Hidden Agenda

Conner would have to go there, apologize for the actions of a dead man and smooth some feathers, perhaps literally. But he welcomed any excuse to spend time in the forest, even dealing with disasters.

He had so little time these days. He wondered briefly if he could delegate the trip, then shook his head. Who would he send? Jillian? She might be good with paperwork, but he had his doubts she could manage trees, owls and angry forest rangers.

No, he’d have to go himself. But perhaps he would take Jillian with him. If she was going to stick around for any length of time—and he had to admit, she seemed a good fit for the job—he might as well start teaching her about lumber so she could really be of service to him.

Conner exited his office and strode into Jillian’s area, standing above her desk until she looked up. She was in the process of entering the corrections for the report.

“I’ll need another twenty minutes for the revised report,” she said.

“That’s not why I’m here. Were you apprised, when you took this job, that there might be some travel involved?”

“No, actually, I wasn’t.”

Conner felt a slight sense of relief. She didn’t sound happy. If she refused to travel, he could use that as grounds for firing her.

Not that he wanted to fire her. Not yet. But having a valid reason when he did send her packing would go a long way toward avoiding a wrongful termination lawsuit. He’d made some of his previous admins very unhappy with his admittedly unreasonable demands and capricious, sudden terminations, but so far none of them had sued.

“On occasion I attend meetings in the field with forestry experts, government pencil-pushers, eco groups, landowners. I need someone to make travel arrangements and keep me organized during the trip. I might need you to pack certain documents, a computer for PowerPoint presentations, and also to take notes during the meeting—make an audio recording, too—and transcribe it later. Is that a problem?”

“No, I don’t have a problem with that.”

“Good. Set up a meeting tomorrow afternoon in Stirrup Creek. I’ll forward the email that has the pertinent information. We’ll stay overnight and drive back in the morning. Reserve a Jeep from the company fleet. Do you own a pair of hiking boots?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re physically fit enough to hike into the woods?”

“Yes.”

“Can you operate a digital camera and get decent results?”

“Yes.” She looked up expectantly, her gaze direct and slightly challenging. He simply wasn’t used to this can-do attitude. No whining? No endless questions about what to wear, what to bring, what they would be doing, where they would eat, what kind of rooms she should reserve?

Just yes?

A beautiful woman who said yes. Jillian was dangerous to his libido. Tomorrow, she would show her true colors, he was sure of it. She was probably trying hard to make an extra-good impression, it being her first week and all. But at the first sign of a mosquito she would go ballistic and prove herself inadequate for the job.

“Okay, then.” He spun on his loafers and walked away, but Jillian stopped him.

“Conner?”

“Yes?” he asked without turning to look at her. Here it comes.

“There’s an intercom between our offices. You don’t have to keep walking out the door and around the corner. That seems a waste of your valuable time.”

He returned to stand in front of her desk again, purposely glowering at her. “You don’t like me checking up on you?”

“Is that what you’re doing? Afraid you’ll catch me watching a movie on my phone or talking to my boyfriend on company time?”

Her gutsy comeback took his breath away, as did her mention of a boyfriend. She acted as if she didn’t really need this job. And maybe she didn’t. Her paycheck was probably a drop in the bucket compared to her trust fund.

Or maybe it was her sugar daddy who paid for those expensive clothes. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“I don’t see how that information is pertinent to my job,” she asked, her tone carefully neutral. No snark. She wanted to please him, but at the same time she wasn’t going to take a whole lot of crap from him.

Good for you, Jillian Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is.

“Some significant others object to an employee’s travel schedule. I’d like to know whether I’m causing any domestic discord.”

“If there is, I’ll deal with it. But thank you for your concern.”

“I was checking up on you,” he admitted. “It only makes sense that I would keep a close eye on you your first few days.”

She thought about that for a moment, then said, “Yes, it does make sense. Thank you for your honesty. I’ll make the travel arrangements as soon as I receive the email.”

Conner’s skin tingled all over as he returned to his office. She definitely turned him on, which was a damned nuisance. What a brilliant move, insisting she accompany him on a business trip when he couldn’t spend two minutes in the same room with her before sporting a hard-on.

