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The technology being used was so new and undetectable that only the most sophisticated programs could find it. Programs she possessed.
Monday morning, she was more out of sorts than normal and didn’t even attempt to head to Sanctuary until the second pot of coffee had been consumed.
As she walked into the file room, she found that the camera had been replaced. Her lips thinned as she shrugged her sweater from her shoulders, moved a chair beneath it and climbed onto it.
“No peeking,” she said clearly, certain the eyes that watched could read her lips before she draped the sweater over the camera’s all-seeing eye and got to work.
She was finding the pattern she had been looking for in the multitude of files, memos and faxes that went through Sanctuary, the Bureau of Breed Affairs and to the various offices and businesses Sanctuary dealt with. The code was subtle, and she still wasn’t 100 percent certain of what she was finding, but the knowledge was like an itch at the back of her neck. It was there. She just had to identify it. She’d begun picking up on it weeks before, but breaking that code wasn’t going to be easy. It was an unknown system of numbers, letters and odd glyphs that made no sense, and finding the contact points for where the code had been laid in was difficult as well.
Shaking her head, she moved to the file table, picked up several files she had laid aside for further review and moved back to her desk.
She powered up the desk computer, grimacing at that thought that she couldn’t use her own laptop here. And she couldn’t install the program to detect the transmissions on this one.
An hour later she was still going through the first file—faxes and requisitions to several businesses in D.C. She was frowning over one particular memo when the door to the office opened.
She restrained the need to groan at the knowledge of who was walking through the door. But at least he set a cup of coffee beside her elbow for the aggravation she knew she was about to endure.
Her head lifted and she stared back at Jonas as he stared up at the sweater lying over the eye of the camera. His silver gray eyes moved back to her and his lips twitched.
“You are aware that camera is there for our safety as well as yours?” he asked her. “How are we supposed to know that you aren’t stealing files?”
She lowered her head once again to the memo she was going over. He didn’t want her to answer that question. She had already taken incredible advantage this morning and loaded the memory chips she had brought along with her for further study.
“If you treat Dane this way, then it’s a wonder he hasn’t fired you.” He took the chair across from her desk and stared back at her.
“Dane knows better than to disturb me while I’m working on a job he assigned,” she told him. “But then, he does pay me an exorbitant hourly wage, so it’s usually in his best interest to keep me satisfied and undisturbed.”
“And how much is he paying you for this job?” He leaned back in his chair, those silver eyes intent on her, his expression curious.
She almost snorted.
“Your brother Dane has the same annoying habit of couching nosy questions in a subtly curious voice. Go away, Mr. Wyatt, though I do thank you for the coffee.”
She threw the knowledge of his relationship to Dane and the Leo in his face.
She lifted the mug and sipped the heavenly brew before turning her attention back to the memo. But she wasn’t concentrating any better now than she had been the first few minutes after she opened the file.
She missed Mercury. It made her angry, it made her wonder where the hell her common sense had gone, but there it was, steeped in a feeling of loss and loneliness.
“Where is he?” she finally asked as Jonas continued to sit across from her and drink his coffee silently.
She didn’t lift her head, but she no more saw the words on the memo than she knew what they said.
“He spent the night patrolling your cabin. He came in right behind you and went to the barracks to crash.”
Her throat tightened as she swallowed and forced her gaze up to meet his.
“What’s going on, Jonas?” Sanctuary itself seem
ed subdued today, the enforcers guarding her quieter than normal, less friendly.
He leaned forward and set his cup on the desk before relaxing back in the chair. The white silk dress shirt and slacks did nothing to hide the body of the powerful male animal beneath.
“Mercury is an anomaly within the Breed community,” he told her. “Few of his kind were allowed to live.”
“What do you mean, ‘his kind’?” She already knew this information, but Jonas wasn’t aware of that. And she wanted his stand on it. It was hard to fight a battle when you weren’t certain the battle you were fighting.
His jaw bunched as he stared back at her. “Those whose features were so similar to the animal. The scientists in the lab he was created within kept him mostly isolated from the others, fearing his ability to escape or aid the others in escape if what they expected occurred.”
