* * *
SHE WAS HIS number one-suspect—of whatever he suspected her. The suspicion was back in his piercing blue eyes as he stared at her. She hadn’t helped herself by defending Martin. But there was no way her assistant could be guilty of anything that had people getting shot at and killed.
“Who does have the clearance level you have or an even higher level?” he asked.
“My boss.” Peter Nowak had been a CIA agent before he’d started his computer consultation business, though. That was why some of the biggest banks and financial institutions in the world as well as the US and several other governments had entrusted him to ensure their internet security. He was good at what he did, and he was beyond suspicion.
So she wasn’t surprised when Agent Ash Stryker didn’t even blink those surprisingly long, black lashes of his. He had no suspicions about Peter Nowak. His suspicions were all about her.
“None of the other hackers have your level of clearance?” he asked.
Maybe he was willing to consider another suspect. But she didn’t have anyone to offer him.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I suspect that you know.”
“You,” he said, confirming her fears. “You have the highest clearance besides Peter Nowak.”
She sighed as weariness overwhelmed her. It had been a long day before someone had tried abducting her from the parking lot of the speed dating hotel. “I thought so.” That was why she worked so many hours—nobody else could work on the projects she worked. “Since Leslie retired...”
“Leslie?”
“Leslie Morrison retired last year. I was his assistant when I first started working here,” she explained. “Leslie taught me everything I know, a lot more than I learned in college.” Her professors had been behind the new technology, while Mr. Nowak’s company had been beyond it—far beyond it.
“So Leslie is a better hacker than you are?”
She shivered at his coldly suspicious tone. She hadn’t offered up Leslie to defray guilt from herself. She wasn’t guilty, and neither was Leslie. She slammed her desk drawer shut. “Leslie isn’t a hacker anymore.”
“I’m sure he still knows how to hack, though,” Agent Stryker persisted.
She shook her head. “Hacking isn’t like riding a bike. Technology changes so quickly that you have to constantly be hacking to be any good. If you’re away from it too long, you’re going to be so far behind the security systems and software that you won’t be able to hack into anything anymore.”
And she’d done it again—deflected guilt off someone else and back onto herself. He was looking at her that way again, as if he was imagining himself slapping cuffs on her, while just a short while ago she’d been imagining herself undressing him.
It really was unfair that he was so good-looking. The FBI agents who had arrested her the first time had been old, or at least they had seemed old to her sixteen-year-old self. Their hair had been gray and receding while their waistlines had been expanding.
Why couldn’t Ash Stryker look like that?
Why did his black hair have to be so thick and soft looking? So soft looking that she was tempted to run her fingers through it...
She had been right to join the dating service. It had been entirely too long since she’d been with a man. That had to be the reason why she was so physically attracted to Ash. It had to be the only reason.
“Are you done here?” he asked.
She glanced around the small office. She had organized it again—as much as it was ever organized. It didn’t look neat, but at least things were back where she had left them. She shuddered at the thought of someone touching all her stuff. Had they touched her globe, too? If not the intruders, the crime lab who’d investigated and collected evidence might have. They’d left fingerprint dust all over, too, which she’d had to clean up. She hated cleaning.
She reached for the globe again, tempted to take it home with her. But she wasn’t sure she was going home. And with security increased at the company, nobody would ever be able to break in again. The globe would be safe. But was she?
“What if I tell you that I am done?” she asked. “Will you take me back to the hotel to get my car?”
“No,” he said, and his deep voice held that no-nonsense, matter-of-fact tone that so infuriated her.
His reply confirmed her suspicion that he was actually going to bring her in for questioning. He might even arrest her. She didn’t understand exactly what crime he suspected her of, but she had offered him no other suspects.
She drew in a deep breath and stood, ready for him to slap the cuffs on her, ready to relive all her nightmares from nine years ago...
* * *
IT WAS LATE.
Too late to question her any further. So Ash wasn’t taking her back to the Bureau. For one, he was beginning to believe she really didn’t know any more than she’d already told him. And secondly, she was exhausted.
Her slight body slumped down in the passenger’s seat of his Bureau-issued black SUV. She was nearly asleep, but she fought back a yawn and told him, “You didn’t have to drive me home.”
He heard the surprise in her voice; she hadn’t expected him to bring her home. She had suspected him to arrest her. Earlier that evening, he would have thought that was because she had a guilty conscience. But now that he was beginning to get to know her better...
He wasn’t sure what to think of Claire Molenski anymore. She was smart, but he’d already known that. She was sexy; that he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known how his body would react to hers. While she shivered slightly despite the heat blowing out of the vents, his skin was hot, his body tense.
That could have been just because of the adrenaline. He had nearly lost her a couple of times. He had to be vigilant because it wasn’t a question of if there would be another attempt to grab her. It was a question of when.
And that made him wonder about her guilt.
Maybe her only crime was being too smart. But then who had offered her knowledge for sale? He had been so certain she was the threat that he hadn’t really considered other suspects. Only Nowak Computer Consulting, or “No Hack” as it was known in inner circles, had the means to infiltrate those sites.
“You could have just brought me back to my car at the hotel,” she said.
He could have. Or he could have handed her off to another agent to drive home. He didn’t do security detail. His specialty had always been putting himself at risk, going undercover rather than protecting other people.
“No, I couldn’t,” he said. While he worked with good agents, damn good agents, he hadn’t wanted to trust anyone else with her safety. “There have already been two attempts to abduct you.” He suspected there would be more—many more—since so many radical groups and subversive governments wanted the information she possessed.
“Me,”
