Covert Attraction (14 page)

* * *

Beth hadn’t been asleep when her alarm went off that morning. She had lain awake a lot of the night rehashing everything that had happened the day before.

Including the apparent fact that she had been followed by someone driving a stolen vehicle—but why?

Now she was up and dressed and eating her morning fruit ration for breakfast. She wished she had a watchdog who could have barked if any of the sounds she had heard while lying in bed overnight had been from someone trying to break in rather than normal apartment-building noises.

But a dog might bark at those, too, and scare her all the more.

Too bad she hadn’t begged Daniel to stay last night. She suspected it wouldn’t have taken much to convince him. Only...well, here the only place he could have slept would have been in bed with her, so maybe sleep would not have been on the agenda.

Mindless, wonderful sex that could take her mind off her worries would have, though.

She shook her head as she put her dirty bowl in the dishwasher and prepared to grab her purse and leave for Corcoris.

Her ringtone sounded from her purse. She generally kept it turned on when not at Corcoris—or avoiding calls. Even so, the unexpected sound startled her, and she nearly dropped her bag as she reached inside to find the phone.

She saw right away that her caller was Daniel and started to relax.

But why would he be calling at this hour? Was something else going wrong?

“Hello?” She tried to make her voice sound unshaky and carefree.

“Your escort awaits, my lady,” he said in a formal voice.

“What?” She had no idea what he was talking about.

“Come on out to your car, Beth.” His tone sounded amused. “I’m outside. Oh, and if you’re checking out your windows and rearview mirrors, as I told you to do, and you see a vehicle following you, it’s fine—as long as it’s my dilapidated clunker and not a stolen SUV. I’m accompanying you to the office.”

* * *

Beth did as ordered...this time, at least.

She was careful as she left her apartment, checking the hallway before heading out. None of her neighbors were there, but neither were any strangers.

She carefully locked her door, then headed downstairs, where she did the same thing again, this time making sure not only that the door was locked but that the alarm was on, too.

She scanned the street before heading toward the parking lot at the side of the building.

That was when she saw the clunker that was Daniel’s.

She smiled but continued to watch her surroundings as she walked to her car. No errant SUVs pulling out to follow her, but she couldn’t identify all the cars on the street.

As she got into her car, she looked toward Daniel. There was a big smile on his face as he looked back at her.

A big sexy smile.

This man was doing strange things to her psyche. Turning her on just by looking at her.

Making her feel warm and fuzzy by his protectiveness, even though she knew why he was acting that way, and even though she had told him not to do so.

If she wasn’t careful, she might even fall in love with him.

Love? No, not that, and certainly not with Daniel. Even if he were inclined to form some kind of relationship, which he clearly wasn’t, she couldn’t afford to care for anyone, especially not until she was sure her family was safe.

And then? Until all risks were dealt with and Preston Corcoris and any other involved members of his staff were convicted of their crimes, she would have to return to her new Beth Jones life in Washington State—while Daniel returned to his job in Washington, D.C., where he would be sent undercover again on other assignments.

Somewhere far from her, which would be just fine with him.

It was definitely foolish to allow her imagination to even take baby steps in that direction.

She was inside her car now, its doors locked and its engine on.

She gave a quick, friendly but remote wave toward Daniel and headed toward the Corcoris office.

Chapter 14

D
espite some contemplation of things she wanted to accomplish that day, Beth’s mind remained mostly on Daniel for the entire drive to the Corcoris campus. Not surprising. He was always there, either directly following her or a car or two behind.

She realized she was rehashing some of the things that had gone through her mind during her frequent sleeplessness the night before. The pros and cons of what she wanted to suggest to him had nearly driven her crazy. But she’d concluded that as long as she kept all emotion out of it—as he would—it was a good idea.

That was why, after pulling into a parking space and waiting a minute for Daniel to find a spot, too, she called him.

“We need to talk,” she said. “And what I say will give us a good reason to meet up right here, in the parking lot, before we both head to our jobs.”

* * *

How could a woman look so gorgeous and hot in a Corcoris Cleaning Staff T-shirt and jeans, her dark hair deliberately too short to be sexy, and her eyes continuously downcast to fulfill the role she played here?

Daniel didn’t know, but he suspected that the knowledge he had about what was inside—both her clothes and her sharp mind—were factors.

Only...was whatever she had to say worth the risk of their being seen together here? She obviously thought so, and that intrigued him.

He hoped she was right.

He knew where she had parked, but she hadn’t seen exactly where he had driven, so they had arranged for him to walk back to her car and join her.

Since it was the beginning of a regular workday, he passed a lot of cars in the lot on both sides of the garage and many still entering.

There were quite a few other people around, too. He was new enough there that he doubted he’d be recognized by many. The same was probably true for Beth.

But those who did recognize either of them, and saw them together outside the rooms where they might just coincidentally run into each other because of their jobs, could be a problem.

She stood beside her driver’s door now as he joined her. “Hello, Beth,” he said, not sure whether to sound jovial or angry or completely casual. That depended on what she had in mind.

