She frowned. “News articles?”
Jake joined them, handing her a bottle of water. “Apparently the media received the information before the law enforcement officers.” He sat across from her, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles.
Jake didn’t fool her. His fingers were in constant motion, and the corner of his right eye twitched. It made her feel a bit more in control that his deception caused him stress.
Cassidy wrapped her professionalism around her emotions and decided to move past the brief moment of physical weakness. Sex didn’t constitute a relationship; therefore, the time in the cabin need not be a complication or distraction.
Focused on the computer and the tangle of lies that threatened her career, she glanced at Steve and he nodded toward the laptop. “Okay.” Cassidy searched for her name, and a string of Web sites lit up the screen. Clicking on the first one, she scanned the article. “Not a lot of meat here; just accusations.” She pushed a stray lock of hair off her forehead. “It says I brought this unknown virus back from Africa and infected the wolves at Yellowstone. No info on how, what, or when.”
Steve peered over her shoulder. “Not surprising.”
Cassidy read several more articles without gaining enlightenment, then clicked on her e-mail icon. The frustration of being out of the loop, not in charge, alienated from everything familiar, sent a sudden flood of alarm through her body. She broke into a cold sweat and pushed back from the computer, shaking out her arms to relieve the sudden numb tingling of a black reality.
Jake placed his hand on her knee, kicking off an entirely opposite reaction from the icy grip of panic. “You okay?”
Cassidy swallowed, closed her eyes, and counted to ten. “Fine.” She stretched her fingers out and opened and closed them a few times, pretending to be working out stiff joints. “Just tired.” She leaned forward, concentrated on her screen, and willed his presence beside her into nothing more than a shadow. Cassidy clicked on her e-mail icon; an unfamiliar name glared on the screen. “This is odd.” Her heart raced as she skimmed through the e-mail, and a sudden rush of excitement blanketed all other emotion.
Jake moved closer. “What?”
She hit the print button and glanced up from her screen. “Some guy called Edward Fiske has sent me an e-mail claiming responsibility for this virus.” Jake reached behind his chair and snagged the pages of the printer. “And his claims sound rather legitimate.”
Jake studied the printout and glanced at her. His forehead was creased in a deep frown, and he shook his head slowly. “He says that he developed it during his research for mutating a virus capable of attaching to red blood cells. Why would he do that?”
Cassidy sighed, disappointed by Jake’s words. But he was right: the solution couldn’t possibly be this simple. “It’s probably just some lunatic trying to earn his ten seconds of fame but…” She picked up the e-mail and read it once more, then began a quick search on the net. “If he were capable of attaching specific genetic qualities to our red blood cells, he could work miracles within the immune deficiency field of science. The scientific approach is valid. I’m not willing to dismiss this yet.”
She flipped through the search engine results, scanning information and trying to connect the dots. “Makes perfect sense to me,” Cassidy stated. “I’m searching for him now. But if you think about it, he’s isolated essentially one disease. They operate differently from human to canine.” She glanced up at Jake, her eyes widening in understanding. “He made them act as one. If he’s for real, this guy discovered a way to force the virus to recognize specific cells. That’s amazing.”
“What would be more amazing is if we could find him. Anything?”
Cassidy glanced back at her computer screen. “He’s definitely a biologist. Scientific America has a brief bio on him.”
“Any idea where he is now?”
Cassidy tried not to snort. “Why not just ask me for a cure to this virus? I haven’t a clue as to his location.” She paused, then held up her hand. “Let me see that e-mail again.” Scanning the last page, Cassidy handed it back to Jake. “The e-mail states he’ll contact me tomorrow.”
Jake picked up his phone and dialed a number. He glanced at Cassidy, who raised her eyebrows, questioning his call. “I’ll trace the origins of the e-mail.”
She nodded and returned to her internet files. “It looks like for the past several years he was funded by a board of corporate investors.” Digging deeper into the net and Edward Fiske’s background, Cassidy discovered a link to a Web site. It was from a scientific conference dating back a few years with pictures of the attendees and their groups. Her eyes rested on one particular face.
