Читать книгу Agent Undercover - Lisa Childs - Страница 12

Chapter Five

Ash didn’t offer Claire false reassurance because it was possible that someone might use her family as leverage to get her to reveal her secrets. And if he continued being honest with her, she might begin to trust him enough to tell him everything she knew. Because even though he now believed she hadn’t offered that security information for sale, she probably knew who might have.

Could her assistant have had something to do with it? He hadn’t looked bright or mature enough to come up with such a plan, though. But then Claire had only been sixteen when she’d hacked into that bank system.

“Tell me about your assistant,” he said even though he already had checked out everyone who worked for Nowak Computer Consulting. That was how Claire Molenski had become his main suspect.

She glanced up from straightening her desk and laughed. “You can’t seriously suspect Martin of anything?”

“He’s your assistant,” he said. “So he must work closely with you, checking security on the same high target sites that you do.”

She gestured around her small office. There was only one desk and only one chair. “I work alone.”

Nowak Computer Consulting was the only company who’d had access to all the sites that had been offered up for sale at the online auction. So Ash had thoroughly studied it. As well as talking to Peter Nowak, he had scrutinized the building floor plans and scoured security footage. He knew the layout probably better than Claire did. Just a few steps from her office was the bull pen of cubicles where the assistants worked.

“But he’s your assistant, so doesn’t he assist you with the projects you’re working on?” he asked. Company protocol claimed otherwise, but Ash knew people whose assistants did more of the work than they did.

“No,” she corrected him. “As my assistant, Martin brings me coffee and lunch and dinner, if I’m working late.” She sighed. “Which I usually am.”

Maybe Ash had made too many assumptions about Claire Molenski—although he hadn’t been wrong about how much time she spent at the consulting company. He’d thought it was because she legally had to, but maybe it was also because she wanted to. “He doesn’t help you with any of your projects?”

“He helps with whatever tasks I give him to handle,” she said. “But he doesn’t have the clearance to work most of the projects I work.”

Because she had the highest clearance at the company. Peter Nowak had reluctantly admitted that to Ash when he’d interviewed the man. The former CIA agent trusted his star hacker, but Ash trusted no one. That was why Claire Molenski was his number-one suspect.

* * *

SHE WAS HIS number one-suspect—of whatever he suspected her. The suspicion was back in his piercing blue eyes as he stared at her. She hadn’t helped herself by defending Martin. But there was no way her assistant could be guilty of anything that had people getting shot at and killed.

“Who does have the clearance level you have or an even higher level?” he asked.

“My boss.” Peter Nowak had been a CIA agent before he’d started his computer consultation business, though. That was why some of the biggest banks and financial institutions in the world as well as the US and several other governments had entrusted him to ensure their internet security. He was good at what he did, and he was beyond suspicion.

So she wasn’t surprised when Agent Ash Stryker didn’t even blink those surprisingly long, black lashes of his. He had no suspicions about Peter Nowak. His suspicions were all about her.

“None of the other hackers have your level of clearance?” he asked.

Maybe he was willing to consider another suspect. But she didn’t have anyone to offer him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I suspect that you know.”

“You,” he said, confirming her fears. “You have the highest clearance besides Peter Nowak.”

She sighed as weariness overwhelmed her. It had been a long day before someone had tried abducting her from the parking lot of the speed dating hotel. “I thought so.” That was why she worked so many hours—nobody else could work on the projects she worked. “Since Leslie retired...”

“Leslie?”

“Leslie Morrison retired last year. I was his assistant when I first started working here,” she explained. “Leslie taught me everything I know, a lot more than I learned in college.” Her professors had been behind the new technology, while Mr. Nowak’s company had been beyond it—far beyond it.

“So Leslie is a better hacker than you are?”

She shivered at his coldly suspicious tone. She hadn’t offered up Leslie to defray guilt from herself. She wasn’t guilty, and neither was Leslie. She slammed her desk drawer shut. “Leslie isn’t a hacker anymore.”

“I’m sure he still knows how to hack, though,” Agent Stryker persisted.

She shook her head. “Hacking isn’t like riding a bike. Technology changes so quickly that you have to constantly be hacking to be any good. If you’re away from it too long, you’re going to be so far behind the security systems and software that you won’t be able to hack into anything anymore.”

