Zara was worried. Seriously worried. She tucked a corner of the cash-only motel towel over her left breast and pushed a strand of newly washed hair behind her ear. The cracked mirror of the bathroom showed a woman ready to rock and roll. At least, Zara thought it did.
So why didn't Benjamin?
In the mirror, the seductive woman looked back at Zara and bit her lower lip. What was wrong with the guy? Or maybe—something was wrong with her? Was she losing her touch? It had been pretty scary when Pi had walked out on her. Oh, sure, he was paranoid, but still. And now, she'd been with Benjamin for twelve hours and he hadn't made a move on her. Not one.
It had been a long while since Zara had gotten dumped before she'd found another guy to hook up with. She was definitely shaken.
Flicking the lock of hair out from behind her ear again, Zara turned and opened the bathroom door.
In the shabby motel room, Benjamin sat on a plastic patio chair, chewing the knuckle of his thumb and staring through the thin curtains toward the parking lot below.
He was cute, in a nerdy sort of way, with a long, bony nose, shaggy dark hair, and big, brown eyes. When she walked in, he turned, visibly started, and then scowled. "Why are you only wearing a towel?"
"I'm waiting for my clothes to dry." Thanks to the way he'd made her practically chase him out Pi's door, she only had the clothes on her back, or rather, those now drying on the shower rod.
A crafty look rose in Benjamin's eye. "You wouldn't have only one outfit if you listened to me and got lost. You could go back to L.A., retrieve your stuff. Besides, it's dangerous to be around me. I keep telling you."
He was trying to dump her. Again. It was like a slap in the face. She was only twenty-four— Was that already too old? Was she losing her looks? Feeling scared, but determined, Zara waltzed up to him.
She was not getting dumped.
As she drew close, Benjamin leaned away from her. His gaze grew wary.
Zara had a sudden thought. Stopping two inches from Benjamin, she asked, "Are you gay?"
His head snapped up. After a brief hesitation, he exclaimed, "Yes! I'm gay. You won't be able to convince me to stay by using sex."
The hesitation said it all. He wasn't gay, just trying to be crafty again. It was positively depressing. She had no excuse for failing to gain his interest.
With a sigh, Zara perched a hip on the plastic laminate table. "You keep saying how dangerous it is to be with you, but you never explain why."
His lips set in a firm line. She thought he was going to fob her off with yet another crafty evasion, but he surprised her. "Okay. Yeah." He closed his eyes briefly before opening them again. "Maybe I should explain. Maybe it's better you should know exactly what you're into here. Maybe then you'd make a smarter decision. Plus, if you get caught, they'll never believe you don't know."
It sounded like a TV spy melodrama to Zara, with Benjamin acting just like Pi. Totally paranoid. "I don't know what?"
His gaze got both intent and abstracted, as if he were looking at something that was in another room. "I was working on this cloak. Nanotechnology. You know, stuff built on the scale of molecules. The material of the cloak is made of tiny lenses built next to tiny projectors. What the lens on one side of the cloak picked up, the projector on the other side projected. Whoever is inside the cloak is like a walking three-dimensional screen that plays what's on the other side of him."
Zara frowned. "So it would be like you're invisible."
Benjamin's eyebrows jumped, as if he were surprised she understood. "Exactly."
"That would be, wow. Cool."
"Not only cool." His mouth twisted. "A serious tactical advantage to a soldier. We were getting our funding from the U.S. Army."
"Wow," Zara said again, looking into Benjamin's dark, serious eyes. This guy was as smart as the last one. It was weird how that kind of thing turned her on when she wasn't smart or anything at all, herself. "So, why are you on the run?"
"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time." Benjamin grimaced. "I still don't know if that was bad or good luck."
"Bad luck, sounds like," Zara said.
"Yeah, but at least somebody knows the truth now," Benjamin murmured. "See, there was a bug in the software—that was my part of the project, software—so I was still at the lab at five in the morning when the big boss walked in. He was in the office area, didn't realize I was there. But we rigged up this intercom, us guys in the lab, so we could know what the mucky-mucks were saying. It was a joke, right?"
"But you turned it on that morning," Zara guessed.
"I thought it was weird he was there so early," Benjamin explained. "And when I flipped on the intercom, I heard he wasn't alone. There were at least three or four other guys in the conference room."
"What were they saying?"
Benjamin shook his head. To Zara, he seemed to age five years. "They were talking about the Cloak, talking about how much it would be worth in the 'right market.' They talked about whether or not it could hide a bomb, and of what size. Who would be interested in planting bombs of those sizes, how many people that sort of bomb could kill. They talked about the kind of message it would send if certain already shadowy groups could act like they were completely invisible."
Zara knew she wasn't the brightest bulb on the block, but she could see where this was going. Her naked shoulders felt cold. "Your boss was planning to sell this invisibility thing to terrorists."
"While the design and research were being paid for by the U.S. Army, yes."
"Not only a cheat, but a traitor," Zara breathed.
"You said it." Benjamin ran a hand through his hair. "Now I don't know who to go to, who'll believe me. I have no proof, just what I heard. My boss is, like, cozy friendly with the army brass. Why would they believe me over him? I have to...think. Find someone who knows what to do."
