Midnight Sun (Sinclair Sisters) (27 page)

“Is it the same kind of research Peter Held is doing?”

“No. No one’s working on anything remotely similar.”

“Maybe that has something to do with it.”

“Maybe. But I know both CEOs. I can’t imagine Vernon Switzer or Hal Hartman putting me on a hit list.”

“No, but it’s hard to imagine anyone you know and like putting you on a hit list.”

“True.”

He could feel her behind him, studying the information on the screen, feel the heat of her slender hands on his shoulders, and his groin tightened. Dammit, how did she always manage to make him think about sex?

“Maybe this has nothing to do with losing money,” she said. She pointed to a name on the list and he recognized the company, Global Microsystems. “What about this one? They’re showing a very big profit. Maybe the company’s on a roll and they want that roll to continue.”

Call reread the name, old memories returning. “I know the CEO and chairman of the board, Gordon Speers. He’s a real prick, but that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

She laughed. “That’s for sure. If it did, I’d know about a dozen serial killers.”

Call chuckled.

“When did you meet him?”

“Way back when, Gordon offered me a job as president of his company. I had just sold Inner Dimensions, my computer game firm. I was looking for something interesting to do.”

“So why didn’t you take the job?”

“I didn’t like the idea of working for Gordon Speers.”

“Why not?”

“He’s way too controlling. His wife’s a Stanhope. Gordon’s always been obsessed with proving himself their equal.”

“Looks to me like he’s done a pretty good job.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, Gordon’s net worth isn’t a drop in the bucket compared to the billions his wife’s family is worth.”

She leaned forward, her breasts pressing into his back. He ignored a rush of heat and concentrated on the list.

“How about Transworld Design?” she asked. “Looks like they’re making lots of money, too.”

Call sighed, beginning to get discouraged. “Unfortunately, making a lot of money doesn’t usually lead to murder.” Charity stepped away and Call rolled his chair back from the keyboard. “Dammit, there’s nothing here that points to any of them.”

He felt her hand once more on his shoulder, the touch comforting this time. “You’ve got a lot of people working on this, Call. Maybe your detective will come up with something or something else will break.”

Call scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to ignore his disappointment. “Yeah, maybe.”

And the very next morning it did.

He was back in his office when the telephone rang. He had just ended the conversation and hung up his satellite phone when Ross Henderson walked in.

“Steve McDonald has located Peter Held,” Call said. “Apparently the guy’s been off on a little vacation with his girlfriend in Hawaii. McDonald told him he could come back willingly—now—or the police would be out to see him with a warrant for his arrest.”

“Held’s returning to Seattle?” Ross asked.

Call shook his head. “McDonald’s meeting him at the airport in Vancouver tomorrow morning. Since I want to talk to him personally, I’ll be joining them.”

“We’ll need more security. Jim and Randy can stay here with Ms. Sinclair. I’ll go with you and have a couple more men waiting when we get there.”

Call pondered that. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Charity behind any more than he liked taking her with him. He wished she wasn’t involved in this at all but she was and for the present that wasn’t going to change.

He felt her fingers gripping his arm. “I know you’d probably rather I stay but—”

“It’s all right,” Call interrupted, the look in her eyes helping make his decision. He turned his attention to Ross. “The lady’s coming with me.” He heard her soft sigh of relief. “The chopper will be here to pick us up at six A.M.”

By the time Peter Held arrived with Steve McDonald at the Pan Pacific Hotel in downtown Vancouver, Call and Charity were waiting for them in a luxurious suite. Held had been given the choice of meeting them at the hotel or at the local police station. He had gratefully chosen the former.

Charity watched him walk into the room, a young, Eurasian male in his late twenties, handsome and well-dressed in a stylish gray suit, though at the moment his face was drawn, his eyes a little red-rimmed, making him look slightly haggard. Faint yellow traces of bruising still darkened the skin on his jaw and cheek. At least part of what he had said appeared to be the truth.

Wearing black slacks and a crisp white shirt, Call walked toward him, his necktie loose and his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Charity noticed the tension in his shoulders, the rigid muscles in his forearms. “Sit down, Peter.”

