Acceptable Risks (11 page)

The back of his hand brushed the edge of the tabletop, sending tiny bursts of electric shock across his skin. He gritted his teeth against the pain and held his breath until it subsided. He needed to get used to these little agonies. Otherwise, they’d tank his career, as well as his sex life. He smiled a little, equating an attacker’s glee at discovering the vulnerability with a woman’s exasperation over trying to deal with it.

Lark wouldn’t get exasperated
.

Now he scowled. How the hell did he know what her reaction would be long term? And why the hell was he thinking the words “long term,” anyway?

He was grateful when Lark appeared with the coffee and resumed her seat. “You see anything?”

Jason kept his attention outside. “No movement on the square since we got here, except Mrs. Beagle’s dog got out again. What did you see?”

Lark sipped her coffee. “Not much. The windows of the hotel have a glare. We’d never be able to see in until after dark, even with binocs.”

“Binocs?” he queried, amused.

She ignored him. “The pharmacy has three cars in front of it. This is the kind of town with old people hanging out in one of the businesses, and since independent pharmacies are rare nowadays, I’m guessing that’s what those are. Plus, they’re old-people-big-car makes. Olds and Buick, about fifteen years old.”

“And you know Fran and Dennis from when you worked there during high school,” Jason noted wryly.

“Wow, you’re good.” Lark’s impish grin didn’t go away. “My observations are valid, though.”

“Since you can fit them into what you already know, sure. Stop trying to impress me and tell me what you really see.”

For half a second she looked shocked and sheepish. Then she locked her gaze on the Laundromat. “There’s no one in the Laundromat, but the dryers are going. Someone will probably be coming back soon.”

“Not bad. Relevance?”

She sighed. “Come on, Jason, Dad does this to me every time I see him. Can’t we just do the job?”

He relented. “Sure. I just want you to be prepared. You’re not a field agent.”

“I’m not an agent at all.”

“Matt trained you to be.”

Her jaw flexed briefly before she answered. “It was years ago. He stopped when I declared my major.”

Jason grimaced. “That’s comforting.”

She didn’t smile. “I’m not trying to comfort you now.” Which meant she had been trying to earlier, in the car. His heart rolled.
Matt’s your best mate,
he reminded himself sternly,
and missing to boot. Forget it.

A silver sedan came down the road and pulled into a space in front of the hotel.

“She’s here,” he said.

Chapter Nine

Jason watched Gabby open her car door and put her foot out, then pause as she gathered her things.

Lark ducked her head a little to peer between a letter and a flourish on the café’s window. “That’s Dr. Berwell?”

“Yes.”

“She’s young!”

“She’s older than me.” Jason shrugged. He didn’t consider age an indicator of ability.

But that apparently wasn’t what Lark was thinking about. “But younger than my dad,” she pointed out.

Jason chuckled. “Can we talk to her about the mess we’re in before you start interrogating her about her intentions?”

Lark thought a second. “Okay, but I don’t like her.”

He didn’t believe her. Maybe she
thought
she shouldn’t, to protect her father’s tender heart. Or maybe she wanted a target, someone to go after for his abduction. Whatever—Jason didn’t think Lark was the kind of woman to judge at first sight.

As Gabby entered the hotel, a man wearing a black leather jacket—in June—followed, glancing over his shoulder and scanning the street as he did. Jason tensed and focused, his eyes narrowing as he studied the man’s gait and profile. He didn’t know him.

“She was followed from work,” Lark guessed, her nose practically pressed against the glass.

“Maybe. Or he could be with her. Or have nothing to do with any of us.”

“What do we do?”

“One of us goes over and sees what’s happening over there.”

Lark’s eyes widened at him. “One of us? Like maybe me?”

The last thing Jason wanted to do was send Lark out of his sight. But he needed her. They had to determine the situation before they moved forward. “Gabby would spot me immediately. I’m kind of big, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Lark
had
noticed, of course. Since her father was about six-two and Jason stood taller, she figured him at six-four. His shoulders looked as wide as the table, and his chest the perfect resting place for her whole body. The snug clothes made him impossible to overlook. And his golden hair and chiseled features were pretty memorable, too.

