4

Chapter 4

travis stepped into the reception room. The room was off a small foyer at the wide front door, marble-floored, the furniture less than comfortable but sleekly modern. Nik had had the butler light the fire, which glowed with cozy warmth in the huge fireplace. It did little to warm the cold appearance of the room though.

“Mr. Harrington.” Travis stepped into the room casually, displaying the lazy, almost insolent grace he had brought to the persona he had been given.

He didn’t extend his hand; an insult, he knew, to a man considered near royalty in England.

Desmond Harrington was a lord of the realm as well as a member of the House of Lords now that he had acquired the Harrington title. He was a powerful, dignified figure, despite the fact that he looked more like an American thug.

His red hair was cut close to his scalp. His mustache grew long down the side of his lips and beneath his chin to meet a sparse beard in a wide goatee. The rest of the beard was trimmed closer to the face and gave him a scruffy appearance, while the minute lines on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes, along with the hollowed appearance of his cheeks, spoke of a rough-hewn determination.

Blue eyes watched Travis with a hint of anger, his lower lip tight with disapproval as he moved to the couch across from the chair Travis had taken.

Behind him was his bodyguard, and Travis almost laughed when the he recognized the man. Amazing that a man suspected of terrorist ties and international loan-sharking would have a bodyguard known better for his sense of fair play and honor than he was for his brutality.

“Mr. Caine.” Desmond hitched his slacks with an angry jerk of his hands before taking his seat with regal arrogance. “I won’t take up much of your time. Produce my niece and I’ll leave.”

Travis arched his brow as he sensed Nik moving in closer behind him.

The butler, Henry, balding, under six feet, but more than capable of providing any backup they needed, entered the room and went over to the bar.

“Would you gentlemen like a drink?” Travis asked Desmond as the other man glared at him.

“My niece, if you don’t mind.” The precise English accent was clipped and demanding.

“She’s in the powder room.” Travis shrugged. “You know how long such things can take. I suggest you relax for a bit and we can chat.”

“I have nothing to chat about with the likes of you.” Self-importantly, he lifted his rather heavy nose in the air as though he smelled something offensive.

Travis chuckled. “Ah, I have to say you’re quite wrong there,” he retorted. “We have quite a bit to discuss. I want my Lilly back.”

It was kind of funny to be “playing” Lilly’s lover when he actually was her lover. Except there was nothing the least bit humorous about the situation.

“Lilly Belle no longer exists,” Desmond hissed as he nearly came out of his chair, his face flushing brick red in anger. “She is Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington. Period. She is related to royalty and her station does not allow her to be your toy any longer.”

Travis’s brow arched. “That’s Lilly’s choice to make, not yours.”

“She no longer remembers you. She will never remember those years she has lost. The doctors are certain of that. Leave her be, man. Allow her the life she was born to live,” her uncle demanded.

“The life she ran from?” Travis asked as he leaned forward. “She was nearly killed living your life, as I remember it. Lilly left voluntarily. She didn’t return with the same mind-set.

She’s back, not because she wanted to be, but because once again someone tried to kill her and she forgot she was running. So don’t presume to preach to me about the life that she should be living, or the reputation she should be cultivating.”

“Victoria belongs with her family,” Desmond snapped. “No matter how you twist the truth, you are nothing but a danger to her.”

Travis laughed. “She created the danger in her life as I’m certain your investigator told you.

Do you think her enemies aren’t well aware that she’s now Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington?

Do you honestly believe her past isn’t going to return to bite her on the ass?”

He was the concerned past lover. He was the man that knew her secrets better than any other. He was the man her family was going to have to accept whether they wanted to or not.

“Leave it alone,” Desmond fired back. “I can take care of any repercussions if you’ll walk the hell away.”

“And what repercussions would that be, Uncle Desmond?” Lilly stepped into the room.

Travis knew the creature Lilly Belle was. Silent, stealthy, but too damned curious. She was known for her inability to keep her nose out of danger. Even within the Ops her reputation was fairly solid in that regard.

She stepped into the room, obviously surprising her uncle with her clothing, as well as her demeanor.

Desmond Harrington rose to his feet, shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

“I have the limo outside,” he stated, his tone grating. “We need to leave, Lilly.”

