Beck & Call (4 page)

She cursed herself for not spending more effort ironing this morning. She had a feeling Raeburn noted every wrinkle in her bland beige skirt.

“This is the girl?” he asked, as if Curtis had been claiming a frog was a princess.

“This is Mia,” Curtis said. “Mia, this is Sam Raeburn.”

Raeburn remembered his manners and rose to acknowledge her. He held her hand in both of his like politicians did, seeming gentle and friendly but really controlling.

“Nice to meet you,” she said as calmly as she was able.

He considered her a moment longer. “Can I test her?” he asked Curtis.

Mia prayed he meant test her memory.

“Certainly,” Curtis said.

As Raeburn unlatched his briefcase to remove whatever he intended to quiz her with, her gaze slid to the other side of the conference table, where Jake had tipped his chair back against the exposed brick wall. Naturally, their second investigator was relaxed, though to her amazement he wore a tie today.

The little wink he sent her as he flipped it steadied her.

Raeburn set a legal pad and fountain pen on the table, followed by a page torn from a Yellow Pages, the sort you rarely saw anymore. The print included advertisements as well as phone listings.

“How long do you need?” he asked.

“I’ve got it,” she said. “You can put it away.”

The page hadn’t lain in front of her for more than a heartbeat. Raeburn looked surprised as he pulled it back. She knew he hadn’t seen her do anything. Her gift didn’t require concentration, or calm, or any other effort. Her brain did what it did because it was wired that way.

Understanding what was expected, she sat in the empty chair beside the CEO to scribble what she’d seen on the legal pad. She reminded herself to keep her hand relaxed to prevent it from cramping. Thankfully, Raeburn’s expensive pen wrote smoothly. Fifteen minutes and six pages later, she’d recreated the phone book page in extremely precise detail.

Jake, bless him, had taken over serving coffee in the meantime.

Raeburn set his cup in the saucer when she handed over her little stack.

“You can proof it,” she said, “but everything is there.”

Raeburn laid out the pages, each of which duplicated a section of the original. She’d have been surprised if he didn’t check her work. He did it swiftly, obviously sharp between the ears himself.

At last, he sat back and gazed at her. “That’s amazing. You even drew the illustrations in the ads.”

“I figured you wanted me to. Otherwise, why pick a page that included them?”

He rocked his office chair thoughtfully. “You can memorize anything? No matter how detailed?”

“If my eyes can see it, I can draw it afterwards.”

“What if you don’t understand the information?”

“It doesn’t matter. I reproduce it visually.”

“Were you born like this?”

She hesitated. She didn’t want to be rude. She knew getting this assignment was important. “I’d rather not talk about that, if you’ll forgive me.”

“Of course,” he said. “I was just curious.”

He didn’t seem offended, but she was still unnerved by his attention. The feeling was nothing new. People who saw her do her thing tended to react as if she’d turned into a Roswell style alien.

Watch out for my big gray bobblehead!
she thought. The private joke allowed her to smile faintly.

“Okay,” Raeburn said, addressing her boss again. “I’m satisfied she can do what you claim. What I’m wondering is why you’re sure you can plant her on Call’s personal staff. That paranoid bastard doesn’t let anyone close to him.”

Curtis had prepared her not to react to this assumption—not that it mattered. Raeburn wasn’t watching her anymore.

“You can leave that to us,” Curtis said. “You’re paying us for results, after all. We’ll move forward as soon as you specify the smoking gun you need Mia to search for.”

Raeburn frowned then seemed to make up his mind. He sat up straighter in his chair, pulling a large rolled up sheet of paper from the relative emptiness of his briefcase. His blocky, powerful looking hands flattened the page on the table. Curtis and Jake leaned forward to see better.

Because she was next to Raeburn, Mia had a clear view of it.

She wasn’t sure what she was looking at—possibly a blurred copy of a circuit board or a blown-up view of a microchip. The images were dense, with tiny printed symbols and mathematical formulas. The page was stamped CONFIDENTIAL, and the G/lightning slash/B that formed Genbolt’s logo marked the upper right corner. Though the schematic was complex, she knew she’d recognize it if she saw it again.

