Concrete Evidence (15 page)

Anticipation built with each flip of the cards. Finally they came to patent number 2,560,871:
Method of Mixing Cement Composition
. Erica sucked in a sharp breath that in a different situation would have pushed him over the edge.

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “We found the Thermo-Con patent.” In that moment, he made another connection. “Higgins…amphibious…boats…Higgins Boats. Of course. It’s so obvious—I can’t believe I missed that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Thermo-Con house was built by the guy who invented Higgins Boats.”

“Um, what are Higgins Boats?”

Miss Smarty-Pants didn’t know. He grinned. “Higgins boats were used in every major allied invasion in World War II. The Germans didn’t believe boats existed that could deliver our troops to Normandy, and so the Normandy beaches were less defended. Without Higgins Boats, D-Day couldn’t—wouldn’t—have happened.”

Her jaw dropped. “How do you know all this?”

He felt sufficiently mollified that after being a slacker piece of shit all week, he could show he wasn’t a complete idiot. “I like military history.” He paused, realizing he had a perfect opportunity. “Tonight we’re going to watch
Saving Private Ryan
.”

“That’s the movie that opens with D-Day, right? I’ve heard it’s pretty graphic.”

“You haven’t seen it?”

“Never got around to it.”

“Then you need to watch it. Tonight.” He paused. “With me.”

“I’ve got to work on Thermo-Con tonight.”

“Your Friday nights sound enthralling.”

“Some of us have to work for a living.”

He used his most cajoling smile. “So tonight you’ll watch a movie and still be working.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, then said, “Okay. But I don’t have a decent TV. We need to watch the movie at your place.”

Damn.
He wanted to see her apartment. Fortunately, he was prepared. Yesterday he’d taken down all his photos and scoured each room in his condo of everything that indicated the place was his. He’d even tossed clothes into a suitcase and changed the address on the luggage tag. It was safe to invite her over. “Okay.”

“Where are you living, anyway?” she asked.

“A friend is letting me stay at his place.”

“Figures you’d have a free place to stay. Some people get all the breaks.” But she said the words with a smile. Maybe she could forgive his fake self for having opportunities she so obviously envied.

He wondered if he could make her forget the role he’d been playing. Earning her respect would be even harder than earning her trust. She worked long hours every day, each minute an exercise in efficiency and dedication. All while he cultivated a slacker façade that drove them both crazy. His ability to act like a dickhead had exceeded even his own expectations.

It was time for the intern to evolve. Tonight was the perfect opportunity.

With the tip of her finger, she caressed the file card. “We need to go through the rest of the Higgins cards first, to see if there are any others that could be Thermo-Con.”

Again, they flipped through the cards, now lacking the anticipation of before, but with a companionable silence. It felt strangely like cuddling after sex, when the actions were the often same, but it was the wind down, not the windup. A dozen or so cards later, he touched her hand, preventing her from flipping to the next one. “This mixing-machine patent could be the Thermo-Con Generator the newspaper article referred to.”

She paused and studied the card. “I think you’re right.”

After copying the information from the two cards, they returned to the information desk. The man who’d helped them earlier grinned broadly when Erica produced the patent numbers. “Let me see if we have it here.” He typed the information into his computer and frowned at the results. “These files are in our storage facility. I’ll have to order them for you. It should take a few days. Fill out this form, and I’ll call you when the patents arrive.”

Lee tucked the Thermo-Con file into his laptop case while she filled out the form; then they headed to the Metro station. “Let’s go to your apartment first,” he said, “so you can change into something more comfortable.”

“You don’t mind? These shoes always hurt by the end of the day.”

No, he didn’t mind at all.

After a short Metro ride and walk, he stepped inside her top-floor apartment five blocks south of the Mall in the southwest part of DC, and his jaw dropped with awe at the stunning view. The west wall of the living room was entirely made up of windows, from the sloped twelve-foot ceiling to the parquet flooring. “This place is amazing,” he said.

“Thanks. I do love it here.” Her voice was filled with pride.

He opened the sliding-glass balcony door. An intense wall of heat struck him as he stepped out onto the sun-drenched white trapezoid-shaped balcony and looked out across the Potomac River. Directly west sat the Jefferson memorial and the vast hillside of Arlington National Cemetery. The Pentagon sat to the right, while planes landed at National Airport to the left. He took a deep breath of the muggy air, enjoying the scent of the thriving tomato plants that flanked the balcony.

She joined him outside and handed him a cold bottle of beer. She clinked her bottle against his and said, “Happy Friday. The end of the first week of your internship.”

As far as she knew, he’d been a lazy jerk the last few days, and here she was drinking a toast to him as though he’d reached a real milestone. He squelched his guilt with the knowledge he’d been putting in eighteen-hour days. Every waking hour and even a few of the sleeping ones had been devoted to hacking into the network and narrowing down his list of suspects.

“Thanks,” he said. The icy drink slid down his throat and revived the part of him that had been flattened on the hot walk from the Metro station. “That’s just what I needed. This heat is killing me.” He watched traffic move slowly over the I-395 bridge.

He turned his back on the view and studied her large, starkly furnished living room. Her building had a twenty-four-hour manned security desk. It wasn’t a luxury development, but still, the rent had to put her at the edge of her financial limits, and she didn’t have a credit card to help make ends meet. Was security more important to her than food? “How on earth did you find this place?”

“This condo is owned by a friend of Janice’s. When she heard I needed a place to live, she made some calls. It’s just outside my budget, but living alone, security was important, so it’s worth it.” She led him back into the air-conditioned room and closed the balcony door. “You complained about the heat. Doesn’t it get this hot in New York City?”