A smooth, negligent shrug of her shoulders was the first indication Travis saw of the agent he once knew. Lilly pursed her lips thoughtfully as she propped her hands on her hips and surveyed the room silently for long moments.

“You said you didn’t know anything about where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing for the past six years,” she told her uncle. “You lied to me.”

A dark frown creased Desmond’s brow. “At the time, I had no idea,” he bit out, his tone icily angry now. “If you recall, I informed you I would hire investigators to pursue the subject.

Their report came in weeks ago.”

“And I wasn’t told?” She leaned a shapely hip against the back of the couch Travis sat in. A move that Desmond clearly understood. Lilly Belle was in the room right now.

“Could we discuss this at home?” Desmond demanded. “With your mother present, if you don’t mind, rather than with this gentleman.” He made the last word sound like a curse.

“Funny, Uncle Desmond,” she mused then. “Your investigators know so much now, but they didn’t find me in the six years I was missing?”

His expression became pinched. “We believed there was no way you could have survived that explosion,” he answered. “You were declared dead when no evidence of your whereabouts could be found.”

“And now my whereabouts are known,” she drawled, her tone cold.

“Once we had your new . . . ,” he looked uncomfortable, “identity was rather easy.”

Travis wanted to shoot the bastard.

He rose slowly to his feet and moved to the bar. All the while he kept his gaze on Lilly’s face through the large mirror on the other side of the room.

“This gentleman, as you call him, seems to know more about me than you or Mother,” she informed him, her tone calm and quiet as she moved from the couch.

That wasn’t a good sign. A nice calm tone from Lilly Belle was usually something to be wary of.

Desmond grimaced. “And I know more about him than he can imagine. He’s not the sort of person you want in your life, Lilly.”

“I think I’ve always been able to make that decision on my own, Uncle Desmond,” she reminded him, her smile tight now.

Damn, good ole Uncle Desmond was really starting to piss her off now. And he seemed to realize that. Travis was almost amused.

Travis watched as the other man took careful control of himself and attempted to repair the damage.

“I regret I haven’t given you the information I received,” he stated, and there seemed to be sincere regret in his tone. “The psychologist you were seeing in the hospital suggested it might be best that you remember certain things on your own. In the interests of your health, we elected to wait.” He cast Travis and Nik a harsh glare. “Victoria, please . . .”

“Lilly,” she informed him, the quick, sharp tone of her voice drawing a reaction from her, as well as surprise from Desmond. “Please, call me Lilly.”

Travis cast the other man a tight smile of victory. She was Lilly Belle, Lady Victoria Harrington be damned.

“Lilly.” Desmond obviously didn’t approve of the name. “Please, dear. Let’s return to the house, and we’ll discuss this. The limo is waiting outside.”

“I brought the bike. I’ll follow you back.”

Desmond frowned, obviously caught off guard. “What bike?”

“My motorcycle,” she stated, watching him carefully now. Travis could feel the tension radiating from her now.

Desmond shook his head. “You have no such thing.”

“Really, I do.” She strode across the room. “I’ll meet you at home.” Pausing at the door, she turned back to Travis. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I’m certain I’ll enjoy the experience,” he taunted her, to remind her of the few stolen moments they’d had in the kitchen.

Amusement gleamed in her green eyes before she pushed through the kitchen door and, he knew, strode to the garage.

“Henry, make certain the garage door is open for her,” he ordered the butler as he hovered silently on the other side of the room. “And make certain Miss Harrington has access to the house whenever she wishes.”

“Very good, sir.” Henry nodded stiffly and followed her.

Travis turned back to Desmond. He was watching the door with a sense of bemusement, as though the woman that had stepped through it were a stranger rather than the niece he had once been rumored to love.

“She’s not the woman you lost six years ago,” Travis reminded him quietly. “Try to turn her into that woman and you’ll make an enemy of her.”

Her uncle turned back to him slowly. “If I allow you to have your way, she’ll remain one step above a criminal,” he said hollowly. “Or slip those final inches and be lost to us forever.”

“Lord Harrington, I didn’t return to destroy Lilly’s life, I returned to save it,” Travis informed him.

Desmond grunted rudely. “Your past actions do not speak of your desire to save her.

