ABIGAIL PUT EVERYTHING ELSE ASIDE AND FOCUSED ENTIRELY on the creation of the virus. She’d made numerous attempts to piggyback it on the worm she’d already constructed, but the results weren’t satisfactory.
She could do considerable damage with the worm, but with the worm boring openings into the Volkov network, the virus that followed, spreading through those openings, would devastate.
To accomplish everything she needed, it had to be very fast, very complete, and trigger no alerts.
She’d always considered the project a kind of hobby, one she’d hoped would one day pay off.
Now it was a mission.
If she had time to build more equipment, or the luxury of hiring another skilled tech, or two … But she didn’t, so speculating proved useless. This was only for her.
In any case, over time she’d developed her own programming language—the better to thwart anyone who attempted to hack into her files—and even if she could hire on, she’d have to teach someone her language and techniques.
Faster, more efficient, to do it herself.
She ran the next test, watched her codes fly by, and thought, No, no, no. It remained too unwieldy, too separate, took too long.
She sat back, her hair twisted up off her neck and secured with a pencil. As she studied the screen, she drank iced green tea for clarity of thinking.
The tea, the two yoga breaks she’d made herself take, the absolute quiet, didn’t appear to help.
When her alarm sounded, and Bert went on alert, she checked her monitor. She hadn’t expected Brooks so early, she thought, as she spotted his cruiser, then glanced at the time.
She’d worked straight through the morning and into the middle of the afternoon.
Six hours, she thought, with no appreciable progress.
Maybe it was beyond her after all.
She started to get up, to unlock the doors for him, then remembered she’d given him keys and the security codes. An uneasy step, she admitted, but the advantage right that moment was she didn’t have to stop to let him in.
Still, there would be someone in the house, in her space. How was she supposed to concentrate on something this complex, this delicate, unless she was alone?
Which tore apart her fantasy of a state-of-the-art computer lab and a team of highly skilled techs. But that was only fantasy, because she always worked alone, until—
“Hey.” Brooks walked in, set a bag on the counter. “How’s it going?”
“Not as well as I’d like. I need to try another sequence, test again.”
“How long have you been at it?”
“It doesn’t matter how long. It’s not done.”
“Okay. I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I put this stuff away. I brought some of my things over, so I’ll deal with that upstairs. If you’re not done when I am, I’ll find something to do.”
“Mmm” was her only response. She tried not to tense up at the sound of the refrigerator, the cupboards opening and closing. When silence returned, she let out a cleansing breath and dived in again.
She forgot he was there. Over the next two hours, she lost herself in the codes and sequences. When the headache and eyestrain finally stopped her, she rose for medication, for fluids.
And remembered him.
She went upstairs. The quiet held so absolute she thought he must be napping, but she didn’t find him in the bedroom. Curious, she opened the closet.
There were his clothes, hanging with hers. Shirts, pants. A suit.
She’d never seen him in a suit. She trailed her fingers over the sleeve as she studied the shoes and boots on the floor of the closet.
They shared a closet, she thought. So much more intimate and vital somehow than sharing a bed. Crossing over, she opened drawers in the bureau. She’d meant to reorganize to give him space, but had forgotten in the work.
He’d seen to it himself. She’d need to alter some of his choices, but that was a small thing.
Closing drawers, she stepped back, took a turn around the room. Should she buy another dresser, a chest of drawers?
Would they need one?
Would he stay?
A movement out the window caught her eye, and stepping closer, she saw him, hoeing at weeds in her vegetable patch. He’d mounded up her potato plants, something else she’d meant to do that day.
Sweat dampened his shirt, gleamed wetly on his arms, and a ball cap shaded his face.
And, oh, the thrill of it. The unexpected and staggering thrill of it. His clothes hung in the closet with hers as she stood at the bedroom window and watched him work the garden under a sky like bleached denim.
She spun away from the window, hugging herself, then ran downstairs.
In the kitchen, she found the food he’d brought in the fridge and the dozen lemons she’d bought a few days earlier.
She made fresh lemonade, filled two tall glasses with cracked ice and poured. She put the pitcher and glasses on a tray and carried it all outside.
“It’s too hot to hoe,” she called out. “You’ll be dehydrated.”
“Nearly done.”
She walked out to him with the glasses as he finished the last row. “It’s fresh.”
While sweat tricked down his temples, he downed half the glass without pause. “Thanks.”
“You’ve done so much work.”
Leaning on the hoe, he studied the garden. “I’m hoping to sample those butter beans, come harvest. I’m fond of butter beans.”