The younger man dropped into a chair as if his legs had been cut out from under him. Call braced his hands on the arms and leaned over him. “All right—now that you’ve recovered sufficiently from your supposed attack, you’re going to tell me exactly what the hell is going on.”

Peter’s eyes widened. He sat up straighter in his chair. “I
was
attacked. Take a look at my face.”

“Okay—let’s assume that much of your story is true. You were mugged. Now I want to hear the rest of it.”

Peter met Call’s hard-eyed stare for several tense seconds. Charity wondered how long the younger man could hold out against his boss’s determined will.

Apparently not long. Releasing a heavy sigh, Held cut his eyes away from the unforgiving lines of Call’s face. “I’m sorry. I guess I should have told you the truth from the start. I was afraid for Melanie … afraid of what they would do to her if I did.”

Steve McDonald stepped into the conversation just then, directing his words to Call. “His girlfriend’s still in Hawaii. I’ve got a man watching the condo she’s staying in. When I found out he had taken her along and had no fixed ticket to return, I had a hunch it might be something like this.”

McDonald was an average-looking man, late thirties, brown hair, maybe five-foot-ten. Nothing special, except for the awareness in his dark eyes and the harsh set of his features that hinted at the difficult road he had traveled. They warned how tough he had become.

Call studied Held, then stepped back from the younger man’s chair, giving him a little more space, but his gaze remained locked with Peter’s. “Go on,” he said far too softly.

“Mostly I told you the truth. I was out jogging in the park. It was late. Three men jumped me. Two of them held my arms while the other one worked me over. I was in bad shape when they finished.”

“So what did you leave out?”

Peter released a heavy breath. Beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead. “That they warned me to leave town, to quit working on the MegaTech project. They said if I continued, they’d do to Melanie what they had done to me. One of them said he’d make sure he got a piece of her while he was at it.” He looked up and Charity could see his fear. “They would have done it, Call. They warned me not to say anything. They said if I did, both of us would wind up dead. They weren’t fooling around. I knew they meant what they said.”

“So you decided to keep your mouth shut and just walk away.”

Held looked even more uncomfortable, a spot of color rising beneath the smooth skin over his cheeks. “I was hoping you’d figure things out. I was sure once you did, you’d find a way to deal with whoever it was. That’s why I didn’t quit my job. I didn’t want to walk away from the project.”

His fingers gripped the arm of the chair. “I’m close, Call. So close I can taste it. Lately, we’ve been trying a slightly different technique, using organic molecules attached to copper atoms. We take the same metal molecules we used before and spin-coat them onto the surface of a silicon wafer, but this time we expose them to a light pattern formed by a different kind of optical stencil than we were using before. Wherever the light falls, the molecule combination breaks apart, releasing metallic copper that sticks to the wafer. Then we—”

“That’s very encouraging, Peter,” Call interrupted, ending the technical diatribe. “What I need to know right now is who was behind the attack.”

Peter rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head, spilling heavy black hair over his forehead. “I don’t know.”

“None of the men said anything? Made any sort of remark that might give us a hint who they were working for?”

“No.” He looked up. “They didn’t say much of anything—just beat the crap out of me, told me to take a hike, and warned me what they would do if I didn’t.”

Call blew out a breath. “Then we’re left right where we started.”

Steve McDonald focused his attention on Held. “You realize—thanks to your silence—there have been two nearly successful attempts on Call’s life.”

Held looked stricken. “What?”

“That’s right. He and Ms. Sinclair were both nearly killed when someone sabotaged Call’s airplane and just a few days ago, there was an arson fire at Ms. Sinclair’s cabin. They nearly died of smoke inhalation.” McDonald filled in the details while Charity watched the growing horror on Peter Held’s face.

“I swear to God, Call, it never occurred to me they might go after you. I figured as long as the project was dead in the water, they’d be satisfied. I feel terrible about this, I really do.”

