Acasia lifted a hand to brush the hair off his forehead, then let it drop without touching him. He looked the way she felt; they thought the same things. She could touch him, but she couldn’t have him.
She would get him back to Rhiannon, make sure he was safe, make damn sure Dom would never touch him, and then leave. It was time to drain her glass of water from the moon.
"Guess we should get started."
Cameron nodded. "Guess we should."
She would leave him, eventually, for his sake. He would let her go for hers.
He wanted to reach for her, but he couldn’t.
D
EEP TWILIGHT.
Stillness.
Inside the quiet, the ghostly silhouette of a man and a dog patrolled Rhiannon’s perimeters. Farther along, toward the high wall hiding Rhiannon from the road, another canine team stalked, the dog keyed to its human partner’s state of alertness.
Along the cobbled drive leading to the great oak doors of Rhiannon’s main house, gaslights glowed palely, making shadowed hulks out of the wrought–iron benches scattered across the lawn. In the fields beyond the main buildings, a young doe pricked cautious ears and stepped into a patch of moonlight, bolting when a huge owl flapped out of nowhere, a rabbit dangling from its talons. Alerted by motion sensors, slow–scan cameras took in the scene, documenting everything.
Cameron studied the bank of security monitors detailing Rhiannon from every angle and felt the cold prickle of the paranoia he’d experienced with increasing frequency in the two days since he and Acasia had arrived at Rhiannon. It didn’t help to tell himself that it was only his imagination working overtime. He didn’t believe it. The ease with which Acasia had brought him through the layers of Rhiannon’s surveillance assured him that he couldn’t afford to believe it. Something, or someone, was out there.
For a moment he wished for Acasia’s eyes. What he only sensed, she would see immediately.
He’d seen very little of her since their arrival. She’d gone immediately to see about making a few changes in his security arrangements and had been playing chess with it ever since. By tacit agreement they’d slept separately since their night in the cabin, neither one of them certain enough about the future to make the unspoken commitment of sharing a bed. Instead they’d balanced somewhere between platonic friendship and business, exchanging hungry looks across Rhiannon’s blueprints. If Byrd hadn’t gotten himself killed…
Guilt punched Cameron, a nauseating blow below the belt. No, it wasn’t Byrd’s fault he’d died. The fault lay where Cameron’s conscience assured him it must—with C. Smith himself. Because he was alive and Byrd was dead. The man had worked for him, and, whether directly or indirectly, Cameron was responsible. Nothing that he was doing to find the killers, nothing that his own brain said, or that the therapist Acasia had recommended would tell him—nothing that even Acasia herself said to him from the depths of personal experience—counted. He wasn’t doing enough to make up for a man’s lost life. He was responsible; he was guilty.
"Damn."
"Mr. Smith?" Pete Stone, Rhiannon’s security chief, kept his curiosity about Cameron’s late–night visit respectful, his 3:00 a.m. yawn smothered. "Is anything wrong?"
Yes, damn it, everything. "No, nothing." Cameron pointed randomly at one of the TV screens. "Thought I saw someone out there. I must have been wrong."
The security man nodded. "Happens all the time. You stare at these screens long enough, you see a lot of things." Something triggered a motion sensor behind one of Rhiannon’s two guest houses, and immediately the security chief shifted his attention to the separate alarm monitor. "Punch it up close, Andy." When the man on the desk complied, the chief scanned the screen and shook his head in disgust. "Reset it." He turned back to Cameron. "Dog," he said, dismissing it with a wave.
Cameron nodded, concentrating on each monitor in turn, seeing what the cameras saw, wondering what they missed. "Something," he muttered to himself. "I know there’s something."
Again the security chief eyed Cameron curiously. In the past forty–eight hours, the grounds personnel had been doubled, new surveillance cameras added and the old ones adjusted and the entire staff ordered to expect trouble. He personally had caught royal hell from a Futures and Securities surveillance division chief for allowing Smith and an F & S partner to gain entry to Rhiannon unchallenged. It had done no good to point out that the partner in question had come equipped with the institute’s blueprints, was a protégée of renowned jewel thief and cat burglar Simon Jones, and a pro at breaking and entering in her own right. The division chief hadn’t been interested in excuses. He’d been pulled out of bed for a 5:00 a.m. toe–to–toe with the company’s director–in–residence, Julianna Burrows, who minced even fewer words than Paolo Gianini when making a point.