“Those are lima beans.”
“You’re standing in the South, honey.” After a roll of his shoulders, he downed the rest of his lemonade. “I haven’t worked a garden since I headed down to Little Rock. Didn’t know I missed it.”
“Still, it’s hot and close.” She touched his hand to bring his gaze back to her. “I wasn’t very welcoming before.”
“Work’s allowed to get in the way now and again. Mine does, and will.”
“Mine, in this case, is frustrating. I thought I’d be closer.”
“Can’t help you on that. I don’t understand a damn thing you’re doing. But I can work a garden, and I can grill up those steaks I picked up, so you can have more time at it.” He cocked his head as he studied her. “But I’d say it’s time for a break all around, and I sure as hell need a shower.”
“You’re very sweaty,” she agreed, and took the hoe from him to carry it to her little garden shed. “I can pick some of the lettuce, and a few other things, for a salad when you’re done.”
“I’m thinking ‘we.’”
“You’ve already done more than your share in the garden.”
“Not we in the garden.” He took her hand, pulling her along toward the house. “We in the shower.”
“I really should—”
“Get wet with me.” He paused to take off his dirty boots, sweaty socks. “Did I ever tell you about this swimming hole we used to frequent?”
“No.”
“It’s not that far from here, a little higher in the hills. Really more a bend in the river than a pool, but it worked fine.”
Taking her glass, he set them both down on the counter as he moved her through the kitchen.
“Water’s cool. The color of tobacco, I’d say, but clear. Russ and I and some others used to ride our mountain bikes up there on those long, schoolless days of summer, strip down and cool off. The first time I skinny-dipped with a girl was there, at what we locals call Fiddlehead Pool, because there’s fiddlehead ferns thick as thieves up there. I’ll take you sometime.”
“That sounds very interesting, but right now—”
He’d managed to get her into the bedroom, began to back her toward the bath. “You need to get naked and wet. Let me help you with that.”
“You appear to be very determined,” she commented, when he pulled her shirt over her head.
“Oh, I am. I am.” And flicked open the catch of her bra.
“Then I suppose there’s no point in arguing.”
“No point at all.” Reaching behind her, he turned the shower on, then flipped open the button of her fly.
“Then I should cooperate.”
“That’d be the sensible thing.”
“I prefer doing the sensible thing.” She drew his shirt off, let it drop.
“Hallelujah.” But he started to hold her back when she would have moved into him. “Let me rinse some of this sweat off first.”
“I don’t mind it. It’s basic and natural, and …” She pressed her lips to the side of his throat. “Salty.”
“You about kill me, Abigail. That’s God’s truth.”
She wanted to, wanted to make him want and yearn and quiver as he made her. She embraced the musky scent of him, the good sweat of physical labor as she stripped off his pants, as he stripped off hers.
And the water ran cool over her head, down her body.
“It feels good,” she murmured.
So good when his mouth took her mouth, when his hands took her body. When she tasted his hunger for her, felt his need for her.
She imagined them sinking into cool, tobacco-colored water in the bend of a river where fiddlehead ferns grew thick and green and moonlight shimmered in rays through a canopy of trees.
“I want to go to your swimming hole.”
“We will.”
“In the moonlight,” she said, as her head fell back, as his lips skimmed over the column of her throat. “I’ve never been romantic, not before you. But you make me want moonlight, and wildflowers and whispers in the dark.”
“I’ll give you all of it, and more.” He slicked her wet hair back, framed her face to lift it to his. “And more.”
“Promises and secrets, and all the things I never understood. I want them with you. I love you so much. I love you. That’s already more than I ever had.”
“More still.” He drew her into the kiss, long and slow and deep, as the water showered over them. He’d have given her the moon itself if he could, and an ocean of wildflowers.
Promises. He could give her those. A promise to love her, to help her find peace of mind, a safe haven.
And moments like this, alone, where they could tend to each other, pleasure each other. Shut the world and all its troubles, its pressures and its demands away.
She washed him, and he her—inch by inch. Arousing, lingering, prolonging. Now the scent of honey and almond rising up, the slick, slippery slide of hands, of bodies, the quick catch of breath, the long, low sigh.
So when he braced her, when he filled her, there was moonlight and wildflowers, there were whispers and promises. And more.
There was, she thought as she surrendered, everything.
THE SENSATION OF CONTENTMENT stayed with her as she stood in the kitchen, contemplating doing something interesting with potatoes—Brooks liked potatoes—to go with the steak and salad. She glanced, a little guiltily, at her computer as she poured wine for both of them.
