Chapter 7
7
IN THE AIR, EN ROUTE TO PORTLAND, OREGON
F rederick got off to an early start. He’d done the search for the event Anne had attended and found out that it was an art show. Check. He’d picked out one of his more useful identities, one that was like a fashion plate’s little black dress.
Paul Andrews, founder and owner of Stonewell Financial, a highly successful hedge fund. Anyone checking would find a well developed website, Paul’s personal Facebook page with investment tips and a Twitter feed that AI took care of, automatically retweeting blogs and articles where keywords and phrases were repeated.
If someone had access to the IRS archives, Frederick was shit out of luck, because Stonewell Financial did not file or pay taxes. It was a shallow but broad identity. Still, it should be more than enough to sniff around the area where Anne Lowell had been and probably still was.
But updating Paul Andrews’ data took some time and he needed access to files he kept in a very safe place in his study. He wasn’t in the habit of dragging secret information around with him as so many were. No, he travelled clean. But that meant working from home.
And at home he could take precautions. His keyboard was tempest-proof. His computer had a firewall that if it were a real wall could be seen from the moon.
The walls of his home had a special cladding that bounced any type of electronic surveillance and the windows had a molecule-thick graphene film coating that protected against laser listening devices.
Essentially his house was what intelligence agencies call a SCIF—a Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence Facility. What happened in his home stayed in his home.
Everything on his computer was saved to a cloud managed in Estonia, guaranteed anonymity for $50,000 a year, cheap at the price.
His home was as secure as he could make it and he preferred to work there.
So he’d spent all night backdating emails, blog posts, Facebook posts and a hefty and entirely fictitious investment record. Anyone not paranoid, anyone just checking up on him, would be entirely convinced. You’d have to dig through several layers of very pretty and tidy bullshit to get to the vacuum underneath.
Not to mention the fact that he was very proud of Paul Andrews’ investment returns record. If Paul Andrews existed, Frederick would have invested in Stonewell Financial.
He really hoped he could grab Anne Lowell and deliver her to Mechanical Voice without ever being suspected of involvement because he wanted to keep Paul Andrews alive. Hell, he wanted to be Paul Andrews, billionaire.
All in good time.
He brought up the photographs of Anne, put them through a filter, made them as clear and crisp as possible.
Ah, Anne, he thought. You were so pretty as a blonde. In the Facebook photos she was wearing a midnight-blue gown and one of the photographs of her, taken in three quarters profile, was so clear he could see that the gown showcased her eyes.
He brought up snapshots of her four years ago, taken when she was in her last year of grad school. They had been taken at a beach. She laughed into the camera, arm around the shoulder of the friend that idiot Jorge had killed by mistake. She had the face of one of America’s upper class. Very pretty, excellent teeth, full figure. The expression reflecting invincibility—nothing could touch her and she was destined to sail through life without hitting any speed bumps. In one of the photographs she was holding a young man, her male equivalent. Blond, excellent teeth, the slight arrogance of the young and the healthy and the rich. He was her, only ten inches taller, without breasts and with a dick.
The photographs of Anne taken by the caterer showed an entirely different young woman. She’d lost a lot of weight. On her, it looked good. Cheekbones more eminent, delicate collar bones clearly visible, eyes haunted. Above all, a face that had known sorrow. The face of someone who had matured two decades in two years.
Of course being chased by a druggie homicidal moron would do that to someone.
Pain and hardship matured people fast. Sometimes it was even good for them, spiritually. Of course, Frederick was against his own pain and suffering, he was quite mature enough, thank you very much.
There were four photographs in all, only one full face. He studied even more carefully the bruiser in a tux. Really ugly mean-looking bastard. Hmmm. The man looked—looked as if he’d be hard to deal with. It had never occurred to Frederick that she would hook up with someone. She was on the run, for Christ’s sake. What was she doing having sex with someone? And someone who looked like that?
Anne Lowell, of the Boston Lowells, with a masters in business management of cultural institutions, to choose this person who looked like one of the more unsavory Sons of Anarchy in a tux—well.
