thoroughness of his security setup or be offended. “So, you’re not superhuman, after all. Instead of taking part in the world, you watch it on TV. You knew when to come to the rescue because you’re spying on me. On everything in the building.” She glanced over her shoulder at the glare closing in on her. “Is that legal?”
“It’s state-of-the-art security. With two fires, all the accidents and this equipment… Hell, I don’t have to explain anything to you.” He grabbed hold of her arm, but something about the blood-soaked gauze on his left hand lying against the soft pink of her sleeve seemed to disgust him. He jerked his hand back and cursed, giving Kit the opportunity to slide across the room.
“Have you ever seen me, uh…?” She pulled at the top button of her pajama top.
“No. It only accesses public venues.” He crossed to a table littered with first-aid supplies and snatched up a cloth towel to wrap around his knuckles.
“So you had a view of Helen’s attack.” She set down the milk glasses when she found the keyboard controlling the monitors, and pressed the arrow keys, testing how to adjust the camera shots. “Did you see where Old Henry went on one of these things?”
“Stop that.” Long fingers wound around her wrist and pulled her toward the exit, forcing her into double-time to keep up with Damon’s demanding stride. “I don’t know what happened to your friend. And I fell asleep the night Helen was assaulted. Otherwise, those men would have already been dealt with.” The threat in his voice gave way to the same helpless frustration she felt. “Trust me, I’ve studied that tape, frame by frame, trying to get a face or clue to tell me who hurt her.”
The same frames replayed themselves in Kit’s memory. “It wouldn’t do you any good. They wore stocking masks.”
“Like the so-called nurse who attacked you at the hospital?” Damon halted his manic effort to herd her out of the lab. The stop was so abrupt that Kit plowed into the wall of his back. But he pushed her away before his heat and hardness and addictive scent could do more than register on her feminine radar. “You said he had no face.”
He squeezed her shoulder, demanding she tip her chin and meet his gaze.
“Right. I remember it now.” The same red mask with white circles around the eyes. Only, the hair that poked through at the hospital had been blond, not black like the man who’d hurt Helen.
“He wasn’t as big as the man in the alley. I mean, he was taller than me, but not bulky. I wonder if describing the mask to a sketch artist would help the police with their investigation.”
The grip on her wrist eased. Maybe she imagined the thumb stroking against her pulse. “Was it the same mask?”
“Same style.”
“Probably something fairly common.”
Kit nodded. We’re all dead. The intonation of Helen’s last words before losing consciousness played through Kit’s memory. Damon cursed and pulled away, leaving Kit fidgeting with frustration. She wondered how much stemmed from the ugly memory and how much was the direct result of losing contact with Damon’s warmth.
Comfort and support had been denied. Had she really expected him to care? Or was that just more of that foolish wanting?
She raked her fingers through her hair and slowly turned to study every corner of the lab—from the petri dish beneath the microscope beside her to the card and keypad security lock at either exit. Think, Kit. Piece it together. Help this all make sense. She looked back at the security lock. “Did Helen know about this lab?”
“Yes.” Damon was trying to tie the towel ends together to keep it in place. He was using his right hand, his teeth and a tricky balancing act. “She’d bring me a meal from time to time. Come down to check on me if I didn’t show up for breakfast.”
“Does anyone else know this is here?”
“The men who built it. They were contracted through SinPharm, then bonded to secrecy.”
“Through SinPharm,” she echoed. “That means Easting Davitz knows, right? He represents you at Sinclair Pharmaceuticals—he’s your front man. He knows about this lab, doesn’t he?”
Damon cursed at the towel, pulled it from the wound and tossed it across the table. “Easting is like a second father to me. He wouldn’t hurt the company or Helen.”
“Need some help?” Kit went to pick up the towel and discovered a much bigger problem. Clearly, Damon had tried to tend his own wound, without much success. She separated soiled gauze and cotton from the clean supplies, then spotted a sink and went to wash her hands. “Does he know how to get in here?”