CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Afraid to wake up, Shea floated. Her hysterical mind couldn’t wrap itself around her new reality, so she stayed suspended in this secret place where she was warm and safe. Until a soft baritone murmured in her ear, “I want you to make love with me again. Dance with me. Get silly with me. Just one more time. Please come back. Choose me too, Shea.” As if he knew exactly how to reach her, he began humming the Marine Corps anthem.

She stilled, not believing. Could it be possible? No. I saw him die. Shea turned in his arms, nuzzling his neck, needing the scent of his skin in her nose to be sure. She was that coke addict, desperate for a fix. “Eric?”

Warm kisses rained over her forehead, down her nose, and over her cheeks. “Oh, baby, you’re back at Murphy’s, and everyone’s worried about you, and…”

“S-s-save me.”

“You’re already saved,” he assured, breathing life into her even as she burrowed under his chin.

“Don’t let them get me,” she cried, frightened out of her wits that she’d never be free of Grover and his assassins again. That they would always hunt her. That she couldn’t run far enough or fast enough. Desperate to be sure, she twined her arms around Eric’s neck, her fingernails digging into his shoulder muscles.

“Deep breaths, Shea. Breathe with me. Slow and easy,” he soothed, his arms around her, one hand cupping the back of her head. “That Abdul-Mutaal wannabe is dead, so are the other guys who were with him.”

“G-Grover? C-Carlson, too?” She knew his answer by the way Eric’s hands pressed her against him in a suffocating squeeze. This thing wasn’t over.

“Not yet, but we’re flying out of here as soon as you can travel. Elsa’s made arrangements. Trust me, Shea. Someone else can clean up this mess. You need to be home.”

The tsunami of terror dissolved as she wept against his neck. “You came for me.”

“Always,” he promised with a growl that seemed to surround her. “Damn it, Shea. Always.”

A nine-millimeter round made a helluva noise.

“We’ve got company,” Jordan called out from the other room. “Grover’s here. Any word from Alex yet?”

“Not yet,” Murphy answered tersely. “He won’t pick up his phone. Mother, either. Something’s not right.”

Eric shifted his weight to one elbow and listened to the muffled exchange through the closed bedroom door. Shea lay with her back to him, one hand splayed to the pillow. She’d fallen into a fitful sleep from exhaustion and the extra-strength ibuprofen he’d given her to help her relax. The poor thing needed some serious downtime to decompress, a couple weeks of R&R at least. Instead, she’d soon wake to the sounds of battle, not good therapy for a person suffering from serious shellshock.

Murphy knocked softly as he opened the door. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s sleeping. Grover’s here?” Eric rolled his shoulder, ready to knock that SOB to kingdom come. “Give me five.”

“No, you stay here with your wife,” Murphy ordered. “I wish you two were in the bunker. You’d be safer there.”

“You know better. I’d like Shea down there, but I don’t hide. Besides, you’ll need my rifle.” There was no way to avoid this showdown. The professor wanted Shea, but he couldn’t have her. Simple as that.

Carefully, Eric eased his feet to the floor. A clean change of clothes lay folded on the end of the bed. Typical TEAM wear: Camouflage pants, a black T-shirt, black cotton socks, a tactical vest, and his holster, two SIGS already loaded and tucked in its pockets. Better yet, pre-loaded .308 caliber clips for the AR tipped barrel-up next to the door. Extra magazines. Good man.

Dressing quickly and quietly, Eric strapped on and ramped up his inner sniper. If Alex were in Ireland, now would be a good time for him to show up. Somehow, Eric doubted that would happen. Alex wasn’t the cavalry.

Shea mumbled in her sleep, and for once, she wasn’t crying. Eric dropped to one knee at her bedside and placed a kiss on her cheek. “I won’t be gone long,” he whispered. “Dream for me, baby.”

Aishling peered out from under the bed. As if she knew it was her turn, the crazy cat climbed up and curled her fluffy black body into Shea’s chest. Shea didn’t wake, just cradled the cat like a baby in one of those automatic motherly responses, and for that, Eric was glad.

Stretching one lazy arm, Aishling rested a paw on Shea’s chin, almost as if giving her stamp of approval. Or possession. Damned if she didn’t look like she belonged there.