Way to go, Blake.

* * *

“SORRY I’M LATE,” JILLIAN said to Celeste, who was waiting for her on the atrium level overlooking the ice skating rink at The Galleria Mall. “The ogre wanted me to type up some notes of his before I went home.”

“The ogre?” Celeste heaved her faux-lizard bag onto her shoulder.

“My new pet name for him. It’s not enough that he has to terrorize me during work hours. Now he’s making me go on a business trip with him.”

“Whoa, Nellie, what’s that about? He’s trying to put the moves on you already?”

Jillian shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that. He’s testing me. Wants to see how much he can abuse me. Apparently that’s part of the job description they didn’t tell me about—a high tolerance for crap. His former assistants couldn’t handle it, but obviously I have to.”

“If you want any pointers, just ask me. You have no idea the kind of shenanigans I had to endure early in my career. Hateful stuff. The kind of sexist hazing that would get you thrown in jail nowadays.”

“I’m not sure this is sexist.” Jillian watched the handful of skaters buzzing around the ice—the little princesses with their flirty skirts, the gangs of boys racing and cutting up. “He’s trying to prove he’s the alpha, I think.”

“The alpha can mate with any female in the pack,” Celeste pointed out, which didn’t put Jillian at ease. “So what do you need my help with? I’m the shopping queen, but surely you’re at least a princess at it yourself. You’re the best-dressed person I know besides moi.”

Jillian tried to take that as a compliment. Today Celeste wore an ankle-length skirt with frogs printed all over it, a fluorescent orange tank top and a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped out. She’d tied her hair up in a hot-pink zebra-stripe scarf. Her dangle earrings were papier-mâché frogs, which at least matched the skirt in theme if not color.

“I need to buy hiking clothes. And boots. And a digital camera.”

“Ah, I know just the place.”

Celeste dragged her to Cliffs, an upscale sporting goods store, where Jillian purchased two pair of sturdy, canvas pants with lots of pockets, two long-sleeved cotton shirts, thick socks, hiking boots, a wide-brimmed hat, work gloves and a backpack. She also grabbed a handheld GPS, bug repellant, sunscreen, lip balm, a water bottle, granola bars and waterproof matches.

“Matches?” Celeste put her hands on her bony hips. “Oh, come on. Throw in a tent and sleeping bag, and you could hike across the whole country.”

“I don’t want to be caught unprepared. What about this snakebite kit?”

Celeste just gave her a look.

“Well, there are snakes in the woods.” She spotted some machetes hanging on the wall. “Do you think I need one of these, to cut through the brush?”

Celeste walked closer to the display, then tested a machete blade with her thumb. “Sharp. I wonder if this is like the one Leo Simonetti used to cut off his victims’ heads. Remember that case?”

“On second thought, maybe it’s not a good idea for me to be alone in the woods with an infuriating man and sharp objects.” Jillian gathered up her purchases and took her place in the checkout line.

“So, have you made any progress? Finding the real killer, I mean.”

“Well…one of the security guards suspects my boss.”

Celeste’s plucked eyebrows flew up and almost met her hairline. “Your boss? Hot diggity! If he did it, then the evidence must be in his office or his computer, his phone, or his correspondence—he left a trail, they always do. Does he seem…secretive?”

“Yes, actually. He nearly blew a gasket when I cleaned up my own office. He told me he doesn’t want me to touch his papers or his computer without his express permission.”

“Honey, I think you’re on to something.” Celeste thought for a moment, then suddenly gasped. “Maybe you already saw the incriminating evidence but don’t know enough yet to recognize it. If he suspects you’re on to him…maybe he’s going to take you into the woods and make you disappear.”

Jillian almost regretted confiding in Celeste. “I don’t think that’s the case,” she said.

“Just make sure someone else in the company knows where you’ll be—and who you’ll be with. Oh, and I brought you some more gear to help you with your spying.”

“I’m not supposed to be spying.”

“Do you want to get ahead or not? If you do, you have to take some initiative.”

