CAST OF CHARACTERS

William Caine—The FBI agent turned medical investigator would rather work alone than risk the lives of the people around him, as he seeks to bring down a murderous medical conspiracy called The Nine.

Einstein (Ike) Rombout—Highly claustrophobic and rebelIious, Ike is a trained computer hacker who has her own reasons for going after The Nine—and good luck to the man who tries to get in her way.

Michael Grosskill—The Nine have someone on the inside of the FBI. Could it be William’s former boss?

Maximilian Vasek—The cofounder of Vasek & Caine Investigations has a new wife to protect when things get ugly.

Raine Montgomery—Max’s wife and Ike have never seen eye to eye.

Lukas Kupfer—His research on muscular dystrophy is poised for a revolutionary breakthrough. Is he the conspirators’ next target, or is he one of them?

Dominic Firenzetti—Kupfer’s former partner has a shady past.

Sandy Albrecht—Kupfer’s head lab tech loves to gossip. Could she have revealed sensitive information to the wrong person?

Dekker Smith—Sandy’s boyfriend checks out…at least on the surface.

Prescription:
Makeover
Jessica
Andersen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Kathryn Huse, for saving my bacon

with the loan of a laptop.

This one’s all for you.

Contents

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter One

“I’ve never met anyone like you before.” Zed Brimley’s dark eyes glinted as he toyed with the three glittering studs that marched their way up the curve of Ike Rombout’s ear. “You’re…different from other women. Independent. Undemanding.”

“Clever man. Flattery will get you exactly where you want to be.” Ike nestled closer to Zed, who was a third-year resident at Boston General Hospital and her current weekend bed buddy. The movement caused the ascending ski lift to sway beneath them.

She pulled her ski cap down over her ears, which were bared by her pixie-short black hair, and looked across ski slopes that shined white beneath a perfect Vermont winter sky.

Let’s hear it for separating personal stuff from professional garbage, she thought as she took a deep breath of crisp air and felt the solid press of Zed’s body against hers.

Professionally, she was skirting the edge of some serious trouble. Personally, she was exactly where she wanted to be—taking a long weekend with a handsome, charming guy.

Zed grinned down at her. “Want to hit the lodge after this run? I could use a little something to warm me up.” A suggestive tilt of his eyebrows said he wasn’t talking about coffee. “First one down gets to choose the position?”

“I vote for the Jacuzzi,” Ike said, mentally rolling her eyes. Most guys loved that she’d rather be on top during sex. They didn’t question it, didn’t make her admit that she couldn’t stand the sensation of being trapped. But Zed was one of the ones who automatically wanted what he couldn’t have.

It was the only glitch in an otherwise perfect casual relationship.

“Sounds like a plan.” When the lift reached the top of the slope, he dropped onto the groomed snow and skied toward a marked trail, calling over his shoulder, “See you at the bottom. Last one down is buying dinner!”

Ike grinned, hopped off the lift and followed with a smooth stroke of her glossy black skis. Now that was her kind of challenge. “Then you’d better start warming up your credit card,” she shouted, “’cause here I come!”

Zed laughed and called a masculine taunt that was lost in a chilly burst of crosswind. Clad in a formfitting black jacket and thermal pants, he cut a powerful figure as he dodged a middle-aged woman snowplowing her way toward an easier run and shot down the double-black-diamond trail.

Excitement kindled in Ike’s blood—the love of the outdoors, the thrill of speed and danger. She whooped and followed, hurtling along the top element of the run, a stomach-pitching drop that kicked her from zero to flying in the space of a few heartbeats.

She angled her skis straight down the mountain and felt the strain in her leg muscles, a warning that she was getting soft. But now that things were quieter with both her freelance investigative work and her “real” job as communications director at Boston General, she should be able to get back to the important stuff, like working out. Like acting out.

No way was she letting herself settle too deeply into a rut. Routines were for boring nine-to-fivers. She was all about spontaneity and living on the edge.

Because of it, she let out a yell as she angled between two lines of snow-frosted pine trees and whipped around a corner. There! Zed’s strong figure sluiced a neat zigzag path up ahead, teasing her. Taunting her.

Ike threw back her head and felt laughter bubble up. “Ready or not, here I come!” She accelerated into the next curve, zeroing in on her lover’s broad back as he disappeared around the bend.

She heard a sharp crack and thought for a second that one of the nearby trees had lost a branch. Then she rounded the turn and saw a body sprawled on the trail. Her heart froze in her chest and she screamed, “Zed!”

Going too fast to stop, she tried to turn but hit a patch of ice beneath the loose powder. She cried out and slid sideways, losing control.

Her skis hooked Zed’s motionless form with a sickening jolt. Momentum carried her up and over, and the world exploded in a pinwheel of sky and snow and trees. She flipped twice, slammed to the ground and skidded downhill.

She heard another crack. Recognizing gunfire, she grabbed for the weapon she often carried at the small of her back while freelancing. But the .22 wasn’t there. She was on vacation, damn it!

The Nine don’t care, a small voice said inside her. They’ll get you wherever they find you. Max Vasek warned you, but you didn’t believe him.

Ike’s heart pounded, the rapid thud nearly drowning out all other sounds as she tried to scramble to her feet. This wasn’t happening, couldn’t be happening.Please God, let this be a nightmare.

But she knew it wasn’t a dream the moment another skier flew around the corner, saw Zed’s motionless body and wiped out with a startled yell. A second skier appeared, then a third. She heard their shouts, saw them gesture wildly at Zed, then farther down the slope to where she lay.

One skied toward her, a tall, broad-shouldered man who looked to be in his early forties. He was dressed entirely in gray, and his eyes were shielded behind tinted goggles. He crouched beside her. “Lie still. The ski patrol is on its way.”

“Help me get these things off.” Ike yanked at her skis, cursing the bindings she habitually overtightened to get maximum speed on the slopes. “I work at a hospital. I can help him.”

“You’re hurt. You should—”

“Shut up and help me!” she snapped, and when her would-be rescuer tried to press her down flat, she fought him off, dragged herself to her feet and limped upslope.

