The Tenth Legion (Book 6, Progeny of Evolution) (16 page)

Lorna
introduced herself.

“Carolyn
Geurin. This is our son, Mikey. I’m Mike’s former wife.”

The boy had
Mike’s once clear and attractive eyes. “Mike never told me he had a
child.”

Lorna
understood the bleak prospects ahead of them. With his death, child
support stopped. An ex-spouse had no rights to death or retirement
benefits. Mike had never been the type to put money away. With a
sense of guilt, Lorna looked at the tennis bracelet shimmering
around her wrist. She wondered how much she could sell it for.

All eyes of
those milling around after the service fell on the large, black car
easing up to the edge of the gathering. The driver hopped out,
opening the door. Dressed in black formal funeral wear, Cynthia May
emerged into the light. She walked toward the grave, followed by
the driver, who labored under a large spray of flowers. The beauty
of Cynthia Meadows may have been superior to her granddaughter’s,
but all of the men turned in awe at the appearance of the tall,
lissome presence of kabuki-white skin and black just about
everything else. A touch of pink glowed under the prominent
cheekbones, accompanied by ruby lips attached like a glossy rosebud
to the angular face.

Oblivious of
the commotion in her wake, Cynthia’s face brightened when she
spotted Lorna, and she approached.

“Janice, place
the flowers just here.” After stopping to instruct the driver, she
joined Lorna. “Considering what Mr. Geurin did for us, Uncle Edward
insisted the family send a representative.”

“That was
considerate. I’d like you to meet Mike’s former wife and their
son.”

“You’re as
lovely as your grandmother.” Carolyn Geurin held out her hand.

Cynthia smiled
with polite reservation at the comparison. “You’re kind to say
so.”

The three of
them spoke for a few minutes before someone pulled Carolyn and
Mikey into another conversation.

Cynthia
returned her attention to Lorna. “My mother’s in the car. She’d
like to say hello.”

Lorna followed
her. The driver ran ahead and opened the rear door. Inside the
spacious compartment, a familiar square-shouldered figure, not to
be confused with Karla May, stirred.

“Hello,
Lorna.” The face of Ed White poked into the sunlight.

Her heart
skipped a beat. “Aren’t you the guy who never goes out in
public?”

Boy that was
lame.

He smiled,
rolling his eyes playfully. “For the right person, there’s always
the exception.” He looked over the scene. “Afterward, I hope we can
spend time together.”

“Not sure if
I’ll be good company,” Lorna said. “Mike was a very close
friend.”

“Then if my
mission is to console you, so be it. Grandfather once told me that
being with Grandmother at her worst was better than having no
Grandmother around at all. For the first time in my life, I think I
understand what he meant.”

CHAPTER TEN

A
young reporter
from the news service passed. Earlier, he wore the pained
expression of one who wished to be somewhere else, For certain,
nothing news worthy could spring from a simple cop’s funeral. No
doubt he arrived believing anything he submitted would either end
up in file footage or be edited out—an incorrect assumption, it
turned out. A career-making day waited.

A predictable
sequence of events unfolded. Cynthia’s appearance gained the
reporter’s attention, just like with the other men and the crowd in
general. Using a cell phone, the reporter would check the
background search engine on the Whites, learning they never
attended funerals outside of family, or unless a head of state was
involved. Yet there stood a princess of the clan, consoling the
poor bastard’s widowed ex-wife.

Lorna took Ed
by the hand, coaxing him from the car. Another stir swept through
the gathering when the man they knew as a remote, powerful, and
wealthy image from television and news stepped among them. Police
brass and politicians, together with local dignitaries, exchanged
shocked expressions. Ed White mingling and shaking hands at a
gathering? Lorna could almost hear their thoughts.

‘
What in
the world could have convinced Mr. White to change his ironclad
policy of isolation? Who’s the attractive brunette hanging on his
arm? OPD Lieutenant Lorna Winters is an intimate of Edward White?
Who’d have guessed?’