“I should try again, now that we’ve had our break.”
“Give your big brain a little rest. Let’s sit down a minute. I’ve got a couple updates for you.”
“Updates? Why didn’t you already tell me?”
“You were involved when I first got home,” he reminded her. “Then I was distracted by shower sex.”
He sat at the counter, and since she’d already poured it for him, picked up his second glass of lemonade.
“I guess we’ll take them in order. I had a talk with Roland Babbett. The cameras I borrowed from you did the trick, caught him going into the Ozarks Suite using B-and-E tools to do it.”
“In a manner of speaking. I have to say I liked the guy, once we got things aired and ironed out.”
He ran it through for her, but she didn’t sit. Instead, she kept her hands busy scrubbing then quartering small red-skinned potatoes.
“You told him he frightened me.”
“I may have colored your reaction a little differently than the reality of it, but I figure your pride can handle it.”
“You … prevaricated so he’d feel some sympathy toward me and less curiosity about the cameras, the gun and so on.”
“I like ‘prevaricated.’ It’s an important word, and classier than ‘lied.’”
“You believed him, too, believe he’ll just leave and not pursue his investigation.”
“I do. He’s a family man at the base of it, Abigail, and with his wife expecting their third child, he doesn’t want to risk his livelihood on this or go through the upset and pressures of a trial. His firm isn’t going to want to deal with the publicity we could generate, especially as one of their operatives saw photos of the damage on the hotel. And over that, he doesn’t like Blake or the boy.”
“But he works for them.”
“Roundabout, yeah. I work for them, roundabout, as I’m a public official. Doesn’t mean I have to like them, either.”
“You’re right, of course.”
“I made him a good deal, one he can live with. He can turn in his reports, fulfill the contract with the client, move on.”
“If there’s no more danger from that quarter, the logic you used to contact the authorities now, to move forward with testifying, doesn’t hold.”
He reached out to still her hands for a moment, to bring her eyes to his. “It does if you consider that down the road something like this may happen again. If you consider you’re never going to feel rooted here, the way I think we both want you to, until you finish this.”
“That’s true, but perhaps we could delay, take more time to …” She trailed off when he said nothing, only looked at her. “Delay is an excuse. It’s fear, not courage.”
“I’m never going to question your courage, or criticize the way you’ve coped.”
“That means a great deal to me. I want it over, Brooks. I do. And having taken appreciable steps toward that end is frightening, but it’s also a relief.”
“Then I hope you’ll be relieved to know Captain Anson’s in Chicago. He intends to contact Agent Garrison tonight.”
“He called you?”
“Late this afternoon, on the drop phone.”
“I’m grateful to him.” She began mincing garlic, her eyes trained on her hands, on the knife, as the pressure built in her chest. “I hope she’ll believe him.”
“You picked a smart, capable, honest woman.”
“Yes, I was very careful in my selection.”
“Anson’s a smart, capable, honest man. We couldn’t do better.”
“We both made logical choices. It’s good it’s happening quickly. Delay isn’t sensible once decisions are made, so it’s best it’s moving forward quickly.”
She poured olive oil, spooned some Dijon mustard with it in a bowl. After a distracted moment, she added a splash of balsamic vinegar. “Except for my part.”
“You’ll get there.”
“I’m not confident of that at this point.”
“I am, so take some of mine.” He watched her spoon a little Worcestershire in the bowl, then some Italian dressing he knew she used primarily for marinades. In went the garlic, some pepper, a little chopped fresh basil.
“What’re you doing there, Abigail?”
“I’m going to coat the potatoes with this and roast them. I’m making it up,” she added, as she began to whisk the mixture. “It’s science, and science keeps me grounded. Experimenting is satisfying when the results are pleasing. Even when they aren’t, the process of the experiment is interesting.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She whisked, sniffed, narrowed her own eyes, added a little something more.
Pretty as a picture, he thought, with her hair still a little damp from the shower and pulled back in a short, glossy brown ponytail. She’d put on a sleeveless shirt of quiet gray and jeans that rolled up into casual cuffs just above her knees.
One of her nines sat at easy reach on the counter by the back door.
Her face, those wide green eyes, stayed so sober, so serious, as she put the potatoes into a large bowl, poured the experimental mixture over them, reached for a wooden spoon.
“Marry me, Abigail.”
She dropped the spoon. Bert sauntered over to sniff at it politely.
