Hit and Run: A Thrilling Novel of Romantic Suspense (Callahan Security series Book 3)

by Lori Matthews

  Gage reared back as if she’d slapped him. “Just what kind of guy do you think I am? I just stopped you from passing out. You were the one who kissed me, remember?” His eyes were stormy, and his jaw closed with a click.

  Damn. She’d forgotten she was the instigator of that little interlude. The flush of her embarrassment bloomed on her cheeks. “I—”

  “I won’t close the blinds because we’re not supposed to be in here, and the quickest way for someone to come and find us is for us to go around changing how this room looks from the outside. We have to lay low. The blinds stay open. And no lights, even when it gets darker later. We just have to make do as is.”

  Gage walked around Dani into the room. She closed her eyes and swore a blue streak in her head. She’d forgotten all about being seen. Her terror over something as simple as water made her forget everything. No. Kissing Gage had made her forget everything. The water had just given her a panic attack.

  She turned slightly to her left and grabbed her backpack off the table. She needed to sit down and get herself together. A cup of tea might be good. Her stomach rumbled. Breakfast had been a while ago, and Jeremy wouldn’t be back until dinner. Where did he say the mini bar was?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gage strode through the living room area. It contained a beige couch with blue throw pillows, a couple of matching chairs, and a coffee table. A dining area with a table and six chairs in a similar beige tone lay to his right.

  To the left was the rest of the living room along with a huge deck on the other side of the wall of glass. There was also a “floating” stairwell, as his brother Logan would have called it, leading up to the sleeping area.

  Gage crossed the room and took the stairs two at a time. When he reached the top, there was a huge king-size bed in the middle of the loft. The comforter was yet another shade of beige. The headboard rested against a fake half wall with the master bath situated behind it.

  Gage entered the bathroom and firmly closed the door behind him. He leaned against it and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. He could not believe he let his guard down that way. Kissing a client was so far out of bounds it wasn’t even on the field. It was in the damned parking lot. Jesus, what had he been thinking?

  He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been feeling again. One minute, Dani was tough and being a hard-ass and the next she was all vulnerable and needed help. He didn’t know which one appealed to him more. Either way, it had to stop. It didn’t matter that she was a smart, sassy, beautiful woman. She was out of bounds.

  He stood up and started pacing back and forth. The fact that the bathroom was big enough to pace in did not leave much of an impression on him. He slammed his fists into his thighs. Stupid! It was the cardinal rule. Never get involved with a client. Not that they were involved. It was one kiss, never to be repeated.

  What about her being a hacker? It went against everything he believed in. He’d just witnessed it. She’d given Jeremy money she had stolen. She just admitted as much. Why didn’t that bother him the way it should? Because he could still feel Dani’s body against his. Her scent was still in his nose and the taste of her lips still on his tongue. He was getting hard just thinking about her.

  He flexed his fingers as he continued to pace and tried to focus on other things. He could not let himself give in like that again. He’d tried to resist, but she’d been so gentle, yet persistent, that his defenses had been defeated. Who was he kidding? He’d folded like a dirty shirt, but who could blame him with her curves and those haunted dark eyes? He’d been hers from the first “Hey, asshole.”

  He stopped pacing and ran his hands through his hair. He coughed and the room seemed to spin a bit. He must be angrier than he thought. He leaned on the vanity and took a deep breath. Then another. Work the problem. The room righted itself, and he switched his thinking to deal with the problem at hand, namely how to avoid the men stalking Dani.

  He reviewed what had happened that morning and stopped suddenly. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Oh, she has some explaining to do,” he said as he moved across the bathroom and out into the loft. He took the stairs two at a time down to the main living area. Glancing around, he didn’t see her. Had she left?

  “Dani?”

  “Over here,” came the somewhat muffled reply.

  He walked over to the cabin door and looked left. There was a short hallway with a bathroom at the end of it. Dani was sitting, propped against the wall by the bathroom door, her laptop open in her lap.

  “We need to talk,” Gage said as he stalked down the hallway to stand directly in front of her. Reaching out, he flicked on the bathroom light. She looked up from her screen, blinking in the sudden brightness.

  “How did you know you’d been found?” He knew he’d practically growled at her, but he was pissed. She wasn’t telling him the whole truth, and he was tired of lies.

  Dani looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “What? When? You mean at the garage apartment? I put a hair in the doorjamb every time I left. I knew they’d been there because the hair was gone and, well, my place had been ransacked.”

  Gage ground his teeth. “Here on the ship. How did you know to hide in that shop? How did you know to avoid those men?”

  “Um…” Dani swallowed. Fear flickered in her eyes, but then she looked down again. “I saw them in Juneau in the van that hit that woman.”

  He snorted. “Liar. They couldn’t have made it down here from Juneau. They had to be here already, or they flew down this morning. The storm is just starting to hit here. It’s been between here and Juneau all night, and with the amount of hail being reported in the news, there’s no way in hell they got here from Juneau. Besides, I thought you said you didn’t get a good look at the men in the van.”

