Intrusion (14 page)

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Her skin tingled from the heat of his hand and sent a pulse-stuttering jolt to her heart.

Why fight the attraction between them? Why shouldn’t she allow herself to enjoy it while it lasted and then move on?

Because she wasn’t wired that way.

Her heart would become attached to Cam and he’d find a reason to edge out the door long before she did. She’d be left alone to contemplate what she did wrong to cause yet another person to walk out of her life. No, she absolutely did not need that kind of complication in her life. Cam was sulfuric acid to her sugar, eating away at her in much the same way as the acid would suck the water molecules from sucrose, leaving nothing behind but a black carbonized tube.

And yet, knowing just how bad that would be, her heart still squeezed with longing. She lifted her chin and resorted to flinging inane comebacks in Cam’s face. “You aggravate me far too much.”

“Ah.” He arched a brow. “That just proves my point.”

She snatched her hand back and tucked it against her knotted stomach. “Which is?”

“That you like me.”

“So, what if I do?”

She gasped. No. That wasn’t what she’d meant to say. Denial had always worked so well for her before. How could she forget to use it when it mattered most?

Cam edged closer to her, his know-it-all predatory grin sending a tangle of nerves through her belly.

He leaned in further and touched his lips to her ear. “Careful now. I think I just found a tiny leak in your firewall.”

“Yeah?” His hard chest brushed against her and stole her breath. “What’s that?”

“Me.”

***

Audra wisely kept her mouth shut as Cam navigated traffic on the way back to Coburn’s mansion, but her thoughts screamed at her.

Give in. It’s inevitable. You want him.

What? No she didn’t. Half the time he made her mad.

Made her feel alive. Turned her stark gray world into one full of vibrant color.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Pardon me?” Cam parked the pickup out of sight on the curvy mountain road and shut off the ignition, shifting in his seat to pin her with a frown.

“Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”

He grinned. “I don’t see anyone else in the truck. Unless you have an imaginary friend tagging along I don’t know about.”

Smart ass. And because he was, she refused to reveal he’d flustered her into having a stupid argument. With herself.

“Let me guess. You had an imaginary friend. And she was female.”

He nodded and palmed his keys. “I did. Her name was Alice and she had big—”

“Okay, that’s enough—”

“Eyes.” He waggled his brows. “What did you think I was going to say?” His eyes widened in a sad imitation of innocence. “You thought I meant—?” He tsked. “Shame on you. At the tender age of seven I hadn’t yet discovered the finer points of the female body. Anything below the chin was still very much a mystery to me.” His lips curved into a playful smile. “It’s not any more, though. In case you were, you know, wondering.”

“Not at all.”

Not wondering. Not wanting.

She pushed open the car door and stepped onto the concrete walkway, putting Cam and his familiarity with the female body firmly out of her mind as they approached Coburn’s house.

Her heart sank. “Margaret’s car is gone.” Which meant Cam would insist on going inside the house and checking it out. “How will we tell if anyone’s in there?”

“Chances are Coburn’s not home in the middle of the day.”

“But what if he is?”

She expected him to have an elaborate escape plan. Instead, he just shrugged. “Then we run like hell.”

Not what she wanted to hear.

“Watch the street. Let me know if you see a car.” He slipped up the steps and removed a slim toolkit from his pocket. “Stand here and block me, okay? I’m going to pick the lock. Once I get it open, we’ll have—at most—sixty seconds to find the security console and disable the alarm.”

Her pulse jumped. “What alarm? He has an alarm?”

“You don’t think someone would leave a house like this unprotected, do you?”

Of course not, but, damn it the thought of breaking into someone’s house ate away at the gray matter in her brain. She normally worked hard to maintain cool logic at all times, and logic told her that picking Coburn’s lock was a very bad idea.

“I can’t believe I’m helping you do this. No, I can’t believe
we’re
doing this.” She turned her back on him and studied the street for a moment. Coast clear. So far. “Let me know when you’re done.”

“Got it.” His strong voice didn’t even dip with a hint of tension.

How could he be so calm?

“Just...hurry up.”

He snickered. “No, I mean I got it. We’re in. Let’s go.”

