Shiver of Fear Page 11

  Fuck. “This tactic doesn’t scare me.” Although it did. Because Malik Mahmud Khel held every card in this game. And every dollar. Liam had no doubt there could be other suppliers, probably right there in the Middle East, too.

  Still, he dug for the confident leader’s tone that he used on his men. “My process is much further ahead than anyone’s, and I have the quantity that no one else has. You know that and I know that. Please put two hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars into the account you have for me.”

  “Every good leader has a backup plan,” Malik said. “I have one, and so should you. I will give you your additional funds, Baird, but then you have three days to deliver. At that point, you will receive one million U.S. dollars.”

  “One?”

  “When the substance is proven effective, you will receive the rest, and after our strike, the name of Tehrik-e-Jafria will be on the lips of every man, woman, and child in the world. They will forget Osama bin Laden. And they will remember the heroes of Tehrik. You can be one of those heroes.”

  Fuck that. He wanted the two million dollars they’d agreed on, but the line had gone silent. He’d been dismissed.

  Behind him, a step creaked. Furious, he stomped to the doorway to catch her spying, ready to strangle the doctor. But instead Marie stood there, a question in her sad blue eyes. Always sad, all these years since her husband lay bloody and dead on Botanic Avenue, the victim of a British bullet.

  “No dinner, Mr. Baird? The doctor said you’re going out.”

  Baird closed the phone. Maybe he should take the doctor to Four Points. Maybe she needed a little lesson in what happens when you delay and demand more than you’re supposed to.

  But he couldn’t hurt her. At least, not yet. He needed her. Once again, he looked out to the rolling fields of Milltown and sent a silent salute to his dead mother, Malik Mahmud Khel’s heavy foreign accent still ringing in his ears.

  Malik wasn’t the ultimate leader of Tehrik-e-Jafria, but he was close to the top, and he managed the money of that Islamic sect. Which must keep him busy, because those Pakistanis had a bundle and they were going to spend it to get what they needed.

  And Liam Baird could provide what they needed. Assuming he could manage the demanding doctor and the troublesome young woman asking too many questions around Belfast.

  Sharon was waiting with a coat on at the front door.

  “I’m ready,” she said cheerily, as though they were longtime mates going out for a pint and darts.

  “Then we should go.” He gave her a tight smile, ready and willing to placate this woman who held the key to what he wanted most.

  And if getting what he wanted most meant doing away with that nuisance of a girl, then so be it. Too bad Danny couldn’t get the job done. He didn’t have many men who’d take out a female.

  Well, too fucking bad. He’d do it himself if he had to.

  Marc leafed through the scant pages tucked into the manila file folder Devyn had pilfered from Dr. Sharon Greenberg’s home office. On the bed, Devyn crouched over his laptop, her eyes burning as she clicked her way through academic sites and online scientific journals.

  “I have to admit,” she said, “this is such a relief.”

  “To have a computer with Internet access?”

  She gave him a sincere look. “And a second brain. Between us and the search engines, surely we can find something that explains what that drawing is, other than the obvious—a synaptic vesicle.” She pointed to the screen. “Which I now know is a small membrane-bound structure in the axon-bound terminals of nerve cells.”

  “You understand that?”

  “Not a word. And none of this was what got me on a plane to Northern Ireland when I found these papers.”

  “So what was?”

  It was a fair question, and one she’d been dreading. “I found a picture of myself as a little girl, so…” I hoped she cared about me. “I knew she must know who I am. And I felt compelled to tell her how and why Joshua was killed.”

  “I wonder how she got that picture?” he mused.

  And the phone number written on the back. “I did, too. But…” She bit her lip, still hesitant to trust him with more. “Someone was in Sharon’s house the night I got this file.”

  His head shot up. “What?”

  “He attacked me.”

  Marc just stared at her, not even blinking. “When were you going to tell me this?”

  “I’m telling you now,” she said. “I don’t know who he was or if he was waiting for Sharon or working with her. There was a powerful lightning strike and the lights went out, and as I made my way to the front door, he grabbed me from behind and made me leave.”

  “Another person who wanted you out.”

  She nodded with a sigh. “There does seem to be a pattern.”

  “And a message you refuse to get.”

  “Don’t,” she said sharply. “My decision is made. I’m not going anywhere until I know who she—I mean, where she is. And why.”

  He looked positively disgusted with that decision. “What else did this guy in her house say to you?”

  She closed her eyes, remembering the darkness, the strength of him, the fear that blocked out parts of her memory. “He wanted to know who sent me and told me if Sharon came back there without getting her job done, he’d kill her.”

  “You shouldn’t have come over here alone,” he said quietly.

  “I didn’t have a choice. My husband is dead. I don’t have brothers or sisters or cousins, like you. I’m a loner, always have been. And impulsive, just ask Bitsy Hewitt, the woman who raised me and never let me forget that all my flaws were a result of the wrong blood.”

  He looked at her as though he didn’t believe her again, then his dark eyes softened into something like pity. “Mom sounds lovely. No wonder you’re looking for the real thing.”