She elbowed her way through the growing crowd and dropped down beside Zed’s limp form. He had a bloodstained hand clamped to the side of his neck, and the snow beneath him was slushy and stained red.

“Oh, God. Zed.” She pressed her hand over his in an effort to keep him from bleeding out.

“You probably shouldn’t touch him,” a female voice said from the crowd. “That must’ve been a hell of a wipeout. He could’ve broken his back or something.”

Ike whipped her head around and glared at the speaker, a teenaged snowboarder wearing a purple hoodie. “Shut up and call the ski patrol again. Tell them we’re going to need a helicopter evac and the cops.”

She didn’t mention he’d been shot because she didn’t have time to deal with questions or panic. Zed was her only focus right now. Besides, it hadn’t been a random sniping, one where the gathering crowd would be at risk.

No, there had been a single target, and the shooter was long gone.

“Come on, Zed, stay with me.” She kept up the pressure while she searched for a second wound, but it looked as though he’d only caught the one bullet. Unfortunately it was a hell of a hit. She was a computer jockey, not a doctor, but she knew an arterial bleed when she saw one.

“Where’s the damn ski patrol?” she shouted, her voice sharpening with panic when his breath rattled in his lungs.

“Almost here,” someone said. Zed groaned and shifted, fighting back toward consciousness.

Ike struggled to keep the pressure on when he tried to pull away. “Lie still, Zed. Help’s coming.”

He cried out in pain, opened his eyes and looked around wildly for a few seconds, then zeroed in on her face. His mouth pulled back in a rictus of disbelief, then worked as he tried to say something.

“Hush.” Ike leaned close, trying to shield him from the crowd, trying to will away the grayness she saw creeping over his skin. “Don’t try to talk. Concentrate on breathing, okay?”

He reached up and grabbed her wrist with his free hand, hanging on as though he were sinking. Eyes locked on hers, he managed to say, “Why?”

Tears streaming down her face, Ike leaned closer and said, “Sh. Just breathe.” But deep down inside, guilt stabbed deep at the knowledge that she knew exactly why. The sniper hadn’t been shooting at Zed.

The bullet had been meant for her.

Chapter Two

Three months later

“I can’t believe I have to wear a coat in my own office,” William Caine muttered. “It’s spring already. Isn’t it supposed to be warm out?”

He sent a glare toward the thermostat, which was set at a chill fifty degrees, and yanked on his leather bomber jacket before returning to his desk, where a computer competed for space with a multiline phone and a pile of papers. Off to one side, a coffee mug overflowed with the pens that seemed to breed in his pockets.

“You got a better idea for cutting costs?” his partner’s voice asked from the hall.

“Nope.” William looked up and saw Max Vasek, the other half of Vasek & Caine Investigations, standing in the doorway.

Max was as tall and dark and tough-looking as he’d ever been, but these days his craggy features sported new lines, new worries. William had seen the same signs in the mirror just that morning. A recent trim of his short brown hair and a fresh morning shave hadn’t done much to disguise the strain.

Vasek & Caine wasn’t doing well, and the bills on the New York office suite were the least of their concerns.

Four months ago the company had been a growing enterprise, bringing in new medical-type investigations on a weekly basis. Then Max had gotten himself caught up with his ex and her female sex enhancement drug, Thriller. The product tampering case had put Vasek & Caine smack in the crosshairs of The Nine, a group of very powerful scientists rumored to control worldwide scientific progress through a combination of bribery and extortion. In effect, they were the biotech mafia. Unfortunately, almost nobody outside of Max, Raine and William actually believed they existed.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that Vasek & Caine’s clients had started drying up after that, though. The blackballing was a punishment. A warning, backed up by an anonymous note slid under the waiting room door a couple of months earlier.

You stay out of our business and we’ll leave you and yours alone.

Thing was, neither Max nor William took kindly to extortion. Hell, that was why they’d gone into business together in the first place.

They’d met at Boston General Hospital, where ex-FBI agent William had been freelancing for a medical investigations group called Hospitals for Humanity—HFH—and Max worked in a lab. They’d both needed a change of scenery around the same time and they’d both wanted to make a difference. It had seemed natural to combine their specialties into private medical investigations, with a focus on cases like that of drug developer Raine Montgomery, the ex-flame who’d become Max’s wife three months earlier.

At the thought of her, William glanced at his watch. “It’s Friday night. Aren’t you and Raine supposed to be somewhere?” He made the question seem casual, as though he didn’t care when his partner left the office.

“I’m on my way right now.” But Max stayed put. “Listen, I need to ask a favor, and you’re not going to like it.”

“That’s a heck of a sales technique. No wonder we’re down to our last few paying clients.”

Max grimaced. “No, that would be the part where we discovered Raine’s drug was being sabotaged by a scientific cartel that isn’t supposed to exist. Which brings me to the favor.”

“You don’t have to ask me to investigate the bastards,” William said. “I’m already on it.”

“I know. And I also know I haven’t been much help lately,” Max said.

“You’ve had other things to worry about, like making sure Raine’s drug returns to the market without any more glitches.” And making sure she stays safe, William thought but didn’t say.

Though Max and Raine had engineered the arrest of Frederick Forsythe, the man directly responsible for sabotaging Thriller, there were at least eight other members of The Nine to watch out for, along with their underlings. Any one of them might decide to finish the job, which was why William intended to finish them first. His was an ordered world, structured around laws and categories. There were good guys and bad guys, and The Nine were very bad guys.

Problem was, they also apparently had enough power to sway even his old bosses. That was the only logical explanation for why the evidence Max and Raine had amassed months earlier hadn’t been enough to convince the feds to open an investigation. Instead they’d decided Forsythe had acted alone, which was just ridiculous. It didn’t account for the subsequent attack on Ike Rombout, the tech-savvy, terminally annoying woman who’d helped Max track down Forsythe, and it didn’t account for whoever was blackballing Vasek & Caine now.