Training in demolitions and explosives. Military and martial arts training in Asia for eighteen months while conducting so-called ventures into pirate-held territories. And that doesn’t count the dozens of near arrests, near fatal crashes, and God only knows how much weapons fire she’s faced while she’s played your whore.” By the time he finished his face was bloodred, his blue eyes snapping with rage, and his accent more clipped than usual.

Travis tilted his head and watched curiously. It had been a while since he’d seen such a blue-blooded tantrum.

“Perhaps I should remind of you the reason why she was learning how to fight, how to kill, and how to protect herself,” Travis stated calmly when the other man had finished. “Because you and your polite, well-heeled English society, your blue-blooded aristocracy, allowed her to nearly be murdered. You accepted her death, gave her a nice tear-filled burial, and went about your lives without once questioning the results you were given, despite the inconsistencies. Get your head out of your ass, Desmond. She’s a big girl, she’s been a big girl for a long time, and she’s damned sure more woman than your prissy little English boys can handle. You can accept it, and help me protect her, or you can continue to stand in my way and bury her for real next time.” Travis turned on his heel and headed into the living area of the house. “Let me know what you decide. Before it’s too late.”

He didn’t turn back to the other man as he delivered his parting shot. Nik opened the door that led into the short hallway and then into the house that was as pristine, just as fucking modern and icy cold, as the reception room.

As cold as Travis’s fucking life had become.

Lilly parked her cycle at the curved cement and stone steps that led up to the mansion her family had taken for the spring and summer months. She had beat her uncle home. No surprise there.

The low heels of her boots were silent as she climbed the stairs, and the lack of sound seemed odd. Shoes made noise. Even sneakers made a slight noise when walking. But hers didn’t, and it wasn’t the shoes. It was her.

It was the way she walked, the way she moved. She could move silently, or if she thought about it, as she made herself do now, she could allow the slight click of the heels.

Had Travis trained her how to walk with such stealth as well?

The door opened, and the butler stood aside as Lilly stepped into the warm, golden wood tones of the entryway.

Shedding her leather jacket, she handed it to the butler, then lifted her head as her mother walked into the foyer. She carried some papers she had been reviewing, probably her latest financial statements. Her mother had come into her first marriage independently wealthy and she was amazingly adroit at managing her own finances.

Lady Angelica Harrington. She was also a distant cousin as well as a confidante and friend to the Queen. She moved in circles so influential it boggled the mind. Her social life was her career—the parties, teas, luncheons, and charity events.

Her son, Lilly’s brother, Jared James Harrington, was a solicitor with a law firm that the Queen often relied upon. He had been introduced to his wife by the Queen and had married with her blessing. He had become just as cold and unemotional as her mother sometimes seemed to be.

“Oh my God! What on earth are you wearing?” Lady Harrington’s tone wasn’t scandalized, it was purely horrified.

“Leather,” Lilly answered gently, wishing she could find a way to take that fear from her mother’s eyes. “Did you think that because you didn’t inform me about my past, it wouldn’t come back to haunt you? Or me?”

She pulled her gloves from her hands and slapped them on the shiny, dark cherry bureau that sat in the foyer as she held her mother’s gaze.

Angelica lifted her hand slowly to her throat, her pale blue gaze flickering with indecision as she watched her daughter now. She wasn’t quite certain how to handle this version of Lilly.

Her poor mother, Lilly thought. She likely had dreamed of having her daughter back, but Lilly doubted she had imagined the woman who had returned. Even Lilly didn’t know the woman who had returned.

Lilly pushed her fingers through her hair, feeling the long strands drifting through her fingers and over her shoulders as a familiar wildness rose inside her. She knew this feeling, she had known it for a long time. The same feeling she had fought before her supposed death six years before.

“Who am I?” She stared back at her mother, suddenly fearful, almost terrified that despite the urge to solve the mystery of those missing years, perhaps she really didn’t want to know.

“My daughter,” Angelica whispered, her voice filled with sorrow. “The daughter I never want to lose again.”

Lilly wanted to hit something. With her fist. Her fingers curled with the need to ram it into a wall, a door, a bed, a punching bag . . . A memory flashed in her mind. A sweat-stained punching bag swinging before her, her fists pounding into it, her heart racing, perspiration pouring down her body . . .

Just as quickly, it was gone. The second before the memory was able to solidify, it was gone.

“Your daughter changed,” she rasped. “What did she change into?”

Who was she? Where had she been? Why had she run?

