Then he pictured them having sex while he watched.
It didn’t take long for him to come, and he did so, hoping he stifled his groan enough that neither of them were aware.
When he came out of the bathroom, he found the two of them sitting at the kitchen table just like last night. Olivia’s head was tipped back in laughter, and Spencer’s face was flushed from making her that way. Damon glanced at the window, wishing he knew if there really was a threat out there. He envied Olivia’s ability to compartmentalize fear and live moment by moment.
Olivia wiped tears from her eyes as she turned toward Damon. “Do you know why Spencer lived with seven foster families?”
Damon forced himself to at least smirk. “Probably because he was smarter than any set of parents and made them feel inferior.”
Spencer chuckled.
Olivia shook her head. “I’m sure that’s true, but he was also a horrible rule breaker.” She returned her gaze to Spencer and tipped her head to one side. “Then again, so was I. No wonder we get along so well. My father lost so much sleep in my teen years that he had bags under his eyes.”
“He was probably afraid for your life,” Damon pointed out. He couldn’t imagine what he would do with a kid who behaved like either of these two seemed to have.
They looked so young and free and happy sitting there. They looked good together. They had a lot in common in a twisted way. They were the same age. They were both going to struggle to fit into the world when they got out of this mess.
They made a good couple.
He glanced toward the door to the apartment where their bags were packed and ready to go. He’d been in this apartment for so many days now that he had mixed feelings about leaving it for the unknown, but they needed to move. It probably wouldn’t be the last time either.
He glanced back at Spencer and Olivia. He needed to back away from his attraction. Stop giving them mixed messages. Stop hitting on either of them. He needed to let them feel this thing out. It was his job to keep them safe.
While they continued to giggle about some antic of Spencer’s—or maybe it was Olivia’s—Damon grabbed the spare pillow and blanket Spencer had used last night, settled himself on the sofa, and turned on the television for the first time since he’d arrived at the apartment five weeks ago. He needed to get a few hours of sleep before they took off for a new location.
“What are you doing?” Olivia asked as she stepped into his line of sight.
He looked up at her. “Watching TV?”
She rolled her eyes and cocked a hip to one side as Spencer stepped up beside her, fingertips in his pockets, rocking forward and backward nervously on the balls of his feet.
Damon needed to make a statement. “I thought maybe if I watched some mind-numbing television, I might be able to relax. I set an alarm. We’ll leave at three in the morning. You two take the bed. I’ll keep the volume down and turn it off in a while.”
Spencer stiffened, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You sure, man?”
“Yes. Of course.” He turned toward Olivia. “If it’s okay with you, I mean. You and Spencer have a lot in common. It’s good to see you smile and laugh.” He forced himself to look as nonchalant as possible.
Olivia bit into her bottom lip, clearly confused about this new direction.
What Damon had on his side was the knowledge that they viewed him as their leader. All he needed to do was exert some authority, and they would do as he asked. “Go. Seriously. I’m exhausted. The television will help my mind unwind.” He glanced at the screen and noticed a baseball game was on. Perfect. He had no idea who was playing, nor had he followed baseball in many years, but it would provide background noise and block out whatever Olivia and Spencer discussed across the room.
“You’re sure?” Olivia asked, her voice sounding a little tremulous.
“Yep. And you’re blocking the game.” He nodded toward the television.
After a few more awkward seconds, the two of them moved. They silently took turns using the bathroom, tucked their toiletries away in their packed bags, and then turned out the lights and disappeared behind him.
He could hear their muffled voices, but not their words. Yes. This would work. They would get to know each other. And he would keep them safe. It was perfect. It was right. It was for the best.
Chapter 9
One week later…
“Finally. I was worried about you guys. I haven’t heard from you in a week,” Dade said through the speaker phone.
Spencer stared at the cell phone they’d purchased just that morning. “We left Damon’s phone behind. It took us a while to get a new one. We haven’t been stopping anywhere that isn’t mandatory. The risk is too great.”
“I understand. I’m glad you’re all safe. Catch me up.”
The three of them were sitting around the coffee table in their third location in a week, leaning toward the phone in the middle. Damon nodded at Spencer.
Spencer cleared his throat as he held Damon’s gaze. “Well, I’m convinced Livvy is not a random bystander in this saga. Her entire life is filled with too many coincidences. Also, until we can guarantee you’re on a secure line, I’m not going to tell you who her father is, but he lives in Russia and he adopted her as a baby.”
“Russia?” Dade sounded surprised. “You’re right. That can’t be a coincidence. You mentioned Blue Cell’s connection to Russia a few weeks ago.”
In the past week, Spencer had been playing night and day with the six groups of unknown numbers, trying to make sense of any of them while he dug around in Olivia’s past to find a connection.
He was frustrated to admit he knew little more than before they’d started. Solving mysteries was his middle name, so running into a road block like this had him pulling his hair out.
“Exactly. That’s why I’m digging into her past and that of her father.”
