Finding Grace Read online

  Dagger was torn between wanting to break Trent in half and thank him for reminding him where they were. Another half a minute and he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to stop.

  “‘Ribs’?” He wondered aloud, stepping reluctantly back into a world that was never going to be quite the same again.

  “Fucking Griggs, asshole.” He heard and saw Thorne pull her alter ego back around her like one of her raggedy old jackets.

  “Tell me about this Griggs.” He felt a jealous twinge clutch his gut. Where had he heard that name before?

  “Pissed about the shiner, I guess. Wouldn’t have happened if he’d kept his hands to himself when he was trying to cuff me. Didn’t get what he was going for though, perverted little needle-pricked fascist pig of a…”

  “He tried to…!” Dagger felt the twinge turn to white hot rage.

  “That’s how my elbow got caught in his eye, but he got me back when Captain America turned me over to him and he walked me to lock-up. Cops know where the cameras are, and more importantly, where they aren’t. Pussy little motherfucker, though, I doubt he even cracked them. Probably just bruised a little. But they’ve been slowing me down some. Anyway, so what’s the problem at Soroko?”

  They’d reached the Escalade and Dagger automatically went around to open the door for her, fully aware of her as a woman. But he was preoccupied with considering different possible ways to hurt Griggs and whether he should leave marks or not.

  “Don’t go opening doors and all that for me, Jack. Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture. It’s very sweet and Georgia and all, but I’d just as soon keep everything like it has been.”

  What? “Why, Thorne? Why? Why the fuck all of it?” Now he was getting angry, thinking of how crazy she’d driven him, how she’d made him think that there might be something seriously wrong with him.

  She sighed like her patience was the one being tried. “Because, Jack, just because. Now are you gonna go all Judas on me, or can I trust you with this?”

  Goddamnit, Thorne. But this time he didn’t say it. “Fine, I’ll keep your little secret.” Both of them. He couldn’t help grinning wickedly when he thought about them, how they might look palmed in his hands, how they would feel. He’d bet they felt like warm silk. Damn. “At least tell me your first name.”

  She looked like she wasn’t going to answer him, but she finally said, “Grace.”

  “Grace.” He whispered it like a prayer and frowned. “But wait, isn’t that your middle name? Your papers say D.G. Thorne.” He’d checked her personnel file once when Paul was out. There hadn’t been anything there other than the basic employment forms.

  “Grace would be my middle name if ‘Doctor’ was a first name. What, are you a fucking spy, too, Jack?” She shrugged and went on like she hadn’t just dropped another bomb. “So, Soroko, what’s up there?”

  By the time they’d arrived, Dagger had filled her in on the urgent call Paul had received from the VP of R&D at Soroko. The man was afraid someone was stealing company secrets.

  The VP met them at the door, startled at first, eyeing them both up and down skeptically. Dagger tried not to let it bother him. They both produced their IDs and the man finally agreed to allow Thorne to check the server’s logs. After a quick peek, she told him to immediately shut the building down and allow no one in or out. The man seemed more than happy to let him handle it. The stuffy bunch of scientists and technicians were completely docile, if terrified, under his direction. That soothed him some.

  He lined them all up as Thorne requested. She walked slowly up and down the line. He was probably the only one who was aware that she had her eyes closed. But he remembered—he remembered so well he had to surreptitiously rearrange himself in his jeans—how differently she’d moved when she was wearing the blindfold. It was probably some psychic thing. He’d have to ask her more about that.

  She turned around and stood in front of a woman wearing a tight skirt and a blouse unbuttoned far enough that Dagger could see a lot of cleavage and the lace of her bra. Thorne calmly informed the VP that this woman was the thief and asked to see her station.

  He felt pride when Thorne sat down at the computer and found the proof in minutes. Then she patiently showed the man the trail his employee had left on her computer. A trail that would have been invisible to almost anyone besides Thorne, Dagger assumed from the man-who-was-supposed-to-be-an-expert’s complete surprise and how Thorne had to walk him through each step.