“Take care of her while I’m gone,” he whispered, his fingers smoothing over Shea’s forehead. Of course the cat didn’t answer, but the same odd feeing he always got with Aishling, whispered around Eric. When he was a kid, he used to believe in guardian angels. This cat certainly fit the bill. All she needed was a pair of wings.

Eric strapped on his boots, shrugged into his holster, and steeled his heart, needing the dirty job ahead of him and his team done, once and for all. Another shot sounded. Then another.

Time to move.

Closing the bedroom door behind him, he unholstered his pistol and went in search of his guys. War might have come for Shea, but it was going home empty-handed.

“And I said get the hell off my property.” Murphy’s chin lifted, his rifle already targeting the gray-haired gent in a sweater standing at the end of the driveway, the one with ten or twelve beefy guys at his back, all sporting short stock rifles. Had to be Grover.

A hefty camouflaged six-by-six five-ton cargo truck blocked the drive. “Take your boys and leave,” Murphy ordered. “You’re only going to find trouble here.”

Still standing out of sight at the corner of Murphy’s house, Eric scanned the yard. Jordan stood at Murphy’s left with his rifle to his cheek, but Elsa was missing. Not acceptable. As good as she was, Murphy needed her on his right. At least, on his six.

Before joining the standoff, Eric took stock of the immediate area. He scouted the stone fence that lined Murphy’s place, the opposite side of his cottage, and the stand of trees that shaded it. Eric spotted Elsa’s long barrel at the same time he spotted the sneaky bastard hiding in the shadows of the cargo truck.

Elsa had chosen well. Ornamental pampas grass made a fine sniper hide for a gal laying on her belly while lining up her next shot. But damned if that guy playing hide-and-seek wasn’t Hugh Carlson. Just as Eric had suspected all along.

Now that he knew where everyone was, Eric stepped out front and took position to Murphy’s right. He didn’t recognize the men willing to die for the professor, but mercenaries were like that. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

“That Grover?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth.

“In person,” Jordan muttered from Murphy’s left. “That’s the rat bastard who tried to kill me at the hotel.”

“Grover was there?” Eric hadn’t known that, but it made sense. Birds of a feather, and all that shit.

“But neighbor…” Still standing at the edge of Murphy’s property, Grover waved one hand toward Murphy’s house and lawn in a magnanimous gesture. “Do you think I’d let you stay here now that I know you have the goose that lays the golden egg?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Murphy hissed. “The only thing I’ve got for you is the first round out of this muzzle, and trust me. It’s not made of gold. Come get some.”

Eric grunted in agreement. Didn’t matter what the braggart wanted or how many men he’d brought with him, Grover wasn’t leaving with anything but lead in his ass. Certainly not Shea.

“But Mr. Finnegan.” Grover kept trying. “Let’s be reasonable. We can work this out.” His head bobbed like it was already a done deal.

“Let’s not.” Eric zeroed in on that other sneaky bastard, the one who thought he was clever. Guess again. “Get your ass out in the open where we can all see you, Carlson.”

Damned if the billionaire playboy didn’t step out from behind the five-ton like he was told to. Dressed in a business suit as if he didn’t plan on getting dirty, Carlson fingered the cufflink on his left wrist as he sauntered into view.

“What’s he doing here?” Murphy asked. “I thought he was waiting for a flight.”

“He’s the money behind all this.” That much Eric knew for certain.

“Ah, Mr. Reynolds,” he said, still without meeting Eric’s eyes. “What poor timing you have. You, too, Finnegan—or should I call you Hollister?” He lifted one shoulder. “Not that it matters, but if you’d stayed in your country and minded your business, none of this would be necessary.”

“None of what?” Murphy asked.

Carlson toyed with the cufflink, still not man enough to look his three adversaries in the eye. What an ass. He still thought he could walk in, snap his fingers, and the world would bow to kiss his feet. Not today. “Have you contacted your superior yet, that prick, Alex Stewart? His staff? Anyone in his office?” he asked. “Anyone on the entire Eastern seaboard for that matter?”

Murphy growled, but didn’t answer.

Carlson proceeded past Grover and his string of goons, still not willing to make eye contact. “Let me answer that for you,” he told his cufflink. “No. You haven’t been able to contact him, and you never will. Why? Because my chip, the one that every cell service in the world is currently required to incorporate into their products, is now in charge. It’s taken over the world, so to speak. It’s tracking every last deadbeat with a social network account or an email address. Your fragile little republic across the pond has gone back to the Dark Ages. You couldn’t call home if you tried.”

