Jae's Assignment

Trusting her is dangerous. Not trusting her could be deadly.

Jae Randall isn’t just another pretty face. She’s a trained FBI Special Agent who’s just been assigned to extract and relocate a witness.

It’s a no-brainer. Strictly routine. Until she realizes there’s nothing ordinary about this assignment—nor the handsome doctor she’s supposed to protect.

After five years under threat of capture, even death, Trevor Grant trusts no one. Least of all the beautiful, statuesque woman who asks him to dance—then informs him she’s his contact.

Before he can figure out whether she’s legit or part of the shadowy militia who’s after him, shots ring out. And Jae’s piece-of-cake assignment turns into a bloody, life-or-death race against time to find out who has betrayed them—and a losing battle to resist their electric attraction.

Warning: Contains a gun-wielding, ass-kicking FBI agent with a gift for eloquent profanity, and a psychiatrist with a secret recipe every military on earth would love to get their hands on. Readers are reminded that when in doubt—or danger—always use protection.

Jae’s Assignment

Bernice Layton

Dedication

To my husband, Derrick, and my daughter, NaTiki, again; I thank you for your ever-present love and encouragement. Your continued support, guidance, and enthusiasm continue to be an inspiration and have made it possible to bring another novel into existence. Your steadfast belief motivates me, not just to write, but to believe, to hope, to imagine, and to dream. I’m so fortunate and blessed to have both of you in my life and I love you.

I also dedicate this novel to everyone who looked beyond differences and found love and happiness.

—Bernice Layton

Acknowledgements

As always, I give thanks to my family and friends. My heart is filled with gratitude for your love, support, and encouragement.

Special thanks to my mom, Susie. I’m so blessed to have a mom like you. You’ve instilled in your children all that we hold dear; your gentle strength, your kindness, your willingness to help others, and your love. Thank you, Mom, and Happy Reading!

To Danise (Lu), thank you so much. We made another great team to bring
Jae’s Assignment
to life, and we know it wasn’t easy. Through all the ups and downs and postponements that caused the delay of bringing
JA
from my spiral notebooks to the computer, it has been your friendship, compassion, encouragement, and inspirational little notes that kept me focused. Thank you for being my true friend, Lu, and for reminding me to have faith in everything. I’m looking forward to our collaboration on the next project. I’m so fortunate that you take the time to review my work, be my soundboard, and then give me your honest, on-target, and often hilarious feedback…some of which comes to me on bright pink and orange stock paper! I’m honored and filled with utmost gratitude.

Thank you, NaTiki, for your patience and for creating an awesome new website. I love it and you!

Thank you, Cynthia Smith, for your patience with all the “tech” stuff. J

To my nieces, Irvenna and Myesha, and friends, Marian and Dianne, just to name a few, thank you for your unwavering love and support. To your question, “When’s the next book coming out?” I am happy to announce, “It’s here.” You’re awesome fans. Love you much. J

To Latoya C. Smith, Executive Editor, Samhain Publishing, a heartfelt thank you for allowing me into the Samhain family. I’m so grateful for your guidance and expertise to make
Jae’s Assignment
a strong novel.

To Mavis Allen, thank you for your review and edits of
Jae’s Assignment
. Once again, you’ve shown me how to look beyond my written words to make my characters memorable.

To the book club members, fans, and book lovers I have been privileged to meet at book events or exchanged emails with, I appreciate your feedback and reviews. If my writing has entertained you or brought on a smile or perhaps a tear, or in any way allowed you to focus beyond the stress of everyday life, then I’ve done my job. If my writing has in some way encouraged you to write your own novel, then I’ve done my job.

If I have forgotten anyone, please know that I thank you for your assistance, your encouragement, and your support!

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”—Dalai Lama

Chapter One

Jae Randall didn’t like her new boss.

Recently hired as a temporary data entry clerk for Dr. Trevor Grant of the Kincaid Institute, Jae proved to be a quick study for the job assignment. It was a very important assignment and because of that she shouldn’t let Dr. Grant irritate her. His quiet demeanor and blue eyes made it difficult for her to get a read on him. It unnerved her.