Crap.
Think about Dad, think about the job, think about…anything but Jason and his big sexy body.

She cleared her throat. “Okay, Gabby doesn’t know me,” she agreed, “but if that guy is with Isaac, he might. Wouldn’t Isaac make sure he would?”

“Not if you disguise yourself.”

“With what?” she scoffed. “A mustache and porkpie hat?”

Jason got up and went to the counter. He spoke briefly to the barista and then lifted a green apron from a hook near the end of the counter. He handed it to Lark.

“That’s it?”

“It’s all you’ll need. Go in and ask the bartender if he can spare a few napkins. He’ll think you’re nuts but no one else will look at you twice.”

Lark shrugged and put the loop over her head and tied the apron in the back. “You don’t have a com on ya, do you?”

Jason leaned back, the front legs of his chair lifting, and grinned a wide, cocky grin. “Just one. Keep it in my wallet.”

She rolled her eyes and smacked him on the shoulder. His hiss of breath registered, but Lark was past him and at the door before she realized what it might mean. Making a note to ask him about it later, she pushed to the outside, inhaled deeply and strode purposefully across the street.

The inside of the hotel was very dim after the sunshine outside. She took a second to adjust, then found the entrance to the bar/restaurant to her right. She headed over, blinking hard, trying to banish the light spots in her vision.

She found the doctor immediately, her curly red hair noticeable even in the dimness. Gabby sat alone at a table in the middle of the room. Lark couldn’t believe she worked for the country’s top security firm. Jason would never sit with everything exposed. She should have taken a corner table, or at least one against the wall.

Amazing how training prevailed. Over the years, as life and career had made her visits with her father less frequent, his quizzing and training had taken a back seat. She’d always done self-defense maintenance, the kind any normal woman living on her own would do. But despite the eight years that had passed since her father gave up on Lark joining his business, his training had stuck. She’d automatically counted the doors in the room, pinpointed a few hiding places, cataloged the bartender’s relevant stats. It was almost as if her father were here with her.

Get to work, then
. She smiled at the bartender and moved closer to the gleaming oak bar. “Would you believe we ran out of napkins?” she said to him. “Teddy is going to get some, but I wondered if you could spare a handful to get us by until he gets back.”

The bartender grunted and walked to the other end of the bar. Lark idly looked around, wondering where leather jacket guy was. Gabby was the only other person in the room.

“Here.”

Lark smiled again and took the brown-paper-wrapped stack of napkins. “Thank you. You’re a doll.”

“Plan ahead next time.”

“Sure.” She indicated the room behind her. “Quiet today, huh?”

He shrugged.

“Us, too, mostly. We have a few people in now. Some guy came in with a leather jacket on. Can you believe that? In June?”

The bartender didn’t say, “Hey, he came in here, too!” and he didn’t seem to care what she was talking about. But the doctor swung her head toward Lark and made eye contact, her own widening behind oval-framed glasses. She looked around frantically before starting to rise. Lark shook her head subtly but sharply, smiled at the guy behind the bar one more time, and went back out to the lobby.

Gabby knew who the guy was. Or maybe she’d seen him enter the hotel behind her. Or, Lark supposed, she’d turned automatically at the sound of Lark’s voice. But she hadn’t looked until Lark mentioned the leather jacket guy. And she’d obviously recognized Lark. Probably from a picture on her father’s desk. She wished Jason were over here to tell her what to do.

She had to figure out where the leather jacket guy was. They couldn’t talk to Gabby until she was in the clear. Spotting a tall ferny plant in one corner of the lobby, she sidled over, dropped the napkins, and slipped behind the plant as she started picking them up.

A moment later Gabby hurried out of the restaurant. But instead of making a beeline for the front door, she veered right down a hallway lined with room doors. Lark had picked the right spot; she could see all the way to the exit door at the end.

