On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(72)

“Can you track him back? Can you use this information to figure out where he is?” Ian asked.

Adam shrugged. “I can try. He’s escalating.”

“I’m surprised,” Eve said. “This doesn’t sound like Nelson. He’s never come at us out in the open.”

Nelson had been a pain in the firm’s collective asses for longer than any of them had imagined. Alex had thought their troubles with Nelson began when the CIA operative decided to sell corporate secrets to the Chinese and he’d tried to use Sean Taggart’s wife to do it. But a couple of months ago in London he had discovered that Nelson had been dirty for years and had very likely had a hand in killing Ian’s wife and sending Liam on the run. Alex wouldn’t put anything past the man, but he seriously doubted that Nelson was out there calling Ian Hottie McHot Pants.

“He’s coming after us personally now.” Ian sat back in his chair.

“He’s coming after the boss anyway.” Liam knelt down, nodding toward the monitor. “And I think we might have had a breakin a couple of weeks ago. Ian asked me to go through all the security records. Someone used my security code at 1:51 am exactly three weeks and two days ago. I checked my records. I happen to know I didn’t come to the office that night. Avery and I were in Austin for the weekend. The rest of you were working on a corporate case and you were all in Omaha. No one but the accounting girl was in the office, and she certainly wasn’t here at that time of night.”

Why would Nelson sneak into their office? What could he hope to gain? He’d always tried to stay away from them. “Do we have him on video?”

Ian growled. It was the way he’d communicated since they were kids. “I can’t find the things. I’m calling the company that programmed the backup system. I hope we still have the security tapes, but the way the rest of my f*cking week is going, I’m sure someone taped soap operas over them. Can I borrow Adam for a couple of hours?”

“Any idiot can run the pics we took today through a facial recognition system,” Adam said.

Ian sighed. “Thank god. Then Sean can do it.”

Sean flipped his brother off. Ah, brotherhood.

“Fine, Sean can run the pictures. The GPS bugs we planted today will send us reports.” Alex wanted to get everything out of the way so he could spend some more time with Eve. He’d realized something today. He really only had the next weeks of this mission to convince her. When they got back to the real world, she would question everything and start putting up roadblocks. He had no intention of going backwards. He needed to use this time to bind her to him again.

Adam slapped his hands together with obvious glee at getting to use his new toys. “I got the reports on the bugs already. I told you they would immediately start reporting back. You got two tagged. Way to go, Alex. I was hoping you could get one. The bad news is one of the bugs tracked right to a dry cleaner and now it’s dead. Apparently the dry cleaning process is hell on delicate but brilliantly crafted new technology. But the second one just landed at LaGuardia. It looks like we’re getting some movement.”

“Well, really?” Eve asked, a satisfied smile on her face. “Now I wonder which one is still giving deeply helpful information and which one is dead?”

“I can still spank you.” Damn it. She’d been right, but he stood by his rule. She could have gotten hurt. Just because she’d been right didn’t prove a damn thing. He’d already known she was smarter than him. Everyone knew it. Hell, he was pretty sure there had been a billboard taken out proclaiming it.

“You like to spank me for no reason at all,” Eve said with the most adorable pout.

He did. He would get his hands on her for any reason he could think of. “Get me the information, Adam. I need that information and anything Sean could find. Do we have a workable connection on Chazz’s cell phone? Jake gave me the signal that he’d tapped Chazz’s cell.”

“All I’ve gotten so far is Chazz ordering pizza with double meat and trying to hook up with two of his servers. Someone named Bambi likes to say ewwww a lot and hang up on him. He’s very positive. He just keeps calling back,” Sean explained. “Why did I pull babysit the douchebag duty? Couldn’t Kris do this? She has a way better sense of humor when it comes to two idiots trying to hook up.”

He had plans for Kristen. This was his night off so it would look suspicious if he showed up. “Kris is going back to the club tonight. She’s going to try to lift Chazz’s keys and make a copy of the key to his office.”

Ian frowned. “Shouldn’t you do that yourself?”

“She’s my best shot tonight.” They had worked it all out during the drive from St. Augustine to Palm Coast. “I don’t have any reason to be in the club until tomorrow night when Eve and I start our nightly performances. The club is closed for a private party for some of Chazz’s friends. According to Kristen, he likes to get really drunk. Jake didn’t get a shot at it last night, so Kristen is taking hers tonight.”

“You’re putting an awful lot of trust in someone you don’t know,” Ian said.

How did he explain Kristen? There was something deep in his gut that told him she was worth trusting. “I think she’s the best person to do this job. She’s been nothing but helpful up to this point.”