The driver met Brennan’s gaze in the rearview mirror and then nodded again. “You’re friend to Lucas, so your word is good enough for me.”
Tiernan put a hand on the driver’s shoulder for a moment, and then the door opened and the hotel bellhop leaned down. “Checking in, folks?”
Brennan exited the vehicle and extended a hand to Tiernan to assist her in climbing out, but he didn’t let go of her hand once she had.
“No, we’re just coming back from a little overnight jaunt,” she said cheerfully. “All rested and ready to go. How’s the conference going?”
“Everything is running very well, ma’am.” The bellhop accepted Brennan’s tip and rushed ahead of them to open the door.
Once they entered the lobby, the first person they saw was Dr. Litton, hurrying toward them.
“They must have had a lookout for us,” Tiernan murmured.
“Undoubtedly.”
“Mr. Brennan,” Litton called out as he crossed the lobby toward them. “We’ve been looking for you. Where have you been?” He pointedly ignored Tiernan.
Tiernan, of course, wasn’t about to stand idly by for that. She flashed him a charming smile. “Oh, hello, Dr. Litton. We went out for a drive in the moonlight and wound up staying out all night. It was so romantic, don’t you think, honey?”
It took Brennan a couple of seconds to realize she was talking to him with that last, and another couple of seconds to banish his stupid smile from being called “honey.”
“It was an excellent journey,” he agreed. “We were so caught up in the . . .
scenery
. . . that we wound up touring the entire area.”
Litton’s narrow-eyed gaze darted between Brennan and Tiernan as if he were trying to decide if they were telling the truth or not.
Brennan, telling himself it was for their cover, casually pulled Tiernan into his arms and kissed her so thoroughly that he nearly forgot they were standing in the middle of a very public place. When he finally released her, something flashed in the corner of his brain—a glimpse of nearly forgotten memory, elusive as moonlight on choppy waves. The barest glimpse of her curves, shining wet in the shower the night before.
He
did
remember her. He would
always
remember her.
He’d worry about the
how
later.
Litton cleared his throat quite loudly. “Well. Yes. How lovely for you. But science waits for no one, and we have quite a lot to cover. If you’ll come with me, we have transportation ready to show you something I’m sure you’ll find very much worth your time.”
Brennan raised an eyebrow. “Ten million dollars’ worth of my time?”
Litton’s pasty face turned a little bit paler, but he nodded. “Definitely. You will be very, very pleased. Shall we?”
The doctor gestured that they should precede him out the door, and Brennan glanced down at Tiernan once their backs were to Litton. She shook her head in a tiny gesture, barely noticeable, but clear enough for him to know that she’d caught the truth.
Litton was lying. He didn’t expect Brennan to be pleased at all.
As they walked back through the doors they’d just entered, a pair of shiny black vehicles rolled up, gleaming in the afternoon sun. They were enormous, not long like the limousine, but square and high like army tanks. More ridiculous consumption of fuel. Didn’t these humans realize they were the custodians of the planet?
“Hummers,” Tiernan murmured. “Compensation for small penises.”
He couldn’t keep the laugh from escaping. “You continually surprise me,” he told her.
She smiled a mysterious female smile. “Good.”
Litton joined them and pointed to the first of the two vehicles. “We can travel in this one, Mr. Brennan, and Ms. Baum can ride with our second group.”
Tiernan’s hand tightened convulsively on Brennan’s, and he stared down at Litton. “She goes with me.”
Litton made a few sputtering noises of protest, but Brennan ignored them completely and crossed to the vehicle, helping Tiernan climb up into the seat.
“Thank you,” she whispered into his ear.
He climbed up next to her and pulled the door shut, leaving Litton to climb into the front seat next to the driver, who was yet another goon. This one was thickly muscled with a bald head and tattoos on his neck, but he obviously wasn’t a vampire, given the time of day. Shifter, maybe?
Before he could ask, Tiernan did it for him.
“Yeah,” the guy replied, after looking at Litton. “I’m with the local Pack here in the park.”
