at the garden, you could almost imagine yourself on some tropical island.
Samantha studied her for a moment before saying simply, “Tell me what you need.”
“I…I’m not sure. I just found out this morning that…a friend is in trouble.”
The blonde nodded. “I read the newspaper article after Josh called.”
Liana’s eyes widened. “He called you? Himself?”
Samantha grinned. “Welcome to Redstone,” she repeated. “You’re family now, and Josh takes his family very seriously.”
“I’ve always heard that, but…”
“And you’re a special case,” Samantha added.
Liana blinked. “I am?”
Samantha nodded. “He knows perfectly well this job is a step down for you, that you were running your own department nearly the size of our R & D at JetCal.”
“I wanted to work for Redstone.”
“We know. And you were willing to take a job some would say was beneath you to do it.”
“I don’t plan to stay an assistant forever.”
Samantha smiled. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here.” She gave Liana a thoughtful, assessing look. “Josh also knows why you left JetCal.”
She’d made no secret of the fact that she’d parted ways with her previous employer over the business practices she’d found beyond distasteful. Including and especially the theft from Redstone. “I couldn’t work for a company that thought methods like that were justified,” she said.
“Exactly.” Then, briskly, “So, tell me about Logan Beck.”
“He…saved my life.”
“I know. And almost died doing it. So you understandably feel a debt.”
“It’s more than that. He just couldn’t have done this.”
“It would be hard to believe your hero could have feet of clay.”
Liana drew herself up. She might be new here, she might be more than a fool to clash with one of Redstone’s vaunted security team, but she simply couldn’t let that stand.
“Not hard. Impossible.”
“You said yourself you haven’t seen him in eight years,” Samantha said gently. “And you didn’t know him for long.”
“But under the most intense of circumstances,” Liana said. “We talked for hours when he was in the hospital. When there was a chance he would die. When he knew that. I don’t believe he hid who he was, not then.”
Samantha was silent for a long moment. Then, at last, she nodded. “Good enough. We’ll get started.”
Liana was startled at the turnaround. “What?”
“Not me, I don’t think,” Samantha said thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I might stand out a bit too much in the circles Beck’s been running in. But I know just the right person.”
They really were going to help, Liana thought numbly. The famous Redstone Security team, the group she’d heard such incredible stories about, was going to help. She’d been here a grand total of two hours and Redstone was already behind her. It was a feeling she knew she’d never forget.
“Someone will keep you posted,” Samantha said, getting to her feet. Slowly Liana followed suit.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Thank you is always good,” Samantha said with a grin.
“Yes. Thank you.”
The tall blonde laughed then. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? I was one of Josh’s lowliest, most distant employees, at the Redstone Resort in Sitka. When I needed to make a change, the man himself flew all the way up there to talk me out of quitting and gave me the chance at this job.”
Liana shook her head. “I don’t know what to say to that, either,” she said wryly.
“It’s more like being adopted than getting a job,” Samantha said with another laugh. “Think of it as another perk of working for Redstone.”
Liana slowly made her way back to her new office, marveling at what had just happened. And it wasn’t until she was back there and sitting at her newly hooked up workstation that she thought to question whether Logan Beck was going to welcome what she’d done.
As he left the station after his second day of blistering interrogation, too aware of the glances of the cops he passed on the way to his car, there was only one thing Logan Beck was certain of: he wasn’t about to stay out of this as ordered. Damned if he was going to sit on his ass while those IA pogues decided his future—or if he was going to have one. He had too much at stake to sit on the sidelines.
There had been a time when he might have, when he might have trusted he’d be cleared simply because he was innocent. But that time, and that naive optimism, had died long ago. And even if he did still trust the system he was part of, he wasn’t sure anything could overcome the single biggest problem he had.
Somebody wanted him taken down.
Angrily he popped the clutch as he pulled out onto the street, and the bark of the tires on asphalt made him rein in the sporty BMW they’d given him as part of his cover. They’d likely be repossessing that soon, he thought, and he’d be on foot, since he’d sold his battered SUV when he’d gone under. But in the meantime, manually slamming through the gears gave him a certain satisfaction.
He drove with much more concentration than the task required midday on a Wednesday, trying to keep his mind out of what had already become a deep and seemingly endless rut. He couldn’t go back to the tiny apartment he’d been using—not yet. They were no doubt still combing over it for proof he’d turned.
Won’t find any, he told himself, but his gut was screaming that wasn’t necessarily true. After all, there was that bank deposit he’d have sworn didn’t exist, either. Whoever was setting him up was doing a thorough job of it, and the possibility that something had been planted in that apartment wasn’t at all unlikely.
He turned the car toward the beach, needing someplace to just think. Things had happened so fast he wasn’t sure where to even start trying to unravel it all.
That his cover had been compromised was the first, most logical conclusion. But that answer fell apart quickly; if Marcos had discovered he was a cop, wouldn’t he have just killed him on the spot? Of course, that didn’t mean that he simply hadn’t had time before IA had come knocking on Logan’s door. And it didn’t mean that Marcos wasn’t looking to kill him now that he knew he’d been played by a cop.
No sooner had the thought formed than the thing that had been niggling at the edge of his consciousness finally penetrated completely.
He was being followed.
On some level
