Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (195 page)

He put his left hand to her cheek and stroked it along the side of her face. That hand reminded her of something.

She took his hand from her cheek and set it in his lap, then she covered his fingers with hers. “It’s been a couple of weeks now, but I bet the auxiliary battery still has some juice.”

“You’re going to activate it? Whatever for?” A note of wariness clouded his voice.

“Do you trust me?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Last night, Markov had forwarded the list of special features Chang had slipped into the implant. Some of them were interesting, to say the least.

First she opened her laptop and typed a command to connect to the implant, then looked into Ian’s eyes to see his reaction. He returned a trusting look.

“I’ll shut this off if it doesn’t work, promise.”

Now to activate the special state. She tapped his fingers in sequence: middle, ring, middle, index, middle. Instantly, Ian’s eyes widened. His breathing came in short, shallow gasps.

The reaction was so strong that Julia thought for a moment she’d made a mistake. “Are you alright?”

“My God, what is that?” His hand trembled on her thigh.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I’m fourteen and half a dozen naked cheerleaders jumped into the hot tub with me.”

She let out a laugh that sounded embarrassingly like a giggle, but Ian flushed in response, as if she’d said the most witty, erotic thing imaginable. This was going to be fun.

Julia leaned back slightly, unbuttoned her blouse with her free hand. Ian stared hungrily at what she was doing. In a moment, her blouse lay open and the only thing holding her breasts was a lacy green bra. His breathing had returned almost to normal, although he still looked flushed and a glance at his lap told her that other parts were aroused as well.

“There’s just one thing,” Ian said. “I’m not sure that I’ll last long in this condition, if you know what I mean. Fourteen-year-old boys aren’t exactly known for their stamina.”

“That’s the beautiful part,” she said. “Total arousal, combined with perfect control. How is that for a feature?” Chang, just messing around, had created the killer app that would make a billion dollars if it were ever released into the outside population.

“Wow. Maybe I should get that battery reinstalled. No, not really, I’m not
that
far gone…but, wow.”

Julia pushed him back onto the sofa. “This feature has never been tested, so naturally, we should put it through its paces.”

She straddled him and started to unbutton his shirt. “Subject is a white male, 29 years old.” She ran her fingernails along his chest muscles. He trembled.

“My God, Julia.” His breathing was heavy again.

“I could be reading my dry cleaning bill and you’d be horny. But you’re not the only one.”

“Keep talking, Dr. Nolan.”

He reached his hands to her bare shoulders but she playfully pushed them away. “Not now, I’m working.”

She unzipped her skirt and lifted it over her head. “Subject possesses excellent health, all vitals normal.” Julia pressed down with her hips onto his lap. “Personal equipment is in working order, subject is hereby cleared for sexual activity. Field trials commencing at 9:47 PM.” She pantomimed clicking off a tape recorder.

“Now, Agent Westhelle,” she said. “I don’t know how long that battery is going to last, so let’s make it count. Show me your best secret agent moves.”

Agent Westhelle’s best moves, as it turned out, were pretty damn good.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Michael Wallace’s other books include
The Righteous, The Devil’s Deep, Wolf Hook,
and
The Red Rooster
.

Jeffrey Anderson is the author of the science thrillers
Sleeper Cell
and
Second Genesis
.

Find Michael’s Books On Amazon

Visit
Michael Wallace’s web page
to sign up for his new releases list and receive a free copy of his Righteous novella, “Trial by Fury.” This mailing list is not used for any other purpose.

LITTLE GIRL GONE:

A LOGAN HARPER THRILLER

BRETT BATTLES

Copyright © 2011 by Brett Battles

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author.

Logan Harper isn't looking for redemption. He just wants to live in peace and forget his troubled past. But one morning his quiet life is upended when he interrupts the attempted murder of his father’s best friend Tooney.

The next thing Logan knows, he’s on his way to Los Angeles, searching for Tooney’s missing granddaughter and uncovering a sinister plot connected not only to Tooney’s Burmese past, but also to the boardrooms of corporate America.

As the odds stack up against him, Logan must fall back on old skills from the life he'd rather forget. He’s made a promise, and the only way to fulfill it is to bring the girl home alive.

CHAPTER ONE

“GET THE GIRL,” the voice whispered once more.

