Shadow, p.3
Shadow, page 3
part #6 of Linear Tactical Series
Maybe a little drastic, but easier to keep from her family.
She hugged Zuri. “I miss you. How dare you finish your studies, get a successful career, and leave me behind to teach undergraduate courses and finish my dissertation by myself.”
“And now you’re in the math and engineering division! How will you ever survive?”
“I have no idea.” Lyn was only partially kidding. “But the biomedical engineering geeks have been pretty nice. I actually hung out with a group of them last week for a glass of wine at Baxter’s. It was nice, even though I have no idea what they’re talking about when they start discussing research.”
“Don’t they have anything better to talk about?”
Lyn grinned. “We discussed my research for a little bit. Then they had no idea what I was talking about. But at least it sounded all exotic and mysterious to them. I’m sure they’d be impressed that I can cuss in twenty different languages.”
“Maybe you needed some biomed peeps to appreciate you.”
Lyn shrugged. “Maybe. At least it’s some new faces. New conversations.”
Zuri bumped her hip against Lyn’s again and slipped an arm around her shoulder. “You like having a new language to learn and study—and don’t tell me you’re not studying the way those biomed engineering nerds are speaking.”
Lyn snickered. “Guilty as charged. A group of us is supposed to hang out again tomorrow night. Drinks and stuff. I’ve met a couple of grad assistants, Veronica Williams and Troy Powell, they’re nice. Dale Hudson—”
“Associate professor. I’ve met him a couple of times. Follicly challenged and likes to hear himself talk, but otherwise not too bad.”
Lyn shrugged. “There are more too. I just don’t know them yet. I’ll meet them tomorrow.”
Zuri grinned. “Look at you. You’ve got new nerds wanting to hang out with you. Sounds like the sort of event you should invite a big, strong, sexy janitor to. See if he can help you figure out the engineering language. Or, if not that, maybe you two can come up with a language of your own. And by language of your own, I mean—”
Lyn slapped a hand over her friend’s mouth. “I know exactly what you mean. We’ll see if there’s a good time for me to ask him. I might not even see Heath again before tomorrow.”
But she hoped she would.
Chapter Three
He was a damned janitor.
Heath really should’ve gotten all the details of this mission from Craig Franklin before he’d agreed to it. When the man had said he had the perfect means for sending Heath in, Heath had assumed it would be as a professor or even a nontraditional student.
Not a damned janitor.
He picked up another wastebasket and poured its contents into the larger trash can he’d been wheeling around all evening, trying not to cringe as a half-full can of soda spilled out onto the floor. Heath grabbed his mop.
But as much as he might dislike it, the role was good for undercover work. Nobody had paid him much attention for the nearly three weeks he’d been here. He had a key to almost every office and lab. People spoke around him as if he weren’t there at all.
But damned if these college kids weren’t the biggest jerks on the planet. And the professors? Not much better. None of them ever spoke to Heath, ever made eye contact with him, or picked up after themselves. Most of them were deliberately rude behind his back or even sometimes to his face.
Heath wasn’t here to make friends; he was here to keep important information from being stolen. So he kept his head down, and when some bratty professor or kid muttered some asinine statement about him probably having a criminal record or not even speaking English, he didn’t even look up.
Definitely didn’t pull his gun on them like he was tempted to do and explain that he had an IQ over 140 and had spent the past decade protecting the country. Sort of.
Instead he just dumped another trash can.
Sending him in as a student wouldn’t have given Heath the access to offices and labs he needed. Sending him in as a professor might have, but even Heath knew that wouldn’t have worked. Academics were close-knit and would heavily scrutinize an outsider suddenly showing up and wanting information. Not to mention, they would expect him to know detailed data and particulars about biomedical engineering.
So custodian, or facilities maintenance technician, as the job read on paper, it was.
The job—both the undercover work and the maintenance duties—had kept him busy for three weeks. Access to the biomedical engineering and technology labs had been more widespread than either Heath or Craig had expected. Which was why the illegal sale was going on in the first place: someone had recognized there was a big gap in security and had decided to take advantage of it.
Heath’s job had become twofold: figure out who was planning to sell the nanotechnology data and, in the process, shore up the security of the labs themselves.
When he wasn’t emptying the trash and cleaning the classrooms. Which, unfortunately, gave the gibberish in his head way too much time and volume—a literal constant headache. One that he ignored as much as possible.
What other choice did he have? Especially right now—there was nothing he could do about it. Kendrick Foster, Linear’s part-time computer guru, was back in Oak Creek digging up what he could about Holloman’s murder. Maybe it would lead somewhere. Anywhere.
But for right now, Heath was behind a janitorial cart.
When he wasn’t, he was poring over the lab’s logins—seeing who was coming and going when. He’d also installed tiny cameras throughout the halls of the building and in the labs themselves. Watching that footage took time.