“Damn. I had really hoped Livvy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Yeah, me too.” Spencer shot her a glance and then set a hand on her knee, squeezing it. “But it wasn’t her fault, because whatever role she played in this saga, it was unbeknownst to her.”
“Damn,” Dade repeated softly. “I’m so sorry.”
Spencer took a breath. “Let me give you a rundown of the timeline as I figure it unfolded.”
“Go ahead,” Dade encouraged.
“So, the first thing that happened was that Dr. Joseph Boyden came down with myasthenia gravis. I have no idea when he might have realized he’d been deliberately infected.
“Based on what we know about Theodore Monk, it would seem he started meeting with Dr. Boyden soon after the man knew he had contracted the disease. He did so for months, and then he headed for Colorado. That was when he approached Temple and offered his services to the team. We know fifteen of the original team worked with him. And we know six of them ended up having information planted in them.”
“Right. This useless set of numbers.”
“Yeah, that part is frustrating the hell out of me.” Spencer ran a hand through his hair and held it back from his forehead for several seconds. “Anyway, we also know that Monk didn’t return to the bunker after the team was infected. That wouldn’t have stood out as unreasonable, of course, but I don’t think it was a coincidence.”
“I was afraid of that.” Dade sighed. “I’ve been working myself up to the realization that we were probably infected intentionally. I just don’t know how it was possible. It was a broken beaker. No one was touching it. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.”
“Except beakers don’t typically break like that,” Damon pointed out.
“Except for that little detail,” Dade agreed. “So, did Monk return to New Mexico then?”
“Yes. The three of us have pored through the information from that bunker, and as you know, Ryan and Emily are digging around in every cabinet inside the place, looking for paper trails. But, yes, Monk returned to New Mexico and resumed seeing Boyden.
By then, Boyden had already been sick for several months.”
“When did Livvy come into the picture?”
“She was only there for a few months.” Spencer glanced at her again. She was smiling at him encouragingly in that way he’d come to expect from her. Before meeting Olivia, he’d spent most of his life hiding behind any insecurities with his cocky behavior and attitude. In recent months that had been replaced by self-doubt when he’d gotten caught by someone at Blue Cell and fled for his life. Olivia was bringing him back to center.
She made him feel far more valuable as a human being. She gave him courage and strength. She made a light shine in the room even in the darkness.
He glanced at Damon, the man who’d very definitively handed Olivia to him on a silver platter for reasons Spencer still didn’t understand. He did, however, realize he had undoubtedly mislabeled her when she’d pointed out she was sexually adventurous. He no longer thought she was a lesbian. At the very least, she had to be bisexual.
Spencer continued. “Livvy never noticed anything out of the ordinary with either Boyden or Monk, but I’d bet my last dollar that Boyden was not innocent in any of this. I’d say he orchestrated the entire thing by sending Monk to embed those numbers in the Colorado team and then having Monk plant the keyword in Livvy in a last-ditch effort to protect whatever information those numbers represent.”
“They must be incredibly important.”
“Indeed, especially since I’d also bet Boyden poisoned Monk, who made it home that night before he died. Livvy remembers nothing after meeting with Monk and Boyden that afternoon, so Boyden must have stopped her heart and preserved her either with Monk’s assistance or after the man left.”
“In either case, Monk would have been a liability.” Dade sighed into the phone.
“Yes,” Spencer agreed.
Damon interrupted. “I doubt we’ll ever know for sure in precisely what order the events occurred that day because I don’t think Boyden can be revived. The disease had progressed a little too far before he had himself preserved. He waited too long to have someone on his team preserve him.”
Olivia tipped her head back in exasperation. “I can’t believe I never saw anyone except a kind older man who needed a nurse. I can’t reconcile that with someone who killed two people, if you include me.”
Dade spoke again. “I’m not sure he only killed two people. I’m starting to think he was the one responsible for infecting the entire Colorado team.”
“Why the hell would he do that?” Damon asked. Spencer watched as Damon rubbed his hands on his thighs, frustrated like the rest of them.
“He had to have known something,” Dade suggested. “He had to have gotten too close to the truth. Let’s presume he found out something about Blue Cell and needed to find a way to preserve the information so it wouldn’t die with him.”
Olivia shuddered. “But he had no way of knowing if any of us would ever be revived.”
Damon shook his head. “Actually, he probably did. He at least knew all of you were recoverable. It wasn’t too far-fetched to think someone could find a cure for AP12. It also wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that a chamber could be built to reanimate the team.”
Spencer agreed. “And if you think about it, he made it pretty easy to connect Livvy to the others with one word, assuming they were all revived around the same time.” He sighed. “Which leaves us with one extremely important unanswered question.”
Damon nodded. “What the fuck do the numbers mean?”
“Exactly.” Spencer’s frustration over those numbers was keeping him up at night. “They have to be damn important.”
Dade spoke again. “And they almost certainly have something to do with Blue Cell.”
“Agreed.” Spencer glanced at the others. “I don’t think they could be locations. Blue Cell moves too frequently and the decoding program I developed isn’t showing any indication of latitude and longitude.”
Dade sighed. “Anything else?”