  His gut knotted. He hated being lied to and, even more, he hated that it was Dani doing the lying. He needed to stop trusting her. Stop caring about her more than just a client. It wasn’t worth the misery she was putting him through.

  Gage fisted his hands on his hips and leaned over her. “So, I’m going to ask you one more time, and you better tell me the truth or being surrounded by water will be the least of your worries. How did you know who those men were?”

  Dani closed her laptop and stood up. “I saw you, and you looked all serious, so I looked where you were staring and saw the men. I figured they must be after me, so I went back into the store.”

  Gage took a step closer to Dani. She moved slightly backward, bumping into the wall.

  “Stop with the bullshit. If you know something, you sure as hell better tell me, or so help me, I will walk out that door and let them have you.”

  Dani frowned and her eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing. You will not. Drake is your client. You have to protect me.” She raised her chin and glared at him.

  “My brothers and I have been putting everything, including our lives, on the line to protect Drake and now you. If you know something that can help with that and don’t tell me, then it’s your own fault if this goes sideways.”

  Gage moved closer until he was towering over Dani. His short fingernails dug into his palms. “And if one of my brothers gets hurt or worse, I will hold you responsible. So you better own up now, or it’s going to get very real for you.”

  Dani’s expression faltered. Her eyes were darting around, and she was trying to surreptitiously wipe her palms on her jeans.

  “Look, it’s a long story, and I’m hungry.” She crossed her arms over her red T-shirt. I’ll explain it all later maybe, but first I need to eat.”

  Gage wanted to slam the wall with his palms and make her talk right there, but there was a risk she’d bolt if he did that. He clamped his jaws down hard, gave her one final pointed look, and then turned and left the hallway.

  “Come on. You can sit at the dining table with your back to the windows. I’ll get the food from the snack bar, and you can eat and tell me the whole story.”

  He stopped dead when he realized she
wasn’t behind him. Turning, he saw she was at the edge of the short wall. He bit his tongue and started counting to a hundred. He was all out of patience. He and his brothers had been busting their asses for months on this job, all of them almost getting shot at one point or another, and this woman refused to help. He took a deep breath.

  He walked back and, cursing up a storm in his head, he took her gently by the arm. She stiffened at his touch. Nice. He tried to ignore it. She had been soft and yielding a short while ago, and he’d been the one who’d been stiff. Focus.

  “Just look at the carpet, and I’ll guide you.” He helped her over to the table and sat her with her back to the windows. She didn’t say a word, just stared at him.

  He went around to the snack bar by the windows. The bar was fully stocked, and God knew he could use a shot of scotch right now, but instead he grabbed two bottles of water and an assortment of snacks, including a banana, just in case she preferred fruit.

  Rain lashed the windows, and the wind started to howl. The room had gotten dark because of the storm. He started to flick the light switch with his elbow and then remembered that lights were off bounds.

  He went back and set all the snacks and one bottle of water down in front of her. He then walked to her right and picked a seat a far enough away he couldn’t get his hands on her easily. With the light behind her it would be hard to see her face, so he’d picked a chair that gave him a better view. It still wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing.

  “Spill it.” Gage leaned back in his chair.

  Dani reached out and fiddled with the packages in front of her. She even reached out and touched the banana but brought her hand back empty. She looked up at Gage and then grabbed a bottle of water. She opened the cap and took a long swig. She set it down again as she swallowed.

  She shrugged and then started speaking. “Drake had put it out that he wanted someone to take on the project. He wanted facial recognition software that would work even if the person was wearing a beard or had different hair. Even if the person had aged twenty or thirty years.”

  She shrugged again and looked around the room. “I thought it sounded like fun. A real challenge. I mean, why not? I could make a pile of money and make something useful. What could be cooler?”

  Gage hoped his expression was blank. He didn’t want her to know that he knew she wasn’t telling the truth. Well, at least not the whole truth. She tended to let her eyes roam around when she was lying. It was her ‘tell.’

  “Then what happened?” he asked.

  “Well, I made a deal with Drake and started on the project.” She paused, taking another large gulp of water.

  “So, here’s the thing. Drake’s timetable was a little…intense. I didn’t have a lot of time to create the software. I looked around to see who had a good product that I could build on.

  “A lot of the fancy computer companies have some facial recognition software, but the current bunch of software is crap. Just look at social media. There’re all kinds of stories where a person is told someone posted a picture of them online, only to see it’s their sister or cousin. Or try using facial recognition to open your laptop and then grow a beard. Your own computer won’t recognize you. What Drake wants is total cutting-edge stuff.”

  She drummed her fingers on the table, and there was a vibration. Probably her knee hitting the table leg as she bounced her foot on the carpet. “A few countries have something going on, but it’s still not great. There was one place where I knew I could get a base code to build on so Drake could get what he wanted. They weren’t ever going to be willing to share it, so I…” She shifted in her seat and started playing with her hair. “I went in and borrowed a copy of the basic code, and then I used that to develop Drake’s software. I’m almost finished, and I know it’s much better than anything out there.”

  Gage’s hands curled into fists again, and his gut churned. He knew what she was about to tell him, and he couldn’t believe it.