And she’d done it again—deflected guilt off someone else and back onto herself. He was looking at her that way again, as if he was imagining himself slapping cuffs on her, while just a short while ago she’d been imagining herself undressing him.

It really was unfair that he was so good-looking. The FBI agents who had arrested her the first time had been old, or at least they had seemed old to her sixteen-year-old self. Their hair had been gray and receding while their waistlines had been expanding.

Why couldn’t Ash Stryker look like that?

Why did his black hair have to be so thick and soft looking? So soft looking that she was tempted to run her fingers through it...

She had been right to join the dating service. It had been entirely too long since she’d been with a man. That had to be the reason why she was so physically attracted to Ash. It had to be the only reason.

“Are you done here?” he asked.

She glanced around the small office. She had organized it again—as much as it was ever organized. It didn’t look neat, but at least things were back where she had left them. She shuddered at the thought of someone touching all her stuff. Had they touched her globe, too? If not the intruders, the crime lab who’d investigated and collected evidence might have. They’d left fingerprint dust all over, too, which she’d had to clean up. She hated cleaning.

She reached for the globe again, tempted to take it home with her. But she wasn’t sure she was going home. And with security increased at the company, nobody would ever be able to break in again. The globe would be safe. But was she?

“What if I tell you that I am done?” she asked. “Will you take me back to the hotel to get my car?”

“No,” he said, and his deep voice held that no-nonsense, matter-of-fact tone that so infuriated her.

His reply confirmed her suspicion that he was actually going to bring her in for questioning. He might even arrest her. She didn’t understand exactly what crime he suspected her of, but she had offered him no other suspects.

She drew in a deep breath and stood, ready for him to slap the cuffs on her, ready to relive all her nightmares from nine years ago...

* * *

IT WAS LATE.

Too late to question her any further. So Ash wasn’t taking her back to the Bureau. For one, he was beginning to believe she really didn’t know any more than she’d already told him. And secondly, she was exhausted.

Her slight body slumped down in the passenger’s seat of his Bureau-issued black SUV. She was nearly asleep, but she fought back a yawn and told him, “You didn’t have to drive me home.”

He heard the surprise in her voice; she hadn’t expected him to bring her home. She had suspected him to arrest her. Earlier that evening, he would have thought that was because she had a guilty conscience. But now that he was beginning to get to know her better...

He wasn’t sure what to think of Claire Molenski anymore. She was smart, but he’d already known that. She was sexy; that he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known how his body would react to hers. While she shivered slightly despite the heat blowing out of the vents, his skin was hot, his body tense.

That could have been just because of the adrenaline. He had nearly lost her a couple of times. He had to be vigilant because it wasn’t a question of if there would be another attempt to grab her. It was a question of when.

And that made him wonder about her guilt.

Maybe her only crime was being too smart. But then who had offered her knowledge for sale? He had been so certain she was the threat that he hadn’t really considered other suspects. Only Nowak Computer Consulting, or “No Hack” as it was known in inner circles, had the means to infiltrate those sites.

“You could have just brought me back to my car at the hotel,” she said.

He could have. Or he could have handed her off to another agent to drive home. He didn’t do security detail. His specialty had always been putting himself at risk, going undercover rather than protecting other people.

“No, I couldn’t,” he said. While he worked with good agents, damn good agents, he hadn’t wanted to trust anyone else with her safety. “There have already been two attempts to abduct you.” He suspected there would be more—many more—since so many radical groups and subversive governments wanted the information she possessed.

“Me,” she murmured.

“Yes, you.” They hadn’t been after him...except to kill him and get him out of their way.

“They were after me,” she said, as if she were strangely trying to reassure herself of that fact. Then he understood her reasoning when she added, “So Dad and Pam will be safe...”

“Pam?”

“She’s my dad’s new wife,” Claire explained. “And a very sweet lady. Like my dad, she was a single parent for years, so she never had enough money to travel. Because of that they’re taking a long honeymoon to visit all the places they’ve always wanted to see. They won’t be home for months.”

She jerked her head in a sharp nod. “So that’s good. They’ll be safe...”

