God's Eye (11 page)

Anyone with an office door had privacy at Light & Geryon; everything else was monitored. Which meant Katharine couldn’t check in on Allistair to see if he’d turned another shade of green or maybe pinked up a little in her absence. But she could watch Lisa at the desk just outside. And she could pull up tape of Mary Wayne. All day. In the employee room. The file room. The hallway. Everywhere but the bathroom.

Katharine asked for the payroll division. It only took a minute for Jeff to commandeer a few blank monitors and call up the appropriate cameras. Screens blinked to life, showing Brenda at her desk where Katharine had just left her, typing away and fielding calls exactly as she was supposed to. Another angle popped up and then a third. But Katharine’s gaze was riveted to the second.

There sat Mary Wayne, at her desk, exactly where she was supposed to be. Mary made a call, entered a few things into the computer and turned back to her file. All of which she should have been doing while Katharine had been fifteen feet away talking to Brenda.

A frown marred her forehead; Katharine could feel it. Did it mean anything that Mary was away from her desk for the entire time Katharine had stood and chatted with Brenda–more than an hour–then reappeared within moments of when she left?

Jeff Grason must have spotted her frown, because he looked over from his seat and asked, “What do you need to see?”

She pointed to the screen, “Mary Wayne, for the last three hours.”

“Normal speed?” He was already skipping the recording backward, keeping an eye on the clock, looking for the start time.

“Oh God, no. But I do need to see all her activities.”

With an understanding nod at what she wanted and no questions as to why, he started the video. Just as rapidly, he took it from real time and clicked through a few options, speeding up the action a notch at a time, until Mary Wayne looked like a shaky version of herself. She sat at her desk for long stretches of time. Her hand, in rapid fast-forward, would dart out, grab the phone, often replacing it almost as quickly. But she didn’t leave her desk. Not once.

Not until almost the exact moment Katharine appeared in the scene. “Wait. There. Go back?”

Jeff nodded and rewound a small stretch, then played the portion just before Katharine’s arrival in normal speed when she asked.

Katharine watched with avid curiosity. There was no change in Mary’s demeanor that she could discern. Mary simply got up and left her desk–as though she had to go to the bathroom or was hitting the snack machine in the employee room. But she did it just before Katharine arrived at the opposite door. In fact, Katharine had missed Mary by mere seconds.

Mary returned the same way–no pretense, no furtive looks, nothing out of the ordinary. It was as though she’d only been gone a minute, when in fact it had been far, far longer. Then, just a few seconds after Katharine left, the payroll clerk reappeared.

So the question was, would Katharine have seen Mary if she’d stayed a few more minutes making small talk with Brenda? Or would Mary have still arrived back at her desk moments after Katharine left?

Thanking the guys in security, Katharine headed back to her office to figure out how to test that point. The sound of her own steps down the hallway created a rhythm for her thoughts. But her thoughts didn’t manage to get anywhere meaningful before she arrived back at her own office door. Allistair still sat at his desk, but he looked decidedly better than he had this morning, and he agreed with her assessment when she told him so.

“I think I need to eat something now. Something green and healthy. And I need some fresh air.”

He hadn’t taken a lunch break, so who was she to deny the man some real food? “Sounds like a good idea.”

She’d only meant it was a good idea for him, so she was startled when he asked her to join him.

•  •  •

Allistair was surprised when she agreed to go out with him for the late lunch. He hadn’t expected her to; he hadn’t pushed her. He hadn’t tried at all to alter her thoughts, even though he could have. So when she cocked her head to the side and shrugged, he wasn’t quite prepared. He didn’t know what to say and he wasn’t sure how to turn the tide on whatever was swelling inside him. He’d like to say it was pride at the score, but he knew that wasn’t the case.

“Do you know where you want to go?” Katharine glanced back over her shoulder from the office door, her jacket already slung on.

He shook his head. He’d intended to go by himself and get out of her sphere for a short while. He’d only invited her along because it seemed like the right thing to do.

