Fireborn

CHAPTER 3

He sat on a wooden-backed kitchen chair in the middle of the living room, his hands lashed behind his back and his feet tied to the chair’s front legs. His nose had been smashed, and bits of blood and gore had splattered across his face and dribbled down the front of his shirt—which had been torn open, revealing more cuts and bruises. Even his spiky gray hair was matted and dark with blood. They’d really done a number on the poor sod.

But why? What did he have that anyone would want so desperately? Nothing in his molecular research warranted this sort of response—nothing that I could see, anyway. But then, what would I know? I only made his gibberish legible and had no real understanding of what most of it meant. I didn’t even understand what type of molecules he was researching. Science had never been my forte. Reading illegible writing was, and that was the main reason I’d gotten this job—which no longer existed now that he was dead.

I smacked that rather self-centered thought away and dug my phone out of my purse, calling the cops for the second time that day.

As I waited for them to arrive, I dialed the office but got a busy signal. When I also had no luck with Abby’s cell number, I left a message, saying she needed to contact me immediately. Hopefully, she’d do so sooner rather than later, because if Lady Harriet found out about the murder via the TV or newspapers, there’d be hell to pay.

Time after that seemed to drag. I tried to ignore the guilt that crawled through me every time I glanced at his body, but had little success. While I knew it was highly unlikely I could have changed the outcome here if I had answered the buzzer when it initially went off, there was always going to be that what-if question lingering in my mind.

Although—truth be told—if I had gotten here earlier, I might have been found dead alongside my boss. I sometimes dreamed of death, but my own usually came without warning.

The cops eventually arrived. I was questioned, first by the men who’d initially responded and then later by the detective in charge, and it was close to two—yet again—by the time I finally got home. I stripped off my clothes as I walked through the living room, then padded into Rory’s darkened bedroom, crawled into his bed, and snuggled into his back.

And promptly went to sleep.

A strange sound woke me. An incessant, annoying noise that just went on and on. I blinked, my mind fuzzy and my body securely cocooned in the warmth of Rory’s. Eventually, I realized what the sound was. Someone was downstairs leaning on the intercom buzzer.

“Whoever that is,” Rory murmured, “tell them to fuck off. It’s still early, for god’s sake.”

A glance at the clock proved he was right. It was barely seven. But whoever it was apparently wasn’t going to take silence for an answer.

I groaned and pulled myself away from the delicious heat of Rory’s embrace, then staggered barefoot and naked through the living room. Only I wasn’t entirely watching where I was going and I ran shin first into the coffee table, spilling Mark’s precious notebooks everywhere in the process.

I cursed fluently and hobbled the rest of the way to the intercom, slapping the button hard and saying, “Whoever the fuck you are, you’d better have a good reason for waking me up at this hour of the goddamn morning.”

There was a long silence; then an all-too-familiar voice said, “It’s Sam. We need to talk.”

Surprise, and perhaps a tiny bit of pleasure, raced through me. “You and I said all there was to be said the other night. I don’t want—or need—you in my life.”

“Look,” he said, voice gravelly and decidedly grim. “I don’t want this any more than you do, but you happen to be the only witness to Professor Baltimore’s murder—”

“I didn’t witness it,” I corrected tartly. “I found the body. Big difference.”

“And,” he continued, like I’d never spoken, “you worked for the man. You knew him better than anyone else at the institute, apparently, and that makes you a possible key to tracking down his murderer.”

“I met the case detectives last night. You’re not one of them, so why the hell are you here?”

He hesitated. “This case is no longer being handled by homicide. It’s been turned over to us.”

“And who, pray tell, is ‘us’?”

My voice was every bit as cold as his, but my heart was hammering so hard it felt like it was going to tear out of my chest. And I didn’t know whether it was the fear that talking to him could inflame all those barely buried feelings or the half certainty that it would turn them into ashes and blow them away forever.

“That is not something I’m about to explain over an intercom. Let me in, Emberly.”

“Never again,” I muttered. And the last thing I wanted was memories of him in this apartment. When we’d split, I’d either thrown out or gotten rid of every single thing that reminded me of him, and that not only included all the furniture and every gift he’d given me but also the apartment we’d once shared. “I’ll come down. Give me five minutes.”