Call moved back a little farther, allowing Peter to get up from the chair. “I understand why you did what you did.” He flicked an unreadable glance in Charity’s direction. “You were trying to protect someone you love. Sometimes when we’re frightened we don’t always make the right decisions.”

“Melanie means everything to me. I couldn’t stand the thought of her getting hurt. I just wish there was something I could do.”

“Maybe there is,” Call said. “I want you to go back to Hawaii and tender your resignation from MegaTech. As soon as you do, I’ll put word out over the Internet that we’re looking for someone new to fill your position.”

“So you’re firing me?” Peter looked slightly sick.

“I’m taking you out of the loop for a while. In the meantime, I’m going to open an office in Seattle, begin to concentrate on MegaTech full-time.”

Charity felt a stab of fear.

“That might not be a good idea,” Steve McDonald said, mirroring her thoughts exactly.

“I’m tired of putting my life on hold,” Call said. “There’s every chance whoever is behind this will just sit back and wait. They might not do a damned thing as long as I’m holed up in my house like a rat in a maze. I’m going to make it easy for the bastards to find me. When they do, I’ll have a little surprise waiting for them.”

Her worry heightened and a knot clenched in her stomach. “You’re going to set a trap and you’re planning to use yourself as bait.”

He turned his attention to her. “More or less. I’m going to stop hiding and see what crawls out of the woodwork when I do.”

“Why don’t you just pin a target on your back and parade around downtown Seattle until someone shoots you?”

His mouth went hard. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this end.”

“You know, you may be right,” McDonald said, rubbing his chin. “Give them some rope, maybe they’ll hang themselves.”

“My thought exactly. We can work out the details when I get to Seattle.”

“I’ll get things rolling as soon as I get back,” McDonald said, and Call turned his attention to Charity.

“Now that we know for sure you’re not involved in this, I think it would be safer for you to go back to Manhattan … at least until this is over. You can leave today, catch the first plane out of Vancouver heading for New York.”

She swallowed, the knot clenching tighter in her stomach. “What are you talking about? What about Kodiak? What about the Lily Rose? I have things I need to take care of.”

Call’s hard look softened. “I’ll take care of Kodiak and the rest can be handled long distance.”

“What about my friends, the people I care about? You expect me to leave without even saying good-bye?”

“It’s the smart thing to do, Charity, the safest.”

Her throat ached. “What about you? Are you going back?”

“I have to. I’ve got plans to make, arrangements to take care of.”

“Then I’m going back, too. I’m not leaving without saying good-bye to Maude, Jenny, and Toby.” Charity crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. She hoped her lips didn’t tremble. Dear God, she wasn’t ready to leave. She wasn’t ready to give up her once-in-a-lifetime adventure and return to a lifetime of sameness in Manhattan.

She wasn’t ready to say good-bye to Call.

Her chest felt leaden. Deep down, she had hoped he would want her to stay. She looked up at him, but couldn’t read his face.

“I’m going back to Dawson, Call,” she said even more strongly. “You might as well accept it.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “All right, but I want your word you’ll leave no later than day after tomorrow.”

She made a slight, jerky nod, wondering if it could possibly be that easy for him to send her away. “Fine, if that’s what you want.”

“It isn’t what I want, dammit! I’m trying to protect you!”

Charity made no reply. The lump in her throat felt massive and it was simply too hard to speak. Call said nothing more, but his gaze lingered an instant on her face before he turned away.

“That’s all for now,” he said to Peter. “Stay safe and I’ll let you know when it’s time to come back to Seattle.”

“Thanks, Call.” Peter shook Call’s hand.

Charity watched the younger man walk out of the suite alongside Steve McDonald and thought that if Call hadn’t had a loyal employee before, he certainly had one now. Charity figured he could count on that breakthrough at Mega-Tech in the very near future.

She hoped it made him happy.

Traveling as they had before, by private jet and helicopter, they arrived back at Call’s mountain home that evening. Jim Perkins, who had stayed behind to keep an eye on the property, stood waiting on the porch.

“Quiet as a church mouse while you were gone,” he said, “though that puppy of Ms. Sinclair’s managed to chew up one of my running shoes. Everything okay in Vancouver?”

