The Omega Team: Keeping Karen (Kindle Worlds Novella)

I
T Specialist Karen Harkness
didn’t realize the depth of the conspiracy she uncovered until someone blew up her car. When the police want her in protective custody, it shoves her in the path of U.S. Marshal Ethan James—the first man she ever loved.

E
than James has been considering
a change of employment, so he isn’t adverse to the potential job offer from the Omega Team. When he’s called in on the case of Karen Harkness, however—the girl who got away—he won’t let anything stop him from keeping her safe.

A
n Omega Team
/Dark Rowan Novella

D
esiree Holt is
one of those rare ladies who makes you feel welcome and adored no matter where you are. When she first asked me to join in her Kindle Worlds, I wasn’t sure I would be able to considering time and life. However, she made me feel super important and wanted, so I couldn’t say no. I hope you enjoy the adventure Ethan and Karen share as they reconnect thanks to a disaster.

H
eather

T
he cursor flashed steadily
on one of her open terminal screens while reams of data scrolled by on the other. The dense code would be hard to read, but she wasn’t trying to decrypt it so much as scanning for two lines. Having found the hacker’s key code in three other bank security programs, she wanted to make sure she’d identified them all before she turned in her report.

A tenth of a penny seemed a miniscule amount. Few noticed when their account was off by a cent here or a cent there, not when savings programs liked to roll over the extra cents to their savings account or CDs. So many people used plastic to do most of their shopping. They didn’t always notice the change on their receipts. In fact, the majority rounded up—if the cost was $23.56, they remembered spending $24. It didn’t really matter.

What made the hacker code so smart was the tenth of a penny from one transaction didn’t amount to much, but when multiplied by the dollars spent from several million accounts? The penny shaving created an enormous slush fund.

Karen tapped her foot and crunched her way through a bowl of popcorn while she waited. Impressed by the simplicity of the con, she couldn’t wait to see how much the hacker had accrued in the secret accounts—a beeping on a separate terminal window had her tabbing through her screens.

Bingo.
The account numbers buried in the code rotated through seven separate banks, all local banks in small towns with only one or two branches. A great way to hide their ill-gotten funds, since they didn’t cross state lines and were far less likely to see a federal audit. She added the numbers to her files and shook her head. She would make a fortune off uncovering the scheme, but the thrill of the chase excited her more than the prospect of a payday.

Another alert sounded, and she flipped to her social media page. Some of her girlfriends from the Dark Rowan Collective were having a ladies’ night out. They’d been posting photos for the last hour, a reminder that she hadn’t been forgotten even if she turned down an overnight trip to New York. Teasing her was their version of payback, and she accepted the playfulness of it all. She’d have done the same, had she gone and one of the others stayed in.

The girls of Dark Rowan formed their collective think tank during college. Each one of them excelled in their fields. Not finding a place in the sororities their university offered, they’d quickly become attached after spending Friday nights in the computer lab, the library, and occasionally the Ringer—a bar on the far side of campus where they could get a beer and study in relative peace and quiet. In the beginning, it had only been five of them. Later, they’d added incoming freshmen as they progressed through their college careers. By graduation, thirty-one women comprised the Dark Rowan Collective, their personal secret society of women helping women. The best part of it was their legacy continued long after their graduation—they added new members each year.

Hitting ‘like’ on her friends’ photos, she divided her attention between the programs still running and munching her popcorn. Once she finished the last secure pass through, she could get her report filed, take a shower, and then watch a movie.

“I’m really rocking this Friday night, am I right?” She glanced at Luthor, her cat, as he sprawled on the shelf above her desk. The tortoiseshell beast and former alley cat moved into her place when she did. They’d arranged an armistice— she fed him and let him sleep on her bed; in turn, he kept the field mice outside and didn’t piss on her clothes. It worked for them.

As if noticing her attention, he began to purr. She didn’t let the echo of welcome fool her though. Were she to reach up a hand, she was likely to get clawed. She kept her hands off him, and he kept his claws out of her skin. Shaking her head, she reached instead for the little can of treats stored behind her monitor. Opening it up, she rose and shook a few out onto the shelf next to him. His cool regard followed her every motion, but his purring didn’t decrease in decibel or speed. Only after she’d resealed the container and sat once more did he deign to inspect her offering.