  The words hit hard. “I’m not…” Yes, she was. “Fooling myself into thinking I’m going to have some special relationship with this stranger who gave birth to me, Marc. But wanting to know what I’m made of doesn’t make me a freak. It’s pretty common, I think.”

  He smiled, putting a warm hand on her leg, making her instantly aware that they were side by side on a bed and all they had to do was fall backward and into each other’s arms.

  Like that wouldn’t complicate things any worse than they already were.

  “First of all, Devyn, there’s nothing common about you.” He added some pressure. “Second, finding her isn’t going to answer all your questions. It’s just going to raise a lot more.”

  She put her hand over his and removed it. “Lots of questions, like”—she jutted her chin at the computer screen—“what does all that arcane scientific stuff mean?”

  “I don’t know, but while I look through it, try Googling this e-mail address, from the person who sent her instructions on where to go when she got here. It’s puggaree17@connectone.com.”

  She typed it into the search engine while he turned back to the file. The screen flashed. Address invalid. “That’s not an active e-mail account.”

  “No surprise. I’ll send it to my office in Boston,” he said. “They can probably find out who owns it or at least the location of the server it was on when this e-mail was sent. From that, we can probably get a more exact location.”

  She glanced up. “Really?”

  “My sister’s a hacker,” he said with a sly smile. “And my older brother’s a cop. And my other sister’s a shrink with an expertise in criminal profiling. Oh, my other brother’s a spook, my cousin’s a former Ranger, and, well, I already mentioned Vivi, who can suck information from sources like a tornado.”

  She laughed softly. “They sound amazing.”

  “They are,” he agreed, still studying the diagram that was in the file. “But not without their downsides, trust me. Hey, pull up that screen you had a minute ago. The biochemical mechanism of toxicity.”

  She did, and they compared the two images. “We’ve g
ot a match,” she said.

  The string of scientific terminology ran together under her exhausted eyes—neurons… endocytosis… SNAP-25 proteins…

  “But this is Greek to me.”

  “Not entirely,” he said. “This has to do with the spores that create toxic chemicals. Very toxic. Botulism toxic.”

  She pushed the computer screen toward him and backed away, sliding down the bed to drop on the pile of pillows, closing her stinging eyes and her stinging heart.

  What the hell was Sharon Greenberg doing over here?

  “You know, it could be something entirely innocent,” he said, as if reading her mind. “She could be participating in some kind of international conference on chemical substances.”

  She opened one eye. “And that would be why some nitwit in the alley tried to kidnap me. Why some goon came into my room wearing a mask and threatened me. Oh, and don’t forget the nice man at her house.”

  He reached out, closing his hands over her ankles, gliding them up her legs to add pressure to her calves. He meant it to be comforting, she had no doubt, but the contact was intimate and sexy, even through her jeans.

  “You could just go home now, and be safe and smart.”

  “And never know? I can’t go through my life wondering anymore. I just… can’t.” She cursed her voice for breaking, and him for looking like he could possibly understand. “Stop it,” she ordered.

  He instantly lifted his hands, and she regretted the loss of warmth.

  “I mean the way you’re looking. Sympathetic.”

  “I am sympathetic.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, but you have no idea how it feels to know your blood is tainted.”

  “Better tainted than spilled,” he replied.

  He didn’t argue her point, though. Didn’t tell her that blood wasn’t important. Because it was. It would be extremely important to a man who came from such an impressive bloodline, cops and soldiers and spies.

  No doubt he’d hate to water down that gene pool. “I need a shower and some sleep,” she said suddenly, rolling off the bed to stand up.

  “Make yourself at home. And I’ll sleep on the chair.” When she didn’t answer, he looked up. “Unless you’d rather I slept in the bed with you.”

  She managed not to let any response show on her face as she connected one more dot—one that led to her and that bed.

  “So was that your plan?” she asked. “Were you going to seduce me into leaving Belfast with you?”

  “The thought never crossed my mind… until I saw you.”

  “And then it crossed your mind?”

  He smiled. “And hasn’t left since. But don’t worry. I have no intention of taking advantage of you.”

  For a moment, she just looked at him, not sure if she was disappointed or relieved. A little of both, she imagined.

  “While you shower, I’m going to call Boston,” he said. “I want to send someone down to Sharon’s house in Raleigh to check it out.”

  “Good idea. I suppose any of the people in your organization can handle whoever they meet.”

  “My family can handle anything.”

  Must be nice, she thought as she grabbed the smaller of her two bags, which held toiletries, and slipped into the bathroom. There, she locked the door and flipped on the water, stripping down and climbing into the shower before it reached the usual feverish temperature she liked.

  His family could handle anything. And hers? Daddy is a fugitive and Mommy is a… God knows what.

  She dropped her head back and let the warm water roll over her, closing her eyes to block out those thoughts and think about the good ones. About Marc Rossi.

  He’d lied to her, yes. He had an agenda, yes. He wanted her to leave before she found out what she needed to know—all true.

  So could she trust him? She had to.

  Would she sleep with him? The thought heated her a lot more effectively than the water. He admitted the possibility had crossed his mind. And stayed there. The thought had crossed her mind, too. Crossed her whole body, in fact, every time he was six inches away.

