Betrayed by a Kiss (17 page)

The goons still hovered near the streetlight, muttering to themselves, aware he was watching them. He noticed guards to the right and left of the property’s border, watching him and the men on the sidewalk. Dane did not belong here. He looked over his shoulder into the recesses of the dilapidated house. Why was she still in that room behind a closed fucking door? With Smith?

Damn, he had trust issues.

Marnie stepped out of the room, the house and followed him down the porch stairs onto the sidewalk. The goons scattered, jumping into cars and driving away. When the front door slammed, she flinched.

“I guess he’s pissed.” Dane tried to hide how happy that made him. Surely, there’d be an explanation. Even Marnie couldn’t expect him to allow the oddity of this meeting to go uncommented on.

She stared after the fleeing cars and swore. “When is Caleb not pissed?”

She didn’t wait for him but hurried north, deeper into the run-down neighborhood where lower-income families rented from slumlords. Dane followed, the duffel banging his hip with every step. She pulled a car remote from her jacket and aimed it down the street. A full-size black van’s headlights blinked. She picked up the pace, and by the time she reached it, was out of breath.

“Get in. Come on!” She slid behind the wheel.

“Damn, you’re bossy.” He wasn’t sure what irritated her more—his smile or the wink he gave her when she scowled at him.

Chapter Fifteen

He threw the duffel inside, jumped in shotgun, and slammed the van’s door after him. She shifted into gear and sped down the dark street, not speaking until she pulled onto Bridge Street, the main drag. He waited until he was sure they weren’t being tailed before he gave her his full attention. By then, she’d parked on a side road and was shaking. He’d missed something.

“You suck at following directions,” she said.

“You should have known better than to ask. No way was I leaving you behind. I don’t like Smith. I don’t like that you know him.”
Be honest, MacLain. Just ask. Put yourself out of your misery.
“Are you lovers?”

She immediately took offense. “None of your business.” But she gave herself away. His relief was immediate.

“No,” he said. “You’re not lovers. If you were, he’d never let you leave his side. He’s that kind of guy.”

“How do you know?” Baffled, the woman gave him a look that suggested he was out of his mind.

“Because he reminds me of me.” Damn. When had he turned into such a romantic? Next he’d be buying her fucking flowers. Thankfully, Marnie was tone-deaf to romance and spared him the embarrassment of calling him on his shit.

“You and Smith are night and day, MacLain. It would be a mistake to think you understand him.” She shivered and zipped up her jacket to her neck.

“Does he have something on you? Is he controlling you in some way?”

“Oh, stop, will you? I grew up with him.” She was impatient and annoyed. “And next time I tell you to go,
go
. I needed to speak to him alone. Is that too much to ask? Just a sliver of trust?” She ran her fingers through her hair, grimacing like she was in pain. “Whatever. I know what you think of me.”

“You haven’t a clue.” And that was his fault. Soon they’d have a talk. He could see his words confused her, but she was distracted so shrugged them off. It was for the best, he supposed. His feelings were new. If he tried to explain how he felt now, he’d make a fool of himself.

“Just give me a moment to get my bearings. A moment.” She lowered her head to the steering wheel and took a deep breath. “Those men know me. They work for someone who knows me. Caleb should have known better than to have them there when I arrived.”

A woman with a past. So they knew her. “That all?”

She sat up and slammed her hand on the steering wheel. “Believe me. It’s enough.”

He would have to take her word for it. Marnie handed out thoughts like currency—spent only when necessary. “Why are we stopping?”

“Give me a second.” She was truly upset.

“I thought you and Smith were tight. Why would he screw with you like that?”

“He didn’t believe I’d hooked up with you.” She shook her head. “And he wasn’t given a choice. Forget it.” She put the van back into gear and pulled into traffic. “You wouldn’t understand.” And she was making sure of that. He wanted more from her.

“I understand not having choices. Why the secret confabs?”

“I had other business with Caleb that has nothing to do with you.”

“Another job?”

Marnie took her eyes off the road long enough to glare at him. “I was out of the life. Don’t you understand? Out.” She slammed her palm against the steering wheel again. “Caleb spent a good portion of our conversation telling me what a fool I was, and I had no defense. I am a fool.”

She turned down another side street, weaving their way through Manchester until they were near the Whitman Enterprises office building. Then she turned the headlights off and drove carefully by streetlight until she inched her way under the cover of trees and parked. The building was within sight, the security booths, too. In steely silence, she hopped into the back and plugged in the equipment.

“You talked about something with Smith.” He wanted to know. “If not another job, what?”