What was the event? The caterer didn’t say. Such an example of the deep-seated narcisissim of the millennials. She didn’t care about the art show, all she cared about was the food her company had prepared and the hotness of the chef and a few low level art celebrities. There were at least 15 shots of the chef, who looked like he’d taken a few hits of something powerful.
It only took a few minutes to track the event down, though, through the catering company’s website.
So as of last night, Anne Lowell, who had evaded him for two years, had been at the vernissage of Inside/Out , a series of watercolors and gouaches of designs by one Suzanne Huntington.
Suzanne Huntington could well be the key to finding Anne.
Okay, how was this going to work? What would Paul Andrews do? Paul Andrews was very rich and…Paul Andrews was thinking of buying a major property in downtown Portland, Oregon, and he wanted it redecorated floor to ceiling. And he had heard such very good things about Suzanne Huntington…
Yes, that’s how he’d play it.
He took out a throwaway cell that would show up on the other end as a number connected to Stonewell Financials. It’s the little details that count.
“Yes, hello,” he said to the pleasant female voice that answered. “My name is Paul Andrews, of Stonewell Financial. I would like to make an appointment with Ms. Suzanne Huntington. Yes, I’ll hold.”
He poured himself half a glass of prosecco. No harm in that. He still had half the country ahead of him. The Prosecco would dissipate in his blood well before that. And, well, he had something to celebrate. He had that unmistakeable feeling he got when his plans coalesced.
The secretary came back on.
“Excellent,” he said, giving himself the plummy accent of the super rich, the voice of a man used to getting his own way. “Four thirty. I’ll be there.”
Some color had come back in her face. Jacko glanced over at Lauren in the passenger seat. Her skin had been the color of ice when they arrived at ASI.
He’d gone in fully expecting to walk back out without a job. Instead, he’d come back out with a team. Midnight and the Senior—man. Those guys were real team leaders. A member of the team needed help? They stepped right up. Jacko was intensely grateful for that. But intense gratitude was nothing compared to the white-hot relief he felt knowing that ASI had his back. Lauren would be kept safe, no question.
Jacko could have done it alone, he knew that. He’d have locked them in his secure quarters forever if that’s what it took. But he didn’t have to. He didn’t have to be on alert 24/7 because he’d be sharing the job of protecting Lauren with his teammates.
Basic principle of bodyguarding and of soldiering—never do it on your own. You work in shifts. Otherwise the adrenalin of constant alertness will eat you alive.
So not only were they going to keep Lauren safe, they were going on the offensive. Oh yeah.
It wasn’t in Jacko’s nature to hunker down. If he knew Lauren was protected, he and ASI could go take down this son of a bitch.
He’d give Bud some time to dig up intel. It was always good to go the legal route. But bottom line? If there was no progress soon, he’d leave Lauren with Metal—no one better, no one smarter, no one meaner when he had to be—and go off to Palm Beach and smoke the fucker who was after her himself.
He knew how to do it and leave no clues.
So sometime soon Lauren’s nightmare would be over. Oh yeah.
“Jacko,” she said, turning to him, “I don’t know how to thank you?—”
Jacko held up a hand in horror. “God, you don’t have to thank me.” His throat tightened. Jacko had a lot of skills. Get in his way and you’d be sorry. But words weren’t part of his skill set. “Just…don’t.”
I would happily die to protect you. No will ever touch you again.
I think I love you.
That last thought made him sweat. He gripped the steering wheel harder, his palms suddenly damp.
Fuck.
His hands were sweating. That never happened to a sniper and that had sure as hell never happened to him . He’d always been the meanest, nastiest motherfucker around since he was 12. No one messed with him then, no one messed with him now.
He’d shot and killed really bad guys without breaking a sweat.
And just look at him.
He weighed twice what Lauren did. He could bench press her. Hell, he could bench press two of her. And yet she somehow reduced him to a wreck, particularly when he thought of someone hurting her.
He could have put it down to sex, but he’d felt this way for four freaking months now and they’d only had sex once. It was off the charts, okay, but still…
In those four months in which he wasn’t getting his rocks off at all , just seeing her made him sweat but also made his day. He felt…different when he was around her, as if there was this force field around her that skewed his molecules.
No, that wasn’t it.
Hell, he didn’t know what was it.
