Flirting with Danger (10 page)

Jack cradled her in his arms and she curled into the embrace. His body radiated heat against the cool night air. Skye snuggled into him, content and at peace.

“I love you,” he whispered. The words were distinct, but muffled as his head was buried against her curls. She tilted her head, pressed a kiss to the edge of his jaw. She breathed in his scent, the faint musk of their mingled juices, and let a few heartbeats pass to show him she wasn’t merely mimicking the words back at him.

Letting her teeth graze his sensitive skin, she flicked her tongue out to swipe along his salty body.

“I love you, too,” she murmured huskily.

“We should plot our strategy. We’ll need backup and—”

Skye put a finger to Jack’s lips, silencing him. “Let’s get a few hours’ sleep. We have plenty of time for that later when we’re rested.”

His eyes roamed her face hotly, but after a moment’s thought he nodded. Reluctantly he climbed out of her embrace and padded over to the bathroom. She heard the water run in the basin and she stretched languorously. Leaving the bed, she straightened the sheets and covers then joined Jack in the bathroom to clean herself up.

Minutes later they were spooning under the duvet, the lights out and the covers drawn up to their chins. Skye sighed, happier and feeling more sated than she could have dreamed possible.

“I trust you to find him,” she whispered in the darkness, knowing her lover was not yet asleep from the pattern of his breathing. His arms tightened around her and she wriggled back, pressing her naked skin into the warmth of his body.

“With us both working together, we’ll get my dad back and I know he’ll be okay. I’m not sure I could believe it would be possible without you. Regardless of how awful the last day has been, I’m so glad it brought me to you. I can’t imagine my life without you in it any more.”

“You don’t need to try and imagine that,” Jack replied, his voice firm. “From this day onward, you will always have me in your life. By your side. I’m not going anywhere. You’re mine, Skye, and I’m yours. It’s as simple as that.”

Smiling, Skye turned slightly, tilting her head up, and pressed a kiss against Jack’s lips.

“I love you,” she repeated. Jack murmured to her, clearly on the edge of falling asleep. Skye snuggled back, content. In moments she, too, was asleep.

Chapter Six

“You guys certainly know how to throw a party,” Tank commented wryly as he led them into the back room of his pub. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve had such an entertaining evening. Do you play with the rough guys frequently, Skye? Victor always led me to believe you weren’t involved in his area of expertise.”

Skye laughed quietly and shook her head.

“Heavens, no. Last night was a first for me. I’m not involved in the same business as my father.”

Tank glanced at her sideways, a small smile twitching the corners of his mouth. He seemed amused. Skye wasn’t certain whether he believed her or not. Halting in front of the lockers, he turned to face her and Jack fully.

“May I see the key, please?” he asked. His tone seemed formal, as if this were part of some ritual.

Skye dug her hand into her pocket and drew the key she’d found in her picture frame out. She held it to him and he took it.

Turning it over, he squinted at it, then nodded as if satisfied.

He handed it back and she frowned and looked at the metal. Etched into the top was a series of six numbers.

“Sorry, had to be sure,” Tank apologised. With a tilt of his head to Jack, the large man left the room, giving them privacy.

Skye frowned, perplexed.

“Shouldn’t he remain behind to make sure we don’t do something dodgy?” she questioned.

Jack snickered.

“I have a feeling Tank is far more worried about retaining plausible deniability should it ever come to that. No one in their right mind would even consider stealing from that man.”

Skye had to admit her lover had a good point. She stepped forward to the locker and inserted her key into the shiny new lock. It turned easily. She pocketed it and opened the metal door.

A small black box roughly the size of an old-style video cassette tape sat within. Seconds before she reached to grab it she paused, her father’s voice echoing in her head as strongly as if he stood beside her.

‘Always make something important look easy. Your enemy will be so driven to grab it they won’t notice the trap you’ve set until it’s too late. A clever person always assumes if it looks simple it rarely is’.

She snatched her hand back as if she’d been burned.

“What is it?” Jack snapped, his arm whipping around her and drawing her back protectively.

