Licensed To Thrill Read online

  Bax’s family must be swimming in cash. I’d seen a housekeeper, gardener, and maid at the rambling country estate. The mansion wasn’t far from the sea, and the tang of salt was ever present in the air, albeit faint. One more element I could draw on to speed my recuperation.

  A large stable sat behind the massive house. Towering fuchsia and white rhododendrons surrounded a lovely pool, certainly a later addition. For the past three evenings, Bax and I had enjoyed cocktails and conversation there while I soaked in the power of the sun, earth, and water.

  I spent my days alone, which was not horrible. After all, my code name was Solo. But to my surprise, I found I almost missed the guppy when he wasn’t around. The bloke had saved my life, and for that I was grateful. Any person would be. But I’d come to sort of like him. Not that I’d ever admit that to him. I had to work to maintain a façade of indifference around him.

  Other than late in the afternoon, and when he showed up to give me the twice-daily injections, I didn’t run into the tadpole at all. Each time I’d bared my bum for him to jab me, the serum burned less.

  Since we’d arrived in the country, he’d become secretive and distant. Not the eager young trainee I’d met only weeks ago. I almost missed the puppy-like nature of the guy. The over-sharer, over-zealous Baxter. His disappearing act was getting old, and curiosity gnawed at me. Even when we were in the same space, he kept his face buried in his mobile like a prepubescent girl who’d discovered Snapchat for the first time. I found his behavior a little annoying and a lot weird.

  Where did he spend his days? Perhaps he had a girlfriend and was sneaking off to see her. Maybe I’d ask tonight at cocktails.

  Yesterday, I’d lazed around, not thinking about my assignment. I’d checked out the library and found nothing but dusty tomes of courtly life and military prowess. Not interesting at all. So I passed the time sitting poolside, slathered in SPF50. My skin had a healthy glow that I was positive wasn’t mirrored in my aura.

  This morning, however, my own company bored me. My wound was on the mend but still achy. The VIS doctors had advised me that the gash might heal properly, given enough time. The ugly black scar remained a blight on my skin. Even the jagged line on my belly didn’t look this bad. The unsightly two-inch patch resembled rotting flesh, like I was decaying from the inside out. Thank heavens, it didn’t smell.

  I shook away my unhappy thoughts as I ambled around the estate, reduced to exploring to alleviate the creeping boredom. I’d hiked into Great Bentley, the burg nearest the Tamsyn property, but the residents appeared suspicious of newcomers. I didn’t make a habit of announcing to people I was a vampire, but some humans have a second sense about whether a creature is like them or supernatural. Those people typically gave me a wide berth.

  On my way back to the manor house, I sauntered past the stables. I hadn’t explored them yet, but there was no time like the present.

  The rear half was shaded by towering ancient oaks, and the temperature dipped five degrees as I walked under them. A glow bled through one of the high windows. Not like lights, but more like the dull bluish-green illumination from computer monitors.

  I stared at the structure, walking slowly around the building. The faint odor of sweat, hay, oats, and manure clung stubbornly in the air, even though Baxter had mentioned they no longer kept horses. He didn’t ride, and his parents were never around, preferring to spend time in the city or at their ocean-side home in Florida. Seriously, they had to be loaded, although I couldn’t imagine their wealth had come from his father’s job as a member of the Queen’s guard. Nope, the money must come from his well-connected American vamp mother.

  The corner of the stable was marked by stacked fieldstones climbing from the ground to the roof. I trailed my fingers on the rough surface as I strolled to the large sliding entry door. A smaller door set into the sliding panel stood ajar. I peeked through the opening, but saw no one. One foot over the threshold, I paused. Bax had given me free reign to wander where I willed, but this felt a little like trespassing. I didn’t want to be somewhere I shouldn’t, didn’t want to annoy my host. But since Bax had never declared any portion of the property was off limits, I stepped all the way in.

