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  “From what we saw in that freezer, Stutmeir’s weapon is coming along nicely, with or without Dowling’s help.”

  “Unless whatever Stutmeir is up to is even worse than what we’ve already seen.”

  Landon didn’t want to think about that possibility. His cell phone rang, echoing in the huge, empty building. It was John calling to tell them the CDC was on its way with an emergency decontamination team. Landon put him on speaker so Ivy could hear.

  “So, either Stutmeir killed Dowling because he didn’t play ball or because he’d outlived his usefulness.” John sighed heavily on the other end of the line. “Wish we knew which, so we’d have some idea if Stutmeir is finished making the weapon.”

  “Our guess is that he’s not,” Landon said. “If he was, he would have killed the other scientists, too.”

  “Good point. Which means Stutmeir might be hunting for more experts. I’m going to get analysts to put together a list of people who might have Dowling’s same skill set—just in case they go after someone to replace him.”

  Ivy frowned. “Dowling’s been dead at least two weeks. Stutmeir could already have gone after someone else.”

  “We would have heard about it,” John said. “Intel has been monitoring every missing person and possible kidnapping out there related to doctors and scientists. There haven’t been any since Dowling and Beacon. If there’s another expert out there, we’ll find him. Hopefully, before Stutmeir does.”

  Landon hoped so, too.

  The decontamination team from the Centers for Disease Control arrived fifteen minutes later dressed in standard-issue space suits. Without asking a single question, they introduced themselves, then quickly and efficiently set up tents for a decontamination line. Landon expected them to run him and Ivy through separately, but in an emergency response like this, there wasn’t time for modesty. Landon did the gentlemanly thing and turned his back so he could give Ivy some privacy, but he couldn’t help catching the occasional glimpse of those perfect breasts and long legs as the techs stripped her down. Watching the techs lather her up was way more X-rated than it should have been considering the freaky suits the CDC workers were wearing, but with that body, it was hard not to have pornographic thoughts, even with the whole they-might-have-been-exposed-to-a-contagious-disease thing hanging over their heads.

  He lifted his head to make sure Ivy hadn’t caught him looking and found her giving him a rather frank appraisal in return. She didn’t even bother to hide the interest in her eyes. He thought he saw them glimmer green for a second. They went back to their normal brown before he could be sure. He stifled a groan. It was good the water the techs hosed him down with was cold, otherwise his erection would have been a lot more blatant. And a lot more embarrassing.

  ***

  When she and Landon had been sufficiently decontaminated, the techs drew blood, took some DNA swipes, handed them bathrobes, and led them to yet another tent. This one had two folding chairs in it and a small table. Sitting around wearing nothing but a robe was strangely erotic. Probably because she was still a little turned on from the impromptu strip show earlier. A lot of women would pay money to see a hot guy like Landon stripped naked and lathered up in foam. Her included. She only wished it wasn’t because they might be infected with something that might kill them in an awful, painful way.

  She looked at Landon. He was sitting back in his chair, looking as relaxed as he always did. Why didn’t he look as terrified as she was?

  Because he was a guy, and guys never worried about anything. At least not in front of a woman.

  She sighed and looked around the tent for something to take her mind off the tests the CDC was running—and the fact that Landon was naked underneath his robe—when a light dancing on the floor caught her eye. She lifted her head to see where it was coming from and saw Landon flicking the laser pointer from his pistol around the floor in front of her feet.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Giving you something to do besides worry about whether we’re infected or not.” His mouth quirked. “Cats like to chase lights around a room, right? It’s supposed to be an involuntary reflex or something.”

  She gave him a wry smile. “Very funny.”

  It was funny. She liked that he could joke about her being a shifter, even if he was only doing it now so she wouldn’t obsess about whether they’d been exposed to whatever Stutmeir had cooked up. It meant he was comfortable with her being part feline. That was all she’d ever wanted in a partner—and a man.

  “Ivy, it’s going to be okay.”

  Coming from him, she believed it.

  She took a deep breath. “Since I’m not going to chase a light around on the floor—no matter how much it might amuse you—you’re going to have to do something else to distract me. Talk to me.”

  “About what?”

  “You.” She smiled. “I hardly know anything about you. Other than that you were in Special Forces and worked with some great guys. Tell me about your family.”

  “Not much to tell.” He set the laser pointer on the table. “My old man liked to smack us around for fun, which was whenever we did something he didn’t like, which was pretty much all the time. Mom was an alcoholic and refused to walk away from him even after he almost killed her. And my sister, Laci, decided I was the reason Dad was such an asshole.”

  Ivy didn’t know what to say. She’d grown up in a wonderful family with parents who loved her and the best sisters in the world. She sometimes forgot other people weren’t so lucky. Hearing about a stranger coming from an abused home was different than knowing someone it had happened to.

  “That must have been terrible for you,” she said when she’d finally found her voice.