That left it up to Vasek & Caine—or rather left it up to William—to identify the other eight members of the supposedly nonexistent group and bring them to justice. He’d be ensuring the company’s safety and future. He’d be saving the scientific community from their very own version of organized crime. And as an added bonus, he’d be showing up his former boss, FBI Special Agent in Charge Michael Grosskill.

The thought had William checking his watch again. “You’re going to be late if you don’t get going, and we both know Raine doesn’t do late.”

William liked Max’s wife a great deal, but she fell square into the high-maintenance category in his brain. Not because she liked expensive clothes and makeup—hell, he liked his women to look like women, and that required some mirror time. But Raine also ran a company of her own, and since the wedding, Max had been putting as much effort into Rainey Days as he was into Vasek & Caine.

William understood that a man had to protect what was his, but he had a strong feeling he wasn’t going to like Max’s solution. Mentally bracing himself, he said, “Come on, give with the favor. It can’t be that bad.”

“I want to take on someone to help you. Someone who can do the data crunching while you pound the pavement.”

William shrugged. “Tempting, but we can’t afford a receptionist, never mind a—” He broke off as he made the connection. His mind clicked on the image of a tall, lean woman with a killer body, three earrings in one ear, a mean-ass attitude and a fondness for tight black leather. His blood flared hot, then cold, and he said, “Oh, no, you don’t. Hell no. You’re not saddling me with that know-it-all Matrix wannabe.”

“Ike is hell on wheels with computers,” Max argued. “She knows way more than either of us about data mining and she’s got sources we can’t even dream of. She could help you find the names. Maybe even identify the next target.”

I already have a name, William thought. I’ve even got a meeting set up. But he kept that to himself, instead saying, “The Nine already went after Ike once. What’s to stop them from trying again if she gets involved?” He might find her annoying, but a woman’s skin was a woman’s skin, and it was no place for a bullet wound. Worse, a man had died when The Nine had attacked Ike earlier in the year. The Vermont cops had ruled the ski slope shooting a random homicide, and Grosskill and the rest of the FBI had agreed, but Max, William and Ike knew better. They knew it had been a warning from The Nine. Stay out of our business or else.

Max grimaced. “Trust me, I don’t want her involved. But she’s got another opinion.”

“Now there’s a surprise,” William muttered, leaning back in his chair. As far as he could tell, Ike Rombout was all about opinions. “And in case you missed it the first time, no. I don’t care how good she is with the tech stuff, I don’t want her anywhere near The Nine.” And I don’t want her anywhere near me.

He wasn’t sure where the thought came from, but it struck a chord. Ike wasn’t his type of woman—she was too brash and in-your-face. And she wasn’t his idea of a coworker for a potentially dangerous op—she had breasts.

He wasn’t proud of the chauvinism, but he figured he had a damn good reason for it.

“She’ll stay in Boston, I promise,” Max persisted. “Give her some data to crunch, some leads to dead end, I don’t care. Just let her feel involved. She needs this, William. They killed someone she cared about.”

That resonated, but William was no fool. “If all you wanted was some long-distance data crunching, you would’ve just turned her loose. Hell, that was how she found Forsythe for you. So give. What do you want from me?”

Max grimaced. “I need you to keep her busy and I need you to make sure she stays in Boston.”

A chill skittered through William. “You don’t think she’d actually go looking for—” He broke off and muttered a curse. “Of course she would. Hell. I don’t have time for this.” He glanced at Max. “And neither do you. But you’re still trying to save her from herself, aren’t you?”

Max shrugged, rueful amusement tugging at his lips. “Ike calls it my DIDS. Damsel in Distress Syndrome. I can’t stop myself from trying to save them.”

William could relate to that, but where Max saved people one at a time, William focused on the big picture, which sometimes demanded individual sacrifices in the name of the greater good.

Like Sharilee? a small thought prompted from within, bringing the smell of blood and gunfire and the sound of a soft body hitting the floor.

“Fine,” he said before the memory could form. “You owe me big-time, but I’ll keep an eye on Ike for you, starting tomorrow.”

He already had plans for tonight.

HOPING NOBODY HAD seen her sneak across the dark, deserted seventeenth green, Ike shimmied up the side of the brick building, her breath adding white puffs to the clinging fog.

She couldn’t believe she was actually doing this on her own, but what other choice did she have? Educated guesswork and an intercepted e-mail ghost had convinced her that several members of The Nine were meeting here at the Coach House, a posh country club restaurant outside Greenwich, Connecticut. She’d thought about asking Max to meet her, but given the way he’d been behaving lately, all Neanderthal and pat-the-little-woman on-the-head, she’d nixed that idea and driven down from Boston alone.

It was just recon, after all.

But as she hauled herself up to a narrow ledge of stone trim that ran most of the way around the second story of the brick building, her doubts crowded closer. She was a computer geek; she wasn’t trained for this sort of thing. Sure, she’d done surveillance before, both for freelance gigs and for HFH. And, yeah, she’d been on the edge of the action once or twice, even before Max had stumbled over evidence indicating that The Nine really existed.

This time, though, she was on her own. There was no employer backing her, nobody waiting for her to check in.

You’ve got your gun, she told herself. You can handle this. More importantly, she had to handle it. Zed deserved more than he’d gotten in the way of justice. She owed him.

Taking a breath of damp air that threatened rain, she edged across the brick wall. A series of lights set high on the building were tilted to illuminate the golf course beyond, their beams furred with mist. That same mist slicked her hand- and footholds as she pressed herself against the flat surface and began to move, using her black-gloved fingers to grip a thin pipe overhead while she clung to the narrow stone ledge by the toes of her black rubber-soled running shoes.

Her destination was a half-open window about fifty feet away. Based on her assessment of downloaded blueprints, the window should open into the meeting space. Even better, the rear wing angled off the main building near the window, forming a corner where she could fade into the shadows.

Score one for all black, Ike thought, comfortable in her trademark tight dark clothes, one of the few constants she allowed herself.

“Over here,” a male voice said unexpectedly from below.

Ike froze. Too late she heard the sound of footsteps on wet pavement.

Pressing herself against the building, heart hammering, she held her breath and tried to become one with the rough bricks.

