Mesmerizing Stranger Page 15

  “Hey, short stuff. You lost your shoes.”

  “They weren’t shoes. They were torture devices.” She padded over, lifted up and kissed him. “Who was on the phone?”

  “Just more information coming in. Still nothing that helps.” He scraped a tired hand through his hair. “All three men, still no surprises. No hidden expenses, no hidden vices, no hidden bank accounts. Arthur apparently cheated on his wife twice, not once. Both times more than twenty years ago. And looking into people’s lives like this…it makes me feel ugly down deep. I don’t like intruding on their privacy. Finding out things that are none of my business.”

  She nodded. “But Harm…you weren’t prying into their lives to intrude. You were trying to find information that would help you pin down the thief.”

  “I know. I’m just so damned frustrated…” Around then, he laid out a plan of attack. He wanted her to start digging in Fiske’s office, and started unlocking doors and drawers, enabling her to access any and everything in Fiske’s work space. “I know you’re worried about the science, but like I keep telling you, don’t be. We’ve had pros go into the science from every angle and found nothing. So all I want you to do is look around. Look for something that seems strange, something that jolts you when you look at it, something that doesn’t belong.”

  “And you’re going to be…?”

  “Trying to do the same thing. In Arthur’s office. And In Yale and Purdue’s work areas.” He glanced at her. “Cate, I know you don’t believe this can matter, but I’ve come to believe-this might be the only way to find an answer. Experts have gone over the place from stem to stern and found nothing that’s helped us. I really believe that your perceptions could bring something new to the problem.”

  It sounded like grasping at straws to Cate, but heaven knew, she’d do anything to come through for him. Fiske’s office looked just like the man-homey, comfortable and capable, generally tidy.

  She parked herself in front of Fiske’s computer first, because once Harm had given her passwords and security keys, she knew how to roam around that kind of technology. Two hours passed before she realized it. Startled at how easily she’d become engrossed, she wandered around to stretch her legs, find a bathroom, then hit the break room to make coffee and see if she could scare up some snacks.

  She tracked down Harm, weaving on his feet in front of a stand-up computer in a security vault. About to offer him something to eat, she changed her mind. “Okay,” she said, “that’s it. You’re taking a nap.”

  “No.”

  “Do you ever want to have sex with me again?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’d do that? Bargain with sex? I thought you were a better woman than that.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. I’m absolutely no better. I saw the couch in your office.” She put one hand on her hip and motioned with a royal finger toward his office. “I’m not-”

  “We’re both locked in this place. Couldn’t be safer in church. All life will not end if you take two or three hours for a short crash. Now go.”

  “I won’t sleep. Can’t sleep.”

  “Fine. Prove it. I’ll check on you in ten minutes. If you’re not asleep by then, I promise I’ll let you back at it.”

  He considered this. “You have a really ugly side to you, Cate. Manipulative. Controlling. Dictatorial.”

  “You know perfectly well that compliments go straight to my head, so don’t waste your breath. Go.”

  She checked on him ten minutes later, and found him sleeping so deeply she wasn’t sure she could have roused him with a cattle prod. Mentally, she debated whether to scare up a blanket from the sleepover room, but it didn’t seem that cold, so she just tucked his jacket over him, switched off the glaring overhead light and left him to rest.

  Instead of steering straight back to Fiske’s office, she detoured to the break room, brewed a fresh pot of coffee and prowled around the cupboards for something to snack on-then realized she couldn’t be less hungry. An odd shiver chased up her spine. Even though she wanted Harm to catch some sleep, suddenly she felt spooked by the realization that she was completely alone in the building.

  Which, of course, was stupid. She was perfectly happy doing anything alone. She’d never been afraid of being alone.

  Back in Fiske’s office, she turned on the spare lamps as well as the overhead, pulled up the chair ottoman, and started going through every single thing in every single drawer and file.

  His computer, at least, had held interesting stuff, such as e-mails with other scientists, old university colleagues, cancer research sites around the world. The stuff in his files was just financial. Boring, endless numbers. Nothing that meant anything to her.