I turned around. Rory was standing in the living room doorway, his arms crossed and his expression grim. “Do you want company?”

I hesitated, then shook my head. Sam wasn’t dangerous—at least not physically. My mental health was another matter entirely, but that wasn’t something Rory could help me deal with. “Go back to bed. I’ll join you afterward.”

He continued to study me, concern radiating from him in waves. I picked up my old sweatpants and T-shirt from the floor and dressed, then grabbed my jacket and slung it on. “Honestly,” I said, when I finally met his gaze again. “I’ll be okay.”

He didn’t say anything, but his gaze remained on me as I picked up my keys and headed out.

Sam waited to the right of the building’s main exit, his arms crossed and his expression closed. The early-morning sunshine gave his black hair an almost blue shine, but his face, like his body, seemed leaner now than it had once been. Certainly his cheekbones looked more defined. More French, I thought, though I knew he could claim that blood only through his mother’s grandmother.

“So,” I said, stopping several feet away. The air was crisp and cool and filled with the salty scent of the nearby ocean, but this man’s smell seemed to override all that, filling my lungs with his warm, lusciously woody aroma. “I’m here. What do you want?”

“Breakfast.” He pointed with his chin to Portside, the small café several doors down from our building, and, without waiting for me, walked toward it.

I trailed after him, tugging up my jacket’s zipper to protect myself from the chilly breeze coming off the sea. Liar, that voice inside me whispered. It’s not about the chill; it’s about him. About protecting yourself from him.

That inner voice was altogether too smart.

He chose an outside table overlooking the marina and as far away from the other diners as possible. Not that there were many people here. It was seven in the morning, after all, and not even Portside, as popular as it was, started getting really busy until at least nine on the weekends. Had it been a weekday, we wouldn’t have gotten a table.

I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. He didn’t say anything, simply picked up the menu and studied it. Frustration swirled, but so, too, did curiosity, and that—and only that—kept me from leaving.

The waitress came up and gave us a cheery smile. “Are you ready to place your orders yet?”

Sam said, “The breakfast fry-up and black coffee for me, thanks.”

The waitress glanced at me, pen poised, so I added, “I’ll have the French toast with strawberries and double cream and a Moroccan mint-green tea, thanks.”

She nodded. “Any juice?” When both of us shook our heads, she added cheerfully, “Won’t be long.”

As she disappeared inside the restaurant, I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair. Leaning on the table would have brought me far too close to him. “So, to repeat my question, what the hell is this all about, Sam?”

“I’ve already told you why I’m here.”

“And I’ve already given my statement to the police. Everything I could tell you is there.”

“Not when there have been further developments.”

“Like this case being taken from homicide and given to your unit, whoever your unit actually are?” My voice was dry. “Why is that?”

“Because Baltimore’s murder isn’t as straightforward as it seems.”

“I guessed that the minute I saw him trussed up like a turkey and beaten to death. Just spit it out, for god’s sake.”

His blue gaze raked me, as sharp as a knife. There was a tension in him I didn’t understand, a hunger that was deep, dark, and not entirely sexual. My traitorous body nevertheless responded. Damn it, why did he still have the power to affect me so strongly?

Because he is this lifetime’s love, that inner voice whispered. And there is nothing you can do about it but suffer.

I hated my inner voice sometimes.

“It wasn’t only Professor Baltimore who was murdered last night,” he said, voice curt. “A security guard by the name of Ryan Jenkins was found dead—and stuffed into the janitors’ closet—by the morning relief.”

My eyes widened. “I talked to Jenkins last night.”

“We know,” he said grimly. “At ten eighteen.”

I frowned at the odd emphasis he placed on the time. “So why does this seem to be a big deal?”

“Because Ryan Jenkins was apparently murdered between nine and nine thirty. The man you were talking to was not Jenkins.”

I remembered the unease I’d felt as I’d walked out of the building. Instinct had known something was wrong.

“Meaning I talked to one of the men involved in his death, and you want me to give a description and work up a composite?”

He nodded but didn’t say anything as the waitress approached with our drinks. “Your orders shouldn’t be much longer,” she said and left again.

I opened the lid of the little china teapot to let the water cool a little, then said, “So they killed the guard because they wanted to get something from Mark’s office?”

