Deadly Sight

“You know how to make omelets?”

He shrugged. “Sure. They’re not that hard.”

Hah. She had literally ruined a pot while boiling water before. The crash of the Hindenburg came to mind when she thought about her one and only try at omelet preparation. As she recalled, a fire extinguisher had been necessary before it was all said and done.

“What kind of salad dressing do you like?” he asked.

“Anything sharp and tangy.”

“Should’ve known.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“In my experience, women’s food preferences match their personalities.”

“I’m sharp?” Hey, she’d been on her best behavior for him.

“As in clever and intelligent, yes,” he replied smoothly.

“Nice save,” she retorted skeptically. She wasn’t about to tell him what a sucker she was for a high-quality, smooth milk chocolate to see where he went with that. Instead, she said, “Tell me about you.”

He went still. Completely, head-to-toe, not-moving-a-muscle still. That was weird. He formed words, but they sounded torn from deep inside him. “Not much to tell.”

If only she had her laptop and a wireless connection! She’d know everything there was to know about this mysterious man in two minutes. What had happened in his life to make him so brittle and closed? She said lightly, “You know everything about me. Don’t you think I deserve a little reciprocation, here?”

“I do not know everything about you,” he declared.

He was trying to divert her away from the subject of his life. Interesting. She had to find access to the internet, somehow, and get the scoop on this guy. “Name one thing you desperately want to know about me,” she declared.

“What did you have on under that leather jacket this afternoon?” he shot back at her.

Her jaw dropped momentarily before she managed to control it. That was way out of left field. Revealing, too. The man found her attractive, after all, huh? That restless feeling in her tummy felt a little better. “Tell you what. I’ll wear the same thing tomorrow, and you can find out for yourself … if you’ve got the courage to try.”

He whirled and had his hands on the counter on either side of her so fast she barely saw him move. Trapped between his arms and more titillated than she cared to admit, she stared up at him defiantly.

He spoke quietly, his voice a dangerous caress. “Be very careful about teasing me, little girl. You may get back more than you bargained for.”

Little girl? She hadn’t been one of those since she was about six and her mom’s latest boyfriend made a punching bag out of her for the first time. She ought to be offended. Tell Gray to go to hell. But he actually did make her feel young and rather foolish with that extreme self-control of his.

“That sounds like a challenge,” she responded belatedly. It was a lame comeback, but all she could manage with his large, muscular frame only inches from her own. Darned if her breathing wasn’t going all wonky, too.

He pushed away from the counter and she let out a careful breath. He turned around and something metal flashed in his hand. Knife. Her own hands flashed up defensively and her foot lashed out and connected with his shin. Hard.

“Ouch!” He leaped back from her. “What’d you do that for?”

“The knife … Saw it coming … Didn’t stop to think …” She trailed off into silence, too embarrassed to continue.

He was studying her far too intently for her comfort. “Are you a trained martial artist?” he finally asked.

“I’ve had some self-defense training.” Although her reaction had a lot more to do with a long string of jerkwad boyfriends—her mom’s and hers—than any self-defense training. But she wasn’t about to tell Mr. Perfect that. He’d probably never had a bad breakup in his entire life. But then, he probably never dated nut-balls, either. His women were no doubt as perfect and well-bred as he was.

He laid the knife down carefully on the counter in front of her. “If you’d like to chop up the tomatoes and cucumber, I’ll wash the lettuce.”

Crap. She berated herself silently for making a fool of herself over a stupid knife and vented her irritation onto the hapless veggies, which she minced nearly into pulp.

The omelet turned out to be as irritatingly perfect as its maker, all fluffy and light and neatly folded. It didn’t help her bad mood that Gray was quiet through the meal, alternately staring at his food and glancing up thoughtfully at her. She’d inadvertently revealed far too much of herself to him, and clearly he wasn’t hesitating to draw all kinds of no doubt accurate and damning inferences about her.

Too jumpy to stand those thoughtful looks any longer, she leaped up and cleared the table. While she washed and dried the dishes by hand—apparently dishwashers were off-limits in this wacky place—he gathered the pictures he’d piled together earlier and spread them out across the table.

She dried her hands and approached them.

“Sit beside me,” he ordered absently.

Startled, she sank into the chair he’d pulled up beside his. It brought their ankles, knees, hips, elbows and shoulders into a proximity that threatened to destroy her concentration. Really, she ought to just jump the guy’s bones and get him out of her system so she could work with him. Otherwise, the next few days could be seriously miserable.

Gray filled her in efficiently. “Luke Zimmer’s upbringing was pretty normal. Middle class, Midwest, average home, average income. He ran with a neo-Nazi gang in high school, however, in—” he shuffled through the printed pages “—a suburb of Chicago. But his current political leanings are more antisocial than that.”

“What’s more antisocial than neo-Nazis?” she blurted. She’d hung out with a skinhead or two, and they’d been way too violent for her taste.

Gray continued, “Zimmer moved into this area several months ago, apparently at Jeff’s request.”

“Given that Jeff mentioned a cult leader to both of us, I’m assuming Luke got sent here to infiltrate Proctor’s group on behalf of Winston Enterprises?”

A flicker of something suspiciously like respect passed through Gray’s opaque gaze. “That’s a good guess. Although why Proctor’s a threat to an international conglomerate with no business dealings anywhere near here is a mystery to me.”

“Maybe Luke’s profile can give us a clue into what kind of a person Proctor is, or at least what the orientation of his cult’s stated beliefs is.”

The respect thing flickered again in Gray’s gaze as he replied, “My main impression of Zimmer is that he’s severely paranoid. I did a little reconnaissance on him yesterday, but without electronic equipment, I couldn’t get even remotely close to him. Although I don’t know if his paranoia predates his relationship with Proctor or is possibly a result of it.”

“Enter the girl with eagle eyes.”

He smiled a little at her. “If you can point your eagle eyes at this guy and learn more about him, that could be enormously useful.”

“Does Luke have a job?” she asked.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“How’s he paying his way, then?” she asked. Even losers had to eat and buy drugs.

“I’m working a little too off-book to just stroll into the local bank and ask.”

“I could hack into the bank’s computers—” she broke off “—but nobody uses computers around here, do they?”

“A few folks actually have them. They have to use hard-wired, buried cable lines, though, and there are no Wi-Fi networks.”

She shrugged. “It probably doesn’t matter, anyway. Guys like Luke work in cash. Leaves less of a trail for the cops to follow. What else do you know about him?”

“He’s twenty-seven years old. Computer science major at Cal Tech. Didn’t graduate, though. Busted a couple of times for pot possession by campus cops. Thirty days in jail and a fine the last time. Nothing remarkable about his family. Two brothers—one older, one younger. He got decent grades in high school, ran about a 2.5 GPA in college. Nothing else shows up on him in the system.”