Tiernan touched the back of Brennan’s hand and made a back-and-forth motion with her fingertip, telling him that the shifter was lying about being in Lucas’s Pack. Interesting. What motivation could he have to do that? They had no knowledge that Brennan knew Lucas, did they?
A darker thought occurred. What if this were one of Litton’s enthralled shifters—an experiment? What if he went crazy with whatever had infected the others? Brennan regretted allowing Tiernan to enter the vehicle first; now she sat directly behind the driver, in his reach if he twisted around. Shifters were quick, even in close quarters, as he’d had many occasions to observe over the centuries.
Brennan would just have to be quicker. He touched the pocket of his jeans, reassuring himself that the small bottle Alaric had given him was still there. His secret weapon, if they were . . . detained.
As the shifter put the vehicle into gear and drove away from the hotel, Litton started a stream of general commentary on the local sights, what had happened thus far in the conference, and so on. A nervous talker. Brennan hated nervous talkers.
Tiernan leaned across him to gaze out his window, and the warm weight of her body against his nearly made him groan. Memories of their lovemaking that morning were not conducive to keeping him sharp and alert in the presence of potential and proven enemies.
“Look at how beautiful it is here,” she said, pointing to the shimmer of water through the trees. “Let’s take some time after the conference and explore it, okay?”
She turned her head to smile up at him, and her lips were only a breath away from his, so it was only natural that he’d lean forward and close that space. As fleeting as a forgotten wish, yet even such a brief touch from her lips still had the power to spark liquid gold inside the dark crevasses of his soul.
Brennan had to grin: oh, how Ven would mock him if he’d heard
that
thought.
“I’ll take that evil grin as a yes,” Tiernan said, straightening up and moving back into her side of the seat. “I’ve heard the waterfalls here are spectacular.”
Litton, who’d been droning on about waterfalls earlier, made a snorting noise, settled into his seat, shoulders hunched, and quit talking altogether. As much as Brennan appreciated the silence, he knew he should be doing something to advance their cover story. He leaned forward a l ittle.
“Tell me more about the lab, Dr. Litton. I understand it is in a very secure location?”
Litton twisted around in his seat. “Definitely secure. We wouldn’t want your money to be in any danger, would we, now?” He laughed at his own wit, and Brennan frowned. There was an edge of madness there, to be sure. Not that most true geniuses didn’t have that streak of incipient madness, and Litton was nothing if not a genius. His research and discoveries in mapping the brain and ways to manipulate brain chemistry and function were nothing short of miraculous.
That’s why they were all here, after all. Just the crazy scientist, the brainless reporter, and the not-very-perceptive billionaire.
Tiernan shot him a look, and he realized he’d tightened his grip on her hand so much that he was probably hurting her. He instantly released her.
“I’m sorry,
mi
—Tracy,” he said quietly.
“No worries. Good as new.” She wiggled her fingers to show him.
“We’re almost there,” Litton said. “It’s about twenty minutes outside the gate. We’re going to give you a special demonstration of our capabilities and experiments to date, and also present our plans for the future. With the help of your funding, we anticipate great strides in the very near future.” The man was all but preening. “Great strides,” he repeated.
“Well, you are the genius,” Tiernan said, a bland smile on her face.
Litton shot her a suspicious glare, but she kept the smile on her face, no matter that she believed the man to be a contemptuous rodent. Brennan was impressed.
“Yes,” Litton said, turning back around to face forward again. “I am.”
Tiernan rolled her eyes, and the driver made a choking noise that he turned into a cough. Brennan glanced up and met the man’s gaze in the rearview mirror. The shifter was fighting a grin, so he’d clearly seen Tiernan’s reaction. Brennan smiled, too, inviting the driver to share the joke.
Never hurt to enlist allies. The shifter might not actively help them, but it’s harder to shoot a man when you’ve shared a joke with him. Ven had taught them all that. Although Christophe was fond of telling Ven that it was his jokes that might get
him
shot. Brennan smiled at the memory, and at his ability to find joy in something so ordinary as the bantering between his fellow warriors.
