Safe Passage

Scott raked his hands through his hair.

Maybe this gig wasn’t going to be too painful. Watching Dr. Skye Van Rijn’s wickedly sexy body, listening to that mysterious smoky voice…things could be worse.

He rested his head back on the sofa. Honey shifted again at his feet. Scott found himself smiling. He was kind of enjoying the dog’s company. He prodded Honey with a toe, scratched her belly. “Well, dog, looks like the doctor’s got something to hide. And we’re gonna find it.” He drifted off into a dream of wild spaces and liquid warmth.

Some time later, he woke with a jump.

He blinked, momentarily disoriented. Then his brain identified the sound. An engine growling. Low and throaty. Next door. His eyes flicked to his watch: 3:00 a.m.

He jerked to his feet, lunged to the window. His knee protested violently. White pain flashed through his skull. He swallowed it, forced his eyes to adjust to the dark shadows outside.

He was just in time to see the sensuous shape of Skye Van Rijn, clad in black leather and straddled over a sleek motorcycle, purr down the driveway.

Refracted yard light glinted like liquid on her black helmet. She kicked the mechanical beast into gear and growled down the pastoral street.

“Honey!” he barked as he grabbed his jacket and keys. “She’s on the move!”

Chapter 2

Scott cut the engine, crawled silently to a stop in the peripheral shadows along the outside of the compound.

He watched Skye park her gleaming bike under harsh sulphur lights that flooded the fenced parking lot of the Kepplar lab complex on the outskirts of Haven.

Honey remained motionless at his side. Scott stroked the dog’s head, watched Skye remove her helmet, shake out a wave of dark hair. Even under the flat whiteness of industrial lights, her hair shimmered, alive with burnished highlights.

He watched as she strode openly, confidently, up to the main entrance of the building, helmet tucked under her arm.

He checked the glowing digits of his watch. Three-fifteen. What in hell was she doing here at this hour?

A security guard stepped out from under the portico. Scott saw him exchange words with Skye. The guard nodded. His teeth glinted as his smile caught the lights. Skye laughed at something he said. She slotted what Scott imagined was a coded identity card into a panel. The building doors opened. They slid smoothly shut behind her. The guard retreated to his cubicle under the portico. All was still.

Scott shifted his throbbing knee into a more comfortable position and settled back in his seat to wait. This surveillance business was crap.

A movement caught his eye. He tensed. So did Honey. The dog peered intently out the window. Another vehicle. Silver Mercedes. It crawled down the road toward the fenced lab compound, turned into the gates, cruised quietly to the far end of the parking lot and came to a stop.

Then nothing.

Scott noted the plates, reached for his sat phone and punched in the code to activate the scrambler. The red LED indicator showed voice encryption had been initiated. His satellite communication was secure.

“Logan,” Scott rasped into the piece.

“Jeez, you have any idea what time it is, Agent?”

“Desk life making you soft, buddy?”

Rex ignored the gibe. “What’s up?”

“I need a plate run.”

“Couldn’t wait until morning?”

“It is morning.”

“Don’t tell me…you’re pissed with the job.”

“The plate?”

“Okay, okay,” he mumbled. “Let me find a pen here somewhere… All right, shoot. Oh, and next time, call Scooter direct.”

Scott chuckled inwardly. This would teach his boss for making him report to him direct. “Sorry. Haven’t got Scooter’s home number.” He gave Rex the plate number, flipping the phone shut as the door to the Mercedes opened.

A man stepped out. Dark, well over six feet, and tough-looking. He strode to the entrance. There was something threatening in his movements.

Scott’s knee-jerk instinct was to get out and follow the guy into the building, to make sure Skye was okay. But he forced himself back against the truck seat. His brief was to watch. And she was a suspect.

Not a victim.

Skye hadn’t been able to shake the deep sense of unease that pulsed low in her core. Sleep had remained elusive. She’d tried. Tossed and turned. But her thoughts had scrambled over each other like wild, hungry, teething puppies.

Work, she’d decided, was her only salvation. It was the only thing that kept her going forward. The only thing that made her forget the past.

The only thing that dulled her latent fear.

She placed the minute beetle carefully under the microscope, adjusted the focus. It was so tiny. So perfect. So very beautiful in its own way. If everything went according to plan, these little bugs would lead an army and conquer the enemy blight in its path. She adjusted the scope, bent closer.

A sound at the far end of the darkened lab crashed into her thoughts.

She jerked back, knocking a petri dish off the counter. It clattered to the floor, the sound disproportionately loud in the deserted laboratory.

Skye peered into the night shadows.

Her heart thumped a steady beat against her chest wall. Nothing. No movement.

She chided herself, turned back to her beetle. The Kepplar labs were perfectly safe. Even at night. Still, more than ten years down the road and she hadn’t stopped looking over her shoulder. She was still seeing ghosts in shadows. Hearing sounds in the night. Afraid he’d find her.

Then she heard it again.

She froze. “Who’s there?” She could hear the brittle edge of panic in her own voice.

Neon light flooded the lab, exploded into her brain.

She blinked against the brightness.

Jozsef stood beside the light switch, a wide grin on his face. “What you doing working in the dark at this ungodly hour, Dr. Van Rijn?”

Skye sucked her breath in slowly, trying to steady her popping nerves. “Good grief, Jozsef, you startled me. What in heaven are you doing here? When did you get back?”

He walked forward, arms behind him. “I thought I’d find you at home. I didn’t. So I came looking here.”