A few minutes later—and with her wallet several hundred dollars lighter—Jillian was seated across from Celeste at a mall café eating a chicken Caesar salad. Celeste, impatient to show off her “gear,” started emptying her gargantuan purse. She hauled out a wad of wires and laid it on the table. “To record telephone calls.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

Celeste slid her gaze away guiltily. “Okay, how about this?” She pulled out a rather clunky-looking pair of sunglasses. “There’s a video camera in the earpiece. Records up to thirty minutes of video on this tiny flash card. You can pop it right into your computer for viewing.”

“Celeste, where do you get all this stuff?”

“Mostly The Spy Store. Sometimes I order it from the back of Soldier of Fortune Magazine. They have the weird stuff.”

“I don’t want to record phone calls,” Jillian said. “That’s wiretapping, and it’s a felony.” Daniel would have her head if she went against his orders and broke the law.

“Even to bring a murderer to justice? Honey, do you want to be stuck filing and making coffee forever? Because that’s what happens to women in this field unless they go out on a limb. You have to be smarter, stronger, faster and lots more clever than the men just to break even.”

Jillian knew what Celeste had said was at least partly true, even in this day and age. She considered Daniel enlightened, not particularly sexist, yet Project Justice itself was clothed in an air of macho that favored brawn over brains and subtlety. Even her professors at the junior college where she took her criminal justice classes didn’t take her seriously because of her delicate appearance.

“You don’t have to tell anyone you made the recordings,” Celeste reasoned. “Just let the information you glean point you in the right direction. Make yourself look smart.”

Jillian scooped up all of Celeste’s toys and stuffed them into her shopping bag. “I’ll think about it. And, Celeste…thanks.”

Celeste took a big bite of her hamburger and spoke around it. “Us girls gotta stick together.”

* * *

“IS SOMETHING WRONG, Mr. Blake?” asked Letitia, the security guard, as Conner strolled in through the garage entrance early the next morning.

“Wrong? What do you mean?”

“You’re whistling. I’ve never heard you whistle before.” She lowered her voice. “I thought maybe you were trying to signal me that there was some kind of trouble.”

Conner shook his head. “No, no trouble. I’m just in a good mood, I guess.”

Letitia laughed. “Yeah, right. Have a good day, Mr. Blake.”

“You, too, Letitia.”

Conner supposed he deserved the guard’s derision. Three years working in this building and he’d probably never spared a nice word for her. He was a Grade A grouch. A good mood wasn’t a familiar state for him.

But how could he not feel good? In a few hours, he would be in the forest—pine needles crunching underfoot, breeze blowing through the high branches, fresh air washing the Houston smog out of his lungs, birds calling.

A stand of second-growth pine wasn’t quite the same as an old-growth forest in Montenegro, or the rain forest in Brazil. There was something special—sacred almost—about a part of the earth that hadn’t been touched by human development, and he always felt good knowing that he was protecting those areas from other, less responsible lumber operations that would clear-cut the trees, rather than selectively harvesting mature trees and leaving behind smaller ones for the next generation—and for all the critters who called the forest home.

Sure, his way was more expensive. But landowners and governments who managed public lands were more likely to sell to Mayall because of the care they took.

Conner’s musings came to an abrupt halt as he walked down the door to his office and got an eyeful of Dora the Explorer.

Jillian wore pants with enough pockets that she could carry provisions for an army. The camo shirt—what was that, National Guard chic? And those boots—good gravy, they must weigh twenty pounds each. The hat was more appropriate for a survival hike through the desert than a walk in the woods.

He couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing. “What the hell are you supposed to be? Are you auditioning for a role on the next season of Survivor?”

The hurt look on Jillian’s face immediately sobered him. He hadn’t meant to ridicule her.

“I dressed prepared for a hike, as suggested,” she said coolly.

He held up a hand. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed, Jilly…Jillian.”

Jilly. Jilly. Why had he called her that?

Then it hit him. Jillybean. This situation reminded him viscerally of another time when he’d laughed at a female’s expense. Her name was even similar. And that expression of injury on her face—uncannily the same.

Jillian pulled out a compact from her purse and tried to see herself in the tiny mirror. “Surely I don’t look that bad.”

