Shatter (15 page)

“That’s why you couldn’t find it when you looked at my finances.”

“I . . . see.” When she didn’t go on, but didn’t avert her gaze either, he asked, “What did you invent?”

She glanced out the window. “A micro-sheath for needles that target hard-stick patients—the chronically ill, the elderly, children, those with various medical conditions that make drawing blood difficult. The sheath allows smooth insertion. There’s less roll-away, fewer misses and resticks. The tip of the sheath also has both gripping and cutting properties. It adheres to the skin and punctures both the skin and the wall of the vessel like a hot knife through butter. The result is efficiency and accuracy for labs, comfort for patients.”

She rested her head against the seat. “Not near as sexy as a secret payoff by a shadow government agent,” she said with sarcasm and a shrug of her shoulders, “but there you have it.”

He may have told Kai he didn’t find her work interesting, but they used to talk for hours on end about scientific advances, their applications in medicine, the ethical and financial implications. She’d fascinated him. Everything about her had captivated him, challenged him. Even now, he could think of a hundred questions to ask her about her invention.

Instead, he said, “Thanks for telling me.”

“Hey, Mitch.” The friendly female voice sounded down the aisle and Mitch looked up.

Christy, their flight attendant, walked toward them.

Mitch smiled. “Hey, beau—” The word “beautiful,” an endearment he used with most women because it was easy, natural, rarely caused anyone to bristle, and because it never failed to make them melt, caught on his tongue.

Though Halina had been completely still and quiet and Mitch had forgotten she was there for a moment, she instantly filled his mind.

“Christy,” he said, blundering the change.

At least she pretended not to notice. Mitch didn’t look at Halina to see her reaction, reminding himself it didn’t matter. She’d made her desires crystal clear.

Christy put a hand on the back of the seat opposite Mitch and turned her beaming smile on Dex. “Who is this handsome devil?”

Mitch grinned down at Dex, sliding a hand over his silky head. “This is Dex.” He gestured toward Halina. “And this is Dex’s . . . um,” he frowned, strangely unsure how to phrase that relationship. “Owner?”

“Noooo,” Christy said, leaning toward Dex with a big grin. “She’s his
mama
.” She said it with a southern twang that made Mitch laugh, then glanced at Halina. “He’s gorgeous. Can I pet him?”

Halina nodded, smiled. “Sure.”

Mitch glanced toward Halina. Her eyes were already on him, assessing. He turned away, seeing Christy from a whole different perspective this morning. She was a stunning, funny, intelligent woman. The very kind Halina had obviously noticed he chose to date—her knowledge of which was something he needed to get around to asking her about.

Christy crouched in front of Dex. Her straight, deep purple skirt stretching tight over smooth thighs and tight butt. And when she leaned over to take Dex’s face in both hands, her cream silk blouse draped at the neckline, giving a soft-porn-worthy view of perfect breasts.

If Mitch had to guess, he’d bet Halina’s mood would be sour when Christy left their seats.

“Oh, what a sweetheart,” Christy purred.

“Yeah, he’s great, isn’t he?” Mitch agreed, then asked, “How’s Tyler?”

Christy grinned up at him. He didn’t have nearly as difficult a time keeping his eyes off her breasts as he did keeping them off Halina’s.

“Good,” she chirped. “Just started with a private security firm as an explosives expert. Your recommendation went a long way. And, God help us all, he’s started taking law classes.”

Mitch chuckled, a sense of purpose smoothing his rough edges. At least his clients needed him. “Fantastic. Tell him to come see me when he’s ready for an internship.”

“Are you kidding? Just try to keep him away. You’re his hero.”

Mitch snorted a laugh. “He’s the hero.”

Christy straightened. “What can I get you two before we take off?”

Mitch glanced at Halina. “You still like grapefruit juice?”

Surprise flashed in her eyes. “Yes.”

Mitch placed an order with Christy, waited a moment, took a deep breath, and faced Halina again. Her gaze had turned cool.

“Who’s Tyler?” she asked. “Her husband?”

“Brother.”

Halina glanced toward the front of the plane again, her gaze drifting down Christy’s long legs. He knew damn well what she was visualizing, but he wasn’t going to volunteer any information. If she wanted to know, she could ask directly.

“Is she married?”

“No, why?”

“How do you know her brother?”

“He’s a previous client. Explosives expert, former military.”