"If anyone’s out there, we’ll catch ’em, don’t worry," Pete said now, and meant it. This was a good position with an employer he respected—even more since he’d heard what Cameron had tried to do for the company driver, who’d been careless about his job. Employers with that kind of courage were a rare find. He wasn’t going to blow what he had here. He motioned to the man on the desk, who nodded and turned aside to speak into his microphone. "We’ll run a check of that area. If anything—any
one
—besides the dog is out there, we’ll get him."
Again Cameron nodded. "I hope so," he said, but he sounded doubtful, even to himself. Damn Acasia. He hadn’t gotten up at two–thirty to come play intimidate–the–staff with Security. He’d gotten up to find her. He could manage the days, but the nights without her were endless, damaging things that battered at his guilt, his conscience, his resolve. He needed to find her, needed to hold her. Just for a little while. Just until the pain went away. "I hope so," he repeated, rubbing the tension from his neck. The pressure stung his palm, and the stinging made it itch. He wasn’t sure which was worse, the pain from his healing burns or the fact that he couldn’t scratch where he itched. He pulled a bottle of mild painkillers from the pocket of his sweatpants, thought better of attempting to open it and returned it to his pocket. "What do you—" he began, but a new alarm interrupted him. As one, the man on the desk, the security chief and Cameron faced the monitor. On the screen a golden retriever sniffed its way up the front drive, stopping at every lamppost to lift a leg.
"It’s that damn dog again."
The security chief nodded. "We’ll have to get rid of it or be hopping up and down all night. Tell Adams and Reeves to run it off."
Cameron stared at the screen, nerves tingling. The dog. Of course. How could he have missed it? Acasia had been testing the surveillance for the last two days, and this was exactly the kind of simple diversion she would use. She wasn’t in her room because she couldn’t sleep either and was out playing tiddlywinks with his cameras. He should have known he could count on her to provide a little underhanded distraction.
"She’s out there," he muttered under his breath.
The security men eyed him oddly, as if to say, "Sir?"
Cameron grinned at them tightly. "Forget the dog." He’d be damned if he’d let her get away with something so obvious. "Get your people in there or we’ll lose her."
"Who?"
Cameron couldn’t keep the satisfaction from his voice. "Your boss."
* * *
Originally Rhiannon had been an estate similar to a British manor house, complete with spacious country charm, enough land to give one the illusion of being very far away from anywhere else, and air clean enough to breathe. Cameron had left the air and the land alone but, not being a man who believed in the preservation of antiquity for the sake of sentimentality, he’d mended what was broken and modernized what was necessary to serve comfort and practicality, which meant he’d replaced all the plumbing and wiring and had energy–efficient windows custom–made to match the style of the originals.
The original buildings were built of dark brick and fieldstone, weathered by two centuries of use and decorated in spots by climbing ivy, morning glories and roses. Besides the main house, the estate included a barn, stables, a carriage house, two guest cottages, a gate house and servants’ quarters. To this configuration Cameron had added a large, modern three–structure complex to accommodate the medical and technical research facilities for which Rhiannon was recognized.
The buildings were clustered together around and off of a cobbled central drive about a half mile from the main house on a parcel of land that faced the highway, then climbed the Green Mountains on one side and bordered federal land on two others. It was an incredible place, full of possibilities and imagination. Even the air gleamed. There was an otherworldliness about the atmosphere, an innocence reminiscent of times past and a sophistication more indicative of future possibilities.
Acasia found it nearly impossible to identify with any of it. She didn’t belong here. Her own world was too bounded by the seamy and the cynical, a world where innocence, if it existed, was shattered quickly and lost irretrievably.
In the last two days she’d explored the estate with the automatically appraising eye of a jewel thief’s daughter, the skepticism of a security expert, and a woman’s desire to discover who the man she loved had become. Everywhere she looked there was a mix of old money and new ideas: the dark wood, overstuffed leather chairs and Oriental carpets of yesterday’s opulence paired with glass and chrome; wood and tweed; slashes of color; the eye–catching optics of today.