Don’t look up, she thought. Please don’t look up.

“You got the stuff?” a second male voice asked, higher and a little nasal.

“You got the cash?”

She relaxed slightly at the sound of crinkling paper and plastic. It was just a drug buy, she thought, then quirked her lips at the just. Under other circumstances, she might’ve waded in and tried to scare some sense into the idiots. As it was, she’d wait them out.

She was after a bigger score.

Once their business was concluded, the men moved off. One headed out across the golf course on foot, past the pro shop where Ike had hidden her Jeep. The other disappeared around the corner. Moments later, a car door slammed and an engine started, revved and then faded with distance.

After a minute, Ike started breathing again, though her pulse stayed high at the near miss. She resumed her careful journey, crabbing sideways on the narrow ledge until she reached the shadows near the half-open window. Then she paused and listened.

In the room beyond, low-voiced conversation was punctuated by the clink of glasses. The quiet, civilized sounds suggested the meeting hadn’t started yet. Perfect.

Unperturbed by the height, Ike leaned back in the vee formed by the connecting stone walls and braced her feet on the molding. Once she was relatively stable, she spun her black leather fanny pack around to her front and dug out the palm-size telescoping mirror she used at work to look at hard-to-reach computer connections.

Praying she wasn’t about to bounce a reflected beam of light into the room, she edged the mirror past the frosted glass windowpane, to the open spot where heated indoor air hit the damp, cool outdoors and created a faint mist.

The mirror fogged momentarily, then cleared, showing her an expensively furnished room, all wood paneling, burgundy leather and a huge Oriental carpet she thought might be Heriz, based on a childhood spent haunting the antique shops of Vermont with her mother and father, before—

She cut off the memory before it could form and focused on the job at hand, angling the mirror and fighting to keep her hand steady as she located three gray-haired men seated at a large table set for six more.

All three were white guys in their late fifties, maybe early sixties, well-groomed and wearing expensive suits in shades of blue or gray. They exuded a homogeneity, a sameness she would have found vaguely creepy under other circumstances. As it was, all Ike felt was a burn of hatred. An ache for revenge. For justice.

The bastards had killed Zed with a bullet meant for her, and she planned to make them pay.

WILLIAM REACHED THE Coach House a few minutes late for the meeting, thanks to Max and his “favor,” along with the Friday night traffic between NYC and western Connecticut.

He parked his ride—an ice-blue BMW convertible he’d borrowed from a friend of a friend and disguised with fake tags that matched equally fake DMV records in the name of Emmett Grant. The cover was solid. It’d better be, William thought with a grimace. I paid enough for it.

The free cover stories were one of the few things he missed about working for the feds, but the money had been well spent. All but the most in depth background check would show that Emmett Grant was a slightly shady entrepreneur who’d cashed out just before the Internet bubble burst and was now looking to reinvest in the pharmaceutical market. William had the car and ID to match the image and he was dressed for the part in a custom suit—also borrowed—and the good watch his father had given him when he’d left for the Marines. High-quality fake facial hair and a touch of silver at his temples completed the disguise.

He figured he looked like new money and he’d done plenty of research to back up the cover story. He didn’t need to have any medical or scientific expertise, he just had to know the money talk, and that was second nature after his years undercover inside the Trehern organization.

When memories of that other assignment threatened to surface, he shoved them down deep and climbed out of the sports car, slamming the door harder than necessary. Then he took a breath and looked up at the Coach House, which was carved stone across the front, ivy-draped brick on the sides.

Unlike his cover story, the building reeked of old money.

William straightened his tie, a splash of lemon yellow against the suit. Then he said, “I am Emmett Grant.”

The identity settled over him like a cloak, an invisible weight that would remain until he consciously dropped the persona. He became Emmett Grant, a sharp-minded hustler who’d come from humble roots and didn’t mind sidestepping a few laws to get himself the best of everything.

As he walked across the parking area, past four other high-dollar rides, he mentally reviewed his e-mail exchange with his contact, Dr. Paul Berryville.

After Frederick Forsythe’s arrest, William had put out feelers through a carefully cloaked e-mail address, pretending to be a businessman who’d heard rumors that The Nine were for real. Over time, he’d filtered out the respondents until he was left with Berryville, who’d led him in a careful dance of innuendo and double meaning that had finally culminated in an invitation. Meet me at the Coach House at 8:00 p.m. sharp Friday. Some people want to meet you.

Berryville was waiting for him at the door. The silver-haired scientist’s career had been on the brink of complete collapse a few years earlier, when new evidence had conveniently surfaced clearing him of major ethics charges. Now he was the head of a major R & D group, thanks to the power of The Nine.

Berryville frowned, the expression stretching his face-lift-tight skin. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” William said. “Traffic was a bitch.”

“They’re waiting for us.” Berryville hurried ahead, nerves evident in his quick strides and his silence as he led William through the front rooms of the wood-paneled Coach House, where tables and cocktail rounds sat empty.

“Did you guys buy out the whole restaurant just for this meeting?” William asked, pausing at the base of a flight of carpeted stairs and peering up at the equally deserted-feeling second floor.

“We value our privacy,” Berryville replied. Then he stopped and turned to look down at William from six steps up. “When we get in there, don’t say anything. Speak when spoken to and think before you answer a question. You’ll only get one chance to make a good impression.”

William’s scalp tingled with sudden foreboding as he realized he’d miscalculated. Berryville had hinted that he carried weight within the group, and William had taken that information at face value. But a powerful man wouldn’t have a faint sheen of sweat on his brow or a nervous tremor in his hands right now, would he?

Berryville was terrified, which could only mean that he was one of the smaller cogs in the organization, bringing the big boys a present and hoping they’d like it.

Hell, William thought as he followed Berryville up the stairs to the second floor, wishing he’d let Max in on the meeting. He could be in some serious trouble here, without a stitch of backup.

IKE PRESSED HER CHEEK against mist-slicked bricks and lifted the mirror higher, trying to figure out who was speaking as words carried to her.

“What do you know about this guy?”