“Yeah. As soon as I’m done with school, I’m leaving.”

She smiled. “It must not be so bad. After all, you could have finished three years ago.”

He laughed. “But then I wouldn’t have met you.”

Her eyes lit with surprising warmth; then she spun on her heel and spread her arms to indicate the room. “So, this is the living room,” she said in a blatant change of subject.

The couch was a notch above junk but draped with a clean quilt and matching throw pillows. He suspected the end tables were cardboard boxes covered with sheets. But most startling was her dining set: an expanding oval table surrounded by six chairs. Made from a rich, red wood, with clean, modern lines, the table surface was smooth and pristine.

She could have purchased the table with the proceeds from selling Iraqi artifacts.

“Nice table,” he said.

Her face lit up. She touched a ladder-back chair with reverence. “Thanks. I just bought it. I saved for months.”

He considered her work attire: clean, functional, appropriate. Her plain skirts, slacks, and blouses were, in a word, cheap. But her frugal lifestyle could be a façade. If he stripped her down, would he find her wearing designer lingerie?

She was a smart woman who worked hard. She had a BA and a Master’s degree. A bad credit report didn’t fully explain why she appeared so destitute or why she was so
alone
.

He waited in the living room while she changed clothes in the bedroom, wondering if he should make a move to find out how expensive her lingerie was. His instincts told him he needed to build trust between them, but he was short on time. In one week, his cover would be blown.

He studied a photo of her underwater in full scuba gear with three other divers. Her face was hidden behind a mask and regulator, but her gray eyes penetrated the glass shield, clearly identifying her among the women in the photo. The air bubbles that surrounded the group and the light in their eyes made him conclude they all laughed behind their regulators. He couldn’t imagine the Erica he knew that happy.

She entered the room dressed in shorts and a tight V-neck T-shirt that showed off her cleavage and wouldn’t cover her midriff if she raised her arms. She looked sexy and warm and very different from the woman he’d worked with all week. He couldn’t help but hope she’d chosen the outfit for him. Perhaps he was making better progress than he thought.

He pointed to the photo. “You’re a diver,” he said. “Have you ever done underwater archaeology?”

She met his gaze without flinching. “No. I haven’t.”

Erica might be sexy as hell, but she was still a liar.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

T
HE
W
ATERGATE.
O
F COURSE.
Her rich, pretty-boy intern was staying—
for free
—at the Watergate. Erica wandered through the gigantic living room, looking for clues as to the condo’s owner.

She’d accepted Lee’s invitation for one purpose, and it wasn’t to watch a movie or learn more about Higgins Boats. She wanted to know if Lee could be working for Jake. They’d both invaded her life this week. Her office had been trashed. And, for an eager intern, Lee showed shockingly little interest in archaeology.

Could this be Jake’s apartment?

Jake knew her job at Talon & Drake—a company owned by a Menanichoch tribal member—was no coincidence. He knew she was looking for the artifacts and the new casino room was opening soon. Had Jake hired Lee to watch over her?

She circled the room. There wasn’t a photograph in sight; nothing to tell her who owned this place. Yet it looked lived-in, not like an apartment used only part-time. The only thing she knew for certain was the owner was a man. The furnishings, the organization, even the colors all indicated the place was inhabited by a bachelor.

In the guest bathroom, she searched the medicine chest, looking for prescription bottles with the owner’s name, knowing it was more likely they would be in the master bathroom. She wasn’t willing to jump into bed with Lee just to get access to that room.

She returned to the living room. Where was the owner? Why was he gone for the summer? And why hadn’t Lee mentioned his name?

Initially, she’d questioned the wisdom of coming here—if he really worked for Jake, she could be walking into a trap—but playing it safe was getting her nowhere. And Lee didn’t have any reason to think she was suspicious of him.

Then there was the fact that she didn’t
want
to be suspicious of him. He was frustrating, immature, and a complete slacker, but he was also funny, charming, and, well, enticing.

He walked down the hall toward her. He’d changed into shorts and a bright Aloha shirt decorated with vertical ribbons of red ginger flowers. All those years of karate had given him muscular legs that moved with masculine grace.

He’s twenty-five and a shiftless career student, she reminded herself.

Or he’s not.

His gaze swept her from head to toe, and his eyes lit with appreciation. She’d seen that look a dozen times and it still caused a flutter in her belly. She acknowledged there were other reasons she might end up in bed with Lee.

If only she could be certain he wasn’t working for Jake.

“Let’s eat out, then rent the movie,” he said.

“I’m not hungry.”

“There’s this great restaurant right around the corner.”

He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and minutes later, she was being seated inside a casual restaurant with a cozy, romantic ambience. One look at the menu and she began to panic. She had eighty-six dollars until next payday, and there was nothing on the menu less than twenty bucks.

The waiter arrived, and she started to order water, but Lee interrupted. “We’ll have a bottle of pinot noir and the crab appetizer.”

He and the waiter discussed the wine choice while she took an anxious look at the menu. The cheapest pinot noir was forty bucks a bottle, and the appetizer cost half that. The waiter left.

“Don’t worry,” Lee said, a cocky smile on his handsome face. “I’m buying.”

She gave him a stern look. “This isn’t a date.”

“Yes. It is.” The confident look in his green eyes caused another flutter, and she wondered how this Tetris champion managed to tempt her.

The answer came readily enough: dinner with Lee was more fun than any evening since she’d learned of her mother’s betrayal. Intelligent, funny, interesting; take away the slacker, and he was the full package. She sipped her wine, enjoying the warm buzz of good food and conversation. It had been far too long since she’d gone out for dinner with a friend. Then she wondered if Lee was a friend and honestly had no idea.