  No, Devyn. There was impulsive… and then there was stupid.

  Climbing out, she dried herself and her hair, and realized she hadn’t brought in any clean clothes. Curling her lip at the clothes that had been in the filth of the alleyway, she wrapped the towel tighter under her arms, but it wasn’t long enough to tuck and knot. Holding it with one hand, she turned the doorknob, inching it open silently… to find him digging through her suitcase.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Finding you some clothes.”

  His fingertips were inches from the zipper compartment where she’d tucked the picture with the phone number. Is that what he was looking for?

  If he had it, he didn’t have to help her. Hell, he could just force her out of Belfast at gunpoint if he really wanted to. That phone number was her only bargaining chip.

  “I’ll get them,” she said.

  His gaze dropped over the towel. “I was trying to help.”

  Clutching the towel to her chest, she walked to the bag and grabbed a T-shirt and sweatpants, dipping at the knees to keep from exposing her body under the towel.

  She had to tuck the clothes under her arm so she didn’t drop them as she slipped her hand to the back of the bag, searching for a bra. None was in reach.

  With a bemused expression, he stood and watched.

  Abandoning the search for a bra, her fingers slowed. Should she take the picture? Would he see her do that? She could memorize the number and destroy the photo in the bathroom.

  But there was something about that picture. Like it had been taken… with love. She couldn’t destroy it. She could drag the whole bag into the bathroom, which would be awkward and obvious that she was hiding something in it.

  There was only one solution.

  Straightening, she opened her fingers and the towel fell to the ground with a soft thump. He barely reacted, except for his eyes, which traveled over her naked body. Hot and slow and up, then down. And again.

  “I wouldn’t have looked for whatever it is you’re hiding,” he said.

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “Obviously you do.” One more time he scanned her, appreciation and desire in his eyes.

  She stepped into her panties, holding his gaze when it returned to her face. Then she pulled on the pants and T-shirt. When she zipped up the suitcase, he shifted his attention back to the laptop.

  “If you’re done tormenting me, I think I finally made sense of that drawing.”

  She stopped just short of locking the suitcase. “Really?”

  He turned the laptop toward her. “That drawing is a diagram for how to make a toxin, in this case botulinum, more deadly than a nerve agent and probably delivered through an aerosol, most likely to affect hundreds, if not thousands, of people.”

  “Do you think that’s why she’s here? Because she knows how to do that?”

  “I don’t know. But if she is planning on making this, then we better find her and stop her.”

  “And if she isn’t?”

  He just nodded. “It’d be good to know that, too.”

  Yes, it would. If only to save Devyn’s heart from breaking all over again.

  CHAPTER 10

  Vivi stood over her younger cousin’s shoulder and read the computer screen. “How much are we paying you, Chessie?”

  “Nothing.”

  “God, you’re worth so much more than that.”

  Chessie let her head fall back, looking straight up at Vivi, as stunning upside down as she was right side up. “At least minimum wage.”

  “Keep hacking like a beast and you’re gonna get health benefits, too.” Vivi pointed at the screen. “Where exactly is Bangor, Northern Ireland, and why are you sending Marc there?”

  Vivi had finally had a conversation with her cousin last night, and he’d brought her up to speed on the assignment. Which was a lot more complicated
than Mr. Secretive FBI Agent Lang led them to believe.

  But when Marc told her what was at stake—a direct connection to Finn MacCauley—Vivi agreed he should proceed with caution. As she would, when she flew down to North Carolina today to dig around and find out what she could about the questionable Dr. Greenberg.

  Chessie clicked a few keys to open up another page. “See that e-mail sent to Sharon Greenberg? The address is no longer valid, and the IP address is untraceable, which is kind of interesting and odd. Given enough time, I may be able to crack it. But I found this.” More keystrokes and a new page, rich with code and virtually unreadable to Vivi.

  “And that is?”

  “The server location,” she said as if a moron should be able to decipher that. “At least, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s the location. That server handles Internet messages sent from small towns just east of Belfast, most of them from Bangor.” More clicks, then a map, and some pretty pictures of a harbor tucked into rolling green hills dotted with sweet little cottages. “Which is that precious seaside resort right off Belfast Lough.” She gave the Irish word a thick brogue. “Lough. I love saying that.”

  Vivi rested her hip on the side of the desk, studying the pictures. “What exactly are they going to look for there? I mean, having the server location doesn’t exactly tell them who sent it.”

  “I have ideas. The e-mail address is ‘puggaree17’, so I did a search for every single person in that area with the letters ‘p-u-g’ in their name.”

  “Very creative,” Vivi said, tapping Chessie’s shoulder in admiration. “What did you find?”

  She returned to the keyboard and called up yet another page. “The Puggetts, the Pugmires, and, listen to this, the Puggley family! Cute, huh?”

  “Very.”

  “And, wait, how about this?” One more click. “Three pug breeders in Bangor and the surrounding area. Hey, call me crazy, but it’s something to go on.”

  “He better not call you crazy,” Vivi said, her heart swelling with love and respect for Chessie, who, as the baby of the family, took a hard rap from her older brothers, and from Zach. “You’re saving his ass. What did he say?”