Midnight Fever (Men of Midnight #5)(56)

"You guys stay out of sight for the moment. I'm liaising with Captain Morrison and I'll let you know what emerges from the investigation."

She leaned closer to the screen. "Hammer was killed by a drone."

"Yeah. We got that. Felicity traced the frequency back to a spot on the road. It was being piloted by someone in a vehicle who then left. We're working on that. Soon we'll know who was piloting it. One way or another, we're hoping to wrap this thing up soon."

Soon. They were in a hurry. Kay nodded. "I imagine you need Nick back in the office."

A veil of coldness dropped across his face. Just amazing. She realized that he had been warm and fuzzy before in contrast to now. Now he looked like he was about to kill someone. "No. That's not it. Yeah, we'd like Nick to come back when he can, but he's doing good work right where he is. This company doesn't stand for murder, for threats to good people. And I've heard enough to understand that there's the possibility of a dangerous bio-weapon in play that could go wide. We were born to fight things like this. And we will. We'll talk soon."

The monitor winked off.

It was like a powerful source of energy had just been switched off and Kay slumped in her chair.

"He's something, isn't he?" Nick asked, amused.

It was very cool in what she thought of as the command module. All those electronics. The chill in the air was the only thing that stopped her from sweating like a pig. John Huntington was a force of nature.

"I'll say." She switched gears, turning to face Nick. "So-Felicity's pregnant. How long have you known?"

"Couple of days now."

"Do you think she's freaked?" During Kay's visits and when they Skyped, she and Felicity had talked about this. Metal was eager, really impatient to start a family. Felicity wanted to start one too but, unlike Metal, she'd never really been part of a happy family. She doubted herself, not Metal.

Kay didn't doubt for a second that Metal would make a great father. Metal's father had been an incredible role model and his uncles were all really good family men. Felicity's parents had been cold and secretive, shutting her out. She said she wasn't too sure she was cut out to be a good mom.

"Yeah. Metal's more freaked, though."

"He is? Felicity said he was really ready, raring to go."

"Mm." Nick smiled grimly. "He didn't calculate that in order to have kids, Felicity would have to be pregnant. Apparently, she's having problems and it's making his head explode. He wants kids with Felicity but he doesn't want her to have to be pregnant."



       
         
       
        

"Little cognitive dissonance there. Hard to have the one without the other."

"Well, they'll work it out. Eventually, Felicity will give birth. To two kids at once. That's really super-efficient, just like her. Now." Nick leaned forward, grasping the arms of her chair. His face was sober and serious. "There's not much I can do to help you go through the files, but I can fetch and carry and make sure you're comfortable." His hand lifted, moved over her hair in a caress. "I suggest you stay here, it's the place where there's the most computing power. You can have music if you want. Any kind except heavy metal. Drives me crazy."

Okay, so cool dude Nick Mancino didn't do heavy metal. Interesting. Kay usually worked to new age music or Mozart. But when she had heavy-duty focusing to do, she needed silence.

"No, no heavy metal, promise. As a matter of fact, I think I'd prefer silence."

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "You got it. Anything else?"

"I understand that the room needs to remain cool because of all the electronics but it's too cold if I'm going to be sitting in a chair. I'll need a sweater and socks. And while you're at it, some water, fruit and hot tea at hand. A Thermos would be great. Any kind of herbal tea. If Isabel stocked up, there's bound to be plenty of herbal tea."

"Dunno, I'm a coffee guy myself, but I'll look around. Be back in a second."

Okay, she thought, as she brought the contents of the flash drive up on the monitor in front of her. She also threw the data up on one of the big screens.

She scrolled, tapped on the screen, scrolled some more. The material was organized into several subsets. One was Bill's normal work files, going back two years. That data had had normal CDC encryption, the same encryption all of them followed. His files were similar to her own, except of course he'd been working on different projects. But the structure was similar, and familiar.

She selected that data out, and threw it up on a second wall screen.