Blood Hunt (46 page)

Mary did a good job of sputtering in indignation and picked up her cell phone from the desk. “How dare you? I’m calling Mr. Chord right now to have security escort you out.”

“Go ahead,” said Roxanne, shrugging. Mary was caught, and if the sweat beading along her hairline was any indication, she knew it. The only way out was through the door behind Roxanne or out the window, which was easily twenty feet down, thanks to the high ceilings on Mr. Chord’s first floor. It was too high up to jump out the window, and there was no place in that outfit for her to hide rappelling gear.

Mary Smith was well and truly caught.

“I’ve been made,” said Mary into the cell phone. “Heads up. Window.”

Roxanne’s confusion lasted for a millisecond, but even that was too long. Mary had a partner—something Roxanne had failed to uncover.

Roxanne lunged across the room to stop the woman, but before she could cross the space, Mary hurled a stapler through the window, jerked a USB drive out of the PC, and tossed it through the broken glass. Roxanne slammed into Mary, pinning her to the window frame. Outside, she saw a man below pick up the drive and sprint across Mr. Chord’s manicured lawn.

Sure, the data on the drive was fake, but that wasn’t the point. Roxanne had been charged with catching a thief, and she’d failed to realize there were two of them.

Fury boiled up inside her as she grabbed the dainty woman’s arm to spin her around and tie her wrists with the flex cuffs she’d brought with her. Mary had other ideas.

She lashed out, slamming her pointy elbow into Roxanne’s stomach. Pain flew out from that spot, driving the air from her lungs. Mary shoved away from Roxanne, but moved only two feet before Roxanne snagged her arm and jerked her to a halt.

“You’re not getting away,” Roxanne snarled.

Mary’s hand snapped out, striking Roxanne’s forearm hard enough to break her grip, likely leaving a bruise. She reached beneath her short skirt and pulled out a slim knife. “Like hell I’m not.”

Sometimes it sucked being right.

Roxanne hated knives. She really did. She would have much rather been at the receiving end of a nice fat shotgun. There was something inherently wicked about knives, something far more sinister than the effective simplicity of a revolver, or the efficiency of a semiautomatic pistol. Guns were designed to kill; knives were designed to hurt. It took a long time to die from stab wounds unless you were lucky enough to have an artery severed. And while Roxanne had been trained to deal with the threat, facing a shiny blade still had the power to make her break out in a nervous sweat.

Mary stabbed toward her, slicing at Roxanne’s arm. The blade didn’t cut her, but she was sure some of the hair on her forearm had been shaved clean. Good thing she’d brought a gun to a knife fight. It was in her evening bag, which she’d dropped on the floor by the door when Mary had shattered the window. All Roxanne had to do was get to it and the fight would be over. One way or another.

Mary kept swiping, holding Roxanne at bay as she backed up to make her exit. Roxanne made sure not to glance at her beaded bag, not wanting to give away the fact that it was important to her. A woman cruel enough to carry a blade as her weapon of choice would not hesitate to use anything against her she could find.

“I’m leaving. Keep quiet and I won’t hurt anyone on my way out,” said Mary. The wicked gleam in her dark eyes didn’t instill confidence in her words.

“Bullshit. We both know that’s a lie.”

A slow, amused smile spread across Mary’s mouth as she backed up a bit more. Roxanne followed her. As she passed the desk, she picked up a heavy crystal paperweight and flung it at Mary’s head.

The woman dodged it, and Roxanne took the opening. She charged forward, gripping Mary’s wrist and shoving it high to keep the knife away from her. She used her momentum to slam the woman into the hardwood door. Mary’s head hit hard. She blinked several times as if dazed.

Roxanne didn’t wait to see if it was an act. She smashed the knife hand against the wood over and over until the gleaming metal fell to the floor.

Mary screamed in outrage and head-butted Roxanne right in the nose.

Pain flashed red behind her eyes and made them water like crazy.

Roxanne grabbed the front of the woman’s dress and flung her to the floor, face-first. Mary’s skin squeaked against the gleaming hardwood floor. Roxanne crashed down on top of her, driving her knee into Mary’s back hard enough to make her cry out in pain. Something along Mary’s back popped, but Roxanne didn’t care what it was. She wrenched Mary’s hands behind her and pinned them there while she fished another set of flex cuffs from her evening bag.

Mary was secured, moaning, and no longer fighting.

Time to go after the other thief.

Roxanne picked up the knife so Mary couldn’t use it to free herself, and dropped it into her purse. She took out her cell and dialed Mr. Chord as she raced out of the office and down to the exit nearest to where Mary’s partner had been. “Mary is in your office. She might need an ambulance.”

“What the hell did you do to her?”

“Not as much as I would have liked. She had a partner. I’m going after him.”

Roxanne didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. She raced across the lawn, but the second thief was nowhere to be seen. Behind a screen of manicured bushes, several bars had been recently cut away from one section of the iron fence surrounding Mr. Chord’s property, and on the other side of that, there were dark tire marks on the street.

Roxanne had failed to catch him, which meant it was only a matter of time before a new Mary showed up to finish what the last one couldn’t.

Mr. Chord was not going to be pleased.

“Mr. Chord is pissed,” said Roxanne’s boss, Bella Bayne, the next morning.

Bella was the owner of the Edge—the growing private-security company in Dallas where Roxanne worked. They handled all kinds of needs, from threat assessment to protective details to U.S. troop support to ridding foreign countries of any number of pesky criminals. For the right price.

Roxanne’s specialty was stealth security for corporate espionage cases. She made sure the bad guys didn’t know who she was until it was too late and she caught them with their hands in the cookie jar. At least that
had been
her specialty. Based on Bella’s scowl, she might have been demoted to cleaning the locker room toilets if she wasn’t simply fired.

