Flash of Death

“Love you, big sis.”

Chloe groaned as she disconnected the call and turned her cell phone completely off. She prayed to sleep off the mother of all hangovers before she had to go back to San Francisco tomorrow. And then she prayed fervently that Trent Hollings would leave town today and go somewhere far, far away. Forever. There was no way she could ever look him in the eye after what they—what she—had done last night.

She took a solemn vow then and there never to touch alcohol again as long as she lived. The idea of losing all her inhibitions like that again made her positively ill. Who’d have guessed a few shots of whiskey would turn her into such a slut?

Groaning in pain and embarrassment, she pulled the sheet up over her head and prayed for death. Or at least a long, long unconsciousness.

Trent burst into the conference room Jeff Winston had appropriated from the gentlemen’s club to do business in while he was here for the wedding. Several of the other Code X operatives were there, complete with their own genetically engineered mutations, and they all looked worried.

“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded without preamble.

Jeff answered, “Novak scared up some video from a traffic camera and ran the license plates of the SUV that tried to run down Chloe Jordan last night.”

“And?”

“And it belongs to a corporation that doesn’t exist.”

Trent frowned. “Come again?”

“It’s registered to a dummy company. Address is a P.O. box that doesn’t exist, phone number is a fake and no company by that name is currently doing business in the United States. It’s a cover for someone.”

“Like who?” he asked his boss.

Jeff shrugged. “No idea. But it does lead me to believe it was no accident last night. Someone was out to hurt Chloe.”

Trent replied grimly, “Wrong. Whoever gunned that SUV at her was out to kill her.”

And that meant Code X had a problem. Chloe’s sister had just married one of Code X’s charter members—a guy who could hold his breath under water for over twelve minutes. And Chloe had spent the past two days in the company of the lot of them at various prewedding functions. How could her attempted murder not be aimed at the Code X team?

Trent suggested hopefully, “She said she’s a forensic accountant. Maybe it was just a bit of revenge by an enemy she’s made in her job.”

“Possible,” Jeff replied slowly. “If that’s the case, we’ll need a complete list of companies she has investigated.” Trent watched as his boss pulled out his cell phone and dialed Chloe’s cell phone number. As Jeff’s frown deepened and he didn’t speak into the device, Trent’s apprehension grew.

Jeff put the phone down. “Her cell’s turned off.”

Trent winced. “She probably turned it off so schmucks like us wouldn’t disturb her.” She was probably sleeping off her hangover. But he wasn’t about to share that little detail with the guys in this room. They would want to know how he knew that, and then they would inevitably draw the exactly correct conclusion. Frankly, it was none of their damned business how he and Chloe had spent the evening. Hell, even if he told them exactly what the two of them had done, these guys would never believe it. They would guffaw that quiet, controlled Chloe Jordan couldn’t possibly be that wild.

Hah. Little did they know. He was a pretty adventurous guy in the sack, but that girl had made him blush a time or two last night. She was some woman.

“Maybe someone should go to her room and check on her,” Jeff suggested, startling Trent out of recollections that were going to get him all hot and bothered very fast.

“Nah. I’m sure she’s just sleeping. She was pretty wiped out last night.”

“You walked her to her room and locked her inside sit?” Jeff asked.

“Yes. I searched her suite from top to bottom before I left. She clearly wasn’t planning on going out again last night and was safe and sound when I left her.”

Of course, she’d also been sexually sated and sleeping like the dead when he slipped out of her bed. She no doubt would need most of today to sleep off the booze and sex, though. A few of the things she’d asked for were going to leave her good and sore for a couple of days, but he’d been careful to do nothing she wouldn’t recover from.

He wasn’t sure he would recover anytime soon, though. How was any woman going to top that for him?

“Rather than bother her, couldn’t we call her employer and ask for a list of companies she’s investigated?” one of the twins, recent Code X additions with truly scary mental skills, suggested.

Trent shook his head. “She mentioned that she’s a freelance consultant. I assume she contracts with law enforcement agencies or maybe banks. If we leave her a message, when she wakes up she can fire us a list of companies she has investigated.” He desperately hoped his efforts to protect their little secret weren’t rousing any suspicions.

