Risky bargain, p.21
Risky Bargain, page 21
"Well, they scared me. But you don't look at all afraid."
He gave her a warm smile as he put his hand on her thigh. "You're tough, Kat. I don't know what they were thinking. They had to have left that note earlier, set up the coffee guy to give it to us. But they didn't know we'd order coffee or food. It was a risky play."
"Except it wasn't, because of the drawing. We were supposed to order coffee. And probably if we hadn't ordered the food, they would have put the note in the cup." She took a breath. "But, as you said, we might not have done any of it. We might not have even gone to the train station."
"Good point." He thought for a long minute. "When you left the building, did you have to check out with anyone?"
"I had to stop at security and show them what was in my box."
"Was there anything unusual about that?"
"No. The security guy took my box into a back room and then brought it out a few minutes later. He said everything was fine. Then I walked into the lobby, and I ran into you."
"It's possible they put a tracking device inside the box."
"Then they would know everywhere we went."
"Which would have given them time to put the plan in motion, once we started driving toward the train station."
A shiver ran down her spine. "I don't like this, Lucas. I keep thinking that things will get better, but they're getting worse."
"That might not be true, Kat. I like that we're in the game."
"How can you like it?" she asked in amazement.
"Being in the game gives us a chance to play, to win."
"Not if they're controlling the game. They've made us targets. They could have an army of people hunting us down." Her agitation rose with every word. "What the hell is this all about?"
Lucas put his arm around her shoulders. "It's going to be all right, Kat."
She didn't think he could guarantee that, but she really needed to believe in what he was saying. She suddenly felt exhausted and overwhelmed, and as he pulled her closer, she rested her head on his shoulder. Closing her eyes, she tried to slow down her breath. For the moment, they were safe. She couldn't think too far ahead, or she'd drive herself crazy.
It was easier not to think with Lucas's arm around her. He felt like a rock-solid anchor in a world that was incredibly topsy-turvy. She didn't think she'd still be alive if she hadn't gotten tangled up with him. She started to feel more relaxed, but all too soon, a train conductor entered their car. She sat up straight, nervous again.
He took tickets from each passenger and when he got to them, Lucas told him a story about how the tickets had fallen out of his pocket. Then he pulled out a credit card. Fortunately, the conductor didn't seem to care, just charged the card, and then moved on to the next row of passengers.
She gave Lucas a dry smile. "You are a good liar."
"That was nothing."
Lucas had barely put his wallet back in his pocket when the train began to slow, and her pulse picked up once more. She had no idea what would be waiting for them when they got off the train. But she needed to be ready. It didn't matter that there was blood on her leg or that her muscles were aching. If she had to run, she'd run.
As the train came to a stop, only a few people stood up to get off. But there were a lot of people waiting on the platform to get on. She didn't like the crowd. It made it more difficult to spot anyone in camo. Maybe it was a good thing they seemed to have a uniform. At least, they knew what to look for. Or maybe not. There could be other characters in the game who were dressed in plain clothes. How would she ever know who they were?
Lucas took her hand as they stepped off the train. They'd only gone a few feet when she saw two men walking quickly toward them. She froze.
Lucas gave her a quick look. "It's fine. They're with me."
She was relieved because these men looked like they were capable of just about anything. They were both tall, fit, powerful, with confident strides, much like Lucas. Although, as they got closer, she could see the differences in their appearance. One was golden blond, with blue eyes. The other had dark hair and eyes and a more rugged, ruthless appearance. He didn't look like the kind of man you wanted to cross.
"Thanks for coming," Lucas said. "This is Kat Parrish." He tipped his head toward the blond man first. "Flynn MacKenzie, Beck Murray."
"Hi," she said, as they gave her brief smiles.
"Let's get the two of you to the car," Flynn said. He led the way while Beck fell in behind them.
She felt much better having a security force around her. But she still didn't take a full breath until they were in the car with the doors locked. She was in the backseat with Lucas while Flynn and Beck sat in the front.
Beck turned around as Flynn started the car. "Want to give us a few more details?" he asked.
"We were set up," Lucas said. "We were led to the train station." He handed Beck the note. "This was waiting for us."
Beck gave the note a quick read. "Now you're in the game," he murmured. "What happened after you got this?"
"We saw two guys dressed like the other shooters. We managed to evade them and get on the train."
"Who would set you up?" Flynn asked.
"It had to be someone at Spy Maker Games. Did anyone get my car? I think there might be a tracking device in the box Kat brought out of the building."
"Bree and Wyatt went to get the car."
"I'll text them to check," he said, pulling out his phone.
"You think someone in Cabot's company is running this secret game?" Beck asked.
"Yes, I do," Lucas replied, not a hint of doubt in his voice. "And now, Kat and I are in it. Whatever that means."
"It means that whatever clue you get could be a trap," Beck said.
"Or it could be a way to distract us," Lucas countered. "If we're busy trying to figure out the game, we might miss something more important. Did anyone track down the gamer—Jessie Marlowe?"