Damon winced. “We’re gonna move again. It feels like we’re being watched. All three of us are uneasy. Maybe we’re seeing things. After all, no one has been brazen enough to come to the door, but when we watch out the window, we can see people coming and going outside who don’t look casual enough to simply be passing by. Plus, we never seem to shake them even when we leave in the middle of the night. I get the feeling we’re being tracked with great ease. It’s unnerving. And the next question is why hasn’t anyone approached us if we’re so easy to follow?”
“Fuck,” Dade muttered.
“Yep.”
“Then I agree. I think you should keep moving.”
Spencer hated the moving. It seemed so dangerous. But which was worse?
Luckily, Damon agreed and voiced as much. “We’ll go in the night again.”
“Fuck,” Dade repeated. “I don’t like not knowing where you are, but you’re right.”
Damon lifted his gaze to Spencer and shot him a forced smile. “Meanwhile, our resident hacker is going to solve the mystery of the random numbers.”
Spencer sighed. The pressure on him to figure out their meaning was intense. His life and many others depended on it. And the reality was, he had nothing. Not a single thing about those numbers made a damn bit of sense.
“I know your plate is overflowing,” Dade said next, “but have you noticed any plans from Blue Cell to target any of the rest of us lately?”
Spencer winced. The last person to have been targeted had been Bianca, and she’d nearly been killed. It was obvious the stakes for Blue Cell had risen. They weren’t above inciting murder. And everyone knew it. “Not recently, but I’m watching for any mention of the six members of your team who held those damn numbers. If Blue Cell figures that out, I’m worried all six will not just be on a watch list.” They’d be on a kill list.
“That’s my concern too,” Dade responded.
Spencer continued. “My instinct tells me that Blue Cell has no idea what they’re after. They’re chasing their tails. There’s a good chance they know nothing about what Dr. Boyden planned, what exactly he knew, or how he executed it. All they know is he had something on them. So, they’re watching closely too.”
“That’s my thinking. Well, I’ll let you get back to it,” Dade said. “Thanks for the update.”
“We’ll call you when we get to another secure location and obtain another phone,” Damon responded, and then he disconnected the call.
Spencer rose from the couch, too frustrated with what he considered his own failure to face either of his roommates. He headed for the bathroom—the one place where each of them could retreat for a while to have any level of privacy. He knew he wasn’t the only one who often went in there just to bang his head against the wall. The hotel rooms weren’t any bigger than the first studio they were in.
“Talk to me,” Ash clipped when he answered the phone.
“I think they’re onto us again, sir.”
Ash slammed his hand against the desk in front of him. “How? It’s fucking Denver. How could you possibly get caught watching three people in the middle of a busy city?”
“We aren’t dealing with morons. That’s why.” The man’s voice rose. “We’re dealing with intelligent people who are suspicious, afraid for their lives, and watching out the window night and day. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had high-power binoculars and were using them to search every window in the vicinity, diligently looking for anyone who’s paying attention to them.”
Ash squeezed the desk with his fingertips. “Okay, well, you can’t do anything about it now, but if they do leave again, stay on them.”
“We will, sir.”
“You still have eyes on the bunker in Falling Rock?”
“Yes. No one has left the bunker in two weeks. Delivery trucks come and go, so it’s impossible to be sure no one has hidden in one of them, but our intelligence says a skeleton crew is inside.”
“Temple Levenson?”
“She’s still there, sir. We’ve intercepted and listened into phone calls between her and her superiors. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Yeah, but we both know she only takes orders from one man.”
“You’re right, but if she has spoken to him, she hasn’t used any means we’re intercepting.”
“Not surprising. Stay on it.” Ash ended the call and closed his eyes. What the hell was Temple up to these days? He hadn’t spoken to her in a few months, and he had no idea if that was a good thing or a bad omen.
Chapter 10
Spencer was gone a long time, not that Damon blamed him. The kid felt a weight on his shoulders that was unfair. He hadn’t been the one to get them into this mess. He’d done everything in his power to piece the story together and develop a timeline.
The stress was weighing on Spencer, and Damon suspected the kid didn’t set it aside even at night.
Damon watched as Olivia headed for the hotel suite kitchenette and poured a glass of water. She stood with her back to Damon, facing the wall even after she set the glass on the counter.
Damon approached her, set a hip against the counter, and leaned close. “You okay?”
She nodded, but her eyes were wet with unshed tears.
“I know this is hard on you. Or rather, I can’t even imagine actually. You didn’t ask for any of this, and I’m impressed with how strong you’ve been. Any other woman would have thrown things against the wall and probably taken off in the middle of the night.”
“I have taken off in the middle of the night. More than once.” She gave him a small smile. “Anyways. Would throwing a tantrum have been helpful?”
“No, but it’s still true. It’s a testament to your strength of character.”
“Believe me, I’m stir crazy, and I’ve never been this frustrated in my life. I’m not as strong on the inside as I present on the outside.”
“For Spencer?” Damon asked.
Reviving Olivia (Project DEEP Book 7) Page 9