Page 23 of Death Wish

“A snack would be great.” She wrinkled her nose. “I shouldn’t be hungry after our supper. I am, though.”

“Walk around for a couple of minutes while I put a snack together.”

“You’re going to spoil me, Jesse.”

He sobered. “That’s my intention, sweetheart.”

“I shouldn’t get used to it. We’re playing a role here. Losing you will hurt like crazy as it is.”

“Not going to happen.” He nudged her toward the archway between the kitchen and the rest of the house. “Walk. Your snack will be ready in a couple of minutes.”

After Simone left, Jesse blew out a breath. He was moving too fast and knew it but couldn’t stop. He was crazy about the feisty little programmer. Losing her would gut him, too, so he had to convince Simone to give him a real chance.

Pushing his concern aside for now, he headed for the refrigerator. He saw a couple of excellent possibilities. However, remembering her earlier comment at lunch about her favored late-night snack, Jesse poked around in the freezer. Score!

He grinned as he removed a frozen apple pie. This would be perfect with the vanilla ice cream he’d spotted earlier.

Jesse turned on the oven to the correct temperature and prepped a new pot of coffee. Simone wouldn’t mind the wait with this feast as the reward. He’d just placed the pie in the oven when she returned to the kitchen.

Gaze fixed on the oven, she asked, “What are you baking?”

“A surprise. You don’t mind a brief wait, do you?”

“If sweets are involved, nope.” Simone returned to the table and sat down to resume work.

He watched as the coffeemaker began the brewing cycle, considering what he’d learned about White so far. Not enough. The first step was to find out where he was. If he was still in California, then Jesse would leave him to his own devices until this mission was over.

However, if another operative was in the San Francisco area and didn’t mind making a point to White, Jesse would be glad to owe the coworker a huge favor.

He thought about that a minute and decided sending a friend to confront White didn’t feel right. This was something Jesse needed to handle personally.

When the coffee finished brewing, he filled their mugs and returned to his computer to search for White’s whereabouts while he waited for the apple pie to finish baking.

Less than an hour later, Jesse cut the pie and placed a steaming slice in a bowl, topped it with ice cream, and carried the bowl and spoon to the table for Simone.

Her eyes lit and she breathed deep. “Oh, man. That smells fabulous. Thanks, Jesse.”

“Need more coffee?”

Simone shook her head. “I’m ready to switch to water now.”

After handing her a bottle of water, he dished his own dessert into a bowl and joined her at the table. “How’s it going?”

“Slow. Joy told me the names of the people in the special projects division, so I’ve been looking into their backgrounds. Nothing has stood out yet, but it’s just a preliminary run. They’re just computer geeks like I am.”

“They must have some impressive qualifications to land a job at Dragon Alley.”

She spooned up a bite of pie with the ice cream and chewed, an expression of bliss on her face. “This is so good. A perfect chaser to dinner. Anyway, to answer your question, the four of them have impressive skills and programming wins to their names. They’re also good enough to bury their backgrounds online.”

“Did you run them through the Fortress databases?”

“Not yet. I wanted to see what was out there on the Web first. Everything in cyberspace is carefully crafted. I need to see behind the mask.”

“Zane has probably already done a preliminary run on them, especially since you’re one of his employees. He leaves nothing to chance with his people.”

She swallowed another bite. “I imagine you’re right. I’ll check the databases and a couple of other sites before I call it quits for the night. What about you? How are you making out with your research?”

“Not making as much progress as I wanted either.”

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