  She caught herself yawning, figured lack of sleep was catching up with her, too-it was almost five in the morning by then.

  And then she hit pay dirt.

  She thought.

  She pushed aside the ottoman and plunked down on the carpet to spread out a fan of papers. Maybe she was nuts, but sometimes it seemed as if Fiske totally changed his handwriting style. When she pulled out the examples of this, she had notes and calendar entries and files or reports with memos scratched on the side.

  By themselves, they didn’t seem to mean much. The scratched handwriting said things like “Ask Yale and Purdue.” Or “See Arthur.” One note had a figure, $89,945, underlined with question marks. There was another handwritten memo to check on records from November and February from the year before…and another legal sheet of paper with a series of numbers, handwritten, rather than produced from a computer report or printer. She wasn’t positive of the exact day that Dougal had died, but from the timetable Harm had given her, Fiske must have been accumulating those numbers from that same week.

  She hunched over, and started pulling every scrap of paper together that illustrated the odd change in handwriting, trying to analyze why it had drawn her attention.

  It was about emotion, she thought, and figured any normal person would laugh at her for drawing such an unprovable conclusion. Maybe Harm would laugh, too-but he’d listen to her. He’d listened to her about the peppermint. So far, he’d listened to her whenever she said anything.

  Could you fall in love with a man, just for that?

  Stick to the problem, she yelled at herself, and promptly knocked over her coffee-not a major problem, because there were only a few cold drops left in the cup.

  She didn’t know what any of the numbers or dates meant, but everything else that Fiske had written by hand had shown neat, tidy letters, a clear script. The sudden ink-heavy notes and splash of letters was different, as if Fiske were upset or concerned.

  She wasn’t sure how to pull all the scraps together-by date, chronological order? By notes versus numbers? By names? By…

  Abruptly she heard a sound, and looked up with her heart pounding. There was nothing there. Obviously. But for a second she felt so unnerved that she bounced to her feet and scurried down the long hall to Harm’s office.

  He hadn’t moved, even an inch. He was still sleeping so deeply that she just couldn’t imagine waking him. What difference could another hour make? Besides, she had more to go through…and another hour would give her a chance to organize it all somehow.

  Unfortunately, she was lagging hard now, too. Her eyes were stinging dry, the back of her neck tight and achy. She hit the restroom to splash cold water on her face, then refilled her mug with coffee, hoping the caffeine would give her a second wind. She carted the steaming mug back to Fiske’s office, zoomed in the door…and dropped the mug, splashing hot coffee all over herself and the rug and papers.

  Purdue hadn’t made a sound. He was standing absolutely quietly, behind the door.

  He closed the door, just as quietly, before she’d even had the chance to open her mouth in a scream.

  Chapter 12

  “Well, darn, Cate.” Purdue sounded as easy and amiable as an old friend who’d just stopped by. “I hope you didn’t burn yourself.”

>   “You scared the wits out of me!” Instinctively, Cate bent down, brushing at where the hot coffee had splashed on her bare legs. But she barely felt the burning liquid. If anything, she felt suddenly cold from the inside out. Acid cold.

  Sour cold.

  So cold she could taste it in the very back of her throat.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.” Purdue took another step toward her. “I didn’t expect anyone to be in the building. There was no other car parked in front. Nothing but the usual security lights on that I could see when I first came in.”

  “I’m parked in back.” Of all the insane things to talk about. She pushed at a coffee spot on her black dinner dress-as if that wasn’t an insane thing to worry about, too. Cripes, he was probably going to kill her. Who cared if she had a dry-cleaning bill? It was just…Purdue didn’t seem any more dangerous now than he had before.

  He looked tired, of course. Travel tired. But he was wearing a crisp-enough white button-down shirt over jeans, labeled sandals; his hair was neatly brushed, his thin black glasses adding to his look of Ivy-League cool. His smile still had charm. His confidence still glowed.

  He was still annoying.

