One Kiss In… Miami. Katherine Garbera

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СКАЧАТЬ and I are following your GPS signal, aren’t we, Red?”

      Daisy caught the happy babble of her daughter’s voice slipping across the airwaves and found herself missing her baby more than she thought possible. It was the first time she’d left Noelle for an extended period of time and she found the separation beyond distressing.

      She put the car in gear and pulled out onto the pavement. “I’ll call you when I get there.”

      “We’ll be waiting.”

      An undercurrent of excitement threaded through Jett’s voice. Ever since she discovered Daisy actually knew The. Great. Justice. St. John. and more impressive, he was Noelle’s father, Jett had worked nonstop to uncover his lair. At least, that’s how Daisy thought of it, considering he kept his location so well hidden. Heaven knew, she’d never been successful at locating him. And she had tried.

      The minute she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d spent a full year and a half attempting to track him down with zero success. She’d sent endless letters through every engineering source she could think of, again with zero success. It had taken Jett precisely one month. Okay, twenty-nine days, eleven hours, fourteen minutes and a handful of seconds. The teenager had noted the exact time in her final progress report. Which brought Daisy to her current location and task … to snare the elusive panther in his equally elusive den.

      The fourteen-point-whatever mile drive took nearly an hour. Daisy couldn’t help but think the rutted road, one that threatened to break both axles, as well as shake loose most of her teeth, was a deliberate attempt on Justice’s part to keep unwanted visitors from accidentally stumbling across him. Because, sure enough, the instant Dora’s mileage indicator hit the combined distance of surface and dirt roads Jett had decreed, Daisy crested a hill and found a huge complex sprawled beneath her, blending so beautifully into the surrounding meadow that it almost looked like a mirage.

      Brigadoon rising from the mists of time.

      She put through a call to Jett. “I’m here.”

      “I found it? For real?” Jett practically squealed in excitement, sounding for the first time in a long time like a typical teenager, something she definitely was not. “Yes!”

      “You’re pumping your fist, aren’t you?”

       “Yes!”

      “I’ll call you after my meeting.”

      “I want it word for word.”

      “I have a photographic memory, not audiographic, but I’ll do my best.”

      Daisy removed the earbud and switched it off. Shoving the car in gear, she rolled down the hillside toward what appeared to be a ranch complex, complete with barn, paddock, pastures, homestead and even a windmill. Despite that, a vague sensation of emptiness hung over the place, as though time held its breath. Rolling to a stop in front of the sprawling house, she switched off the engine and sat, fighting for calm.

      All during the lengthy process of tracking Justice down, she’d shied away from considering how she’d deal with “the moment” when they finally came face-to-face. What would she say? How would he react? Would he even care that she’d given birth to their daughter?

      Or would he say something clever like, “Fascinating,” and then go invent more robotic whatzit sensors and cooperating actuators with autonomous humans, or whatever he was the best on the planet at doing. Not that it mattered. So long as he acknowledged his daughter, acknowledged his responsibility in her creation and supplied their baby with what she needed, Daisy didn’t really care what he did or where he did it.

      So. This was it.

      She eyed the wide front porch and gnawed on her lower lip. No more procrastinating. Time to beard the mad scientist in his secret lab. Smacking her palm against the steering wheel for emphasis, she shoved open the door to the rental car, climbed out and slammed it closed. Marching up the steps to the front porch, she crossed to the entryway. Something about it struck her as odd and it took a moment to realize what.

      No windows in or around the door.

      No handle.

      No doorbell or knocker.

      Damn.

      Balling up her fist, she pounded on the thick oak barricade. “Justice? Justice St. John? I want to talk to you.”

      Nothing.

      She gave the door a swift kick for extra emphasis. “I’m not leaving, Justice. Not until we talk.”

      Not a sound. Not a reaction of any kind. It was as though the house slept. Daisy shivered. Almost like it was caught in some other moment in time or an alternate universe. Another dimension, maybe, like Brigadoon. Maybe it wasn’t time for them to wake up, yet.

      Or maybe he simply wasn’t home.

      She paced in front of the door, wondering what she should do next. And that’s when she noticed another oddity about the doorway, a reflective gleam buried in the trim work. She paused in her pacing and studied the anomaly. Son of a gun. A camera. Someone was watching and she’d bet her next four impressively large royalty checks she knew who it was.

      Well, now. Wasn’t that interesting? She might stink at math, but she could solve this particular equation. She’d found the God of Geekdom hiding in an unmarked valley in Colorado, buried behind thick walls with a door but no handle, the place as unwelcoming as he could make it. Oh, she could add up those numbers to equal …

      She marched straight up to the camera and tilted her face so she could glare directly at the tiny circle of glass. “Justice? You either open this door or I’m going to get on the phone and call every media source I can think of and tell them where you live. And then I’m going to get on the internet and post the location on every geek-site I can find.”

      An instant later the front door emitted a persnickety click and eased inward a fraction. Daisy gave it a shove, not the least surprised when it opened to her touch. She stepped across the threshold into a chilly gloom that left her squinting. The door swung closed behind her and the dead bolt slammed home with a rifle-sharp retort, locking her inside.

      “If that’s meant to scare me, you didn’t succeed,” she announced. Then in an undertone, “Intimidated me a little bit, maybe, but you didn’t scare me.”

      Daisy glanced around the foyer, struggling to get a good look at her surroundings. Difficult, considering the lack of natural light. What was the deal with windows around here? The cold air contained a stale, dusty quality, as though the area was rarely used. Justice certainly hadn’t wasted any of his trillions heating this section of his homestead and she shivered in the confines of her thin coat, missing the Florida warmth and sunshine.

      She took another step into the dimness. Without any carpeting to absorb the sound, the impact of her shoes against the slate flooring bounced in noisy protest off the featureless walls. She looked around, curiosity combining with nervousness. The huge entranceway lacked the usual bits and pieces most foyers contained. No tables or racks or mirrors or pictures or freestanding artwork. Just … emptiness. Well, and dust. She turned in a slow circle looking for a light switch and coming up empty. Okay, that was just weird.

      What little she could see through the gloom of the surrounding СКАЧАТЬ