“Not much,” a second voice answered, deeper than the first. “Berryville’s bringing him in. Says he’s a perfect fit.”

It took a moment for the words to connect. Then excitement zinged through her when she realized they must be interviewing Forsythe’s replacement. More importantly, there were nine chairs, which meant the whole group was going to be there, including their leader, who was called Odin after the ruler of the nine worlds in Norse mythology.

Fingers shaking slightly, she fumbled in the fanny pack for her camera.

If she could get some faces, her computers should be able to match names. Maybe that’d be enough to pull the data threads together, enough to convince the feds that Zed’s death hadn’t been random, that The Nine were more than just an urban legend in the scientific community.

She eased the digital camera up and over the edge, zoomed in on the men and clicked off half a dozen shots. Then she lowered the camera and used the miniscule toggle buttons to flip through the images on-screen, cursing inwardly when she saw that the tiny, blurred photos weren’t going to do her any good. Not even her sophisticated cleanup programs could help these shots, and too much digital enhancement would skew the results so they’d never stand up to FBI-level scrutiny.

She needed to get closer.

Bad idea, her inner voice hissed, but she silenced it with three whispered words. “I owe Zed.”

He’d still be alive if she’d been more careful. Instead he’d been buried while his parents and sisters had wept. She couldn’t bring him back. But moments before they’d closed his casket for the last time, as she’d pulled the black diamond stud from her ear and placed it in his cool palm, she’d vowed to make sure his killers didn’t get away with their crime.

Now, thinking fast, she withdrew a small hand-held computer from her pack and pulled up the Coach House blueprints on the tiny screen. She could swear she’d seen—ah, there it was, a small alcove near the meeting room. If she could get into the sheltered nook safely, she should have a better angle for photos. If being the operative word.

Breathing lightly through her mouth, she looked down to make sure the coast was clear. Nerves hummed beneath her skin, reminding her that although some of her freelancing had skirted over the edge of legal, most of her work was done via the keyboards and high-speed connections of her three trusty computers, Tom, Dick and Harry.

Until now, that is. But there was a first time for everything, and Ike was all about trying new things.

Seeing nothing below but Dumpster shadows and wet pavement, she worked her way over to where a ladder of sorts was formed by the regularly spaced braces that attached a wide gutter pipe to the building.

She was halfway down the pipe when something metal snagged her fanny pack, then pulled free, snapping back against the pipe with a loud clang.

Damn! If anyone were keeping an eye on things from the outside, they were guaranteed to have heard the noise. Heart drumming in her ears, she scrambled down the makeshift ladder and dropped to the cracked tarmac. Then she froze and listened for the sounds of an alarm.

Nothing.

Relaxing slightly, she shifted her fanny pack, more for reassurance than anything, and headed toward the nearer corner of the building, hoping there was a ground-level door she could slip through. She was halfway there when a heavy blow hit her from behind, driving her forward.

Ike bit off a scream as her attacker slammed her face-first into the building.

“What have we got here?” His voice was rough and a little mocking. “Looks like a spy. Kind of cute, too.”

She fought the instinctive fear, telling herself she could handle this, she could. But panic spiked when he pressed closer, his body crowding her, trapping her so she couldn’t move, couldn’t escape. Fear exploded, making her whimper a protest.

Her captor chuckled and swiped his tongue along her ear, getting off on her terror. He shifted again, pressing into her.

“Knock it off,” a second man’s voice ordered, sounding older, more cultured, and annoyed. Ike turned her head and saw a trim gray-haired man wearing a dark charcoal suit. He gestured to the building and said, “Bring her along. She may prove useful.”

Chapter Three

From the hallway William heard a man’s voice say, “Odin is planning to take care of Lukas Kupfer personally before the press conference.” Then he and Berryville entered the room and all conversation ceased.

Feigning nonchalance, William glanced around, seeing a wood-paneled room decorated with leather-upholstered furniture and heavy rugs, with an ornate dining table at one end. Dark wooden book shelves lined the walls, giving the place an oppressive air. Or maybe that came from the three similar-looking men seated at the table, which was set for nine.

William nodded. “Gentlemen.” Then he turned to Berryville and raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to introduce us or should I do it myself?”

Berryville shot him a dark look before turning to the others and saying, “This is the one I told you about. Emmett Grant.” He didn’t introduce the seated men.

“Has Paul described the proceedings to you?” the guy in the middle asked.

“Not in any great detail,” William said, careful to tread the middle ground between knowing too little and too much. “Only that you need a unanimous vote to induct a new member into your organization.”

The guy on the left shot Berryville a look. “Then he didn’t bother to tell you what would happen if you don’t get a consensus?”

The threat was clear—William had seen their faces and he knew Berryville by name. Either they voted him in or he’d quietly “disappear.”

Even as nerves flared to life beneath his skin and his hand itched for the feel of the weapon he’d left behind on Berryville’s orders, he grinned. “Guess I’d better make sure you like me, which means I should skip sports and politics. Any interest in a blonde joke?”

There was a moment of absolute silence. Then the guy in the middle said, “My wife’s a blonde.” He cracked a smile. “Lay it on me.”

And just like that, the tension disappeared from the room. Berryville let out a relieved sigh and motioned William forward. “Have a seat. Get you a drink?” He made a beeline for the bar.

“Sure,” William said, glancing at the empty seats. “I’ll have a—”

There was a sudden scuffle out in the hallway, and the door opened, slamming against the wall with a bang. A big guy in his midtwenties wearing a black-on-black driver’s uniform shoved a struggling, swearing woman into the room.

An older man, neat in a silver-gray suit, followed behind, tugging at his cuffs. He looked up and smiled faintly. “Look what we found snooping around outside.”

William was so deep in character that his first reaction was anger at the interruption. Then he got a good look at the woman—who was wearing all black, with pixie-short hair and two earrings in one ear—and his blood ran cold.

Oh, Christ. It was Ike.

She stopped struggling and glared around the room. Her eyes passed over him without a flicker of recognition, and damned if that didn’t tick him off almost as much as her pigheaded stupidity at being there in the first place.