"We haven't found her yet," Flynn said. "Brandon is still going through Klein's computers, but it looks like he successfully erased everything. We found several contacts on his phone that we're looking into. Aside from Jessie Marlowe, Klein also talked to another gamer named Josiah Walters, who lives in the San Fernando Valley. Bree spoke to him, and he was shocked that Adam was dead, swore he had no knowledge of a secret game, and that he hadn't even played the game in the past two weeks, because he was in a car accident, which was true."
"What kind of car accident?" Lucas asked.
"He was hit while he was riding his bike to work."
"So maybe not an accident."
Kat started at Lucas's suggestion. "Do you think someone took him out?" she asked. "So, maybe he knows more than he's saying?"
"Yes. He could also be scared if he thinks he was run down on purpose, and now Adam is dead."
"Maybe you should talk to him," she told Lucas.
"I'd be happy to do that, but I don't want to get lost in this lower level. We need to find who's in charge."
"Could it be Cabot?" Beck asked. "Is it possible he's not a victim but running this whole thing?"
"It's not impossible," Lucas replied. "I can come up with a couple of different scenarios. If Cabot was in on it, and it got out of his control, someone might have taken him out, not kidnapped him, but killed him. However, we don't have a body. If Cabot knew nothing about it and found out through Kat's friend Audrey about the game, and then he started making waves, someone needed to get him out of the way. Someone he probably knows quite well, one of his high-level executives, I'm guessing." He paused. "But there has to be someone in engineering who's involved. Even if they're not in charge, someone had to create the game."
"Sean Gillespie suggested that," she said. "Henry is in the hospital. Malcolm is now in charge. Does that make him a bigger suspect?"
"If Henry was taken out of the way on purpose, definitely."
"But Malcolm is a young, nerdy guy; he doesn't seem like a mastermind."
"I never judge a book by its cover. And Malcolm is running that department while Henry is recovering. But I don't think this is a one-person gig. I believe there are multiple people involved."
"What's the end game?" Beck asked.
"That's what I don't know," Lucas said. "What would you do if you could create an army of obsessed fanatics willing to do whatever it took to win a game, only it wasn't a game?"
"World domination," Flynn put in.
"Power, money, control," Beck added.
"You guys think big," she murmured.
Lucas gave her a quick smile. "I think our mastermind thinks even bigger."
"But where does Cabot fit in?" Flynn asked. "If he's not dead or kidnapped, is he trying to take back his company from the outside? Or is he just hiding?"
"Don't know," Lucas said. "Has Brandon made progress in finding any hidden bank accounts that Cabot might have access to?"
"No," Flynn said. "The man has completely disappeared."
"He would know how to do that," Lucas said.
"But Audrey wouldn't," she put in. "We haven't focused on finding her because we know she's hiding, but what if she could tell us more?"
Lucas gave her a nod. "You're right, Kat. Finding her could be helpful. We'll turn up the heat in that area."
She was both reassured by his answer and worried that by trying to find Audrey, they might actually bring harm to her. "Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe anyone we talk to is going to be in danger. I know your team can protect themselves, but what if Audrey can't?"
He met her worried gaze and squeezed her hand. "Let's take it one step at a time."
"I just don't know how many steps we have left."
Chapter Nineteen
It was after five when Flynn and Beck dropped them off at Lucas's house. Kat limped into the kitchen and sat down at the table while Lucas insisted on grabbing a first-aid kit. Then he knelt down on the floor as he tended to her scrapes.
"We should have done this earlier," he said as he gently cleaned the area.
"As injuries go, I got off lucky. I'm more concerned that I pulled something. My muscles are aching."
"Maybe you should take a bath. I have a big tub in the master with whirlpool jets."
"That sounds really nice."
He smiled at her. "Shall I turn the water on for you?"
"I can manage that myself." She wished he'd asked her a different question, like could he join her, because even leaving him to take a bath seemed like a bad idea. Lucas kept her tethered to the ground, which was constantly shifting beneath her feet. But a bath would lead to all kinds of other pleasurable but risky choices. She needed to stop being a baby and start taking care of herself. "You still need to wait for your car to be brought back, right?"
"Bree said they're a few minutes away."
She forced herself to her feet. "I'll leave you to that."
He gave her a concerned look. "Are you sure you don't want to wait a few minutes? You look really pale."
"I'll be fine. I'll bounce back, just like I always do." She paused. "I thought I could be of help to you, Lucas, but maybe I'm just weighing you down. My gullibility made us an easy target."
He shook his head. "You're not weighing me down. I didn't want you to be involved, because I wanted you to be safe, but you're not safe, not until we tear down this operation and put everyone behind bars. That's the only way I can really protect you. Our trip to the train station wasn't a failure. Being inside the game is always an advantage. They made a mistake by wanting to let us in."
"They did?" she said doubtfully.
"Yes. They want to beat me. They want to show me up. Keeping me out of the game would have been a better strategy, but not as exciting for them. They want to think they can control the FBI."
"Who could possibly think that?"
"Someone who is on a power-mad trip."
"There seem to be a lot of people on our list of possible masterminds. Can we count anyone out?"
"Not yet. We've got Malcolm Hodges, Jason Meyer, Victoria Mitchell, Diana Dolan, Blake Richey, Caroline Branson, Henry Stodden, Garrett Waltham and Spike Cabot."