No one followed Gabby. Lark wanted to, but she waited, her breathing shallow, every muscle poised to act. Several seconds after the doctor left the building, someone came down the wide staircase behind Lark with hurrying footsteps. She peered carefully upward, and sure enough, it was the leather jacket guy. But he went straight out the front door and got in a car parked outside. He hadn’t even pulled away when a woman wearing a strapless spandex dress and six-inch clear platforms clumped down the stairs. Her platinum hair was a bird’s nest, and she was tucking money into her cleavage.

Shit. They’d been fooled.

Leaving the napkins scattered on the floor, Lark hustled down the hall Gabby had taken. But too much time had passed. When she got to the outside door, she couldn’t see the redhead anywhere. Dammit! Her cell phone rang. She ignored it and shoved through the door to the outside, searching around the parked cars. Could Gabby be behind the dumpster, or had she turned left and gone back to her car on the main street?

When the phone rang a third time, she flipped it open without checking the number, still focused on her search.

“Where are you?” demanded Jason.

“Outside the hotel,” she answered automatically

“Where?”

“On the side. Did you see the doctor?”

“Yeah, I’ve got her.”

Lark blew out a breath. Thank goodness.

“Head back to the alley,” Jason continued, “we’ll pick you up. Any sign of the leather jacket guy?”

“Yeah, he was getting a quickie upstairs.” She wove between cars, head up, looking for the Range Rover. “A hooker came down right after he did, and he wasn’t in the bar and didn’t go after Gabby when she left.”

“Figures. Okay, I see you.” He disconnected and pulled up next to her a few seconds later. Gabby was in the front seat, her eyes huge, her hand wrapped in the strap hanging just in front of her side window.

Jealousy was a quick, surprising burn in Lark’s gut, but she hesitated only a moment before yanking open the back door and bouncing onto the seat. “I’m in.”

Jason took off. Lark put on her seatbelt and leaned over the seat to address Gabby. “Why did you go out the side door when you came out of the restaurant?”

The doctor twisted to try to look at Lark, but didn’t let go of her strap. “I heard you say something about a guy in a leather coat. I figured you saw someone follow me in, so I went out the other door and circled around to my car. I was going to call Jason from the road.”

“You did the right thing,” Jason assured her.

Lark shoved herself back into her seat, a little perturbed. If Gabby was being watched, a different exit from the same lobby wasn’t going to throw them off. If Lark had been the one being followed, and used that evasive technique, Jason would lecture her, not praise her.

They rode in tension-drenched silence until Jason stopped a few miles away, in a small gravel lot on a hill, where a picnic table and a trashcan both leaned under a tall maple tree. He got out and the women followed.

“We can see anyone coming from here, and they can’t get a good angle on us.” He sat on the top of the table, his booted feet braced on the bench. “Gabby, do you know Lark?”

The doctor awkwardly held out a hand, her face pinkening to clash with her dark red hair. “I know who you are, Ms. Madrassa. It’s a pleasure to meet you, really.”

“You, too.” Lark’s irritation faded under the doctor’s sincerity. “I see you made my preliminary research into a real miracle.” She nodded at Jason.

“Well, a lot of us worked together to make it happen. And Jason deserves all the credit for pulling through. Any patient can die if they give up, or live if they work hard enough at it. Well, within reason.” She gave a faint laugh. “You know what I mean.”

“Basically. When did you last talk to my father?”

Gabby’s back was to Jason and she didn’t see his beaming smile at Lark’s “interrogation” tactic. But he also didn’t see the doctor’s startled look.

“In person was yesterday evening, shortly after the end of the work day. I had a message from him in the lab last night. I must have been in the bathroom when he called. He didn’t seem to need a call back.”

“When was that?”

“About eleven.”

“What were you doing in the lab at eleven?” Jason asked.

Gabby shifted to talk to both of them. “Um…I’m always—I mean, usually—it’s not a lab, Jason.” Her flush deepened. “I’m often there very late. You know that.”

“But I’m not there anymore to attend to.”

“No. Actually, that’s why I was there.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her dress. “I felt a little adrift and went back to start planning our next steps. With the research. We have to backtrack now, and—”

“What did his message say?” Lark interrupted.

“He asked me to give Jason a copy of all my research on his treatments, and his medical file, when he came in today.”

Jason cursed.