Damned If You Don't (17 page)

“Good. Now for every action there is an equal reaction. The young woman in question will eventually make her way into the hands of the authorities, one way or another. But without a murder weapon, without your gun, the police will simply have another unsolved crime on their hands. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he growled.

“Excellent. Now, if you had
thought
about the facts for a moment, you would have realized that Dr. Mackenzie came back here to find something, something she wanted very much.”

“Her Gucci bag,” Sam muttered.

“Tsk-tsk, Mr. Ormond. However, I suppose I deserved that from your point of view. But I must warn you, don’t do that again. My patience is wearing very thin.”

Sam bit back another smart reply. “And your point is?”

“She came back here because she knows there’s more to this story, Mr. Ormond. A very damaging file was probably in her computer. And by now, I’m sure she knows what has happened. Unfortunate for her. Unfortunate for your partner, Mr. Kent.”

“Hey, I don’t do murder.”

A chill racked his spine as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line let go and laugh. He never wanted to hear laughter that cold ever again.

“Yes you do, Mr. Ormond. Yes, you do.”

* * * *

At a rather indecent hour in the morning, Ian’s personal cell phone went off. He’d been dreaming of his most recent lady and found he’d been smiling.

“Ian? It’s Jack Kent.”

At this hour of the morning?
“What’s wrong?”

The smile on Ian’s face faded slowly, and his brows began to draw together as his friend didn’t answer right away. And the sigh, well, Ian knew something was really wrong. His fist tightened around his cell.

“I’m in trouble.”

Uh-oh
. “What kind of trouble?”

“The kind you can’t know about. But I think you’re gonna want to know about this.”

Jack double-speak. Before my morning coffee. Just what I need
. “Ah, crap, Jack. Did you break protocol?”

He could just picture Jack and his grimace. He swung his legs over the edge of his bed and ran a tired hand through his hair. And when Jack didn’t respond, Ian had his answer.

“Why?”

“She’s innocent, Ian. I know you probably don’t believe that but I do. And as much as I don’t like them, this time, there’s a gray area.”

Jack didn’t believe in gray. He was a black-and-white kind of guy. “You’re kidding, right? You almost got me killed because you don’t believe in gray areas, remember?”

He could imagine Jack wincing even as he listened to him bark out a laugh. “Yeah, I remember.”

Ian rubbed his eyes and looked at his alarm clock. “Jesus, you know how to wake a guy up,” he groused. “How far are you in this?”

“Up to my eyeballs.”

There could only be one reason why Jack would go out on a limb like this. “Oh hell, Jack. Don’t tell me you fell for her.”

“No.” Said way too fast and way too emphatically.

“And now you don’t want to bring her in?”

“Well, yeah, until you decide to consider me an accessory after the fact.”

Ian shook his head. Wow, talk about turnarounds. The Jack he knew would’ve arrested first and asked questions later. “Then just talking to you puts me in jeopardy, you know that, don’t you?”

“Of course. But I also need to find out how bad Sam’s involved.”

“He’s already in this up to
his
eyeballs. You won’t be able to protect him much longer.”

“I know. But it’s Sam, Ian. I just can’t believe…”

“You think I do?” Ian cried. A piercing pain started right between his eyeballs. He tried to rub his forehead with his fingers.

“I won’t leave him stranded.

Ian wouldn’t either.

“She wants to help,” Jack added.

It figured. People would say anything to get out of jail.

“Wait a minute,” Ian replied, his thoughts coming together slowly. Jack believed her. Jack didn’t trust anyone. So this wasn’t just a hollow promise. “How?”

“If I tell you, you may cross a line you don’t want to cross.”

Ian frowned and shook his head. “I think you’d better tell me anyway.”

“Morgan Mackenzie created the process that’s killing these people. There’s no doubt about it.”

“Then you need to bring her in. Now.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Jack cried. “You need to listen. She stole all her data and the information on the process
so no one would get hurt
. Someone at BioClin was copying her work.”

That was certainly plausible. “I see.”

“Now either this someone wants to try to selling the formula Morgan created on the black market, or we have a really sick psycho on our hands.”