Even as his focus stayed on the road, checking for a tail, he could feel her gaze on him. But again he wouldn’t offer her any false reassurance. He would leave that to her. It sounded as if she was doing a good job of convincing herself that her loved ones weren’t in danger because of her.

But then she sighed and admitted, “But someone could still track their credit cards.” Now she played her own devil’s advocate. “They could pull up their travel itinerary and find them—”

“I’ll put a protective detail on them,” he offered as he steered the SUV into the lot of her apartment complex. “We’ll make sure they’re safe.”

She reached across the console, grasped his arm and squeezed. “Thank you. But they’re not even in the country right now.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “No matter where they are, we can still protect them.” At the moment he was more concerned about her safety, though. Ever since he had suspected that she was the threat to national security, he’d had a detail on her apartment, so it should be safe.

But several agents had been watching her earlier that evening, and she had been drugged and nearly abducted...

He worried that she may not be safe anywhere. While the only security he specialized in was national security, he would do his best to keep her and her family safe.

She breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you for protecting them. They deserve to be happy.”

“What about you?” he asked, as he turned off the engine.

When he had been thinking like an FBI agent, he had only been concerned about her professional life. Now he was thinking like a man around her, and he wondered about her personal life. He hadn’t missed her assistant’s shock that she might have a boyfriend.

Didn’t she date very often?

When had he had his last date? He couldn’t remember one where he’d been himself and not undercover and just dating for information.

“What about me?” she asked. The lights had shut off inside the SUV, but in the dim glow of the parking lamps, he could see her pale brow furrow in confusion.

He turned fully toward her. Despite the console between the bucket seats, they were close. And with her fingers clenching his forearm, they were touching. He stared into her face, into her eyes that sparkled in the shadows. And he asked, “Do you deserve to be happy?”

She snatched back her hand from his arm and turned away from him. As she pushed open the passenger’s door, she replied, “I served my sentence.”

He wondered now if that had been too harsh. “I’m not talking about that,” he said as he hurried around the SUV to her side.

To protect her...

He glanced around the dimly lit parking lot as he led her toward the door to the building that housed her unit. There were several buildings in the complex. And in that building there were several floors, several apartments. Someone could have slipped past that security detail he had on her place. He shouldn’t have brought her back here.

“What are you talking about?” she asked as she dug inside that mammoth bag of hers for the keys that he pulled from his pocket. She took the ring from his hand and quickly found the key that opened the door to the lobby. It was nothing fancy—worn terrazzo floors and chipped plaster walls. But it was close to her office. He wondered if that was why she’d chosen to live here.

He waited until they stepped inside the elevator before he replied to her question. “I was just wondering if you are...”

She arched a blond brow. “Are what?”

“Happy.”

She leaned wearily against the mirrored wall of the elevator. The image of her in that tight, sexy red dress reflected around him as if she were surrounding him. Ash struggled to draw a deep breath when he felt like panting as his pulse quickened.

“I thought I was,” she said. “Until I saw how happy my dad and Pam are.”

Now he knew why she had been at that speed dating event and it hadn’t been to sell security secrets as he had suspected. She had posted online that she would be there, which he’d thought was her way of opening the bidding for information. But she had actually been there to find her happiness. She had really wanted to meet someone and she didn’t need to tell him for him to know that she hadn’t been looking for him. It was clear that after that arrest in her teens she didn’t have any trust or affection for FBI agents.

Not that he could have dated her had she been interested in him. He had no time for a personal life and no inclination to make time, either.

The elevator was old, but it was fast and came quickly to a stop on the fifth floor. He breathed a slight sigh of relief that it had saved him from having to comment on her statement.

She stepped out of the elevator and headed down the dimly lit hall. Uneasy, Ash pulled his gun from his holster as he walked beside her. And when she stopped and extended the key toward the lock on her door, he covered her hand with his to turn the knob.

She glanced up at him, her green eyes wide with sudden curiosity. And she asked, “Are you?”

“Am I what?” he said, distracted by her closeness and by that uneasy feeling that he hadn’t had enough agents watching her apartment.

Her mouth turned up slightly at the corners as she replied, “Happy...”

Instead of answering her question, he pushed open the door. Then he pushed her behind him for protection as he saw the total devastation. It was worse than her office had been.

And he worried that whoever had searched her place was still inside—waiting for her.