Damned If You Don't (22 page)

Jack closed his eyes, willing himself to focus on Morgan, knowing it was up to him to keep her safe. “So far we haven’t come up with much, so don’t get your hopes up.”

“It’s still worth a shot,” Jack said. He shifted in his chair, needing a three-hour workout in a gym to get rid of his angst. “This whole thing is a mess. Bernecky doesn’t even work for BioClin anymore. Said he got a ‘bonus,’ then split to work for another company. He got paid off to keep his mouth shut.”

Wow, that came out bitter, even to his own ears.

“Can’t charge him for being a prick, you know,” Ian asked. Then he must’ve realized who he was talking to.

Jack gave him a pointed stare. “Thanks.”

Ian shut his mouth, obviously figuring he’d better not answer.

Jack pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “She’s made a list of anyone she could think of who might have been privy to any information, starting with her immediate supervisor and the guy they gave the project to.”

Jack watched Ian take the paper and put it in his pocket. “Second,” Jack continued, “she keeps mentioning a company in Europe called Gateway. A distributor that BioClin worked with. You might want to do some digging on them.”

“Thanks, I will.”

Jack frowned. “You know, I have a feeling that if you dig into this company Bernecky is working for now, that might lead you to the guy Morgan believes killed that poor woman. And maybe the others.”

“Who’s that?”

“Used to be her direct competitor within the company, she said. Anton Dvorak.”

“Do you think she’s right?” Ian asked him.

Jack nodded. “Someone inside that company’s been orchestrating things. I’m sure of it. Now, that person might tie into the other deaths, and then again, he might not. I don’t have any way to tell yet.”

“Guess we’d better keep digging then.”

Ian hesitated, and Jack wondered why. “Ian, listen. You know I’m right. She’s a hero, not a murderer,” he continued. “She was trying to do the right thing and keep everyone safe.”

She was a hero. Except for that small glitch called the law, of course. Which might get them both thrown in jail if Ian couldn’t work some magic.

“All right, here’s the deal,” Ian finally said, nodding in agreement. “You hand over all the evidence. I’ll ‘persuade’ BioClin not to press charges. When they find out what’s been going on, I believe they’ll be more than happy to cooperate.”

Jack took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. A huge weight lifted from his shoulders. “What if they’re all dirty?” he wondered out loud.

“You let me worry about that.”

“Not good enough. She’s really upset that someone used her process to kill. She wants to help set up the murderer. Become the bait.”

Ian frowned. “You want me to just set up a meeting and hand her over to the lions in the lion’s den?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“Because of the people who’ve died. Because whoever is doing this is crazy. I don’t care if these murders occurred in the name of greed or science. There’s no doubt a crazy is on the loose.”

Now it was Ian’s turn to decide what to do. He hesitated again, making Jack wonder. “That might be out of the question now.”

“What do you mean?” Jack stared at him, confusion and hurt racing through his guts.

“There’ve been…developments.”

Jack’s insides clenched as the temperature in the diner dropped. “Developments?”

“Yeah. While she’s been running you on a wild-goose chase, another murder has been committed. This time very close to home.”

“What? Who? How? Where?”

Ian didn’t seem sure which question to answer first. “It seems someone has been able to speed up the process. A young woman who worked for BioClin, Rebecca Daniels, disappeared right after Morgan Mackenzie.”

“Oh my God, her admin!” Jack exclaimed.

“Interesting that Dr. Mackenzie would have told you about the young woman, don’t you think?”

Jack didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Ian had things backward.

“She’s dead, Jack,” Ian told him.

His stomach soured. “The same as the others?”

Ian didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. He simply nodded. “And you think Morgan killed her.”

Ian didn’t reply again. Was Ian testing him? None of this made any sense.

“Motive and opportunity, Ian. Killing her own admin would put her right in the spotlight. Why take that chance?” He swallowed hard. “She told me one of her reasons for working on this drug was to help people like Rebecca Daniels. Why tell me about her then? It brings attention right where she wouldn’t want it.”

“Because the perp we’re dealing with is sick.”

In spite of the cold dread filling his gut, Jack clung to the mantra that a person was innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.

