Carol Ericson - Navy Seal Spy

“You’re going to get yourself fired, Samantha.” If spying on the agents got Samantha fired, then she couldn’t even imagine her punishment for spying on a murder.

Samantha shrugged. “Whatever. This job sucks, anyway. Too many rules, regulations and restrictions, and not a damned thing to do out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“The pay’s good.”

“That’s about the only perk.” She dropped her voice and moved close to Katie again. “And you can’t tell me you think Mr. Romo is anyone who remotely resembles a normal boss.”

“Quiet.” Katie glanced around at the other Tempest employees streaming into the cafeteria. Maybe Samantha didn’t want to keep this job, but Katie had to keep it—even now that Liam had turned up. Maybe even more so.

How had Liam gotten involved with Tempest? She bit her lip and blinked the tears from her eyes. Probably the same way Sebastian had gotten involved, but she hadn’t come here to save Liam McCabe.

She came to get justice for Sebastian, and she wouldn’t allow anyone to stand in her way—not even Liam.

As she shuffled into the cafeteria, Katie noticed the security guards at each door. She studied their faces, impassive beneath their caps, and wondered which one had helped Ginger last night. If she could get a look at the backs of their hands, she’d know for sure.

“I feel like I should be mooing.” Samantha tossed her hair back and then nudged Katie’s shoulder. “The man parade is here. This must be important.”

Katie jerked her head to the left and watched a line of impressive men, with one woman in their midst, snake through the side door and line up against the wall. Facially, they weren’t all handsome, at least not like Liam, who possessed the classic good looks of a California surfer, but all of them had incredible builds with muscles that went on forever and an air of quiet competence. And these were just the new recruits.

Man meat, indeed.

Had Liam picked her out of the crowd as easily as she had him? As she studied his face across the room, he looked up and met her eyes as if he knew exactly where she’d been standing all along.

Closing her eyes, she allowed herself one delicious shiver as she relived their meeting in the stairwell last night and once again felt Liam’s arms around her. He’d smelled precisely as she remembered—fresh like an ocean breeze, manly and strong.

Her eyelids flew open. And now he was part of Tempest—the enemy.

Pradeep Singh tapped the microphone at the front of the room, and the other managers lined up behind him. Their boss, Mr. Romo, was absent as usual. Ginger took a position to Pradeep’s right, folding her hands loosely in front of her, the business suit, glasses and chignon sending a demure, professional vibe.

But Katie knew better.

“Hello, everyone.” Pradeep waved his hands. “There are some seats up front, but we won’t keep you too long.”

Not many in the crowd took him up on his offer, so he continued.

“I know some of you have been hearing rumors this morning, and some of you early risers heard sirens and may have even seen the ambulance.”

Katie swallowed and hung on to her purse strap. Here it comes.

Pradeep cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to report that one of our own, Garrett Patterson, died at the compound last night.”

A few gasps and oohs and aahs rippled through the room, and Ginger leaned toward Pradeep, covering the mic with her hand as she whispered something in his ear.

Pradeep nodded once. “Garrett had a heart attack in his office last night—in this very building on the fourth floor.”

A wave of sympathetic murmurs swirled through the cafeteria, but Katie felt the air brimming with tension. Was it just the fact that a coworker had died in the building, or did the Tempest employees sense something more? She glanced around the room at the concerned and sad faces—emotions totally in keeping with the announcement.

She continued to scan the crowd and like a magnet, her eyes locked on to Liam’s. Even from this distance she could feel the intensity of his gaze. He’d probably taken note that Garrett had keeled over on the fourth floor—the floor she’d been exiting when she bumped into him on the stairwell. Liam didn’t miss much—except when it came to emotion.

Ginger stepped up to the mic next. “We’ll be taking up a collection for flowers for Garrett’s wife. The memorial service will be back East, so please pay your respects with a little donation.”

Katie clenched her jaw at Ginger’s phony, saccharine tone. Pradeep droned on for a bit more, but she’d tuned out. They’d put the heart attack story out there, and apparently had no trouble selling it to the EMTs who’d responded this morning.

Would that be the end of it? Could she phone in an anonymous tip to the police to check for some sort of heart attack-inducing drug?

“Earth to KC.” Samantha snapped her fingers in front of Katie’s face.

Pradeep had stopped speaking, and the crowd had begun shuffling back to their work areas, talking in low voices.

“Psst.” Samantha pinched her arm. “Let’s exit the same way the agents are exiting.”

“A coworker just died and that’s all you can think about?”

“Between you and me—” Samantha looked both ways “—Garrett had a roving eye. The few times I talked to him, he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze at eye level, if you know what I mean.”

“So he deserves to drop dead at his desk for being a perv?”

“Was he at his desk?” Samantha cocked her head. “I didn’t hear them say where he was.”

Katie shrugged. “Pradeep said he was found in his office, so I just assumed he was at his desk.”

Samantha herded her across the room to the farthest exit door where Liam and the other agents were headed. Would Liam think she was trying to get close to him?

She and Samantha jostled for position, and someone bumped her purse from behind. Gripping the strap, she glanced over her shoulder.

“Sorry.” Liam dropped his eyes to her purse and then stared straight ahead as if she was just another Tempest office worker—not someone who’d shared his bed for eight delicious months two years ago.

As the workers fanned out into the hallway, Samantha poked her in the back. “You see? It worked. One of them actually said something to you.”

“Yeah, he said sorry for bumping into my purse after you pushed me in front of him.”

“Well, that’s a start.”

“Start of some trouble. We’re not supposed to be fraternizing with those guys.” Katie flashed her badge at the reader by the office door, and the red light turned to green.

“I’d like to fraternize one or two of them.” Samantha winked and then ducked into her cubicle.

Katie dropped into her chair and hunched forward to open her bottom desk drawer to put her purse away. As she wedged it into the drawer, she noticed the corner of a white card sticking out of the side pocket.

Pinching it between two fingers, she pulled it free. The words jumped out at her.

Behind the bleachers at noon.

She recognized the writing as Liam’s, and her heart skipped a beat. Should she risk it? She might be able to wheedle some information out of him. She had special ways of handling Liam McCabe—or at least she used to.

She had to find out what he knew. The notebook she’d snatched from Patterson’s office last night had been a bust—just a bunch of abbreviations, a series of numbers and meeting notes.

The rest of the morning crawled by. Samantha popped in to let her know she had to bail on lunch for a meeting with her boss in accounting, which saved Katie from bailing herself.

When the clock on her computer read ten minutes to twelve, Katie grabbed her purse and ducked into the lunchroom to get her sandwich from the fridge. She’d better have some cover for being out at the track on her lunch hour.