“Lilly.” Her mother’s hand dropped from her throat as she stepped closer, the silk of her dress floating gently around her knees as the faintest hint of cigarette smoke wafted to Lilly’s senses.

She blinked. She saw her mother through a sniper’s scope. She was wearing her mink coat.

Cigarette smoke drifted in a cold breeze. Lilly blinked again and it was gone.

“Lilly?” Angelica reached out for her, her cool, graceful fingers touching Lilly’s arm gently as she attempted to draw her closer. “I want you to enjoy being with the family again. Those years you were gone.” Angelica blinked back tears that filled her eyes as Lilly stared down at her. “You were alive, yet you didn’t allow us to know it. You changed your pretty face.” Her mother reached up and touched her face. “Even your eye color is different. You changed everything, as though your family no longer mattered.”

And those changes had had their consequences. Her brother had walked out of the hospital when he came with her mother and uncle to see the woman the doctors were claiming was Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington. Jared had sworn his sister would never deny her family to such an extent.

Why had she done it? Changed so much of herself?

“There are no answers.” Her mother’s voice cracked with emotion. “Desmond and I have tried to find the answers. All we can find is a woman that lived as though she wanted to die.

As though she had lost everything precious to her. And yet we were right here.” A tear slipped down Angelica’s cheek then. “Was I so wrong to keep that from you? Was I wrong to hope you never remembered that you were trying to run away from us?”

“That wasn’t it!” The words, the emotions, flew from her lips before she thought, before she could understand why.

There was a memory there, for just a second. For just a fragile moment clarity had almost overtaken her, only to disappear once again.

“Then what was it?” her mother cried out desperately. “Tell me, Lilly, why can’t I call you Victoria as I once did? Why do you wear leather clothes and boots that make you look like the tramp? Why the changes to your appearance and why the changes to yourself if you weren’t trying to deny the very people who loved you?” Her face twisted. “I nearly died when I thought I was burying my only daughter. Instead you were out raising hell and throwing away everything your father and I tried to provide for you. You left your family, Victoria, for a life that bordered on the criminal and a lifestyle that was little better than that of a terrorist.”

Lilly stood still and silent, watching the emotions that tore through her mother as she felt something shut down inside her. The woman her mother was talking about wasn’t her.

Something didn’t sound right, it didn’t feel right. Something was wrong with the scenario her mother was laying out.

She hadn’t been a terrorist. She hadn’t been a criminal.

She looked down at the clothes she wore and felt a shudder go through her.

“I wouldn’t have turned my back on you,” she whispered as a tear slid down her cheek.

“Not like that. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know who I am or what I was doing, but I do know my family was everything to me.”

Sure, her mother was difficult—to say the least. And yes, Lilly had often wanted to run away from all the expectations and rules piled on top of her, but she had never imagined turning her back on her family, pretending to be dead, going through reconstructive surgery, and taking up a life of crime—or something close to it—just to escape it.

She had followed in her father’s footsteps as an informant for MI5. She had worked diligently to uncover evidence the agency needed to identify terrorists, terrorist sympathizers, and other criminal elements. And she had done it, ultimately, to protect the ones she loved.

So what had happened? Why had she turned her back on all of that?

Just then the door opened, and Lilly swung around to meet the furious expression of her uncle. No, her stepfather. God, why had her mother married Desmond Harrington, her father’s half-brother and business partner? Had she missed her husband so much that she had married his brother to replace him?

“Victoria.” He stopped as his bodyguard came in behind him and closed the door. “At least you made it home.”

Anger ripped through her, and she had no idea why. She loved her uncle. He had been an integral part of her life from her birth to her death.

“Of course I made it home.” She had to fight back the conflicting emotions she didn’t know what to do with. “It seems I’m a rather good rider.”

He wiped his hand over his face as he shook his head, obviously weary and attempting to hold on to his temper. Desmond Harrington was known for his temper, courtesy of his red hair, but he was also known for his compassion and logic.

“A rather good rider,” he muttered as he rubbed at his forehead before lifting his head and staring past Lilly to her mother. “It seems, my dear, that this hardheaded child has found a new hobby.”

He pulled his jacket off, handed it to the bodyguard, Isaac, then strode through the foyer to the living room.