  The woman was obviously very good at what she did and there was a time, right up until this morning, probably, that Dagger would have found her attractive, too. But now she just looked cheap and boring.

  Before they’d left, he listened to Thorne outline some improved security protocols and sell the man on a serious upgrade. Now that was one hell of a woman.

  * * * *

  Paul was just hanging up the phone when Dagger and Thorne walked into his office. He smiled broadly.

  “Sounds like everything went well at Soroko. VP wants Thorne to install some new security measures. Said ‘Mr. Daggery’ handled the personnel issue very smoothly.”

  Thorne smiled back. “Sure did. He wiped the pretentious smirks off their faces like a shark sighting clears a beach. They’d have confessed to stealing each other’s lunches.”

  “I’ll go write up a proposal and cost outlines for the project while it’s all still fresh. But after that, I’d like to go home and shower. Jack pulled me straight off a workout, but then I imagine you know that.” She cocked her head at Paul and he felt the accusation.

  “It was an emergency, Thorne. Maybe now you’ll carry a cell phone like I asked you to.”

  Her head was still cocked. Now she just folded her arms and shook her head. Why was it women, even intelligent women, wanted an apology when the blame was theirs?

  He turned to the friendlier, eerily cheerful face of Dagger, who couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

  “Well, at least you look happier than you did when you left this morning. I’m glad I didn’t let you talk me into having Farley pick up Thorne. We’ll start a rotation next week for the rides home.”

  “What?” Thorne’s arms dropped and she turned to stare at Dagger, who promptly stopped smiling. “Really? I thought you…that we…” Her eyes found that spot on the carpet. “I see. Well, it’s probably for the best…under the circumstances. You know, boss, if it’s okay with you, I think I’ll just head home now and bring in the proposal and cost outlines on Monday.” She turned and left his office without another word, or his answer.

  They both listened to the soft patter of her sneakers running down the stairs and the solid thump as the door closed behind her. Paul looked out the window and saw her sail over a slush puddle as she ran down the street.

  That hadn’t gone much worse than he’d expected it to, but if Dagger didn’t want to give her rides any more, she might as well get used to the idea. He’d pushed his friend far enough, long enough.

  He’d have to be satisfied with the progress they had made.

  “Well at least Thorne managed to prove useful without all that psychic mumbo jumbo…” He trailed off. Why was Dagger looking at him like he’d just screwed the pooch?

  The big man was shaking his smooth head and flexing his fists at his sides, making the snake tattoos on his forearms writhe. Paul doubted he even realized he was doing it.

  “What the fuck, Paul. So what if she is psychic? No one besides me could tell she was using it this time. She handled those squints like she was queen of them all, instead of cursing like a construction worker and carrying on like she does around here. And then you go and piss her off, make me look like an asshole—”

  “She?” Shit. So that’s what Thorne had meant by “under the circumstances.”

  “Yeah, she. And don’t look at me like you don’t know because it explains some things, like why you wanted me to look out for her. Why didn’t you tell me, Paul? I might not have given you so much shit when you hired her if I�
�d known she had a damn doctorate, either.”

  Paul ignored Dagger’s question. “She told you that? She tell you anything else?”

  “Just her name. Grace.” Dagger sighed. “Suits her, don’t you think?”

  Paul thought about the small, ragged, cursing, defiant inhabitant of the office with the loud vibrations and shook his head.

  “No, not really. You must have seen her working out. I didn’t know the setup of the place. What was she wearing?” Dagger didn’t appear too freaked out, not like he would if he’d seen her scars.

  “Oh, a gray turtleneck leotard or whatever they call them. She always wears a turtleneck. You notice that? Anyway, it covered everything and hid absolutely nothing worth hiding. Oh, and a blindfold.”