They needed a team working on this case, and Craig was doing what he could to help, even looking through some of the footage himself. But if there really was a mole in his office, sending in someone else to help Heath could tip off the perps.
That meant for now, Heath was on his own and working twenty hours a day.
He’d been so busy, he hadn’t made it over to the south side of the campus where the hospitality classes were taught to check on Gavin’s sister, Jackie, like his friend had asked. But since none of the danger was anywhere near the building where little Jackie Zimmerman studied, getting eyes on her had been moved to the back burner.
It was getting late now. Evening classes were letting out. Heath decided to head up to the eighth floor, where the biomedical research labs were situated. He had to wait a long time since one of the three elevators was out of service, and none of the students or instructors would make room for him and his cart, even when there was space available.
It was like they were afraid they might catch janitor cooties if they were in an enclosed space with him for too long.
Heath promised himself he would learn the names of every custodial staff member in any building he worked in from now on. He would say hello, ask about their day. Not treat them like they were invisible.
Because they weren’t undercover, so they weren’t trying to be invisible.
Finally, an elevator opened—empty—and Heath was able to wheel his cart into it. Once he made it to the labs, he kept his head down and pulled out a dry mop.
This floor was where he would catch his perp. So here more than anywhere else, it was important that everyone think he was “just” a janitor.
Heath had narrowed his suspect pool down to six, but he had his money on one associate professor, Dale Hudson. The guy was in and out of the lab at weird hours. Beyond that, he seemed shifty. Heath had spent the past ten years, first for his work in Project Crypt and then in his work for Linear Tactical, dealing with people, reading them, sizing them up.
Dale Hudson had secrets. What remained to be seen was whether those secrets involved selling technology to enemies of the United States.
But he wasn’t the only possible suspect. Hudson’s two graduate assistants—Veronica Williams and Troy Powell—both tended to keep odd hours at the lab and had access to the data in question. The head of the department, Jane Porter, had also made an unexpected visit to the lab in the middle of the night last week.
There were another couple of people Heath was also keeping an eye on. They hadn’t been in the lab at odd hours, but maybe that was because they were smart enough to know it would draw attention.
Heath was narrowing it down, but he wasn’t doing it fast enough. He was running out of time.
Between passing conversations—since he was invisible and all—and the info he’d gathered from offices as he’d cleaned them, he’d learned enough to piece together that the nanotechnology project was near completion. The data would soon be ready to transfer if it wasn’t already. Whoever was making this play would make it soon.
Heath needed to figure out who that was.
But the woman standing at the end of the hallway struggling to get the key out of her office door was definitely not one of his suspects.
Lyn Norris.
Lyn was the only person he’d met so far who didn’t ignore him. She never sidestepped him in the hall as if he had some sort of communicable disease. She never attempted to make jokes or comments that she thought would go over his head. She never talked down to him as if he had a learning disability.
She was aware of him.
At first, he’d thought she was onto him, that he’d blown his cover. She was observant and intelligent—a potentially dangerous combination.
But he’d soon realized that those big brown eyes followed him everywhere because she was aware of him as a man, not as an undercover agent.
Sweet almost-Dr. Norris had a crush on him.
She was so not his type. He preferred leggy blonds over short brunettes with ample curves and shy eyes. Not to mention the pile of books she always carried around.
But damned if he’d been able to get her out of his mind from the first moment he’d seen her.
And then he’d heard her muttering curse words in Spanish. Since it was one of the languages he spoke fluently, he’d asked her if she spoke it too. But no. Evidently, she collected curse words in other languages.
That had led to several mornings with them sharing coffee and donuts and her teaching him curse words in different languages. Many of which he already knew.
But he liked it. And soon found he would enjoy getting to know sweet Lyn better.
To explore what almost-Dr. Norris looked like without her glasses and peeled out of those button-down sweaters she liked to wear.
To kiss the mouth that stammered every time she talked to him about anything that wasn’t a foreign curse word.
Watching her now as she held a full conversation with the keys stuck in the doorknob, Heath wanted to walk over to her, help her get the door open, then lift her and her luscious curves onto her desk and make out with her until neither of them could see straight.
Or hell, he would even settle for just talking to her. Taking her out to dinner.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Not now, not while he was undercover. And even afterward, he couldn’t either. Not while he was still trying to figure out all this Project Crypt stuff in his head—still as inescapable now as it had been the day Holloman had been killed.
As much as he might be tempted, and damn he was tempted, Heath would not be asking the pretty grad student out.
He had to keep his head down and focus on the job. Catch the bad guys and get out. As long as he didn’t make any romantic moves toward Lyn, he was certain she would be too shy to make any toward him.
And he tried to remind himself that was a good thing.
Lyn had cursed at her keys in every language she knew. How difficult could it be to get a key to come out of a doorknob?
Damn it, why were normal things so hard for her? And despite what she’d said to Zuri earlier, hanging out with all new people in this building was hard too. Interesting, maybe, but stressful.