“It’s obviously not a new hobby,” she stated as she followed him and her mother, only to pause just inside the door and watch as he strode to the bar. “A Crown on ice would be lovely,” she suggested as he lifted a decanter of liquor.

Desmond paused before pouring the desired drink as well as a snifter of brandy for her mother.

“Crown and ice.” Her mother sounded furious now. “That is not a proper young lady’s drink, Victoria.”

“I asked you to call me Lilly, Mother.” Lilly stepped into the room and accepted the drink from Desmond before striding to the sofa and lounging back. She smothered a sigh of exhaustion. Lifting the drink to her lips Lilly sipped the smooth liquor, nearly closing her eyes at the pleasurable burn that hit her stomach.

She watched as Desmond handed her mother her drink then took his seat beside her on the couch. Strange, she had never seen her mother sit with her father like that, close, intimate.

They had rarely sat on a couch, they had each had their own chairs instead. But the distance she had always sensed between her parents was present here as well.

“We need to discuss tonight,” Desmond told her firmly after taking a long sip of his drink, as though needing fortification.

“What is there to discuss?” Lilly asked him. “I met a friend for drinks. I’m of age, I have no curfew. What we do need to discuss is what the hell you were doing following me at this hour of the night.”

“What did you do?” Her mother almost whispered the words, as though terrified of the answer.

“I found her with Travis Caine,” Desmond informed her. “He has a house here in Hagerstown as well. Your daughter somehow acquired a rather racy motorbike and she broke several speeding laws to meet him at a bar, and then followed him to his house.”

“Caine?” Wide-eyed, Angelica turned to Desmond. “My God.” She turned back to Lilly.

“He’s a suspected terrorist, a man known to associate, if not partner with criminals!

Victoria . . .”

“Lilly.” Determination surged inside her. She hadn’t been Victoria for six years. She was Lilly.

“Why are you doing this? Do you want to be taken from us again?” Her mother ignored the reminder. “You’ll be arrested for sure!”

“I rather doubt there’s a warrant out for my or Travis’s arrest,” Lilly objected.

“There’s a warrant for your arrest in China, should you ever reenter their sovereign borders again, for theft of a government artifact, which they can’t prove to America. There’s a warrant for your and Caine’s arrest in Iran for the suspected death of a militant who was related to the current ruler. There’s also a warrant to bring you in for questioning in Spain for the death of a Spanish militant suspected of being part of a radical extremist group protesting against the government.”

Had she killed?

She had. Lilly felt that knowledge bleeding through her, bloodred and stained with guilt.

Had she killed in cold blood? She couldn’t imagine that. She had a healthy respect for life, more for others’ than for her own. At least, that was the thought that flitted through her head.

How would she know these things? And why was she suddenly so frightened at the thought of her mother or her uncle knowing the full truth about her?

“From what I’m hearing, if I did kill, then it was no one that didn’t deserve it,” she informed them both with an air of unconcern.

She was aware that she would have never made such a statement six years ago.

“Victoria . . .” Horror rippled through her mother’s voice.

“Mother.” Lilly shook her head as she leaned forward. “I don’t know what happened to me.

I don’t know who I was, or what I did. But I do know I wasn’t a criminal.”

“I have the report on you, Victoria,” her uncle said. “The governments may not have proof, but I have enough evidence to substantiate, at the very least, a strong suspicion that you did kill.”

There was something in his gaze then, some thread of compassion, perhaps?

Understanding? What was she seeing there, and why did it bother her so much to see it?

Lilly wanted nothing more than to run now. To escape the judgment and the disapproval she could feel coming from the mother.

She didn’t know if she could live much longer without somehow figuring out who or what she had been and why she had killed.

“I want this report you have on me.” She rose to her feet and stared at her mother and uncle. “Then, I want to know how the two of you ended up married, and why the hell my father’s murderer was never found.”

That was the source of her anger. Her father was dead, murdered, and his killer had never been caught. From what she gathered since she had been back, the search for his killer had been less than enthusiastic.

With that last warning she strode from the living room, ignoring her mother calling out to her, and her uncle’s almost silent curse.

She needed answers. She needed to know what had happened and why. And then she needed to figure out just why the hell Travis Caine felt more like a lover than a trainer, more like a friend than an enemy.

Travis sat in the underground room Wild Card had been assigned as the Harrington’s driver and listened to the confrontation as it played out in the Harrington living room.