No, that wasn’t right. He’d invited her because he
wanted
her near, even if he
needed
to be away for a bit to gather his thoughts into something coherent. He’d imagined going alone to the little burger stand at the end of the street, but he’d told her he wanted something green to counteract the imaginary stomach upset of earlier. So he didn’t know where to go.

She took pity on him. “How about Salami’s? They have great salads and lots of green veggies. It’s only a block away.”

Katharine had already started out the door and toward the elevator when he nodded in agreement, throwing on his own jacket and straightening his tie. His feet sped up in an attempt to catch up to her. But she was easy to find. Colors, thrown from her thoughts and feelings, followed her down the hall, leading to where he found her–standing at the elevator bank, having pushed the call button, and waiting for him.

At this time of day, the hallways were virtually empty and he had Katharine to himself in the elevator. He didn’t want to read her, didn’t want to know what she’d done with Zachary the night before. It was bad enough that he had to see her feelings coming through the office door before he saw her; he didn’t need graphic memories of touch to accompany them. But he did need to read her.

And he needed–desperately–to keep it together when he did. There could be no more errors like this morning. He had a good idea what he’d see when he looked: memories that showed him just how far Zachary had come and just how much he, Allistair, was losing. He was as upset that he wasn’t the one Katharine chose as he was at falling behind in the game. Bracing himself for the onslaught, he let the back of his hand casually brush against hers.

It was a good thing he’d braced himself, but he still wasn’t prepared for what came.

Though her gaze stayed straight ahead and her stance was steady, her thoughts wandered all over him. There wasn’t a trace of Zachary anywhere. It was as though she had shed him as thoroughly as her night-clothes; Allistair’s rival was nowhere to be found in Katharine’s mind. It was Allistair himself that occupied Katharine’s thinking. She thought he looked better after his bout of stomach flu this morning. She’d worried about him all day. She was disappointed with an employee named Mary, but Allistair was arrested more by the fact that Katharine found him compelling than by anything else going through her brain.

She thought him handsome. Attractive. Admired his work ethic this morning and liked the way he held himself. Allistair held himself a little straighter. From that single touch, mostly because he’d been looking for it, she had poured herself into him. And it was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Maybe it was because he was stronger than the last time he’d tried that on a human. Maybe it was because her thoughts were about him. Whatever it was, it was heady, and he wanted–needed–another shot of it.

The elevator slowed, but they were still a handful of floors up. The last thing he wanted to deal with was another rider, but there was nothing he could do about it. Spontaneous combustion of a Light & Geryon employee wasn’t in the playbook. Katharine smiled and stepped back as a woman stepped through the silver doors dragging a small crate on wheels stuffed with papers. The newcomer was too busy looking him up and down to prevent the wheels from dropping directly into the crack between the elevator and the floor.

From the corner of his eye, Allistair saw Katharine dive for the button to keep the door open. He dove, too, covering her hand with his as though it were accidental. He enjoyed the feel of her skin beneath his. Human contact was something that was supposed to happen only when necessary, but he’d always craved it when in form. Katharine’s thoughts did nothing to curb his addiction.

This time he was prepared for, hoping for, the want. After the initial lightning bolt of touch, it flooded him–pictures, thoughts, feelings, all rushing from Katharine into him at the point of contact. Images from the past few moments pulsed through him. The woman pushing into the elevator, Katharine’s irritation. A shocking picture of him and Katharine, clothes askew, pressed against the mirrored wall of the elevator.

His mouth went dry as blood flushed his skin.

Still touching Katharine’s hand as the unwelcome woman finally got her cart across the threshold, Allistair saw Katharine’s eyes.

They gave away nothing of what he saw inside her. She was completely unaware of his knowledge and it was a stark reminder that she hadn’t given it freely. He wasn’t supposed to be here, had no right to what he was seeing. Slowly, he pulled his hand back from hers.

Katharine smiled an innocuous smile at him, and before he lost contact, he got a fast flash of her inhaling his scent and thinking he smelled good. Just then the doors closed, sealing him in with the woman, Katharine, and the images he had stolen from Katharine’s mind.

He needed the quiet of the remainder of the ride to find some equilibrium.