He nodded. “Both the lab and his office were ransacked. We want you to go through those areas as well as his home to see if there’s anything missing.”

I frowned. “That’s going to take all day and half the night. And I seriously doubt—”

“You’ll do it, no matter how long it takes.” His voice was harsh. Cold. “It has already been cleared with Harriet Chase.”

I glared at him for several seconds, annoyed as much at his manner as the order itself. But, truth be told, I probably was the only one who’d have any sort of chance of spotting if something had gone missing. It made sense to at least try.

I plonked the little tea bag into the pot and closed the lid. “Have you any idea what they were after?”

He hesitated, his gaze raking me again, as if he was deciding whether I could be trusted or not. And that stung even more than his bitter words had five years ago.

He leaned forward and crossed his arms. It accentuated the muscles in his arms and the broadness of his shoulders. “Your Professor Baltimore was working on a possible cure for the red plague virus.”

I blinked. “Really? I knew he was involved in molecular research and was attempting to track down certain amino acids, but I had no idea there was a virus involved. He certainly never called it by that name.”

“He wouldn’t. For security purposes, it was simply given a number—”

“NSV01A,” I cut in, remembering seeing it repeatedly in the notes. When he nodded, I added, “But how did these men know that? I mean, I didn’t, and I worked for the man.”

“It was kept quiet for the same reason the virus has been kept quiet—we don’t want to alarm the public unnecessarily.”

“So who knew what he was doing? Because someone must have talked if these men were after his research.”

“That we don’t know. But as far as I know, only Harriet Chase was fully aware of what he was doing.”

And that old battle-ax wasn’t about to blab to anyone about a project that could potentially net her billions. “Well, someone else obviously did know.”

He eyed me severely. “Yeah, you. Or at least, you knew about his notes.”

I snorted. “I can’t understand half the crap he goes on about in those notes. I’m just there to type it up.”

“Doesn’t mean you couldn’t have mentioned it to someone.”

“Meaning I’m both a witness and a suspect? Way to get my cooperation, Sam.”

Our meals arrived, and I tucked into my French toast and berries with gusto. But he, I noticed, pushed his meal away before he was half-finished. He picked up his coffee and cradled the mug in his big hands, watching me eat for several minutes. The intensity of his gaze was unnerving.

I scooped up the last of the strawberries, then pushed the plate away with a contented sigh. “What about Mark?”

He blinked. My question had obviously caught him by surprise. “What about him?”

“Well, couldn’t he have talked to someone?”

“Who? From what we understand, his work was his life. He had few friends and did little beyond moving between his home and the institute.”

“That’s not entirely true. He ran regularly with one of the other professors, and he had breakfast at the café across the road every morning. He was quite friendly with several of the waitresses there.”

“Friendly as in lovers?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know. I never had reason to ask or care.”

“We’ll check.” He drank some coffee, then said, “Were you and he lovers?”

I bit back a snarky remark and simply said, “No.” Snarky remarks, I suspected, would run off his back as quickly as water off a duck’s.

He grunted. “Who was his running companion?”

“Professor Jake Haslett.”

“Would Baltimore have trusted him enough to mention his research?”

“How the fuck would I know? I ran his research life, not his private one.”

He raised an eyebrow, and just for a moment I thought I saw a glimmer of amusement. But it was too quickly lost to the sea of darkness to be really sure. “And you can think of no one else he interacted with on a regular—or even irregular—basis?”

“No.” I paused, then added, probably a little too hopefully, “So, can I go now?”

“Not until Rochelle gets here.”

I poured my tea, then raised the cup and drew in the rich scent in an attempt to cleanse his smell from my lungs. I might as well have tried to sweep a chimney with a feather. “And who is Rochelle?”

“Our compositor.”

That raised my eyebrows. “She’s coming here? Why?”

“Because we are a specialist unit working outside regular police boundaries, and we prefer to keep our location secret. It’s safer that way.”

Which made me wonder what in the hell his unit was doing—other than tracking down and killing those infested with the red plague, that is.

“Then how do I contact you if I discover there’s anything missing from the lab, office, or home?”

“You don’t. I’ll meet you again tonight.”

“There are such things as phones, you know.” And if he knew where I now lived, he undoubtedly also knew my phone number.

“We avoid using phones unless they are securely scrambled.”