William was careful to keep the emotions out of his eyes even as adrenaline flared in his bloodstream. You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you? he thought with a mental snarl. You couldn’t trust this to Max and me.

“What are you going to do with her?” asked one of the seated men.

The guy who’d come in with Ike looked pointedly at William before he said, “We can’t afford witnesses. I’m thinking we should kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.” He held out a hand to his driver, who passed over a mean-looking Glock. The older man racked the weapon, popped the clip out and tucked it in his pocket, then checked the chamber and offered the gun to William butt first.

The challenge was clear. One bullet. Enough to kill the spy, not enough to fight his way out of the room.

When William didn’t move, the man said, “Make your choice. Are you with us or against us?”

IKE’S BLOOD FROZE when William looked at her, expression cold and calculating. She recognized Max’s irascible partner from the multiple times they’d butted heads at Boston General and from a quick sighting at Zed’s funeral that she’d later tried to tell herself was her imagination. But now that she saw him again, she knew her mind hadn’t been playing tricks on her. She’d recognized him then and now by the contrast of cool blue eyes and brush-cut brown hair, by the aggressive jut of his jaw beneath sharp cheekbones and by the leashed power in his every movement, which supported the whispered rumors that he knew ancient fighting arts that didn’t even have names anymore and that he could kill a man with a touch.

Oh, yes. She recognized William Caine.

Apparently she hadn’t made nearly the same impression, though, because he took the Glock without hesitation.

Don’t do it! she wanted to scream. Rememberme? I’m Ike. I’m Max’s friend!

Instead she remained mute, paralyzed with fear as he raised the weapon and pointed it at her. He tightened his finger on the trigger—

“Run!” he shouted and fired.

Ike jerked, and for a split second she thought he’d shot her. Then she realized the movement had come from the big guy behind her. His grip slackened and he pitched to the floor.

She didn’t stick around to watch him hit. Instead she bolted through the door as all hell broke loose behind her.

William yelled something. Flesh smacked against flesh, and a door slammed. Heavy footfalls chased her. Caught up to her. A strong hand gripped her upper arm, and William’s deep voice shouted, “Hurry!”

She would’ve snapped that she was hurrying, but just then they rounded the corner leading to the main stairs and came face-to-face with two old dudes in suits, along with a pair of the black-clad bodyguards.

Instead of slowing, Ike put her head down and barreled between the two old guys. Amidst a storm of shouts and curses, one of them stumbled and went down, deflecting a bodyguard as he lunged for William.

Breath whistling between her teeth, Ike slid down the last few steps to the landing, where the stairs faced the front door. She skidded, hooked a left and bolted for the back of the building. She’d stuck her Jeep beside the golf course’s pro shop. If they made it that far, they’d—

“Ike, no! This way!” William shouted.

She faltered and turned back, only to see another uniformed bodyguard burst through the front door and launch himself at William. The men went down in a tangle, while two more thugs charged down the stairs.

Knowing she couldn’t leave William behind, she grabbed for her weapon and came up empty. Her captor had disarmed her. Unable to think of a better way to give William a chance, she reversed direction, charged back up the hallway and yelled as she caromed off the two guys coming down the stairs.

Somehow she stayed on her feet and kept going, straight down an unfamiliar hallway, with heavy footsteps thudding in her wake. Then gunfire barked and a bullet smashed into the wall beside her.

Ike ducked through the next door she came to, praying it had a lock on the inside.

It did, but not much of one. Chest heaving with exertion, pulse drumming in her head, she shot the flimsy bolt before she turned and surveyed her options. Her stomach sank when she saw where she’d ended up. The tiny room was little more than a closet with a bucket and mop in one corner, a drawerlike door set in the wall and a small, night-darkened window.

She muttered a curse as she opened the drop down door to reveal a dark, narrow laundry chute that presumably led to the basement. But what if it doesn’t? a little voice asked. Or what if there’s no way out from there?

Logically, there was a way out, but logic didn’t get her very far when it came to small, dark spaces. Her throat closed in on itself, and she swallowed hard as the dark square seemed to expand, reaching for her.

Gunshots sounded in the hallway, along with male shouts and curses. Then footsteps thudded to a halt outside her hiding spot, and before she could brace herself, a shot plowed through the door below the knob and punched through the window. A second shot ripped the lock half off.

She was out of time and options.

Praying the door would hold for a few more seconds, she flipped the rinse bucket over beneath the window, grabbed the mop and slammed the handle against the broken window. The impact sang up her arms and vibrated in her hands, but she drew back and let fly again. The glass gave just as the guys in the hall rammed the door and she heard the sound of splintering wood.

“Come on, come on!” she chanted under her breath as she used the mop handle to punch out the pointy shards of glass. Then there was no time left. The door shuddered, sagged and fell inward, revealing three black-clad men on the other side.

Ike jumped up onto the bucket, grabbed the window sash and heaved herself through. She felt sharp points dig into her gloved hands, felt a pull in her ribs and a slice in her knee—

And was free.

She fell headfirst into a shrub, and the damp branches scratched at her skin, cushioning her and trapping her at the same time. She thrashed as male voices shouted curses through the broken window. Any moment now they’d lean through and start shooting.

Moving too fast for caution, she rolled free of the shrubbery, hit pavement and accidentally cracked her head against the edge of the curb. Stunned, she lay gasping with sudden pain.

Tires squealed in the near distance. An engine revved and a silver-blue car careened around the corner of the building, then flew at her, bearing down too fast. She struggled to rise as desperation flared. She was done. She was dead. She had failed Zed, just as she’d failed her brother Donny, the only person who’d ever truly loved her for herself rather than for who she ought to be.

Then the car squealed to a halt beside her and the door flew open, skimming just above her head. William’s voice shouted, “Get in!” Bullets pinged off the tarmac. One hit the hood of the car, wringing a curse out of him. “Hurry, it’s a loaner!”

Disoriented, Ike struggled to her knees, got an arm up onto the car seat, grabbed onto soft leather upholstery and tried to pull herself into the vehicle.