  Paul thought Dagger looked just a little too involved with the memory. He wasn’t sure he liked the glint in the man’s eye. Maybe it was a good thing he’d be out of town next week, getting Mills’s team set up in L.A. And maybe it was a good thing, too, that Dagger thought Paul had made him look like an asshole. For some reason known only to her, if she even knew, Thorne was vulnerable to him. Paul didn’t like it. He doubted Dagger had ever slept with a woman more than once, and Thorne sure as hell didn’t belong on that list. True, he’d been the same before he’d met Katherine, but Dagger…well, Dagger was Dagger.

  Chapter Nine

  The office felt strange without Jack. Thorne wasn’t even quite sure why she was here. She should have just given Paul her figures and told him she’d work from home. Or maybe even just quit. The longer she sat, the better that sounded.

  She’d run all the way home on Friday and written the proposal after getting cleaned up. It hadn’t been nearly complex enough, though, to keep her mind from running endlessly over the day’s events. Not that rehashing them helped. Every analysis and scenario that turned over in her brain ended badly.

  It was difficult to decide which of the two main tracks was worse, the one where Jack had decided he didn’t even want to give her a ride home anymore and all of those variations, or the one that said his discovery had changed that, and now he wanted to…and those variations. Either way, she was screwed six ways till Sunday because she burned when he was close to her and ached when he wasn’t.

  The knock both startled and relieved her. The way things were going, any distraction would be a good one.

  The expressions on the two faces when the door opened changed her mind. Paul had Captain America with him and they were obviously freaked out about something. Thorne hit the “off” button on her stereo, dropped her knitting, and put up the screen saver.

  “What’s up?”

  “Luke’s girlfriend, my wife’s friend, Sarah, didn’t show up for work this morning.” It didn’t sound nearly as bad as Paul’s expression said it was.

  Captain America looked like a man torn between fire and brimstone. “Look, uh…”

  “Thorne,” she provided.

  “Uh, Thorne, I know I don’t have a right to ask for your help, especially not after…God, I’m so sorry about that. I didn’t know…”

  “Thanks for the apology. And the head-hunting.” She spread her arms to encompass her nicely-equipped office. “So tell me why you’re so worried about Sarah.”

  His look of relief was almost instantly replaced with renewed anxiety as he explained to her why it was a big deal that Sarah hadn’t shown up for work yet. She’d left his place at seven-thirty to go to directly to work, there wasn’t any answer on her cell phone, and she was never, ever late and always answered his calls—unless she was mad at him—and as far he knew, she wasn’t.

  Thorne closed her eyes and hoped for information from somewhere darker and more helpful.

  It came then. Just a wisp, but…

  “Boss, does your wife know?”

  Both men looked at her like she’d asked about the price of bananas in the Himalayas.

  “Luke’s here because he was hoping you’d be more help than the red tape the PD has to cut through to look for someone who hasn’t been missing for more than two hours, and that’s the best question you can come up with? Why on earth would I tell Katherine? What good is upsetting her going to do? We’re not even sure something’s wrong.” Even when his face and tone said they were.

  Paul’s response shouldn’t have thrown her, having heard how protective he was of his wife, and how weird he’d been acting toward her since the last vision episode. Well, fuck him and his big Buzz issues. This was more important.

  “Because I need her here with me in order to find Sarah. They’ve been friends since high school, haven’t they? This has something to do with back then.”

  “How do you know that? Never mind, I know that look and I don’t want to hear it. Katherine stays out of it.”

  The Captain’s face twisted away from her. “Goddamn it, Paul. Are you still hung up on Thorne being a psychic? For fuck’s sake, let it go. For my sake, for Sarah’s sake, let it go. If she says she needs Katherine, get her. Please. At least let Katherine make the choice.”

  Thorne was fascinated with the contradiction of the man’s rough-and-tough appearance and the desperate pleading in his voice. She wondered how it would feel to have someone care as much about her as Captain America obviously cared about Sarah, or Paul cared about his wife.

  Paul gritted his teeth and both she and the Captain watched the struggle play across his features.

  With obviously great reluctance, Paul finally pulled out his phone.

