On Thin Ice

“That’s right.” She smiled at him. “That’s exactly what we should be seeing at this point.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“That’s not what’s in the samples that were waiting in the crate outside the lab when I arrived.”

“You mean the ones I saw you looking at last night?”

Their gazes locked, and for the barest second he knew she was remembering what had happened between them in the trailer. Their embrace, the delicate kisses he’d brushed across her temple and her hair. The recognition in her eyes told him she knew he was thinking about it, too.

She snatched the bag from his hand and broke the spell. “Um, yes.” Her cheeks flushed with color. Clearly, she was uncomfortable with the bit of spontaneous intimacy they’d shared last night.

He was uncomfortable with it, too. Damned uncomfortable. But he was determined to get close to her. Close enough to learn her secrets—exactly what information she was selling, and how. She’d responded to him last night, and whether it was all an act or not didn’t matter.

For whatever reason, Lauren Fotheringay wanted him on her side, as an ally. Maybe more than that, given the way she stole a glance at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. That’s exactly what he’d become, then. Another dumb, unsuspecting primate she could use for her own purpose.

It couldn’t be more perfect. Once he proved to her she could trust him, he’d be able to glean the facts he’d need to collar her and her cronies here in the field, and anyone else in on the scheme back at Tiger Petroleum.

Time to move in for the kill.

“If there’s anything I can help you with,” he said, drawing her gaze back to his, “let me know.”

“Thanks.” She smiled again, and this time he marveled at how genuine it seemed.

Looking at her standing there in her field clothes, her expression open, eyes wide and trusting, he could almost believe she was innocent. That she knew nothing about Paddy’s murder or the illegal peddling of information worth millions to the right buyer. He wanted to believe it. More than anything.

Watch your step, Adams.

She tossed the sample bag back into the box and slid past him, pausing at the catwalk. “See you later?” It was more than a question. Her eyes held a subtle plea.

“Yeah,” he said, and forced a smile. “Later.”

As he turned toward the metal staircase leading up to the drilling floor, he saw Jack Salvio leaning casually against the railing at the top, watching them. Lauren saw him, too. Salvio flashed her a hard look, then waved Seth up to the floor.

Time to go to work.

Chapter 5

The rhythmic whomp of chopper blades ripped her from an uneasy sleep. Lauren sat up in the hard, single bed and blinked her eyes open to pitch-black. “Oh, right.”

Before she’d gone to sleep last night, she’d drawn the blackout shades in the trailer’s tiny bedroom. Not that it was necessary in the dead of an arctic winter when darkness prevailed twenty-plus hours a day.

She checked the glow-in-the-dark hands of her watch. 2:40 a.m. Great. She’d never get back to sleep now. Why had she dreamt of a helicopter? In this weather, it was the last thing—

Wait! There it was again. She scrambled out of bed and ripped the Velcro-lashed drape away from the window. The harsh yard lights made her squint. She blinked a few times, to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing.

Absolutely nothing.

No blowing snow. Not a breath of wind, in fact. The yard between her trailer and the drilling rig and the rest of the camp was perfectly still. Then she heard it again. She hadn’t been dreaming. From this vantage point she couldn’t see the chopper pad lying out beyond the camp, but her ears told her everything she needed to know.

Someone was here. Thank God!

She flipped on the overhead light and snatched a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from the pile of clothes she’d unpacked last night. If the weather had cleared long enough for a chopper to get in, maybe she could get word to her boss. Let Bill know what had happened to Paddy O’Connor, about the faulty computer system and those strange rock samples she’d found outside her trailer when she’d arrived.

Not bothering to wash her face or run a comb through her tangled hair, she jerked the connecting door open to the lab, just as the fluorescent lights snapped on overhead.

Jack Salvio stood across the room, framed by the lab’s open doorway, a master key in his hand. “Good. You’re up.”

“What’s going on? There’s a chopper outside.”

“Grab your gear. You’re outta here.”

“What?” She padded across the linoleum to where she’d left her boots, and slipped them on.

Ignoring her question, Salvio brushed past her and made a quick survey of the lab, his gaze darting across the stainless steel countertops, pausing on the open notebook at her workstation. She knew what he was looking for.

“Those samples you took from my locked trailer yesterday—where are they, Jack?” She was still steamed about the whole incident. She’d come back here yesterday afternoon to find them gone. Salvio was the only other person with a key.

“I told you. They were from last week. Shoulda been shipped days ago back to the lab at Tiger. It’s taken care of now.”

“That’s not the point.”

He started to read her handwritten notes about the unusual samples. Lauren closed the distance between them and snapped the notebook shut.

What Salvio didn’t know was that he’d missed one of the samples when he’d confiscated the crate. Lauren’s eyes darted to the open plastic bag sitting next to her microscope. Salvio’s gaze followed. She snatched it off the counter and stuffed it into the pocket of her cardigan.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Just something I was working on yesterday.” She tossed him a blank look.

“Don’t screw around, Lauren. There’s no time.” He continued to eye the bulge in her pocket, the lines in his face deepening into a scowl.

“I’m not screwing around.” She tried to ignore the fact that for some silly reason he was making her nervous. “What exactly is going on here, Jack?”

“Like I said, you’re outta here.”

“That’s ridiculous. I’m not leaving, I just got here.”

“Yeah, you are. I’m sending O’Connor’s body back to Deadhorse. You’re going with it.”

“What? I can’t leave now. We’re nearly at target depth.”

No one else knew what to look for—where and how much to sample, or what the samples meant, whether they had to drill deeper, or if they could stop. No one could make those decisions except the geologist.

Besides, she wasn’t going anywhere until she found out where those peculiar rock samples had come from, and what Salvio had done with the crate.

“You’re the one who found the body. And someone from Tiger’s got to make the report. It’s you or me.” Salvio nodded at the rig. “Unless you want me to shut the whole frickin’ thing down like I wanted to in the first place. Then we can go in together.”

“No. That’s out of the question, and you know it.”