  The dimly lit interior was huge but smelled stale. Dust motes danced in a shaft of light slashing from a window high on the front wall. Stalls lined one end of the barn, open and empty. Not a trace of straw lingered on the dirt floors. Old bridles hung outside each stall, and to my right, was what appeared to be a tack room.

  Sitting at the other end was the mother of all home gyms. Treadmills, a stair climber, and free weights sat atop rubberized matting. A stack of clean towels rested near a water station. Everything a gym rat could want. The crowning glory was a heavy bag suspended from the ceiling. I prowled over, my heels sinking into the rebound mats, and lightly tapped the bag, making it dance a little. I slid my hand over the steel weight bars and the luxurious leather upholstery on the benches. I’d installed a state-of-the-art home gym at my flat in London, but it paled in comparison. I had a major case of envy.

  Turning a slow circle, I experienced the disconcerting notion the scale wasn’t right on the inside of the stables. The dimensions of the interior space didn’t match the exterior size. The discrepancy was confounding. I wondered what had happened to the extra square footage. To be certain, I paced off the distance, only to find I’d been correct. The inside was smaller than the outside had led me to believe.

  To the right of the stalls, a solid wall was hung with gardening implements and old harnesses. The wall, if it was an exterior wall, should have sat back another fifteen feet from where I was standing. I didn’t need to be a master spy to realize there was a room hidden behind that wall.

  A secret room in the stable. The intrigue and unexpectedness of it made my skin tingle. My steps didn’t make a sound as I moved forward on cautious feet. Tiny clouds of dust rose around me as I moved to the wall. I traced my fingers along the grooves created where boards joined, looking for a hidden door or the catch to open the wall. I felt a little like I was searching for Ali Baba’s treasure room.

  A mourning dove cooed from a tree branch outside, the sad song the only noise in the stable. I moved to the next section of wall and continued my exploration. I was breathless with curiosity and guilt. If Baxter had meant me to see this room, he’d have shown me himself. I should stop looking and find a way to work the hidden room into conversation over martinis.

  But he’d never mentioned it. Why? What was he hiding? In addition to a workout room, my own flat had another room filled with high tech gadgets and ways to keep in touch with all that was going on in the world. I kept the room locked, but not hidden.

  Suspicion rankled like a burr under my saddle. I glided my hand along the wall, scarcely restraining a triumphant shout when I discovered a barely perceptible knob raised a mere micrometer from the rest of the wood paneling.

  I depressed the button, and a section of paneling silently popped open just enough I could peer through the crack without revealing my presence.

  What I saw gobsmacked me. The secret room was a tech guru’s wet dream. Floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with dozens of CPUs lined one wall, creating a supercharged server bank, or cloud. Tucked into the front corner of the room I saw a 3D printer. A display of humongous monitors, mostly dark, lined the wall opposite the door. His back to me, Tamsyn was seated in front of a keyboard with a massive track pad positioned next to it. As I watched, he pinched his thumb and finger together, and the image on the one working display vanished to be replaced by an image of…me?

  “What the fuck?” I blurted out before I remembered I was spying on him. The picture was in only one location that I could remember, tucked neatly away in my personnel dossier, a file he couldn’t possibly have had the necessary security clearance to access.

  He double-tapped on the track pad, and the screen went dark. He swiveled around to look at me. “Jayne. Feeling better?”

  I shoved the door open the
rest of the way, surprised by the weight—was it reinforced with steel?—and crossed the threshold. “I was until I wandered in here. Why are you in my private, top-secret, your-eyes-aren’t-a-high-enough-paygrade-to-be-looking-at file?” I tapped my toe impatiently.

  My voice was curiously muted in the room, and I realized sound-proofing material covered every square inch of the place, even the floor boards.

  Hands folded casually in his lap, a guilty blush climbed his cheeks. “It’s not what you think.”

  He’d be cowering like an abused puppy if he knew what was really on my mind. Head cocked, I glared at him. “Why don’t you tell me what I’m thinking?”

  He glanced to the side then flicked his eyes back at me. “Just more research to learn how to work better with you.”