Their first piece of the puzzle. “Bingo.”
CHAPTER 29
CASSIDY HIT THE PRINT BUTTON. RUNNING HER HANDS through her hair and shaking her shoulders to loosen tight neck muscles, she stood up and walked around the chairs to the printer. “Boys, I’d like to introduce you to Robert Cole.” She picked up the printed pages and handed them off to Jake, an excited giggle escaping her lips.
Jake accepted the sheet displaying the picture she’d discovered. “New World Petroleum’s president?”
She grinned and nodded, suddenly feeling validated. It wasn’t imagination or supposition. The facts were in Jake’s hand; this entire nightmare centered around NWP and Robert Cole. “I see you’ve done your homework, Dr. Anderson.” She grabbed the black marker Jake had used earlier and drew a line beneath where he had written New World Petroleum on the whiteboard and scribbled the words Robert Cole in large letters. “It says here that NWP’s board of directors is insistent on maintaining a strong presence in the world’s scientific development.” She paused and glanced up at Jake. “This would explain their involvement at Yellowstone. They’d use that as a cover for Fiske’s lab, right?”
Jake nodded, a thoughtful expression wrinkling his forehead. “Perhaps.”
“We have NWP’s connection with the virus, but we don’t have ZEBRA’s connection anywhere.” She chewed on her bottom lip, tapping the marker against the metal arm of a chair. Excitement incited by finally uncovering at least one mystery made her fidget.
“Are we confident that ZEBRA has crossed to the dark side?” Steve asked.
Jake shrugged and rose to his feet. His calmness and matter-of-fact approach at the information irritated her.
She spoke up. “The answer is close. I can feel it.” But uncertainty had her biting her bottom lip.
Jake glanced at her briefly, then turned to study the whiteboard. He moved nearer to her; the electricity of his presence escalated her restlessness. “Colonel Price is convinced there’s a link. He didn’t elaborate any further.”
“Well then …” Cassidy tossed the marker at Jake. “I think you need to confer with your colonel because we’re at a dead end.” The focus on work helped her immensely. Emotions and hurt feelings had no place within an investigation, and she relished the fact that unraveling the puzzle allowed her a few moments of escape from the uncomfortable memories of the cabin that kept parading around her head.
“Not so dead, Sunshine. We have a lead on the virus.”
“There were two attachments to the e-mail from Fiske. I’ll pull them up and see if they have anything to do with a cure. Although based on their file names, I think they contain more mysteries.”
Steve waved her back into her seat, and she clicked on the first file, titled “Anomaly.” Cassidy read the diagram several times, processing the details and analyzing the facts. “I think from these numbers and notes in the addendum that our infamous Dr. Fiske didn’t succeed with his experiment.” She double clicked on the next file, titled “Failed Results.”
Cassidy motioned for Jake and Steve to close in around the computer. She ignored the jump in her pulse when Jake rested his hand on her shoulder but she didn’t shrug off his touch, instead allowing the warmth from his fingers to ease the tension in her shoulders. Stupid me. It wasn’t as if
he personally was the one who had yanked her from the Niger Delta and left Anna behind. What if he was the good guy he seemed to believe himself to be? Frowning, Cassidy moved her shoulder away from his touch. Her line of thinking straying down a path she didn’t want to take. He’d used her. Lied to her. Manipulated her.
This was not the beginning of a healthy relationship. But what about the chemistry? And his intelligence? And irritating humor? “Shut up,” she said and then cringed when she realized she’d spoken out loud.
Steve bent his head to hide a grin, and she glared at him. “I didn’t say a word,” he said, raising his hands in protest.
Jake tapped her shoulder. “I can hear your brain revving into overtime. Care to fill us in?”
Cassidy gaped at him. He was reading her thoughts? “I’m not listening to myself right now, thank you very much.”