“No,” he said distractedly as he stared at her, studying her features, trying to see something that wasn’t there. “You follow directions extremely well and you look…” Adorable. Sexy. How could a woman in camo, covered head to toe, look sexy? “Well prepared. We’ll leave in a few minutes, I just want to check my mail.” He escaped into his office and shut the door.

What was Jillian’s last name? Though the situation had reminded him of something from years ago, this Jillian couldn’t possibly be Jill Baxter, his friend Jeff’s kid sister. Jill had been short and chubby with a mop of frizzy, green-blond hair, a mouthful of braces, and a long, beaky nose.

Still, Conner rifled through the papers on his desk until he came up with the stack of résumés Joyce had given him to look over, a task he’d never gotten around to, forcing her to make a decision on her own. He flipped through them until he found Jillian’s.

Jillian Baxter.

Baxter was a common name—it couldn’t be the same Jill. But he hadn’t seen her since she was fourteen. That was, what, thirteen years ago? That would make her around twenty-seven now. The age was about right.

Though he and Jeff had been good friends at one time, they’d drifted apart after high school. Their families exchanged Christmas cards, but that was about it. He thought about looking Jeff up on Facebook, seeing if he could reconnect with his old buddy. Or, he could simply sift through Jeff’s friends and see if his sister was there, and what she looked like today.

In the end, though, he decided he didn’t have time for such a foolish pursuit. There was no possible way the gorgeous woman sitting at her desk just down the hall with the tiny waist and the sleek hair—and the straight, aristocratic, but definitely nonbeaky nose—was Jillybean, the girl he had humiliated in front of teachers, parents and half the student body.

The girl he’d last seen in her underwear, streaking across the football field toward the locker room as fast as her stubby little legs could carry her.

The girl who had vowed to hate his guts for the rest of his days, who had cursed his unborn children and sworn to condemn to hell if she could—according to Jeff, anyway. Conner had been advised not to get within a hundred yards of her if he valued his manhood.

He smiled at the memory; then immediately a tremendous stab of guilt nailed him right in the stomach. The incident had seemed terribly funny at the time, and he’d gotten extracurricular credit for participating in the science fair despite his invention’s obvious drawbacks. He’d gained yet another notch of notoriety at his high school—the kind teenage boys thrived on.

But it hadn’t been so funny to Jilly. Long after he’d gone off to college, he’d reflected on the incident and realized how mean he’d been to laugh at her expense. But he hadn’t felt bad enough to contact her and apologize.

Had she ever forgiven him? Probably not.

It was a good thing his new admin wasn’t the chubby Jillybean from his past, or he might have to think twice about spending time with her in the woods, alone, where there were no witnesses.

CHAPTER FOUR

JILLIAN TRIED NOT TO LOOK AT Conner. Although the four-wheel drive Jeep Cherokee Sport wasn’t a small car, it felt small when she was sitting in the front seat with Conner, whose sheer physicality dominated any space he occupied.

Instead, she experimented with her camera, consulting the instruction book, fiddling with the settings.

“Is that a new camera?” Conner asked once he’d navigated out of the worst of the Houston traffic. They were headed for the East Texas piney woods, a trip that would take them about three hours. She wondered why they had to stay overnight—it wasn’t that far. But she figured he knew what he was doing.

Celeste had insisted he wanted to get her out of town so he could either murder her or seduce her with no witnesses, but Celeste was prone to drama.

“Yes, I just got it yesterday.”

“I thought you said you knew how to use a digital camera.”

“I do.” The one on her phone, anyway. This one was more complex than she’d thought it would be. She’d snapped a few photos the previous evening just to be sure she had the basics down, but she had much to learn about settings and exposure. “I needed a new camera anyway, and this seemed like a good time to buy one. What will I be taking pictures of?”

“I’m not sure. Apparently the lumbering crew got overzealous and took down some kind of special owl tree.”

“Owl tree?”

“A hollow tree that’s been a barn owl nesting site for the past ten years.”

“Oh, poor owls. So this is a big deal?”

“Since our agreement with the landowner specifically stated that this tree, and the area around it, wouldn’t be disturbed, we could get sued. But even without the legal angle, it’s still a big deal. Hollow trees aren’t that easy to come by. For every cavity, the owls have to compete with other birds, like woodpeckers.”