  “It was what it was.” He shrugged. “When I got big enough—and strong enough—to fight back, I did. But every time I tried to protect Mom and Laci, they’d blame me for making it worse. Like it was my fault. Finally broke my old man’s jaw when he came at me with a baseball bat. That asshole was trying to kill me and Mom threatened to have me arrested for assaulting him. I walked out that day and never looked back.”

  “My God.” She imagined him as a scared kid having to defend himself against his father—the person who was supposed to love and protect him. She wanted to reach out and put her arms around him, but didn’t. “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “That made you what, a junior in high school? Where did you live?”

  “On the street at first, and when it got too cold for that, I’d sneak back into the high school after class and spend my nights there. I already had a part-time job, so I had enough money to cover food, and I had extra clothes in my locker. It wasn’t so bad.”

  It sounded bad to her. “Didn’t your parents report you missing?”

  He snorted. “You kidding? They were glad to get rid of me.”

  “What about the school? No one figured out you weren’t living at home?”

  “I showed up to class. That was all that mattered. The only person I told was my best friend, Steve. He finally convinced his mom and dad to let me sleep on the couch. They wanted to get child services involved, but I talked them out of it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing. It was my word against my old man’s, and my mom and sister would have backed up whatever story he told. Knowing that bastard, he probably would have taken it out on them. With me out of the picture, maybe he stopped abusing them.”

  She frowned. “You don’t honestly think you were responsible for what he did, do you?”

  “No. I’m not a martyr, Ivy.” The muscle in his jaw flexed. “But when I stopped by the middle school to check on Laci a few weeks after I left, she said Dad hadn’t hit her or Mom since I took off. That could have been because he was too doped up on the pain meds he was taking for his broken jaw to bother
, I guess, but who the hell knows? Laci could have been lying to protect him.”

  “Or to protect you. Maybe she and your mom always took your father’s side because they were afraid for you.”

  He let out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, right.”

  She knew that idea wouldn’t go over well. “It’s possible. I’m guessing you got the worst of it by always coming to their defense. Maybe they figured if they sided with him, he’d leave you alone.”

  He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “Well, whatever. I guess we’ll never know. My old man drank himself to death a few years after I went in the army, and my mom died last year.”

  “What about Laci?”

  “Last time I talked to Steve, he said she was married with two kids.”

  “You don’t talk to her?”

  He shook his head. “I joined the army the day after graduation and never went back. Never looked back. That just shoots my nice guy image all to hell, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re image is still intact.” She gave him a small smile. “I think it shows how strong and courageous you are. To come from that kind of life and be where you are now says a lot about the man you are.”

  “What, sitting around a decontamination tent in a bathrobe, telling my life story to a woman I’ve known for a whole week?”

  “There are worst places to be.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  The pain in his voice told her the wounds were still deep even after all these years, and she hated that she’d been the one to reopen them. Curiosity might not always kill the cat, but it could sure make her feel bad. “So, what made you pick the military?”

  “I wanted to get someplace far away from where I was. I didn’t have the money for college, so it was either that or work on an oil rig somewhere. I figured I had a better chance of going to college if I went in the military.”

  She was glad he hadn’t chosen oil rigging. “Why Special Forces?”

  “The recruiter showed me a video of these guys doing cool stuff like jumping out of planes, shooting machine guns, and blowing shit up. What more could a guy want?”

  “What more indeed?” she said dryly.

  “It’s a guy thing. How about you? What made you join the DCO?”

  She shrugged. “I was tired of riding a desk at the FBI.”

  Landon sat back in his chair. “How long did you work for the Bureau?”

  “Almost four years.”

  “And they never put you in the field?”

  “No. Which annoyed the hell out of me.” She rolled her eyes. “My glass ceiling was set at the first floor in the FBI. You’re lucky you don’t have to deal with crap like that.”

  He was silent for a moment. “What about family?”

  “My parents live in Virginia with my three sisters.”

  “Are they shifters, too?”

  “Only one sister—Layla. We’re the first in my family since my great-grandmother. Something my other sisters are still bummed about. They complain Layla and I got all the good genes.”

  The tent flap opened and one of the CDC techs walked in. He’d taken off his protective suit and was carrying their clothes. That had to be a good sign.

  “You’re in the clear.” He set their clothes on the table. “At least as far as we know.”

  That didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

  Landon exchanged a frown with her. “As far as you know?”

  The man shrugged. “Homeland Security ordered us to forward all the results from your samples directly to them without any review on our part. They’re the ones who made the call that you’re clear.”

  Because the CDC techs would take one look at her blood and know she was different. She should have realized the DCO wouldn’t let anyone get a look at her blood.

  Landon turned his back while they dressed to give her privacy. Ivy did the same, but not before taking a quick peek at his ass. He was built, all right.

  She was just sliding her feet into low-heeled pumps when her cell phone rang. She picked it up, putting it on hands-free when John’s name came up on the call display.

  “Are you out of quarantine yet?”