“Hi, Daniel.” She, on the other hand, obviously knew how she wanted to play this—as her usual persona, a shy member of the cleaning staff. She moved her bent head to look up at him with her eyes, then back down. “I gave this a lot of thought last night, and I now believe we’re going about part of this wrong. Want to know how?”

Her voice sounded normal now, although very quiet. Interesting. But her body maintained her usual uneasy quality, with her shoulders bent, head down.

“Of course,” he replied, concerned that she was going to tell him to get lost, that she didn’t need his input, let alone his concern about her.

If so, he would have to convince her otherwise.

“Okay, then,” she said. “We don’t know who stole that SUV and followed me, but we can assume it’s someone who works here or was given instructions by someone who works here. They started following me from your apartment. That means there’s some knowledge—and maybe curiosity—about how well we know each other.”

“Right...” He drew the word out as if urging her to continue, which she did.

“That means it could be someone who saw us together in the lab. Or when we’ve eaten together in public. Or even Preston Corcoris seeing me apparently try to slip into the lab where you were working—and speaking loudly enough to warn you that you were about to have company that wasn’t me. So instead of trying to hide what might be clear to anyone watching, that we know each other, let’s use it to our advantage.”

“We should somehow flaunt it?” He wasn’t thrilled about the idea, yet maybe she had a good point.

“I know I thought otherwise before,” she acknowledged. “But why not act like we have some kind of romantic relationship that we know isn’t necessarily applauded between a tech guy and cleaning-crew member? If we do that, whoever may be checking us out might accept that we’re not looking for anything around the offices and labs but each other. Unless the worst has happened and they know exactly who one or both of us is, they could be less suspicious of us that way. And if that worst is true, then we can watch each other’s backs more easily.”

“Interesting proposition.” Daniel knew he’d have to ponder this even more before accepting it. But it did sound feasible. And it was a whole lot better than her telling him to buzz off.

Would it hurt either of them, and their efforts to dig up evidence, to try to pull this off?

Unlikely. And the way Beth had presented it, it might even help them.

And...well, hell, even just appearing to be attracted to Beth, whichever persona she happened to be using at the moment, wouldn’t be hard at all. The difficult thing was pretending otherwise.

“Your opinion?” she pushed.

“All right,” he said, bending down and smiling as if whispering sweet nothings into this cleaning-staff member’s ear. “Let’s give it a try. As far as anyone here can see, we’re just a horny couple who’re hiding their mutual sexual interest from the world while at work.”

Beth grinned, then looked down again. “Great. But now I want to really challenge you.”

He stepped back and looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been considering how we need to check out the other building on this campus. There’ve got to be things there that could help us. And I suspect you have the better shot at grabbing something helpful.”

“I’ve been there a few times since I started working here,” Daniel said. “It’s just a big manufacturing and packaging facility, and they don’t let people who aren’t involved in either of those activities onto the floor. I’ve only been able to observe from an area above.”

She looked disappointed. “That’s all I was ever able to do there when I...you know. But I thought now that you, as a lab guy, could at least find a way onto the floor to grab some samples to compare with what’s sent over for the quality-control tests.”

“Not that I’ve been able to figure out so far.”

“Well,” she said, turning her head to smile grimly at him. “That’s the challenge. It’s for both of us. I’m going to find a way to get into that building today and see what I can do, and maybe you can, too.”

* * *

When Beth had signed in and gone downstairs for her day’s cleaning assignment, she made her mind focus not on how Daniel and she might be interacting here from now on—or how, possibly, it was a bad idea after all. Instead, she considered how she was going to get into the manufacturing building.

When she entered the long room filled with cleaning carts, she had to wait to get Mary Cantrera’s attention. But as soon as she did, she smiled briefly at the scowling older woman, kept her gaze downward toward the bottom of Mary’s Corcoris Cleaning Staff T-shirt and asked, “I know this may be wrong, and I know they have their own specially trained people there, but is it ever possible for one of us to get assigned to clean in the manufacturing plant?”

“Why do you want to do that?” Mary demanded. “Isn’t the work here enough for you?”

“Oh, yes, of course it is. But, well...I’ve always heard of Corcoris and what a wonderful company it is, and I’ve just been so curious about how it works to make and package the medicines. I’d just like to see it sometime.”

“Well...tell you what...” It wasn’t an absolute no, and that almost made Beth smile for real. “I won’t be able to get you any overtime pay if you don’t finish your regular assignment today—and I have you scheduled to do some deep cleaning in the cafeteria—but I got a call earlier and the cleaning staff in the manufacturing building is low on sanitizing solution. You can take a few containers over there and get a look at the place—as long as you hurry back. Okay?”

“Oh, yes,” Beth said. “Thank you.”

Of course, she knew that popping over there with heavy containers of liquids wouldn’t allow her to delve into what she really wanted—like a chance to collect samples of CorcoTrim from where the diet pills were manufactured and packaged or even the unlikely scenario of finding one of the handwritten log books and sneaking it out—but at least she would be able to see the place.