Yet, despite the importance of it, if Dr. Grant gave her one more “fine” or “uh-huh” response, she had a mind to walk out. But that was just wishful thinking on her part. She had to be there.

Having spent the morning entering data into the complex computer program, she glanced at the wall clock. Dr. Grant was late leaving for lunch. She needed him out of the office so she could perform another assignment—and the real reason for her temporary job in his lab.

She was there to steal data from Dr. Grant’s computers.

He normally took his lunch break at noon, but today he was dragging his feet while she impatiently tapped hers.

Ten minutes was plenty of time to copy the information from his computer hard drive and upload it to the Bureau.

She was eager to see what he had been working on so diligently that he’d worked through his lunch hour.

Jae took another glance over her computer monitor.

To her surprise, he was watching her as he absently rubbed his beard. It unsettled her. This wasn’t the first time she’d found his intense blue eyes assessing her. Had he figured out that she wasn’t a temp from the hospital’s administrative pool? She doubted that.

Not one to back down from anything, Jae returned his stare with one that said,
Yeah, what?
The ringing of her prepaid cell phone forced her to break eye contact. It was another prerecorded advertisement offering an upgrade, which she ignored. She turned the cell phone off.

Jae pulled in a deep breath before mentally slipping back into her undercover role of Regina James, the competent temp with the homeliest wardrobe ever. Dr. Grant had left his office/lab and stood next to her desk. Before he could speak, the office telephone rang and she hastily snatched it up.

Trevor Grant didn’t know what to make of his new assistant, Regina James.

One thing was for certain: she wasn’t what he’d hoped for when he had requested a data clerk.

As she fielded the call and jotted down the message, Trevor surreptitiously studied her profile. She seemed efficient enough, but in his mind, Trevor had pictured an entirely different type of clerk. Sure, he could have hoped for a beautiful, sexy woman, but that’s not what he wanted or needed. He needed someone with the expertise to do his data entry without having to look over her shoulder. Regina James sure fit that bill.

She was good and she reminded him of his fifth grade teacher, Miss Fletcher.

His eyes traveled from the severe bun hairstyle to the gray blouse, down to the knee-length blue skirt, to the unattractive shoes she wore. He wondered if she had anything colorful in her wardrobe.

When she completed the call and ripped off a single sheet from the message pad, she passed it to him without even looking at him. He hadn’t missed her tersely asking if there was something he needed. She’d dismissed him. She tended to do that and she again addressed him as Dr. Grant, despite his repeated requests for them to be on a first-name basis.

“We’re going into your second week, Regina, so how about you drop the Dr. Grant, okay?” When she angled her head to look at him, Trevor noticed she held her lips together. Either she was truly that prim and proper or she was holding back an expletive directed at him. He believed the latter—he chuckled silently—although he couldn’t imagine a cuss word passing those pretty lips. He already knew the speech she was set to repeat about them maintaining a professional business relationship in the workplace.

Actually, Trevor stopped listening the second she went into her speech. He’d heard it each time he suggested they address each other on a first-name basis. Tuning her out, he noticed she had two cell phones. Both looked expensive.

“Two smart phones, Regina, um, Ms. James? Well, either you’re a very busy lady, or you moonlight in another business. So, which is it?” Trevor sent her a slight smile. When she mentioned losing a phone then finding it, Trevor noticed she’d become tense, or perhaps, he was the one who’d tensed after having an opportunity to gaze down into her hazel eyes.

Shaking himself from the direction of his thoughts, Trevor murmured he was going to lunch. She started typing on the keyboard, dismissing him again.

Trevor left without another word.

“Finally,” Jae whispered. She got up and locked the outer office door before making a beeline into the doctor’s office.

Using the key she’d copied, she let herself inside and immediately went to work. Her fingers flew across the keyboard and the two monitors on Dr. Grant’s desk came to life.