“He had a message of sorts for me.” She swore under her breath. He could tell she was giving him only a portion of her attention as she plugged in laptops, hard drives, monitors, and routers. “Would it have killed them to boot me up?”

He couldn’t push down his annoyance. “Crooks these days.”

Marnie turned so quickly she busted her elbow on the customized shelf holding the equipment. “Dammit!” She grabbed where it hurt and glared, like it was his fault.

“What? I didn’t do anything.” He held up his hands.

“Is that what I am? A crook?”

“Marnie—”

“Because those
crooks
, as you call them, are hauling our asses out of the fire. It’s your upstanding citizens in the MPD that failed you.”

“You’re not like them. Those people we’ve been doing deals with would sell their own children if it was profitable enough.”

Marnie moved to the next computer to log in. “Maybe, but in your world, Ian Whitman is a success story, and we both know he’s evil as shit. The lines have blurred.”

“It’s your world, too.”

Marnie paused, her fingers poised over the keyboard. She shook off his words and continued working, not calling him on his lie. Neither one of them believed she lived in his world.

…

At eight o’clock, Marnie began her hack from the van into the facility’s security system. It took intense focus, all under Dane’s scrutiny. His gaze was like a weight pressing down on her. Twice she stopped herself from asking him to look away, but she didn’t want to reveal her lack of confidence. Her hands were slick with sweat and her heart was beating so hard it was distracting. If she couldn’t hack into the building’s security feeds soon, they were dead in the water. The canisters of aerated sedation were already in place in the security booths and would go off whether or not she had her hack in place. It fixed their agenda, making it a nonnegotiable timeline. She had to get in before the canisters detonated.

She glanced at Dane, thinking about his sister and daughter. They were such nice people. Normal. Marnie had always thought if she hung with normal people, maybe they’d rub off on her, then she’d know what to think, how to act to blend, because life for Marnie lacked such examples. So when she’d spied on the MacLains she thought she was watching normal. That was how messed up she was. She watched this broken, traumatized family and saw a normal she coveted. Well, now she was convinced there was no such thing as normal, but nice mattered. These were nice people, something bad had been done to them, and Marnie, unwittingly, had had a hand in it, and when she gave MacLain the Tuttle information, she’d just as unwittingly linked her fate to his.

For all their sakes, she had to fix this. Their plan set them up to win big or die—not ideal, but necessary if they were to check all the boxes: cancel the hits, bring Alice’s killer to justice, stop Whitman from hurting anyone else. And it all rested on Marnie’s skill with an algorithm.

Wiping the sweat from her eyes, she couldn’t help thinking she’d better be as good as she’d bragged. What had she said?
I specialize in the impossible.
Well, this felt a lot like impossible. If she didn’t figure it out, the MacLains were screwed.

Marnie was screwed no matter how the night shook out. Her final chapter was lose-lose, as Caleb had been only too happy to assert. If she and Dane succeeded tonight, she’d never see him again, or his family. Yeah, the MacLains were naive, clinging, and vulnerable, but they were also kind, smart, and made her food without even asking if she was hungry. She’d miss them.

Ten minutes later, images flickered on the monitors and relief flushed the stress from her body. She’d been so nervous she’d sweat through her T-shirt. “I’m in.”

MacLain leaned forward, his hand on her shoulder. “Feed for inside the building or out?”

“Both.” She pressed a few buttons, and one image on the monitor fractured into twenty camera feeds showing inside the building and out. She pointed to one. “There. That’s the first hurdle.”

“Where are the employees in the building? What floor are these feeds coming from?” He pointed to the second-floor feeds.

“First and second. Skeletal crew, mostly security and cleaning people. The top floor, Whitman’s floor, is empty. We knew going in that was all we could ask.”

Marnie hit another button, and images of security guards in booths filled the screen. She referenced her drawings. “Here, here, and here.” She pointed to every corner of the parking lot’s perimeter and then brought those corresponding feeds onto the monitor. Another image showed guards with rifles on the building’s roof, and two were on the move.

“How exactly did you break in the first time?” MacLain didn’t look happy. “Magic wand?”

“I worked here. I didn’t have to break in. Breaking out was another story. For that”—she tapped the security-camera image of Whitman’s personal balcony and zoomed in—“I scaled down. See the brickwork? The mortar is deep enough to get your fingers in, and there are decorative cement pieces every four feet. The balcony ironwork on every floor helped. Prime example of a plan B. I’d have been dead if I hadn’t done my research.”

“It’s a dangerous climb.”