Eric steeled his jaw. He’d never been as tech savvy as Shea, but this sounded about as bad as it could get.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Murphy snapped. “Stop bullshitting and spit it out.”

“Patience, old man.” Carlson preened like the peacock he was. He flicked an invisible something off the lapel of his high-priced suit. Finally, his head came up and his eyes locked on Eric. “I should’ve killed you at Ashford. Where is she?”

“Safe,” Eric bit out, shifting one boot forward in preparation for the pounding kickback his rifle would soon deliver. His rifle contained a built-in shock absorber in the butt-stock, but ballistics being what they were, his shoulder would still be damn sore at the end of this fight. “You honestly think I’d bring her here? How stupid are you?”

Carlson’s eyes narrowed. His head bobbed once in one of those cocky guy-moves, the ones shitty winners traditionally gave sorry losers on the basketball court. The gloves off nod that says: I don’t have to play fair because I own the refs.

Eric answered back with the laser dot of his Leupold scope dead center on Carlson’s forehead. I’m not playing.

At least, he had the good sense to stop advancing. He might own the world, just not the zone between his brain and the business end of Eric’s rifle. Carlson still thought he had a dog in this fight, though. Brushing his high-end jacket out of the way, he rested both palms to his hips as he scanned Murphy’s house and garage. “We both know where she is. You should have taken her into that bunker of yours, old man.” He blew out a breath, shaking his head as if making a tough decision. “I’d rather not burn this quaint little cottage to the ground, but I will. I’m not leaving without her.”

“Try it,” Eric hissed. “I may not be rich, but I can promise, you’ll die first.”

“And then what?” Carlson barked, his dark brows arrowed. “You’ll go down in a hail of gunfire? Trust me, all of your men will die too, and in the end, one of my guys will still get her. Do you honestly think I’ve come this far without a back-up plan? Who’s stupid now, Reynolds?”

Carlson cocked one elbow as he lifted his index finger to his chin. “Even if I were to, say, have a massive heart attack tomorrow while teeing off at Pebble Beach, she’d still be MY corporate asset.” Fisting that same hand, he thumped his chest like a Neanderthal, his gaze still on Eric. “Don’t you get it? Someone like your wife can only belong to a man like me, Reynolds. I’m the only one who can hone that remarkable talent of hers. Like it or not, she’s mine.”

God, none of this made sense. It hadn’t from the start. “Why the hell do you want her?” Eric hated having to ask, but it gave him something to do before he turned Carlson’s head to mist.

“Because I can break him, Eric, my one true love,” Shea’s sweet voice answered from over his right shoulder.

The pitch of his rifle would’ve dropped if not for the genuine gleam on Carlson’s smirky face inside the crosshairs. The bastard eyeballed Shea like she was the most precious creature on the planet. Or his next greatest investment.

“Get back,” Eric hissed at her, not daring to take his eyes off target. “Please, baby. Go back inside.”

Of course, she didn’t listen. “I know now why you paid that guy to torture me and kill Phoenix and Gordie. It wasn’t for the invention. You didn’t want Gordie to work for you, did you, Mr. Carlson?”

How could she be on her feet already, much less be so polite to this monster? Eric shifted his stance, ready to end Carlson if he took one step in her direction.

“God, you are a true beauty,” the pompous man gushed.

“Answer the question,” Shea returned. “Why did you have my friends killed?”

He glowed. The bastard glowed as if Shea had made all of his wishes come true just by showing up. “That’s not precisely accurate, Mrs. Reynolds. May I call you Shea?”

“Mrs. Reynolds to you,” she bit out.

You tell him, baby.

“Fine then. Mrs. Reynolds.” He offered a courtly head nod. “That day in the lab, I wanted Finn, but I fell for that disgusting disguise you’d created. Frankly, I couldn’t bring myself to hire anyone so repulsive looking as you were then.” He waved one hand to his nose. “You carried it off quite well, you know. I never suspected that a lady as elegant as you lay hidden beneath the folds of all that fat and poor hygiene. Well played.”

“Then why kill my friends?”

“Because of what that fool Mikkelson said.”

“Explain,” Shea ordered.