“As far as it goes,” Call said. “At least we know for sure this is somehow involved with MegaTech. That means we’re finally hunting in the right direction.”

Ross and Randy followed them into the house and the security men settled into their routine, six-hour shifts. Call disappeared into his office without saying a word. He’d been silent and brooding since they left Vancouver. The hard set of his features and little more than grumbling responses warned Charity to leave him alone.

The hour grew late, though the sun was still up and she wasn’t the least bit sleepy. She went into the bedroom, curled up and tried to read, but couldn’t seem to concentrate. Finally, she gave up and wandered into the kitchen for a glass of milk.

Kodiak was out on the porch, where he and Smoke slept this time of year. She opened the door and the dog rushed up to greet her, bouncing up and down, wriggling with excitement, his fuzzy tail curling over his back.

“Such a sweetie,” she crooned, picking him up and cuddling him against her, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he’d be too big. She hadn’t had a puppy since she was a kid and leaving him behind made her heartsick.

“You gonna miss me, huh, boy?” She ruffled his long thick fur. “’Cause I’m sure gonna miss you.” She felt tears rising. Tomorrow she would say good-bye to her friends, and early the morning after that, she would leave this place forever.

She had never meant to make a permanent home in the Yukon. She didn’t want to live such an isolated life, but she had always felt a connection to this place and now that she had lived here, she had come to love it. She would miss the mountains and the animals, the wildness and the beauty, once she was gone.

Mostly, she would miss Call.

The thought made her eyes burn with tears. She said good night to Kodiak, closed and locked the door, then glanced toward Call’s office. He was still inside but Charity didn’t join him. Instead, she returned to the bedroom and curled up in his king-sized bed.

Call came in sometime later. He didn’t reach for her and she didn’t reach for him.

It was the middle of the night and the phone was ringing. Through his deep haze of sleep, Tony King struggled for a moment to realize what it was. He slapped at the receiver, finally groped it into his hands.

“All right, all right, what is it?” Beside him, his wife Alice groaned and dragged the feather pillow over her head.

“I want to know what’s going on.” At the sound of the familiar voice, Tony rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“Couldn’t this wait until morning, Gordon?” But Speers suffered from frequent insomnia and when he did, he didn’t seem to mind intruding on someone else’s slumber.

“Something’s happened,” Gordon said. “One of my employees called tonight. He says MegaTech posted an ad on the Internet. They’re looking to hire someone qualified in semi-conductor electronics to run their research and development project. The pay they’re offering is extremely high. It looks to me like Hawkins is replacing Peter Held, cranking things up over there.”

“So what? It’ll take a while for him to find someone to fill the kid’s shoes. By then it won’t matter.”

“Are you sure of that?”

Was he sure? Hell, no, he wasn’t sure. Silently, he cursed Stan Grossman. Tony hadn’t been able to reach the bastard in days. He had no idea what the guy was doing or even if he was still on the job. Tony was worried that Grossman was turning into some kind of loose cannon, trying to handle things completely on his own. If he was and he made a mistake, he could wind up shooting all of them down.

“Relax,” Tony said, forcing a note of confidence into his voice he didn’t feel, hoping to alleviate Gordon’s fears. He wished he could ease his own. “Like I told you before, I’ve got everything under control. Don’t I always?”

He could hear Gordon’s breath of relief. “All right, then. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”

“Try to do it in the daytime, will you?”

Gordon chuckled as he disconnected the phone.

“Sometimes Gordon’s a real pain in the ass,” Alice grumbled from the bed beside him.

“That’s the truth.” But he was afraid Gordon might be right to worry. Tony wished he knew what the hell was really going on.

“You ready?” J. B. Brown slipped toward him through the darkness, silent as a whisper of wind.

“Yeah—how ’bout Doyle?” Stan asked.

“He’s moving into position.”

Stan searched the shadows around the house but saw no sign of him. He thought about the occupants inside. “I wonder where they went in that chopper this morning.”