“This is half the blueprint we believe my daughter passed to Call. Naturally, I can’t show you the rest for security reasons. Zoe denies giving it to him, so I need evidence he has it in his possession.” Raeburn’s cool blue eyes pinned hers. “We know WorldWide has been working on a competing version of this project, but we had good reason to believe their progress was at least a year behind ours. Now, suddenly, they’re claiming to be ahead and telling the government they should get development funding instead of us. I don’t think that’s the way business should be done in this country.”

He addressed her as if she had the integrity to share his opinion, which was flattering or diplomatic, depending.

Mia answered him frankly. “I’m not certain me seeing this in Call’s possession will hold up as legal proof—assuming I can locate the thing.”

“I don’t expect the matter to come before a judge. The government prefers to settle this sort of quarrel behind closed doors. Fortunately, given the nature of your memory, you’ll only need to glimpse it in passing. God willing, you’ll never be in harm’s way.”

Mia would prefer to avoid that too. She was no risk junkie.

“So we move forward?” Curtis asked politely.

Raeburn rose, re-secured the items he’d taken from his briefcase, and buttoned his multiple thousand-dollar suit jacket. Probably his tailor was worth the extra simoleons. He almost looked trim with the front fastened.

“We move forward,” he agreed. “Your retainer will be wired into your account by end of business today.”

Curtis nodded and Mia accompanied Raeburn out of the conference room to return his overcoat.

Raeburn spoke to her a final time as he shrugged it on. “You be careful,” he said paternally. “Don’t take risks you don’t have to. And thank you. What you’re doing means a lot to myself and my company.”

Well,
Mia thought as she shut the door after him. She didn’t doubt Raeburn could be difficult, but he’d shown flashes of likability. Maybe bigwigs had their own version of charm school.

“You buying that?” Jake asked Curtis from behind her.

“I don’t know,” Curtis said. “I think we all need to watch our step.”

~

Watching his step seemed essential when Jake arrived at Mia’s apartment the following night. She rented a third floor walkup in a 1930’s vintage complex built around a nice courtyard. The apartments weren’t fancy, but they were secure enough. Jake had been here a few times before, dropping her off after they’d worked late. Though he enjoyed teasing Mia, he’d been careful not to encourage her romantically. Their conversations had been light and impersonal.

Tonight was different. He had a fresh haircut, a shave, and was dressed in his best date clothes. Tonight at the very least he’d hold her in his arms. Tonight he’d probably kiss her …

The slight vibration that struck his lips warned him that wouldn’t be a hardship.

Cursing would give too much away. He kept the swear word inside and pressed the buzzer for her unit.

“Jake.” She sounded so breathless the length of his penis twitched. “I’m almost ready. I’ll be down in five minutes.”

He didn’t say he’d come up. Maybe cooling his heels down here would cool the rest of him. The night air ought to have done the trick. It was early March and still cold enough for coats. His was black leather: exactly what Mia liked. Watching her squirm naked over it would be fun.

Idiot,
he thought as the fantasy sprung vividly to mind.
Try to remember this is a job.

His first sight of her beneath the stoop light made him forget everything.

She wore the red dress, of course, but she’d also been primped and buffed. Just the right touch of makeup highlighted her eyes and lips, and for the first time ever he saw her with her hair down. Glossy chestnut waves spilled across her shoulders, the silky abandon painfully touchable. Her coat was unfamiliar, a swingy salt and pepper tweed barely longer than her dress’s hem. As if he were compelled, his gaze slid past it and kept going. The shoes Hillary Sweets had chosen did unbelievably appealing things to Mia’s legs and ankles.

“Is this all right?” Mia asked. “Hillary brought the coat when she stopped by to do my face and hair.”

Jake’s hands had curled into fists. “It’s good.” His voice sounded strangely distant to his own ears. “You look like you’re supposed to.”

Maybe it was just as well Mia wasn’t listening closely. Her eyes went round as she saw the car behind him. “You hired a limo?”

“I did. We have ground rules to set on the way over.”

A growl he couldn’t quite control darkened the assertion. When Mia’s soft red mouth parted in surprise he wanted to cover it with his. Though it went against his baser instincts, he opened the limo door for her instead.

