Her Perfect Mate (20 page)

Landon looked more than ready to oblige him, too. He stepped half in front of Ivy, his body tense.

Clayne held up his hands. “I’m just here to talk to Ivy.”

Landon shifted just enough to see her face without turning his back on Clayne. When she nodded, he

moved farther down the hall. That didn’t stop him from keeping an eye on them.

She glared up at Clayne. “What do you want? We’re kind of busy, so make it fast.”

Clayne hesitated, his eyes going to Landon. Her partner was standing there, arms folded across his

chest, watching them.

“He can’t hear us, Clayne. He’s not a shifter, remember?”

Clayne looked at her sharply. “I remember. That’s why I’m here. To tell you what you already know—

that you’re making a mistake getting close to him.”

She tightened her grip on the folders, clutching them to her chest. “I’m not getting close to him.”

Liar
.

“Try that again, only this time with more feeling. Maybe I’ll believe it.”

She flushed. “I don’t care if you believe it or not. Look, you’ve already said everything you have to say

—more than once. That crap you pulled at the pugil pit the other day spoke loud and clear. I don’t want to

hear it anymore.”

Clayne lifted his hands like he wanted to take her by the shoulders, but whether it was to shake her or

pull her into his arms, she’d never know because he ran his fingers through his long hair instead. When he

lowered them to his side, his face was a mask of calm.

“I just want you to know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

Clayne moved closer, his eyes a swirl of gold and brown, as if he was on the verge of shifting. “That

when things go to crap with Donovan—and they will—I’ll be there for you. All you have to do is call me

and I’ll be there. Wherever there is.”

She opened her mouth to tell him he was wrong about Landon, but he’d already turned and walked

away.

Landon came over. “What was that about?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Absolutely nothing.”

Chapter 10

They went to Mitch Dowling’s place first, but it was a bust. Other than learning from his brother that

Dowling worked on how pathogens adapt to their environment so the CDC could understand why some

people reject vaccines, they found nothing.

They went to see Sarah Beacon’s husband next. The man was too distraught to be much help, but he did

mention Sarah’s work on gene therapy required a very specific type of computer—a very large, expensive

one you couldn’t get at the local Best Buy.

While Landon found them someplace to have dinner, Ivy called the DCO and told John what they’d

learned, then asked him to see if anyone recently had purchased a computer like the one Sarah Beacon

used. John got back to them before the waitress even brought their food.

“A man by the name of Arnold Doyle ordered a similar computer a month ago, paid up front for it, and

had it delivered to a warehouse outside of Atlanta. I’m sure it’s an alias, but I’ve got someone trying to

track him down anyway. In the meantime, I’m sending the address of the warehouse to your phone. I don’t

want you two taking chances, though,” John warned. “Check the place out and if it looks suspicious, call

for backup.”

It was dark by the time he and Ivy got there, but Landon saw enough of the sign illuminated by the lone

streetlamp to know the abandoned warehouse had once been a distribution center for an organic food

supermarket chain. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, but they scouted the perimeter just to be sure.

“No one’s been here for a while.” Ivy’s voice was soft in the darkness as they entered the building.

“Three weeks, maybe a month.”

The first room they came to looked like whoever had been there used it as a break room, but the food

wrappers and empty pizza boxes could just as easily be from vagrants as from Stutmeir and his men.

Ivy sniffed the air, her nose wrinkling.

“What is it?”

Her mouth tightened. “Blood.”

“Fresh?”

She shook her head as she led the way down the hallway into the main part of the warehouse.

As they drew nearer, even Landon picked up the smell. It was metallic and pungent. To Ivy’s heightened

senses, it must be a hundred times more potent.

Landon wasn’t sure what he expected to find, and he was surprised when he stepped into a makeshift

medical clinic. On top of the bright lights and ghastly wall color, there was surgical tape and bloody gauze.

Used needles and empty IV bags, too.

“What the hell is this place?” Ivy breathed.

“I don’t know. But this stuff doesn’t exactly look like standard-issue equipment for making a

bioweapon.” He looked around. “Let’s check out the rest of the building.”

There were several rooms in the back that looked like they might have been offices at one time. Two of

the doors had padlocks on the outside. Landon cautiously pushed open one of them. It was empty except

for a pile of blankets on the floor.

Landon glanced at Ivy. “Prison cells for the scientists, you think?”

“Maybe.” She walked in and sniffed the air, then the blankets. “Mitch Dowling and Sarah Beacon were

definitely here.”

Landon opened the door to the other room and immediately reeled back at the foul stench that hit his

nose. Didn’t need a super sense like Ivy’s to pick up that odor. Or to know that it came from something

dead.

Beside him, Ivy made a face. “It’s coming from there.”

There
was a walk-in freezer big enough to hold a dozen dead bodies. And judging from the way it

reeked, the unit clearly wasn’t turned on.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Ivy just gave him a look. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

He tightened his grip on his Glock and opened the freezer door.

There were at least fifteen bodies strewn across the floor, wrapped in plastic and twisted up in what

looked like a seriously painful death. Except for one—a well-dressed man in his mid-fifties with a bullet

hole through his forehead.

“Mitch Dowling,” he said to Ivy.

She scanned the other bodies, a worried frown knitting her brow. “It’s probably a little late to ask, but

do you think they’re contagious?”

Damn, he hadn’t even thought of that. “I don’t think so. The bodies are all in different stages of

decomposition. That means they were dumped in here one or two at a time over a period of a week or so.

