Do You Believe in Magic? (2 page)

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Authors: Ann Macela

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Magic, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Contemporary

BOOK: Do You Believe in Magic?
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“We already know you are. You don’t have to prove anything.” Her boss ran a hand through his thinning brown hair and turned his bright blue eyes on Morgan. “You explain, Clay. You were running the operation.”
Francie concentrated on the consultant. Herb had hustled them all into seats at the table after she came into his office, and she had not really studied the man when they were introduced.
So this was the famous Clay Morgan. She had heard of him, but never met him: the man reputed to work magic on computers. Francie didn’t know about his effect on computers, but he certainly had one on women. Even she, immune though she was to good-looking, charming men and armored behind her clothes and her glasses, could feel the potency of his masculinity. No wonder Laura, the system administrator, had practically swooned over him when she relayed the tale of how quickly he had fixed the network and one of the servers after an electrical disaster last year. No wonder rumors swirled of his reputation with women—which included his never dating one for very long.
Tall, dark, and handsome, indeed, with coal-black hair and an action-movie hero’s firm chin and jaw, although the small hook in his nose saved him from being beautiful. Six foot five if he was an inch—one of the rare men to whom she would literally have to raise her eyes.
She reminded herself again of her immunity to such men. Not that he was trying to be charming; at the moment he appeared positively grim, but with an overlay of confidence . . . and perhaps arrogance. She’d always liked self-confidence in a person, male or female, but arrogance was a turnoff. Especially arrogance based on good looks coming from genetics, not hard work. She wondered if he really lived up to his “computer wizard” fame.
If she had to be honest—as she tried to be to herself, at least—there was something about him that called to her, stirred up her insides. She’d probably been listening too much to Tamara and her pronouncements about Francie’s need for a fling and some romance. But she couldn’t stop from fidgeting under the intent gaze from his pale gray—no, silver—eyes. She shivered and shifted in her chair. His gaze as sharp and hard as a sterling-silver blade, he was staring at her as though he could see into her soul.
“We’ve had you under surveillance, Francie. Herb was certain you were
not
the hacker, but
I
thought it better to put someone on a watch first to discover what was really going on.”
His words cut through her anguish and anger, and she looked at him with a feeling somewhere between horror and fury. “You actually had someone following me?” The fact that she had never noticed added a layer of dread to the mixture of reactions scrambling in her brain.
“Yes. It’s a good thing we did, because it cleared you of any suspicion,” Clay answered, his tone cool and certain—as if he had all the answers to her questions.
Francie clenched her fists on the table to keep them from shaking. She took a deep breath and forced herself to focus on the words, “cleared of any suspicion.” Relief and curiosity pushed her anger aside—but only slightly. She couldn’t help sniping at the man who lounged in his chair with such total self-assurance. “Well, I’m very happy to hear my innocence has been proven to your satisfaction, Mr. Morgan.” She turned to Herb. “Look, I need some straight answers. What is going on? Did you suspect me, too?”
“No, I swear to God, Francie . . .” Herb began.
“Francie.” From Francie’s other side, Daria interrupted and put her hand on top of Francie’s clenched one. “It’s okay,” she said calmly.
Francie turned her gaze to the consultant and knew immediately Daria was going to help with this strange situation. The small woman with dark curly hair and bright green eyes was on her side. A light flicker from somewhere caused her to blink for a second, but then the men seemed to fade into the background as Francie focused on Daria’s next words.
“Herb believed in you all along,” Daria said. “We used surveillance to see if there was anyone who might have access to your computer when you weren’t home. Last Wednesday night when you went to your party . . .?”
“My book club.” Francie nodded.
Daria nodded also. “While you were there, someone entered your apartment and used your computer to access our system. He ran right into Clay’s trap. When the operators reported the hacker’s attempt to log in, Clay sent the investigator following you back to your place. Through the window, the investigator saw a man sitting at your computer. He followed the man when he left. We know who he is. We know you didn’t have anything to do with the hacking.”