Wow, his employers were going to serious lengths to protect themselves. “Meaning I’ll have to put up with you leaning on my doorbell again?”

He hesitated. “Unless you wish to arrange a meeting time now, then yes.”

I drank some more tea and wished I knew what the hell was going on behind his closed blue eyes—although what good it would do me, I had no idea. It wasn’t like we could undo the past and the things that had been said.

“Given it’s going to take me a good part of the day to go through Mark’s things, let’s meet at the Magenta,” I said. “It’s a bar just down the street from Mark’s.”

He nodded; then his gaze slid past me and he rose. The smile that touched his lips was warm and welcoming, and it briefly lifted the shadows in his gaze. It was also the first true indication that the Sam of old wasn’t entirely lost.

He was just lost to me.

A tall amazonian brushed past me and greeted Sam with a kiss on the cheek that was just a shade more friendly than necessary. And her fingers lingered on his arm as she said, “This is a bitch of an hour to be up. I hope you’ve ordered me coffee.”

She was the same height as Sam—six foot—broad shouldered and muscular, without appearing too much like a bodybuilder. She also emanated a high degree of heat, had thick, strawberry-blond hair that tumbled to her shoulders in waves, and wide, leaf-green-colored eyes. Her clothes were designer.

To say I suddenly felt inadequate in my baggy sweats and old leather coat was something of an understatement.

“I haven’t yet,” Sam replied. “I wasn’t sure how long it would take you to get here, and if there’s one thing worse than an early hour, it’s cold coffee.” Warmth fizzed between them, and it was decidedly sexual in its nature. Lovers, it suggested, not just work companions and friends.

Sam’s gaze came to mine again. “Rochelle Harmony, meet Emberly Pearson.”

“Emberly,” she said, in a voice every bit as cool as Sam’s. “A pleasure to meet you.”

I shook her offered hand and noted it was a whole lot warmer than his. She was, I realized suddenly, another fire Fae. And maybe she was the reason her male counterpart was also here—maybe he was simply waiting for her to come into her reproductive period. From what I knew about the Fae, it was a somewhat irregular event that happened only every fifty years or so, and was, in part, the reason why there were so few of them.

She placed a tablet computer on the table and then sat down, firing it up as he placed an order with the waitress.

“Now,” she said, unclipping the stylus from the top of the tablet. “Describe him to me.”

I did so. She worked on the image as I spoke, and within a remarkably short amount of time, we had a composite that looked like the guard I’d spoken to last night.

“I’ll get this out to all operatives and see if we can find a match in the system.” She finished the last of her coffee, then glanced at Sam again. “Anything else?”

He shook his head. “I’ll meet you back at headquarters.”

She nodded, gave me another of those cool smiles, then left. Her scent lingered, all warm exotic spices.

I finished the cooled remnants of my tea, then said, “That it?”

“For now. I’ll meet you tonight at the bar—six okay?”

“Uh, no. Not if you want this job done properly. Try something closer to ten.”

He nodded, flipped enough cash onto the table to pay for everything, then rose. “I’ll see you tonight.”

He walked away, and suddenly the morning seemed a whole lot brighter—another sad reminder that he wasn’t the man I’d known. At least around me, anyway.

A glance at my watch revealed it was almost eight thirty. If I didn’t get to work ASAP, I’d be meeting him a whole lot later than ten. He obviously had no idea just how much crap Mark kept.

I sighed and headed home. Rory hadn’t returned to bed, but then, I hadn’t really expected him to.

“What did he want?” he said, gathering me close.

I relaxed into him, enjoying the comfort and peace of his arms for several minutes before actually answering. “Mark was murdered last night, and I found the body.”

“Fuck,” he said; then, “You okay?”

“I would have been a whole lot better if the case hadn’t been handed over to Sam’s unit.”

He snorted, the sound rumbling through my body. “I told you—someone upstairs is pissed at us in this lifetime.”

“It certainly seems that way.” I sighed, then added, “I now have to go through everything in Mark’s office and apartment to see what’s missing.”

“You’re probably the only one who’d have any chance of knowing, given you were his all-around go-to person.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “You’d better leave before my hormones start acting all desperate again.”

