Navy Seal Spy
Man meat, indeed.
Had Liam picked her out of the crowd as easily as she had him? As she studied his face across the room, he looked up and met her eyes as if he knew exactly where she’d been standing all along.
Closing her eyes, she allowed herself one delicious shiver as she relived their meeting in the stairwell last night and once again felt Liam’s arms around her. He’d smelled precisely as she remembered—fresh like an ocean breeze, manly and strong.
Her eyelids flew open. And now he was part of Tempest—the enemy.
Pradeep Singh tapped the microphone at the front of the room, and the other managers lined up behind him. Their boss, Mr. Romo, was absent as usual. Ginger took a position to Pradeep’s right, folding her hands loosely in front of her, the business suit, glasses and chignon sending a demure, professional vibe.
But Katie knew better.
“Hello, everyone.” Pradeep waved his hands. “There are some seats up front, but we won’t keep you too long.”
Not many in the crowd took him up on his offer, so he continued.
“I know some of you have been hearing rumors this morning, and some of you early risers heard sirens and may have even seen the ambulance.”
Katie swallowed and hung on to her purse strap. Here it comes.
Pradeep cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to report that one of our own, Garrett Patterson, died at the compound last night.”
A few gasps and oohs and aahs rippled through the room, and Ginger leaned toward Pradeep, covering the mic with her hand as she whispered something in his ear.
Pradeep nodded once. “Garrett had a heart attack in his office last night—in this very building on the fourth floor.”
A wave of sympathetic murmurs swirled through the cafeteria, but Katie felt the air brimming with tension. Was it just the fact that a coworker had died in the building, or did the Tempest employees sense something more? She glanced around the room at the concerned and sad faces—emotions totally in keeping with the announcement.
She continued to scan the crowd and like a magnet, her eyes locked on to Liam’s. Even from this distance she could feel the intensity of his gaze. He’d probably taken note that Garrett had keeled over on the fourth floor—the floor she’d been exiting when she bumped into him on the stairwell. Liam didn’t miss much—except when it came to emotion.
Ginger stepped up to the mic next. “We’ll be taking up a collection for flowers for Garrett’s wife. The memorial service will be back East, so please pay your respects with a little donation.”
Katie clenched her jaw at Ginger’s phony, saccharine tone. Pradeep droned on for a bit more, but she’d tuned out. They’d put the heart attack story out there, and apparently had no trouble selling it to the EMTs who’d responded this morning.
Would that be the end of it? Could she phone in an anonymous tip to the police to check for some sort of heart attack-inducing drug?
“Earth to KC.” Samantha snapped her fingers in front of Katie’s face.
Pradeep had stopped speaking, and the crowd had begun shuffling back to their work areas, talking in low voices.
“Psst.” Samantha pinched her arm. “Let’s exit the same way the agents are exiting.”
“A coworker just died and that’s all you can think about?”
“Between you and me—” Samantha looked both ways “—Garrett had a roving eye. The few times I talked to him, he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze at eye level, if you know what I mean.”
“So he deserves to drop dead at his desk for being a perv?”
“Was he at his desk?” Samantha cocked her head. “I didn’t hear them say where he was.”
Katie shrugged. “Pradeep said he was found in his office, so I just assumed he was at his desk.”
Samantha herded her across the room to the farthest exit door where Liam and the other agents were headed. Would Liam think she was trying to get close to him?
She and Samantha jostled for position, and someone bumped her purse from behind. Gripping the strap, she glanced over her shoulder.
“Sorry.” Liam dropped his eyes to her purse and then stared straight ahead as if she was just another Tempest office worker—not someone who’d shared his bed for eight delicious months two years ago.
As the workers fanned out into the hallway, Samantha poked her in the back. “You see? It worked. One of them actually said something to you.”
“Yeah, he said sorry for bumping into my purse after you pushed me in front of him.”
“Well, that’s a start.”
“Start of some trouble. We’re not supposed to be fraternizing with those guys.” Katie flashed her badge at the reader by the office door, and the red light turned to green.
“I’d like to fraternize one or two of them.” Samantha winked and then ducked into her cubicle.
