Merry and Bright Read online

  “Scott.”

  “Give me until noon, okay? Just a few hours, Maggie. If I don’t have answers by then, you can go to the police. We’ll go to the police.”

  “Fine. Noon.” She walked out of his office, knowing that somehow she needed to get a look at his computer—alone.

  Jacob found Maggie walking the hallway, lost in thought. “What are you doing?”

  “The average person walks the equivalent of five times around the equator in their lifetime. I’m just doing my part.”

  “Maggie.” She was clearly tense again, as she’d been before last night. He’d had great success at unwinding her then, getting her to relax, turning her into a pile of boneless jelly.

  She’d done the same for him.

  And that had been great, but it’d gone deeper for him. It’d always been deeper for him. Walking away was going to hurt, big time, and yet that’s what the plan had been.

  She looked at him with those gorgeous, heart-and-soul eyes, and voiced his thoughts. “I know I said I wanted a one-time thing.”

  “Technically, it’s been a three-time thing, at least for me. For you, it’s been more like a six- or seven-time thing—”

  “My point,” she said, blushing, “is that I lied, and not just because I need your help now. I do need your help, but I just want you to know I lied because you scare me.”

  That was just convoluted enough to make sense, and he linked his fingers with hers. “Well, we’re even there. You scare me too. How can I help, Maggie?”

  She stared up at him, her heart in her eyes. “I need Scott preoccupied for a few minutes so I can snoop on his computer. Any ideas?”

  “Yes.” He pulled out his cell and called the crane operator, who happened to be in the lot still loading his equipment. “Dan? I have a favor . . .”

  Two minutes later, Scott got word his Mercedes was blocked in by a crane, and he went running out of the building.

  Maggie helped herself into his office, locked the door behind her, and went immediately to his desk. One touch to the mouse had all the computer windows flickering to life. It took her a moment to grasp what she was seeing, and when she did, her heart stopped, then kicked back into gear when someone knocked.

  “Maggie?”

  At Jacob’s voice, she ran to the door to let him in, then locked it again behind him.

  “No one saw me,” he said, looking around at the neat office, at the pad sitting on the floor. “What is that?”

  “Magnetic couch. When you flip that switch on the desk, it floats in the air, but duck because anything metal in the room goes flying through the air. Look at this.” She pointed to the screen. “Scott’s been busy.” One window had Maggie’s picture and bio up, along with the stats and ingredients on her body cream, with the surprise and critical element Scott had alluded to, and it wasn’t a thickening agent. The second window revealed a heart rate and pulse monitor. The third was the GPS system, with a grid map of the city, the highlighted portion blinking in on downtown, specifically Sixth Street. More specifically, this building.

  Here.

  As it all sank in, the heart rate and pulse monitored on the screen picked up speed, beeping, beeping, beeping in rhythm to her own.

  “It’s you,” Jacob guessed, his voice low, calm, and furious.

  “Yes.”

  “How? Why? ”

  Leaning forward, she clicked on the files just behind her picture and bio. “Scott and Tim added an ingredient to my lotion. They let me think it was a texturing element but they lied. It’s atom-sized transmitting microchips. It’s genius, really, if you think of the implications. A heart patient, for instance. With the micro-transmitters in place, it would assist doctors in treating their patients. You could change a dose without ever having to see the patient, or even just monitor someone from long distances, allow them to live their lives, calling them in only when they were in danger, or—”

  “Maggie.”

  She broke off and sighed. “Okay, I know. Gross invasion of privacy.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes, of course. Not to mention completely illegal. But why the secrecy? Why didn’t they just tell me? It’s amazing.”

  “Gee, I don’t know, maybe because of the illegal part?”

  “Well, there’s that,” Scott said, coming into his office, twirling his keys on his fingers. He saw the computer windows up and his mouth tightened. “And for what it’s worth, I wanted to tell you all along.”

  Tim shoved him aside and came in behind him. “But I didn’t. And as for the so-called stalking—about which, FYI, I prefer to use the word surveillance—we simply needed the vial back, before you figured out what we were up to.”

  “But you gave it to me,” Maggie reminded him.

  “Yes, and once we realized what it could do, how intrusive it was, we needed that vial back before you understood what we’d done.”

  Maggie shook her head. “So the tire—”

  “Was to slow you down so Scott could get to your apartment and retrieve the vial. We’d tried your office but it wasn’t there.”

  “We didn’t mean to scare you,” Scott broke in, with apology in his voice. “But we knew we had to destroy it, before it got into the wrong hands. Now that you know what it is, you can understand that, can’t you?”

  “What hands could it have fallen into?” she asked. “I didn’t even know what I had.”

  “No, but others did. Alice, for instance. She was here working late the night we discovered what we’d done.”

  “Alice is just an intern. She wouldn’t—”

  “Don’t be naïve,” Tim snapped. “This stuff is worth millions. People have died for far less.”

  At that, Jacob shifted closer to Maggie and reached for her hand. “No one’s dying.”

  “Oh, no, don’t worry.” Scott lifted his hands. “We don’t want to hurt you, either of you. We just want the lotion back, Maggie, that’s all.”

  Slipping her hand into her pocket, where she had the vial, she shook her head. “I used the last of it this morning, it’s all gone.”

  “You’re lying.” Tim didn’t look quite as congenial as his brother. “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to hand it over.”

  “No, here’s what we’re going to do,” Jacob said evenly. “We’re going to leave. Come on, Maggie.” He pulled her with him around the desk, heading toward the door, but two things happened simultaneously. Tim stepped in front of the door, which opened, hard enough to knock him to his knees.

  And then Alice entered. She lifted a gun and pointed it directly at Maggie.

  10

  “New plan,” Alice said, with a sweet smile, the gun on Maggie, whose heart had all but stopped. “I get the lotion. Any objections? None? Good.”

  “Alice, what the hell is this?” Scott demanded.

  “Oh, I forgot to mention. See, I need the lotion to catch my lying, cheating, soon to be ex-boyfriend in the act. Hand it over.”

  No one moved, and Alice shook her head. “Okay, listen up, people! I’m PMSing and hormonal, and when my grandma discovers I’ve borrowed her heat, she’s going to go postal. So hand over the lotion pronto or I start taking out kneecaps, Soprano-style.”

  Tim pointed at Maggie. “She’s got the vial.”

  Maggie gasped. “I do not.”

  “Yes,” Scott said. “You do. We know you do because you clearly used the lotion and now you’re trackable. You’re on that screen right there, sending us your signals, see?” To show Alice, he twisted the computer screen around, pointing to the heart monitor. “This is Maggie.”

  Alice squinted at the screen. “How do I know?”

  “Look at the history.” Tim leaned over his brother and clicked a few keys on the keyboard. “See, look. She’s all work and no play during the day. Now look at her nights—quiet, every single one. Typical boring scientist life—”

  “Hey,” Maggie said.

  “Sorry, but it’s true—” Tim broke of