Covert Attraction (3 page)

Chapter 3

A
new day had begun. About time.

Beth decided to cast her sleepless night behind her and get down to business as soon as she reached the Corcoris offices.

If nothing else, her hours of tossing and turning over troubling thoughts had brought one thing back to her immediate attention.

She had no time to waste.

She got dressed and grabbed an apple from the fridge that she could eat in the car for breakfast. After driving the distance back to the headquarters building in traffic, she looked around the parking garage.

It was early enough that not many cars were there yet, and she saw the backs of only a few people heading for the doors into the office structure.

No sign of Daniel McManus. Not that she’d know what his car looked like—but she absolutely would recognize him.

His handsome face was one of the thoughts that had haunted her mind all night.

That and her initial indecision about whether she dared to get to know him any better to see if there was some way of utilizing his position and knowledge.

But she had, sometime near dawn, focused on what she had told herself even before she arrived here:
Trust no one.

No one except herself.

She grabbed her purse and slammed the car door behind her. This was a new day, she reminded herself. She had a lot to accomplish.

She headed straight toward the offices of the head housekeeping coordinator on the floor below the building’s lobby. Beside the offices were the vast areas where cleaning carts and the equipment heaped onto them were stored.

Beth was greeted almost as soon as she stepped off the elevator by Mary Cantrera, the cleaning crew’s supervisor. Mary had been there a lot longer than Beth’s alter ego, Andrea, had worked for Corcoris.

Mary was in her forties, a short, physically fit woman who wore the usual cleaning-staff uniform of logo T-shirt and jeans as proudly as if she were still involved in scrubbing down the facility. Even if she wasn’t very friendly to those she supervised.

Instead, she was the boss of that staff, consisting, Beth believed, of about a dozen people of both sexes and all ages. She’d been surprised to meet a couple of male senior citizens who’d apparently taken this on as their retirement jobs.

Not that she knew what they’d done before. Even with her cleaning coworkers, Beth had kept to herself without engaging much in conversations since she had started here.

She didn’t recognize those seniors, or many others on the cleaning staff, from when she—Andrea—had worked here before, either.

Only Mary. Starting to work for her that first day had felt like a major challenge. But the changes to Beth’s hair color and style, her different-colored contact lenses, and the special makeup she had learned to apply skillfully to alter her face’s skin tone and planes—thanks to the advisers Judge Treena had sent her to—not to mention an entirely different way of dressing, had obviously worked. So had the fact she had lost weight, although even with the workouts she had taken on that had been more from stress than intentional.

Neither Mary nor any others she’d known before and seen since her return knew who she was.

She needed to keep it that way.

“Good morning,” she said to Mary in her assumed shy but cheerful persona.

The supervisor stood behind the counter near the storeroom door, checking out the equipment as each staff member collected gear for the day. She hardly looked up as she examined the cart Beth had chosen and ticked off items on her list. Maybe her concentration was one reason Mary hadn’t recognized her. If so, Beth wouldn’t ruin it by doing or saying anything out of the ordinary.

“I have you listed to start out today in the cafeteria’s seating area,” Mary said. She had a round face that had puckered with wrinkles since the time Beth had first met her a few years ago. Her curly hair had gone grayer, too, but Mary hadn’t started dyeing it, just pushed it back with a bland tortoiseshell-colored headband. “Soon as you and the others have it ready for the breakfast crowd—the early birds are already there—you can head for the storage area on the lab floor.”

Given her preference for anonymity, Beth would rather skip the cafeteria. But at least only the company’s regular workers started the day there. The executives had their own dining area on the penthouse floor.

Beth hadn’t cleaned anything at all upstairs and didn’t want to, at least not officially or when anyone might be there. That was where she was most likely to be recognized.

“Thank you,” she said to Mary as she started wheeling her cart toward the service elevator.

She wasn’t the only one waiting there. Two others on the cleaning staff were ready to begin their days— Gabrielle Maroni and John Jansen. Gabrielle was a vivacious African-American youngster who’d just graduated from high school and said she was working here until she figured out what she really wanted to do with her life. She was new enough at the company that she’d never have met Andrea.

John had been around long enough for Andrea and him to have crossed paths, but she’d heard that the middle-aged man had lost his job in the film industry some time ago and needed this job to help support his wife and three kids. He wasn’t the happiest person Beth had ever met, and she was glad for many reasons that he kept to himself.

Fortunately, the two of them were involved in a conversation when Beth pushed her cart toward them. Rather, Gabrielle was chattering away at John, who seemed more interested in scanning what was on his cart than conversing. Both of their carts fit into the service elevator when it arrived, but not a third. Beth got to wait for the next one by herself.

It came fairly soon, and she headed up to the third-floor cafeteria. The place wasn’t too crowded, and both John and Gabrielle were already industriously polishing tables still empty of patrons. Beth quickly started to do the same.

She kept her head down as she worked but looked around surreptitiously.

This wasn’t where she wanted to be. Nothing here would lead to the evidence she needed.

Neither would any of the personnel. Even so, she eavesdropped on as many conversations as possible without meeting anyone’s eyes.

She saw a few familiar faces as people brought coffee and food to tables, ate quickly and left with their coffee cups. The smell of baking pastries and hot beverages was trumped near her by the sweet smells of cleaning fluids she used.

Beth particularly kept watch for Daniel McManus. With his friendliness yesterday, he might start talking to her if he happened to come in—both delaying her and calling attention to her.

Fortunately, he didn’t arrive.

Eventually, the three of them had finished all areas of the cafeteria—good timing, since the room started to become more crowded as Corcoris Pharmaceuticals’ main group of employees arrived for their midmorning breaks. The early breakfast crowd had come and gone long before.

Time for Beth to leave.