  While he talked, Captain America gave her Sarah’s cell number and she started a trace. Thorne tried to make conversation with him, but she could tell from the way he looked at her and winced when she talked that he was only reminded of the terrible things that could happen to Sarah, could be happening to her right now.

  “Katherine’s on her way.” Paul put his phone back in his pocket. “We had better not be upsetting her for nothing.”

  “Good. It’s not for nothing, boss, I promise. I’ve already started a search using the GPS in her phone, but that won’t help with the motive, and that’s the heart of this. I keep seeing a girl with curly red hair and glasses. A tall boy in a letter jacket is threatening her.”

  She ignored Paul’s rolling eyes.

  “Sarah wore glasses when she was in school, I saw the photo in her yearbook.” Captain America swallowed, his face paling. “You’ve never met her. Her hair…it’s all these—” his voice was soft and his hands twitched, like he was remembering touching them “—silky copper corkscrews.”

  “Well, here she is, or at least, I found her phone. It’s moving.” Thorne continued to work since she clearly wasn’t going to be much good at comforting the man.

  Captain America looked over her shoulder and called the cross streets in to dispatch. He instructed them to patch him directly to a patrol in the area. It was hard for Thorne to pinpoint a specific car in the steady traffic, even after it made several turns. It wasn’t until the dot on her screen remained immobile for longer than a traffic light would take that she could finally narrow it down to a single car.

  The speaker phone he’d switched to told Captain America and everyone else in the room that no passengers were visible, just the driver. They asked whether they should approach the vehicle.

  Thorne listened to the other voices, the ones only she could hear.

  “She isn’t with him. He must have her purse. He’s stashed her somewhere, some place he thinks is fitting for her to die. Go ahead and pick him up, but I don’t think you’ll get anything out of him.”

  There was a click-click of hurried heels in the hall, the barest hint of a feminine scent, and then Paul’s wife appeared. She was the most beautiful, perfectly put-together woman Thorne had ever seen. She might have walked right off a magazine cover. Thorne listened with half an ear as Paul brought her up to speed while Captain America yelled at the patrol through the speaker phone, telling them to “bust the sonofabitch right fucking now.”

  Somewhere along the line, Farley had
joined them. If a nosier man had ever been born, Thorne hadn’t met him. He wasn’t the quietest one, either.

  “Will everybody please shut the hell up!” She had to yell to penetrate the din. “Mrs. Weston, do you remember anything about Sarah and a jock threatening her?”

  She brushed a strand of her flawlessly-styled blond hair from her face and said, “You must be Thorne. Please call me Katherine, won’t you?” in a warm voice accompanied by a weak smile and a tilted head. “But how could you—?”

  “Please, Katherine, we’re running out of time. I can feel it.” She returned the woman’s smile encouragingly.

  “We were juniors. She was smart and quiet, I was silly and not.”

  Her wide, summer-sky eyes lost their focus and everyone fell silent, listening to her tell them about the day Sarah had come to her locker in tears and told her that Buddy Todd had threatened her with violence if she didn’t help him cheat on the Trig final. He was a senior retaking it for the third time and if he didn’t pass, the coach was going to have to cut him from the playoffs. Four college scouts were going to be at those games and he was desperate.

  She had marched Sarah to the principal’s office and made her tell the woman everything. Todd hadn’t been allowed to play football the rest of the year. He’d never gone on to college and, at their ten-year reunion, someone had said they’d seen him working at a sporting goods store.

  “Oh no! Poor Sarah. This is all my fault.” Her delicate throat choked back a sob.

  Paul sent Thorne an angry glance. She chose to ignore it.

  “None of that is important now, Katherine. Take off your gloves and hold my hands.” Thorne kept her voice firm and calm. Before she could consider the consequences, she peeled off her wrist warmers and clasped Katherine’s manicured hands in hers. “Take me back. Take me back to that conversation. I need to hear the voice in Todd’s head. That’s it, picture the scene as clearly as possible with as many details as you can recall, the more minute, the better.”