“I just remembered this is my dad we’re dealing with,” she replied. “I should check for traps before I stumble blindly in and lose a finger.”

“If this were anyone but Victor I’d insist they’d never have given it a thought. I think most people would assume the measures they’d made so far were enough protection for anything they wanted kept safe. But I know your father too well to believe that would be the case. Ever. Maybe I should do this.”

“No, I have it. I should just think before I act,” Skye insisted. Carefully she checked around the opening of the locker for trip wires or any indication there was a security device or explosives connected to the box or the locker itself.

Satisfied that the locker was clean, Skye removed the small box. Turning it over in her hand, she discovered, as they’d been told, that it was indeed a hard drive. She noted the portals where connections could be plugged in.

“It’s a portable hard drive,” she declared, but then sighed as reality hit her. “Which means it could contain practically anything at all. We’re still not really any closer to understanding a blind thing about this.”

“We’re loads closer,” Jack insisted. “We know some very bad people want whatever information is on this drive. We also know it’s in electronic format, which means it should be fairly straightforward to encrypt it.”

“Why don’t we just corrupt it, keep them from accessing it. Hell, while we’re at it, why don’t we just destroy this entirely? Whatever is on here is not something we want to fall into terrorist hands.”

“It’s quite possible whoever was smart enough to take Victor by surprise and abduct him is smart enough to test the hard drive before handing your father over to us. We can’t risk destroying the data in case they kill Victor—and us—because we tried to play in the big boys’ league.”

Skye digested that, her stomach sinking. She knew in her heart her father would be angry when he saw she was prepared to hand over the hard drive for his safe return. She couldn’t even blame him—his outrage would be justified. But he was her dad and that fact stood out, far more important than any vague terrorist network, than any unidentified data he’d worked so hard to protect. She couldn’t give him up for something as stupid as intelligence data.

She knew he’d be frustrated that she’d willingly handed over what he’d give his life to protect—but he was her dad. She adored him. His life was more important than countless strangers who might possibly be affected by her actions. Besides, she and Jack were no slouches—they’d figure something out.

“We need to slow them down without destroying the data,” she insisted. “You’re right, we can’t corrupt or destroy it, but we should be able to buy time. I’m not tech savvy enough to do it myself, are you?”

Jack shook his head.

“Not properly enough that they’ll do their tests and scans, deem it clean and hand your father back to us without realising what I’ve done. We’ll need professionals for that.”

For what felt like the dozenth time that morning, Skye tried to bring the image of the dark-haired, bearded man from the alley back into her mind. Had it been Garth? Was he really involved in this or had her overactive imagination been working overtime yet again?

She was almost positive it hadn’t been Garth’s voice on the phone, but that was easily explained. He could have had an underling make the call. Even with her father there, he couldn’t have risked identifying Garth to her over the phone. But at the same time her father hadn’t been shy about risking their wrath to convince her not to hand over the hard drive. Skye looked up, caught Jack’s electric gaze in her own.

Putting the moment off, she closed the metal door to the locker and slowly replaced the padlock, clicking it shut and securing her father’s box once again. She put the key in her pocket as Jack watched her, waiting patiently.

“Before the flamethrower ignited last night I thought I caught sight of a man. Tall. Dark-haired. Clipped beard. My initial instinct was it might have been Garth, but then I thought not. I honestly don’t know whether to believe my gut or my following certainty it wasn’t him. We can’t contact the Agency directly, my father is convinced this can’t be trusted to them, but we can’t stall these people without some extra help.”

“We need to trust someone. Victor felt Garth was a good man. He trusted him enough to mentor him, take him on as a partner,” Jack reminded her. Skye nodded.

“But he went alone on this mission, not trusting anyone from the Agency,” she pointed out.

“I think we can hedge our bets with Garth here,” Jack insisted. “Calling the Agency means involving the mole for certain. We have a chance of not having our plan leaked if we go with Garth here. Added to that, even if Garth is the leak he will already know about the exchange. He might slip up and give us evidence to have him prosecuted if we bring him in now.”