All he knew was he felt good around her and missed her when she wasn’t there and by God, no one was going to hurt her.
He couldn’t say any of that. The words stuck in his throat and they fucking hurt because they couldn’t come out. The words were like knives cutting him. He swallowed and looked at her and she seemed to understand.
That was the thing about Laurel. She seemed to understand him. She never treated him like a piece of meat or a walking dick like other women did. Well, Suzanne, Allegra and Claire didn’t. But every other woman did. She listened to him, though he didn’t speak much around her. But when he did he had her full attention.
He felt good around her. Wanted to be around her as much as possible.
Was that love?
Fuck if he knew.
Uncomfortable with the thoughts in his head, he was grateful when they reached the underground garage of his building.
He switched off the engine and turned to her.
She recognized instantly that he had something serious to say. When she turned to him, her entire focus was on him. It felt like a beam of light was on his face.
“Ok. This is how it’s going down. When you want to go out, we come straight down here where no one can see you get in the vehicle. I will temporarily disable the security cams and I’ll let the security guys in the lobby know. And I’ll tell them that no deliveries come up except from them. Just in case you have to be out in the open, I know a guy who can manufacture hats with brims that beam down a special invisible light that messes with recorded images. No facial recognition software will be able to pick up your face. It won’t be stylish but it will be effective.”
He didn’t even go into pancake makeup which fooled skin-texture analytics and graph measurement software. But they were available and she’d make use of them.
“I should stay in as much as possible,” she said softly.
“Yeah. But I don’t want you to feel caged. If the weather clears, I can take you for walks in the country where there are no vidcams. I always keep my bike in back so maybe we could go for a ride. Would you like that?”
“I hear you’re very good on your bike. Though I also hear that you go about a million miles an hour. We’ll have to go slower than that.” She stretched out a hand to caress his check and leaned forward. The kiss was soft, warm, fleeting. She pulled back just a little and searched his eyes. “You’re taking such good care of me, Jacko. Thanks.”
His throat tightened and he had to cough to talk. “No problem. Let’s go up and then I’ll get your stuff up.”
He left her in his apartment while he went back down to bring up the last load of her stuff. Crazily, though he knew for a fact that nothing was happening to her, he was anxious until he walked back through his door and found her putting things away.
Muscles he hadn’t known were tense immediately relaxed the instant he saw her. Okay, maybe there was a way to save his sanity.
“Lauren,” he said quietly. “Come here.” He was able to put his hands immediately on what he needed. He knew where everything he needed was, at all times. He was OCD when it came to gear. He sat down on his long, brand new sofa and patted the cushion next to him. “Sit down.”
She came right away, sat down next to him. Folded her hands and waited for what he had to say. He loved that about her. She was always no nonsense. Never whiny or pouty. If she’d been busy with something she didn’t want to interrupt, she’d have said so, firmly.
She treated him as a teammate, and as someone he could count on, always.
His heart thumped once, hard.
Jacko tried to look at his place through her eyes. “First of all, I hope you’ll be okay here. I haven’t, um, decorated.” At all. He had a bed, a long sofa and a big screen TV. A table with his six-monitor computer set up. That was more or less it.
Luckily he was sailor-neat. Not that there could be a mess when there was nothing there.
Lauren smiled. “I’m not assigning decorating points, Jacko. I’m not the décor police. I’ll be comfortable here, don’t worry. And I can always order throw pillows online.”
He smiled back. “Oh yeah. Do whatever you want. Consider the house yours. Throw pillows, curtains, frills. Those flower petals in silver thingies that Suzanne has everywhere. I’m game.”
She tilted her head. “We could start with food. Your refrigerator has ten bottles of micro-brewery beer, a hunk of stale cheddar and a soft tomato.”
He winced. She’d probably seen that his cupboards were completely bare, too. Well, he rarely ate at home, and when he did it was takeout. Didn’t know how to cook. Now things had changed. He’d be taking most of his meals home, for the first time in his life. The thought didn’t disturb him as much as he thought it would.
“There’s a supermarket that does online ordering. When we’re settled, we’ll order. And I’m good at ordering takeout. I have the menus for Chinese, Thai and Tex-Mex. You won’t starve.”
“No.”
