She Who Dares, Wins. Candace Havens

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СКАЧАТЬ one foot and then the other so she could slip off her boots. The white T-shirt and dark jeans, her everyday uniform now, were next. If the pervy lab assistant watched her, he was about to get an eyeful as she lost the black thong and matching bra. Nudity wasn’t something she was that modest about. She’d grown up in a house with brothers, where privacy was a luxury.

      She stepped into the shower, surprised when a soft powdery mist coated her skin instead of water. The powder, which had a strange pine-and-earth scent, dissipated as soon as it touched her, but it left her feeling fresher than when she’d stepped in. After thirty seconds it shut off.

      “I feel like I’m in some weird sci-fi movie,” she whispered.

      The metal door on the other side of the dry shower slid open and she made her way through into another room not much bigger than a walk-in closet. The suit the voice had mentioned was nothing more than sweats, none of which fit her five-foot-three, petite frame. She found the one labeled Small and tied the string as tight as she could around her waist. The sweatshirt swallowed her, and dark green was so not her color, but she pushed up the sleeves and made it work.

      I should have demanded we meet in the dean’s office. This is crazy.

      Once she was dressed, another door clicked open and she pushed her way through into the lab, which was filled with computer equipment, strange machines and a giant dry erase board with all kinds of equations on it.

      A man dressed in jeans had his back to her. He was tall and lanky and looked just like—

      “What are you doing here?” Katie couldn’t believe her eyes when he turned around.

      “Hi,” Mac said. “You…work here?”

      He nodded.

      “Are you Dr. Douglas’s assistant? Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

      “I’m not his assistant exactly.” Mac cleared his throat. He reached out a hand, “Hi, I’m Dr. Macon Douglas. I know I should have done that last night, but…”

      Katie couldn’t believe it. This had to be some crazy joke. She stared at his hand and back to his face, her brain failing to register what had happened.

      Oh, hell, I slept with a client. Well, technically there was no sleeping involved.

      It had been one of the most passionate nights of her life and it was all a farce.

      Katie’s jaw tightened. “So you misrepresented yourself to me so you could get into my pants.”

      Mac moved closer to her, but she took a step back.

      He held up a hand. “It wasn’t like that at all. At first it was a joke with Timothy the bartender. But then, well, I enjoyed your company and I had a feeling if I told you the truth that would be that.”

      Katie’s nostrils flared, and her fist tightened ready to punch his nose so hard it would go out the back of his head. She forced herself to take a deep breath as she stared at him for a full twenty seconds, working hard to keep her temper under control. When all was said and done, he was a client and she had to be respectful. It was the only thing that kept her from kicking him in the nards and shoving a fist in his nose. She didn’t like being made a fool of, and he’d done exactly that.

      When Katie didn’t speak, Mac reached a hand out to her again, but she shook her head.

      “Katie, please. I felt such a connection with you last night. I know what I did was wrong, but to be honest you didn’t disclose that much about yourself, either. We talked about our families, but never what we did for a living.”

      He could explain the situation as many ways as he wanted. She wasn’t sure she could ever forgive him. Best to focus on the case, and try to forget the night before.

      Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

      Katie pulled her shoulders back. “Dr. Douglas, do you have the voice recordings and copies of the letters involved with your case?”

      “I… What?”

      “The threats, do you have copies? Or did you give everything to the dean? I need to begin as quickly as possible so we can wrap this up.” It was hard to sound professional while wearing giant green sweats, in addition to the whole being-humiliated thing, but she was a professional.

      Damn him.

      She’d have to put a dollar in the swear dog bank she had at home. As a cop in the Bronx her language had been colorful, but she’d been working hard on her abrasive nature so she didn’t scare away the Stonegate clients. She’d bought the cute puppy bank to encourage her to clean up her mouth.

      Mac stared at her as if she had two heads. “Do I need to repeat myself?” Katie asked, her tone clipped.

      His enthusiasm deflated, and his eyebrows furrowed with concern. Good. It served him right.

      “I have the originals of the two tapes and one of the letters. The dean has the rest.”

      “The rest? How long has this been going on?” She mentally checked the facts she had in her head. From what they’d been told by the dean, this had been happening for only a few weeks.

      Mac cleared his throat again and moved toward a file cabinet. Pulling out a folder, he handed it to her. “The calls began about six months ago. The letters about two weeks ago, and to be honest it’s nothing. Scientists run into this sort of thing all the time. It’s nothing to be alarmed about.”

      Katie didn’t believe that. “What do you mean it happens all the time?”

      “Those of us who work on government-sponsored projects get threats all the time. The work is secretive and highly classified. People assume it’s weapons of mass destruction, and that pushes them to do all kinds of things.”

      “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Katie said. Though she had no doubt there were people in the world who would do exactly that. It was insane to threaten someone without having any clue as to what they were really working on.

      “I assure you I’m speaking the truth.” Mac acted as if he were offended.

      “I don’t doubt the validity of what you’re saying, Dr. Douglas. I was calling the people who would do such a thing ridiculous, not you.”

      “Oh,” he said.

      She took out the plastic gloves she kept in her bag and slipped them on her hands. Opening the folder, she read the letter carefully.

      “Stop your research or die!”

      The words had been typed. She sniffed the paper. It had been printed off on a printer. Excellent. That was her first lead. “I’ll need to take this and have it tested in our lab,” she told the professor.

      “I don’t know what good that will do, Katie. My fingerprints are all over it.”

      She shook her head. “I’m not worried about prints, though I’ll have them check for those, too. I want to find out about the ink. If I know the source of the ink, that gives me the type of printer, and the watermark on the paper is easy to trace.”

      After СКАЧАТЬ