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“Driving while black.”
She didn’t laugh like he expected. “That’s terrible.”
“Hey, it happens to teenagers too. No matter how much they deny it, law enforcement profiles.”
She stopped three cars down from where they’d parked and looked up at him, eyes swimming with hurt. “Do I look like a drug dealer? Maker? Whatever?”
“Now, you’re profiling.”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t like it and I don’t know what to do.” Her lower lip jutted out and he felt like a heel because all he wanted to do was nibble on it. “I’ll have to call my family,” she said in the next breath, her tone about as happy as new recruits’ when told they had an extra hour of PT before mealtime.
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?”
“I’ll call in some friends.”
“Like Roman did for Elle’s wedding?”
“Something like that.” But this situation was going to take official government involvement.
“Why would you do that?”
“You’re too smart for stupid questions, sweetheart.”
“I was right.”
“A what?”
“Professor does sound just like sweetheart the way you say it.”
Danusia lay on the bed and flipped through the complimentary newspaper in their hotel suite an hour later while Max made phone calls in the other room. He’d insisted it wasn’t safe to stay in her apartment and she hadn’t argued. She’d left their accommodations up to him and wasn’t surprised to find herself in a suite at the end of the hall on the seventh floor of a hotel with both a doorman and twenty-four-hour reception desk.
She expected other men like Roman and Max to show up any minute and set up some kind of security plan for her. If it were her family doing this, she knew she’d feel stifled and like somehow she was inconveniencing them. Even if they would deny it. But with Max? She felt protected. Almost cherished.
It was crazy, considering how he insisted they didn’t have a future, but the man was way too worried about her feelings and safety for a casual lay.
She idly flipped to the Metro section to see what was going on around the city when a small article in the lower left corner caught her eye. The picture was one of those awful ones used for drivers’ licenses and employee identifications. It was of the woman who had given Danusia the data for her thesis at Luminescent Pharmaceuticals.
And she was dead.
She’d been involved in a single-car accident at freeway speeds late at night. No witnesses. The article said the roads had been slick with an unexpected summer rain and it was unclear whether she’d fallen asleep at the wheel or simply lost control of her vehicle.
What were the chances?
Danusia grabbed the Metro section and rushed into the sitting room. “Max.”
“Hold on,” he said into the phone and looked at her. “What’s up, Professor?”
She handed him the paper. “That woman, down at the bottom of the page? She’s the one who gave me the data at Luminescent.”
Max’s eyes narrowed and he read the brief article lead before swearing. “Our timeline just amped up,” he barked into the phone. “They’re not just trying to get the data back. They’re eliminating loose ends.”
Danusia couldn’t hear what the person on the other end of the call said, and wouldn’t have understood if she had. Her brain was going into meltdown. She was definitely not superspy material like her sister.
The thought of someone wanting her dead scared the pee out of her. Well, not literally. But it was close.
Oh, man. She was babbling, even in her head.