Apparently he approved, as he began eating. Amused, she grabbed another handful of popcorn and resumed her monitoring of the program. Three more flags popped, but they didn’t match her earlier accounts. Following the lines, she found the transfers attached to emails—also not on her search list, so why had the program flagged them?

Intrigued, she set the popcorn bowl aside and dug down into the programming language. By the time she looked up again, she had a crick in her neck and her eyes burned. Four hours had passed. The original search completed, and she had everything she needed for the bank’s security sweep and much more. Chewing a fingernail, she debated the information she’d uncovered then reached for the phone and dialed 911.

E
than spared
the offer packet a passing glance before focusing on Grey Holden. The fact that the man had flown out to meet him in DC at the little café about two blocks from the marshal’s office. didn’t surprise him, even if his offer did. “I’m not even going to ask how you knew I was considering a change.”

Grey smirked. “But you want to know.”

“Of course.” Ethan James had spent six years fighting for his country and another eight defending its citizens at home. He’d worked for the U.S. Marshal Service ever since he’d exited the Marines. The past two years had been more brutal than the first twelve combined. Losing not one, but two witnesses could have cost him his career. Two of his fellow marshals quit following the incidences, and a third? Well, he’d crawled into a bottle and would likely be let go.

The loss of human life weighed on Ethan more than the professional blowback. His superiors had cleared him of any wrongdoing, but his conscience offered no such succor. The witnesses made mistakes and hadn’t followed protocol. Paying the consequences with their lives was too high.

“Look, Ethan, you’ve got an impeccable reputation, and you’re damn good at what you do. Red tape snares us all, and I wanted to make this offer personally. We could use someone with your skill set on the Omega Team. You’d get your pick of assignments and, more importantly, we’ll listen when you sense something is off.”

Tempting as the offer was, Ethan had never been one to leap. In fact, he liked to take the time to deliberate his options.

“I appreciate it, Grey. I do.” They’d had some crossover in the service—friends of friends and they’d shared a beer before. “But why me and why now?” The timing couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Because now is when I’m here, and you because you’re a damn fine marshal. You understand how to handle witness relocation, comprehend the challenges of setting someone up in a new life.”

That sounded great, except… “Which translates into I know how to find them, too.”

Grey spread his hands and leaned back in the chair. His unreadable expression betrayed no confirmation or denial of the charge. “I’ll never ask you to go against your conscience. You get to pick your own assignments. What we do matters…without the red tape and shackles.”

“No reports? No paperwork?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say none.” Grey chuckled. “What I can tell you is, at the end of the day when you go home, you’ll have made a difference.”

How long had it been since Ethan could say that? “I’ll consider it.” The words slipped out before he drained the last dregs of his coffee and rose.

Rising opposite him, Grey extended his hand. “I can’t ask for more than that.”

They shared a fierce grip before the man strode away. Ethan sank back into the seat. He’d been riding a desk for three months, and his current slate involved reviewing other marshal’s cases. Nothing too brain draining. It left him with a lot of time on his hands. Time to meet with Grey Holden. Time to entertain a job offer with the Omega Team. Time to consider simply going home to Texas.

Maybe he just needed to get out of the business entirely. His parents had a spread outside of Sage Creek. It was a small place, tidy and steady. Every day like the one before it, and every day like the one after it. Low to no crime. Old grudges. New sweethearts. It was a place where life meandered along.

I’d be bored stupid in fifteen minutes.
The only reason to stay in Sage Creek left town a year after he did and, to the best of his knowledge, she’d never looked back.
Why am I?
The sun warmed the back of his neck, a sign of springtime in DC. After all the snow of winter, the fifty degree day felt almost pleasant, but it had nothing on the heat of home.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he glanced at the waitress as she came by with her eyebrows raised. “More coffee?”

“Sure.”

It was too early for a beer, not that he had anywhere else to be. She topped off his cup and took the cash lying atop the check. He’d missed Grey sliding a twenty into place. Too much for coffee and some toast, but it might make the waitress’s day. Not a bad plan.