Katie dropped into her chair and hunched forward to open her bottom desk drawer to put her purse away. As she wedged it into the drawer, she noticed the corner of a white card sticking out of the side pocket.
Pinching it between two fingers, she pulled it free. The words jumped out at her.
Behind the bleachers at noon.
She recognized the writing as Liam’s, and her heart skipped a beat. Should she risk it? She might be able to wheedle some information out of him. She had special ways of handling Liam McCabe—or at least she used to.
She had to find out what he knew. The notebook she’d snatched from Patterson’s office last night had been a bust—just a bunch of abbreviations, a series of numbers and meeting notes.
The rest of the morning crawled by. Samantha popped in to let her know she had to bail on lunch for a meeting with her boss in accounting, which saved Katie from bailing herself.
When the clock on her computer read ten minutes to twelve, Katie grabbed her purse and ducked into the lunchroom to get her sandwich from the fridge. She’d better have some cover for being out at the track on her lunch hour.
Glancing at the gray skies, she turned up the collar of her jacket and crossed the quad. If it started raining, she’d have to abandon the meeting with Liam, and he’d have to reschedule it—or not. What did he want with her, anyway?
She slipped behind the building on the north side of the quad, put her head down and marched toward the gym that had a track behind it. Tempest had taken over an old high school for its compound and had remodeled most of the buildings on campus, even adding dorm-type living quarters for the recruits, but the track and the indoor pool had been maintained.
Employees were allowed to use the gym, but only before and after regular work hours. Tempest wanted to keep the agent recruits and the rest of the employees apart, unless the job directly involved the agents—hers didn’t, not yet, anyway.
A few people were jogging around the track, and she realized one of them was Liam. She settled on the second to last row of the bleachers and pulled out her lunch and a book. Ignoring the runners, she ate her sandwich with her book propped open on her knees.
Liam broke away from the track and started jogging up and down the bleachers. On one of his trips down, his pace slowed as he passed her. He panted. “Underneath the bleachers.”
She wadded up her brown paper bag and stepped down from the second row. She wandered to the trash can at the back of the bleachers, tossed away her trash and then ducked beneath the bleachers, stepping over the bars crisscrossing the open space. She could still hear Liam’s feet as they rang against the metal steps above her.
Less than five minutes later, Liam joined her beneath the bleachers, steam rising from his flesh, damp with sweat. His musky scent pulsed off him in waves, drawing her in, making him seem closer than he was.
His blond hair, away from the sun and surf, had darkened to a burnt gold, but his blue eyes still sparkled like the ocean on a clear day. She curled her hands into fists to squelch the urge to run her fingers through his hair.
“What do you want?” Angry with herself for responding to him in the old familiar ways, her tone came out as harsh as the raw, cold day.
“That guy, Patterson, died in his office on the fourth floor.”
She brushed a speck of dirt from the sleeve of her jacket. “Yeah, I know. I was at the same meeting as you.”
“You—” he leveled a finger at her “—were on the fourth floor of building S last night, flying down the staircase like you’d seen a ghost.”
“Well, I didn’t see Garrett Patterson, if that’s what you’re implying, and if I had, I would’ve reported his...death instead of chatting about old times with you in the stairwell.” She widened her stance and dug her heels into the rubber track beneath her feet.
“Old times? I don’t remember any walk down memory lane. You were too busy telling me to keep my mouth shut about knowing you...KC Locke.”
“Have you been checking me out?”
His eyes flickered. “If we’re going to pull off this pretense, I figured it was best if I knew what you were calling yourself.”
“KC Locke.” She stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
He took her hand and circled the inside of her wrist with his thumb. “KC, Kathryn Claire Locke—that’s the name you used when you were in the foster care system. How does Tempest not know that you started calling yourself Katie and changed your last name to your mother’s maiden name, O’Keefe, when you left the system?”
“Shh. I have friends in low places.”
“Yeah, more like you used your mad skills with a computer.” He tightened his grip on her wrist. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here under an assumed name?”
She leaned in close just to catch another whiff of him. “I’m going to tell you that Garrett Patterson had a heart attack, and I wasn’t there when it happened.”