She’d lowered his firewalls. She only had ten minutes, but that was enough time to upload the confidential data from his computer. Any longer and an alert would be sent to the IT department of a potential computer-hacking threat. As Jae watched the file names open up, she tapped the keys and uploaded the data back to her field office. It all went at lightning speed.

She also kept an eye on the security monitor in the lab for anyone coming up the hallway, mainly Dr. Grant.

Ten minutes
. That’s how long it would take to keep the firewalls lifted that protected his computers and assess the information.

A quick glance back at the monitors showed everything was uploading as planned. The information scrolled up so fast she couldn’t read any of it. She’d tried that on her second day there. She’d ended up going back to her hotel room with a headache.

Eight minutes
. Jae took two telephone calls for Dr. Grant. She jotted down the messages on a small message pad when she realized he’d absently picked hers up off the desk earlier.

Six minutes
.

Her eyes skimmed over the desk and shelves. Nothing stood out from yesterday’s upload. There wasn’t anything remotely personal about the doctor’s workspace, a place he’d spent long hours in.

Pulling on the top drawer of the desk, she hadn’t expected it to be unlocked. But today the drawer slid open and she spotted a small gift box lying atop file folders.

Cautiously raising the lid, she lifted the item from the box. It was a glass paperweight with a blue and white sailboat inside. Holding the heavy globe up to the light streaming through the window blinds, she could make out all the details of the boat.

When two beeps signaled the upload was complete, Jae returned the paperweight to the box and that’s when she noticed a card tucked into the top. It read,
Happy Birthday
.

She wondered if today was Dr. Grant’s birthday. How sad if it was. No celebration. No office party. No card signed by his coworkers, nothing to acknowledge the day other than a beautiful paperweight tucked away in a desk drawer. Perhaps it wasn’t his birthday at all. The gift could’ve been there for quite some time.

But why keep something so beautiful locked away in a desk drawer?
she wondered.

She thought about Dr. Trevor Grant, her assignment. He was certainly aloof, quiet, and definitely a loner aside from the host of his female colleagues making their way into his office.

She watched them stroll up the hallway shaking their hair loose, touching up their lipstick, and hiking up their tiny little bras along the way.

Jae snickered inwardly at their efforts. She was positive those women were wasting their time. Her assessment was confirmed when they left his office dejected with their downcast faces barely glancing at her on their way out.

For all of Dr. Grant’s penetrating blue eyes, long brown hair, full beard, mustache, and nerdy reading glasses, to Jae, he was as dry as two-day-old toast.
Wheat toast
. Had the team missed something in their initial investigation? Perhaps it was that maybe Dr. Grant truly
was
a terrorist supporter and traitor to his country. Pulling her Bureau smart phone from her jacket pocket, Jae accessed the FBI’s dossier on Dr. Grant. The feeling was so strong that something was amiss. An unmistakable feeling of dread settled in her chest and she wondered if her team had been given all of the intel on him.

After tapping keys that logged her off of Dr. Grant’s computer, Jae pushed back in the swivel chair and bumped smack dab into Dr. Grant’s hip.
Ah, shit
.

When he moved in closer, Jae watched silently as Dr. Grant’s outstretched arm crossed over her shoulder and his fingers tapped several keys to log his computer back on. He said nothing, but she felt heat coming from his arm as it touched her shoulder. Quelling her instinct to use a tae kwon do move that would land the doctor painfully across the office, Jae stared at the monitor, which only showed his last login. When his eyes met hers, she wriggled out from under his overheated, outstretched arm and tore off the top two messages from the message pad and held them up to his face.

When he swiveled her chair around to face him and hunched down closer, meeting her eye to eye, Jae didn’t flinch. She simply said, “You took the message pad from my desk earlier, Dr. Grant.”

At his tightlipped glacier-blue stare, Jae thrust herself up from the chair and took two steps before he finally spoke.

He reminded her she was not to come into his office and that more message pads could be found in the supply cabinet down the hall.

“Anything else, Dr. Grant?” Jae asked with a sufficient amount of sarcasm.

