Jess’s hand enveloped hers. She tightened her fingers, her heart settling into a steadier rhythm. “Let’s go in. They’ll have to remove the bodies and clean up in here. I want to double-check my office.”
“We haven’t cleared the house,” Logan warned.
“We’ll be in the office. You must have swept that first,” Jess said. “And they didn’t get in.”
“Not the office, but they planted very sophisticated bugs everywhere else.” Logan handed him one. “Take a look at this. Not one of ours and not one I’ve seen Whitney use.” He glanced at Saber. “You must be Saber Wynter, Jess’s roommate.”
She nodded. His eyes reminded her of a hawk, sharp and restless and missing nothing. He made her feel more vulnerable than ever. His gaze dropped to her hand, linked with Jess’s. Instinctively she started to pull away, but Jess tightened his grip.
“We’ll be in the office, Logan,” Jess said.
Send her ahead.
Jess’s gaze flicked to Logan’s face. “Saber, will you get the door for me?”
“Sure.” She moved without hesitation, straight through the garage, turned slightly at the kitchen door with her hand on the doorknob, and glanced into the windshield of her car. There was a handoff of something she couldn’t make out, but Logan definitely gave an item to Jess and he slipped it into the bag he always carried on his chair. Her mouth tightened, but she kept walking.
Damn him. So much for being on the team. She was crazy for thinking she could make a place for herself. Essentially she was trading one puppetmaster for another. Because if she worked for whoever Jess worked for, sooner or later they’d be sending her out into the field to do exactly what Whitney wanted her to do, and she couldn’t live with that.
She sat on the desktop, swinging her legs, and took a long slow look around. The office was huge, bigger than her sitting room upstairs. There was a framed picture of her with her arms around Jess’s neck. His head was tilted so he could look back at her and they were laughing. She remembered him playing around with a digital camera he’d been unable to get to work, but apparently he’d managed to fix it.
She turned her head to watch Jess roll through the door. He didn’t have even a smear of dirt on him. “You snake. You said the camera didn’t work.” She indicated the photograph on his desk.
“It was the only way to get your picture. Here, let me look at your face. You have a bruise coming up.”
His hands were gentle as he ran them over the delicate bones in her face. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“No. But don’t think I didn’t notice that cut on your head from earlier. I know your male pride is very fragile, but it looks worse than my bruise.”
His eyebrow shot up. “Are we in competition?”
“No.” She ducked her head. “You scared me, Jesse. You tackled a killer with a gun.” Her heart had been in her throat and she’d been terrified for him, but she knew enough to choose her words carefully. He was a man who believed men should protect women, and worrying because he was in a wheelchair wouldn’t sit well with him.
“You kicked him.”
“Hey!” Logan’s voice drifted down from the upstairs hall. “Jess, we need you up here.”
“Be right there,” Jess called back and swung his chair around.
Saber swallowed her protest and slid from the desk. “I’ll go with you.” They must have found her field kit. She’d tucked it away safely but maybe not safe enough. It wasn’t the end of the world. He already knew she was a GhostWalker. She’d just have to come up with plausible explanations for some of her equipment.
She went up in the lift, holding his hand, trying to find a way to explain the chemicals in her bag. A small group of men were gathered in her doorway. A faint musky scent warned her it might not be her field bag they’d found. The sudden silence had Jess gliding ahead of her, and between his chair and Logan they blocked the doorway. Jess stiffened and she felt the house vibrate with rage.
Saber avoided Jess’s outstretched arm and pushed past Logan to gain entrance to her room. Horrified, she stared around her. Bile rose, but she pushed it down. To have someone invade her room was such a violation, but to do this…the room stank as if the occupants had had an orgy. Her clothes were slashed to ribbons and every scrap of underwear was thrown around the room, most containing sickening white blobs. The bed had been neatly made, but one of the cleaners had pulled back the covers to find more underwear coated in se**n.
Saber pressed her hand to her mouth, shocked to realize she was trembling. She could feel the sympathy in the room, and was grateful the men didn’t look at her. She turned abruptly and stalked out.
“Logan,” Jess began.
“We’re on it. He left enough DNA here to identify an army. This is a sick bastard, Jess, and she’s not safe. If this one is connected in any way to Whitney, he’s gone rogue at this point. Whitney would never condone this. He’s too…scientific. This would be abhorrent to him.”
“Funny where people draw their lines. Sometimes I wonder what the world is coming to.” He paused and looked around at the cleaning crew. “I want this room stripped of anything he may have touched. Separate her fingerprints so nothing goes out but his. I don’t want a flag raised on some remote computer Whitney might be monitoring.”
Logan nodded toward the crew and walked down the hall beside Jess. “Whitney knows she’s here, Jess. I can smell him. She’s in trouble.”
“Yeah. I got that.”
“And she’s gearing up to run. He’s too close to her this time, he’ll nab her.”
“I’m hearing a note in your voice I don’t like, so don’t beat around the bush, spit it out.”
“Unless he planted her.”
Jess thrust on the wheels and took himself into the lift. Logan crammed his body in as well. The doors slid shut and Jess rubbed his temples. “He didn’t plant her.”
“Then how did she manage to find you? You’re the one GhostWalker conducting an investigation into our chain of command. Tell me how she ended up on your doorstep. When you couldn’t find a background on her I told you she was another Chaleen. They’re coming after you because you’re a good guy, and that makes you vulnerable. You think the best of people, especially women.”
“I didn’t think at all around Chaleen, at least not with my brain. They studied me and sent someone programmed to be whatever I wanted. You saw it because you weren’t sleeping with her.” The doors opened and Jess waited for Logan to step out before he shot out of the small space in a fit of temper. “It was stupid, I’ll admit that, but I caught on soon enough.”