“Assuming he doesn’t kill us or my father.”

“Does your instinct think the man you saw last night was Garth? Your gut reaction to the thought?”

“No,” she said, though she frowned as she still debated within herself. “I really can’t be certain, but I don’t believe it in my heart. Not yet, not without more proof.”

“I say we call him,” Jack replied. “He will have access to toys we can’t imagine and will be handy as backup for the exchange itself. Victor is your father, though. I’ll leave the final decision up to you.”

Skye weighed the portable hard drive in her hand, thinking deeply. She wasn’t prepared to let her father suffer for whatever resided on the drive. That was certain. Neither did she want to let classified or dangerous information fall into enemy hands. The compromise would be to risk trusting Garth only to be proven wrong in the hope that they could stall their nemesis long enough to rescue her father.

The plan held weight. Sure, it had holes and could backfire, but it was the only middle road she could think of at such short notice. She would have to trust her own inner instincts as well as those of her father. It would have to be good enough for now.

“We’ve lost my phone and I don’t want to linger here and possibly get Tank in even more trouble than we’ve already brought to his door. I say we call Garth from somewhere else, preferably somewhere we can talk.”

“If Garth has access to a discretionary Agency slush fund similar to the one I’ve seen Victor use, he can pick up the tab to a much better hotel room than we could ever afford,” Jack suggested.

Skye chortled.

“I bet he could even hand in receipts and get repaid legitimately if we pull off the rescue of my father,” she agreed, amused by the thought.

Skye slid her backpack from her back, unzipped it and carefully placed the hard drive at the bottom, underneath her clothes and photos. Shaking the bag to be certain it was balanced and some jostling wouldn’t upset either the drive or her precious photos, she nodded.

Shrugging the bag back on, she straightened her shoulders, satisfied with the solid feeling of the small but noticeable extra weight.

“Feels good,” she murmured as they headed for the door.

“What does, darling?” Jack asked.

“The feeling that we’re making progress, achieving something, getting closer to rescuing my father, all of the above,” she replied.

“That lump in your stomach, or your chest, that knowledge that we’re moving forward? That’s what I feel when I can tell a case is coming together, when I know I’m unearthing the truth and things are falling into place. It’s addictive after a while, like when you can finally see the big picture, or when you’re certain the puzzle is coming to a resolution.”

“Garth and my father must feel it all the time, too, when a mission is solidifying, or going to plan. No wonder you’re all adrenaline junkies,” she mused.

Jack cast her a quick glance, a smile tilting his mouth upwards. “Oh, please, you can’t possibly expect me to believe you’re not running high, adrenaline surging as you can feel this speed up and really get moving? I can see the bounce in your step.”

Skye exchanged a quick smile with him as they came back out into the main bar area.

“Well, maybe. Doesn’t mean I’d like to get addicted to this rush, though. The highs are wonderful, but I have a feeling after a while the lows would crush me.”

“It’s why most of us retire after only a handful of years,” Jack replied, his tone gentle. “It takes an inner core of pure steel, or a really soul-deep motivation to keep on going in this industry.”

Even if Skye had a response to that, she’d not have been able to reply. They came to where Tank stood, stacking glasses in their places. He raised an eyebrow at them.

“Found what you were searching for?” he asked, not seeming overly interested in the details of the answer, but more asking from manners.

“We did, thank you,” Jack replied and held out his hand. Tank shook it warmly and Skye followed her lover’s lead.

“Glad to be of service. I hope whatever you’re working on goes smoothly.”

“Thanks, Tank. We appreciate your help,” Skye answered with a smile.

“Come on back one night. I’ll cover your drinks. I’d love to hear some of your stories.”

Both Jack and Skye promised they would, then headed to the door and back out on to the street.

Without needing to speak, they both turned in a random direction and walked for a while in companionable silence. After a distance Jack reached down and took her hand in his. She moved almost imperceptibly closer so that their shoulders brushed and they walked side by side as if they’d done it a million times before.