I grinned, then rose up on my toes to kiss him properly. “Given our love life has been a little hit and miss of late, why don’t you see if Rosie’s free after work tonight?”

Rosie was a divorcée who worked in the office at the fire station. She and Rory had been friends with benefits for almost three years now, with neither of them expecting or wanting more. I liked Rosie. She was human, but she was good for him, and she understood his loss. Her husband had been murdered two years before Rory’s fiancée had been. We still had no idea why Jody had been killed and, apparently, neither did the police. Rory was in semiregular contact with the officer who’d been in charge of the case, but there’d been no fresh leads for some time now.

Even my dreams were mute on the subject—not that they ever made an appearance when I actually wanted or needed them.

“That,” he said heavily, “is a damn good idea.”

“Glad I could help.” I dropped a quick kiss on his cheek, then spun and headed for the shower.

The search through Mark’s office and lab was as tedious and long as I figured it would be, and just as useless. I couldn’t see anything missing, but it was hard to be absolutely certain. I stacked the final pieces of paper onto the last of the checked piles, then swept my gaze around the small room. The books he’d cared so much about now sat broken in piles. But at least many of them were salvageable, which was more than could be said about his running trophies. What they thought they’d find in those I had no idea. Hell, even his computers . . .

I stopped suddenly. His laptop. Sam’s people would have checked whether the institute’s system had been compromised, but I doubted they’d have known about either the laptop or the cloud storage Mark cross-copied everything to. Hell, as far as I knew, even Lady Harriet wasn’t aware he’d been stashing copies of everything, because he accessed it only from his laptop. I’d once asked him why he was being so secretive about it, and he’d mumbled something about having had research stolen in the past and that this was one way to both ensure its safety and to prove he was the originator.

If someone was after his work, then that would be the one place they’d get it all. Although if they had accessed it, why did they then wreck his office, lab, and home?

“One problem at a time,” I muttered, then thrust to my feet, grabbed my jacket, and headed back out.

The last rays of the setting sun painted the gathering clouds with streaks of pink and gray. The wind was cool and thick with the promise of rain. I shoved my hands in my pockets and hoped it held off until I made it home tonight—although getting soaked walking home from the train station would certainly cap off a perfectly shitty day.

It didn’t take me long to jog to Mark’s. I pulled the door open without really looking where I was going and plowed nose-first into a heated chest.

“Ow,” I said, instinctively jumping back and then rubbing my nose. “Sorry, I wasn’t watching—”

I stopped, suddenly recognizing the grinning man in front of me. It was the emerald-eyed Fae I’d talked to yesterday.

“Meeting in this doorway seems to be our destiny,” he said, idly rubbing his chest. Though I’d hit him with some force, I doubted I’d actually done any real damage. He was too muscular—too hard-looking—to be injured by a short woman in a hurry. “How’s your nose?”

“Sore, but that’s what I get for not looking where I was going.” I shrugged, my cheeks heating. Only I very much suspected its cause wasn’t embarrassment, but the rather intense way he was watching me. Like I’d suddenly become prey he very much intended to hunt. I might not be an innocent, but—if his expression was anything to go by—he very much intended to explore some of the more sensual pursuits with me.

“Well, I’m afraid it’s not entirely your fault.” He raised his left hand, revealing a phone. “I was texting rather than looking.”

He was also blocking my entry into the building and showed little inclination to move.

“Do you live here?” I asked, more to break the silence than any real need to know.

His gaze dropped to my lips as I spoke, and the waves of heat rolling from him sharpened abruptly. Desire flared deep within me. Heat—any sort of heat—was a siren call we found hard to resist.

“No. But a friend rents an apartment on the second floor.” His gaze scanned me, and it felt like I was standing naked before him. It was a rather pleasant sensation. “You?”

“My boss lives here, but he’s a forgetful old sod and I’m always having to retrieve stuff.”

He laughed. It was a rich, strong sound that rumbled across my senses and fueled those inner flames. “I’ve known a few bosses like that. Sounds like you might need a drink to recover.”

“Possibly,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Depends on who’s offering.”

“Ah, of course.” He held out his hand. “Jackson Miller, at your service.”

“Emberly Pearson.”

His big hand enclosed mine, and a tremor ran through me. God, his skin was so deliciously warm it was all I could do not to close my eyes and draw it into me.