Wild Card, a.k.a. Noah Blake, sat at the small table across from him, earbud attached to his ear, listening as well.

Travis watched the small, portable monitor as Lilly stalked from the room.

“Have the file sent up to her.” Lilly’s mother rose jerkily from the couch, her expression and her tone icily furious.

“Angelica, she doesn’t need the file yet.” Desmond sat forward, his expression concerned now. “She’s barely healed physically. The shock could be detrimental.”

“And what of the shock to the family?” She turned back, her pale face furious. “She’s determined to bring this family down to the same level she’s existed at for the past six years.

Let her see the damage she’s risking by continuing along this path.”

Travis’s lips thinned at the judgment in Lilly’s mother’s voice.

Desmond sighed wearily. “She’s been through a lot, Angelica.”

“And you think I don’t realize this?” Angelica’s voice roughened. “My God, Desmond, the thought of that report destroys my soul. Why? Why did she allow us to believe she was dead?

Why live the life she lived rather than returning to us?”

“That’s a question only Lilly can answer.” Desmond rose to his feet. “And the doctors fear it’s a question she will never be able to answer.”

He glanced back at Angelica as he made his way back to the bar.

“She was always so damned stubborn,” Angelica stated, tears filling her eyes. “I tried to tell Harold that if she were not dealt with properly when she was a teenager, then she would only harm herself.”

Desmond seemed to stiffen before turning back to her.

“The clinic was not the answer, my dear,” Desmond sighed.

“You are as ineffectual where she is concerned as Harold was,” she snapped.

Desmond’s voice hardened. “This is not an argument I will have with you tonight.”

“You never wish to discuss it,” Angelica said. “It’s as though you want nothing more than to bury your head in the sand and pretend this situation does not exist.”

Desmond stared back at her coolly. “I can think of nothing better than burying the entire matter for good.”

With that he tossed back his drink, slapped the glass on a table, and stalked from the room.

A throttled, furious scream erupted from Lilly’s mother’s throat as she flung her glass at the door and watched it burst into fragments.

A tear slipped down Angelica’s cheek as Travis turned from the scene and leveled a look at Noah. A soundless whistle pursed his lips as Angelica left the room, slamming the door behind her.

Travis pulled the earbud from his ear and dropped it to the table as Noah activated the cameras throughout the house, tracking Angelica’s movements.

She stalked to her bedroom; minutes later, a manservant knocked. Angelica appeared at the door, handed a thick file to the servant, and pointed to Lilly’s suite.

“Hell of a thing for a woman to have to face at four in the morning,” Noah stated quietly.

“At any time,” Travis growled.

He hated that damned report. Hell, he had never agreed with the cover those girls had been given. They were called security “escorts.” Military trained, exceptionally lovely, and dangerous as hell. They were “hired out” to men who required beauty and brains in a deadly package.

They were rented to legitimate businessmen as well as criminal bosses and cartel leaders.

Sexual services were not part of the package, but few of the men who paid for their services admitted that. They thought they were hiring discretion and protection. They had no idea they had hired highly trained operatives who reported back to an agency created for secrecy and efficiency.

To the world, though, the girls Santos Bahre and Rhiannon McConnelly handled were no more than well-armed whores.

And that’s what Lilly would read in that file.

Would she believe it?

“Everyone is now in their respective rooms,” Noah reported as he continued to scan the house. “Nik is slipping through the garden now.”

Travis stood with a quick nod and moved to the single bed where he’d placed his bag earlier.

Noah eased the door open, stepped into the hall, and waited, while Travis quickly packed the gear needed into the pockets of his mission pants.

As he pushed a small tool pack into the pocket at the knee of his pants, Nik stepped into the room ahead of Noah.

The door closed silently as Noah stepped back inside. Nik carried a small backpack, filled, Travis knew, with the electronics needed to finish bugging the house for sound.

He handed the bag off to Noah and moved to the table where the portable monitors waited.

Travis slipped out of the room with Noah, moving silently through the house to the office both Desmond and Angelica Harrington worked from.

They had yet to get camera or audio in the room. Each time they had attempted it, Harrington or his bodyguard, usually both, had been too close, if not in the room itself.

This time, the office was empty.

