Damned If You Don't Read online

  If he was trying to scare her, he was doing a good job. But she’d be damned before she’d let him know that. Wait a minute. She was already damned. So what the hell?

  “All right, Jack. I want the truth.”

  “Ditto.”

  “I get to go first,” she retorted, her tone icy cold.

  He inclined his head.

  “One of the things I don’t understand is why you stopped me in the hotel.”

  His lips lifted into a self-deprecating smile. “Couldn’t help myself.”

  Did she dare believe that? Suckers were born every day.

  He pinned her with his gaze. Two could play this game very easily. “You know what I don’t understand?” he asked. “I don’t understand why you came to my room last night.”

  “Couldn’t help myself,” she replied, throwing his look and his smile right back at him.

  A long silence grew between them. She tried to tamp down the well of anguish inside her belly, but as she and Jack stared at each other, it became part of the silence. His gaze told her he couldn’t stop it from growing any more than he could make amends. But he could try.

  “I know you won’t believe me, but it wasn’t just sex,” he finally told her.

  “I made love to you,” she cried, clutching her body as her insides twisted.

  “I know.”

  She watched him lean forward and balance his forearms on his thighs. “God.” He laughed, the sound bitter but at the same time sweet. His gaze lifted, caught hers again, and refused to let go. “I can’t explain what happened except to say I stopped breathing the moment I saw you.”

  Oh, no.

  “So that made everything all right. Being ‘in sex’ with me made it all okay. You knew you were going to have to hand me over, you bastard. You knew. But that was just fine. Because you got your rocks off along the way.”

  He jumped up out of the seat and dropped to his knees in front of her. His posture begged, not to forgive him, for he seemed to understand the impossibility of that at the moment. No, he dropped to his knees, begging her to allow him an apology.

  “I’m sorry. I had no right to do what I did.”

  He didn’t try to excuse his behavior or his actions. “Thanks for making me the exception,” she bit back at him.

  He released a heartfelt sigh, which finally reached through her anger. “No problem.”

  His gaze darkened, catching hers, refusing to let go as they both remembered the ferry deck.

  “You should never have come to my room,” he told her.

  “And if I hadn’t?”

  His smile hurt both of them. But the truth hurt sometimes. “I’d have come to yours.”

  “To keep me near you,” she whispered, her tone bitter.

  “Yes!” he exploded, her pain reaching him. “I couldn’t let you go.”

  Did she dare believe him? That they both fell into the enchanted evening knowing they shouldn’t? “Thanks for being honest.”

  Her tone let him know exactly how she felt. The South Pole would have been warmer.

  His reached up with his hand to graze her cheek, then let it fall without making contact. “I know it’s no consolation but you stopped being a job the moment I danced with you.”

  That didn’t help matters although a small, secret part deep inside her felt better. “You gave me up.”

  “I had no choice.” He raked his hands through his hair. “I had to find out why you were so special.”

  She frowned. “Special?”

  Pride laced his tone. “I don’t get called out on a job unless it’s really important, kitten.”

  She let his endearment slip by while she put on her snark. “Wow. I mean, gee. I’m a celebrity.”

  His gaze hardened. Guess he didn’t like snide. Too bad.

  With a deep indrawn breath, he rose and sat back on the seat. “You need to tell me everything, Morgan,” he replied, his body language simply weary now. “Whoever is paying the bill, well, they mean business.”

  No kidding.

  Her heart sank, but she dared not let him in on the rest of her problems. She couldn’t. So Morgan played this the way it needed to be played.

  You’re a thief. Stay a thief. Act the part.

  “All this time I’ve known I was in trouble, that I’d done something wrong. But to hear someone else say it—” She shivered. “I’m in a whole lot more trouble than I thought.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” he protested.

  She shook her head. “Not your problem, Jack.”

  “You don’t think so? Guess again. I’m up to my neck in this now whether you like it or not. And I don’t feel like giving up just yet. So I need to know the truth.”

  He took a deep breath and asked, “Just what the hell did you do?”

  THE SIXTY-FOUR-thousand-dollar question.

  Morgan knew she was just as guilty as BioClin. She’d accepted the job. But someday, the people at BioClin were going to know just what they’d done to her life. Her life.

  Damn bastards.

  There was a murderer lurking out there. Somewhere. And Morgan had no idea what to do about that.

  She knew she would never be safe until the memory stick she carried made its way into reputable hands. The rest, she could only guess at. Which on the one hand made her a suspect, and on the other, a target.

  Morgan needed help. Only one person could do that for her now, her old graduate advisor, Dr. Huan Chuan Lee, the head of Molecular Biology at Emory University in Atlanta. An expert in the field of metabolic research, he’d contributed to research that went on to win a Nobel Prize. His safeguard was that he wasn’t expendable, not without raising some serious questions.

  Morgan needed time—time to find out who was behind the journal entries. She needed Dr. Lee’s reputation and status as a shield. BioClin knew the process didn’t work, and now Dr. Lee would too. They wouldn’t dare go public with anything as long as they knew he had the project in his possession.

  But that would also put him in terrible danger.