“She didn’t do it, Ian. She’s a hero. She stole the data so no one would use it.”

“Someone did.”

“She’s innocent, Ian,” Jack insisted. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”

“How?” his friend asked with a worried frown.

“By any means necessary.”

* * * *

Jack drove back to the hotel in a quandary. How was he ever going to tell Morgan that Rebecca was dead? He wanted to play it straight with Ian, but there was no way Morgan was getting arrested for murder. And Ian had made it clear he was going to do what he had to now. His first priority was the FBI. Besides, his buddy had a habit of following the rules.

The same way Jack had a way of bending them.

He sighed. He didn’t want to go it alone. There were simply too many things that had occurred that could be misconstrued into a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Who was to say, how could they prove, that Morgan didn’t steal those files to cover herself? The dates of the files were during her tenure at the company.

No, they needed proof. And there was only one real way to get proof. Somehow, someway, Morgan had to become the bait. Not only that, he was going to have to convince her to trust Ian when he wasn’t so sure that was a good idea.

You’re going soft, man.

Yeah, well, he’d never been in love before. So all of this was uncharted territory. And that made him very uncomfortable.

Jack pulled into a convenience store. He wasn’t hungry, but Morgan might be. So he figured he’d pick her up a sandwich. Stepping up to the counter, he spied a basket of fresh flowers. His hand reached out and plucked a bunch from the rest.

You’re going soft, man.

He drove back to the hotel with a slight smile on his lips. His heart sped up as he put his key into the hotel-room door. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to say. But there was one thing he was certain of, he loved her and he’d give up his life to protect her.

Maybe that was a good place to start.

The moment he walked in the room, Jack knew she was gone. Adrenaline spiked his blood stream and caused his fingers to tremble. He put the bag from the store down on the table along with the flowers and searched the room for a note, anything that would tell him where or why she’d gone.

Damn her. She was so dead when he caught up with her.

If you catch up to her.

Jack called himself every name in the book. But he was a tracker. The best of the best. And she was now one sorry-assed, oh-what-he-was-going-to-do-to-her-ass-when-he-found-her target again.

Her pocketbook was gone; the small stash of money he’d left her was gone. But she’d left the cell phone on the table.
That’s odd.

He went into the memory to dialed numbers and saw a number he didn’t recognize. Before he could form a next thought, his thumb was hitting Send.

“Hey, Mac attacks. What’s up? Did you remember something else you wanted to ask me?”

Jack drew in a deep breath. Morgan’s life depended upon his ability to convince whoever was on the other end of the line that she was in danger.

“This isn’t Dr. Mackenzie. But please, don’t hang up. I need your help.”

Desperation bled through his voice, and he hoped it would convince the man on the other end of the line to talk to him.

“Who is this?”

“My name is Jack Kent. I work for the FBI.”

“FBI? For real? Oh wow. I mean, oh no. Is Mac in trouble?”

Jack knew he had to play along. “Yes, sir, she is.”

“Man, she didn’t have to lie to me.”

Lie to him?
“Exactly what did she tell you—uh, I don’t know your name, sir.”

“Oh. Mac calls me Dewy. My name is Bartholomew Douson.”

Jack wanted to scream in frustration. “I need to know what she told you, Mr. Douson.”

“Dr. Douson.”

In a minute he was going to rip his hair out. “It’s all right, Dr. Douson. Dr. Mackenzie is working with the FBI on a sting operation. We already know about the file. But—” Jack hesitated. Did he tell the guy the truth? “Dr. Mackenzie is missing. I’m very worried that she might have tried to go out and put an end to the operation by herself.”

A soft chuckle reached him through the phone. “That would be Mac. She’s not very patient.”

“Tell me about it.” Jack exhaled slowly.

A short silence ensued. “She wanted to know if there was a signature on the file before it was deleted from the server.”

And Dr. Douson would know this how? Jack thought hard about his answer for a moment, then breathed, “You were the one who deleted it for her.”

Dead silence. “Am I gonna get into trouble?”

“No, of course not. I give you my word.”

“I told her the signature line consisted of letters. Yes sir. And I’ve been thinking about them ever since Mac’s called me.”

Jack took a giant leap of faith and said, “You know what they stand for, don’t you.”