A real wave of relief washed over Francie, and she closed her eyes for a moment to take a deep breath. She opened them again and asked, “Who was it?”
“Kevin Brenner, Tamara Lewis’s boyfriend,” Daria replied.
“Kevin? Kevin!” Disgust surged through Francie at the revelation. She pushed her chair back and almost rose before accepting the statement as the truth and falling back into the seat. “Oh,
ick
, to even imagine Kevin in my apartment, going through my things.”
Just saying the words left an awful taste in her mouth, and she scraped her tongue over her teeth as if she could remove both it and the idea. Then several impressions clicked in her brain. “He looks at me sometimes with a weird expression, as if he knows all my secrets and has a big one of his own.” She shuddered in revulsion and hugged herself. Kevin had broken into her home, but . . . “How on earth did he get in?”
“Francie, he had a key,” Daria said softly. “How could he have gotten it?”
“Tamara’s my best friend and lives across the courtyard. She has my key and I have hers so we can water each other’s plants and bring in the mail if one of us is traveling. He must have stolen it from her.”
Francie thought about her friend a few moments, then swung her gaze around the table, settling on Herb. “Look, I can’t believe Tamara is mixed up in this. We’ve been friends for a long time, ever since we were room-mates at UT. We’re like sisters, and I can guarantee her computer skills consist of word processing, spreadsheets, and accounting applications. She doesn’t have a dishonest bone in her body. There’s no way, no way at all, she could be hacking or be an accomplice to Kevin.”
That statement raised another problem in her mind, and she couldn’t help blurting out, “I have to tell her. Oh, my God, she’s going to be devastated to find this out about Kevin. What if she’s really serious about him? She hasn’t said so, but . . .”
“Francie, we can’t tell her,” Daria said. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because we have a plan to find out what Brenner is after, and we’d like you to help us with it,” Herb said. “We don’t know if he’s working on his own, or if he’s doing it for his employer. He works for NatChem, did you know that?”
“Our competitor? No, he never told me, and I didn’t ask. Tamara just said he was in sales, a manager, I think, but he never discussed business with me.” She clenched and unclenched her fists to lessen her seething tension. All she could think was,
That putrid son of a . . .
“Will you help us, Francie?” Herb asked.
Francie blinked at Herb’s question, then sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. She frowned at him for a moment while she contemplated his question. You bet she’d help. She’d do whatever it took to get back at the slimeball. She’d like to punch him in the nose. She’d like to see him roast in hell. She’d like to . . .
Stop
, she commanded herself. Throwing a hissy fit in front of her boss would not help the situation. With an effort, she grabbed hold of her roller-coastering emotions and couched her answer in calmer tones. “Certainly. What do you want me to do?”
Clay watched Francie calm herself down. She’d looked for a minute like she wanted to beat Brenner up. He raised his eyebrows at Daria, who nodded affirmatively, their prearranged signal that her spells had worked and Francie was telling the truth.
He’d been studying her while Herb and then Daria explained. Francie was quite the mousey little computer nerd. Well, maybe not so little. Only about five or six inches shorter than he was. He couldn’t tell much about her body in her bulky sweater. For once, he regretted the tendency in Houston, even in September, to keep buildings chilly to combat the outside heat, thus forcing women to wear jackets and sweaters indoors. He didn’t think much of her clothing choices, either—definitely bland, to go with the pulled-back blond hair and horn-rimmed glasses.
But then he noticed how fine and almost luminescent her skin was, how the streaks in her hair ranged from pale yellow to gold to almost amber, and how large her brown eyes were behind the glasses. They were sort of a smoky brown, not unlike his favorite single-malt Scotch, and the sharp and wary look in them as she reacted to his earlier statement lived up to Herb’s assessment of her intelligence. Clay speculated briefly that there might be more to her than his first impression of “computer nerd, female variety.”
