Intrusion (13 page)

The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was possessive, demanding, even a little bit painful, but Margaret had been starved for physical intimacy for so long, she couldn’t help but eat up every minute of his attention.

She clutched at his shirt and opened her mouth to him. His tongue swept inside to claim her, his hands sliding down to grip her hips and pull her pelvis to his. He squeezed her waist before sweeping a hand up her sides, over her belly to the curve of her breast.

An ache spread through her making her arch under his touch.
More. Please. Touch me.
Her thoughts jumbled in her head, until the pressure of his palm covered her breast and a sharp corner from the digital voice recorder dug into her skin.

Oh, God. No.

She gasped and broke away, immediately putting distance between them. Maybe he didn’t feel it. Didn’t recognize it for what it was.

Her fingers pressed against her swollen mouth. “Russ.”

He swallowed, looked at the floor.

“I’m sorry, Mags. That was—” He blew out a breath, shoved a shaky hand through his cropped hair. “I shouldn’t have—” The ring of his cell phone shattered the tension. He plucked it out of his pocket, looked at the display. “Damn it. I need to take this. It’s business.”

As in private.

She struggled to draw a clear breath and succeeded long enough to say, “I’ll just see myself out.”

On wobbly legs.

She made it all the way to the car before she broke down and laid her head on the cool glass, sucking in large gulps of air. Did Russ understand how badly his kiss had shaken her?

Her stomach dipped and swirled, with lingering desire, with relief. She’d done it. She’d asked him, and—it wasn’t him. He hadn’t stolen the armor.

Cameron’s truck rolled slowly into view. She lifted her head as Cameron hit the brakes. Audra started to step out of the pickup, but Margaret held up a hand to stop her.

“It’s not him.”

Audra hesitated, the door partially open. “You’re sure?”

Margaret waited for the familiar doubt to snake through her belly, but it didn’t come. “Positive. He didn’t do it.”

“Okay.” Audra slammed the door. “Meet us back at your house.”

She nodded and the truck sped off down the street.

Margaret fished in her purse for her keys, but Russ opened the front door and stuck his head out before her fingers closed around the key ring.

“Thank God you’re still here.”

How could his voice sound so normal, so unfazed, when Margaret still wasn’t sure she could even string a coherent sentence together?

She clutched the strap of her purse. “What about your call?”

“I’ll call them back.” He ran a hand down his face. “I can’t let you leave with this—this thing between us. Would you come inside again? Please?”

Hearing the regret in his voice, she hesitated. She didn’t want to listen to him apologize for kissing her. But maybe she could convince him it hadn’t been a mistake.

She let Russ pull her inside and firmly close the front door. When she moved towards the living room, he stopped her.

“No, not here. I need some air”

His fingers ensnared her wrist and he tugged her down the expansive marble lined hall until he reached a set of French doors at the back.

“Where are we going?”

He smiled, opened the doors then stepped out onto a slate walkway. “Where I can be sure to have you all to myself.”

A small thrill shot through her. What if he didn’t regret their kiss? What if he wanted to do it again?

The path meandered to a six-foot iron gate and Russ keyed in a set of numbers on the electronic keypad. He pushed the gate open and waited for her to precede him onto a cedar deck.

The morning sun sparkled on the water in the large kidney shaped swimming pool. Several Adirondack chairs were strategically positioned around the water and a large cabana took up an entire side of the deck, stocked with a grill and a mini-fridge. The area overlooked a jagged section of Camelback Mountain, a three-foot high iron fence the only thing separating swimmers from a tumble off a cliff. The sight was both breathtaking and scary.

She turned around when she heard the clink of the gate, jitters jumping to life in her stomach. But they whirled and attacked her heart when she caught sight of Russ’s face, his mouth drawn tight, eyes narrowed in anger.

“Give me the recorder, Margaret.”

She stepped back. One foot, then the other. “Wh—what recorder?”

His lips pulled back into a snarl. “You know damn well what recorder, Margaret. The one I felt in your pocket when I was squeezing your—”

“Oh, my God, Russ.” Tears stung her eyes. “What’s gotten in to you?”