“I was more afraid of getting shot as I crossed the parking lot. For some reason, my shooter didn’t sound an alarm. I was able to get to my car in time to get a head start. This time it will be different. They’ll have Whitman’s balcony door wired with an alarm now, but I can get around that if necessary.”

“At the hotel, I wondered if we were going overboard, but now I’m not sure it’s enough.” He held up a hand to forestall argument. “I’m just saying if you have second thoughts or want to tweak the plan, now is your chance to speak up. None of this will be worth it if you get hurt.” He was staring at the monitors, not hiding his unease.

“Back at you. If we could do it different, I think you’d have seen that angle already.”

He nodded. “Our plan is good.”

“Why do I get the impression you’re about to say, ‘but’…”

He was staring at the monitor as if willing it to show what he needed. This was not the same man who recklessly said he’d break in with or without her help. This man was more cautious and seemed more aware of what they could lose.

“This is our shot,” she said. “We should take it.”

She’d surprised him. “You’re not hearing me.” Excitement and anticipation made his smile more feral than amused. “I’m telling you this is
your
last chance to back out. I’m all in.”

Marnie nodded. Good. “This will work.” It had to work. She pressed her hand against her side. The bandage was tugging on her wound, reminding her how close she’d come to dying last time she was here. So much had happened since then, it felt as she were a different person. MacLain was looking at her with expectation.

“We’re good?” he said.

They’d allotted jobs at the hotel and gone over the plan until they could recite its timeline verbatim. Marnie knew going it alone was safer. Having a partner was a quick trip to jail, or worse, but this job was designed as a two-man operation. If she had to have a partner, she was glad it was Dane. A timer went off on the computer; monitors picked up the security booth guards’ reaction to being dosed with the drug. They dropped to the floor in moments.

“It’s go time,” she said.

“For luck.” He kissed her, holding his lips against hers, his eyes closed, his hand on the back of her neck. It didn’t feel like a good-luck kiss. It felt like a good-bye kiss, and it made her blood run cold. She broke it off.

“Stop with the fucking luck talk. You’re freaking me out.” She searched his eyes. “We can do this.” She had to believe that, or the whole plan could collapse around them.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Sorry. I just wanted an excuse to kiss you.” He opened the van’s door, poised on his haunches. As soon as the guards on the roof separated and moved from their location, they jumped out of the van. “Go,” he said.

He moved first, running with the duffel slung over his shoulder, making a beeline to the entrance. Marnie closed the van’s door behind them, silently locked it, and crouched low, running after him. When she arrived at the building, her back pressed to the door, she looked left and right. Guards on the roof couldn’t see them, and the security camera affixed on the building overhead, above the entry door, was turned toward the parking lot. Marnie saw the sense in their strategy. Five security guards were behind the steel-reinforced entryway, so the camera’s best use was aimed elsewhere, but it was flawed strategy. It was Marnie’s in.

Dane opened the duffel and handed her the device to beat the coded entry lock. She slipped the key card in and waited for the decryption algorithm to find the numbers. Forty-five excruciating seconds later—fifteen seconds longer than predicted—the door clicked open. Marnie removed the card, dumped the device back in the duffel, and handed Dane his gas mask before putting on hers. He pulled the canister’s tab and threw the methoxyflurane-spewing device inside the now unlocked door. At this dose, the scentless, quick-acting aerosol would sedate the guards inside within seconds. They waited twenty to be sure and then rushed into the building. Five guards were out cold, slumped over their keyboards or supine on the hall floor, assault rifles at their sides. Best-case scenario, they were out for thirty minutes.
Best case.

“Countdown starts now,” she said. “Twenty minutes and then we have to be out of here, files in hand or not.” The mask’s microphone transmitted Marnie’s whisper to Dane. He nodded, though she could see he did so reluctantly. It was an ongoing argument, but so far, he’d allowed her to win. Files or not, they were gone in twenty.

Dane dragged the unconscious guards into the tiny security office, stacking their bodies up while Marnie sat behind one of the desks, familiarizing herself with their computer system. The van’s servers controlled these servers, so it was easy enough to plant a worm from the inside. It would make their system destroy all evidence of the link if she didn’t enter a code within the next twenty minutes, whether from here or the van. Marnie hoped she didn’t have to lose this foothold into the building. It was a valuable asset, a bitch acquiring, but the link could lead back to her. Every hacker had their fingerprint. It wouldn’t take too many questions to the right people to lead to Marnie, but the worm she’d just installed was a risk she was willing to take, because though it was capable of wiping the evidence that they’d been in the building, it was also her back door into the server if she needed it in the future.