“Our colonies
on Mars are doing well,” Ed explained to the reporter. “In two
years…” he beamed at the polite young man who seemed a bit awed by
the meeting. “That is, in two Earth years, they should be
completely self-sufficient.”

Lorna smiled
for the camera.

“In view of
your policy against public appearances, what brought you out
today?”

Ed and Lorna
exchanged knowing glances. The Chairman took a deep breath of air
rich with the scent of citrus. “This brave man cared enough to
preserve items taken in evidence having great personal meaning to
our family. His tragic death affected all of us. Attending his
funeral was the least we could do.”

Soon, other
news services learned about Ed White’s surprise departure from
regal isolation and rushed their people to the scene. A pushy
female caught up with Ed and Lorna, shoving a microphone in their
faces. “Can we assume you’re an item?” she demanded from behind a
strawberry peek-a-boo tress trained to fall down over one eye.

The Chairman
did a slow turn of torso, facing her in a movement that
communicated a careful, massive deliberation. The head craned
forward with a focused stare like the one associated with sighting
game through a rifle’s crosshairs. “You assume wrong. I hardly know
her. She and the late Detective Geurin provided invaluable
assistance to my family.”

Lorna felt as
though someone had let the air out of her balloon. Her head flew
around at Ed. Seeing Lorna’s confused and hurt stare, the reporter
seemed to sense an inconsistency, and continued to badger Ed for
the truth. For another five minutes, Ms. Peek-A-Boo hung in. She
gave up when Ed hustled Lorna back into the car while a bodyguard
blocked pursuit. At Ed’s signal, the car lurched forward, a clatter
of gravel bouncing off the wheel wells.

Lorna wasted
no time. “What was the “I hardly know her” crap about?”

Although he
was a foot taller with another fifty pounds, her demeanor caused
him to jerk back reflexively. Then the trademark
ice-water-in-the-veins self-control reasserted itself. “I should
have told you sooner. Being special to me has risks, especially for
someone like you who’s out in the public. They can get to me
through you.”

“This sounds
crazy, even paranoid,” she said in disbelief. “Who would do
something like that?”

“Think about
it. I’m CEO of one of the two largest corporations in the world.
There are many who’d like to gain access to the company’s plans, or
other sensitive information, not to mention groups who want our
kind dead. Your profession makes you both accessible, and
vulnerable.”

The limousine
turned out of the cemetery, picking up speed. A jagged pattern of
roofs flew by. The heavily padded, insulated backseat compartment
enveloped them in a leather-and-fabric cocoon, blocking out all but
the loudest sounds, leaving them with each other to deal with.

For a minute,
they sat in the burdensome silence. Lorna waited, radiating growing
impatience. Finally, Ed grimaced, saying, “Remember the Operations
Center next to my office back on the island?”

She
nodded.

“In addition
to doing corporate business, we can track our enemies
worldwide.”

“Enemies
worldwide?” she repeated. “Are you kidding me?”

“You know,
yourself, there are many who think the world would be better off
without us. Some blame The Others for the problems of the last
hundred years. A few do more than talk. The Operations Center
monitors electronic communications worldwide, employing
efficiencies comparable to those of the wealthiest and most
powerful countries, like Brazil.”

The car
horn sounded like a distant
blat.
The larger vehicle kept pace with hordes of bicycles and
mopeds weaving back and forth in front of them. Everyone moved
together down the street part of a single mass, like amoeba trapped
in a drop of water.

“What do your
signals tell you?” she asked, calmer, but still skeptical.

“The largest
of them, The Tenth Legion, is planning something important.
Whatever it is will happen soon.”

“I don’t
believe that. They’ve been quiet for so long.”

“That’s
because company agents have been successful in thwarting most of
their plots.”

Lorna
remembered Jerry’s denial of elite forces existing within the
corporation. Actually, he’d said to the best of his knowledge they
didn’t exist.

“The technical
details are a bit beyond me,” Ed continued. “But their
communications traffic volume is up dramatically. Daily now, our
data bases hit on key words in the unencrypted traffic. The coded
messages tell more. Now the word is out about the two of us, I want
you kept safe.”

