She shook her head. Maybes, what-ifs—she needed to focus on her job, because if the drone tech didn’t take off like they thought it would, nothing would matter.
Really? You don’t want to sell . . . but why can’t you have both? The company and a man who loves you?
Because Marc was right about one thing. She still loved him. She couldn’t say it, and she didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t because he’d cheated on her—they’d both hurt each other that way. And it was just sex, not love. Not . . . someone who knew her, deep down. Who shared her pain and her joys.
She wanted that back.
She just didn’t know how to get it. Could it really be this easy? Just tell Marc okay? Let’s do it? Let’s try again?
Maybe it was.
Something caught her eye on the camera, so she moved the drone back to check it out. Just to show the responsiveness of the unit, the ability of the tech to adapt to different situations, both user- and computer-controlled. Whatever she saw wasn’t there, but she was recording everything, maybe she could use this as an example once she edited it and looked at the tape again.
Her phone beeped. She looked down at a text message from Marc.
Six a.m. I’m already hungry.
She laughed and sent him a bacon emoji, then went back to the test.
A flash on the recording startled her, then she frowned. What was that? She looked at the location—it seemed to be on the roof of the Sheraton Hotel. Most of the vendors were staying at the Hyatt, across the street. Both hotels were a block from the convention center, where she had the van parked.
She maneuvered the drone back around but didn’t see anything that might explain the flash of light. No people on the roof. No machinery that might have reflected another light—though the drone should compensate for that.
She continued past the hotel to the cathedral to show the ability to get close to structures even at night, how the program compensated for different levels of light, and the details of the people and cars on the street. She magnified a few license plates to show the clarity, even from a hundred feet up.
Ellen had enough data, and she could edit it tonight in short order. She hit the HOME button, made a few notes, and when the computer beeped that the drone was overhead, she went out the back of the van to retrieve it.
She was looking up as the drone came down, smiling as she thought about Marc. He had always been the more romantic of the two of them. And she knew him well enough to know that he was serious.
It didn’t hurt to talk things out, something she wasn’t very good at. But time . . . well, she guessed the old adage was right. Time healed.
She reached up to take hold of the hovering drone, and out of the corner of her eye she saw two men in black emerge from the shadows of the convention center. She took three steps to the van as a scream bubbled up in her throat, but she didn’t make it inside.
She saw a gun, then felt pain in her head so sharp she thought for sure she’d been shot, except she didn’t hear anything . . .
And then she saw nothing as she fell to the ground.
Chapter Three
As soon as Jack left, Sean jumped in the rental car and started driving.
He didn’t know where he was going; he just needed to get away. He felt like he was drowning. He’d felt like he’d been dying for weeks, barely able to keep his head above the water.
He headed east on Interstate 80. Toward Auburn, which wasn’t that far from Jack’s. He didn’t have a plan. He used to drive this road all the time. The road to Tahoe. Skiing in the winter, boating in the summer. Gambling any time of year, until he got caught counting cards.
His life used to be simple. He had lots of friends, he had lots of girlfriends, he had a shitload of fun. He hadn’t cared about the consequences. He had money because he knew how to make money, and he enjoyed spending it. Yeah, he’d made some really stupid decisions that could have gotten him killed or thrown in jail. But back then, he didn’t take much of anything too seriously.
Because if he was going to be honest with himself, he hadn’t cared about anything. He’d watched his parents die, he’d literally buried his parents after their plane crash, and he’d turned his teenage anger into c’est la vie. That’s life, who cares, he was just going to have fun while he could because in the end he’d be dead.
Several things happened to steer him away from a selfish, wild, anger-filled existence. Partly, growing up. He’d gotten bored with the parties and fun and the hacking he did in college. He wanted to make a difference . . . and sometimes he did. His brother Kane had let him help on several of his missions. Sure, he always had to stay with the plane, but at least it was both fun and dangerous. It was helping Kane that made him want to work for Rogan-Caruso-Kincaid. It took some time to get Duke on board—Duke who would never quite see past Sean’s wild youth.
Maybe that wasn’t fair. They’d worked together better now that Sean was a principal of the company, now that he was integral to running the business.
Still . . . it was partly Kane, partly growing up, and mostly Lucy that had gotten him to this point. Because when he met Lucy, he knew she was the woman for him. From day one.
And yet . . . twenty-four hours with Senator Jonathan Paxton and he doubted everything he’d done, every decision he’d made, who he’d been, who he’d become.
Mostly, he was scared. Part of it was being tortured by his former best friend Colton Thayer. The hatred that poured off Colton when he locked Sean in a cage had gutted him. Colton knew what Sean feared—physically, psychologically—and used that to his greatest advantage. But Sean could get over the beating and the mind games and the sound of rats clawing behind walls. The truth of Sean’s deep foreboding was Paxton, who had found his weakness, his greatest fear, and twisted it. And even though he knew that Paxton was twisting everything, there was a deeper truth that Sean couldn’t shake.
“Every woman you ever claimed to care about is dead. Madison. Skye. Even your own mother. Killed because of you. I don’t want Lucy to be next. And you know as well as I do that you are selfish, you have used women your entire life, and Lucy is only the last in a long line of smart young women who fell for your deadly charms. If you really loved her, you would leave her.”
A dozen times he’d almost told Lucy, but every time he opened his mouth, he couldn’t speak. What could he say? He felt stupid. He knew, intellectually, that Paxton was wrong. But his pulse raced and he got light-headed at the thought of saying it out loud. It was like his body was reacting against logic. Nothing like this had happened to him before. When he tried to formulate his feelings into words, it sounded dumb.
If he told Lucy that Paxton had played on his fears of not being good enough for her . . . or his darkest fear that he would get her killed . . . that he’d used Sean’s mistakes to point out that he maybe hadn’t changed as much as he’d thought . . . she would say, It’s not true. But he couldn’t change the way he felt. Because while Sean intellectually could dismiss Paxton, there was a truth in the accusations, a truth that twisted him up so tight he couldn’t think.
He’d always been logical! He was a computer guy, a nerd, a genius. He should damn well be able to talk his way out of his own head!
He needed to put it all in the past. To forget about it. To forget Paxton. The man was dead, and Sean didn’t feel a moment of pity or sorrow. Why couldn’t Sean just kill these feelings? Why couldn’t he look at Lucy and remember she loved him? Instead of seeing the pain in her eyes. Pain she tried to hide.