Ava Gray: Skin Tight

“Me, too. Where are we going?”

In answer, he pulled into the driveway of an ordinary house. The windows were dark, and she saw no sign of welcome within. Her misgivings flared to life.

“I’m sorry.” The regret in his storm-cloud eyes puzzled her. “But there’s nothing else I can do.” He leaned over as if to touch her cheek, but he pulled his fingers away at the last moment, contact aborted. “I wanted that kiss, by the way. More than you know.”

Her cheeks fired, and his words confused her enough that she spent precious seconds weighing the wrong comment. “Nothing you can do about what?”

“They won’t hurt you. Just keep calm, do as they ask, and everything will be fine.”

“They who?” she demanded, her voice gone shrill.

But he turned away, hands firmly on the wheel. Whatever came next, Foster made it clear he wouldn’t help her.

Someone jerked the passenger door open, and then a masked man pulled her from the car.

PRESENT DAY, VIRGINIA

“I understand your father was Iranian,” the interviewer said delicately. “And you still have relatives there, including your grandfather and numerous cousins.”

He was a silver-haired man, clad in a navy blue suit. His pale blue shirt and gray tie said he was conservative, somewhat lacking in imagination. Mia had learned to read people, based on the clothing they chose.

The hotel conference room was nearly as nondescript as her interviewer. Looking around at the beige paint and the faux-wood theme, she could have been in any hotel in any part of the country. There were no windows to distract her from the inappropriate question.

She had impeccable references. At first she hadn’t doubted Micor Technologies would select her, even from a large pool of qualified candidates. Her track record for ferreting out the truth made her the ideal choice. And indeed, everything had been going well until the management had run across her ethnic background.

Mia raised a brow. “How is that relevant?” Oh, he didn’t come right out and say it. But she knew what he was trying to imply. “May I remind you that discrimination is still illegal in the United States?”

Collins was a smart man; he could read between the lines, and he knew that after asking about her father’s country of origin, she had a case, should she wish to pursue the matter. If he didn’t want to hire her, he shouldn’t have asked.

His mouth was tight when he offered the contract, standard terms. She had ninety days to unearth evidence of who was misappropriating company funds. They thought it was someone in Accounting but couldn’t be sure because the culprit was clever.

“I’ll come in under the pretext of updating the company software.” Fortunately, she knew enough about computers to make that fiction convincing.

“I’m afraid that won’t do,” Collins said, shaking his head.

She paused, pen hovering above the pristine white contract. “What won’t?”

“We can’t have word getting out that we’ve hired a consultant. No, Miss Sauter, we need you on the payroll as an official employee. Otherwise, it will raise eyebrows. Our work is so sensitive that we never bring in contractors. Fortunately, we have an IT opening at the moment. Since a monkey could do it, I am sure you will have no trouble balancing that workload against your investigation.”

Gazing into his eyes, she had the uncanny sensation he wanted her to fail. That offended her on so many levels that she couldn’t begin to tabulate them. And considering her math aptitude, that was saying something.

“No problem at all,” she said coolly and scrawled her signature on the contract.

This particular job required an extensive background check and the signing of a nondisclosure agreement. Collins showed his displeasure every step of the way. He was one who thought dark hair and eyes meant secret ties to Al Qaeda.

They concluded their business with a forced civility that left her angry. Mia went from the conference room to her hotel room, changed into workout clothes, and then spent an hour pummeling a target at the gym. She didn’t often lose her temper, but few things set her off as much as bigotry.

Then she wrapped up negotiations with the old couple, sealing the deal on their arrangement. Their condo would do nicely, it seemed.

It was under less than ideal circumstances that she got ready for work on Monday. Last night, the nightmares had come before she enjoyed more than a couple hours’ sleep. Mia loathed herself for being so weak, but she couldn’t seem to shake the trauma of how helpless she’d felt, tied to a chair with a dirty rag in her mouth. It seemed as if she should be over it, since she’d come to no physical harm.

To offset that sense of vulnerability, she dressed in a black suit with a blue, lace-trimmed camisole beneath it: strength underscored with softness. Mia knew what men saw when they looked at her; she planned that reaction, from her coral-frosted mouth to the matching lacquer on her nails. She had long since learned to make the exterior camouflage the computer within. Men were never impressed that she could add a column of twelve four-digit numbers in her head in less than ten seconds.

Mia took a last look around the place she would call home for the next three months. Unlike most of her contracts, this job wasn’t situated in a city large enough to offer corporate housing, but she’d gotten lucky with a snowbird couple heading to Arizona for the winter. Mia didn’t think Virginia winters were terrible, but the old folks did.

They’d given her a great deal on the place-almost no rent at all-saying she was doing them a favor and they could rest easy knowing someone would water their plants and look after their fat, lazy cat. Mia wasn’t a pet person, but she figured she could handle food and water for three months. The ginger tabby glared at her from its hiding spot beneath the coffee table.

“I’ll be back by six, Peaches.”

The cat looked remarkably indifferent.

Mia stepped out into the brisk morning air and turned her face up to the sky. It promised to be a glorious day, clear, cool, and lovely. Too bad she would spend it trying to figure out who was the biggest liar.

With a mental shrug, Mia made her way to the rental car. She’d long since sold her own vehicle because she worked overseas too often to make it practical. Now she included use of a vehicle as part of her contract fee, and it was surprising how few companies balked. If they needed someone to sort out their financial embarrassment quickly and quietly, they had bigger issues than whether to pay for the long-term rental of a Ford Focus.

This car was blue and nondescript in every way. That was good. She didn’t want to draw attention with flash. In her line of work, it would be best if nobody noticed her at all.

The drive didn’t take long, not that Mia was surprised. Before she’d come to an agreement on the condo, she’d timed the commute. If traffic was good and road conditions favorable, she could cover the distance in fourteen minutes.

Micor Technologies sat outside the city limits, surrounded by acres of woods instead of an industrial park. That struck Mia as more than a little odd, but maybe they did testing here that wouldn’t be safe in a high population center. She had no idea what the company did; that information had no bearing on her task.

She pulled up to the gate, where an armed guard sat inside a glass booth. “Badge,” he said, extending a hand.

“This is my first day. I’m to report to HR to have one made.”

“I’ll need your driver’s license. I’m sure you understand I have to call this in.”

Interesting. She’d interviewed off-site at a local hotel. Though she’d driven the commute, she’d never come to the gate before. At other facilities where she’d worked, the guards were less attentive. That suggested a curious level of security.