Then she shifted in the chair and the sweater pulled tight across her chest.
Oh, my.
It appeared Ms. Mouse was by no means flat chested. In fact, the evidence indicated she was quite the opposite—in a word,
built
. He felt his body stir slightly, but he ignored it. Right now, he had a job to do.
From the corner of his eye, he observed the spell aura around his sister flare as she boosted the enchantments she had already cast on herself. Francie jumped just the smallest bit as the spells’ power increased. Like a small percentage of the nonpractitioner population, the woman wasn’t oblivious to magic. She didn’t appear alarmed, however, since she settled herself in her chair, her attention on her boss. She probably hadn’t even noticed anything. Good. Daria’s magic would work as it was supposed to.
Then he spoke, drawing Francie’s gaze directly to his. “We want to get close to Brenner, find out what he’s after, if his company is behind him or if this is simply a freelance effort on his part. He’s a lousy, inept hacker. He wanders around the system haphazardly. We can’t tell what he’s looking for, or if he’s even after any particular piece of information. We thought we’d frustrate his invasion attempts, then supply him with a real expert and see if he will take the bait of using someone who’s a better hacker than he is, who might be looking for easy money, and whose ethics match his.” Clay paused and drawled, “I’m to be that someone.”
He could almost see her mind working behind those big brown eyes. She appeared at first to be somewhat confused, but she seemed to pull herself together quickly after breaking eye contact with him.
She nodded slowly. “It might work. Kevin does seem to be ambitious. I’ve always thought there was something shady or untrustworthy about him. Something not quite right. How do you expect to get close to him?”
“By becoming your boyfriend.”
He had meant to say “posing as” instead of “becoming,” but once the words were out of his mouth, Clay realized he liked the idea very much. Despite her drab clothing, he was attracted to this woman. There was just something about her. He couldn’t quite decide what it was, but he felt its presence. He shrugged mentally; real attraction would make his playacting all the more convincing. He couldn’t help grinning at her reaction.
“Wh-what? M-m-my boyfriend?” Francie stared at him. What was he talking about? She almost reeled physically from the idea but managed just barely to keep her wits about her. She didn’t want or need a boyfriend. Certainly not him. Especially not him. His grin, however, was devastating—and challenging. On top of the confidence and arrogance, he was definitely a charmer, and he knew it.
She shook her head and attempted to marshal her arguments. Who would believe someone like Clay was interested in her? How would they possibly convince Kevin, and especially Tamara? What about her determination to keep away from men like him? She tried to put absolute conviction into her next words. “I really don’t believe your plan will work, Mr. Morgan.”
He waved his hand dismissively, and a mischievous glint sparkled in his eyes. “Nonsense. And under the circumstances, you’d better call me Clay.”
“I’m hardly your type.” She was beginning to get a little angry at his presumption and drew herself up primly. She welcomed the emotion. Anger might pull her out of this confused state. Didn’t the man have eyes in his head to see she was not interested in doing such a thing? There must be another way.
Evidently not, because he stated with more than a whiff of conceit, “This plan will work. An introduction through you is our best chance to find out what he’s up to. Remember, it’s your computer he’s using to hack. Until we know more from him, he can always claim you let him use it.”
He had a point there, she conceded, but only to herself. To him, she said, “How are we supposed to have met? Tamara knows my comings and goings and most of my friends. Won’t she be suspicious when you suddenly pop into my life?”
“We’ll say we met at the computer workshop Herb sent you to last month. Two computer geeks with a common interest.” He smiled, then sobered. “Oh, I just thought of something. Is there any other man in your life at the moment, Francie?”
“No,” and a shake of her head were all she felt capable of for an answer. Common interest, indeed. His smile seemed to bind them together. A shiver went down her spine as she had the sudden feeling he could see straight through all her defenses. Her breastbone began to itch severely, and she put a hand on her rib cage, pressing with her thumb to alleviate the torment in as ladylike a manner as she could.

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