He took in a deep breath. This next part was going to be tricky. He opened his hand to show her what was on it. “Here.”
She picked it up, puzzled. He could understand that. It was a tiny piece of tech with a thin steel rim.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a tracker.” Jacko held up his hand. “Now, I don’t want to make you feel weird, but I think you should keep it on you at all times. Just until we can sort things out.” Or until that fuckhead Jorge was dead. “I will be with you as much as possible and when I can’t be with you Metal or another ASI guy will. But there might be periods in which you will be alone in my house. The place is secure, trust me. But if I’m not physically with you, I’ll need to make sure I know where you are. At all times. So it pains me to ask, but do you think you could do that? Keep this on you?”
There were so many things he wanted to add. I don’t even know if we’re together, besides this crap that’s happening right now. I’d fucking hate to be tracked, myself. But please do this for me, so I don’t go bugfuck crazy when I can’t physically see you. It nearly killed me to go back down to the garage. But he didn’t know how to say the words. All he could do was sit beside her with the tiny piece of silicon and brushed steel in his open palm and hope she didn’t hit him across the face.
She didn’t. She looked at it thoughtfully, studying it. Then she put in on her knee and reached behind her neck to unclasp a light gold chain. In a moment, she’d somehow threaded the chain through the tracker and put it back around her neck. She stroked it and smiled at him.
“There,” she said softly. “It’ll be on me at all times.”
Oh man. He swallowed. A wave of something—heat, lust, love? —swept over him, like a solar wind in a sci-fi flick. Whoosh. Enormous heat. What felt like a realignment of his molecules.
He placed his hand over it, just below her collarbones. Her skin felt so satiny, so smooth. Not like normal skin, like something finer than that. He looked at his hand on her neck, fingers curling slightly. He had big hands, strong hands. Steady hands.
But right now his hand felt huge and awkward. Not quite a part of his own body, more like a part of hers. Unable to take his hand away, as if she were a powerful magnet and his hand was pure iron.
“Thank you for this,” he said hoarsely. “I appreciate it.”
She blinked. “Jacko, I don’t think you’re clear on what’s happening. You just offered to quit your job—and I know you love it, don’t deny it—for me. You’re rearranging your entire life for me, to keep me safe, and you think I’d balk at making sure you know where I am at all times?” She edged closer to him. “And do you think I’d complain about you sharing your house with me?” She looked around at the huge emptiness of his living room and brought amused eyes back to his. “Though I really might be doing some decorating here. I promise no chintz.”
He ran the back of his forefinger down her cheek. “You can make this place wall to wall chintz for all I care. I don’t even know what chintz is. As long as you’re here, and safe, I’m okay.”
“Thank you.”
He shook his head sharply. “I told you, I don’t need thanks. Don’t want it.”
She leaned in even further, smiled into his eyes. “Then what do you need? What do you want?”
“I’ll show you what I want,” he whispered. He lowered his hand. She had on one of those sweaters that buttoned up the front. That type of sweater had a name but he couldn’t remember it right now. He could barely remember his own name. He unbuttoned the sweater slowly, watching her, ready to stop if she wanted him to.
But she didn’t stop him. She sat quietly while he opened the sweater and folded one side back, then the other. She had on one of those lacy bras that looked sexy as hell. In some light purple color that probably had a weird name. Suzanne would know. She had names for every color under the sun. He unhooked the bra, brushed it aside and bent forward to kiss her breast.
Lauren gave a soft sigh and arched her back. One hand rose to his neck and she held him tightly to her, fingers caressing the back of his head. She tasted salty sweet, incredibly delicious. As he licked and sucked her, he gently slid off the sweater and the bra, then lifted his head. Though he’d only sucked one nipple, both were erect and cherry red.
Jacko reached out an unsteady hand and outlined the nipple that was wet from his mouth. The skin was deep pink. “Razor burn.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Sorry.”
“Do the other breast,” she answered softly,
Oh yeah. As he licked and kissed the other breast, Jacko finished undressing her. She helped, lifting and moving and pulling until she was naked on his couch, lightly flushed, smiling at him.