William leaned across, snagged a fistful of her shirt and hauled her into the car in one smooth, powerful move as a bullet cracked the windshield. “Your legs in?”

She nodded, head spinning.

“Good. Hang on.” He lunged back into the driver’s seat and slammed his foot on the gas, sending the two-seater sports car leaping forward with a squeal of tires. He swerved, and the open door slammed into one of the bodyguards, who’d come through the window after her. The man went flying. The door shut. William tromped on the gas again, twisted the wheel and sent them hurtling around the next corner sideways.

Behind them, a limo pursued with lethal grace, closing the gap fast.

William swerved, and the momentum whipped Ike to the side, into his solid form. He nudged her away as he accelerated across the parking lot toward the road. “Put on your belt.”

“Right. Sorry.” Ike fumbled with the strap, fingers trembling from a mix of adrenaline and fear.

William glanced in the rearview mirror and cursed. “Hang on. This could get rough.”

Like it’d been smooth before? Ike thought, her head starting to settle even as her pulse thundered in her ears. She smothered a half-hysterical giggle and jammed the seat belt lock in place. Then, refusing to look down at the ragged tears in the knees of her tight black pants, she braced her feet and nodded. “Let’s lose these bastards.”

“Here goes nothing.”

He sent the car speeding along a deserted secondary road, easing up on the gas. The limo closed the distance and bullets pinged. Then, as they passed a cross road, William hit the gas and yanked the hand brake, all in one fluid movement. Tires screamed as the car nearly leaped off the road, then turned ninety degrees to their original path and slid sideways.

Ike gritted her teeth and hung on tight. She glanced out the window and saw the limo’s headlights aiming straight for her. Then William released the hand brake and accelerated. The BMW leaped forward, sailing down the cross street as the limo sped past.

William punched it, heading toward the highway as he weaved through the posh residential streets of Greenwich.

The speedometer edged past sixty, then seventy. Houses blurred on either side in darkness broken by streetlights at regular intervals, and Ike hung onto her seat. At eighty-five miles per hour, the vehicle vibrated and felt lighter, as though it might take flight at any moment.

She heard a low mutter of sound and for a second thought the engine was getting ready to shake apart. Then she looked across at William and saw that the noise was coming from him, a low chant. Come on, baby, come on.

He glanced across at her, eyes hard and somehow reassuring. “Almost there.”

Then they were there. The BMW flashed beneath an overpass, he downshifted and they screamed up an on-ramp onto the interstate. The limo was nowhere in sight.

They’d made it.

Ike blew out a breath. “Wow. That was…wow.” She unclamped her fingers from the edge of the leather seat, feeling joints pop. She worked her hands, staring at them. Then she looked over at William’s set profile. “Thanks for the ride.”

A muscle bunched in his jaw. “Don’t say another word until we’re back in the office. Then you’re Max’s problem.”

Annoyance flared quickly. “I beg your—”

“You want to walk?”

Ike shut up.

WILLIAM DIDN’T SAY another word to her, not even when they ditched the shot-up BMW, stripped the plates, which looked like clever fakes up close, and rented a Geo Metro under a name that definitely wasn’t William Caine.

It was past midnight, and Ike’s eyelids were drooping when he finally turned into the parking structure adjoining the New York offices of Vasek & Caine Investigations. He’d called ahead, and Max was waiting for them upstairs, along with his wife, Raine.

As always, the sight of Max’s wife sent a stab through Ike. Not because she’d wanted Max for herself. Mr. Macho Protector made a fine friend, but she wouldn’t have been caught dead dating him or anyone like him. No, her issue with Raine was even pettier than that—it was how she dressed.

Raine was ethereal. Delicate. Feminine. Her honey-colored hair fell from a careless knot atop her head, with wisps brushing against her purple shadowed eyes and full lips. Ike had always figured her look was the product of a damn good makeup routine, but given the late hour and the fact that William’s call had woken the newlyweds, she was forced to conclude that Raine had been born feminine and beautiful, the exact sort of woman that men gravitated toward every single time.

And that was so not fair.

Ike sniffed. “He didn’t need to wake you guys up. This could’ve waited until morning.”

Raine’s eyes flashed prettily. “And you could’ve listened to Max and let the men handle this. Because of you, we’ve got nothing.”

The sting of truth had Ike baring her teeth. “Letting the men handle things is your style, not mine. Besides, we would’ve been fine if James Bond here—” she indicated William with a jerk of her thumb “—hadn’t broken cover. I could’ve talked my way out of the situation.”

She was spoiling for a fight, for something to dispel the residual buzz of adrenaline and the knowledge that William probably would have been an inducted member of The Nine by now if it weren’t for her.

He shot her a disgusted look and pointed to a chair. “Sit there and stay quiet until we can figure out how to get you to Boston safely, where your boss can keep you under lock and key in the secure apartments while Max and I worked this out.”

Max growled, “And exactly what part of ‘Max and I’did you miss when you went in there alone? You should’ve told me about the meeting. You could’ve been killed. And now they’ve seen your face.” He glared from William to Ike and back. “It won’t take them long to figure out who crashed their little party tonight, and then they’ll be coming for you. For all four of us. No doubt about that.” He threw an arm around his wife’s shoulders and hauled her close, face tight with worry.

Ike suppressed a shudder but said, “I’m far safer attacking than running.” And far saner. The high security apartment building maintained by Boston General, where she’d stayed for the first month after Zed’s death, had felt more like a prison than protection.

“Bull.” William turned back to Max. “Get her out of here. And keep her the hell away from me.”

Ike stepped forward, shouldering between the two men. She focused on Max, silently urging him to understand how important this was to her. “Please don’t shut me out. I found their meeting place once and I can do it again. If we combine our efforts, we might manage to pull this off.” She paused. “If we work at cross-purposes, nothing says we won’t get in each other’s way again.”

“Is that a threat?” William growled, handsome face creasing towards menace as he took a step nearer her, crowding her space.

Ike shrugged and forced herself not to back up, hoping her sudden nerves didn’t show, hoping he couldn’t tell that she never felt completely at ease in his presence. “Merely an observation,” she said. “My goal is stopping The Nine. I either work with you or I work alone. Your call.”