  “The guys on the promenade. I’ve never seen them before, but since you were staring at them, I knew they were probably after me.” She glanced over at Gage, most likely to calculate his reaction at her next words. “The fact they were Chinese pretty much guaranteed it.”

  Gage remained motionless. He was having a hard time breathing, let alone speaking. Finally, in a voice that sounded strangled even to his own ears, he said, “You stole code from the Chinese government to build the software?”

  Dani met his eyes. “Yes.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “The Chinese fucking government?” Gage leapt out of his chair. “Son of a bitch!” He slapped the table with his hand.

  Dani jumped, flinching at the sound.

  “We’re all damn lucky to be alive. I’ve got to call my brothers,” he said as he paced back and forth. “Jesus! No wonder we’ve been outgunned from the start.”

  Dani shifted again in her chair and laced her fingers together. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She closely followed Gage’s every movement. She didn’t think he would be violent towards her but all this pacing and yelling had her on edge.

  The Chinese had the best code out there. Why would she start anywhere else? Seemed like a no brainer to her.

  Gage was staring at her. “You—” He turned and walked away, digging his cell out of his pocket as he went.

  Dani got up from the table and walked with her head down back toward the little hallway. Rain pelted the windows and ship swayed under her feet. She rounded the corner and put her hand on the wall, using it to guide her to the bathroom. When she saw the carpet end at tile, she looked up and walked into the small bathroom. She closed the door behind her and locked it. Then she sat down hard on the toilet seat cover.

  Rubbing her chest, she tried to slow her thundering heartbeat and ease the hollow feeling. She hated seeing anger and disappointment on Gage’s face. He was thoroughly pissed with her now, and she couldn’t blame him. She should have told Drake from the beginning. It never occurred to her the risk that Drake and his people, including Gage and his brothers, were facing.

  China had the best, so that’s what she used because she needed the best. It had to be absolutely perfect so she could find Carly’s birth family. Nothing but the best would work. She hadn’t thought about the consequences of her actions. She thought only of Carly.

  She ran shaking hands through her hair. A tremor went through her body. Her breath started coming in gasps. She bit her lip. She had been an idiot and had endangered lives. Now she was risking Gage’s life. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest. Oh God, what had she done?

  There was a thumping at the door. “Dani, you need to come out here. We have to talk about this,” Gage said.

  She swallowed the unshed tears blocking her throat. Even through the door, she recognized the steel in his voice. Saying “no” was not an option. He’d probably just knock the door down. She imagined he could be very Neanderthal when he wanted. She’d seen him come close. She’d thought he was going to throw her over his shoulder when they were back on the pier and carry her on to the ship like a sack of potatoes. Not very attractive in a man. Until she met Gage. He was attractive even when he was yelling at her. She sighed and ran a couple of lines of code in her head. She needed a moment to gather herself.

  He thumped the door again. “Dani.”

  It was her last warning, and she knew it. She stood up, squared her shoulders, and opened the door. “What?” she said with all the false bravado she could muster.

  Gage towered over her, his fingertips white around the cellphone clutched in his hand. “You’re on speaker. We have questions.”

  “Fine.” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “Fire away.”

  Gage frowned but didn’t try to move her back to the dining room. The voice on the phone asked, “Are you sure it was the Chinese government that you borrowed the code from? Sorry, I should tell you this is Logan, Gage’s brother.”

  “Yes. I took a copy of
their code and used it as a starting point for my software.”

  “But weren’t you worried they would come find you? The Chinese government doesn’t share well, and isn’t exactly known as the most forgiving of groups.”

  She could hear the incredulity in Logan’s voice. She thought for a second. “The truth is I thought it might take them a while to find me— which I want to point out, it has—and I was thinking I would give them a copy of my software if they ever tracked me down. I know they have some great facial recognition stuff going on, but I doubt they’re at the point where they can find someone in a crowd from a twenty-year-old photo. My software can do that. I just figured they would be more interested in the software than me. Plus, when I upstage people, they usually attempt to hire me.”

  “People try to hire you when you steal stuff? Sorry, this is Mitch.”

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised. Yes. They always offer me jobs when I beat their systems. They want me to work for them so I can stop anyone else from doing it.”

  Logan’s voice came through the line again. “And you thought the Chinese government would do the same?”

  Dani crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Sarcasm much? It wouldn’t be the first time the Chinese hired out. I know people who worked for them before.”

  “Is that how you got the code in the first place?” Gage asked.

  Dani looked up at him. Was he going to yell at her for stealing? But Gage seemed to be genuinely curious. “No. I got it another way, but the hacking community does share things occasionally, depending on what it is, what someone is looking for, and why they want it.”

  Gage snorted. “Yes, because all hackers have a conscience. I’m sure the ‘why’ matters.”

  “Hey, asshat, why don’t you ask yourself where certain information that hits the media comes from? You think all those CEO’s voluntarily release their salaries? Think again.” Dani smacked the wall with her hand. “Ask yourself next time something big gets leaked, who benefits.