J. B. crouched beside him. “Don’t make a rat’s ass. They’re back here now. Lights have been off in Hawkins’s office for nearly half an hour. Give ’em another few minutes, make sure they’re asleep, then we’ll move in.”

The plan was simple: take out the two outside guards using rifle-fired darts similar to the ones used to sedate big game animals. No blood on the ground, no noise, no mess. As soon as the perimeter was secure, they’d move into the house, use the same technique on the inside guard, Hawkins, and the woman in his bed. While Doyle and J. B. carried the outside guards inside, Stan would rig Hawkins’s own thousand-gallon propane tank to fill the place with gas.

A few minutes later, with the help of a timed, burning trigger, the house and its sleeping occupants would be blown to smithereens. Along with the house, the cameras would be destroyed, as well as any photos that might have been taken. Even if foul play was suspected, there wouldn’t be enough evidence left to prove it.

In the meantime, Stan, J. B., and Doyle would be headed back the way J. B. and Doyle had come—by helicopter across the border to nearby Alaska, less than an hour away. From there they’d head north for the airport in Fairbanks and return on a commercial flight to the States.

All of them would be safe and everything would be right once more in Stan’s world.

All neat and tidy. Just the way he liked it.

“Time to go,” J. B. said, checking the load in his 9mm Glock and sliding it beneath the flap of the holster at his waist. Both he and Doyle wore dark green camouflage fatigues, remnants of their days in the army. J. B. had streaked his face with greasepaint. Stan wore black, head to foot.

J. B. picked up the rifle and a supply of darts and started for the guard walking the perimeter on the north side of the house. Stan skirted the area, keeping well back into the trees, and spotted Doyle taking out the guard to the south. Not a peep, just a single soft grunt as the guy hit the ground. Doyle made it look easy.

Knowing J. B. would have done his job with equal efficiency, Stan began moving in. A few minutes later, both guards were down and dragged out of sight, and the spray paint Stan had used to black out the security cameras was tucked once more into his pack.

While J. B. headed for the back of the house, Stan and Doyle made their way to the front. The heavy door was locked and bolted. Doyle grinned as if it were some kind of game, then used a small, muffled, explosive device to blow the locks. The door swung open of its own accord.

Nothing to it,
Stan thought as they stepped inside, beginning to get a little stoked himself. The house was dark and everyone was sleeping, just the way they planned. A few minutes more and it would all be over.

He was smiling, thinking how smart he was, when he heard a noise in the hallway. Looming out of the darkness, a hulking dark shadow appeared.

“Drop your weapons!” the shadow commanded. “Do it now!”

The strong beam of a powerful flashlight glared into Stan’s face, freezing him on the spot. Next to him, Doyle’s rifle hit the floor, but he was already pulling his pistol. Shots rang out, thundering in the confining space of the hallway. Beneath a constant stream of gunfire, Doyle dropped to the floor, rolled, and continued firing.

Stan slammed back against the wall, out of the line of fire, his heart hammering with the same rhythm as the spent bullet casings hitting the wooden floor. He pulled out his pistol, a Heckler-Koch, from the shoulder holster he almost never wore. Doyle kept shooting, changed clips, and started firing again. Stan heard the dull thud of a bullet entering flesh, followed by a harsh grunt of pain.

The shadow toppled over and the flashlight crashed to the floor.

“He’s down!” Doyle shouted.

Pressed against the wall, Stan could hardly believe he was still on his feet.

“You all right?” Doyle asked.

Stan blew out a shaky breath. “Looks like.” The gun felt heavy in his hand. He didn’t particularly like packing a weapon, but there were times it was damned comforting to have one.

“You guys all right?” J. B.’s voice floated toward them from the other side of the kitchen.

“Fine,” Doyle answered. “You stay here,” he said to Stan. “I’m heading for the bedroom. Stay low and watch yourself. Hawkins might have a gun.”

Doyle started down the hall, kicked open the first door he approached, two-handed his pistol and held it in front of him, then stepped inside the room.

Well, it won’t be neat and clean,
Stan thought with a twinge of regret. But the situation could still be salvaged. He just hoped nothing else went wrong.