“Well, that just popped out,” he said, when she just stared at him.
“You were joking.” She picked up the spoon, set it in the sink, lifted another from a pottery sleeve. “Because I’m cooking, and it’s a domestic area.”
“I’m not joking. I’d figured to set the scene a lot better when I asked you. That moonlight you want, flowers, maybe some champagne. A picnic’s what I had in mind. A moonlight picnic up at the spot you like with the view of the hills. But I’m sitting here, looking at you, and it just popped out.”
He came around the counter, took the spoon, set it aside so he could take both her hands. “So marry me, Abigail.”
“You’re not thinking clearly. This isn’t something we can consider, much less discuss, particularly when my situation remains in flux.”
“Things are always in flux. Not this,” he added. “I swear to you we’ll end this, we’ll fix this. But there’s always going to be something. And I think now’s the perfect time, before it’s ended, before it’s fixed, because we should be able to promise each other when things outside aren’t perfect.”
“If it goes wrong—”
“Then it goes wrong. We don’t.”
“Marriage …” She drew her hands free, used them to stir the coating on the potatoes. “It’s a civil contract broken at least half the time with another document. People enter into it promising forever, when in reality—”
“I’m promising you forever.”
“You can’t know.”
“I believe.”
“You—you’ve just moved in. Just hung clothes in the closet.”
“Noticed that, did you?”
“Yes. We’ve known each other less than three months.” She got out a casserole—and busy, busy, busy—scooped and poured the coated potatoes into it. “We have a very difficult situation to address. If you feel strongly about the subject, and continue to feel strongly, I’d be willing to discuss our views on the matter at some more rational time.”
“Delay is an excuse.”
She slammed the casserole into the oven, whirled on him. “You think it’s clever to throw my own words back at me.”
“I think it’s apt.”
“And why do you make me lose my temper? I don’t like to lose my temper. Why don’t you lose yours?”
“I don’t mind getting pissed.” He shrugged, picked up his lemonade again. “I’m not right at the moment. I’m more interested in the way you’re twisting yourself into knots because I love you and I want to marry you.”
“I’m not twisting myself into knots. I’ve very clearly given you my opinion on marriage, and—”
“No, you very clearly gave me your mother’s opinion.”
Very carefully, she picked up a cloth towel, wiped her hands. “That was uncalled for.”
“I don’t think so, and it wasn’t said to hurt you. You’re giving me cold logic and statistics. That’s your mother’s way.”
“I’m a scientist.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re also a giving, caring woman. One who wants moonlight and wildflowers. Tell me what that part of you wants, what that part of you feels, not what your mother pushed into your head as long as she could.”
“How can this be so easy for you?”
“Because you’re the one. Because I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. I want a lifetime with you, Abigail. I want a home with you, family with you. I want to make children with you, raise them with you. If you truly don’t want any of that with me, I’ll give you the best I’ve got, and hope you change your mind. I just need you to tell me you don’t want it.”
“I do want it! But I …”
“But?”
“I don’t know! How can anyone think when they feel so much?”
“You can. You’ve got that big brain to go along with that big heart. Marry me, Abigail.”
He was right, of course. She could think. She could think of what her life had been like without him, and what it would be if she shoved those feelings down and relied only on the flat chill of logic.
“I couldn’t put my real name on a marriage license.”
He cocked his brows. “Well, in that case, forget it.”
The laugh rushed out of her. “I don’t want to forget it. I want to say yes.”
“So say yes.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes, felt dizzy with delight. “Yes,” and threw her arms around him.
“This is right,” he murmured, turned his lips to her damp cheek. “I’m the luckiest man in the world.” He drew her back to kiss her lips, her other cheek. “My mother says that women cry when they’re happy because they’re so filled with the feeling they want to let it out, share it. And teardrops spread that happiness.”
“It feels true. I hope the potatoes turn out well.”
On a laugh, he dropped his brow to hers. “You’re thinking about the potatoes? Now?”
“Because you asked me to marry you when I was creating the recipe. If it comes out well, it’ll be a very special one. We’ll pass the story to our children.”
“If they suck, we can still pass the story on.”
“But we won’t enjoy the potatoes.”
“Jesus, I really love you.” He squeezed her until she gasped.
“I never believed I would have this, any of this, and now I have so much. We’re going to make a life together, and create a family. We’re mates.” She stepped back, gripped his hands. “And more. We’re going to merge our lives. It’s amazing that people do. They remain individuals, with their own makeup, and still they become and function as a single unit. Yours, mine, but also, and most powerfully, ours.”