A glint of amusement sparked in Jake’s eyes, and she blinked back the traitorous response in her own. He leaned over her shoulder and tapped the computer screen. “Fill us in on what these diagrams mean.”
“Yes, of course. That’s exactly what I was thinking about.” She dipped her head down, praying neither man could see the brilliant red that burned her cheeks. “This first diagram indicates a severe jump in the speed and voracity of the dividing blood cells.” She flipped to the second screen. “And this baby shows us exactly what the outcome is of the rapidly dividing cells.”
“Coagulation and bleeding out,” Jake said.
“Right. My guess is that this wasn’t intentional. It’s a side effect.”
Steve whistled through his teeth. “Curable?”
Cassidy shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t send enough data for me to analyze.” She spun around and faced Jake. “He doesn’t have any hypothesis regarding the physical traits of the wolves.”
Jake touched the tip of his finger to her nose. “I do.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “You do?”
Jake nodded and paced in a small circle. “The virus seems to have developed its own personality. Not only has it thickened the blood but it’s triggered”—he paused to lay emphasis on his last word—“a mutation within the wolves.”
Cassidy frowned. “Triggered?”
Grinning, Jake sat down beside her and whispered. “Recessive genes.”
She smiled and wagged a finger at him. Smart man. “Like the werewolf?”
“Such silliness from a well renowned zoologist like yourself? Sunshine, I’m shocked.”
Cassidy tilted her head and considered the avenue Jake’s statement opened. It should have concerned her how easily she folded away her normal argumentative trait and adapted to his line of thinking, but it didn’t. “Not silliness. Some believe that the birth of the werewolf legend is founded in a group of wolves born with a recessive gene.” She waved her hands in the air to emphasize her next statement. “Not man to wolf and vice versa. But one that creates a bigger, more dangerous breed.”
Steve leaned forward and studied the computer screen over Cassidy’s shoulder. “But these wolves weren’t born this way. They mutated.”
Jake sighed. “It’s possible.”
Steve pushed back and walked to the other end of the seating area. “It’ll take months to determine what gene has triggered these mutations.”
Twisting in his seat, Jake faced Steve. “We don’t have months.”
Cassidy crossed her arms and wiggled her fingers, trying to tap out a rhythm of sense. “You’re right. We’ve got to find Edward Fiske and discover a way to stop this thing from spreading. My take is that the gene research can be done later. It’s not going to provide a key to anything right now. But the virus …” She sighed and stretched her arms to the ceiling. “That’s got to be stopped.” Cassidy glanced at Jake, ignoring the comfort and security his presence created. “Can you somehow get this to the CDC without ZEBRA or anyone searching for me finding out?”
Jake nodded. “I don’t work for ZEBRA, Cassidy.”
Her eyes widened. “You don’t?” Another brick in the wall; one more reminder that he wasn’t who she’d thought.
He tilted his head and smiled. “Well, in a roundabout way I do. But they don’t sign my paychecks.”
“Who does then?”
“Now if I tell you that, I’d have to kill you.”
Cassidy glared at him, fighting a flash of loneliness. “Very funny. I suggest you keep your snide comments to yourself in the future, Dr. Anderson. You’re already headlining my most-irritating-person-in-the world list.”
“I can’t do anything about that, can I?”
She stretched her arms again battling back exhaustion and waggled the tips of her fingers, pulling and tugging on the kinks in her back to loosen her shoulders. “No. Don’t even bother to try.”
“Get some rest, Sunshine. It’ll be a few hours before I can pull my team together.”
“Where are we going?” If she rested, her mind and tug-of-war feelings might right themselves.
“To find ourselves a geneticist.”
She yawned. “Good plan.” Cassidy flipped the computer switch off and headed toward a more comfortable seat. A few hours of sleep would help to banish the emotional cobwebs clouding her head.
Cassidy twisted her neck to the left, trying to break free from the chains of her nightmare. Scared. A buzzing noise tickled her ears, and she whimpered. Fear flashed, and the pressure of being held stole her breath. “No. No.” Blue eyes pierced her heart with a vicious jab, and she bolted upright, wide awake and sobbing. Her forehead connected with a hard object, prompting a masculine grunt to emanate from above. Pain slashed through her temple and blurred her vision.