Without saying anything to her counterparts, she shoved her cart back to the service elevator and got on, pushing the button to go down a floor.

She wished she could just insert herself back into the lab where she’d been yesterday. By herself this time. She believed she might locate there at least something that could be used as the evidence she sought, assuming she would be able to recognize it. Samples of medications that contained different ingredients from the ones used for the quality-control tests submitted to the FDA? Maybe, but how would she know? Notes or computer printouts that showed that those medications had been changed somehow? That might be easier for her to recognize, but did people leave those lying around the sterile labs? Maybe not, but there were also labs that contained the workers’ cubicles and computers.

Her next official assignment was to start cleaning a room where some experimental drugs and ingredients not yet available to the public were stored in large refrigerators. That was another possible source of evidence—again assuming she could determine what she was looking for.

But she had been back here only less than a week. She would look around, keep her eyes and ears open, and figure out exactly what she needed.

She carefully pushed her cart down the hallway toward the door to that storage room. A few people passed, mostly men and women in white jackets similar to the one Daniel McManus had been wearing yesterday—lab staff.

She kept her eyes averted. But she did manage to check out those around her to ensure Daniel wasn’t among them.

When she reached the door, she felt almost disappointed. She hadn’t seen the guy who’d gotten into her thoughts way too much.

She moved around the cart just enough to push the door open. But before she returned to her position behind it, she heard, “Good morning, Beth.”

It was that same deep masculine voice that had penetrated her psyche yesterday. Daniel’s.

She swallowed, ducked her head a little as if attempting to muster her strength, then turned around. “Good morning,” she said softly. She immediately looked away and started pushing the cart through the doorway—but not before getting a glimpse of that handsome, smiling face adorned with those large dorky glasses. Once inside, she turned to close the door—only to find that Daniel had followed her.

He looked serious now, which worried her. Where was that flirtation of yesterday?

Not that she wanted to flirt with him, but it had seemed generally friendly and unchallenging.

This unwavering stare of his blue eyes was a different story.

“We need to talk, Beth,” he said. “Join me for an early lunch away from here.”

It sounded like an order, not a request. She felt her insides tense up. She hated receiving orders. Prior orders, especially around here, had held a tacit threat behind them.

But she was safe, at least for now. She could say no. And that was exactly what she did.

“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t. I have to work in here and finish by midafternoon.”

“We need to talk,” he repeated, and she no longer had the sense that he was just some geeky lab rat. She couldn’t help wondering now if he was, in fact, part of what she was here to address.

But talk to him at lunch about it? Alone? No. That couldn’t happen.

“Maybe sometime,” she said so as not to rile him. “But not now. I need to—”

Her throat closed up suddenly, preventing her from finishing.

Striding down the otherwise empty hall was Preston Corcoris.

She’d known she would see him here eventually, but he almost always stayed on the executive floors, sending his minions down here to ensure that all was occurring the way he intended.

He wouldn’t know who she was. He couldn’t. But knowing him, if he even noticed this subservient person who was now her and found her in the least attractive, he’d try seducing her.

Attempting not to be obvious, she slid around her cart and farther into the storeroom.

“Hey,” Preston called. Was he addressing her?

Surely he couldn’t be addressing her. What would she do?

He seemed to be heading toward her. She kept herself from crying out—or just crying. She wasn’t Andrea Martinez, public relations star and object of his attempted seduction—and also potentially the person who would reveal to the world exactly who he was and what Corcoris Pharmaceuticals was becoming.

She was Beth Jones, meek and menial member of the cleaning staff. A no one.

“Mr. Corcoris, delighted to see you here, sir.” That was Daniel, who stood blocking the doorway. “Were you coming to the lab for us to show you the latest results of our quality-control tests on the CorcoBiotica serum that’ll be used in those new antibiotic capsules? I’m too new here to do it on my own, but I’ve been working with some of the other technicians. It’s so cool. Our tests have shown that the upcoming formulation is probably more powerful than anything else on the market, and we’ve not found the slightest bit of contamination in any of the random vials we’ve checked out.”

“Good work,” Preston said, stopping to face Daniel. “Have you guys done any of the additional testing to determine how to avoid contamination occurring?”

“Just starting that, sir. I can show you our report so far on my computer if you’d like.”

“No need. I’ll send a message for Bert Jackson, our VP of products, to get in touch with you and the others down here when I get back upstairs. In fact, that’s why I’m here. Have you seen him today?”

By that time, Beth had slipped even farther into the room and begun wiping the counters down with sterile rags dipped in antiseptic, staying out of the refrigerators that held important chemicals, so she didn’t have to don protective gear in a clean room. The place smelled awful.

Shoulders braced, she waited for Preston to come in anyway. But he didn’t.

Daniel told Preston he hadn’t yet seen Jackson, another executive who might recognize her. She prayed he wasn’t on this floor.

For now, she listened carefully to the conversation between the two men. It continued for a few more minutes while Daniel prattled on about another of the new pharmaceuticals that had been developed by some of the company’s lead scientists, passed clinical trials with flying colors and was now starting to be available by prescription—supposedly the best and safest weight-loss medication ever.

Soon there was just silence. She listened for a while longer anyway.

Then she heard footsteps and pivoted to see the door. It was still open.

Daniel came in. There was again no dorkiness in his expression, but a serious stare.

“Come with me to lunch, Beth,” he said. “We need to get away from here for now.”

He again didn’t make it sound like an invitation, but an order.

He might not know it, but she owed him.

And he was right. She did need to get away in case Jackson really was around here.

“Okay,” she said. “Give me five more minutes to finish, and then I’ll be ready.”

* * *

Daniel had waited for fifteen minutes, since Beth had to return her equipment to the floor where it was stored.

After that he started driving to the restaurant where he had chosen for them to dine. And talk.