Halina’s gaze returned to Mitch’s face, one brow lifted, but he couldn’t read her expression. “You have a lot of military clients.”

“I’ve found the government likes to screw everyone, even their own. Which is a great segue to what we need to discuss, don’t you think?” He pulled a pad of paper and pen from a slot in the side of his chair. He hadn’t exactly
planned
on putting off this talk, at least not consciously. But he had to admit, the thought of it now had his stomach wound tighter than his first freaking day in court as a damn kid.

He slid into the same persona he used with clients—detached, competent, straightforward—and angled his chair toward Halina. “Let’s just start with why you passed Saveli off as your husband and get it out of the way.”

Her mouth turned up at the corners in a bitter smile. “You don’t waste any time, counselor.”

“And, Halina, let me just tell you that I know Saveli risked his entire political career by helping you. So give me a good reason for the man to do that.”

She pressed her hands together, linked her fingers, and squeezed them. A stress-relieving gesture he remembered from long ago. “How would you know that?”

“Because I know about your family. Your uncle and his business. And I know if anyone had found out that Saveli was helping you with whatever you were doing at DoD—”

“He wasn’t helping me with anything at the DoD. How do you know about my family?”

“Friend.”

“What kind of friend? Who are you trusting to get this kind of information for you? How do you know it’s accurate?”

“This person has deep government sources—”

“
Government
sources? Why would you trust someone in the government? You just said the government likes to screw everyone.”

Her tone got under his skin. “You say that like I haven’t already
been
screwed. And as a former government employee, you’d know all about doing that well, wouldn’t you?”

Her mouth tightened. Chin dipped in a signal of thinning patience. “I told you I’d try to answer your questions. But I’m not going to take your attitude. If you can’t be civil, I’ll move and we’ll talk when you can treat me at least as well as you treat your clients.”

Her cool tone infuriated him. “My clients don’t
fuck me
.”

Hurt streaked through her eyes and she surged to her feet. Dex immediately followed, jumping up from where he’d lain beside Mitch’s chair. “Don’t you—”

Christy approached with a drink tray and a scowl for Mitch. “We’re not even off the ground and you’ve pissed her off already?”

Self-disgust made his chest heavy and tight. His anger and hurt lost its edge. “It is my specialty.”

“Not on this flight, Mr. Foster,” Christy said, distributing glasses and drinks. “Don’t make me kick you out at thirty thousand feet.”

Christy opened the top of a black box and presented three lines of miniature liquor bottles to Halina. “Some spark for your grapefruit juice? You might need it. Lord knows he and I have spent a few hours disagreeing on flights in the past—”

“Hold on,” Mitch said, taking the opportunity for a distraction. “When have we ever disagreed?”

Halina sat, but her gaze cut between them again. Dex relaxed only after Halina did. Christy tapped the Belvedere vodka, her brows raised at Halina, who hesitated, then said, “No, thanks. Just the juice is fine.”

Mitch relaxed. He didn’t like being a watchdog, but he found himself already protective over the health of a
possible
pregnancy. He’d driven Alyssa crazy during her pregnancy. She’d gone so far as to have Teague run interference at times.

Christy ticked off the number of things she and Mitch had argued about on her fingers. “World hunger, arms trading, globalization, global warming, immigration . . .”—she paused for a dramatic deep breath and dove right back in—“offshore drilling, gay marriage, education, racism, poverty, taxes, social media—”

“Stop right there.” Mitch pointed at her, grinning at her quick mind. “We
totally
agreed on social media marketing.”

Christy rolled those big blue eyes toward the ceiling again, thought about it. “Ah.” She gave him a smart nod. “You’re right.”

Grinning, Christy relayed takeoff instructions and turned to leave them in privacy. “Oh, Mitch.” She glanced back and pointed toward the rear of the plane. “Change of clothes and toiletries in the bathroom.” Then she grinned at Halina. “Yell if he gets out of hand.”

“Hey.” Mitch reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. “Thanks for picking up the clothes.”

“Anytime.” She laid her hand over his. “You know that.”

Christy strolled toward the front of the plane and Halina watched her go.

Mitch remained quiet until Halina’s gaze returned to his, and she lifted her brow in question. “What?”

“Why don’t you just ask? I know you want to know if I’m sleeping with her.”

