She Who Dares, Wins (3 page)

F
OR SOMEONE WHO THRIVED
on punctuality, Katie had made a mess of her appointments the past twenty-four hours. After waking up at five in the morning, naked in her bed, it had taken her a few minutes to discern where she was. Mortified, she realized she'd fallen asleep while Mac was still there. By the time she'd opened her eyes he was long gone.

At first she was disappointed he hadn't left a note, but she quickly admonished herself. It was about the moment and having some fun—hadn't her friend Mar told her to do exactly that? Once this case was over, she'd been ordered to take some time off and relax. It had been years since Katie had had a vacation—she wasn't sure she remembered how.

In fact, she might stay at the Dorchester and enjoy the amenities. The two-bedroom suite Mar had insisted Katie stay in was bigger than her entire apartment in Texas, and it was the most luxurious place she'd ever slept in. There were two bedrooms in case she had to move the professor to a safer location. The bathtub alone was as big as a boat, and in the daylight she'd explored
the cavernous suite to discover everything from state-of-the art electronics to a showerhead with so many different spouts it felt as if she was getting a massage.

She'd called the university at eight to set an appointment with the dean and the professor. The dean's assistant told her he wasn't in, but she did set a meeting with the professor. The appointment was for nine, and Katie was stuck in traffic that was worse than midtown Manhattan during rush hour.

Great. She couldn't call the school from the car because in her foggy state earlier in the morning, she'd accidentally plugged her phone and computer into the socket before she realized she'd used the wrong adapter. A zip and a pop later, both were fried.

Katie had congratulated herself for not tossing both of the electronics out the French doors of her suite. Using the hotel phone she'd called Mar and told her what had happened. Her friend had laughed.

“Even if you use the right adapter, half the time it'll fry your electronics. I should have warned you,” Mar apologized.

“It's not your fault. I picked the package of adapters up at the airport, but I must have read the instructions wrong.”

“No worries, Katie. We'll have new, fully loaded electronics to you by tomorrow.”

Mar didn't know Katie's entire life was on her phone and computer. She felt naked without them. The upside was her busy family couldn't contact her. She'd find a way to phone or email her mom later and let her know she was safe. Otherwise, that would be all she heard for the next two months. No less than ten voice mails a day about what an ungrateful daughter she was.

Katie chuckled. More than once Mar had told her to appreciate how lucky she was to have a family who cared so much.

The McClures cared too much, as far as Katie was concerned.

While she waited in the cab she ran over the mental notes she'd made the day before. The professor's research had something to do with food sources for third world countries. For some reason, the government was involved and the project was under extreme security.

It was her job to determine if the threats were real and to protect him until they could figure out what was going on. She'd look after the dotty old man and see what she could find out. The physical evidence would be her first priority. There was so much more they could do now with the state-of-the-art labs at Stonegate.

“Almost there, miss, the building on the right,” the cab driver said. In the heart of London she'd expected a bunch of historic buildings, since the college had been around a few hundred years. There were some of those across the street, but this science building was a modern expanse of glass and steel.

After paying the cab, she walked in. The redheaded security officer, with a name badge claiming he was George, checked her credentials carefully. Then he asked to see her bag, and he seemed to linger over the small pocket where she'd stored her makeup. Picking up her perfume, he sniffed and closed his eyes.

When he glanced up and saw her eyebrow up, he quickly put the perfume back and closed the bag.

“Good to go, then.” He handed her an access card with his face flushed. “Use this in the lift to go to the third floor.”

On the third floor she followed the numbers until she reached the steel door that read Lab 314. Using the card she entered.

“Please strip and step into the shower. Then walk through the back door, where you'll find a suit,” a voice said through a speaker as soon as she entered a narrow hallway. It was all white with a shower and hooks on the wall. Katie rolled her eyes. “Is that really necessary? I'm here to see Professor Macon Douglas.”

“Have you been traveling?” the voice said through the box.

“Yes.”

“Then you'll have to wear a suit to talk to the professor. We can't risk spore contamination.”

Great. Whatever.

She pulled off her black blazer and hopped on one foot and then the other so she could slip off her boots. The white T-shirt and dark jeans, her everyday uniform now, were next. If the pervy lab assistant watched her, he was about to get an eyeful as she lost the black thong and matching bra. Nudity wasn't something she was that modest about. She'd grown up in a house with brothers, where privacy was a luxury.