Hmm. Jack’s logic makes sense. That’s not good.

“Tell her to come in. We’ll talk it over,” Ian decided.

“That would make finding the bastard who did this very happy,” Jack answered, cutting him off. “It would stop you from searching for him. Or her.”

“I see.” Jack had another really good point.

“As far as I’m concerned, she’s done nothing wrong. She’s caught in a mess she can’t get out of.”

“All right, Jack. I tell you what. I can check with my sources and with Interpol to see if anyone’s heard about a possible formula for sale. But you don’t have much time. Right now my superiors still think you’re playing the game to find out if she’s more than just a suspect. If you don’t come in soon, I’ll have to go by the book.”

“She didn’t do anything wrong,” Jack insisted. “Give me some time, and I’ll prove it to you.”

Ian sighed. Sometimes Jack could be as stubborn as a mule. “So what do you want to do?”

“First, I want immunity. Immunity in writing. Not just a promise but in fact. In return, Dr. Mackenzie’s agreed to become the bait.”

“I don’t know, Jack.”

“In my opinion she’s a hero.”

“That’s an opinion of one.”

“Ian, I don’t think you’re listening real well this morning.” Jack’s voice had dropped, and Ian knew that tone all too well. “I’m not going to dick around with this. Immunity. Got that? And not just a promise. In return, she’s agreed to become the bait. She wants to nail the bastard who is doing this to the wall.”

Ian hated to ask but had no choice. “Think she’s using you?”

Jack bit out a bitter laugh. “Other way around, compadre. I was using her to get at the truth.”

“You were supposed to.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Ian thought about their conversation for a moment. “You wouldn’t be thinking of going out there and playing vigilante, would you? Because that would make me very unhappy.”

“Tough.”

“Mike won’t like it either, Jack. That would make
him
very unhappy.”

“And your point is?

“This isn’t the army anymore. You can’t just go out and do whatever the hell you please. Mike’s not going to agree to put a civilian in the line of fire unless she’s under our protection. And you
know
he doesn’t want you rolling around playing Wyatt Earp.”

Jack snorted, and Ian knew exactly what his friend thought of his warning. “Tell him she’ll be under
my
protection and I’m better than Wyatt Earp ever was.”

Ian sighed. Ian knew how good Jack was. He’d have been an excellent field agent if his heart hadn’t been broken by the army. No, that wasn’t right. By circumstance and decisions that were made beyond his control.

“He’s not going to understand.”

“Then make him understand!”

Double crap
. There was only one reason he could think of that Jack would put his life on the line for this woman.

“Jesus,” he muttered as horror filled him. “Don’t tell me. You’re in love with her to boot?”

Dead silence greeted him. Then Jack answered, “My life. My business.”

Oh this was not good. “Bad move, Jack. You won’t be able to stay objective.”

“That’s my problem, not yours. You just get Mike’s okay and let me worry about the rest. Until then, consider me hostile. I’ll call you in twenty-four.”

Ian sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Do better, Ian. Otherwise, I’ll play this my way. And if I do, people are going to end up hurt. Even dead. I don’t want that, and neither do you.”

In spite of their friendship, Ian felt a tiny shiver run down his back. He wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of Jack’s ire, and he knew Jack meant business.

“All right, Jack. We play this your way for now. Twenty-four.”

He didn’t hear Jack’s sigh of relief as much as he felt it. “Thanks, old buddy.”

“You’re welcome. Just remember, it’s her life too.”

Chapter Sixteen

Morgan’s heart hurt. More than hurt. Her whole body had emptied, leaving a gaping hole inside. She looked up from her computer screen, dragging her brain with her.

Jack opened the door of the hotel room. “Hey.”

Oh wonderful. A peace offering. At five forty-five in the morning. Then she spied the bag and smelled the coffee. One point for him.

“What are you doing up?” he asked.

She watched his gaze flip over to the clock as he handed her the bag. Then he moved away and sat down at the table. His distance made her sad.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she answered.

“Neither could I.”

For different reasons. “I don’t want to think anymore, Jack,” she confessed.