Roxanne really didn’t want to walk away from the job she’d come to love. She had to find a way to make things right.

Bella stood to her full, impressive height. She was easily six feet tall in her combat boots, and every inch of her was sleek, sculpted muscle. Her stormy gray eyes narrowed in fury. “Where shall we start, Razor? With the fact that your client’s information was stolen? Or maybe with the part where the guy who stole it got away?”

“The data was fake. I planted it. Whoever has it isn’t getting anything of value.”

“And now they know that, too. Mr. Chord told me how hard it was to orchestrate that setup. Your chance to catch the thieves is gone, and he still has no idea who Mary works for or with.”

Roxanne looked down and toyed with her wide cuff bracelet. “Were the police able to get her to talk?”

“Not a word. Not even to a lawyer. And now whoever is doing this knows we’re onto them.”

What was worse was the fact that the police were now involved—something Mr. Chord had wanted to avoid from the beginning, which was why he’d hired the Edge to deal with the problem. If word got out that his designs were being stolen, his company’s stock price could plummet. He might lose investors.

Roxanne had no idea about the specifics of the devices that had been stolen from him. She didn’t need to know any secret information to do her job. But what she did know was that Chord Industries had contributed to several advances in the field of medicine. His machines helped people. Saved lives.

Because of her, he was losing his ability to do good in the world, and that pissed Roxanne off more than her own failure.

“I’m sorry, Bella. I should have realized Mary could have a partner.”

“Yes. You should have. So the question is, Why didn’t you?”

Roxanne considered giving her boss some lame excuse. She could come up with a half dozen that might help her cover her ass, but she couldn’t do that to Bella. They were friends. Bella trusted her, and she wasn’t going to screw that up by lying.

Roxanne took a deep breath and admitted what she’d hoped she wouldn’t have to. “I’ve been distracted.”

Bella crossed her arms over her chest and lifted a dark eyebrow. “Distracted? Care to elaborate on that?”

“My ex, Kurt—he’s been sending guys after me, having them follow me. I thought he’d stopped a few weeks ago, but I guess I was wrong. He’s not done with his games. A new man showed up yesterday, and I spent so much time losing him before I went in to do the job, I was rushed. I wasn’t completely focused.”

Bella’s face darkened with rage and her voice became lethally calm. “What, exactly, are these guys doing to you?”

“Nothing. They just watch me. Kurt was the jealous type, and even though we split three months ago, he apparently still hasn’t managed to accept the fact that we’re over.”

“Give me Kurt’s address. I’ll go speak to him.”

“No, Bella. You’d only make things worse if you confront him. I already did, and he denies everything. I know he’s lying, and I told him I’d have him brought in for stalking if it happened again. I thought I’d gotten through, but either way, this is my mess. I’ll be the one to clean it up.”

Bella glanced at Roxanne’s arm, where the bruise from last night’s combat darkened her skin. “Did he hurt you, Razor?” she asked, her hands clenching to fists at her sides.

“No. It was nothing like that. He’s not a bad guy; he just didn’t want to let go.”

“I could make him.”

Roxanne had seen Bella angry. She’d seen the woman take down three armed men by herself. And she’d heard stories about that building Bella destroyed in Mexico a few months ago. But Roxanne had never seen this kind of steely, quiet rage, so intense it vibrated through her entire body. She’d heard rumors that Bella had a dark past—one she never discussed with her employees—but seeing this kind of reaction made Roxanne wonder just what that past had been.

“I’ve got it covered,” said Roxanne. “I’ll go see him today and make sure he quits playing these games.”

Bella swallowed several times before her hands unclenched and the redness in her face abated. “I won’t have anyone hurting my people.”

“Kurt isn’t hurting me. He’s just jerking me around.”

“Are you protecting him?”

“No. He’s an asshole for screwing with me like this, and I plan to tell him that to his face.”

“I don’t like the way he’s treating you.”

“Neither do I.”

“He interfered with your work, and I can’t let that slide.”

“I know.” Roxanne let out a long, resigned breath. She loved her job, but she knew the score. A mistake like this was too big to simply ignore. “Are you going to fire me?”

Bella pulled back her lips in frustration. “I should. That would certainly appease Mr. Chord. But no, you’re not fired. However, I’m not handing out any more chances, either. You blow it again, you’re out. Our work is too dangerous for distractions. You need to get your personal shit straightened out before I can assign you any more jobs.”

“What about finding the guy who got away?”

“The cops are involved now. They’re looking into it.”

“So . . . what? We just leave Mr. Chord hanging?”

“No. I’m going to offer him our services for free to calm him down, but he already said he didn’t want you back. I’m sorry.”

The rejection stung, but not nearly as much as her failure did. Mr. Chord was right to be mad. She had let her personal life get in the way of her professional life, which was a big no-no. She knew better.

“I understand. I’ll go see Kurt on his lunch break and make sure he understands that his games are over. I should be back by one.”

“No. I don’t want you back until you’re sure you’ve fixed the problem for good.”

Roxanne took a deep breath to keep herself from shouting at her boss. “How long is long enough to convince you?”

“As long as it takes. No less than a week.”

A week? If Mr. Chord’s thief had left any trail, it would definitely be cold by then. “That’s more time than I’ll need.”

“This isn’t negotiable, Razor,” said Bella. “If his buddies stay away for a few days, chances are they won’t come back. And there’s something else, too.”

“What?”

“Assholes have a tendency to escalate things when confronted. I’m not letting anything happen to you, so I’m assigning the new guy to you. Wherever you go, he goes. Got it?”

“You’re giving me a babysitter?” Roxanne did shout this time, and jumped to her feet in anger.