“That’s . . . arrogant,” she said. “And no. I absolutely
do not
want to know that you’re sleeping with her—”

“That’s not what I said—”

“And I’m sorry I mentioned the other women last night. I was . . . frustrated. It won’t happen again.” She sighed heavily, crossed her arms, looked out the window. “In answer to your earlier question about Savili, I didn’t question his motives for helping me.”

Up front, Christy took her seat, belted in, and pulled out a book. The airport slid past outside the windows as they taxied to the runway.

Mitch grabbed on to the subject. At least he could legitimately direct his frustration there. “He was taking great risks to help you here in the States and could have faced even harsher consequences back in Russia after he returned. It was selfish of you to ask a man with so much to lose to come to the aid of a second cousin whom he barely knew and to whom he owed nothing.”

She paused in the act of lifting her juice glass and gave him a cold stare. The engines revved and Halina paused before answering as they lifted into the sky.

Once the engine noise had dimmed, she set her glass on the table without drinking and crossed her arms. “I was desperate, I asked, he agreed. After Schaeffer threatened me, it was clear I had two choices—give him what he wanted or run. I knew if I just dropped everything and ran you would have searched for me. And I knew if you found me, they’d find me.” Frustration edged into her eyes. “I was trying to avoid
this
.”

That stab hit its mark, but he tried not to react. Her confession was too clean. Too simple. The extremes she’d gone to in an effort to hide, too drastic. Mitch had heard hundreds of schemes, from the painfully simple to the ridiculously insane. This didn’t add up.

“Schaeffer already had your research,” Mitch said. “Even if you refused to give it to him, he could have gone to court. By virtue of your employment with DoD, the government owned it all. That wouldn’t have changed if you’d quit or were fired. The courts would have forced you to turn it over or put you in jail until you did.”

He settled back in his chair, pressed his elbows to the arms, and threaded his fingers. “So give me the rest, Hali. Give me the
inside
story.”

 

H
alina was baking inside her clothes. She could feel every beat of her heart at her throat, hear it in her temple near her ear. Heat burned across her chest, up her neck, and over her cheeks.

She’d never felt claustrophobic, but right now, she felt trapped. She pushed from the chair, squeezed past Mitch, and paced in the aisle. Beside his chair, Dex sat up and whined. Mitch petted his head.

At the front of the plane, Christy looked up from a book and raised her voice to be heard over the engine. “Do you need something?”

“No, thanks.” She gave the sweet flight attendant a brittle smile. “Just stretching.”

The other woman nodded and returned to her book, swiveling her chair just enough to give Halina and Mitch more privacy. Halina forcefully blocked thoughts of the woman and Mitch from her mind. Even if they’d never been together, Christy was too close to the hundreds of other women Mitch favored and reminded Halina of all she wasn’t, all she’d never be.

His furious confession of sleeping with them to get over Halina crossed her mind. She didn’t know what to make of that. The passionate, heat-of-the-moment way in which it had been made led her to believe its truth. And at first, that behavior made complete sense. But it didn’t explain his continued playboy lifestyle.

She just wanted to get this info dump over with. There was a lot he already knew, a lot she could simply elaborate on. A few things she could give him. Some she even hoped would ease the pain she’d caused him in the past.

But there were things she’d never expose. Not unless all the fail-safes she’d created crashed and someone was holding a gun at Mitch’s head.

“When I started with the program,” Halina said, “I was told we were all working to improve the human gene pool. The theory was that by strengthening the human genetic structure, future generations would experience a higher quality of life.

“And before you ask,” she held up a hand, “yes, I realized I was working for the Department of Defense, not the United Nations. And yes, the short-term goal for this project was to enhance the genetic makeup of American soldiers. But the long-term goal was to make the enhancements available to
all
Americans. My dream was always that someday it would be available to all
humans
worldwide, which wasn’t unrealistic. DARPA research has benefited the American public for decades.

“The anthrax vaccine, penicillin refinement and distribution, wound-stasis foam, revolutionized prosthetics, and too many defenses against infectious diseases to name. Of course there’s GPS, the Internet, biofuel, voice-recognition software, radar, nuclear power. I believed—I
still
believe—my work has a place among those amazing discoveries. My research, God, it was fascinating.”

She closed her eyes as the remembered thrill of her discoveries expanded inside her like a hot ball of energy. She’d known with her entire soul that she’d found her life’s work. Had been over the moon when it had become all that she’d hoped for and more. Had been devastated when she’d had to break it down and run.