“Yes, you’re fired,
Miss James
,” he said, tightly.

Jae sent him a slow head nod before turning on her stocky heels to leave his office. Walking over to her desk, she logged off her computer. She collected her purse and her brown bag lunch from the bottom desk drawer, and after taking her coat from the coat rack, she left.

And never looked back.

* * * * *

Trevor had a bad feeling about the two men who’d come into his office ten minutes prior and now sat opposite his desk. He’d been expecting them much earlier than seven o’clock in the evening. Neither offered an apology for being late.

When each flashed a badge and ID card he’d caught their names, Special Agent Myers and Special Agent Jones of the FBI. He’d wanted a second look at their credentials, but Trevor thought it would be silly to ask them.

Watching a seemingly disinterested Special Agent Myers get up and slowly circle his office, stopping to frown at the wall calendar, Trevor felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He thought Myers might have been military with his ramrod straight disposition and buzz haircut. He was grumpy and had a face that would frighten most hardened criminals.

Special Agent Jones on the other hand was just the opposite of Myers. He was talkative and too polite. Trevor felt Special Agent Jones referred to his notes on his smart phone more than necessary.

It was then a picture of his temp Regina James flashed into Trevor’s mind. She’d had two smart phones, he recalled.
Why would someone just walk out on a job like that?
he wondered. He wouldn’t have really fired her and has since regretted doing so. She was so proficient and fast at keying in his research data, he’d planned on offering her a full-time position. Besides, who needed a sexy, pouty brunette assistant? He had too much work to keep up with. In any case, Regina James had left weeks ago without so much as a goodbye jotted on a Post-it Note.

Refocusing his attention on Special Agent Jones, Trevor answered the agent’s question. “Yes, as I explained to the IT department, it appears that someone has sent several emails to my email address by mistake. They weren’t meant for me, but someone saying they need help is certainly alarming.” As he was speaking, Trevor noticed that Myers appeared fixated. “Anyway, I’d mentioned it to the institute’s IT department. I didn’t think it necessary to contact law enforcement, Special Agent Jones. I’m surprised they did.”

“It could mean something or nothing at all. May I have the emails?” Myers asked.

Trevor’s suspicions about his visitors rose with the hair on the back of his neck now. “I transferred the three messages from my email onto a CD,” Trevor said. He opened the middle drawer of his desk and pulled out a CD enclosed in a plastic case. “As you may guess, my computer isn’t backed up on the hospital’s main server, so…” he hesitated briefly, “…I’ve deleted the emails from my inbox and I didn’t make a copy,” he said passing the CD to Special Agent Jones.

Trevor stood up, hoping the computer geek act he’d perfected over the past five years was convincing to the men. “Well, I’ve got a ton of work to do, gentlemen…”

After seeing the men out and double locking the door, Trevor hurried to unlock his lab and tapped a few keys on his computer. He pulled up the security cameras of the lobby and exterior of the building. Using the mouse pointer, he zoomed in and watched as Myers and Jones walked to their black sedan parked on the side parking lot, almost out of camera angle.

What Trevor saw next confirmed what he’d thought seconds after Jones and Myers had entered his office. They were not FBI agents. He watched as they pulled on dark blue overalls similar to those worn by the institute’s janitorial staff.

Damn, they were on to him.

Following his instinct to flee, Trevor pulled a heavy backpack from the bottom drawer of his desk. He’d kept it there, packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice. It was always there in the event he’d need it and tonight he did.

One more quick look at the security monitor, and he spotted Jones and Myers approaching the back stairwell. It didn’t take Trevor long to deduce they’d disarmed the door alarm.

After a few more taps on the keyboard, Trevor rushed from his office and headed to the ladies’ room down the hall. It was his only way out.

He counted the seconds because he knew he had just a few. Once inside, he climbed up the wide ledge to a window with no handle or knob. Pulling a multipurpose tool from his pocket, he removed a metal window strip, inserted the tool in a slot, and cranked the window open.