Lost and Found (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten #2)(95)

“It’s not a game.”

She looked up and a familiar man was standing in the doorway. Jax’s boss. Jax must be in on it, too. How many of them were there? And did they all have to be so gorgeous? “You’ll excuse me if I don’t believe you. I would like a lawyer or to be let go.”

She struggled to her feet because she wasn’t about to let Owen help her. At least she didn’t have anything left to throw up.

“I can’t do that,” the man who’d called himself Ezra Fain said. “I’m sorry about how we started. You have to understand that everyone on my team was deeply affected by Dr. McDonald’s work.”

Damn it, she wasn’t sure she could make it farther than the table. With shaking hands, she started to pull the chair out. Owen was right there, doing it for her. She didn’t look at him as she sat down. Fain slid a green can her way.

It sounded way better than the tea had. And if they’d poisoned it, well, it wasn’t like they hadn’t already drugged her.

She started to pull the tab.

“Let me help you,” Owen offered.

“If you touch this, I’ll throw it on you,” she promised.

He backed off but didn’t go far. “Becca, I started this off all wrong. I was angry you lied to me.”

She wasn’t buying his new warmth. “It’s Dr. Walsh, and do you understand the meaning of the word hypocrite? I would really like to understand how I lied to you.”

“This afternoon,” he replied. “You lied about Carter coming to see you while we were at Casa Loma.”

“How did…” The truth hit her like a hard slap to the face. If only that had been the actual place he’d slapped her. “You had someone watching me.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “We’ve had someone watching you for a while now, but there were several of us earlier today. I was able to listen in on the whole conversation.”

She let that sink in. The major question was why, and she could only come up with one reason.

“I want to know if he’s here.” She didn’t want to know anything about Steven Reasor, but it appeared she wouldn’t have a choice. What she didn’t understand was why he would want her here. She’d done what he’d asked her to do. She’d run and she hadn’t looked back. She’d left him alone with his precious mentor.

But now she had to wonder exactly what he’d done to her back then. Time dilation. McDonald had mentioned it while they’d had lunch one day shortly after she’d joined the team.

Think of the implications, Rebecca. If we could trick the brain, we could effectively become immortal. Forever young. Imagine all that time to do our work.

It was science fiction. It wasn’t real.

But it explained so much. What was the old saying? Something about eliminating the impossible and whatever was left had to be the truth. It was impossible. Except very little was impossible when it came to the brain.

“Are you talking about the man you knew as Steven Reasor?” Fain took a seat in front of her. “I have some questions about him. Was he on Dr. McDonald’s team at Kronberg Pharmaceutical?”

She forced herself to take a drink. She couldn’t panic the way she had this afternoon. If she’d been logical, she might have avoided this trap. “He was at Huisman this afternoon. Are you telling me he doesn’t work with you?”

Owen took the other seat, though he sat down with obvious reluctance. “No. A man named Tucker works with us. He might look like Reasor, but he’s not the same man.”

A laugh huffed from her throat. Even to her own ears it was tinged with the edge of hysteria. “Reasor has a twin? I think that’s my nightmare. Hell, maybe there could be three of that psychotic son of a bitch.”

Owen winced. “No one’s going to hurt you here.”

Anger threatened to overtake fear, and that felt good to her. “No one’s going to hurt me? What the hell do you think you did, Owen? You think I’m not hurt? You think I’m having a blast figuring out that the man I’ve been sleeping with is some kind of criminal? I assume you’re a criminal since you kidnapped me. What I don’t understand is what you want from me. Is it money, since apparently I’ve got an extra million lying around?”

“I believe someone set you up. I know you didn’t steal that money. A man named Levi Green is using that stolen money as leverage to get what we all want,” Owen explained. “Hope McDonald’s research.”

“Fuck you. I’m not giving you any research.” If that’s what this was about, they’d come to the wrong place. They could kill her, probably would, but she wasn’t giving in to them.

“Sweetheart, the police are after you for more than the money.” He opened that ever-handy file folder and slid a picture her way. It took her a moment to realize it was of her. She was standing in front of the portrait of the Duchess of Cornwall. The lady she’d talked to was standing there, too. “This woman is a Chinese spy. She’s also the mistress of the head of the Huisman Foundation. I assume she’s sleeping with him to get information.”

“There’s a lot of that going around these days.” But her brain was working. Something had been happening all around her and she hadn’t seen it until it had been shoved in her face. She still didn’t understand it. If the Chinese had targeted Jean Claude Huisman, there was only one thing they could be after—research. Or intelligence on the doctors who worked there. There was a reason they locked down the private labs. A lot of delicate research occurred there, things the doctors wouldn’t want out in the world because it could potentially be twisted.