She expected a split vote. Instead William cursed, shifted, did something with the lining of his jacket and pulled a ridiculously small camera from an inner compartment in his leather jacket. He held it out to her. “Here. I got pictures of the three at the table. You can get me their names. The man with me was Paul Berryville, and as we came in, I heard one of them say something about Odin ‘taking care’of someone named Lukas Kupfer before a press conference. E-mail me whatever you find and for God’s sake, don’t go anywhere alone.” He glared at Max. “Take her home with you. I don’t want to see her until tomorrow.”

Then he stalked out, slamming the door at his back.

BY TEN THE NEXT morning William was in a foul mood. Not just because of the debacle the day before, when he’d lost four months of groundwork and a damn good cover, all thanks to an ungrateful amateur sleuth who couldn’t be bothered to thank him. No, he was even more bothered by the knowledge that she was working just down the hall, in the spare office he sometimes used as a crash pad when it was too much work to take the subway home to his spare, minimalist place.

Max had taken her to retrieve her Jeep, which they’d ditched in long-term parking at JFK, and then had driven her back to the office, leaving her for William to watch, which was just perfect as far as he was concerned. Just flipping perfect. There was nothing he liked better than babysitting on a Saturday morning. Worse, her very presence in the office distracted him, getting under his skin and making him twitchy.

After staring at his computer screen for nearly ten minutes with absolutely no idea what he was looking at, he tipped back in his chair and raised his voice to call, “You need anything in there?”

No answer.

A little louder, he said, “Hey, Einstein!” Max had said that was actually the name on her license, and William figured using a name like that out loud was guaranteed to tick off any rational woman.

Moments later, the phone next to his elbow rang. He picked it up. “Vasek & Caine Investigations, William Caine speaking.”

“Did you want something?”

He glared from the phone to the door and back before he scowled. “You could’ve walked down the hall.”

“So could you. I don’t respond well to yelling.”

He bared his teeth, welcoming the sting of annoyance. “As far as I can tell, you don’t respond well to much of anything. The first time Zach Cage introduced us at Boston General, you told me we’d get along fine if I kept my FBI nose out of your computer systems. And the second time we met, you barked at me for passing info directly to Cage instead of going through you.”

Her voice held an amused note when she said, “I’m flattered you remember me so well. Guess you thought I was cute, huh?”

He remembered the incidents far too well, he realized with a start. He could picture her on each occasion, how her tight black clothes and high heeled boots had showcased a killer body and how her short black hair emphasized an angular face that was more arresting than classically beautiful. He remembered how she’d glared at him and how she’d stuck in his mind for too long after they’d parted ways each time.

“Don’t be flattered,” he countered. “I don’t like working with people who don’t know how to be part of a team.”

“Right. Which is why you went to your meeting at the Coach House without backup.”

“And I definitely,” he said through gritted teeth, “don’t think you’re cute.”

He could think of a number of words to describe her, none of which were anywhere close to being as innocuous as cute.

“Big surprise,” she said drily. “No doubt you like women who wear frilly dresses and lipstick.” There was a pause, then a slight edge in her voice when she said, “I don’t suppose you sent me…no. Never mind.”

William’s instincts quivered to life. “What?”

“I said never mind.” She paused and her voice went hollow. “Oh, God. Berryville’s dead.” She said something else, but William was already hanging up the phone and heading for her office at a run.

He found her working three computers at once. On the leftmost screen his snapshots from the Coach House were matched against DMV photos of the three men. On the right she’d pulled up a series of records for Dr. Paul Berryville, including his supposedly classified FDA background check. But it was the center screen that commanded William’s attention with a photograph of smoldering wreckage and the headline Eight top scientists killed in Catskills crash.

Ike didn’t turn to look at him, but her body was tense beneath the black leather biker jacket she wore because they still had the heat turned off. Her voice held dull horror when she said, “A charter jet flying a bunch of scientists to a private retreat lost power and crashed in upstate New York last night. The men we saw yesterday are dead, along with three other prominent scientists and their drivers. Odin wasn’t taking any chances that they’d lead us to him.”

“Christ.” William let out a breath, sickened by the realization that the leader of The Nine had killed his own people to make sure they wouldn’t talk. Worse, given that Grosskill had ignored the evidence after Forsythe’s arrest, there was little chance the FBI would believe that the mythical leader of an imaginary group of scientific bogeymen was responsible for a charter plane crash.

“He killed his own people,” Ike repeated, voice shaking.

“I’d like to believe this means the end of The Nine,” William said after a long moment. “But I’m afraid I’m not that optimistic.”

Ike nodded. “He’ll recruit and rebuild The Nine, maybe even stronger than before.” She clicked on one photograph after the other, erasing the men from her screens. When she was done, all she had left was a blank monitor, which seemed to sum up their investigation. They had suspicions but no official backup, bodies but no suspects.

“You got any ideas?” William asked her, their personal differences seeming less important all of a sudden.

“Maybe. Yes, I think so.” She hit three computer keys in quick succession, bringing up a new screen on the middle monitor. “I found Lukas Kupfer and the press conference they were talking about. Kupfer is a PhD at the Markham Institute near UMass Amherst. His lab is working on a treatment for a disease called Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and they’ve got a big announcement planned for this Friday. Something about a new gene therapy protocol for Duchenne.”

William stared at Kupfer’s file photo, which showed a bespectacled fortysomething man whose face held both laugh lines and sadness. “They said Odin was going to handle it personally. That means we need to get someone inside Kupfer’s lab, pronto.”

Ike tapped a few keys and brought up the Markham Institute’s collaborators list. She indicated a pair of names. “I know these two from Boston General. If I get Zach Cage involved, we could put together a decent cover story, maybe invent a visiting scientist at BoGen who wants to get a look at Kupfer’s research. He’d probably buy it.”

William grimaced and shook his head. “Unfortunately I don’t know enough science to pull off a cover story in an academic lab.”

“Maybe not,” Ike said. She glanced up at him. “But I do.”

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