She stepped into the shower, surprised when a soft powdery mist coated her skin instead of water. The powder, which had a strange pine-and-earth scent, dissipated as soon as it touched her, but it left her feeling fresher than when she'd stepped in. After thirty seconds it shut off.

“I feel like I'm in some weird sci-fi movie,” she whispered.

The metal door on the other side of the dry shower slid open and she made her way through into another
room not much bigger than a walk-in closet. The suit the voice had mentioned was nothing more than sweats, none of which fit her five-foot-three, petite frame. She found the one labeled Small and tied the string as tight as she could around her waist. The sweatshirt swallowed her, and dark green was so not her color, but she pushed up the sleeves and made it work.

I should have demanded we meet in the dean's office. This is crazy.

Once she was dressed, another door clicked open and she pushed her way through into the lab, which was filled with computer equipment, strange machines and a giant dry erase board with all kinds of equations on it.

A man dressed in jeans had his back to her. He was tall and lanky and looked just like—

“What are you doing here?” Katie couldn't believe her eyes when he turned around.

“Hi,” Mac said. “You…work here?”

He nodded.

“Are you Dr. Douglas's assistant? Why didn't you tell me last night?”

“I'm not his assistant exactly.” Mac cleared his throat. He reached out a hand, “Hi, I'm Dr. Macon Douglas. I know I should have done that last night, but…”

Katie couldn't believe it. This had to be some crazy joke. She stared at his hand and back to his face, her brain failing to register what had happened.

Oh, hell, I slept with a client. Well, technically there was no sleeping involved.

It had been one of the most passionate nights of her life and it was all a farce.

Katie's jaw tightened. “So you misrepresented yourself to me so you could get into my pants.”

Mac moved closer to her, but she took a step back.

He held up a hand. “It wasn't like that at all. At first it was a joke with Timothy the bartender. But then, well, I enjoyed your company and I had a feeling if I told you the truth that would be that.”

Katie's nostrils flared, and her fist tightened ready to punch his nose so hard it would go out the back of his head. She forced herself to take a deep breath as she stared at him for a full twenty seconds, working hard to keep her temper under control. When all was said and done, he was a client and she had to be respectful. It was the only thing that kept her from kicking him in the nards and shoving a fist in his nose. She didn't like being made a fool of, and he'd done exactly that.

When Katie didn't speak, Mac reached a hand out to her again, but she shook her head.

“Katie, please. I felt such a connection with you last night. I know what I did was wrong, but to be honest you didn't disclose that much about yourself, either. We talked about our families, but never what we did for a living.”

He could explain the situation as many ways as he wanted. She wasn't sure she could ever forgive him. Best to focus on the case, and try to forget the night before.

Yeah, like that's going to happen.

Katie pulled her shoulders back. “Dr. Douglas, do you have the voice recordings and copies of the letters involved with your case?”

“I… What?”

“The threats, do you have copies? Or did you give everything to the dean? I need to begin as quickly as
possible so we can wrap this up.” It was hard to sound professional while wearing giant green sweats, in addition to the whole being-humiliated thing, but she was a professional.

Damn him.

She'd have to put a dollar in the swear dog bank she had at home. As a cop in the Bronx her language had been colorful, but she'd been working hard on her abrasive nature so she didn't scare away the Stonegate clients. She'd bought the cute puppy bank to encourage her to clean up her mouth.

Mac stared at her as if she had two heads. “Do I need to repeat myself?” Katie asked, her tone clipped.

His enthusiasm deflated, and his eyebrows furrowed with concern. Good. It served him right.

“I have the originals of the two tapes and one of the letters. The dean has the rest.”

“The rest? How long has this been going on?” She mentally checked the facts she had in her head. From what they'd been told by the dean, this had been happening for only a few weeks.

Mac cleared his throat again and moved toward a file cabinet. Pulling out a folder, he handed it to her. “The calls began about six months ago. The letters about two weeks ago, and to be honest it's nothing. Scientists run into this sort of thing all the time. It's nothing to be alarmed about.”

Katie didn't believe that. “What do you mean it happens all the time?”

“Those of us who work on government-sponsored projects get threats all the time. The work is secretive and highly classified. People assume it's weapons of
mass destruction, and that pushes them to do all kinds of things.”

“That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,” Katie said. Though she had no doubt there were people in the world who would do exactly that. It was insane to threaten someone without having any clue as to what they were really working on.