Her expression
softening, she touched his cheek. “Okay, what you did made sense,”
she conceded, “But next time, trust me enough to be straight.”

“I won’t
forget.” Gazing out the window at an open air market that had taken
over some abandoned warehouses, he added, “But we need to take
precautions.”

“I’m a lycan
with a gun. Not an easy target.”

“Until someone
slips up behind you with a stun gun.” His statement referred to the
particular vulnerability lycans had to the devices. They rendered
her kind practically catatonic, while having an opposite effect on
vampires.

“I hadn’t
thought of that.”

“I want you to
move into a company apartment. The complex is guarded twenty-four
hours a day. My people will drive you to and from work.”

“I still think
I can take care of myself.”

His jaw
tightened in frustration, not used to arguing to win his point.
“You don’t understand.” Strained patience laced his words. “Before
they move on you, they’ll learn all they can—work schedule, the
layout of your apartment, even your office, along with your daily
routine. They’ll take you when you’re most vulnerable.” He paused.
“They’ll learn, for example, where you keep your firearm when you
shower or sleep.”

A sobering
image came to mind of being in the shower, her weapon in its usual
place on the bedroom nightstand, out of reach if someone broke
in.

“Okay, I’m
convinced. I need to take more precautions, but I don’t think I
need to move out of my place.”

The argument
continued for the rest of the trip in subdued tones, like a
slow-speed car chase. Near the end, he pleaded, “At least let me
have my people check your apartment for surveillance devices.”

Worn down by
his persistence, she capitulated, but not without misgivings. “I
guarantee you won’t find anything. I’m a cop. I check my place out
every month with a metal detector.”

“We’ll
see.”

* * * *

The next
afternoon, Ed rousted a couple of technicians from a local
corporation research facility, giving them the address to Lorna’s
apartment. “They’ll meet us there,” he said, when his car picked
her up from work.

An hour later,
six devices lay in a pile on her kitchen bar counter. “Except for
ours, these are as good as they get,” the lead technician
explained. “Old Department of Homeland Security gear. They don’t
make stuff of such quality anymore in this country.”

“You say you
found one in the shower spigot?” Lorna asked.

“Yes, ma’am,
right alongside the web cam.”

Her skin
crawled. “They’ve been watching me shower?”

Ed nodded.
“Probably, convinced now?”

“When did they
plant them? News of the two of us broke only yesterday?”

“Governments
and large corporations survive by keeping abreast of such
happenings. I suspect you came into someone’s attention the instant
you touched down here after the island visit.”

Three evenings
later, Lorna curled up next to Ed on the plush sectional in one of
the condominiums he used for overnights. The evening news still
made a fuss over what they called Edward White’s “Coming Out”.
Images of him in a black suit and white silk shirt engaged in
friendly conversation with Mike’s ex and son were most prominent,
but there were also a number of Lorna and him, with speculative
commentary regarding the degree of their involvement.

Lorna murmured
in his ear. “It was decent of you to do what you did.”

He leaned
forward. “When you told me about the financial situation Detective
Geurin’s dependents faced and asked me to help, how could I
refuse?” Turning a verdant-eyed stare on her, he added, “I only did
what was right.”

They’d just
made love. His scent, like tanned leather, filled the air around
them. Idly, she ran hands through thick, straight, ginger hair
combed back from his face. With a hot, moist breath, he nuzzled the
fine hairs at the nape of her neck. His exhale whispered across the
fine cilia, sending shivers through her. Nipples erected, then
hardened. Throwing back his head, he sniffed the air with a passion
humans couldn’t understand.

“Ready to go
again, my pretty?” he asked in a tone of false villainy.

Innocently,
she responded. “I can take anything you can dish out, big boy.”

Smoothing the
bangs flat against her forehead, he pressed their lips together.
His tongue fell into her open mouth as if through a trapdoor.
Wedging a hip between her thighs, he rolled on top. At the junction
of their bodies lay an aura of humid warmth.