Zara had the oddest impulse to reach out and touch him, in comfort.
Before she could do any such crazy thing, Benjamin looked up at her hopefully. "Now do you see why it would be better for you to leave me?"
That hurt. It was alarming how deeply that cut, his desire to get rid of her, right when she thought he was starting to—to— She wasn't sure what she he'd been starting to do. Zara looked away.
Her gaze went through the cheap curtains and down to the parking lot. It took her a few seconds, blinking, to process what she was seeing. "Some guys are checking out your car."
"What?"
Zara pointed out the window. "They're checking out your car, and I don't think it's because they're coveting a '95 Celica."
Benjamin rose from the plastic chair to stare out the window. "What the hell?"
About four guys in strange white shirts, the kind with a high collar and baggy torso, were walking around Benjamin's used car, examining the license plate and shooting glances toward the motel building.
"I think they know that car belongs to you," Zara told Benjamin. "Whoever was looking for you has found you." Rather than alarm, she felt smug while making this declaration.
"No," Benjamin whispered. He stared out the window, then abruptly drew back, dragging Zara by the arm with him. "We can't— What? How did they connect me to it? I paid cash!"
"I dunno."
"Ohmigod, ohmigod. What am I going to do?" Releasing Zara, Benjamin pulled at his shirt, his gaze going wildly around the room. "You. We've got to get you out of here. You have nothing to do with it." Turning on his heel, he ran to the bathroom. Shoving aside the shower curtain, he climbed into the tub. From there, he tugged at the postage-stamp window. "This way. You can climb through here!"
Zara straightened from her position against the round table. "You must be kidding." He thought she should shove herself through that tiny thing, and then land...where? The idea. And scared as he was, he was still trying to get rid of her!
The hell with that.
While Benjamin continued wrestling with the bathroom window, which sounded too rusted to open fully, Zara calmly walked over to the sagging night table attached to the bed. The place was so lowdown it actually had an ashtray sitting there, with a pack of matches.
Zara picked up the matches and then pulled open the drawer. Excellent. A nice, thick local phone book sat inside. She took that, too, and sashayed to the end of the bed.
"Come on! Come on!" Benjamin urged, though whether he was talking to the stuck window or to Zara was unclear.
Striking a match, she held it to the edge of the phone book. To her delight, the paper took no time at all to start smoldering.
"Oh, my God." Smoke, and a thin lick of flame brought Benjamin out of the bathroom. "Oh, my God," he said again, louder. "Are you out of your mind? What are you doing!?"
The flame had thickened healthily, so Zara held the phone book up toward the ceiling.
"Oh, my God!" Benjamin ran forward. He tried grabbing the book from her, but she wiggled away from him. "Holy Cow! Give it to me."
The smoke from Zara's fire wisped its way up to the smoke alarm. Screeching from the ceiling-hung alarm coincided with the bursting of the sprinklers. Cold water showered over everything.
"Oh, my God," Benjamin moaned.
An alarm began beeping, a series of them, super-loud, going down the row of motel rooms. Zara moved toward the window. "Ah, look at your little friends now."
"What?"
Zara laughed. "They're scattering like rats."
"What?" His tone markedly changed, Benjamin crept toward the window. Down below in the parking lot, the men who'd been regarding his car with far too much interest were running in all directions, as if for their lives.
"Oh, my God," he said again, but this time with relish. "Oh. My. God." Water was still pouring down from the ceiling sprinkler as Benjamin turned toward Zara, sluicing his hair into flat plaits down his head. His smile went from ear to ear. "You're a genius!" he exclaimed, then caught her in a sudden, bruising hug.
A genius? Zara was so stunned, she could only stand there.
Ending the hug, but not his embrace, Benjamin grinned downward. "Wow! Now, what do we do?"
In the distance, the siren of a fire truck wailed. Zara blinked through the sprinkler water. Benjamin was asking her what to do? As if she knew?
To her surprise, she did have an idea. "We can't stay here, not unless we want to answer a lot of questions from the fire department. I think we can use your car one last, short time."
"Okay." Releasing her completely, Benjamin turned to look around the soggy room. He leaped to grab his battered, and now soaking wet, suitcase.
Taking her suggestion. Immediately. As if— As if— he thought she was smart enough to know what to do for real. Believing in her.
He had his hand on the doorknob when he stopped and turned, looking for her. "What are you waiting for?"
She wasn't waiting, she simply couldn't believe it. He'd stopped. For her. Wanting her to come along.
And they hadn't even had sex.
"Oh, you'd better get your clothes, right?" Benjamin said, his brow curling.
That finally brought Zara out of her spell. The fire sirens were getting closer. Feet were pounding on the exterior walkway of the building. But in the middle of everything, he remembered he wanted her clothes. He wanted to make sure she could not tempt him sexually by only wearing a towel.
She felt distinctly euphoric as she whirled and ran into the bathroom to snatch her tank top and shorts off the shower rod.
Benjamin was pleased with her. He'd called her a genius.
And she did turn him on, after all.
He was still waiting for her by the door, so they made a run for it to the car together.