Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“What are you doing here?” Lisa Cooper froze, but didn’t show a caught-red-handed look. She had balls, he’d give her that.
“I’m here with Dr. Morneau, your boss, the woman whose office this is. The more appropriate question is, what are you doing here?”
Charlie stepped around him and squared off with Cooper. It looked like his little spitfire had even more balls than Cooper.
“I don’t care what you’re doing here. I want you gone. And without taking anything with you.”
“I’m not leaving. Your boss, Dr. Hogarth, gave me access to this office—and everything in it. I want the password to the John Doe files.” Charlie went to the metal file cabinet and, slipping out a key, she unlocked it and removed a fat accordion file. He could see the label. John Doe.
“Paper files? Hand them over—” Cooper said. She stood tall and stepped closer to Charlie, seeming to forget he was in the room. But he was going to see to it that she was reminded of his presence.
Trent stepped around Charlie and up close to Lisa Cooper so that he towered over her. Putting his most intimidating game face in place, grim and serious, he let the simmering anger running through him reach his voice, without raising it.
“Leave now or I’ll call security,” Trent said.
Cooper backed up a step and took a moment to reorient herself to Trent before responding.
“You? I’m the one who will call security and have them throw you out—”
He laughed, one of those humorless you-don’t-fool-me laughs.
“Go ahead and call them. I have every right to be here as the guest of the person whose office you’re invading.
” He paused a beat, long enough for her to flutter her eyelashes in surprise.
“I didn’t think so. Either way, as far as security is concerned, this is Charlie’s office.
I’ll tell them that we found you here stealing files—the truth it would seem—and since you’re new, you’re probably not even on Security’s list of authorized personnel. ”
“You don’t belong here. You’re the one not on the list. They’ll throw you out.”
He laughed again, and this time he felt the amusement touch him.
“Really? I don’t think the security guard is going to throw out the star quarterback for the Boston Minutemen football team, do you?” He waited another beat while he watched Lisa’s face grow pink, watched her mouth flatten as she darted her eyes to Charlie.
“You must have forgotten I’m the principal investigator of this protocol,” Charlie said.
“Everyone knows Charlie and I are engaged.” He reached out and lifted Charlie’s hand with the engagement ring to bring home his point because he somehow knew it would rankle Cooper even more. “They’ll do whatever I say, because I am who I am, and I’m with Dr. Charline Morneau.”
“Fine.” Cooper shifted her attention back to Charlie with her vindictiveness renewed, “I’ll leave now, but I’ll be talking to Dr. Hogarth and he’ll have something to say about it—maybe not tonight, but just wait until tomorrow, Dr. Morneau.”
She grabbed up her bag and coat. “Don’t be surprised if there are repercussions.”
Charlie said to her as she slipped passed them to the door, “I just spoke to several members of the board of trustees about it. I have backing and support. They all know whose research project this is, who’s responsible for the potential breakthrough.”
Lisa turned and smiled. “And that, Dr. Morneau, may be exactly what leads to your undoing in the end.” Lisa left without bothering to close the door behind her, so Trent closed it with a shove of one hand.
After Lisa Cooper was gone, Trent breathed a five count to slow his adrenaline and said, “That wasn’t even a veiled threat.”
Charlie stood next to him and put a hand on his back, absently circling it like a massage therapist, except it was a soft and sensual move. He was fairly certain she did it automatically, without thinking, and that she probably did it often. To someone. Probably her mother or sister. Or both.
“Plan on it. She’s no more than a spy. She barely gives the subjects the time of day.
I’ve already had complaints from two of them.
” She paused a beat and reached a hand up to his face, standing on her toes, so he bent his head to meet her kiss.
“You did good. I couldn’t have written a better script for you. ”
“Glad to oblige, ma’am.” Warmth spread through him with that familiar pleasure-embarrassment that always flooded him when someone special complimented him.
Usually it was his mother or a coach. The embarrassment never happened with the shower of accolades from the press or from any of his various girlfriends.
He just hadn’t cared what any of them thought.
But this was different. This was Charlie.
This was a problem.