His phone buzzed, so he pulled it out of his pocket. The message came from Darlene at the office.
New assignment on the board.
The vague note didn’t tell him why Darlene thought he needed to know about it. Then again, Darlene was in the know at the office. She knew everyone and coordinated all activities. The marshals might be the ones in the field doing the legwork, but Darlene had their backs.

He responded with a simple question mark and waited.

Karen Harkness
.

The response struck him like a throat punch.
Karen?
Why the hell was Karen an assignment on the board? He was already striding down the street before he fully processed the concept that Karen was in trouble.

K
aren hated
the avocado color of the walls in the drab little office where they’d asked her to wait. In the two weeks since she’d called the cops about what looked like a hit list and hidden money transfers, her life had been turned upside down. She couldn’t go home—or they hadn’t let her go home. Twisting her hands together, she concentrated on taking deep, regular breaths. Having already hyperventilated once, she didn’t want to give them excuse to give her another sedative.

The doctor declared her fit, save for the anxiety attacks, which they’d given her medication for, so the detectives investigating her case turned her over to the marshals. How was it even possible she was sitting in some nondescript building with no signs on the doors, in a marshal’s office that could belong to anyone, waiting to find out what would happen to the rest of her life?

Footsteps sounded outside the room. Heart pounding, she held her breath. The steps didn’t slow, passing by her door, and she hesitated a moment longer before exhaling harshly. She really needed to stop freaking out every time someone came too close. Of course, someone
had
broken into her apartment. They’d trashed her place. Broken her computer.

Luthor was okay. Reminded of his presence, she knelt down to the cat carrier on the floor. He hadn’t made a sound since the marshal set the case down. The man had a couple of nasty scratches from catching the cat, though he hadn’t complained. Luthor stared at her balefully, his tail thrashed once then again. No, her cat wasn’t pleased.

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I couldn’t leave you there. Not if they might come back. The cops wouldn’t let me stay there, either.” Of course, she had no plans to stay in the apartment. She could have gone to Maigen’s or Ally’s, but that might be bringing trouble to them. If something happened to her friends because of her, Karen would never forgive herself.

Better to cooperate with the authorities and disappear, at least for the time being. The girls wouldn’t look for her, not immediately. Karen had a reputation for going to ground with her work. In a month or two? Yeah, they’d start looking then. So far, her name hadn’t made it into the paper and, if necessary, she would leave a message on their private board to excuse her absence.

The cat blinked at her, and Karen sighed. “Reduced to talking to a cat who doesn’t want to say anything. Just do me a favor? When you decide to slit my throat for these indignities, make sure I’m sound asleep.” Luthor merely blinked at her again, and she had to cover her mouth to stifle a sad little laugh.

Rising, she began to pace the little room. All she’d done was uncover some accounts. It was the nature of the way the accounts had been set up that earned her attention. The encryption attracted her, like a moth to a flame, and damn if she hadn’t nearly been burned by it.

On her fourth circuit of the room, more steps sounded in the hall. Purposeful ones which halted just beyond her door. Pivoting, she gripped the chair and tried to fight the urge to hold her breath again. Freaking out wasn’t cool nor her style. The door handle began to rotate, and the thrumming of her pulse filled her ears. When the door swung inward, she gaped at the man filling the doorway. “No way in hell…”

The six-foot-tall, lanky figure wore the same cocky half-smile he had the last time she’d seen him. Back then, he’d been leaving for boot camp and declared she would be there when he came home, despite her plans to go to college. “Good to see you, too, darlin’.” The drawl of home curled through his voice and liquid heat warmed her center. More than a decade passed since she’d last seen Ethan, yet he reduced her to mush with one sentence.

Shaking off the ridiculous reaction, she gripped the chair harder. Since she only had the table and chair between her and the promised land of his gorgeous physique, she made sure she kept the obstacles in his path. Ethan James folded his arms—were they even more muscled than the last time she saw him? He’d been a kid when he’d said goodbye. She’d been a kid when she’d kissed his lips the last time—barely seventeen and the whole world had been their oyster.

“Why are you here?” Where were the marshals assigned to her case? How had he even known she was there? The last time she set foot in Sage Creek had been to help her Momma pack up and move.

