“No,” she said, putting a hand up to stop him. “Thank you, but I’m fine. You’re giving me the information I need to make the right decisions, to make myself safe.”
“As I said, you’re my responsibility,” he growled, sitting down again. “I don’t like seeing fear on the face of someone who is mine.”
Okay, and that didn’t sound like a goddamned Neanderthal at all, did it?
One of her eyebrows rose, and she just stared at him.
Something hard, sharp, and hurting deep in his chest lost some of its edge, softened, and unwound a bit. Her defiance and pushback told him something important.
She might be scared and a little shaken, but she wasn’t going to let it stop her from doing her job. Or let anyone else run roughshod over her.
He flashed his teeth at her again then took another bite of his muffin. He could work with her a lot better than 99 percent of the people who worked here. She didn’t bitch, didn’t whine, and she didn’t want anyone doing something she wouldn’t do.
They finished their food and coffee without saying another word, but her hands weren’t shaking anymore, and she watched him with a speculative gaze she hadn’t turned on him before. As if she were seeing something different in him, but she wasn’t sure what.
If she figured out how badly he wanted to touch her bare skin with his scarred, callused, bloody hands, she might run away. So, she wouldn’t find out.
Just as they were leaving the table, a couple of other techs from the lab came over to ask if it was true that someone had tried to run her off the road.
Henry automatically looked for body language cues that might tell him something was off, but they demonstrated the appropriate concern and asked the right questions.
Damn it, now he was looking at everyone he didn’t know personally as a potential threat.
“You ready to go?” he asked her, cutting through the repeat of a question she’d already been asked. “Rodrigues is expecting us.”
“Yes, of course.” She smiled at the two techs, who backed away after glancing at Henry like he was some kind of boogeyman.
He let her go first, so he saw the worried looks on the techs’ faces.
It was needless. He wasn’t going to let anything get close to hurting her again; he didn’t care if he pissed her off. He meant it when he said she was his to protect.
Chapter Three
Monday, May 6, 3:43 p.m.
Nathan Toth stared hard at his cell phone screen, watching the security camera feed for the back door of the house he and his sister shared.
A man dressed as a utility worker knelt in front of the door, examining the lock. Another man, dressed the same way, stood a few feet away with his back to the house. He scanned the backyard, fence, and houses with a line of sight to the asshole trying to break in.
Nate switched to the doorbell camera and took a picture of the lock picker’s face. The dude looked irritated, probably at the lock, since it was keyless. It only opened for a very short list of people with their thumbprint.
Nate minimized the security app, called 911, and reported the ongoing break-and-enter attempt to the police. He switched back to the camera feeds. The lock picker had given up on the lock and was trying to pop open the door with a crowbar. That wasn’t going to work, either. The door and frame were all built to prevent just this kind of brute-force attack.
They had the unfortunate luck to try to B and E the wrong home. Having parents in the NSA meant fortified home security was as necessary as four walls and a roof.
Both men froze for an entire second then exploded into movement. The lock picker put his crowbar into the tool case then followed his partner over the backyard fence.
Must have heard sirens. A few seconds later, uniformed officers entered the backyard, looked around, then left.
The lock picker and his buddy hadn’t been amateurs, but neither had they acted like experienced thieves. They were smart enough to dress like someone who might be expected to be working around a house not theirs, but they hadn’t been prepared for the advanced security features of the house.
Someone had also tried to run his sister off the road in his Jeep after she’d dropped him off at work at Mars Mission Labs Inc.
They wouldn’t have been after him. He was working on the spacecraft propulsion system needed for the trip to Mars, which hadn’t even made it to the testing phase yet. Plus, he’d cultivated a reputation as an absentminded professor who caused more chaos than a room full of two-year-olds, so very few people took a second glance at him. Which was how he liked it. It enabled him to travel all over the world for his job and remain under the radar of anyone looking for a smart, savvy spy.
He’d never liked the spy label and preferred to think of himself as one of many under resourced idiots trying to keep humanity from killing itself.
While he mainly worked with the CIA to gather intelligence abroad, his parents worked for the NSA. They’d all worked hard to convince Ruby to join the CDC specifically to help stop the FAFO and the future possibility of other terrorists seeking to use bioweapons on the world’s population. Thankfully, she’d been all in on that idea.
The FAFO was getting a lot of media coverage. Almost as if they wanted their name and what they were doing at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Which made no sense.
Terrorist groups wanted to stay out of sight (and out of mind) until the very last moment, when they staged their attack. The FAFO had been parading in front of the public and media for months with a nonstop series of bombings, shootings, and the release of a weaponized measles strain across the country.
The situation felt wrong somehow. Like they were missing something obvious, only Nate and everyone else had no idea what.
He sent the pictures he’d taken from the doorbell camera to his father to see if it matched with any known felons or terrorists.
What were the two men after and would they try again?
After sending the pics to his dad, he dived into the orbital mechanics of getting a manned vehicle to Mars and back again.
The next time he looked up from his work, it was three o’clock in the morning and he was alone. Rolling his eyes at what Ruby would say when she found out he’d lost track of time…again…he logged out of his computer, called for a ride share, and went outside to wait for it.
He got into the car that showed up a couple of minutes later to find himself at gunpoint and face-to-face with the man whose picture he’d taken on the doorbell camera at his house.
Shit.
…
Tuesday, May 7, 7:24 a.m.
Ruby exited the women’s change room in the CDC’s main Atlanta lab and was nearly bowled over by her least favorite coworker, Raymond Goldings.