She spun around to see Cam slipping open the front door. How did he do that?

Her heart pounded making it difficult to breathe. She pushed the door closed, the tick of the monstrous grandfather clock in the foyer counting down the seconds until they were discovered.

“Oh, God. What do we have left? Fifty seconds?”
Tick.
“Forty nine?”

“Not helping.” Cam wiggled the face off the alarm’s control panel then connected two thin wires to the computer board and plugged the other ends into a small rectangular gadget. He pressed a button.

She flattened herself against the door. “What is that thing?”

“Code breaker.”

Oh. Good. She glanced at the clock. “Thirty seconds.” Half a minute until the alarm started screeching and they were hauled off in chains. “How long does that thing usually take?”

“Not long.” He frowned at the LCD. “Come on, baby.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, staving off the unease that snaked through her belly. “Ten. Seconds.”

The alarm beeped, the sound like a screech in the tense silence. She shot away from the door, ready to bolt, but Cam’s chuckle stopped her.

“Bingo.”

Her shoulders sagged and she blew out a breath. “Oh, thank God.”

He unplugged the gadget and waggled it at her. “Don’t forget to pay homage to the code breaker, too. It’s saved my ass many times.” He replaced the face on the control panel and nodded towards the huge staircase that rose in front of them. “Let’s start upstairs and work our way down.”

Audra took one side of the second floor, Cam the other. They peeked in bedrooms, bathrooms, a huge media room with a pool table, a large flat screen TV and theater-like seating. None of the rooms were locked and Margaret was nowhere to be seen.

Downstairs, they checked the kitchen, more bathrooms, and the living room before finally ending their search in Coburn’s impressive study.

No Margaret, but the imposing room piqued her curiosity just the same. Tall shelves lined the walls, filled with books and fancy Native American sculptures. The dark walnut desk placed prominently in the center of the room was a great hulking structure, with its thick legs and gothic carvings.

Audra rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms to ward off an uncomfortable chill. What sort of secrets did Coburn keep in here?

Cam tipped his head in her direction. “You check the desk. I’ll grab a look at the files.”

“But, what about Margaret?”

He stuck a pick into the lock at the top of the file cabinet. “She’s obviously not here.”

She glanced at the desk, then back at him. “What if she is and we’ve—”

“Unless Coburn forced her to swallow some invisible woman potion, she’s not here.” He yanked a drawer open.

Maybe not, but she couldn’t have just disappeared. She pulled Cam’s secure cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Margaret’s number.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving her another try. Maybe she was just out of range before.” She pressed the phone to her ear listening for the ring. It trilled in her ear, followed by the faint, yet unmistakable tinkling of
Over the Rainbow
echoing from somewhere in the study.

“Oh, no.” The phone slipped out of her hand and thudded to the muted Oriental rug under her feet.

Cam dropped a sheaf of papers back into the file cabinet. “Where’s it coming from?”

“I—I don’t know.” She hurried to the desk, Julie Garland’s voice registering slightly louder. “In here.” She pulled on the handle, but the bottom drawer didn’t give. “Locked.”

“Let me.” Cam gently pushed her hands aside and jabbed a thin tool into the keyhole as the song fell silent. With a wiggle and a twist, the lock popped free and he slid the drawer open.

A large brown leather handbag was wedged into the tight space. Audra recognized the silver heart pinned to the strap.

Her throat squeezed. “Margaret’s purse.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded, forcing herself to speak past the ache. “What has he done to her?”

“I don’t know.” He blew out a breath and handed her the lock pick. “Search the rest of the desk while I finish skimming the files.”

Moisture beaded along her fingertips and she dropped the slim metal tool. Her shaky fingers reached for it but couldn’t manage to pluck the pick off the carpet. She curled her hand into a fist to steady it, then bent down and pinched it between thumb and forefinger.

Cramming the point of the tool into the keyhole, she wiggled it the way she’d seen Cam do, and the lock gave out. She slid open the drawer, pushed aside papers until she recognized the smooth, feminine script on a piece of blue stationery. She shook the page free.