  He let out another quiet bark of a laugh. “I just can’t get over it. Of all the people I might have expected to find here, much less at five in the morning, it never crossed my mind that you might be one of them.”

  “That certainly goes both ways. I thought you and Yale were on the same flight, not getting in for hours yet.”

  “Yeah, that was the last plan…but I was willing to upgrade to first-class, just to get home sooner.”

  “And after all that traveling, you came right to work, even in the middle of the night.”

  He nodded. She figured out why she felt so cold now. His eyes, his gaze, centered on every movement she made, every expression on her face. But behind those black-framed glasses, his eyes seemed as blank as black ice. Of course, she might be cold for another reason.

  Like being scared out of her wits.

  “Naturally, I came here. I suspect the rest will show up as soon as they can conceivably get here. We’re all concerned about finding answers to our little lab mystery. Why don’t you sit down, Cate? You look as if you’re about to fall down anyway.”

  Aw, hell. She was a lousy pretender, and sooner or later she was going to put her foot in her mouth, anyway, so might as well get it all over with. “You’re not here to look for answers,” she said. “You don’t need to do that. You already know the whole story-because it’s your story, isn’t it? You’re the one.”

  He didn’t bother responding, just motioned to the mess of papers on the carpet in front of Fiske’s desk. “I take it that you’re the one who’s been putting all this stuff together.”

  “Yes.” She wasn’t sure if he realized Harm was in the building. Surely, he couldn’t believe Harm would leave her here alone in the middle of the night? But…she’d turned off the light in Harm’s office. If Purdue had just been looking around, he wouldn’t have seen any other sign of life but her. In the one office he was the most interested in: Fiske’s.

  “Well, you probably think you know a whole lot, then, don’t you? But you’d be wrong. It’s not what it looks like, Cate. I didn’t steal a damn thing.”

  “Right. That’s why you’re here before daybreak. Because you were just trying to be helpful for the team.”

  He met her eyes. “Look at me. Look at my face. I did not steal anything. That’s the truth.”

  Silently, she studied him. Clearly, she was never going to make it as a judge because he looked as sincere as an innocent kid. He was a pain, yes, but as far as she could tell, he wasn’t lying. Still, even believing him, her stomach was suddenly twisting and her heart thumping a wild, petrified drumbeat. “All right,” she said.

  “All those papers on the floor-I didn’t have time to really look at what you’ve been putting together there. But it doesn’t matter. No one will ever find proof that I stole anything. Because I didn’t.”

  That sure sounded as if he were protesting too much, Cate thought, but she could hardly credit that judgment. Just then, she wasn’t sure she had enough judgment to wad a BB gun. The fluorescent overheads reflected on Purdue’s face, gave his skin a plaster cast. One second, her heart was screaming, Harm, for God’s sake, wake up and find me! and in the next second, she was scared witless that Purdue would quit talking-and definitely quit playing nice-if he knew Harm was here, so she didn’t want Harm awake at all.

  So that was the thing. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t stop feeling creeped out. Couldn’t stop feeling keening sad that she’d never told Harm she loved him, and darn it, that she owed her sisters e-mails, and unless something brilliant happened-something she hadn’t thought of yet-she could well be dead before this was over and Purdue gotten away scot-free with even more than he already had.

  “How did you get in?” she asked. “I thought this place was wired so secure that nothing and no one could get in.”

  “It is. But I’m one of the few who have to get into the lab at all hours of the day and night. Naturally, Harm changed all the codes and security arrangements after the so-called theft. But it wasn’t hard to break into the new system. Harm…he’s got that military background, but overall, he just can’t seem to help thinking like an honest man.”

  “Yeah, that’s a big fault of his,” Cate readily agreed.

  “Where I have a scientist’s mind. I love puzzles. I love logic. Figuring out the new codes was no tougher than the New York Times Sunday crossword. Move aside, Cate.”

  He didn’t have a gun-or any other weapon-in sight. But when he crouched down, his gaze darted from the papers she’d spread out to her face. Whatever he saw in those quick glances to the records she’d put together never changed the expression on his face. But he reached in his pocket and pulled out a book of matches.