“I found safe ways to alter genetic structure that would have brought fabulous advancements to humankind,” she continued, her gaze going distant as she remembered the thrill of each breakthrough. “The enhancement of almost every essential function in the body, creating stronger, smarter, more compassionate human beings. The eradication of horrendous diseases—AIDS, hepatitis C, diabetes, dozens of cancers.

“The benefits this type of change could have brought to society were endless. Increased quality and longevity of life, prevalence of an efficient, productive workforce, advanced intelligence, unlimited innovations in science, engineering, medicine, the arts, elimination of virtually all birth defects, decreased pain and suffering.

“Financially, there would be drastic reductions in medical care, enabling a healthcare system that could offer coverage to everyone without burdening the public. Huge boosts to the economy would ensure unemployment’s extinction. Federal and state governments would have a steady flow of income, schools would have funding from private and public sources, education would be available to everyone, not just the most intelligent or the wealthiest—”

She stopped herself, breathless. She’d whipped herself into a light-headed frenzy simply recalling the
possibilities
. She’d discovered a method of life-altering science that would better the lives of nearly every human being on the planet.

What more could one person do for humanity? What better purpose could one person hold in life?

She’d been complete.

Mitch’s love had been the sprinkle of twenty-four-carat stardust over everything she’d ever dreamed for in life.

“I can see how it thrilled you.”

Mitch’s voice dragged her right back to earth. His expression confirmed the tone she’d suspected. He was struggling to remain neutral, but beneath the mask, he was hurt. It shone in his eyes, in the flecks of gold sparkling among the green. In the tightness of his mouth. In the deeper shadows beneath his eyes. Hurt, sadness, loss.

Regret swelled in her throat and tightened her chest. He’d given her everything. He’d given her 150 percent of himself . . . and she’d held back, lied, given him nothing but a shell of the real her, then abandoned him.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t share it with me back then,” he said, his voice soft, pain radiating in his serious tone. “Disappointed I missed out on that part of you.”

Halina turned her gaze out the window to the pale blue sky, but closed her eyes on the sudden, sweeping pain. “Me too,” she whispered. “I know you probably don’t believe me, but it was so hard—”

She choked, unable to finish. Which was just as well. She would never be able to do the emotions justice with simple words. The pain had been too deep, the loneliness too all-consuming, the loss too overwhelming.

“I can imagine,” he said, his earlier anger still at bay. “One lie turns into two, which turns into—”

“Four, then sixteen . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut, the weight of all the lies making her feel heavy in her seat. She shook her head in frustration, then looked out at the sky. “And working for DoD—at least in the capacity I did, with the clearances I had—was a lot like working for the CIA. Nobody can know what you do, where you work, whom you really work for. I know it was the same for the others in the lab—at least to some degree. Though in hindsight, I also know that I believed Schaeffer when he put the fear of God into me about letting even the slightest information leak.

“Changing my name at the beginning was a condition of my employment, standard procedure, he’d said. One for work, one for personal, different from my given name. But I never verified that with others. It just wasn’t something we talked about.

“And in the beginning, with you and me”—her stomach clenched hard, regret thick and hot as she glanced at him, then away—“I didn’t think it was a big deal. I thought there would be time, you know, once we got to know each other better, to explain. But we . . .”

She sighed, dropped her head, and rubbed at the sting of tears in her eyes. She wasn’t going to be able to hold them back for long. She could feel them building deep in her chest. The guilt had eaten away at her for so long in silence, it pounded at her now to be freed, expressed, his loss grieved.

She cleared her throat. “We got so close, so fast. And before I knew it, I was a thousand lies deep with you and terrified of what would happen if . . .”

She couldn’t finish.

Mitch did it for her. “If you told me the truth.”

She pulled her lip between her teeth and bit down to keep herself together. The shame of it overwhelmed her. God, she wished she could have avoided all this. Wished she could have just shaken him off earlier and gotten away.

The white noise from the plane’s engines filled the cabin for a moment, and when Mitch didn’t say anything, Halina chanced a sidelong glance at him. He was staring blankly at the table as if dazed by a blow to the head, his brow drawn in deep, confusing thought, a few fingers sliding back and forth over his mouth.

She needed to redirect to the facts and veer away from the emotions. Halina rested her shoulder against a wall separating seating sections and continued.

“Schaeffer lied to me about the purpose of the project—but I only found out after I’d discovered a dependable, repeatable way of successfully altering DNA sequences to include all the benefits.”