They sat in silence for the rest of the trip, and Brennan memorized their directions and notable landmarks so he could find the place again. After the promised twenty minutes, the driver turned the car off onto a tree-lined road that narrowed for a few miles until it was no more than a single lane. If they met any cars coming the opposite way, someone would need to pull clear off the road into the grass and weeds.
They took a sharp turn a little too fast, and Tiernan fell against Brennan. He took advantage of the moment by putting his arm around her—any excuse to touch her. The look in her eyes when she glanced up at him made him want to touch her in many ways. Naked ways.
“We’re here,” Litton announced.
Brennan put thoughts of Tiernan, naked, to the side for more careful consideration later, and studied the enormous, blocky, white-painted building.
“It’s a warehouse?” Tiernan asked.
“We bought the warehouse and made major renovations to the inside,” Litton said. “We needed a large space that we could retrofit to our own precise specifications.”
“Of course,” Brennan said. “Easier when the basic structure is in place.” As if he really were a businessman and had done such things many times. He felt the warmth of Tiernan’s approval even before he saw it in her eyes.
The shifter pulled right up to the front door and parked the car, then jumped out to open the door for Tiernan. She had no polite way to refuse, so Brennan had to endure several seconds when she was in easy reach of the driver. If the shifter really had been experimented on and chose this moment to succumb to the madness, Brennan wouldn’t be able to reach her in time to save her. Brennan had far too much experience with the damage an enraged shifter could do with his claws and teeth to be anything but tense until she safely reached his side.
“Welcome to the Litton Neuro-Research Institute,” the scientist said with a flourish, opening the large metal door. “Prepare to be amazed.”
“Oh, I am, Dr. Litton,” Brennan told him as they entered the building. “I definitely am.”
Chapter 23
Tiernan had been nervous enough about the drive down the back road to Out-in-the-Boonies, but the metal detector at the doorway ratcheted her anxiety level to an eight or nine. Brennan surely had his daggers with him, and that was going to go over badly. Really badly.
The shifter had lied about being part of Lucas’s Pack, so he was definitely one of Litton’s thugs, but that was no surprise. Litton was too paranoid to have anybody but people he could control around him, she’d bet. She’d met the type before, and they hadn’t even been mad scientists.
Brennan never even paused. He sauntered through the metal detector like he was a celebrity on a red carpet. The machine didn’t make a peep.
After all her worry about Brennan, the machine buzzed loudly when she walked through, and she flinched. The very bored-looking attendant perked up, probably at the opportunity for trouble. He shot up out of his seat, his hand hovering near the pocket of his jacket. “Weapon?”
Tiernan smiled. “Cell phone.” She put the phone in the little tray and walked through again, this time with no buzzing. Litton, who had been practically dancing from foot to foot the whole time, led them down a short hallway and into a large conference room.
“We’ll be in here for the presentation, and then I’ll take you on a tour of the lab,” he told Brennan.
“I’d prefer a more casual approach,” Brennan said. “Why don’t we walk around the lab now and save the formal presentation for later or even tomorrow? I like to see my dollars at work, so to speak.”
Litton didn’t like that idea at all. His face turned an unhealthy purple color and he started spluttering. “Oh, no, no, that won’t do at all. You know scientists, Mr. Brennan, a bunch of people more set in their ways you’re unlikely to find soon. We have to let them follow the plan or they’ll get confused and unhappy. Unhappy scientists don’t do good work.”
“We’re so lucky you’re not like that, Dr. Litton,” Tiernan said sweetly, finding it hard not to laugh when he scuttled out of there, muttering something about coffee and back in fifteen minutes.
Brennan crossed the space separating them until he was standing so close to her that his breath ruffled her hair when he spoke. “You shouldn’t tease the evil scientist.”
She shivered a little from the sensation of his warm breath traveling down her neck. “I know, but he annoys me so much. Even if I didn’t hate him for everything he does and everything he stands for, I’d still want to kick him in the nuts just on general principles.”
The deep timbre of Brennan’s laughter sent another shiver down her spine and she moved a prudent distance away, pretending to be fascinated by the tray of coffee cups. Then she remembered what she’d wanted to ask him and returned so she could speak quietly and avoid any eaves-droppers or bugs.