That explained why the back of the Jeep was filled with birdhouses. Apparently Conner planned to offer some alternative housing for the owls whose home had been destroyed, and some for their competitors, as well.

“Are they endangered owls?”

“They’re rare in this part of Texas. The state forestry people like owls because the little ones eat insect pests that harm trees, and the larger ones, like barn owls, keep rodents in check. They’re an important part of the food chain.”

Jillian didn’t know anything about owls, but apparently Conner did. He’d always been interested in science, she remembered that about him. His father had been some kind of ecoscientist back before “green” was in. Conner had been smart, too—straight A’s. He’d managed to make that look cool.

Even entering the science fair—a notoriously geeky thing to do—had looked good on him.

Jillian stopped, determinedly focusing on the road ahead, the sky, the puffy white clouds. Thinking about that science fair when Conner was sitting inches from her was a dangerous thing to do.

“Your guy didn’t destroy a nest, did he? Like, with babies?” Jillian didn’t have any pets of her own, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like animals. She’d doted on Daniel’s golden retriever.

“Nesting season is over. But the adult owls were still roosting at the nest site, and they were undoubtedly disturbed.”

After a few more minutes Conner turned off the main road, then onto a still smaller road, then finally onto a logging road that was no more than a couple of tire ruts in the red dirt.

Conner was busy driving, skillfully lurching from bump to bump and avoiding the largest of the holes, so Jillian could study him without fear that he would notice. He seemed to change as they left civilization. The deeper they got into the woods, the more relaxed his face became, to the point where he was almost smiling.

She’d seen nothing but anger, impatience and irritation from him at the office; now he seemed to be enjoying himself.

However, his face and body grew tense again as they approached the logging site. This area, scarred by the trucks and saws, wasn’t so pretty, littered with the stumps of pine trees.

“What the hell’s going on here?” he muttered.

“Is something wrong?”

“Something is very wrong.”

Eventually they pulled up behind a huge, flatbed truck half-filled with logs. A U.S. Forest Service truck was parked off to the side. Several men, mostly in work clothes, milled around.

Conner grabbed a folder from the backseat and nearly flew out of the truck.

Ready for anything, Jillian followed, her camera around her neck, a digital recorder in one pocket and a notepad in the other.

One of the workmen, a scruffy-looking redhead with a full beard, was already heading toward Conner, his long stride full of purpose. “Mr. Blake. I didn’t know anything about owls, I swear. I was just taking down the trees that were marked.”

A second man had come forward, a tall, gaunt man in his sixties in overalls, clutching an unlit pipe in one hand. “He’s practically clear-cutting! Our contract states no more than twenty-five percent of the trees were to be cut, and just look at this! It’s a good thing I came to check on the progress.”

“I only cut the marked trees,” Scruffy Redhead said again. “You can check the truck. Every single tree on that truck is marked with blue paint.”

Jillian switched on the recorder, then started scribbling notes as fast as she could. This wasn’t anything like the civilized meetings she used to deal with at Daniel’s estate. It was a good thing she’d developed her own version of shorthand.

“Who did the marking, then?” Pipe Man asked.

“A man named Greg Tynes.” Conner’s jaw tightened and he all but spit on the ground, so obvious was his contempt. “I personally went over the contract with him and instructed how he was to mark. Obviously he didn’t follow directions.”

Jillian’s heart quickened. So the dead man had been violating the terms of the lumber company’s contract with the landowner. Could that be a motive for murder?

“Well, I hope you fired him!” Pipe Man said indignantly. “My forest looks like a wasteland.”

“Rest assured, Greg Tynes no longer works for Mayall Lumber,” Conner said, giving nothing away. “In fact, he’ll never work in the timber business again.”

That was one promise Conner could keep.

The young, female forest ranger, who’d been listening intently, finally spoke up. “There’s more at stake than just the aesthetics of this woods. Mr. Whatley’s land abuts public lands, forming a contiguous forest, the size of which is crucial to—”

“The owls,” Conner said.

“Yes. Barn owl populations have been declining over the years. The nest site in question has been monitored by Cornell University for ten years. A camera has been in place for five.”