The corner of his mouth curved into a hint of a smile. The charm in that simple motion always devastated her senses and left her breathless. Fortunately, she was over such base physical reactions. Or so she told her rapidly speeding pulse. After peeling her fingers off the chair, she folded her arms and fought to maintain her equilibrium. She was a professional. Skilled. Talented. Successful. Her work had uncovered a murder list and plot, and she’d saved lives. It didn’t matter that she was stuck in some dingy room under police protection with no idea when or if she would get to go home again.

To her horror, tears welled in her eyes and she had to blink rapidly. One moment Ethan was opposite her, and in two strides he circled the table and wrapped his arms around her. His enveloping warmth cocooned her in security. “It’s okay, darlin’. We’re going to sort this out.”

The last thing she needed to do was rest her head against his chest or sink into the strength he offered, but it was Ethan… “This doesn’t mean anything,” she said with a sniffle.

“Of course not.” He murmured the words, cupping the back of her head, and then she buried her face against his chest. The clean, masculine scent of him filled her nostrils. “You’re safe.”

“I’m stuck in this ugly room.”

“Not anymore. We’ll get you out of here.” How did he allay the panic with so few words? How did his embrace ease the panic clawing through her soul? “I got you.”

Closing her eyes, she rubbed her cheek against his shirt. The shakiness inside her skin began to quell. She had no idea how long he held her, but soon she could take deep breaths. The stroke of his thumb against the nape of her neck eased the rapid rate of her pulse. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

“Of course it doesn’t.” A tender chuckle echoed beneath his statement.

“Don’t laugh at me.” Even she couldn’t deny her whine.

He squeezed her lightly, his humor sobering. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Indulging in holding onto him for only a few more moments, she tried to soak up some of the strength he offered. “Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you here?” Not that she wasn’t grateful to see him.

“I’m here to help you.” Another light squeeze then he pulled away. Instead of withdrawing entirely, he leaned against the table and kept one arm around her loosely. “Marshal Ethan James, at your service.”

“You’re a marshal?”
Wait.
Hadn’t he… “I thought you went into the Marines.”

“I did. Served six years. Came home a while back, went to work for the U.S. Marshal service.”

Scrubbing a hand over her face, she tugged away from him. His mouth tightened, but he didn’t try to hold onto her. “I didn’t know.”

“Never said you did.”

Rubbing her arms, she paced the dingy little room. It seemed even smaller with Ethan inside of it. “Not how I planned to see you again.”

“Okay, darlin’. Let’s get something straight right from the get go. I’ll keep you safe, no matter what, and you’re not going to lie to me or try to soothe my battered feelings. I don’t have any.” The heat in his eyes scorched her, belying his last sentence.

“Like I said, this isn’t how I planned to see you again.” It hadn’t been a lie. “I’ve imagined a lot of ways. This wasn’t it.”

“Fine, we’ll accept that as is. Now, tell me what happened…” He switched from caring to professional in the blink of an eye. Her heart squeezed at the transformation. She missed the feeling of his arms around her and the gentleness in his gaze when he pushed away from the table and circled it to pull the chair out opposite her. He didn’t sit and it took a moment to sink in. He likely wouldn’t until she did.

A part of her wanted to stay on her feet just to test the theory. Tiredness won out of over pride, and she eased into the chair. “I thought the officers would have given you a report…?”

“They did. I haven’t looked at it yet. I wanted to hear the story from you.”
The story.

“It’s not a story…”

He covered her hand with his, and the warmth chased away the chill in her bones. “Not implying anything, Karen. Tell me what happened to you.”

What happened? “I guess I should start at the beginning…”

T
he tremor
in Karen’s voice had damn near been his undoing. All the way into the office, he’d told himself the name Karen Harkness didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. His Karen worked as an IT specialist. She lived safely behind a computer screen. Why would anyone be targeting her? Even as he reviewed the case specifics and the red flagged possibility of a bounty on her head, he told himself the name was just a coincidence. It wasn’t his Karen.

His internal speech lasted all the way to the door, when reality sucker punched him. The dark-eyed Spanish beauty inside the holding room was his Karen. From her beautiful olive skin to her deep, dark brown eyes and silky long black hair, time hadn’t aged her a bit. Maturity added to her sultry beauty. The years fell away. He was in high school all over again, and she was the gorgeous sophomore who said yes to his fumbled date invitation. Back then, she’d always kept her hair in a ponytail, but her eyes were the same.