The question tumbled from her lips, but she knew the answer. Damn it, she knew.

Russ’s hands shackled around her upper arms and he jerked her to him, yanking the recorder out of her pocket. He spared a glance at the silver rectangle and then hurled it into the pool. “Who did you tell about your suspicions? The police? FBI?”

“No. No one. I didn’t talk to anyone.” Her triceps ached where his fingers dug deep into her flesh. “I needed to know. Just me. No one else.” The tears spilled over her lashes and slid down her cheeks. She didn’t care; she let them fall. Fall for her shattered dreams, for her overzealous hopes, and most of all for her desperation to believe in him. “Why? Why did you do it?”

He shoved her away with a shrug. “Money. Power.”

She rubbed her bruised flesh. “My, God, look at this place, Russ. What do you need that you don’t already have?” Her throat tightened around a ball of panic. “What could you possibly need?”

He clenched his jaw and a muscle popped in his cheek. “What I need…” He stalked forward backing her against the cabana wall. “What I need my poor naïve Margaret, is for Coburn Industries to succeed. The armor should have been my contract. You and I were one of the first to start developing nanotechnology. Remember, Mags? The armor could’ve been the culmination of everything we’ve worked for. Instead, the incompetent scientists in my department haven’t figured out how to make our nano-fabric strong enough to withstand a damn bullet.”

A weight pressed in on her chest. “I could’ve helped you.”

He snorted. “After almost seventeen years you’re still only an assistant at Nanodyne. How could
you
have helped?”

“I’m not just an assistant. I’m a damn good assistant, Russell and I love my work.”

He pinned her with a glare that looked about one second from igniting into a threat. If she were smart, she’d shut her mouth and not say another word. But anger bubbled and boiled in her veins and she knew she couldn’t let him off so easily.

He’d betrayed her.

“It was all a lie, wasn’t it? Your concern for Noelle, for me—all an act. You son of a bitch.”

The palm of his hand cracked across her cheek.

Fire spread through her jaw, but she forced herself to touch the injured flesh as she scraped the tears from her face. She’d not shed one more tear over Russell Coburn. “You used me.”

“And I’d do it again if I had to. You don’t get ahead by being satisfied with second best.”

“I hope first place is worth it, then.” She tried to step around him, but he blocked her path.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

She shoved at his chest. “Get out of my way.”

“I can’t have you running off to the cops, can I? You’ll have to stay here. Now give me your purse.”

She tightened her grip on the strap. “No!”

“Don’t make me angry, Margaret.” He ripped the purse off her shoulder, wrenched it out of her grasp. “You’ll be perfectly safe out here. There’s plenty of food and drinks in the cabana. Help yourself. I’ll deal with you later.”

“You can’t keep me here. Noelle needs me.”

He stalked to the gate and she ran after him, but his strides were much longer than hers and he reached it first, slipping between the opening. He shoved the iron closed and reset the electronic lock, then spared one last glance at Margaret through the bars.

“Noelle won’t even know you’re gone.” With that parting shot, he disappeared up the walkway.

Margaret curled her fingers around the heavy iron. “Let me out of here, you bastard!”

Her body shook and she stumbled back to the pool. She knelt down and tried to fish the digital recorder out of the pool. Her fingers grazed the tip and sent the gadget spinning out of her reach.

“Damn it.” Her eyes ached from tears she refused to shed.

Russ wouldn’t get the best of her. She had to find a way out of here. She couldn’t climb the six-foot high gate, would fall to her death on the cliff below if she tried going over the shorter fence around the pool.

Scrambling to the cabana, she searched the walls. No phone. No intercoms or two-way radios. She rifled through drawers full of cooking utensils before discovering anything useful—a small paring knife—which she tucked into her hand.

No, she would not go quietly.

If Russ tried to harm her when he returned, she’d be ready.

Chapter Ten

“Margaret should’ve been here by now.”

Audra paced across Margaret’s porch. The house was situated in one of the older sections of Scottsdale and sported the typical adobe style flat roof. Palm trees mingled with barrel cactus in the gravel front yard, and vines climbed the lattice on both sides of the entryway, helping to conceal Audra and Cam from view.