“I assure you I'm speaking the truth.” Mac acted as if he were offended.

“I don't doubt the validity of what you're saying, Dr. Douglas. I was calling the people who would do such a thing ridiculous, not you.”

“Oh,” he said.

She took out the plastic gloves she kept in her bag and slipped them on her hands. Opening the folder, she read the letter carefully.

“Stop your research or die!”

The words had been typed. She sniffed the paper. It had been printed off on a printer. Excellent. That was her first lead. “I'll need to take this and have it tested in our lab,” she told the professor.

“I don't know what good that will do, Katie. My fingerprints are all over it.”

She shook her head. “I'm not worried about prints, though I'll have them check for those, too. I want to find out about the ink. If I know the source of the ink, that gives me the type of printer, and the watermark on the paper is easy to trace.”

After placing the paper in an evidence bag, she pulled out the flash drive with the calls on it. The dean and professor had digitally recorded the messages, which made it easier for her. Normally she'd pop it into her computer, but she couldn't do that.

“Do you have a computer I can borrow? My laptop is down.” No reason to explain her idiocy to the man. “Sure.”

He reached under the table and pulled out a laptop. “You can use this as much as you want. We have two extras in the lab.”

“Thanks,” she said, not bothering to look up. She waited for the computer to boot up and attached the flash drive.

The voice was mechanical, and she knew immediately the caller had used a cheap synthesizer. The message was the same as the one on the paper.

“This person isn't very original,” she said. Her office had the equipment to separate the voices, and there was a good chance they would be able to tell her in a matter of days if it were male or female and what kind of accent.

“I agree with you.” Mac sat on a stool at the end of the long steel table. He'd been watching her carefully while she worked, and it took everything she had not to look up at him. As mad as she was at him about his deception, their night had been unforgettable. At least the bulky sweats hid her perky nipples tight with the need for Mac's touch. “That's why I don't think it's that big of a deal.”

“I have to disagree. This, along with the accidents, makes me think we're dealing with individuals or a small group who mean you harm. The threats are escalating, and that's never good. You need to take these seriously. I have no doubt these people want you dead.”

M
ACON HAD LOST HIS MIND.
It was as simple as that. This pint-size pixie told him someone wanted to kill him, and all he could think about was kissing her soft red lips. He'd had to sit down on the stool to keep her from seeing the hardness under his jeans, caused by the way she pursed her lips when she was thinking.

The woman was an enigma. One minute she was pure sex, the next a professional detective. He wasn't sure which one he liked best. Everything about her was sexy. Though he didn't think this was the right time to tell her so.

The emotions playing over her face when she'd realized what had happened the night before had been surprise, anger and then something he couldn't identify. He had a feeling she used that look when she had criminals under interrogation.

He'd royally screwed up. Still, he wouldn't change the night for anything. In fact, he'd do just about anything to make it happen again. Unfortunately, it would take a great deal of coaxing to get her to acquiesce. Katie had
a tough side, and forgiving him would be difficult for her, which made him want to try all the more.

She'd listened to the recordings again, her face a mass of concentration. What was it about her that had him so tied up in knots?

The last thing he needed in his life was a complicated woman, and Katie was certainly that. He didn't have time for someone nosing into his life, especially with curves that—No. He needed to get rid of this woman and get back to work. As soon as he thought the words, he knew there was no way they were true. He wanted her again, and he wasn't ready to let her go just yet.

“You weren't what I expected.” She glanced around his laboratory.

“What do you mean?” He was more than curious about that statement.

“To be honest, I expected the elderly professor type.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said with a smile.

She didn't return it. Yes, she was one tough woman.

“Tell me again why you and the dean are keeping Scotland Yard out of this? Seems to me that would be the first place to turn.”

Mac frowned. “We can't risk it right now,” he said. “As I mentioned before, this is highly classified research. The cops would want to snoop into my work, and I'm at a crucial point right now. I can't afford someone accidentally leaking information. The dean didn't want to involve the police in order to protect the university's reputation. He knew I wasn't going to call anyone because of the nature of what I'm working on. You and your company were the dean's idea.”

“I detect some sarcasm in there,” she said as she
popped the flash drive into another evidence bag. “The dean may very well have saved your life. As I mentioned before, these threats are real, and they will continue to escalate. It's important we find the culprits as quickly as possible before they can do any more harm.”

“So what is your plan?”