Carlson folded one arm over his chest, the other cocked with his fingertips skimming his chin. “He called you the genius behind them. Why would I want him when I could’ve had you, even as disgusting as you were then? His rejection that morning forced me to rethink my strategy. I couldn’t just turn and proposition someone like Finn, even as brilliant as he, ahem, you were. It was obvious you three were bound together by something more than science.”

“So you thought if you killed my friends I’d be desperate enough to come crawling to you with their invention?” When her elbow brushed Eric’s forearm, he shifted to make room for her between himself and Murphy.

Carlson cocked his head. His smirky mask drooped as if he’d suddenly realized something. “You bitch!” he hissed, his brows spiked like ugly rainbows. “You didn’t discover it, did you? You have nothing to do with dynamic energy displacement, do you?”

She leaned into Eric as if for strength. The poor thing was shaking. “Wow. For a smart guy, it took you long enough to figure that out. No, I don’t have a clue how Gordie and Phoenix’s energy displacement thing works. They were the geese that laid your golden egg, Mr. Wizard. I just came up with the funding that allowed them to run with their dreams as far as they could. They were two of the most genuinely, loving people I’ve met in my life, but—you killed them.”

Eric caught a quick glimpse of her in his peripheral. Forest green sweatshirt and pants. Trembling. Sweating. Murphy’s open laptop shifted in her left palm, her right hand poised over the keypad. Her index finger hovered on the ENTER key like it was a trigger. One she couldn’t miss. What a sight.

But Eric had to know. “You’d already bought Phoenix Berglund by then, hadn’t you? You paid him off. Why?”

Professor Grover had the nerve to smile. “I made him a little deal, you see. He was supposed to hand over Finn, but then he backed out. Now I know why, don’t I? He never planned to go through with it, did he?”

Eric could feel Shea tremble at this new betrayal. “You… you paid him to sell me out?”

Grover’s shoulders lifted along with his bushy eyebrows as if he thought it were no big deal. “It’s called insider trading, my dear sweet girl. People get away with it all the time. It’s just good business.”

“It’s called backstabbing and murder, you ass,” Murphy hissed.

A dainty snort huffed through Shea’s nostrils. “And now, because of your greed, the world will never know about dynamic energy displacement.” She took a step forward, shaking, but with her head raised high. “The discovery of the ages is lost, Mr. Carlson, because you killed to get what would never be yours. And yes, I have Phoenix’s laptop, but you’ll never get that, either. It’s as lost to you now as your twenty-seven offshore bank accounts and every last penny in them. Your cozy home in Cap d’Ail, France. The mansion in Mallorca, Spain. That godawful thing you call a home in Dubai. Your billion-dollar Swiss chalet up high in the Alps.” Her voice ratcheted higher with every exclamation. “How much money did you have, Mr. Carlson?”

Carlson’s eyes were nearly bugged out by the time Shea finished. He shuddered as much as she did. Half turning to Grover, he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “You told me Finn was the genius.”

“But he is,” Grover mumbled. “He, ah, I mean, she’s the only reason I accepted the other two. They were a packaged deal, but she’s the one, damn it. I know she is. Can’t you see? She’s been pilfering millions out of some Saudi prince’s account for months, and now she’s bankrupting you.”

Carlson bit out, “She isn’t that smart—”

“How’d you know?” Shea interrupted. “Professor Grover, how’d you know about… that?” She bit her lip and Eric was glad she hadn’t divulged Bagani’s name. Grover had enough dirt on Shea. “Are you spying on me?”

“I’ve got my ways,” Grover murmured, his eyes shifting to his feet then back to her.

She stamped one foot in frustration. “You never had a stroke, did you? Everything you did was a lie, wasn’t it? I trusted you. Gordie trusted you. Are you even a real professor?”

Eric winced. The regret in her voice was palpable.

“Of course I’m a professor. I’m tenured. Not everything I said was untrue,” Grover answered in that singsong voice he had. He cocked his head, his fingers clasped over his belly. “You’ll always be my favorite lucky star.”

“I’m not your anything!” Shea spat. “They’re dead, and you’re as guilty of murder as that creep who killed them!”

“Shut up!” Carlson bellowed at his buddy in crime. “I don’t care about her pilfering some loser’s money! Where’s the damned dynamic energy displacement model you promised me?”