Dropping her hand, he lifted one shoulder. “Don’t play with fire, Katie.”
“You should’ve warned me about that two years ago in San Diego.” She hunched into her jacket and stepped out from beneath the bleachers.
With her hands stuffed in her pockets and her head down to ward off the chilly wind, she strode toward the track to cross it. Would he come after her? He couldn’t. They couldn’t be seen together out in the open.
She wandered across the track, sniffing back the tingles in her nose. Then a sharp voice interrupted her daydreams.
“Stop right where you are, or I’ll drop you where you stand.”
Chapter Three
All of Liam’s senses ramped up to high alert but instead of charging from beneath the bleachers to defend Katie like he wanted to, he flattened his body against the metal bars that crisscrossed his hiding place. He wouldn’t be doing either one of them any favors by rushing out to protect her. Besides, a Tempest security guard wouldn’t shoot an employee in cold blood...would he?
He peered through the bars, his heart hammering against his chest at the sight of Katie with her arms in the air, a weapon pointed at her back.
A woman’s voice cut through the air. “Meyers, put down that gun.”
The security guard lowered his weapon as he stammered. “I—I—I’m sorry, Ms. Spann, but civilian employees aren’t supposed to be out here on the track.”
Ginger Spann waved her long fingers in the air. “The infraction of that rule is certainly not punishable by death. Turn around, dear.”
Katie turned to face the duo, and Liam had to give her credit. She didn’t shift her gaze once in his direction, although she had to know he was still ensconced beneath the bleachers.
He couldn’t see her expression since the security guard was now blocking her face, but he could feel ice coming off her in waves, making the chilly air even crisper.
“What is going on? I come outside to eat my lunch in the fresh air and I’m held at gunpoint?” She shook her empty sandwich bag, which she’d pulled from her pocket, in the security guard’s face.
“I agree, KC.” Ginger tilted her head to one side. “It is KC, isn’t it? Down in programming?”
Katie worked in programming? That made total sense...and could be useful.
“That’s right, and you’re Ginger Spann. I just saw you at the all-hands meeting.”
“So sad about Garrett Patterson. Maybe that’s why we’re all on edge.” She turned to the security guard. “Meyers, apologize to Ms. Locke.”
Meyers shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s just that we have strict orders about this area of the—”
“That’s enough, Meyers. You can return to whatever it was you were doing before you scared the wits out of Ms. Locke.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Meyers spun around, and Liam caught a glimpse of the man’s tight mouth as he walked toward the gym.
Seems he didn’t care much for Ginger’s tone, but then, who did?
His departure gave Liam a clear view of Katie’s face.
Her wind-tossed, dark hair blew across her face, and she scooped it into a ponytail, holding it over one shoulder. “I’m really sorry about venturing this far. After the news about Garrett, I just wanted to get out of the building for lunch and get some fresh air. I wasn’t paying any attention to where I was going, and when I looked up I realized I was way out here, so I just sat on the bleachers to eat my sandwich.”
Ginger raised her suit-clad shoulders. “No harm, no foul. It’s just that we have training going on out here for potential agents. You knew that, right? Everyone knows that, I suppose.”
“That’s the buzz, anyway.”
The wind gusted, and Ginger tugged at the lapels of her suit jacket.
She wasn’t dressed for a turn around the track in this weather. Had the security guard spotted Katie first before calling Ginger? If so, had he seen her emerge from beneath the bleachers?
“It’s chilly out here. Let’s walk back together.”
Liam twisted his lips. That was a less-than-subtle way to get Katie out of this area.
As the two women turned and took the path back to the office buildings, Liam let out a long breath.
What was Katie doing working for Tempest in what amounted to an undercover situation? That was his job.
If she was here in a legitimate position as a programmer, why would she come on under an assumed name? She’d called herself KC when she was a teenager in foster care, had switched to the more formal Kathryn when she became an adult and started working and then settled on Katie, which suited her a lot better than Kathryn or KC.
Now she was KC again.
KC was the wild child, the rebel, the illegal hacker, even though she dressed like an office drone. Did calling herself KC have some significance here?