“Cassidy, be quiet.”
She heard Jake’s words, and it was a few seconds before she realized he held her pinned to the chair, his hand gently covering her mouth. Cassidy blinked twice and focused on a pair of vibrant blue eyes. The curve of his cheekbone and set of his chin familiar and frightening.
“It was you,” she said when he released the light pressure on her mouth.
“Be quiet. There’s someone outside the plane.”
The meaning behind his words didn’t penetrate. “You killed Anna.” More shock. More disillusionment.
His eyes hardened, and an angry fire burned within their depths. “So you’ve said.”
“No,” she argued. “I never thought it was you.” A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. She didn’t think there was anything left in her heart to break.
She was wrong.
Cassidy gazed into his face, unable to break eye contact. The emotion that flickered within the depths of his eyes triggered a traitorous response from deep within her soul, but she refused to acknowledge it. Didn’t want to consider what it meant. Who was he?
“I thought you’d already guessed it was me.” He held his fingers to her lips. “Please be quiet. I’ve sent Steve to search the perimeter.”
She turned her head to the side and dropped into silence. The only light in the plane emanated from tiny amber globes that lit either side of the center aisle. She needed to distance herself from Jake. He gripped her arm when she attempted to slide from beneath him.
“Don’t move.”
Gazing into his eyes, everything about him finally made sense. Her awareness of him went beyond the normal déjà vu experience. The feel of his hands upon her skin and rough edge of his cheek, his stance and arrogance all wrapped into the package of someone she’d targeted to despise.
Another tear followed the salty trail down the side of her face. “I believe my humiliation is complete.”
“Cassidy, you don’t know everything.” His voice was low and hushed within the confines of the plane. He touched her chin with his thumb and dropped a tender kiss upon her lips. She fought the need to take more, taste more. “For whatever it’s worth, that is real.” Jake pulled her hand between them and placed her palm upon his chest. She felt the beat of his heart beneath her fingers. “And so is this.”
�
��Captain?” Steve popped his head around the corner of the door and wagged his brows. “We’re not alone.
Jake frowned and nodded. “Duh.” He slid his body off Cassidy and reached down to pull her to her feet. “How many?”
“Only shadows, but it appears to be about a half dozen.”
She followed him down the aisle, ducking to peer out one of the windows. “I don’t see anybody.”
Jake’s shoulders were tight and his body bent forward in preparation for attack at a moment’s notice. He was tense and on high alert, which scared Cassidy. “I don’t think they’d be parading around in plain sight.” Jake frowned and held her hand. “Stay close.”
Cassidy glanced down at the vice grip he had on her and rolled her eyes. “Like I have a choice?”
He tossed her one of his snarky grins and winked. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
They reached the top of the stairs, and Jake peered out. He surveyed the area then slipped away from the opening, pointing at Steve and signaling where he wanted them positioned. Jake turned in her direction and pointed to the hatch that led into the compartment below the plane. “Go!”
Before Cassidy could react, a blinding light shot through the door. Jake pushed her to the ground, rolling them both back toward the other side of the cabin. Men charged through the door. Cassidy heard a familiar voice, and fear stole her breath.
“You make my job incredibly easy.” An ominous ripple of masculine laughter filtered within the confines of the plane.
Cassidy turned to say something to Steve. His face was emotionless, anger twisting the warm brown of his eyes into hard wood. Nick Fowler slammed the butt of a machine gun into his temple, and Steve fell to the ground.
The brutality of the scene stunned her, and she struggled to calm her breathing before she hyperventilated. “Steve!” Cassidy reached for Jake but was yanked to her feet and blocked by a man who appeared from behind the plane door. His breath stank of stale beer and cigarettes. He leered at her, then spun her around and secured her hands behind her back with rough-edged rope.
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