Page 21 of Once a Killer

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At seven o’clock that evening, Jameson watched Bree drop her notebook into her bag, then stand up slowly. She’d sat at the small table in his office and typed up her notes from her ‘interview’ with Hayley. Then she’d surfed the web, and he wondered what she’d been looking for.

Information on the people working for him? Info abouthim?

He hoped not. If she had any questions about him, he wanted her to ask him. But she hadn’t said much to him all day.

Had Hayley dropped some of her poison into Bree’s ears? Made her wonder about him?

He figured Bree was too smart to listen to Hayley’s complaints, but how well did he know Bree, really?

He opened the lab door, let Bree walk out, then followed and locked the door. Checked to make sure the lock had engaged.

Bree didn’t say anything as they stepped into the elevator, and neither did he. Questions he wanted to blurt out hung in the air, unspoken but still a breathing thing between them. Tension swirled in the small space as they rode to the first floor.

He gripped his briefcase more tightly as they stepped out of the elevator and walked toward the door. He always hated the walk from the building to his car. Every morning and every evening, he braced for someone to jump him. Didn’t relax until he was inside the Monster with the doors locked.

Bree clearly sensed his unease, because she glanced at him several times. But when they stepped out of the building into the twilight and began walking across the parking lot, her attention snapped to their surroundings.

Her head swiveled constantly, looking at everything. Peering into every dark corner. Examining each of the cars left in the lot. Her hand hovered near her left shoulder, fingers twitching. Ready to grab her gun.

When they reached the big SUV, the first thing she did was squat down and peer beneath it. After studying the undercarriage, she stood up. Unlocked the car and opened the driver’s side door. Reached inside and popped the hood. Opened it up and studied the engine area. She then closed the hood, opened the rear hatch, closed it and opened one of the back doors. Just as she had this morning. “Clear. Hop in,” she said, sliding into the driver’s seat.

When they were in the Expedition, the doors locked, she turned to look at him. “Are you that tense every evening when you walk to your car? That hyper-alert?”

“Every morning and every night,” he said immediately.

“I understand why you would be, after your near-accident. But you can stand down,” she said. “Checking everything? Watching for threats? That’s my job.”

He shot her an incredulous look. “So I should just skip blithely to my car every evening?”

She was staring at the windshield, but he caught her eye roll.

“Although I’d pay money to see you skip, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m good at my job,” she said. “That’s why Mel and Dev sent me. And no, you shouldn’t let your guard down. But you don’t have to be so wound up. So on the knife-edge of panic all the time.

“My job is to see threats to you. This parking lot would be a damn good spot for an ambush, which you obviously realized. You leave late, there are very few other cars here now. It’s mid-summer, though, and it stays light pretty late. That helps, because darkness is a bad guy’s friend.

“But as long as you focus on your surroundings instead of getting lost in your head, thinking about your program, you be fine. I’ll catch anything that seems out of place. Off. Unusual. You don’t need to freak out.”

“I won’t freak out,” he said, insulted by the implication. “And two sets of eyes are better than one.”

“I agree. That’s why I said you need to focus on your surroundings. But you’re not alone anymore. You have a bodyguard, and I’ll do the heavy lifting.”

His gaze swept over her. She was doing her job, sure, but he found her intensity, her focus, incredibly hot. He wanted to climb into her brain. Figure out how her mind worked.

He sighed. He wanted to climb into more than her brain. He wanted to know what those boxy clothes hid. He knew she wore the baggy, loose clothing to make it easier to move. Easier to react. Easier to run, if she had to.

But he wanted his hands on those carefully hidden curves. And wasn’t that an inconvenient, unwelcome impulse? He shook his head. He’d be damned if he’d compromise her that way. Compromise hissafetythat way. That was an idiot move.

And he wasn’t an idiot.

Her hand still hovered near her shoulder holster, and her head was constantly moving as she studied every inch of the parking lot. “You on the same page?” she asked. “I do the work? Not you?”

“Yeah. Trained professional and all that. I got it.”

“You okay with that?” She glanced at him momentarily, then continued scanning the parking lot.

“Yeah,” he said, taking a deep breath. He was okay with that. Bree might not have been guarding him for long, but he trusted her. “More than okay.” He’d been so tightly wound the last couple of weeks that he didn’t even realize how much the near-miss had affected him. He hadn’t slept well. The increased tension and watchfulness on the drive into the lab meant he was worn out by the time he arrived.

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