“Well, Ms. Pearson, I do think I need to buy you a drink to apologize for my clumsiness.” He drew my hand to his lips and lightly kissed my fingers. It felt like a caress of flame. “What are you doing tonight?”

I couldn’t help smiling. He was a fast worker, that was for sure.

“Sadly, I’m working tonight.”

“Well, technically, so am I, but I can always find time for a pretty lady.” He pursed his lips, amusement and desire making his bright eyes glow. “What about breakfast?”

“Breakfast?” I repeated, all sorts of exciting possibilities running through my mind.

“Yeah, breakfast.” He paused, his grin widening. “Nothing else, just breakfast. Fae prefer to savor the chase, so the rest will come with our second date.”

Second date? I didn’t know if I’d survive the first one without at least exploring some of his unrestrained heat. But I raised my eyebrows and drawled, “And what if the first date bombs?”

“Given what’s burning between us, my sweet, I very much suspect the first date will be hot and heavy and that our second date will be sooner rather than later.” He took a business card out of his wallet and handed it to me. “Ring me whenever you’ve finished work, and we’ll go from there.”

I accepted the card. Jackson Miller, Miller Engineering, it read, with a cell number underneath. I tucked it into the top pocket of my jacket. “It could be very late by the time I’ve finished tonight.”

He shrugged and finally stepped to one side. “I’ll be awake.”

“Then I’ll call.” With a smile, I brushed past him and made my way up the stairs. His hungry, heavy gaze followed me until I was out of sight.

Damn, but he was hot.

I blew out a somewhat shaky breath and tried to pull the scattered remnants of my thoughts together. Work first, then Sam, then pleasure.

Although once upon a time Sam would have been my pleasure, instead of an unknown but sexy fire Fae.

I shoved the thought back into its box. Sam had moved on to the amazonian, and maybe, just maybe, I’d run nose-first into her male counterpart.

I coded myself into Mark’s apartment and then ducked under the police tape and went inside. The mess was much the same, only this time there was fingerprinting dust everywhere. I ignored the empty but bloodied chair and walked over to his desk. After feeling around for a couple of seconds, I found the little latch and pressed it. There was a click; then a drawer popped out from the base of the old table. I grabbed the laptop, plonked it down onto the desk, then hit the on button. After a moment, it fired up.

I pulled up the chair and got to work, accessing his network and then entering his cloud site. To discover it was empty. Totally empty.

The bastards had not only accessed his site but erased all his files. And the only way they could have done that was via Mark. I wondered how long he’d lasted before he’d given up his secrets. I guess if his battered state was anything to go by, it had been quite a while, and for that I could only admire him. Many a stronger man would have suffered far less before giving in.

I studied the screen for a few moments longer, then clicked back into the activity screen. The information had been accessed at 9:20 and then removed at 3:45 a.m.—hours after Mark had been killed and the institute ransacked. Why? If they’d wanted to ensure they were the sole owners of all his notes, why not erase it immediately?

I didn’t know. Probably wouldn’t ever know, given Sam wasn’t likely to bother me again once I’d handed over all the information I could. And given they apparently had open orders to kill the virus-afflicted, I very much suspected that whoever was behind the professor’s death wouldn’t exactly be getting his day in court if caught.

I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my eyes for a moment. It had been a long day, and all I really wanted to do was go home and go to sleep before I went to breakfast with a certain Fae. But I needed to complete my task here and get Sam out of my life again, and the sooner I went through the rest of this mess, the better.

With a sigh, I pushed upright and got to it. It was close to eleven by the time I’d finished. I picked up the laptop and left Mark’s apartment—hopefully for the final time—then made my way downstairs. The back of my neck began to prickle as I neared the ground floor, and I frowned, glancing around quickly. I couldn’t see anyone in the shadows, couldn’t feel any body heat, and yet . . . someone was watching me.

And while the sensation might have been nothing more than tiredness and an overactive imagination, I nevertheless hurried out of the building. Only it wasn’t just cold, but raining.

“Fantastic,” I muttered, shoving the computer under my coat. “Just fucking fantastic.”

Shivering, I ran toward the crisp white and pink glow of Magenta’s lights.

The sensation of being watched didn’t fade.

It grew.

And they were no longer just watching, but following.