“Dear Russ,” the note began. “Noelle turned one today. I’d hoped...well, I’d hoped you would’ve tried to see her by now. No, not because I need anything from you. Noelle and I are doing fine. It’s just...out of the blue she said ‘Da da’ today. Most likely it was just a nonsense sound coming out of her mouth, but, well, it made me think of you...”

Audra’s throat grew even tighter. She shoved the letter back beneath the stack of papers and pushed the drawer closed. She couldn’t read another word. The bittersweet words made her wonder if her mom had ever sent letters to
her
dad like that.

Dear whatever-your-name-is, Audra completely emptied all the tissue from the Kleenex box on her head today. It reminded me of you.

Had he ignored them just as Coburn had done all these years? If he had stayed in her life—stayed with her mom—would she have learned that some people stick? Would she want to run into a relationship instead of running like hell as soon as she felt threatened?

She stole a glance at Cam, his brows drawn into a deep frown, his mouth and jaw tight. He looked up and caught her staring, and for a split second she was struck dumb over how much she wanted to press her mouth to his.

He waved the papers in his hand. “Blueprints. Sketches. They look like they might be from Nanodyne. You find anything?”

She blinked. What was she looking for? Oh, yeah. Something that screamed illegal activity. “No. Nothing.”

A white receptacle underneath the desk caught her eye. She bent to slide it free, and peered inside. Thin strips of paper crowded the bottom of the plastic can. Some of them were shredded documents with slivers of typed letters running up the sides, but several of the other strips were imprinted with grainy pixilated color.

A photograph?

She plucked one of the pieces out of the basket and held it up. A small triangle of black was surrounded by dark brown—almost the same color as the desk. She snatched another piece of paper and held it next to the first. They didn’t fit together, but were definitely part of the same image. At the corner of the second strip, a splash of light gray stood out from the black.

The skin on the back of her neck prickled. It looked like—no, it couldn’t be. Could it? She squinted, bringing a fluid gray ‘N’ into focus. The smooth letter with its slanted edges and long strokes resembled the logo she’d designed for her armor. Was it just a coincidence? Was she seeing proof where there was none?

She dug through the garbage can and plucked out all the strips that resembled an image. It didn’t take her long to piece together the shredded paper on the rug into a recognizable photograph, and once she saw all the strips aligned, she could no longer deny her suspicions.

Her legs trembled against their forced squat and then gave way. She fell back on her butt. “Oh, my God. It’s my prototype.”

“What?” Cam abandoned his perusal of the file cabinet to join her.

She gestured to the shredded photograph. “It’s—I designed this N in the corner as my logo for the armor. Something simple, an unobtrusive N over the left pectoral muscle on the body suit.”

He plucked the strip off the ground and studied it with a frown. “Did you ever release pictures of it? To the Government or anyone else?”

“Never. The only way he could have a photograph of the armor—”

“Is if he took it himself.” His mouth twisted into a feral grin. “Coburn’s our man.”

From down the hallway, a door slammed and Audra froze, every muscle in her body going rigid. She shot Cam a glance. Not a flicker of panic crossed his face.

Footsteps echoed against the marble hallway. “Russ? Honey, are you home?”

The high-pitched voice didn’t belong to Margaret, and crap, Audra had known breaking into Coburn’s house was a bad idea.

She scooped up the shredded photo and shoved the pieces into her pocket. She dumped the rest of the papers into the garbage can and Cam pushed it back under the desk, tugging her to her feet.

He led her around the desk, grabbed the phone that still lay on the carpet and thrust it into her empty hand. She mimicked his movements, pressing herself against the wall next to the door. His arm brushed hers and she held her breath waiting for a woman to burst in the study and find them.

Cam peered around the doorframe and then yanked Audra into the hallway.

Oh, God. Was he crazy? Wouldn’t they be safer in the study? She kept on his heels as he dashed towards the back door. Her heart raced. If they could reach it, they could slip out and—

“My flight came in early.” The woman’s voice drifted down the hallway. Loud. Far too loud. She had to be right behind them.

Cam pushed Audra into the kitchen, his hard body crushing hers against the wall. He leaned in and touched his lips to her ear. “Shit, just our luck. When is a flight ever early?”