Forbidden Stranger Read online

  Aggie shook her head. “She hardly needs permission, does she? Don’t you think it’s more likely that once she has what she wants, she’ll simply begin to auction it off to the highest bidder? Prohibiting alcohol never stopped people from drinking it, outlawing guns never stopped a criminal from getting one, and keeping drugs illegal surely didn’t ever stop an addict. People want that tech, and they’re going to find a way to use it, no matter if it’s allowed or not. You might be making it for those soldiers, Mr. Donahue, but I can guarantee you the Dev woman doesn’t have the same sense of duty toward them. As long as she gets it for her son, she’ll be happy to sell it off to whoever else is willing to pay for it.”

  Ewan knew Aggie was right about all of that, but he still frowned. “Katrinka Dev can do whatever she wants and face the consequences of it. What she does has nothing to do with me. My concern is Nina. Only Nina.”

  Instead of looking irritated with him, now Aggie’s forehead creased in concern. “I know that, sure and enough. But she’s not the only one affected by all of this. You’ve seen the news, haven’t you? About Constance Riley?”

  He had been making sure to keep himself updated since Al’s first call. “My sources are saying she and the governor had been having an affair for the past three years.”

  “Oh, people will always gossip, won’t they? As if that woman hadn’t been through enough, they need to run her name through the garbage. All the judgment on her, and none on him.” Aggie tutted.

  “There’s no proof that what she did was related to the tech or any of the programming,” Ewan said. “It seems more likely it was a love affair gone bad.”

  Aggie shook her head. “Of course there’s no proof, and how could there be? She’s dead. There’s no way of knowing what drove her to take her own life, only that she did. But what about Chang?”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He drove his car into a bridge abutment.”

  Ewan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Damn.”

  “Dry roads. No traffic. Middle of the afternoon. There was no clear cause for it,” Aggie said. “He had a lovely wife and a brand-new baby at home. It wasn’t an accident, and he had no reason for it.”

  “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an accident, and we don’t know his mental state. People are depressed in ways nobody else can see from the outside. We have no idea what was going on. That doesn’t mean he was influenced by the software.”

  Aggie looked grim. “And if he was?”

  “Our job is to keep Nina safe,” Ewan answered, his voice hard. “That’s my concern and my number one priority.”

  Aggie nodded after a moment, her mouth pursed. She smoothed her apron and looked away from him. If he’d disappointed her, Ewan told himself he didn’t care. What he’d said was the truth.

  “I want the best for her, too, Mr. Donahue.”

  “I know you do.”

  He excused himself to go to his room, where he logged in to access the ’net and pinged Al. She answered just before he expected the ping to go to her message box. Her platinum hair had been shaved to the skull, and her cheeks were even more hollowed than they’d been the last time he’d spoken to her.

  Her smile looked genuine, though, even if her gaze held shadows. “Hey, there.”

  “Chang,” Ewan said.

  Al’s smile faded. “What about him?”

  “He’s dead. Car accident.”

  Al’s brow creased. She pulled a vape cig from offscreen and drew on it deeply before letting the haze drift from her lips. “I hadn’t heard.”

  “Is it true about Riley?”

  “That she was fucking her boss? No idea. We weren’t close. The media will do anything to lay blame, though. Meanwhile he’s got an approval rating through the roof.” Al grimaced and lifted a glass of amber fluid at the screen. “It’s enough to drive a person to drink.”

  Her first comment might have been a dig at him, but Ewan didn’t rise to it. The whiskey in her glass looked good enough to make him go to the sideboard in his room and pull out a bottle for himself. He poured a shot and held it to the camera the way she had, then downed it with a grimace.

  “I see you’re also being driven to it. Is Nina all right? She has to be, or else you wouldn’t be looking so calm.”

  “Shiny fine,” Ewan said. The warmth of the liquor had spread through him, reminding him how long it had been since he’d had anything but wine, and that in limited quantities. “She’s improving, actually. How are you?”

  “My grandmother lived to be nearly a hundred, still made it up and down the stairs and walked her dog every day until she died. Yet she’d complain about aches and pains. The creak of her bones, she’d say. The stab of each breath from ribs that had gone brittle. I know how she feels.”

  Ewan shook his head. “You’re not old, Al.”

  “I’m not fishing for compliments,” Al shot back sharply. “I’m telling you that I hurt all over most days and in some places all the rest.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ewan decided against another shot and put the bottle away.

  Al looked as though she meant to argue with him about that, then sighed. Shook her head. “Tell me you’re close to getting that onedamned program out of all of us, Ewan. I want it to be you and not that harpy Katrinka Dev.”

  “You know about her, too?”

  Ewan could no longer be surprised. The media wasn’t reporting anything about Katrinka’s efforts at beating his team to finding a solution, but he couldn’t be surprised. She’d long been accomplished at manipulating the media. It had been a boon when she worked with him. If anything, he should be surprised that she hadn’t used her contacts and money to turn public opinion against him again.

  “She’s going to use Article 757.” Al bared her teeth for a moment in an expression that was nothing like a smile. “On her own son.”

  “She thinks she can help him.”

  “A mother’s love,” Al said derisively, then gave him an assessing look. “You don’t think she can?”

  Ewan shrugged. “The kid’s brain is shot. But who knows.”

  “I guess if you’re motivated enough, you can do anything.”

  That was definitely a dig, and Ewan frowned but didn’t rise to the insult. “If you hear anything about Chang, will you let me know?”

  “You think it’s related to Riley?” Ewan didn’t have to so much as say a word before Al added, “You’re thinking about Hendricks.”

  “There’s no way of knowing why he took his own life.” Ewan’s jaw clenched, but he tried to show no emotion.

  Hendricks and Nina had been lovers, long before Ewan had ever met her. He couldn’t be jealous of that and certainly shouldn’t be jealous of a dead man. If Ewan couldn’t be charitable about the other soldier’s place in Nina’s life, he could at least say as little as possible about him.

  “Exactly. Maybe that bastard bitch of a program got activated. It’s inside all of us. We all have it. It’s just a matter of time.” Al took another slug of whiskey and another long drag on the vape cig. “I can’t even get drunk about it, how’s that for excremental? Can’t get drunk, but I sure as the void feel the hangover.”

  “I have my team working around the clock. They’ve made a few great breakthroughs. But you know I can’t get anything approved until they’ve run every digit of code through every single virtual tester. We can’t implement anything until we’re sure it’s going to work, and that takes time.”

  “Katrinka Dev doesn’t need to worry about that. She’s filling her son’s head with new programming as fast as she can, trying to see what works.”

  “Well, let her,” Ewan said angrily. “If she kills him, that will be her burden. Not mine.”

  “You could use me,” Al said.

  Ice formed in Ewan’s spine. “No.”

  Al looked grimly determined. “It’s not even Article 757, Donahue. I’m an adult and fully in charge of my own medical decisions.”

  “I can’t experiment on you