He narrowed his eyes and peered between the bleachers at the empty track. He’d skipped lunch to run a few miles, so he’d better work up a sweat to bolster his story.
He slipped between the slats and hoisted himself on top of the bleachers. Lifting his knees almost to his chest, he began running the stairs. A few trips up and back and sweat dampened his gray T-shirt and beaded his brow.
As he slung his towel around his neck, he peered at the office buildings in the distance. What kind of game was Katie playing with Tempest?
She had to know that if she lost even one round of that game, it could mean her life.
* * *
KATIE TOOK A deep breath and hunched over the sink in the bathroom. For a minute she thought Ginger was going to follow her in here. The woman gave her the creeps, and that had been before she’d watched her kill a man in cold blood in midcoitus.
Ginger had shown a lot of interest in Katie’s work. Had asked her several questions about programming and what programming languages she knew.
Katie splashed some cold water on her face even though her cheeks still stung from the crisp air outside.
She blotted her face with a paper towel and then crumpled it in her fist. Ginger had no reason to suspect her. Neither she nor the security guard had seen Liam crouching beneath the bleachers.
Meyers—had he been the same guy who’d assisted Ginger last night? He’d been wearing black gloves so if he did have the bird tattoo, she couldn’t see it. The voice sounded similar and besides, how many guards did Ginger have that would willingly be an accomplice to murder?
She tossed the paper towel in the trash and straightened her shoulders. Ginger didn’t scare her. She still planned to gather more evidence against Tempest and then report the agency to...someone. She hadn’t gotten that far in her plan yet.
Her head swiveled back toward the mirror, and she ran her hands through her wind-tossed hair. She’d thought Liam McCabe was the kind of man to turn to in dire straits, but not if he was working with the enemy.
Or was he?
Sebastian certainly hadn’t known what he was getting himself into.
She pushed out of the ladies’ room and turned the corner to catch the elevator down to her floor. The phone rang just as she stepped into her cubicle, and she spent fifteen minutes dealing with a software issue.
“Where did you disappear to for lunch?” Samantha hung on the corner of her cube.
“I wandered around outside for a bit. How was your meeting?”
Samantha rolled her eyes. “A huge waste of time, and Larry didn’t even buy me lunch, the cheap bastard.”
“That’s just wrong.”
“Cute jacket.” Samantha tilted her head. “Do you have the sweater you borrowed from me yesterday?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s hanging in the closet.” Katie jerked her thumb at the metal black cabinet behind her that had a bar and a couple of hangers.
Samantha reached past her and opened the door. She shook out the cream-colored sweater she usually kept on the back of her chair for the days when the office got too chilly—like today.
“I hope you sew.”
“What?” Katie clicked on an email reminding her about database maintenance tomorrow night and then deleted it.
“There’s a button missing, and I swear it wasn’t missing when I gave the sweater to you yesterday.”
Katie spun around in her chair. “Really?”
Samantha thrust the sweater at her and a few scraggly threads marked the spot where a square button had been.
“I’m so sorry. Do you have a replacement for it? I can sew it back on.”
Samantha laughed. “I’m just kidding. I might have an extra button for this old thing at home. I’ll sew it back on when I find it.”
“I’ll check my car. I didn’t bring it in to my place last night. I wore it to my car and tossed it in the backseat so I wouldn’t forget it today.”
“Don’t knock yourself out.” She draped the sweater over her shoulders. “It’s just my office sweater. I wouldn’t actually go out in public wearing this thing.”
“The buttons are kind of cute.”
“These?” She plucked at one of the shiny squares. “They’re hideous.”
Samantha retreated to her own cubicle, and Katie dug into her work. She hadn’t figured out a way around the Tempest firewalls yet, but she would. She’d been something of a hacker before she went legitimate, and while changing a few grades didn’t compare to the type of security Tempest had in place, she had confidence in her skills. She’d already figured out how to mess with the security cameras and the access cards.
She stretched and wandered to the window, folding her arms as she rested her forehead against the glass. She couldn’t quite see the track from here, but she could see the edge of the gym, and the movement over there meant the agents were training again.