"Some of those don't make sense to me. Why would anyone who was at the party take the risk they'd be shot?"
"Jason was outside when the shooters entered. Victoria left early, as did Diana and Blake. Malcolm wasn't at the party at all. Henry and Caroline are at the bottom of my list because they were injured, but the fact that they weren't killed makes me wonder if their minor injuries were in fact deliberate, to steer attention away from them."
"Kind of risky. What if the shooter missed?"
"It's unlikely they're involved," he conceded.
"And Senator Waltham? He's not connected to the company."
"No. But he is a powerful man. And then there's Spike."
"I can't see him being the leader of this. He's sabotaging his own company."
"Or he's running a side hustle."
She let out a sigh. "My brain is tired."
"Take a soak. When you're done, we can talk about food."
After an hour-long soak in the tub, Kat changed into leggings and a T-shirt and walked downstairs. Lucas was at the kitchen table, looking through a pile of papers next to the envelope he'd gotten from Jared over the weekend. She felt a little guilty that she'd been relaxing while he'd been working on the case, but she'd desperately needed the time to regroup, and she felt immensely better.
Lucas gave her a smile. "I thought you might have fallen asleep in there."
"I came close." She pulled out a chair and sat down. "I didn't think I'd ever feel relaxed again, but it was just what I needed."
"I'm glad you're feeling better. How's the leg?"
"There's no serious damage." Her gaze drifted to the box she'd taken out of the office. "You got my stuff back."
"Yes, and there was a tracking device in the box."
"James gave me the box to pack my things in."
"James is…"
"My immediate supervisor. He didn't fire me; his boss did—Elicia. James seemed apologetic and said he was sorry." She paused, unable to believe that James was part of some diabolical plot. "He's such a straight-arrow guy. He goes to church every Sunday. He takes his grandmother to the market whenever she needs a ride. It's hard to believe he's doing anything shady. But I should know better than to trust anyone."
"You can trust me, Kat." His words drew her gaze to his.
"I hope so."
Annoyance entered his gaze. "You don't think you can? I thought we'd gotten past that."
"We have," she amended. "I just have a hard time with trust in general. I can't even trust myself to do the right thing. There are so many variables in life. You can't plan for them. Even when you try, things blow up in your face. I never imagined that trying to find Audrey would lead me here, to this moment. But it has. And I'm even more out of control than I used to be. Someone, maybe more than one person, is trying to kill me."
"Well, that person isn't me."
"No. You keep saving my life, at the risk of your own. You probably shouldn't trust me."
A smile crept across his full lips. "But I do. And we're going to get through this together. We're a team now."
"You have a team, one that is very well-trained. You don’t need me."
Her words put an odd look in his eyes. He started to say something, then stopped and shook his head.
"What?" she asked. "What were you going to say?"
"Nothing. What kind of food are you interested in eating tonight?"
She didn't like his evasive answer. "I'm not ordering food until you tell me what you're thinking. There can't be any secrets between us, Lucas. I can't take that, not on top of everything else. I have to know what is in your head."
"I do need you—in a lot of ways, Kat."
Her heart jumped against her chest. The look in his eyes had turned hot. She'd felt so relaxed after her bath, but Lucas's beautiful green eyes had put her nerves back on edge, not with fear but with anticipation. Was she going to keep fighting him? Fighting herself?
She wanted to protect her heart, but she also wanted him. She wanted his hands on her body. She wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted to lose herself in mind-bending pleasure and forget about everything else.
She thought he might want that, too.
His lips tightened, as if he was also waging an internal battle.
She was on her feet without realizing she'd even stood up.
He slowly rose. "Are you sure?"
"I'm not sure about anything—except this." She put her arms around his neck and gazed deep into his eyes. "You and me—tonight. That's what I want."
"You're vulnerable, Kat. You're hurt—scared."
"I might be all those things, but that's not why I want you. It's not about forever. We don't even know if there is a forever. If I've learned anything the past few days, it's that I should be living in the moment."
She could see the conflict in his eyes, and she liked him even more for not wanting to take advantage of her. "Are you going to make me beg for a kiss?"
"It won't just be a kiss," he warned.
"Good." She pressed up against him and took the kiss she was desperately craving.
His lips parted and their tongues tangled in a sweet, moist heat. She could feel his body hardening against hers, and she wanted all that hardness around her, on top of her, inside her. She wanted to feel connected to him in every possible way, and her nerves tingled as her thoughts raced ahead. She threaded her hands through his thick, wavy hair, keeping her mouth on his, until they were breathing as one.
Lucas ran his hands under her T-shirt, his fingers drawing a trail of blazing warmth across her back. He moved upward, playing with the snaps on her bra.
She wanted him to flip those snaps open. She wanted his hands on her breasts. She leaned back from the kiss so she could take off her shirt.
He groaned with pleasure as his hungry green eyes swept her full breasts. Her bra was white lace, not particularly sexy, but the way Lucas was looking at her made her toes curl. There was so much desire in his gaze, and the walls that were usually up around his emotions seemed to be falling away.