  I waggled my finger back and forth. “Uh-uh. That dog doesn’t hunt, Tamsyn. You don’t have the clearance to look at that file.”

  “I…I hacked in.”

  “That’s unethical, not to mention illegal.”

  The phone he’d laid next to him began a dance across the surface of the desk. He cut a gaze to the shimmying device then reached for it. “I have to take this.”

  “Tamsyn, you are behaving like you’ve just gotten a phone for the first time.”

  His arm outstretched, he paused and stared at me, an agitated look on his face. “Jayne?” The phone continued to buzz and wiggle on.

  I waved my hand at him, granting permission, then stalked toward his keyboard.

  He answered the phone and shut down the computer at the same time. Whatever he was up to, he didn’t want me in on the secret.

  The idea that he could be the mole crossed my mind. Viktor’s friend on the inside? After all, what did I know about him?

  “Hello?” His voice skittered when he spoke.

  I crossed my arms and loomed over him, tapping my Prada sneaker. I glared at him as I strained to hear the other end of his conversation. He’d installed some kind of dampening effect on incoming calls, so I couldn’t hear a damn thing even with my supersensitive vamp skills. Nifty toy. I’d have to talk to Drax about getting something similar. I continued to stare at the prat.

  He broke eye contact first, glancing at his lap. Ha! Got him.

  “No, I can’t talk now. Let me call you back,” he said. After a moment, he nodded. “Understood. I’ll get back to you.”

  He jabbed the phone, disconnecting the call, then swiped his way into the call log. He deleted the inbound record, and once he did, the screen went unusually blank.

  “You do recognize you’re behaving like a teenage girl who doesn’t want her parents to know she’s talking to boys, don’t you?”

  “Not at all, Jayne. That’s just protocol.”

  “I must have missed that day in spy school. Seems like something only someone feeling a tremendous amount of guilt would do. Wipe out their calls, delete texts. What gives, Baxter? Are you cheating on me?”

  If batting my eyes at him would have worked to get me information, I’d have done so. But his gaze was frigid, and his lips were pursed tighter than Ebenezer Scrooge’s wallet.

  “It’s been a while since you’ve been in ‘spy school,’ as you say. Maybe things have changed.” His words were mild, but his tone was knife-sharp.

  I decided to table this part of the discussion for the moment. “Pretty nice setup you have here, guppy. Why?”

  “IT is my hobby. I like learning new things. I believe my knowledge of computers and other high-tech merchandise will make me more valuable to the VIS.”

  “Does T know about your hacking abilities? Or was that something you were planning to keep secret?”

  “I believe she’s aware.” His gaze flicked right.

  Another lie.

  “Can you hack into any server?”

  “Given enough time.”

  “We’ve got nothing but time for the next few days.” I drew a chair up next to his. “What about Koszlov’s servers?”

  He frowned. “I’ve been trying, but the code is complex. I haven’t been able to break through yet.”

  “If we could gain access, we’d have a better idea of what his next move will be. And if we know in advance, we might be able to stop him.”

  “I’ve thought of that, too, but the algorithms are wonky.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s complicated, Jayne. Unless you know HTML or DOS, you wouldn’t understand.”

  I think I’d just been called stupid. Whatever. “Hmm, I’ll admit I know more about shoes than the mysterious workings of a computer network, but I know enough about Viktor to make an educated guess at why they seem off.” I drummed my fingers on the desk while I sorted through the jumbled thoughts racing around my brain. “Maybe you have the right idea. Think like a teenager.”

  His brow furrowed deeply. “Huh?”

  “Maybe you can’t crack it because your approach is too sophisticated.”

  Baxter leaned back and scrubbed his knuckles across his jaw, his eyes rolling upward as if in thought. “So if I think like a fourteen-year-old hacker, I might crack it?”

  “Why not? Didn’t teens hack into some major American retailers not too long ago? What if those teens who learned how to hack their way in also design algorithms to keep you out?”