“Ground rules,” she repeated. “Right.”

The part of him that was a natural master loved her slight nervousness. She slid into the back seat ahead of him, her hosiery hissing on the dark brown leather. The window between them and the driver was snugly shut. Jake tapped the glass to let the man know he could pull out. The little light on the ceiling enabled him and Mia to see each other.

When she turned toward him, her knees were pressed together.

“Here’s the deal,” he said, his cock gone partially erect just from her obedient schoolgirl pose. “Damien Call is a creature of habit. Every Thursday at nine sharp, he shows up at Audition. Maybe one visit out of four he zeroes in on someone who interests him. If that someone passes muster, he brings them to Diogenes. The club keeps expert doms on staff. Call selects one to handle his latest charge. Then he watches what happens. Whoever he’s brought from Audition has to agree to everything. Nothing can be done to him or her without permission.”

Mia rolled her lips worriedly. Jake didn’t think the
him or her
reference registered. “Are the doms on staff trustworthy?”

“They are, but it’s not my intention to let anyone lay a finger on you but me.”

She flushed and his dick surged to full hardness. “I kind of figured. Do you have a plan for ensuring that?”

Rather than answer, he stroked a fallen lock back around her ear. Her hair was cool and silky, her cheek hot and velvety. He’d never touched her like this before, and Mia sucked in a startled breath. Her responsiveness delighted him. He was willing to bet it would delight Damien Call as well.

With his heart rate rising, Jake leaned closer. “My plan is for you to leave the plan to me. Be yourself. React the way you react. As long as you surrender your trust to me, everything will turn out right.”

“Have you … done this before?” she asked, her deliciously breathy voice breaking.

“Many times,” he assured her.

“Why?” she blurted, reminding him she sometimes lacked an internal editor. He smiled, actually liking that about her.

“Why does anyone do anything? It gives me a special buzz.”

“Has it always?”

Mia’s eyes were huge, her thick spiky lashes untouched by mascara. A pulse beat crazily in her neck. Jake wet his lips and answered without editing himself. “The first non-ignorable boner I remember getting was from watching a girl be tied up in a movie. I was so excited I had to jack off in the theater john before the film ended. I didn’t care that my friends teased me for leaving in the middle. I literally could not control myself until I took care of it.”

“So it’s bondage that gets you.”

“Among other things.” He touched the beating hollow between her clavicles, the stroke of his fingertip feather light. The wheels bumped across a pothole but kept rolling.

Mia shivered a tiny bit. “You don’t seem out of control tonight.”

“I’ve learned to keep myself in hand.” He’d had to, though sometimes—when it suited a mission—his bosses at Langley had ordered him off leash.

Not knowing this, Mia eyebrows waggled. “There’s a joke there, you know. Keeping yourself ‘in hand
.
’”

He returned half her smile. “I have a gift I want you to wear.”

He retrieved the jewelry box from the inside breast pocket of his coat. Wisely, Hillary had left accessorizing Mia to him. Jake opened the case to show her what was inside.

Mia’s hand went toward the gleaming contents but retreated. “Is it a necklace?”

“It could pass for one, but it’s a collar.” Made of parallel steel chains in varying thicknesses, the thing was decorative but with a hint of brutality. Its links were slightly flattened, resembling those on chunky curb chain bracelets. Here and there a larger steel circle lay.

Mia touched one with her finger. “What are these for?”

“For attaching other things.”

She looked at him, her big eyes searching his. He had a feeling his expression was giving things away. “Will you put it on me?” she asked softly.

He wanted to kiss her so badly his mouth watered. “Face the window,” he said gruffly in command. “Hold your hair up out of my way.”

Mia complied without hesitation. The exposed nape of her neck looked soft, but he didn’t kiss that either. He secured the heavy collar, smoothing it with his thumbs before drawing his hands away. Mia turned back around. The hot color on her cheeks created the impression that more than a necklace had been put on.

“Will the people at Audition think I belong to you if I’m wearing this?”

“They’d have thought that anyway,” he said.

“Jake,” she began, and he sensed she was about to say something serious about her feelings.

“No,” he said, firm but soft. “Property doesn’t speak unless it’s asked a question.”