Plus, there’s blood outside the freezer. That’s not the way someone who’s worried about getting infected

treats dead bodies.”

She relaxed a little at that. “You’re right. But I’d feel better if we call it in.”

John agreed about taking precautions and immediately had Kendra work on getting a CDC

decontamination and survey team there.

“Once you’re cleared—which I’m sure you will be—we’ll get the CDC to examine the bodies. We need

to figure out what Stutmeir is up to. If he’s come up with something that can kill people so horribly without

infecting others nearby, then I’m really worried. It’d be the perfect bioweapon.”

Landon had to agree.

While he and Ivy waited for the decontamination team to arrive, they snooped around some more. She

found a trail of dried blood leading to the back door, and a whole lot more—or what was left of it at least—

on the concrete outside.

Ivy kneeled down and put her nose close enough to do a sniff test. “It’s Dowling’s.”

“You can ID blood that old?”

She nodded as she got to her feet. “But only because I smelled the body a few minutes ago. He must

have tried to escape.” Ivy chewed on her lower lip. Something she did when she was thinking. “I wonder if

his work was done, or whether he bailed before they could make him do what they wanted.”

“From what we saw in that freezer, Stutmeir’s weapon is coming along nicely, with or without

Dowling’s help.”

“Unless whatever Stutmeir is up to is even worse than what we’ve already seen.”

Landon didn’t want to think about that possibility. His cell phone rang, echoing in the huge, empty

building. It was John calling to tell them the CDC was on its way with an emergency decontamination team.

Landon put him on speaker so Ivy could hear.

“So, either Stutmeir killed Dowling because he didn’t play ball or because he’d outlived his usefulness.”

John sighed heavily on the other end of the line. “Wish we knew which, so we’d have some idea if Stutmeir

is finished making the weapon.”

“Our guess is that he’s not,” Landon said. “If he was, he would have killed the other scientists, too.”

“Good point. Which means Stutmeir might be hunting for more experts. I’m going to get analysts to put

together a list of people who might have Dowling’s same skill set—just in case they go after someone to

replace him.”

Ivy frowned. “Dowling’s been dead at least two weeks. Stutmeir could already have gone after someone

else.”

“We would have heard about it,” John said. “Intel has been monitoring every missing person and

possible kidnapping out there related to doctors and scientists. There haven’t been any since Dowling and

Beacon. If there’s another expert out there, we’ll find him. Hopefully, before Stutmeir does.”

Landon hoped so, too.

The decontamination team from the Centers for Disease Control arrived fifteen minutes later dressed in

standard-issue space suits. Without asking a single question, they introduced themselves, then quickly and

efficiently set up tents for a decontamination line. Landon expected them to run him and Ivy through

separately, but in an emergency response like this, there wasn’t time for modesty. Landon did the

gentlemanly thing and turned his back so he could give Ivy some privacy, but he couldn’t help catching the

occasional glimpse of those perfect breasts and long legs as the techs stripped her down. Watching the techs

lather her up was way more X-rated than it should have been considering the freaky suits the CDC workers

were wearing, but with that body, it was hard not to have pornographic thoughts, even with the whole they-

might-have-been-exposed-to-a-contagious-disease thing hanging over their heads.

He lifted his head to make sure Ivy hadn’t caught him looking and found her giving him a rather frank

appraisal in return. She didn’t even bother to hide the interest in her eyes. He thought he saw them glimmer

green for a second. They went back to their normal brown before he could be sure. He stifled a groan. It

was good the water the techs hosed him down with was cold, otherwise his erection would have been a lot

more blatant. And a lot more embarrassing.

***

swipes, handed them bathrobes, and led them to yet another tent. This one had two folding chairs in it and a

small table. Sitting around wearing nothing but a robe was strangely erotic. Probably because she was still a

little turned on from the impromptu strip show earlier. A lot of women would pay money to see a hot guy

like Landon stripped naked and lathered up in foam. Her included. She only wished it wasn’t because they

might be infected with something that might kill them in an awful, painful way.

She looked at Landon. He was sitting back in his chair, looking as relaxed as he always did. Why didn’t

he look as terrified as she was?

Because he was a guy, and guys never worried about anything. At least not in front of a woman.

She sighed and looked around the tent for something to take her mind off the tests the CDC was

running—and the fact that Landon was naked underneath his robe—when a light dancing on the floor

caught her eye. She lifted her head to see where it was coming from and saw Landon flicking the laser

pointer from his pistol around the floor in front of her feet.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you something to do besides worry about whether we’re infected or not.” His mouth quirked.

“Cats like to chase lights around a room, right? It’s supposed to be an involuntary reflex or something.”

She gave him a wry smile. “Very funny.”

It
was
funny. She liked that he could joke about her being a shifter, even if he was only doing it now so

she wouldn’t obsess about whether they’d been exposed to whatever Stutmeir had cooked up. It meant he

was comfortable with her being part feline. That was all she’d ever wanted in a partner—and a man.

“Ivy, it’s going to be okay.”

Coming from him, she believed it.

She took a deep breath. “Since I’m not going to chase a light around on the floor—no matter how much

it might amuse you—you’re going to have to do something else to distract me. Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“You.” She smiled. “I hardly know anything about you. Other than that you were in Special Forces and

worked with some great guys. Tell me about your family.”

“Not much to tell.” He set the laser pointer on the table. “My old man liked to smack us around for fun,

which was whenever we did something he didn’t like, which was pretty much all the time. Mom was an

alcoholic and refused to walk away from him even after he almost killed her. And my sister, Laci, decided I