  Welcome to the reason she’d been running around the East Coast for the last week. And the reason Jack had been able to track her.

  Damn the man.

  Could he help her buy that time? Could he help her get to Dr. Lee’s in one piece?

  Yes.

  Did she dare trust him further than that?

  No.

  Morgan examined her logic again. Silence in exchange for time.

  God, she still couldn’t believe it.

  What she’d stumbled on—oh hell, even she couldn’t begin to estimate the possibilities. They seemed endless. And the potential profit for BioClin? Astronomical.

  All for a new diet drug.

  She’d been hired to find a solution to the growing problem of obesity in America. All they had to do was come up with a method that worked. Morgan and her team decided to go after the triggers that stimulate metabolism. If the glycolytic rate inside the cell necessary to maintain cellular energy level could be forced to continue in excess, a person would burn more calories than they could take in and ultimately lose weight.

  The problem was that the natural activation pathways were generally unknown. Her team found one. Then all hell broke loose. At the height of promise, just as Morgan was about to prove out their findings, top management leaked their results to the press, creating a flurry of expectation.

  The bastards didn’t wait. Damn them all to hell and back again.

  Morgan shook her head, trying to tame her emotions. Anger warred with fear. BioClin knew she and her team weren’t anywhere close to anything concrete yet. They had a theory. They had a process that worked—in theory. But BioClin also needed money. By letting the proverbial cat out of the bag, BioClin already had investors breaking down their doors. If word got out that they didn’t have the data, they’d be ruined. So the officers of the company were going to do whatever they thought necessary to get their property back.

  Damn them, th
ey jumped the gun. For money. Screw people and their lives. It was all about the bottom line. Morgan would never be able to understand why. Sure, her brain had figured it out. But ethically?

  And besides, they had to know there was a possibility something might go wrong. Would go wrong.

  Did go wrong.

  Morgan shivered, trying not to let Jack see. She corralled her imagination before pictures started creeping into her head. No one else was going to be put in harm’s way. No one else was going to die.

  Whoever had done this despicable thing, well, they’d underestimated Dr. Morgan Mackenzie. She was going to make damn sure they paid. Big-time. Because Morgan Mackenzie was about saving lives, not taking them.

  Maybe that was why she couldn’t get Pinky and Louie out of her head.

  She’d been a fool to name her test mice.

  She’d been an even bigger fool to let herself get caught by a man. Now she was sitting in the backseat of a limousine headed toward freaking wonderland.

  “I’m not exactly sure how to explain.”

  “Try English. I’m not stupid.”

  She smiled, enjoying his discomfort. Obviously, he was out of his element. “Testy, are we?”

  He waved away her enjoyment. “I don’t speak geek. Sue me.”

  Morgan laughed. “All right. All right. Take it easy.” She sobered, then tried the easiest explanation she could give him. “You’re aware of who I am?”

  “Dr. Morgan Mackenzie,” he quoted. “Bachelor of science degree in biochemistry.”

  “With a minor in genetics,” she added.

  “A master’s degree in molecular biology,” he continued.

  “Just a stepping stone.”

  “A PhD in cellular kinetics.”

  “That one was hard.”

  She watched Jack’s eyes widen with appreciation at the pride in her tone. “You think keeping you alive is going to be so easy? Guess again.”

  She thought about that for a long time. “I barely finished high school,” he continued. “Doesn’t make me stupid.”

  She nodded and her chin lifted. “All those degrees don’t make me stupid either.”

  Point received and taken. “Agreed.”

  He sighed. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Do you know who I work for?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “I work for a company called BioClin. I found a process that would lead to the first diet drug that would work naturally with the body. All totaled, it could be worth billions.”

  She listened to him whistle. “Really? You’re not playing with me?”

  “No. No joke.”

  “Wow,” he whispered. “No wonder—”

  “Yeah.” Morgan nodded, her smile turning sad. “No wonder Sam wanted to turn me in without any help. Probably would’ve earned one helluva bonus.”

  Jack’s face tightened. “You don’t mind if I reserve judgment on that, do you?”

  “You can think whatever you want. I really don’t give a damn. All I need right now is to get my data into the hands of someone reputable, someone my employer will think twice about going after.”

  “And once that’s done?”

  Morgan’s blood chilled, but she answered honestly. “I’ll face whatever consequences I have to.”

  Jack didn’t reply, and she didn’t continue. Morgan knew the ramifications of her actions. She wasn’t about to renege now. Besides, no matter what anyone thought she had right on her side, and she wasn’t about to make any of her actions wrong any time soon.

  Chapter Seven

  Jack dialed a number he knew only too well on his prepaid cell, not surprised when the phone was picked up after the first ring.

  “Not bright, Andy,” Sam chided.

  God, he hated that name. But right at this moment, his name wasn’t Andy and it wasn’t Jack. It was fool with a capital F. Because getting screwed always came when you least expected it. From the last person on earth you thought would betray you.

  Across from him sound asleep, Morgan half sat, half lay against the inside of the limo, looking all kinds of innocent.

  “You know I hate that name.”

  Sam laughed. “Very dramatic. You also know I’ll find her.”