Wearing only Call’s knee-length terry cloth robe, Charity climbed out the bedroom window. Shirtless, barefoot, with only time to pull on his faded jeans, Call waited in the darkness to help her down. She was shaking, so frightened that she stumbled and nearly fell into the bushes beneath the sill. Call caught her and lifted her the rest of the way outside, then took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Tugging her forward, he led her silently into the cover of the pine trees.

It was dark outside the house, the brief hours of summer night having finally descended. Their assailants must have waited for the sun to set to cover their movements before descending like jackals on the house.

“Stay here,” Call said softly. “I keep a rifle for emergencies behind the seat of my Jeep. I’ll be back as soon as I get it.”

Charity nodded, swallowed the knot of terror in her throat.

“Stay low and stay quiet,” he warned as he slipped away.

In the darkness, the night sounds enveloped her. The hoot of an owl, the luffing of the wind through the trees, the rustling sound of some small animal in the bushes along the little feeder creek behind the house. Her gaze searched the darkness for Smoke or Kodiak but she saw no sign of them.

Her worry heightened. Why hadn’t the dogs started barking when they spotted strangers coming toward the house? Where were the guards? She wondered if Jim and Randy were dead and prayed they hadn’t been killed. She wondered if Ross was already dead or if he was lying there in the hallway bleeding to death with no one to help him.

A thumbnail moon appeared for an instant between two passing clouds and in the brief, weak flash of moonlight, she caught a glimpse of something brown lying in the dirt not far away. Moving quietly, Charity slipped into the darkness, heading for the object she thought she recognized as the pants Jim Perkins had been wearing.

When she reached the base of the tree, she saw him, his body sprawled in the shadows beneath some bushes. For an instant, Charity couldn’t breathe. Forcing her trembling legs to move, she bent and hurried toward him, crouched in the shadows at his side. She spotted the needle stuck into the side of his neck, a dart of some kind. But his chest was still moving up and down, she realized with a shot of relief. The dart must have contained some kind of sedative. He was alive. At least for the present.

She hurriedly reached for the pistol he carried in the shoulder holster beneath his arm, but the gun was gone, the holster empty. If the other guard was still alive, his weapon had probably been taken, too.

Charity bit her lip. She started to slip back into the darkness when she thought of the knife she had seen Jim slide into a leather sheath he wore strapped to his calf. Jerking up his pant leg with trembling hands, Charity spotted the knife and pulled it out of the sheath. It wasn’t that long. She hid it in the pocket of Call’s blue terry cloth robe, which hung off her shoulder and drooped to the middle of her calf.

Anxious to return to the place Call had left her, Charity eased backward, away from the unconscious man. Moving quietly through the forest, she had almost reached her destination when a hand clamped over her mouth. Roughly jerked backward, she felt the hard steel barrel of a pistol pressing into her ribs.

“Well, now, I wondered where you’d slipped off to.” His arm was a rigid steel band; the hand over her mouth nearly cut off her air supply. He was wearing a dark green camouflage suit, his face disguised beneath two black stripes of paint, and his breath stank of strong, unfiltered cigarettes. A jagged scar ran from beneath his left ear, down along his jaw, and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt.

He jabbed her with the barrel of his gun. “Come on, sweetheart. You wouldn’t want to leave the party so soon.”

His hand came away from her mouth and she gasped in a breath of air, but the pistol remained in her side, a silent warning as he prodded her forward. Charity thought of the knife in her pocket, but she didn’t reach for it—not yet. She glanced into the trees, searching for Call, but didn’t see him. She prayed he was safe wherever he was out there in the darkness.

Call stood in the shadows behind the tree where Charity should have been waiting. Instead, in a thin slice of moonlight twenty yards away, he could see her being marched down the hill, his blue robe hanging off one slender shoulder, a pistol pressing into her ribs as one of the assailants led her away.

Dammit! He should have taken her with him. He never should have left her alone! His mouth felt dry. He forced down the fear that clawed at his guts and his fingers tightened around the rifle.