She’d also found seven hidden passageways and a number of unused—and unmonitored—stairways within the main house itself that even Cameron hadn’t realized existed. With a few notable exceptions, the rooms were small and dark—practical in the days of no central heating—and, to Acasia’s Spartan tastes, cluttered.
She’d been right in thinking that Cameron could hide easily here, even from his closest staff, but so could anyone else. Cameron’s home made her nervous. She preferred open house plans, with large rooms and few furnishings, where you could see everything at a glance and where no one could sneak up on you. Here she felt like looking over her shoulder and checking behind doors every two seconds.
Her sensitivity to the place was heightened, she knew, by not knowing where she stood with Cameron—or where he stood with her. They watched one another constantly, handling the moments when they were alone with care. Since the first night on the road he’d seemed wary of dumping too much on her. She recognized the symptoms. He’d been quiet when she’d suggested he call a therapist, but she could see him holding back, hanging onto his control by his fingernails. She didn’t go near that part of him. Even if he’d wanted to let her, she couldn’t have. There was something too personal about it, too redolent with similar memories of her own that she didn’t want to bring back.
Instead, she played with the estate’s security, letting go of the things she wasn’t good at to handle the things she was.
She took a few steps to the right, keeping shadows between herself and the surveillance camera she was out here to try and outsmart. Head canted in concentration, she stuck out her left hand, moved it slowly up and down, watching to see if the camera detected and tracked the movement. It didn’t move, meaning that either the heat and motion sensor it was attached to thought she was something that belonged on the estate or that it wasn’t sensitive enough to pick her up. She sucked a nearly soundless breath through her teeth. She’d have to get the sensor switched out and try it again.
Since the talk she’d had with Paolo only a couple of hours ago, she’d been on nervous alert. Byrd’s killers had not yet surfaced, although there were plenty of rumors about who they were. The grapevine also carried rumors of a private force conducting a none–too–gentle search for the same terrorists, employed by an anonymous and excessively wealthy interested party.
She hunkered in the shadow of the house’s side entryway, alternately eyeing the dog watering lampposts along the drive and the camera that panned the area. She was on her way to surprise the pants off that anonymous and excessively wealthy interested party right now, damn Cam anyway for not leaving his search and destroy to the professionals. Or at least the proper kind of professionals. Like her. Demonstrating his vulnerability to his guards would give her the upper hand in the conversation she intended to have with him regarding his personal interference in the course of Futures and Securities’ investigation.
Her conscience didn’t even trip over the double standard she was espousing. She’d been down this road more times than she wanted to count. It was nothing new to her. Also, she could freaking well take care of herself.
When the camera she’d been watching finally triggered and focused on the dog, she grinned. "Good boy," she murmured, and scrambled between shadows, crouching at the door to pick the lock. It opened easily, and with a last glance at the dog she slipped into the kitchen. The alarm box was hidden behind a spring–locked panel in the tiled wall on the room’s far side. She had fifteen seconds to get to it, break the new code she’d had Cameron program into it and reset it before the alarm went off. Since she wasn’t running this game blind, she gave Security a three–second sporting chance before she approached the box. Then she probed the wall with expert fingers, found the slight depression and pressed the panel open.
"Seven one thousand, eight one thousand…" she counted silently as she clipped the wires to the panel that would allow her to bypass the alarms electronically. "Eleven one thousand, twelve one thousand…" The tiny light on the box in her hand glowed red to let her know all was well, and Acasia smiled grimly. "Gotcha." She slipped out of the kitchen and up the back stairs to the second floor.
Moonlight greeted her on the landing, trickling through triple panes of glass to seep into the gloom. She ignored it, her eyes focused up the dark hall on spots of deeper blackness, objects she sought not to identify but to avoid. Quietly she moved forward, stopping outside Cameron’s door, listening. The knob turned noiselessly under her touch, and excitement nudged the pit of her belly, accompanying her as she slipped into the room. Now, now she had him.