Jeff nodded. “In the meantime, someone should keep an eye on her.”

“As in surveillance?” Trent blurted, surprised. Damn. He’d been plotting ways to arrange a repeat of last night, but if the other guys were watching her around the clock, that was going to be hard to pull off. Unless he was the guy doing the surveillance …

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” he volunteered.

Jeff nodded. “I’ll spell you when you need to sleep.”

Speaking of which, it was about time for him to pop some sleeping pills and power down for a few hours. He might be able to go like the Energizer Bunny for days at a time, but when he crashed, he completely shut down. To that end, he commented, “I’m going to go catch a few zzz’s now, so I’ll be good to go tonight.”

Jeff nodded. “I’ll make a call to the concierge at her hotel. He can give us a heads-up if she leaves her room in the next few hours.”

The powwow adjourned, and Trent headed for his own room. He showered again, popped his pills—a sleeping medication that would drop an elephant—and fell into bed. The soft sheets against his naked skin made him think of Chloe draped across him last night, and he fell asleep with a smile on his face.

Trent rolled over and glanced at the clock beside his bed. Six o’clock? Wow. He’d slept all day. Chloe’d tired him out more than he’d realized. Another side effect of his special abilities kicked in and his stomach growled loudly. He’d been known to burn in excess of twelve thousand calories a day when he was really active.

After ordering a steak, two baked potatoes, a large salad and a chocolate milkshake from room service, he moved over to his window to have a look across the street. Chloe’s room was on the fourth floor, last one on the left. No light showed through the curtains. Given that Jeff had left no messages indicating that she’d left her room, she must still be sleeping off last night.

He probably shouldn’t take satisfaction from that, but he couldn’t help it. The idea of having made love to her until she had to sleep all day to recover made him smile. The last time he’d felt this kind of adolescent pride had been his first time with a girl when he was about sixteen.

A houseboy arrived with supper, and he pulled the wheeled cart over by the window to eat. His body eagerly absorbed the calories, and he eventually pushed back his empty plate in deep satisfaction. That should hold him for a few hours. He picked up a newspaper and browsed it while he kept an eye on Chloe’s window.

Somewhere between the business and sports sections, her lights finally came on. Good thing. He was starting to get a little worried about her. About a half hour later, his cell phone rang. His pulse leaped as he dug the device out of his pocket. He was disappointed to see Jeff Winston’s name on the phone.

“Hey, boss.”

“Chloe just sent me a text. Turns out this Paradeo company is her first forensic accounting job. She says she’s been hired to take a look at their books. Didn’t say who hired her, so I assume she doesn’t want to name her employer. We’ll be in the conference room, researching Paradeo if you feel up to helping. You may have a long night tonight watching our girl, so don’t feel like you have to come down.”

“No problem. I slept and just finished eating. I’m on my way.”

As the group researched Chloe’s employer, nothing seemed out of the ordinary about it. Paradeo was a smallish investment firm specializing in Central and South American markets. They reluctantly concluded that the Code X team might be forced to follow her and wait until another attempt was made on her life before they identified her attacker. Assuming there was one.

But Trent knew what he’d seen. That SUV had waited until she stepped into the street and then gone straight at her with the intent to seriously harm or kill her.

“Anybody know Chloe’s travel schedule?” Jeff asked the room at large.

Novak’s voice came across the speakerphone almost immediately. “She’s flying out of Denver Stapleton tomorrow morning. Arrives in San Francisco at 2:10 in the afternoon.”

Jeff nodded. “We’ve got the manpower here to get her to Stapleton and onto that plane safely. Trent, if you want to go on ahead to California and get into position at the other end to take over watching her, that would be great.”

He didn’t like the idea of leaving her, even for a few hours. But what choice did he have? The odds were much greater that she’d be attacked at home rather than here where she was surrounded by Jeff and the rest of the Code X team.

Reluctantly, he packed his bags and headed for the late flight Novak arranged for him with Jeff’s last warning ringing in his ears. “It would kill Sunny if anything happened to her sister. And you know what’s on the line if this thing turns out to be aimed at Code X. I’m counting on you, Trent.”

One thing he knew for sure. Chloe Jordan was not getting hurt on his watch.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.