  She only had one button that couldn’t be pushed, that she had no defense for. And he just found it. “Wait,” she said.

  “Just step back. How about if you sit in Fiske’s chair behind that big old comfortable desk. Relax. Nothing terrible is going to happen.” He straightened up, keeping his eyes on her face, and moved a few steps to locate the wastebasket under the desk. He dumped out its contents, then carried the basket to the center of the floor. “Cate. You’ve got a real skittery look in your eyes. Chill. You don’t want to make me do something we’d both regret. Nothing bad has to happen. To you, to me, to anyone.”

  The wastebasket wasn’t a standard issue metal basket like offices usually had, but was leather, with gold-embossing. A gift someone had given Fiske, she thought. Which was very nice, except that the surface was a ton more flammable than a metal container. “There are a bunch more papers,” she said desperately.

  Purdue, about to bend down to stuff papers in the basket, abruptly shot his head up. “Where?”

  “All over.”

  He made a sound of disbelief. “Yeah. Right. But just for the record, I really would like to know how you came across all this stuff. Where was it? It’s not as if I hadn’t looked before. Hell. We all looked. Lawyers looked. Cops looked. Everyone looked.”

  But Cate suspected they’d all been looking for some kind of direct evidence to the cancer formula. She wouldn’t have been able to identify that if her life depended on it. All she’d been able to notice was the change in Fiske’s handwriting-the slant, the pressure of ink-that indicated Fiske was upset about something.

  But she didn’t waste time telling Purdue that, because she couldn’t imagine he’d believe her. Until she saw his reaction to her collection of notes and papers, she hadn’t been all that positive she had anything that important besides.

  “Purdue,” she said, “there are more records and papers all over, in different files and drawers and computer records. I’d just started looking and come up with this much.” She added quickly, “I could help you look for more.”

  His hands shook, but it didn’t stop him from hea
ping all the records she’d collected into the leather wastebasket. Then he patted his pocket, looking for the book of matches again. His good-looking features seemed waxier by the minute. She couldn’t see madness or meanness in his face, but for certain there was exhaustion. Bone-deep exhaustion. End-of-his-rope exhaustion.

  He was so tired she wasn’t sure what he’d do…or what he was capable of.

  “Listen,” she said urgently, “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why you did whatever you did. But I’m sure you had a good reason. If you explained to Harm what happened-”

  “I didn’t steal anything! I told you that!”

  “Okay, okay, take it easy.” She tried to remember how to breathe normally. “Tell me. How I can help you?”

  Wrong question. Wrong, wrong, wrong question. She was used to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, but sheesh. His jaw tightened as if it had suddenly been wired.

  “You want to help me? You could have helped me by not being in this office. By not finding any of these records. By not being in the middle of this. I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt Fiske. I never wanted to hurt Dougal. It just got out of control. One mistake, and everywhere I turned, it multiplied. It got so messed up I didn’t know what to do, how to make it right again. How to make anything right again.”

  “Tell me,” she said, and took a tiptoe-quiet step back toward the door. Something about his face, his expression, had changed. She was gut-scared now. Soul-scared. Any options she thought she had, Cate now figured were out the window. She only had one. To get out of there.

  “My mother…I couldn’t do anything wrong in her eyes. But my dad was a real different story. Growing up, I couldn’t please him to save my life. Beat the hell out of me, any excuse he could think of. Only then I got a full scholarship to Purdue, and it all changed. It wasn’t just that I’d grown up, got too big to hit. It was more like…I’d gone to a place where he didn’t want to hurt me anymore. He got off on telling neighbors and friends that I was brilliant. Perfect. Turned into the ideal son. Doing something. Only I couldn’t live up to it. Who can be perfect all the time? It’s not like I went looking to screw up. It just happened. It was wrong, but it was just a stupid mistake. It just…it got out of hand so fast. Yale, he was right next to me, he didn’t know what was going on. He hasn’t got a brain. You’d think coming from Yale, he’d be the smart one, wouldn’t you?”