Christmas Guardian. Delores Fossen
his jacket and handed it to Burke. A symbolic gesture, but one that tugged at his heart. “Don’t run the place into the ground, all right?”
“I won’t,” Burke assured him.
They shook hands, embraced briefly, while some photos were snapped. But Jordan had no intentions of lingering. He’d already said goodbye to his key agents, including Cody, Desmond Parisi and Alonzo Mateo, and he nodded farewell to two of his newer employees, Chris Sutton and Wally Arceneaux. Then, he took a final sip of the champagne, and he set Kinley’s and his glasses aside so they could head for the door.
Cody stepped out of the gathering to hand Kinley her coat. “You might need this,” he added. Still no smile, not even a phony one. He was obviously riled that Jordan had sold the company. One day Jordan might be able to explain to him why he’d done it. “Enjoy your evening.”
Jordan seriously doubted there’d be anything enjoyable about it. He only hoped it didn’t turn deadly.
He helped Kinley with her coat and tried not to rush to the door. Jordan got them out of there and headed to the adjacent parking lot. It was cold, near freezing, and the wind barreled out of the north right at them. He kept her close, snuggled intimately into the crook of his arm, and he kissed her. This time it was on the corner of her mouth in the hopes that it wouldn’t carry the punch of a full-mouth kiss.
It did anyway.
She was attractive. There was no denying that. But he reminded himself that everything about her was a facade. Well, except for the fear. She was trembling, but he was almost certain it wasn’t from the cold.
Kinley looked up at him. “Where’s my—”
Jordan pressed his lips to hers so she couldn’t finish the question. Still walking, he kept his mouth over hers a second and then drew back slightly. “Lip readers,” he mumbled.
Her smoke-gray eyes widened, and she gave a shaky nod, understanding that if someone were filming them, a lip reader would be able to determine anything they said.
Including a question about the child.
They reached his silver Porsche and got inside, behind the bulletproof custom-tinted glass and into a space that would not only conceal them, but was also sound-proof. They could see out, but no one could see in. And an alarm would beep if anyone tried to scan the vehicle with thermal or sound detectors. Since Jordan heard no beep, it was safe to talk.
But not necessarily smart to tell her everything he knew.
For now, he couldn’t trust her. Yes, Kinley was the birth mother, and she also knew the code word, but that didn’t mean her maternal instincts had been the reason she’d come to him. He needed more answers about her motives, and while he was finding those answers, he had to continue with more damage control.
“Now can I ask my question?” she wanted to know.
He settled for saying, “It’s safe.”
She didn’t waste any time. “Where’s my son?”
Jordan didn’t waste time, either. “You had to have known the risks of coming to me. So why did you?”
She didn’t get defensive. Thanks to the security lights in the parking lot, Jordan could see her clearly. The light bathed her troubled face and danced off the red crystals on her dress.
“I just needed to know he was alive,” she whispered. “That he was okay. I couldn’t live not knowing.” She scraped her thumbnail over the red polish on her right index finger and flaked it off. “I knew there were risks, but I thought I’d minimized them.”
“Obviously not, if I figured out who you were and what you wanted.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t think you had him. I only thought you’d have information. Or rather I hoped you would. I wasn’t very optimistic because I’d read that Shelly and you were enemies, that she embezzled from you.”
Jordan sighed. “That was Shelly’s version of damage control. She didn’t want anyone to be able to link me to the child.”
Still, that hadn’t stopped SAPD and even a federal investigator from questioning him. It also hadn’t stopped three different P.I.s, who’d been hired by God knows who to find out what’d happened in the last minutes of Shelly’s life. Jordan figured all three P.I.s had probably worked for the same person, but he’d never been able to dig through the layers of security and paperwork to come up with a name. Or a reason why the baby was so important.
But that was something Kinley could perhaps tell him.
He used the car’s mirrors to glance around the parking lot. “You’re a cautious woman,” he remarked. “Would you know if someone had followed you?”
“I thought I would. But I was obviously wrong.”
“Other than me, would you know if someone had followed you?” He wasn’t being cocky. He was just better than most at that sort of thing.
“People have followed me in the past, but after I left witness protection this last time, I haven’t noticed anyone.”
That didn’t mean someone wasn’t there. Jordan had another look at those mirrors.
“You gave up your company for my son,” she said. Not a question, nor an accusation. Her voice was heavy with emotion.
He glanced at her and decided to change the subject. “I’m going with two possible theories here. First, that the child’s father is behind all of this danger.”
She was shaking her head before he even finished. “No. He’s dead. He died trying to murder me and my brother.”
Okay. That was a story he knew a little about but wanted to hear more of later. “Second theory. Someone wants the baby for leverage. The people after you want information, and they believe if they have your child, they’ll be able to manipulate you into giving them what they want.”
Kinley stared at him so long he wasn’t sure she would jump on to this subject change, but she finally looked away and returned to chipping off her nail polish. “The research facility where I was employed was working on several projects. One was the chemical weapon antidote that I told you about. Several researchers were working on it, and occasionally, I assisted them.”
“Assisted?” He latched right on to that and mentally cursed when he spotted something he didn’t like in the mirror.
Hell.
“Usually I was just a consult for a particular facet of a project,” she explained. “For instance, I only worked on a portion of the formula for the primary antidote. I never got to see the finished results. None of us did. That was the way the facility maintained security.”
Jordan calmly started the car, put on his seat belt and kept his eyes on the mirror. “But even though you don’t have the big picture, you have pieces. Others have pieces. And you have the names of those others.”
“Yes.” That was all she said for several moments. “Brenna Martel was one of the top lab assistants at the research facility. She’s in a federal prison serving a life sentence. But there are others who disappeared after the facility was destroyed and the federal investigation started.” Another pause. “I’ve written notes about the research, and I’ve gone over them a thousand times, but I just don’t know why someone would still be after me.”
“Notes?” he questioned.
“They’re encrypted,” she huffed, obviously noting his concern. “I wouldn’t just leave information like that lying around for anyone to see.”
But someone would look hard for info like that. “And these notes are where exactly?”
“Hidden in my apartment.”
Jordan didn’t even have to think about this. “I want to see them.” In fact, he wanted to study them and