And she’d be able to tell Daniel later that she’d succeeded in getting in, even if she didn’t actually meet the challenge she had told him about.

Later, when they were pretending to be involved in a secret relationship.

* * *

At first when he started to work in the lab that day, Daniel could think of little besides Beth.

He was worried about her attempting to find a way into the other building and getting into trouble. It would be a lot better for him to go there first and report to her any further ideas he got about obtaining evidence there, though he didn’t think he’d be particularly successful. He really believed that what he had already started here, in this building, was the way to go.

But his thoughts focused even more on how to engage in Beth’s latest approach to their joining forces for the same goal.

Donning his white jacket like the other half-dozen geeks present in the lab, he’d exchanged hellos with them while wondering what they would think about one of their members hobnobbing with a member of the cleaning staff.

If they knew what Beth was really like, outside her assumed nonentity personality, all the guys would be envious—and that was about half of the staff there.

But he soon gave himself a mental butt-kick. In addition to figuring out how to check out the manufacturing facility just to tell Beth he’d succeeded, he had work to do that day—and that work included not only the lab assignment handed to him here but also the task of figuring out what he could do next to further his real purpose at the company.

As a lab rat, he was scheduled to review some reports that morning—not do any new quality-control testing or analysis of ingredients or formulations. In other words, nothing that could lead to concrete evidence.

At least his month of working here and getting to know people, gaining a little bit of trust, was starting to pay off. Instead of being assigned to work with only the older, tried-and-true Corcoris products, he had begun to receive some reports on newer pharmaceuticals to double-check their contents along with other technicians.

At the moment, Daniel sat at the cubicle designated as his in one of the lab areas on the second floor. Since no password was necessary to access the reports he’d been assigned, the results must be perfect, in favor of Corcoris.

Unlike what he’d hoped to see after using Georgine’s password—which he didn’t want to do here and now, surrounded by other lab geeks.

Today the guy who’d been here the longest, Manny Busbey, was holding court with two of the female lab rats at his cubicle just a couple away from Daniel’s. They were loudly discussing how proud they all were over the latest reports about to be sent to the FDA.

The ones supposedly confirming the purity of CorcoTrim.

Manny was theoretically a level above Daniel only because of his seniority here, but he liked to tell everyone around him what to do.

Daniel had an idea. He pasted a geeky smile on his face, rose and joined his three ostensible coworkers. “I couldn’t help overhearing,” he said, looking at Manny.

The guy was shorter than the women, dark haired, with a swarthy complexion and an ego bigger than the huge manufacturing building across the property. He just gave Daniel a condescending stare.

“I’m just so glad to hear about the good results,” Daniel continued. “But for me to be able to completely get what I’m reading, I need to understand the whole process. Which I kind of do, but do you know if it’s okay for me just to peek in at the manufacturing building again?” When none of the others responded immediately, he shrugged and grinned even more. “Okay, I admit it. I just love to stand right there on the observation deck and watch and listen from a distance to all those machines chugging along making, then packaging, those pills.”

“We’re not really encouraged to do that,” said one of the women, whose name was Ilana. She was tall enough that her lab jacket reached just to her waist, and her concerned smile revealed uneven teeth. “At least not by ourselves. You haven’t been here long enough to know, but we’re invited to go there every few months as a group to check it out. Otherwise, we’re supposed to stay away.”

“So you’ve gone there before on your own anyway?” Manny glared at him as if he had committed some major crime.

“Well, yeah. Maybe it’s not the best thing, but...well, I’ve got a few minutes right now to do it again. Anyone care to join me?”

Manny just snorted and shook his head. The women, too, just stood there. Would Manny complain? Report him?

Heck, he had to sign in there anyway, so it wouldn’t be a big secret that he’d gone inside. He’d only mentioned it since his absence, even though he’d keep it brief, would probably be noted. The other times had been just as he had been leaving the campus to return to his apartment.

Now, though, it was late morning. He left the lab, signed out downstairs, and crossed the area between the two buildings that was landscaped with well-tended grass and rows of hedges and palm trees.

He could hear the equipment even before he opened the door. There was an entry area staffed by a woman who wore all white, including a sanitary cap on her head.

“Can I help you?” she asked. She was middle-aged, and she stared at him harshly as if he was an intruder. Which, of course, he was.

Daniel explained that he was a Corcoris lab employee and only wanted to take a peek at the facility.

Too bad he couldn’t tell her that what he really wanted was to be given free rein to inspect every inch of the place, including the areas containing all the pharmaceuticals’ ingredients. Not to mention the log books for each brand, the assembly lines where each type of medication was mass-produced and packaged, everything.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

“Okay if I go to the viewing area?” Daniel asked the greeter. That was a raised walkway where visitors could look down on what was happening below. Some of the functioning areas were glassed in for sanitation and it wasn’t possible to see much of what happened inside them, but the observation area at least gave a global view of what was going on.