“It’s a good word, ‘ours.’ Let’s use it a lot.”
“I should go out and pick our lettuce for our salad so we can have our dinner.”
“We’s another good word. We’ll go out.”
“I like that better.” She started to turn for the door, went still as her thoughts aligned. “Mated. Merged.”
“If you want to mate and merge again, better turn down those potatoes.”
“Not piggybacked, not layered or attached. Integrated. Merged. Separate makeups—individual codes—but merged into one entity.”
“I don’t think you’re talking about us anymore.”
“It’s the answer. A blended threat, yes, I’d tried that, but it has to be more—different than combining. It has to be mated. Why didn’t I think of it before? I can do this. I believe I can do this. I need to try something.”
“Have at it. I can handle dinner. Except I don’t know when to take those potatoes out.”
“Oh.” She looked at the clock, calculated. “Mix and turn them in another fifteen minutes. They should be done thirty minutes after that.”
Within an hour she’d recalculated, rewritten codes, restructured the algorithm. She ran preliminary tests, noted the areas she’d need to adjust or enhance.
When she pulled her mind out of the work, she had no idea where Brooks and Bert were, but saw Brooks had left the oven on warm.
She found them both on the back porch, Brooks with a book, Bert with a rawhide.
“I’ve made you wait for dinner.”
“Just gotta throw the steaks on. How’d it go?”
“It needs work, and it’s far from perfect. Even when I complete it, I’ll need to Romulanize it.”
“Do what to it?”
“Oh, it’s a term I use in my programming language. The Romulans are a fictional alien race. From Star Trek. I enjoy Star Trek.”
“Every nerd does.”
The way he used the word “nerd” struck like an endearment, and never failed to make her smile. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I do. The Romulans had a cloaking device, one that made their starship invisible.”
“So you need to make your virus thing invisible. Romulanize it.”
“Yes. Disguising it as benign—like a Trojan horse, for instance—is an option, but cloaked is better. And it’s the right way. It’s going to work.”
“Then we have a lot to celebrate.”
They had sunset, and what Abigail thought of as their engagement dinner.
At moonrise, the phone in Brooks’s pocket rang. “That’s the captain.”
Abigail put her hands in her lap, linked her fingers, squeezed them. She made herself breathe slowly as she listened to Brooks’s end of the conversation and interpreted what Anson told him.
“He made contact,” she said, when Brooks ended the call.
“He did. She was skeptical, suspicious. I’d think less of her if she hadn’t been. She checked his credentials, asked a lot of questions. Grilled him, basically. She knows your case. I expect every agent and marshal in Chicago does. He can’t swear she believed he didn’t know where you are, but there’s not a lot she can do about that, as there’s no connection or communication between you.”
“But they’ll need me to come in. They’ll want to interview me, interview Elizabeth Fitch, in person.”
“You’re in control of that.” His eyes on hers, he laid a hand over her tensed ones. “You go when you’re ready. They talked over two hours, and agreed to meet tomorrow. We’ll know more then.”
“She’s contacted her superior by now.”
“Ten minutes after Anson left, she came out, got in her car. Again, he can’t swear she didn’t make the tail, but he followed her to the assistant director’s house. Anson called to let us know right after she went inside. He’s on the move. Didn’t figure it’d be smart to sit on the house.”
“They know I’m still alive now. They know I’m tvoi drug.”
“Both of those things are in your favor from their point of view.”
“Logically.” She breathed deep. “There’s no turning back now.”
“For either of us.”
“I want to work, at least another hour or two.”
“Okay, but don’t push it too hard. We’ve got a barbecue tomorrow.”
“Oh, but—”
“It’s easy, and it’s normal, and it’s a break I figure both of us can use. A couple hours away from all this.” He stroked a hand down her hair. “It’ll be fine, Abigail. Trust me. And we’ve got news. We’re engaged.”
“Oh, God.”
On a laugh, he gave a tug on the hair he’d just stroked. “My family’s going to do handsprings, I expect. I’ve got to take care of getting you a ring,” he added.
“Shouldn’t you wait to tell them? If something goes wrong …”
“We’re going to make sure nothing does.” He kissed her lightly. “Don’t work too late.”
Work, she thought, when he left her alone. At least there she knew what she was doing, what she was up against. No turning back, she reminded herself, as she sat at her station. For either of them, from any of it.
And still she felt more confident at the prospect of taking on the Russian Mafia than she did attending a backyard barbecue.