  Baxter jolted upright. “You might be onto something.” He twisted his chair to face front and started banging on the keyboard.

  Nothing happened.

  The look of frustration on his face was priceless.

  “You shut it down when you didn’t want me to see whatever you were up to in my files.” I snickered. I couldn’t help but yank his chain.

  He tucked a hank of his longish hair behind his ear, arching one eyebrow at me. I turned my back and lifted my face to the wood-beamed ceiling, showing him I wasn’t going to look over his shoulder while he exited from where he should never have been. He grunted, then reached round the monitor and turned the system back on.

  I needed to schedule a time with T to discuss what an excellent team player I’d become.

  “Um…thanks, Jayne. It was a great suggestion.” Keys clacked rapid-fire. “I’m going to search the dark web to find the code the Russian juveniles used to hack the retailer.”

  I swung back around in time to see the display go dark. When it popped back to life, string after string of glowing green commands populated the black screen.

  Bax ignored me in favor of focusing on the information flying over his screen.

  He worked in silence for a few minutes. Then suddenly, “If they bounced a signal off a LEO satellite, their code would be a little more traceable.”

  “LEO?”

  His fingers flew over the keyboard, and on an adjacent monitor, a star map beamed to life. “Low Earth Orbit satellites. Communications companies and television networks launch them and use them to beam signals back to Earth. Their security is never as tight as military sats. Every kid with a laptop knows that.” Different points of light flared to life on the screen as he tapped them in succession.

  “How many are there? Up in space.”

  “Thousands, I think.”

  I rubbed the scar on my arm. “Can you narrow your search? Maybe focus first on the Russian orbiters.”

  “Makes sense.” He circled his forefinger on the track pad, and the star map turned the same direction until I was looking at the opposite side of the world. “Thanks, Jayne. Another good idea.” He tossed me a smile, then shot his gaze straight back to the map.

  I decided I should make myself useful. “Can I use the laptop?” I inclined my head toward a MacBook sitting on one corner of the work station.

  “Yeah, sure, be my guest,” he replied absently.

  It didn’t take him long to get lost in the world of cyber criminals and juvenile delinquents.

  While he scoured the web for any details of algorithms and codes favored by hackers, I hunted for news of inexplicable accidents similar to the occurrence on Rapa Nui. Viktor had always b
een a sucker for redundant systems. It made sense…at least to me…that he’d have built a back-up lab somewhere. If we put him out of business at one facility and he escaped, I didn’t want him fleeing to another location and still killing all humans.

  I couldn’t allow that.

  Information on Koszlov was in scant supply. How did a man with a violent history leave a nearly nonexistent footprint? One of the few entries I located referred to the discovery of two bodies, found mutilated and burned beyond recognition. He’d been implicated, but cleared. I didn’t bother with that story. I knew those victims intimately and was well acquainted with what that madman had done to keep the bodies from disintegrating into ash. I suppressed the memory and the accompanying shudder.

  I dismissed the search on Viktor’s name and switched to Gregorie’s, praying I’d find more intel.

  “Bingo!” The keywords I’d entered returned an insane number of hits in just one second. Apparently, the son didn’t have the same reticence about keeping a low profile as Daddy did.

  “Hmm?” Bax barely glanced away from the data screaming across his screen at lightning speed.

  “Ignore me. Go back to what you’re doing.” I’d wasted my breath. He’d stopped paying attention to me after the first keystroke.

  I went back to my search results and clicked the first link. A picture of Gregorie popped up, a blond bombshell hanging on one arm, a stunning redhead on the other. Seems Junior was a bit of a playboy. I recognized the redhead. Katya Kirilova. Rumors had it the vixen was good with a gun. She fit his profile.

  I couldn’t be sure why anyone would be interested in him. He didn’t exude power. No, his vibe leaned more toward brutality. I’d seen his icy blue eyes at our camp on Rapa Nui. They were cold, hard disks of cruelty. I had a feeling Gregorie’s violence would be off-the-charts evil. He might even make Viktor look like a prom queen.