The last thing Ethan expected when he opened the door was to pull her into his arms. Real fear and, worse, worry filled those eyes when she’d glanced at him. Shock rippled over her expression then she’d shuttered as though bracing herself for an attack. Holding her forced him to examine his feelings. Yes, he was angry at her. Angry she’d refused to wait on him. Angry she hadn’t wanted to alter her life to follow him. Angry with himself for not being willing to compromise. He’d had plenty of time to reach out to her, but he’d wanted her to tell him it was okay.

Shoveling all of his emotional minutiae onto the manure pile, he focused on the frightened woman who needed his help. Even if she’d been a stranger, he would do everything in his power to protect her. She was Karen. She’d been his first kiss. His first love. He’d burn the world down for her.

“I guess I should start at the beginning…” The quaver in her voice unsettled him. Whoever had scared her enough to put that there needed to die—swift or slow didn’t matter. He wanted them erased, so they couldn’t make her feel that way anymore.

“Start wherever you need to,” he told her when she didn’t continue. Her glance trailed away from him and went to the cat carrier on the floor. He’d heard one of the guys mention she had a hellcat for a pet. Dan had the scratch marks to prove it. Ethan would deal with the cat later. Fortunately, he wasn’t allergic.

“I’m an internal computer specialist, mostly working freelance for various companies. I test their firewalls, check code, and help them reinforce against intrusions—personal data and identity theft is part of that.” A tight line drew her brows together, and she rubbed a slow circle against the corner of her right eye. Did she have a headache?

“Do you need a drink? Water? Coffee?”

“No…thank you.” She favored him with a small smile. Dressed in a thick cardigan that parted to reveal a black shirt and dark yoga pants, she should have been curled up at home, relaxing. The on-again, off-again cold weather had left them in between snowstorms with mild warmth which didn’t promise to last. Did Karen live in D.C.? Had she been within arm’s reach of him this whole time? He resisted the impulse to check the address in her file and kept his attention on her. “About two weeks ago, I was finishing up a project for a bank who’d hired me to investigate some strange reports they’d been receiving from their IT department. Minor errors, mostly, but enough to flag the attention of their internal auditors.”

“Are banks your usual clients?”

“They can be. I work for a lot of different companies. Being a contractor pays more and, for the most part, they don’t want to keep me on staff full time.” No arrogance decorated her statement. “I’d done work for this bank a couple of years ago when they had an intrusion and several of their bank cards were compromised.”

He nodded, not making any notes. It was best to just listen. Hear everything then dig deeper. Too often when he wrote things down during an interview, the subject would focus on what he wrote or when he wrote rather than on the details. “So, they hired you to handle some data auditing?”

“Yes and no. They had some accounting which didn’t add up, and it was across thousands of accounts, not just one or two. I wrote a program to review their code and went through it a piece at a time. I found the issue—it was someone who was transferring a tenth of a penny from these various accounts for every transaction they had—” She cut herself off, then waved her hand. “That part doesn’t matter. I think the FBI already has that hacker in custody, and they are on track to restore the missing money. While I was working, I found…I found some other oddities and buried accounts hidden beneath legitimate ones.”

Surprise filtered through him. “They can do that?”

“Pretty much. Bank accounts are defined by numbers—routing numbers, account numbers, social security numbers. It’s all electronic these days and, without the numbers to access them, you can’t see them from the outside.”

A disheartening thought, if there ever was one.

“With encrypted security and layers of identity authentication deepening each year, it’s even easier to associate a numbered account with a numbered ID and, without the right codes, you’d not know it was there without a full audit of everything a bank has.”

Which probably didn’t happen all that often. “And you found one of these hidden accounts?”

Maybe it was the light, but Karen flushed. “I did and, although it wasn’t part of the job I was doing, I dug a little deeper.”

“Nosy or just thorough?” The Karen he’d known had always gone the extra mile. It was never enough to meet word count, she always had to write a complete essay. If she was asked to do a job, she did it well.