She knew they slept here. They had living quarters behind the compound out there. Some of them wouldn’t make the cut, and they’d be sent home after signing some nondisclosure agreement. They agreed not to talk about their training, and they walked away with a nice severance bonus—at least that’s what she’d heard.
She had no doubt Liam would pass every physical test they threw at him. When she’d met him in San Diego, he’d been a SEAL—conditioned, primed and at his peak.
From the looks of him today in his T-shirt and running shorts, he was still at his peak. She chewed on her bottom lip. Maybe she should warn him. But warn him about what? She had no idea really what Tempest was up to. She just knew it was no good, and maybe Liam knew that, too.
She couldn’t believe he’d turn on her, but then she wouldn’t have believed he’d leave her stranded, high and dry in San Diego, while he returned to the Middle East for another tour. He’d promised her he was done.
She snorted and squiggled her finger through the mist her breath had left on the window. Men like Liam were never done. Men like Sebastian.
She needed another break. She dipped back into her cubicle and dragged her car keys from her purse. Tapping on the side of Samantha’s cubicle, she said, “I’m going out to my car in case anyone’s looking for me. I’m going to look for that button.”
“I don’t care about the stupid button, KC.”
“I know, but it’s bugging me now, and I need a break, anyway.”
“If you remember, get me a diet cola from the vending machine downstairs. I’m gonna need some caffeine if I’m gonna get through this boring stuff before I leave tonight.”
Katie patted the pocket of her jacket where she had a few dollar bills. “No problem.”
She made her way to the parking structure, where cars still took up the majority of the spaces. Most of the employees took off around five o’clock, except for the diehards, people like Ginger and Garrett and Mr. Romo. Nobody ever saw much of Mr. Romo, and nobody ever called him anything but Mr. Romo, but he presided over Tempest from the top floor of the building like some omniscient being. She’d caught sight of him a few times, and he always seemed to be staring at her, but that was probably because he had the oddest, light-colored eyes.
Katie had her doubts he ever left the compound.
She clicked her remote, and her horn beeped once. She went straight for the backseat, running her palms along the leather. Then she lay on her stomach and scanned the floor for the shiny button. She even slipped her hands between the seat cushions.
Her fingertips skimmed the edge of a long-lost nickel. She pulled it free and tucked it into the pocket of her slacks.
Blowing a wisp of hair from her face, she shimmied out of the backseat and slid behind the wheel of the car. She scooped a fistful of quarters from the cup holder to make sure she had enough money for Samantha’s soda and one for herself.
Then she tilted her head back against the headrest. When had she lost that button? She hadn’t been too many places after borrowing the sweater from Sam at the end of the workday.
She’d worked late in her cubicle after everyone had left to give herself time to do her weekly roaming of the hallways. She’d finally lucked out when she discovered Garrett Patterson’s door unlocked—at least she’d considered herself lucky until Ginger had murdered Garrett.
Could she have lost the button hiding in that closet?
Or was it worse than that? She pressed her fingertips to her lips as she recalled the sweater getting caught on Garrett’s chair as she wiped her prints from his desk.
No point in returning to his office even if she could get in. If she’d lost the button there, it was either hidden or someone had found it and disposed of it. A button was a button, and it could’ve come from anywhere.
She scooted from the car and deposited the rest of the change into her pocket. She slammed the car door and leaned forward to peer at her reflection. This dry weather wasn’t doing her hair any favors—not that she had cared about her appearance here at Tempest one iota until Liam had shown up on the scene. The man still caused her blood to simmer despite her resolve not to let him affect her. She couldn’t afford the distraction.
A movement reflected in the glass caught her eye, and she spun around. The blank headlights on the rows of cars parked in their orderly places stared back at her.
She cocked her head, listening for the beep of a remote or the slamming of a car door. Her own heavy breathing answered her.
Maybe someone had just come back to his car to get something or take a break. Nobody at Tempest had any reason to suspect her of snooping. Sure, Ginger and Meyers had caught her near the track, but she wouldn’t be the first female employee at Tempest to try to get a better look at the buff recruits as they went through their paces.