And even if she saw him, there was definitely no way she was going to be asking out—
“Hey, looks like your keys are stuck. Can I help?”
—Heath.
That voice, smoky and deep. It had Lyn releasing her grip on the keys, smoothing her sweater over the too-generous curves of her waist, and shifting back and forth on her low heels.
“Heath. Hi! My keys are stuck!” Scheiße. That’s exactly what he’d just said except with an appropriate amount of enthusiasm rather than that of a circus ringmaster. She took a breath. “I mean, yeah. If you could help, that would be great.”
Looking into his eyes was hard, so she dropped her gaze.
And then couldn’t stop staring at his wrists. God, they were sexy. She just wanted to wrap her fingers around them, hold on to them—preferably while he was cupping either side of her neck to kiss her.
She popped her eyes back up to his and found him studying her with an easy smile.
Oh God, did he know she’d been fantasizing about his wrists? What she was thinking? Mierda.
“It’s no problem. I just need you to step out of the way so I can get to the keys.”
“Oh! Yeah, of course.” She stepped back so he could get to the doorknob, feigning a smile that had to look ridiculous since she was gritting her teeth.
“You’re just coming back from class, right? Everything go okay?” He grabbed the knob and wiggled the key. Lyn forced herself not to ogle his wrist like some arm perv.
“Oh, it was fine. Hard to interest lower classmen in elements of comparative philology, but I try.”
Was she really talking about linguistic theory with Heath? He probably had no idea what comparative philology was. Most people didn’t.
“I’m sure you’re great at making it interesting.”
Lyn was much better at researching and reading than she was teaching, but teaching some undergraduate sections of language theory was part of her doctoral program fellowship, so she did it.
She shrugged. “I’m not sure my students think so. A lot of them went to the Adil Garrison talk instead. More interested in learning get-rich-quick possibilities than in attending class.”
“Yeah, Garrison was touring this floor yesterday. All the people following him around made for quite a big mess to clean up.” He twisted the key one more time. “Here you go, got it open for you.”
Of course he had. She’d been trying to get the door unlocked for ten minutes, but he’d done it in ten seconds.
“Thanks.” She sighed as he handed back her keychain and held the door open.
This was her chance to ask him out. She needed some sort of segue to start the conversation.
Think of something interesting to say. Think of something interesting to say.
“Do you know that the Chinese language has fifty thousand characters but you only need to know about two thousand to read a newspaper?” Oh dear God. How was she possibly going to segue into asking him out from that?
“What?”
“Never mind.”
How could she be twenty-seven years old, so familiar with the intricacies of communication and language, and still be so bad at talking to an attractive man?
Heath nodded and took a step back. “I guess I should get back to work.”
“Right. Yeah.”
“Did you see this?” Heath reached down and picked up a note that had fallen to the floor.
It was from Veronica, reminding her of tomorrow night, since Lyn had almost forgotten last time.
“Oh, this is from a friend. The biomed engineering graduate fellows invited me out for drinks tomorrow at Baxter’s. She wanted to make sure I’m still going.”
“Are you planning on it?” Heath looked genuinely interested.
Oh God, this was her chance. If Zuri were here, she would’ve already been nudging Lyn closer. Lyn had been trying to get up her nerve all day.
She wondered if he would laugh at her if he knew she’d developed a script of sorts for asking him on a date. Things she could say and possible responses he might have so she would know how to reply.
She’d even looked through a few textbooks on interpersonal communication, searching for common signs of attraction in a person’s nonverbal body language and codes.
Lyn may almost have a PhD in linguistics, but when it came to romance, she was pretty bad at it. Finding the right words was difficult for her. Researching how to ask Heath out had made it seem viable. All she’d needed were the right words.
Easier said than done, now that he was standing here beside her. Whatever script she’d developed had flown out of her mind. She shifted her weight back and forth again, pulling her book and computer bag closer to her chest.
Just say it.
“Yes, I’m going out with them. I was hoping maybe you might want to go with me.” The words came out all in a rush.
And then silence.
Not good silence. Awkward silence.
You didn’t have to be a linguistics or interpersonal communication expert to realize that. Any given five-year-old could.
“Lyn . . .”
He was going to say no. She could tell by the grimace that crossed his face before he carefully schooled it back into a neutral mask. “Ttong.”
He tilted his head to the side. “Korean?”
She didn’t care how he knew she’d said “shit” in Korean. She just wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor.
What had she been thinking? Heath wasn’t interested in going out with someone like her. Just because they’d joked about cuss words in different languages and had coffee and donuts—and he’d probably thought she should skip the donuts—didn’t mean he wanted to date her.
He probably thought she was a plump bookworm who didn’t do much besides academic work and had very little experience when it came to men. He’d be right.
She should stick to her ancient languages. They weren’t ever going to hurt her.