“I think so. I think they’re initials.
A. D.
is probably Dr. Dvorak. But we have several people that work here with the initials
E. T
.”

“Thank you, Dr. Douson. Thank you very, very much.”

“You’re welcome. And if you’re a friend of Mac, you can call me Dewy.”

“I owe you one, Dewy. Seriously owe you one.”

“No you don’t. Mac is my friend. Just take care of her for me, okay?”

Jack grinned. Oh, he had something in mind for “Mac” once he found her, something very painful, something that would teach her to trust him once and for all.

“Will do.”

Jack hung up and dialed Ian to explain that there was a monkey wrench in his plans and that he was going to have to improvise. But that was what he was good at. Finding people and improvising.

Funny part was, he already knew where she was going. The problem was trying to get to the truth before someone else got hurt.

His gaze narrowed. Someone was going to hurt all right. Especially when he got his hands on her.

* * * *

Ian smiled as he drove back to work. His mind flashed vignettes of the past as he thought of them. The three amigos. Raw recruits with special talents, talents they’d put to use for their country.

One for all and all for one. He could no more turn his back on Jack or Sam than he could his wife—if he had one. They were joined in a way few people are.

Army strong. And then some.

Ian walked into the office and headed straight for his boss’s office. He knocked on the door and opened it. “Got a minute, sir?”

Mike Grady was a good man, dedicated to upholding the law. Would he understand that there were times when loyalty went beyond the law?

“Sit.”

Ian cleared his throat once he did. “I’ve got a problem.”

His boss grunted. “Didn’t think you’d knocked on my door to play tiddleywinks, Spencer. Personal problem or work related?”

“Both,” he replied with a sardonic smile.

A long silence followed a glare from beneath a deep brow. “Don’t have all day, Spencer. Spill or leave.”

Ian nodded, taking a deep breath. “I served with two Rangers in the army, sir. Jack Kent, you know about. The other is Sam Ormond. Seems they’re both caught up in a bad situation.”

As unflappable as always, Ian thought as he watched his boss. “How bad?”

Ian shifted in his chair, trying to look comfortable but knowing he wasn’t snowing anyone, least of all the man across the desk. “Not sure yet. It’s complicated.”

His boss simply stared at him. “It about the murders, sir. Jack’s trying to protect Dr. Morgan McKenzie,” he began. “Says she stole the data from her company because she knew the formula didn’t work and she was afraid they’d try to make it work anyway.”

“You mean, they weren’t above cheating.”

“Yes, sir. Exactly.”

“Go on.”

“As you know, Jack Kent is one of the best tracers in the business. So I called in a favor and asked Sam and Jack to find her and to bring her and the formula back to us.”

“And this involves your friends how?”

“Dr. McKenzie found out about the ‘additional testing’ on human subjects. And when Jack caught up to her, he realized she’d run to keep the formula from killing anyone else. Even so, Jack was willing to stay with her and see what else she knew, see if she could help lead him to the real culprit. But Sam decided to try to bring her in on his own.”

“That’s attempted kidnapping on your friend Sam and aiding and abetting on your friend Jack.”

Ian grimaced. “I know.”

“And hell, she stole company property,” his boss continued, clearly unhappy. “That’s theft.”

“Believe me, I know.”

His boss sighed and leaned forward to brace his arms on his desk. Then he smiled. “All right, this is complicated. What do you want to do?”

“Jack says Morgan’s willing to become the bait and set up the real murderer. But she—they—want immunity.”

“And your friend Sam? You looking for immunity for him too?”

Ian smiled. “Oh no, sir. With your permission, I have an idea you might be interested in.”

“Go ahead.”

Ian started to relax. It was going to be all right. Maybe not perfect. But all right.

“Well, sir, this is what I’d like to do…”

Chapter Twenty-One

Morgan knew there was only one way to end this fiasco—confront Anton Dvorak—and make sure the E. T. she was thinking of was the right person. To do that, she needed to do some digging, maybe a one-on-one. And the only way to accomplish it all was to wait until the people at BioClin had gone home. Her advantage was that she’d worked at BioClin for two years. She knew the place. And she knew the habits of the people who worked there.