“First, I'll send these off to the lab. We'll have results in a few days. I could send them somewhere here, but my forensic lab at the agency is state-of-the-art and one of the best in the world. If there's something to discover, they'll find it.

“Until then, we follow up on leads here. I need a list of everyone who may have had access to your research now and in the past.”

“You don't think it's someone who would have worked in the lab, do you?”

She wrote something down on the notebook she carried. “Dr. Douglas, at this point everyone who has come in contact with you over the last year is a suspect.”

She couldn't be serious. “There's no way it's someone here at the university.”

Peering up from her notebook, she gave him a wary look. “You're too trusting. Until we solve this case, no one comes into your lab except necessary personnel. With security like this, there shouldn't be much trouble while you work,” she continued. “Have you had incidents in the lab?”

He shook his head. Every time she glanced at him, he wanted to reach out and touch her. Her auburn hair hung straight and shiny to her chin, and she shoved parts of it behind her ears. It was her voice, deep and filled with sex, that made his groin tighten even more, and his lungs
struggle for air. There was a slight overpronunciation of certain vowels. He found it fascinating.

She snapped her fingers in front of his face and he realized he'd probably been staring at her like a cat after a canary. “Can you focus a minute and answer my questions? I need information. Has someone tried to hurt you here in the lab?”

“No, and they are not
incidents.
Unlike the dean, I do not believe what happened to me is related in any way. I have a long history of unfortunate mishaps. I have a tendency to bury my mind in my work and I don't take notice of the world around me. I am a complete cliché and fully admit to being an absentminded professor. And unfortunately, I'm often in the wrong place at the wrong time. I consider it a quirky trait. The dean finds it bothersome.”

She grinned slightly at that as her pink fingernail tapped a distracting beat on the steel table. “So you weren't mugged a block from the university and run off the road twice in the last two weeks?”

Before he could answer she held up a hand. “And there were phone calls to the dean's voice mail. Both making comments that promised physical harm should you continue your research.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

He guessed if one were to line up the events in such a way, it might look as if something was going on.

“Yes, those things did happen.” Macon cleared his throat.

“Why don't you let me decide what's the best course of action, then?” She turned away from him. “The car accidents took place near a summer home? Correct? And you were mugged where?”

“About a block from my flat.” The woman was determined. He'd give her that.

His eyes followed her as she circled the lab. She was one of those people who found it difficult to stand still for more than a few moments. He could tell by the way she constantly moved or fidgeted. She glanced out the window as if she was searching for something. Then she returned to where he sat.

She started to speak and was interrupted by a large gurgling sound. Her olive-skinned cheeks turned a delightful shade of pink.

Macon glanced at his watch. “Let me guess—you skipped breakfast.”

She bit her lip. “I was busy solving some problems with work this morning.”

That meant she hadn't eaten in more than twelve hours. He'd gone longer when working in the lab, but he knew it wasn't healthy. There was also this strange part of him that wanted to take care of her. The least he could do was give her a decent meal after what he'd put her through today.

“Why don't we head to the café at the student center?” He had started to mention a restaurant, but worried it was too early in the day for it to be open.

“I'm fine.” Her tone was clipped and professional. She'd been embarrassed.

“Well, I could use a snack. I haven't had anything this morning.” He shoved his laptop into a bag with a couple of notebooks. He'd been working on several equations when she'd arrived. “Perhaps I'll be better able to answer your questions with a full stomach.”

“I guess if you're hungry, a break is okay. Though I had hoped to jump right in with the investigation.”

Macon shrugged. “An hour for a meal can't hurt,” he said. “And I'll keep my promise to answer any questions you might have.”

Leading the way, he pushed in the code for the exit. Once they were through the two sets of doors, he pointed to another entry. “If you go through there, you'll find your clothing. I'll meet you out in the hallway in a few minutes.”

She walked away, but stopped as her hand touched the doorknob. “What do I do with the sweat suit?”

“There's a hamper to your right when you walk in. The cleaning staff takes care of them for me.”

“Thanks.”

Even in the oversize sweats the woman oozed sex, and as she walked away he remembered his hands on her backside the night before.

Concentrate,
Macon admonished.
Only days ago your purpose was to get rid of her. Answer her questions, help her to see logic, so by this time tomorrow she'll be gone.

There was one problem. Macon wasn't sure he wanted their time to end quite so quickly. The woman in the next room was an interesting specimen and unfortunately he wanted to know everything about her.