He couldn’t smile back, simply couldn’t. A smile felt small and inadequate for what he was feeling. She was sitting like a queen, pale and glowing, looking at him with softness in her gaze. No woman had ever looked at him like that. Women looked at him pre- and post-fucking. The pre-fuck look was speculative and the post-fuck look was, thank God, usually satisfied. But there was never any emotion there.
Lauren’s feelings were written all over her face. Feelings for him.
He had no idea what was on his own face. He could barely feel himself, he was so concentrated on her. He had tons of feelings rolling around inside, so many and so strong he couldn’t express them. He had no words to tell her what she meant to him. What he felt seeing her on his couch smiling at him as if he were the center of her world. He couldn’t explain it to her in any way.
There was one thing he could say, though, and it came from the deepest part of him.
“I’ll keep you safe.” He wanted to say more but the words just wouldn’t come.
“I know you will, Jacko.” Lauren smiled at him, cupped his jaw with a hand. He shifted and kissed the palm of her hand, a little calmer now. She’d understood all those unspoken words. He didn’t have to say them because she understood.
She understood him. He’d allowed her glimpses inside himself, something he had never allowed anyone before and instead of running away screaming, here she was, sitting naked on his couch, looking at him with softness in her eyes.
His own little miracle. Oh yeah, he was going to keep her safe.
Because she was his.
Heat rose inside him, heat and lust, desire so strong he’d die if he didn’t have her, right now. In a second, he was naked, too. Some instinct, some muscle memory that didn’t require thought, like switching out a mag in a firefight, something he’d done so many times he barely noticed, had him ripping open a condom and sliding it on, then he lifted her over him as if she were weightless. In that instant, she was. He didn’t feel the weight, just her softness as she settled over him. His hands pulled her thighs apart, then he positioned her with a hand on her back and he felt her, oh God yes. Felt her wet heart against his dick, opening to him. She was bracing her hands on his shoulders, looking down at him. Not smiling, eyes slitted. She blew out a breath, circling her hips with him just inside her.
Jacko’s heart was hammering, muscles twitching. This was a moment for self control. He knew that, he wasn’t stupid. He was just blasted by lust, not quite in control of himself. Lauren was lifting away from him, then settling back down on him, a little deeper each time.
It was taking her goddamned forever. Sweat trickled down his back from the effort of staying still. When she rose back up on her knees, with him barely inside her, her head bowed over his, her dark hair forming a little curtain around them.
Jacko tightened his hands around her back, looked up into her silver-gray eyes glowing with an unearthly light.
“I have to—” he gritted.
She nodded and he pulled her down onto him while slamming his hips up until he was deep inside her, and the god of soldiers smiled on him because she was coming, pulling on him with sharp little strokes of her sheath. He started jetting inside her in spurts so strong he thought he’d pass out.
They were holding each other tightly, neither of them movingexcept where they were joined, panting, eyes closed, lost in their own world.
Jacko came back into himself slowly. When he realized he was clutching Lauren so hard he could be hurting her, he loosened his hold, letting out a long low breath. Man, it had been so freaking intense. For all the years he’d been having sex—more than half his life—nothing like that had ever happened to him. He’d lost all notions of self, of where he was, completely taken up by the woman in his arms.
He let out another long breath, relaxing a bit on the couch, feeling tight muscles loosen. Lauren slumped onto him, head nestled on his shoulder, and he rested his cheek on the top of her head. The sharp smell of sex rose, but it was a great smell, with an overlay of her perfume, something that smelled like spring.
He was still partially erect and he’d be up soon for a second round, but he could feel Lauren relaxing and the feeling was so precious he didn’t want to spoil it. She’d been through hell and if she could find peace with him, well…that was worth more than another round of sex.
And besides, they had all the time in the world.
The rest of their lives, in fact.
At any other moment, that thought would have shocked Jacko, but right now it just popped every single pleasure center in his head.
“That was quite a welcome, sailor,” Lauren said and he could feel her lips moving in a smile against his shoulder.
“Hmm.”
Lauren gave a little sigh and he could feel her slipping into sleep. Oh man. She was a warm weight against him, soft and light. He cupped her headand adjusted himself so she’d be as comfortable as possible.
Something warm and heavy and unfamiliar passed through him. It took him minutes to realize it was happiness.