Charlie went to the lone desktop computer in the corner and powered it on. She put a zip drive in the USB port and flew her hands over the keys. Then she stood while the computer screen flashed with the progress bar filling from black to white as the files dumped.
“I need to get all your files out of here and to erase what I can from the university’s database system, all references to John Doe.”
“You have my data on the system?”
“No, all the data is here on this computer, which isn’t connected to the system, and on my tablet and in paper files. But there are references to John Doe in the investigation notes and reports kept on the university’s system and I need to find and delete as much of that as possible.”
He nodded. He’d been hoping to have some time with her at his place before shutting down to sleep. He watched her remove several more files from the filing cabinet and put them in a file box. She went back to the computer and removed her zip drive.
“The computer’s been erased. I’ll leave it until tomorrow to remove the whole computer and bring it home and to delete the John Doe references from the system.
Let’s get out of here,” she said. She slipped the zip drive into her bag, hefted the box of files, shoved it at him and locked the door behind them.
“I can’t believe you have so many paper files. It’s so . . . 1970’s.”
“I told you—they’re backups.” She walked ahead of him. He enjoyed the view.
“I’ve kept the electronic data on the special white computer here and on the zip drive I bring home every night, not on the Center’s database—for security reasons. That’s why we needed the paper backup.”
“What about the aftermath? When Dr. Lisa reports back to the big bad boss that you didn’t let her have access to the files?”
“I can’t believe that such a question would actually make sense to me—be something I needed to consider in my life.”
She opened the door to the parking lot and looked outside before giving him a coast-is-clear gesture and holding the door wide for him.
The limo was there and waiting with the trunk popped open.
He dropped the box inside and slid in the back seat next to her.
He could feel the anxiety ripple the air around her.
“You feel unprepared?”
The limo door closed. She looked at him.
“Yes. And no.”
He paused a beat to hear the explanation.
“There’s only so much Hogarth can do, only so far he can go against me before this preliminary drug trial is completed, before I write it up and submit the results.”
“Will he let you write it up?”
“I’ll have to keep the data and any analysis from him to make sure. That will be tricky with Cooper around.”
“Yes and no.” He looked at her. “I can help with that.”
“What are you going to do? Charm her onto our side?”
He smiled, especially since she looked worried. “No, but I could pay her to join our team.”
The instant gleaming smile on her face made it worth ten times whatever money he might have to shell out.
“Home, James.”
She laughed. “Your driver isn’t really named James?”
“No, but he’s a good sport.”
“Are we going to your place? I really need to get things back—”
“Keep the files at my place. They’ll be safe there with me.”
“Convenient. An excuse for me to be there . . .” She looked away.
He sighed. “Do we really need an excuse? We’re two adults. We like each other. We’re attracted—”
She shook her head. “You know it’s not that simple.”
“It could be.”
“You’re such a . . . a guy.”
He shouldn’t have smiled at that, should have taken her more seriously. He knew better. But he liked being a guy. Especially where she was concerned. And he needed to be with someone. Needed to ease his tension. Needed her to . . . comfort him. Keep him calm. Reassure him.
Sounded like he was thinking of her like his mother, but it was the farthest thing from how he felt.
“Would you have it any other way? Truthfully?”
“I don’t want to have you any way. At all.”
“I said truthfully.”
“That’s half the truth. The sane half. The one I should listen to.” She tapped on the window and it slid open. James—or Al or whoever he was looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Please take me to 835 Willow Hill in Melrose—where you picked me up.” The driver nodded, but flashed a look at Trent.
Trent shook his head.
“I’m being serious, Charlie. The files will be safer at my place. You can go home after we drop them off.” He heaved a deep breath and refused to wince at the coiling tension in his shoulder that felt like someone had splashed some butane on a small fire to make it flare up with a singeing heat.
She nodded her okay and the dividing window slid closed. Then she leaned back in the seat and into the crook of his arm where her warmth calmed his flare-up and had that curious calming and exciting effect on him that seemed like it should be impossible.
“You’re something else, Trent Lockheed.”
“Funny thing. I had the same thought about you.”
“I’m being serious. You’re right about the files being safer at your house. Maybe the computer too. You didn’t have to take all this on you know. Take on all my problems like they were your own.”