Cam settled against the wall near Margaret’s front door, his mouth tight. He’d been subdued all morning. Whether it was due to worry over their situation or the way she’d responded to him last night, she didn’t know.

She only knew she missed his smile and the way he threw himself into everything he did. No reservations, no holding back, those were the traits that drew her to him and it disheartened her to see his retreat, as if treading around the world instead of engaged in it.

She fingered one of the blooms dripping from the nearby hanging fern. “Don’t you think she should’ve been here long before now?”

A siren started wailing somewhere in the distance and she froze. Panic fluttered in her chest. Her gaze crashed into Cam’s. His entire body tensed. Neither of them moved a muscle until a heavy silence fell over the area.

Cam sagged against the wall. “Let’s give her a few more minutes.”

As if a few more minutes would make all the difference. Over an hour had passed since Margaret had waved them off.

It’s not him
, she’d said.

Even if traffic on the 101 suddenly came to a stand still, it shouldn’t have taken Margaret this long to get to her house.

“Maybe I should try her cell again.”

“If she isn’t answering, she isn’t answering. What good is it going to do to leave her another message?”

“I don’t know, but I feel like I should do something. I’m...worried about her.”

One more reason she shouldn’t get emotionally attached to—she darted a glance at Cam—people. She ended up worrying about them even when they hurt her.

“What if she’s really working with Coburn?” Cam pushed away from the wall and strode over to the porch swing. “What if they decided to skip town?”

Then an orange jumpsuit would become the only must-have item in her new wardrobe. That and a pair of flimsy prison issue sandals.

“No. Margaret wouldn’t do it. She’d never leave Noelle.”

The swing creaked under his weight. “Even if it’s a matter of survival?”

Her throat tightened and a weighty ball of emotion lodged in her chest. She shook her head. “No. Not even then.”

Because Margaret always put Noelle’s well being above her own. Always. It was second nature to her and one of the reasons Audra had been drawn to the older woman’s friendship in the first place. A mother who put her daughter first? She’d never seen anything like it.

A shudder rippled through her. “I just have a gut feeling something’s wrong. Should we drive by Coburn’s house? See if she’s there?”

“She’s not going to just be sitting in the driveway.” His sharp voice sliced into her. He set the swing in motion, rocking it gently. “And if Coburn has harmed her,” he continued, “he certainly won’t have left a note.”

Okay. Why the attitude all of a sudden? Cam wasn’t the only one getting more frustrated by the minute.

She threw out her arms. “Then what do you want to do? Just forget about her?”

“No. We go back there. But not just for a drive-by. I want to get a good look inside Coburn’s house.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” She dug her fists into her hips. “Ring the doorbell and hope he invites us in?”

He snorted. “The kind of look I want requires the owner
not
to be present.”

She gasped. “That’s not even legal.”

“Define legal.” He grabbed her hand as she passed in front of him and tugged her onto the swing beside him.

“We’re already wanted by the cops.” She swallowed when his gaze grazed her mouth and lingered there. “Do you really think we should be engaging in any more suspicious activities?”

He arched his brow playfully, but the hard gleam in his eyes still remained. “That sounds downright licentious coming from your lips. If we’re going to go down anyway, we might as well go down big, right? Something tells me Coburn might be just the man we’re looking for. He fits the bill. Powerful, wealthy, well-educated, and tired of playing second fiddle to Nanodyne.”

Edginess palpitated off him in waves. This was not the same Cam that had rescued her last night. She scooted to the far end of the swing, hesitant to get too close to him for fear he’d slice her to ribbons.

“Damn it, Cam, what’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing.” A muscle leapt to furious life in his jaw. “I just want to get this over with. I don’t like having a near heart attack every time I hear a damn siren. And I especially don’t like being someone else’s pawn in a game without rules.”

And there it was. He didn’t like his life spinning beyond his control any more than she did. That small kernel of honesty scratched at her throat. “This isn’t any easier on me than it is on you.”

“I know.” He captured her hand and held it in his firm grip. “Looks like we were made for each other, then.”