  “Probably,” Jack replied, realizing the inevitable. “But not on my watch. And not until I know the truth.”

  Could what she had in her possession really make Sam turn traitor to everything they fought for, everything they believed in? They’d been trained to take life but in cold blood?

  Jack thought about the clandestine meeting that evening not so long ago and how his insides bled.

  “No can do,” Sam answered. And Jack could have sworn there was a hint of regret in his tone before the voice on the other end of the line turned cold. “Need-to-know only.”

  Jack frowned. Cold. As cold as he felt now knowing Sam was lying to him? Why? Damn it all, none of this made any sense. Would Sam really give up his honor?

  What you did to her makes sense?

  He looked at the long lashes resting on Morgan’s cheeks, her face innocent in repose, and knew he’d made a whopper of a mistake.

  “We don’t do the dirty jobs, old buddy. Remember? We work for the good guys. You can’t tell me that you’d give up your reputation, your principles, for a bunch of zeroes on a check.”

  A long silence greeted him. “I needed the money, Jack. We took a bad hit when the stock market went south. Haven’t been able to recover.”

  Jack didn’t want to believe it. There had to be more behind those words. So he probed. “Blood money?”

  He listened to the man he thought of as his best friend sigh. “Yes! Blood money!”

  Jack couldn’t believe how bad that hurt. “All right. No one said you couldn’t lose your honor. But did you have to drag mine into the sewer with you?”

  He listened to Sam snort. “You were just supposed to find her. That’s all.”

  “And what? Turn my brain off? Do I look fucking stupid to you?”

  Jack finally reached his last straw. First, he’d betrayed Morgan, believing he was doing the right thing, and then he found out his best friend and partner, the man whose life he’d saved, had betrayed him.

  Life did go around full circle, didn’t it?

  Very painfully, he acknowledged bitterly.

  “Why, Sam?” he tried, one last time. “Come clean now. Don’t make me find out the hard way.”

  “I wish I could, old buddy. But I can’t.”

  Nah, that just meant he didn’t want to. “I’ll go to the authorities. Don’t think for a moment that I won’t.”

  Sam laughed. The sound brought reality home to him. “You don’t have the balls.”

  Oh really?

  Without thought, he told Sam what he could do with himself and hung up. He’d never be able to make things right with Morgan. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.

  As for the rest, Jack was going to find out the truth. Not only had Sam challenged him, he knew only exceptional circumstances would have brought about their telephone conversation. So that meant Jack would have to get Morgan to trust him again. How? Well, he was going to have to get her to forgive him. Jack would have smiled except that his decision might be an exercise in futility.

  Oh well.

  First he was going to have to apologize. If she let him, and he doubted very much that she would. Then he was going to have to get her to tell him what was going on. And last but not least, he was going to have to keep her safe until he knew what to do with the truth.

  This last decision was going to take all the skill he possessed.

  * * * *

  Morgan awoke again, uncracking her neck one painful inch at a time. Just one more strike in a list of strikes against him. His eyes were closed, his breathing even. He’d fallen asleep too. But the moment she lifted up from the seat to get comfortable, his eyes popped open. Heat flared in his gaze. His lids lowered. Her gaze flicked from his crotch to his f
ace. He had the audacity not to be bothered by his reaction to her.

  She ignored him completely and asked, “Where are we going?”

  He gave her one of his patented little grins and ignored her question. “I’m going to assume you haven’t told me everything that’s going on. Which could be very dangerous for both of us. So I’m going to ask once. Is there any more that you’re not telling me about?”

  Did he really think that an apology equated into trust? “You were doing fine with your telepathic abilities, so I think I’ll let you’d figure it out.”

  He frowned at her snide tone but answered, “I’m good, kitten. Not that good.”

  She caught both meanings. “Not funny, Jack.”

  His tone turned serious as he replied, “Wasn’t trying to be.” He raised a brow, studying her. “Are you going to answer my question?”

  “No. Are you going to answer mine?”

  He smiled. “That’s my girl. Stubborn to the end.”

  Girl? Did he just call me a girl? “Where are we going, Jack?” she repeated, her tone hard and exasperated.

  “I figure by now, Sam’s got a bunch of guys looking for us, but he’s not sure what direction we’re headed in.”

  “That sounds like a good thing.”

  Jack actually smiled as if he were enjoying the conversation. “Ah, but you see, kitten, there’s always the percentages. A tracer never leaves any stone unturned. So Sam has no choice. He’ll have someone follow every direction.”

  That didn’t sound so good. “I see.”

  “Not quite. What you don’t understand is that Sam has manpower. That’s his advantage. So he’ll follow every direct route out of Delaware. Eventually he’ll find the car and know we’re clean.” At her questioning frown he clarified his meaning. “He’ll know we’re using hard-to-trace transportation.”

  “Oh.”

  “In the meantime, he’ll cover all possibilities by using time and distance. He’ll create a search circle, then tighten it. He’ll assume you’ll sleep; he’ll know I won’t.”

  In spite of all her misgivings Morgan asked, “But that means we’ll have to slip through his net somehow.”