Katharine had touched him before. He’d touched her. Granted it had been few and far between. He hadn’t gone looking for her thoughts before. But he’d not seen anything in her like what he’d perceived just now. Flashes, images, and sensations hovered, lingering at the edge of thought. Nagging him to go back and touch her again, to take more, to put action to want.

Allistair did none of that. He stood quietly, hands clasped in front of him as though he didn’t know what he knew. He nodded politely at the other woman as she exited ahead of them, ignoring another long perusal. Even her nearly blatant invitation couldn’t compare to the flashes of heat he’d received from Katharine, who stood as prim as the Main Line bluebloods she was descended from.

Out on the sidewalk, Katharine led the way to the restaurant, strolling casually between the clumps of people walking the other way, Allistair keeping pace beside her, his thoughts in a jumble. Perhaps there was another way to fight Zachary. Katharine was just as attracted to him as she was to his rival. And why not? The more Allistair thought about it, the more it made sense. Humans were always attracted to his kind. There was something there, just below the senses, something wild and feral that people were drawn to even though they were clueless as to why.

He couldn’t help but enjoy the added benefit of cuckolding Zachary. He hated Zachary.

“What are you grinning at?” Katharine had read his face before he realized she was even looking at him.

He lied. “I just caught a piece of that couple’s conversation as they went by. It was pretty racy.” She didn’t ask anything further and Allistair kept his silence.

That changed when they sat down in a booth at Salami’s. Katharine began speaking. “Look, I hadn’t intended to tell you this, but I need someone else’s help and I trust you.”

Here he’d gone thinking he’d had all his surprises for the day. He fought his own tongue to keep from asking her why she trusted him or from telling her that she shouldn’t. Just look what he’d stolen from her not ten minutes earlier. But her faith in him was probably like the attraction–merely a side effect of what he was. Since he needed her trust, he cocked his head and waited for her to continue.

“There’s a thief at Light & Geryon.”

He blinked, surprised again, but just then the waitress showed up and there was nothing Katharine could say. She leaned across the table to him, the smell and heat of her swamping him when he needed to pay close attention to what she was telling him.

Her lips moved. “Can I come sit on your side?”

Allistair nodded before he even comprehended the question. She intended them to look like lovers; sadly, it was so they could speak without being overheard. Her reasons didn’t change the fact that she switched to his side of the booth and pressed herself against him shoulder to shoe. That she didn’t intend them to actually be lovers didn’t stop them from brushing against each other, or stop him from thieving her thoughts. Each time they touched he got his own jolt as well as hers–and he tried his best to keep his mouth from curving into a satisfied smile.

“The embezzling has been going on since well before you arrived. So if you’re the thief you are far too clever for us. The directory we’ve been working on is just a way to get information. There isn’t going to be a final product–although maybe we should make one. It was an attempt to gather more about the embezzler without anyone getting too suspicious.” She sighed. “I have no idea how dangerous our thief is, so you’re welcome to say you’re not interested, and it won’t affect your job at all.”

“Dangerous?” He’d been forcing himself to pay attention, but that–at last–caught and held his interest.

With a shrug in answer to him, she accepted the food that the waitress set down. When the woman became confused by their switched seats, Katharine offered a smile that was both polite and secretive. When she was gone, Katharine turned back to him, her mouth nearly in his shoulder. “It’s white-collar crime. Embezzlers usually aren’t dangerous. But over time it’s added up to a large sum of money. The thief may get violent trying to protect what was taken.”

Allistair grinned. He was hooked. Here was humanity at its very best: stealing from each other, ferreting out details, and trying to be superior in the name of justice. “I’m in.” Danger didn’t mean anything to his kind, but he didn’t dare tell Katharine that.

Laying out the plan for him, she explained that she wanted him to go through back records and see if he could locate the thief, either by person or department. She didn’t like the suspect they had already found. There were aspects that were incriminating but other parts didn’t seem to fit. Allistair agreed to all of it. Katharine would be able to get back to her real job of researching the stocks that Light & Geryon was considering.