Midnight Fever (Men of Midnight #5)(50)

ASI was run by exactly the opposite type of man. John Huntington, aka the Midnight Man, and Douglas Kowalski, aka the Senior, were righteous dudes, great bosses who never asked anyone to do something they wouldn't do themselves. They were building a truly great company, employing the best of the best. The starting pay was double his income as an FBI Special Agent. And Portland, Oregon, was a nicer place to live than Washington, DC.

Because then and there, he'd made up his mind to join ASI. He'd had a standing invitation and decided to take John and Senior up on it. He'd scheduled a meeting for the next weekend and damned if she hadn't left the city while his plane was touching down. She'd come early and left early.

"I know I'm a terrible liar," Kay said, rolling her eyes. "Of course I am. It's a professional deformation. Scientists can't lie. We can't distort the truth, because digging for the truth is what we do. Unlike you slick superspy undercover dudes."

Nick blew out a breath of air. "Well, you were really lousy at it."

Kay looked him straight in the eyes. God, her eyes were beautiful. This amazing bright blue color, like the sky over the sea. So bright they almost glowed.

She was saying something and he didn't catch it. "What?"

"I was protecting you. Because the further Priyanka dug, the more it appeared that Bill was working on, or had perfected, a deadly bio-weapon. Someone tried to hack Priyanka's computer, but her brother made sure that they hacked into these fake files, perfectly innocuous. Her real files were behind a wall. Then Bill was killed."

"Wait." Nick frowned. "He was killed? When?"

She sighed. "The Wednesday after. A mugging. But of course, it wasn't a mugging, he was either threatening to talk or, even worse, his usefulness was over. By the time Priyanka found out, his office had been cleared out, his computer gone, his condo and all its contents gone. Someone did some serious cleaning up after him; it was almost like he didn't exist." 

Nick frowned. He didn't like this, any of it. Three people killed. And she thought she had to protect him? What was that shit?

"Luckily, as I told you, Priyanka was sneaky, and she had had her brother copy all of Bill's files and put them in the cloud. It was a ton of data. She'd gone through some and on the basis of that, she contacted Mike Hammer."

"I can't believe you ran away from me while this was happening. You should have come to me."

She looked to one side, then back to him. "You're FBI," she said simply. "Or were," she added when he opened his mouth. "It was clear that Priyanka was going to blow the whistle on the CDC, and I was going to back her up. Do what I could. But … we all know what happens to whistleblowers. Then Priyanka … died."

She swallowed heavily, cleared her throat. Pain flashed on her beautiful face. "Car accident. I couldn't believe it when I heard the news. She was so beautiful, so full of life. And then-then they were saying that they'd found a high blood-alcohol level, that she'd been drunk. I read the autopsy report." That long white neck bobbed as she swallowed heavily. "Nobody would give it to me, so I emailed Felicity and she just hacked into the coroner's office and copied it for me. She'd met Priyanka and was as horrified as I was. The coroner must have been bought off, because Priyanka definitely did not drink any alcohol. If she did have a high level of alcohol, it could only be because she was infused. So there must have been a pinprick in her elbow or subclavian. You can infuse alcohol into the system via an IV line. It's the only way she'd have alcohol in her system. Whatever it was, Priyanka was … gone. She was thirty-two years old, brilliant and beautiful and the best friend anyone could ask for. And she was gone."

Nick watched as she bowed her head, another crystal tear dropping off that smooth white cheek. She was mourning her friend while holding on to him. Damn right. She could hold on to him for as long as she wanted and needed. Beyond.

Her head lifted. "Then I got a message from her."

That surprised him. "From beyond the grave?"

"Yeah." She gave a strangled laugh. "Just like Priyanka to do something like that, nothing stops her. She decided at the age of seven to become a researcher because she thought lab coats were cool. I've never seen anyone more determined and more organized. She knew she had moved into the danger zone, and had taken precautions. She put together a file that was to go to me if two days passed without her entering a specific code. She was a planner."

A planner. Nick kept his tongue. Priyanka might have been a friend, might have been desperate, but she had painted a huge bullseye on Kay's back. Kay wouldn't want to hear it, but that's what had happened.