Halina’s stomach clenched in preparation for giving him the deepest information she planned on offering. This was the line in the sand. When he glanced up, she took a breath, let it out, and met his gaze.

“He wanted me to
clone
my little genetic miracles.”

Mitch tipped his head, two fingers pressed against his lower lip, a frown creasing his forehead. “Isn’t cloning one of those things you do in labs? I mean, it’s common in all genetic research, isn’t it?”

Frustration burned in the pit of her stomach. “Not this type of cloning,” she said. “He wanted me to take all my amazing genetic research, combine the mutations into one human being, and
clone
that creation. He wanted to clone it and
clone it
and
clone it
until he had an army of perfect little genetic
people
.”

That seemed to strike some sort of understanding. Mitch jerked back, dropped his hand. His gaze sharpened on hers.
“What?”

Halina pushed off the wall and dropped her arms. “He wanted to
grow people.
In labs. Like bugs in giant glass jars. No parents. No siblings. No communities. He just wanted me to clone them so he could grow them like plants, train them to kill, and send them to
war
. Do you
realize
the extreme ramifications of that scenario?”

She held her breath as she watched his brain cells fire and connect. His eyes darted back and forth as he thought. Then they came back to hers.

“You knew what he wanted to do with those clones, Halina,” he said. “You
were
working on the project.”

Her mouth dropped open. “
That’s
what you pulled from what I just told you?” She bent and waved her hands in font of his face. “Hello. Are you listening to me
at all
? I’m in this mess because I
wouldn’t
work on that project.”

Dex whined as if to say, “Don’t fight.”

Mitch ruffled the fur at his ears. “I hear you telling me Schaeffer had, evidently still has, plans to turn your Nobel Peace Prize-worthy research into an automated, mass-murdering army.” He frowned at her. “Do you really expect me to be surprised?”

The sudden pain of a deeply personal stab to the heart flooded her vision with tears. She threw her hands in the air. “You’ve just reduced my entire life’s work to the complexity of making muffins.”

The tears spilled over and she swore. Rubbed them away with quick sweeps of her fingers.

“You knew, you were involved and you lied about that just hours ago when you thought I’d let you go if you knew nothing. I’m sorry if I don’t get overly excited about everything you tell me, Halina. I’d like to know it’s true first.”

“I knew about it—at the end. And I’ve already made it very clear
I
. . .
was
. . .
not
. . .
involved
. Knowing about something and being involved in something are as different as knowing how to drive a car and being a mechanic. And, yes, I lied, for the same reason I lied seven years ago. I don’t want what I know in the hands of the wrong people.”

And that was another line of information she wouldn’t cross. If she told Mitch that she’d done what she’d done back then to save his life, not her own, she’d never get away from him. Whether he’d stay with her out of gratitude or guilt didn’t matter. The fact remained that if he stayed with her, if he pried too deep into this mess, Schaeffer would kill him.

She hadn’t given him up, hadn’t given up the last seven years of her life just to let him walk into Schaeffer’s crosshairs now.

“And just like you said,” she said, “if I had quit, all my research would have remained with Schaeffer, and it wouldn’t have taken him long to find another scientist to take all the discoveries I’d made and implement the science. I saw two choices and cloning wasn’t one of them.”

“Rat him out to someone high up,” Mitch said, filling in her options in a smooth, cool tone, “hope they weren’t tight with Schaeffer, and wait for one of two results—exoneration or execution. Or steal the research and run.”

She nodded and turned her gaze out the window. Shadows from her past crept in, but she didn’t need to hide those anymore. Mitch already knew about them, too. Still, the disappointment and shame of how those ties had followed her here hurt.

“Remember how proud I was that I’d been picked for the job above the other candidates?”

In her peripheral vision, she saw Mitch nod. She remembered telling him about it when they’d first met.

“Schaeffer chose me because of my family, not just my work or my achievements.” She laughed, a disgusted laugh filled with irony and bitterness. “And he chose well. I feared his authority the way I feared my uncle and the men who worked for my uncle. I respected the value of secrecy for its power to keep a person alive. I understood how every choice brought a consequence, and I had experienced or witnessed punishment at every level. I knew a threat when I heard one. And I knew—and still know—men like my uncle, men like Schaeffer, follow through on their threats. Even men in comas have others who will follow through for them.”