  She slipped her gun holster on her belt. “We just got cleared.”

  “Good. I need you two on a plane to New York five minutes ago. Evan got a hit on a geneticist in Pittsburgh who was killed a week ago during what was assumed to be a kidnapping gone bad. She fits our profile of the kind of expert Stutmeir would be after.”

  Landon shrugged into his suit jacket. “Then we were right about Stutmeir looking for a replacement for Dowling.”

  “Looks like it. Evan and his team have generated a list of the top twenty candidates, and all teams not already in the field are on their way to secure and protect the targets. Your assignment is a biologist from the Genetic Institute of New York City by the name of Phil Bosch. Your plane leaves from Hartsfield-Jackson in an hour. I’ll dump all the information we have on Bosch to your phone.”

  Landon picked up his gun. “An hour isn’t a lot of time to get to the airport from here. Making our flight is going to be tough.”

  “Kendra already instructed them to hold the plane for you.”

  Ivy almost laughed at the surprise on Landon’s face. “Another perk of working at the DCO.”

  “So I see. New York City here we come.”

  Chapter 11

  It took almost an hour in New York City traffic to get to Bosch’s Manhattan apartment, then another ten minutes to find a place to park.

  “This is insane. How the hell does anyone live here? Look at that psycho over there.”

  Landon jerked his head at a car as he and Ivy walked up the steps and into the apartment building. The driver had parked practically perpendicular to the street, one front wheel up on the sidewalk, the back of the car still sitting out in the street.

  He glanced around as they crossed the fancy lobby to the elevator. “Can you believe a place this nice doesn’t have a doorman? I reckon a couple thousand dollars a month in rent doesn’t buy what it used to.”

  She shook her head, but didn’t smile at his joke.

  He pressed the button for the fifth floor. “What? I’m just saying.”

  They stepped out on the fifth floor just as the doors to the other elevator closed. Ivy stopped, her eyes narrowing at the barely discernible thump coming from inside. Landon stopped, too.

  “Problem?”

  She stared at the second elevator for another moment, then shook her head. As they headed for Bosch’s apartment, she kept glancing back at the elevator.

  “Something’s not right,” she said.

  Landon didn’t ask for clarification. He pulled his pistol and ran down the hallway. The door of Bosch’s apartment was ajar, the frame splintered. Beside him, Ivy pulled her weapon and gave him a nod.

  He pushed the door open the rest of the way and moved quickly into the room, covering the far left and right corners of the living room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ivy checking the blind spots behind him. He was about to say the room was clear when he heard sobbing coming from the other side of the couch. He exchanged looks with Ivy, then crossed the room, gun lowered but still at the ready.

  A young girl kneeled over an unconscious woman. Bosch’s wife and daughter. The girl—What was her name? Ivy had read it off her phone on the way—Abigail—was trying to stanch the flow of blood from a head wound near the mother’s temple with her hand. She lifted her head, letting out a piercing scream when she saw him and Ivy.

  “It’s okay. We’re with the police.” Ivy holstered her gun and hurried to the girl’s side to check the mother’s pulse. “Where’s your father?”

  Abigail stared at Ivy in confusion. Was she so traumatized she couldn’t talk? Couldn’t even remember what had happened? He’d seen it often enough in combat
zones.

  But the girl wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Men broke in and took him. Why did they take him? Why did they hurt my mom?”

  Ivy put a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Your mother’s going to be okay, and we’re going to get your father back. I need you to be calm and call the police for me. Can you do that?”

  Abigail nodded, her blond curls bouncing.

  Ivy pulled out her iPhone and handed it to the girl. “Do you know how to use this?”

  A sniff. “Yes. I have one just like it.”

  “Good. Call the police and tell them what happened.” There was a cardigan on the back of the couch. She grabbed it and pressed it into Abigail’s free hand. “Hold this against the wound until the paramedics get here, okay?”

  The girl nodded.

  Ivy got to her feet and came over to him. “That must have been who was in the other elevator. Dammit!”

  “It’s okay.” Landon was careful to keep his voice low so Abigail couldn’t hear. “They only have about thirty seconds on us. If we hurry, we might get lucky and stop them down on the street.”

  “Get downstairs. I’ll try to cut them off if I can.”

  Cut them off? “How…?”

  But Ivy had already opened the sliding glass door to the balcony and was vaulting over the railing. His gut clenched. Shit, they were five floors up. He started for the railing to make sure she was safe, but stopped himself. Ivy wasn’t suicidal. She wouldn’t have jumped if she didn’t know she could handle the fall. Besides, she was depending on him to get downstairs and cover her.

  Landon swore under his breath and turned for the door, only to stop at the shocked expression on Abigail’s tear-streaked face. The girl had seen Ivy jump. People didn’t do things like that. Not normal people anyway.

  “She’s going to get your dad. I promise we won’t let anything happen to him.” He jerked his chin at the iPhone in her hand. “Call the cops like she asked, okay?”