He played with his coffee cup before catching her gaze with his. “I know. But running away from a problem isn’t going to solve it. The truth will still be waiting for you.”

“Truth? You lied to me. So many times I’ve lost count.”

His lips quirked, and she read the self-loathing in them.

“True. Is it going to change anything?”

He had a point. “No.”

“Listen, I don’t want what’s going on inside of you right now to fester.”

“And how do you know what’s inside of me?”

“Because betrayal comes in all forms. But this isn’t about me and what I’ve done or about you and what you’ve done.”

“How can you say that?”

“What I did to you was unforgivable. You won’t ever be able to forgive me. You feel what you did to that woman was unforgivable. So you need to accept both and move on.”

Could she? Did she want to? God, she was tired of fighting with herself. “Someone used my discovery to kill another human being? Are you telling me I shouldn’t be angry about that?”

“Of course not. But I want you to think this through for a moment. What I am telling you is that you had no more control over someone stealing your work and using it than I had over being forced to keep my silence.”

Morgan didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Guilt soured the coffee sitting in her stomach.

“You’re not going to believe me right now, but there’s only one way for me to explain.”

“Do your worst,” she challenged.

“The caveman who picked up a dinosaur bone didn’t automatically think to himself, ‘Hey, this would be a great thing to bop old Bruno over the head with.’ He said to himself, ‘Hey, this is going to help me put dinner on the table.’ It wasn’t his fault that Bruno didn’t like Charlie and that Bruno figured out if he could bop dinner over the head, he could bop Charlie too.”

A cartoon picture of cavemen running around with dinosaur bones started rolling around in Morgan’s head, and she started to laugh. Then she started crying. Jack had managed once again to put things into Jack-like perspective.

He half lifted out of his chair to go to her, then thought better of it and sat down. But she recognized his dilemma by the way he tried very hard not to crush his fist around his coffee cup.

“I know,” she replied, finally getting herself under control. “And without those bones we’d have probably become extinct. I just don’t understand why there always has to be a catch, a caveat to life.”

“I don’t know, Morgan.”

At least he’d taken her at her word and not used kitten.

He shrugged again, his fingers twirling his coffee cup in place. “So what are you doing up so early?”

Morgan didn’t answer right away. She had no idea how to feel anymore, what to do, or where to begin. She wanted them back the way they’d been and that could never be. “Trying very hard not to remember yesterday. Can’t you go away again for a while?” she asked.

“No.”

Near defeat she queried, “Anyone ever tell you that you’re beyond a royal pain?”

“Yes.” He laughed gently. “My mother.”

“Egads! You have a mother? Poor woman.”

His face registered surprise as he answered, “I’ll have you know my mother loves me.”

“She has no choice.”

Glad for the chance to zing him, Morgan sat back in her chair and caught his gaze with hers. He tipped his head in acknowledgment.

“When you started talking about how bad this mess really was,” she began, half speaking out loud. “And I was able to see past the horror, I started thinking. You said the FBI was targeting other companies that were performing research on the same type of process.”

“I did.”

“I mean, I’m supposed to keep up with that kind of stuff, but worrying about the competition wasn’t high on my priority list. I was spending fifteen-hour days in the lab. So I went downstairs for a while. I’ve been checking the Internet.”

“The Internet? Why not ask me? I would’ve gotten you a list of possible suspects from Ian.”

“The reason is that I wasn’t looking for the obvious. I was looking for a piece that I might be able to fit into the puzzle. A scientific piece. A paper or an abstract that might connect to my work.”

“Any luck?”

“No. It’s been rather slow going. Part of the problem is that I don’t have access to every database on the Net, and most of the databases want you to sign up for their services before they’ll let you download a file. So far I’m coming up with a major dead end.”

“At least you tried.”

At least they were speaking with each other, and it didn’t feel like razors were slicing her insides.

“If we could just find out who was in the market for something like this.”

“I’ve already asked Ian to check.”

Stunned, she didn’t know what to say. She’d forgotten it wasn’t just the two of them against the world anymore. There were more players, and a whole lot more at stake than she could ever have imagined.