Slowly, Logan Harper opened his eyes. It had been the dream again, always the dream.

Get the girl.

He knew the words wouldn’t completely go away. They defined him now. He’d come to accept that. The best he could hope for was to force them to the back of his mind, and make them a distant whisper he could almost ignore.

Almost.

He reached for his cell phone a second before its alarm started softly beeping. 4:05 a.m. It was time to get up, and start pushing the words away.

Creating habits had been the key. He’d developed a strict schedule that allowed him to go from one task to the next to the next. In the two years since he moved back to his hometown of Cambria, California, he’d basically done the same things every day. In the mornings this meant a six-mile run, a shower, twenty minutes reading, then out the door to work.

The reading had been the hardest part. In the first few months, it had been almost impossible to concentrate on the words. His mind would drift back. He’d see things he didn’t want to see. Hear things he didn’t want to hear. But he kept at it, finally training himself to focus on the page and not on the past.

At 5:55 a.m., he would close whatever book he was reading, and head out. That Tuesday morning was no different.

Cambria was located on the Central Coast of California, almost exactly at the midpoint between Los Angeles in the south and San Francisco in the north. It had been a good place to grow up, but like most teenagers in small towns, Logan had seen it as confining. He couldn’t wait until he turned eighteen and could leave, and that was exactly what he did—Army, college, a great job at a defense contractor based in D.C. He was gone fifteen years before everything changed, and the only place that made sense for him to go was home.

Now, instead of small and confining, he would have said Cambria felt right. But that wasn’t really the truth. Nothing felt right to him. What Cambria was for Logan was a place where he could just be, and not worry if it was right or confining or safe or any of those kinds of things.

It was a way station between what was and…what? He had no idea.

At his normal walking pace, it was eleven minutes from the front door of his apartment above Adams Art Gallery to Dunn Right Auto Service and Repair where he worked as a mechanic, but only if he was heading straight there. His routine included a stop at Coffee Time Café for a large cup of French roast—black—and a toasted bagel with a light smear of cream cheese.

Tun Myat had owned Coffee Time for nearly two decades. He was a seventy-something-year-old Burmese man who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s, and a close friend of Logan’s dad, Neal “Harp” Harper, for nearly as long. He was always smiling, and never had a problem if a regular was a little short on cash. No one called him Tun, though. He was Tooney, even if you’d just met him.

As usual, the lights inside Coffee Time were all blazing when Logan arrived. He pushed on the door, but had to pull up short to keep from slamming into it when it didn’t open. He took a step back and looked at the sign propped in the front window. CLOSED still faced out.

Logan was pretty much Coffee Time’s first customer every day, and Tooney almost always made sure the door was unlocked before Logan showed up. Peering inside, he looked through the dining area, past the glass cabinet that housed the pastries, and into the visible section of the kitchen. He couldn’t see anybody, but Tooney had to be there somewhere. When Logan had run by an hour earlier, the lights had been off.

Chances were, Tooney was just running a little behind, and scrambling to get everything ready. If that were the case, he could probably use a little help, Logan thought. He decided to go around back and see.

Coffee Time was the second-to-last unit in a row of tourist-focused shops on Main Street. Logan headed around the last of the units, then toward the back. Just as he reached the end of the building, he heard a raised voice. He paused, worried he’d almost walked into something that was none of his business, then took a peek around the corner to gauge the situation.

Tooney had parked his old Ford Bronco directly behind the café like he always did, but this morning there was an unfamiliar Lexus sedan sitting beside it. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. People had been known to leave their cars back there on occasion.

The door to the café was open, spilling light onto the cracked asphalt. But whatever voice Logan had heard was silent now. It dawned on him that it could very possibly have been a radio with its volume set too loud when it had been turned on.

He rounded the corner, thinking that must have been it, but he only made it a couple of steps before he heard a heavy thud and a short, muffled yell.

Not a radio.

Tooney. There was no mistaking the voice.

Keeping as tight to the wall as possible, Logan moved to within ten feet of the open door.

The voice from moments earlier spoke out again, a man’s voice. Logan was close enough now to make out what he was saying. “Nod your head and tell me you understand,” the voice ordered. Logan had never heard it before. “Good. Now sit up.”