Moving to the door, he attached the security device to the lock, activated it, and waited as the alarm was bypassed.

When the green light blinked, he turned the doorknob and they slipped in.

He reattached the device on the other side, reactivated the alarm, and then he and Noah went to work. Noah began installing video and audio while Travis moved to the desk.

There was no time to check the computer, that would come later. Picking the lock to the file drawer at the side of the desk, Travis began searching files and papers instead.

The drawer held nothing of interest. The desk was scrupulously neat. Working silently, Travis searched the room. There were business logs, files, contracts, all as boring as hell.

Rifling through them, Travis was ready to move on when he glimpsed a thick narrow envelope tucked into a file regarding real estate in the D.C. area.

Pulling the envelope free, he opened it quickly and pulled out several pictures and a three-page report dated a little more than a year before. The report wasn’t signed. It was handwritten. The last line held an account number.

Travis pulled a small digital camera from his pants and quickly snapped pictures of each page as well as the pictures.

Pictures of Lilly.

Each one had been taken in a different location for a different assignment. If he wasn’t mistaken, part of the report also held the name of the plastic surgeon who had supposedly changed Lilly’s face.

The same doctor who had been killed the day before Lilly had taken a bullet to the side of her head.

Desmond Harrington had known Lilly was alive long before he had been contacted by the hospital. Renewing his search through the files, Travis found two more similar envelopes, recorded the contents, and quickly replaced them.

It was nearly dawn before he and Noah finished. They were moving for the door when the sound of the alarm being deactivated had them racing for whatever cover they could find.

Noah headed for a heavily curtained windowseat while Travis ducked into the closet to the side of the desk.

Isaac Macauley stepped into the room silently, closing and locking the door behind him before moving to the desk.

Through the cracks in the folding doors, Travis watched as the bodyguard opened a drawer, pulled a device free of the desk, and opened it.

Well, now, there was a problem. That particular device was extremely difficult to come by and could block even Noah’s little electronic bugs.

Activating the device, Isaac pulled a satellite phone from inside his jacket pocket and keyed in a number. An international number if the amount of keys he hit was any indication.

“Harrington gave her the file,” Macauley stated, his voice low. “There was no chance to delay it.”

Macauley waited for whatever response came.

“Not as far as I can tell,” he answered moments later. “She appears less than stable now that Caine has shown up.”

Travis’s brows lifted. He thought Lilly was very stable.

“I’ve advised Harrington to deal with the mistake,” he reported after another silence. “He seems a bit squeamish at the idea, though.”

Strange, Macauley’s reputation was impeccable. This didn’t sound like an innocent conversation, though.

“I’ll take care of it,” Macauley stated. “I’ll let you know when they arrive.”

The call disconnected.

Macauley stood still and silent for long moments afterward before replacing his phone and deactivating the blocking device he had used.

Replacing it in the desk, he turned and left the room, reactivating the security behind him.

Travis moved from the closet as Noah met him at the desk.

“Let me check this,” Noah hissed as he pulled the device free again. “This bastard will screw with my electronics.”

“Why here rather than his room?” Travis mused, wondering why Macauley didn’t have the device in a place he wouldn’t be caught using it.

“Security,” Noah stated. “Harrington obviously uses it. If it were found in his room, he’d have to explain it. Besides, these puppies are damned hard to acquire.”

Noah attached it to another device he had with him.

“Can you bypass it?” Travis asked.

“Maybe,” Noah answered. “I’ll try, but it sounds to me like we’re not going to have a lot of time here.”

“Then we better hurry,” Travis growled. “The next time, Lilly’s luck just might run out.”

And that he couldn’t allow to happen.

Travis simply couldn’t imagine his life without Lilly, which made her a very dangerous weakness.

A weakness he knew he could ill-afford.

“Got it.” Noah quickly replaced the device, then stored his own in a pocket of his pants.

“Let’s roll.”

They left quickly and made their way back to Noah’s room. Travis left the house just as dawn began to brighten the sky and he couldn’t help but stare up into Lilly’s window.

The lights were on and he had no doubt she was reading the report Harrington had received.

And she was alone.

There was no one to soften the shock or the blow being dealt to her. He wasn’t there to hold her. He wasn’t there to make it easier.

No matter what the doctors said, he thought, Lilly would remember everything soon, and when she did?

There would be hell to pay.