Page 5 of Black Bay Enforcer (Beasts of Black Bay #3)

Having abandoned the remainder of her lunch, Katherine marched to General Davies’ office, determined to put the matter to him.

The guards were no longer there. Whatever had been going on that demanded that extra level of security must have been concluded.

But when she reached the door, she stalled out, second-guessing herself.

She rehashed the conversation in her mind, but especially Paige’s facial expressions.

When she’d seen Katherine approaching, she’d clearly been looking for a way out.

Her acceptance of Katherine as a lunch companion had been grudging at best. But when she’d mentioned that her husband was one of the Beasts, there’d been immense pride and love on her face. She’d pretty much lit up like a beacon.

Had she jumped to the wrong conclusion?

Katherine chewed her bottom lip in indecision. Maybe the strain and discomfort she’d seen on Paige’s face hadn’t had anything to do with her husband mistreating her and everything to do with a stranger who wasn’t well-liked trying to pry into her personal life.

“Miss Knox!”

With a little scream, Katherine jumped nearly a foot off the ground she was so startled by that booming voice. She almost snapped to attention and saluted the general who had come up behind her.

“In or out. You’re blocking my door.”

Quickly, she lurched to the side to let him pass, nearly falling over a bush. Righting herself, she mumbled, “Sorry, sir.”

He was dressed in his usual sharply pressed fatigues, his silver brush cut covered by his hat, the brim shading his eyes, but she could feel his steely gaze moving over her. “Did you need to see me?”

Should she say something? She was already pretty sure she was the most disliked person on this base. Would reporting her suspicions make things worse? Especially if they were unfounded…

“Miss Knox?”

She took a deep breath. If she was in a bad situation where she was afraid to say anything for whatever reason, she’d want someone to speak up for her. “Yes, sir. If you have a few minutes?”

General Davies dipped his chin sharply. “My office.”

Katherine trooped in behind him and was grateful when he shut the door, giving them privacy.

“Take a seat.”

Doing as she was told, her eyes bounced nervously around his office.

It hadn’t changed since the last time she’d been here, not that she’d expected it to.

The dark wood of his desk, the flags hanging from their poles behind his chair.

Shelves with books and framed pictures. Framed certificates on the wall as well as a rather large collection of mounted weapons.

Katherine quickly looked away from the last and swallowed hard.

She was twisting her fingers together nervously, so she forced herself to pry them apart and swiped her damp palms on her skirt.

She’d always had to manage her anxiety, she’d thought she’d had a decent handle on it but since she’d been at Black Bay, it seemed to have gotten worse.

“Miss Knox?”

“I’d like to stay anonymous,” she blurted.

The general sat back in his chair and eyed her. “That will depend on what you need to tell me, but if I can, I’ll keep your name out of it.”

That was probably as good as she was going to get.

“I may have read the situation totally wrong,” she cautioned. “I don’t know the people here very well.” She let out a nervous titter of laughter. “I’m probably the most hated person on this base.”

“Not at all,” General Davies told her, and her hopes lifted, thinking he was going to tell her she wasn’t hated at all. They came crashing right back down when he added, “The most hated person on this base is in the brig.”

Her words locked in her throat. Right. Okay. She was back to wringing her hands as sweat trickled down her spine despite the comfortable temperature of the room.

“Why don’t you tell me what you saw.” He lifted a brow. “Or maybe it was something you overheard?”

Snap out of it, Katherine. You are better than this.

Clearing her throat, she nodded. She told him about her conversation in the mess hall with Paige, and how the nurse had reacted when Katherine had asked about her husband.

“It was just a feeling, you understand,” she clarified.

“But if she’s in trouble…” She let the rest of that sentence go unsaid.

Sitting up straighter, she added, “I would want someone to say something if I were ever in that situation.”

General Davies had a hint of a frown on his face, but he nodded. “I’ll look into it. Thank you for telling me.”

Katherine breathed a sigh of relief, her shoulders relaxing a bit.

“Was there anything else?”

“No, sir.”

Katherine stood and the general did the same, coming around his desk to show her out.

“Everything going okay over in the Resurrection hub? ORION’s behaving?”

She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“The others? Are they treating you well?”

She opened her mouth but immediately snapped it closed again. How should she answer that?

“Miss Knox?”

He probably already knew, so why lie? “They avoid me, sir.” A touch of hurt bled into her voice and she knew the general heard it.

“And you’re surprised by this?”

She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, probably looking like a beached fish. But, no, she wasn’t surprised, not after she’d made such a horrific blunder on her first day here. Why would anyone want to approach her if she might start screaming again?

“May I be blunt, Miss Knox?”

She’d kind of rather he didn’t, but she figured he was going to say what was on his mind regardless. “Of course, sir.”

“You’re here to do a job, not make friends.”

Katherine swallowed hard and was horrified to feel the prickle of tears behind her eyes. Right. He was right. “Yes, sir.”

General Davies opened the door for her, dismissing her. With a strained smile, she left. Walking out of the building, she headed back to the Resurrection hub, the sun no longer feeling as warm on her skin.

Sitting back down in his chair, the general picked up a pen, fiddling with it thoughtfully before he punched the intercom on his phone. When his assistant answered, he said, “Call the infirmary and leave a message for Paige to come see me in my office when she has some time.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was his duty to look into what Miss Knox had told him.

The woman had been as nervous as a long-tailed cat on a porch full of rockers.

He’d half-hoped she’d come to see him to confess she’d somehow been sending secret messages out.

It would have made his life a hell of a lot easier, especially after the report he’d gotten from Kong on the Venezuela op. No such luck.

He’d called a meeting soon after the team had touched base. Most of the talking points had been about Cleary potentially supplying the enemy and possibly attempting to start a war, but Katherine Knox, as the man’s daughter had come up as well.

Kong suspected she might be feeding her father intel, but if she was, no one knew how.

All of the woman’s communications had been monitored since day one, and he was copied on everything she sent her government contact to keep him in the loop.

Those messages were analyzed, and his best cryptanalysts hadn’t been able to find even a hint that she might be attempting to send a coded message.

Her belongings and her room were searched regularly – no other communication devices had been found – nor had they found any bugs on base during their regular sweeps or sniffer programs on their network to suggest they were being surveilled by a third party.

Pulling his laptop closer, he clicked on the file that contained everything she’d sent so far.

Most of those communications were the same – day-to-day monotony – nothing unexpected or out of the ordinary.

She reported when ORION ran diagnostics and the outcome which, thus far, had been all good, no problems. She included updates on the Resurrection soldiers that were verbatim what was in the reports from the doctors who were overseeing their rehabilitation.

The only thing she ever included about Black Bay was when he showed up at the hub, and even that was a simple time-stamped bullet point of when he arrived and left, the total time usually less than five minutes, followed by a note that it was a routine check-in.

There was nothing of her personal feelings or observations. All but for her very first message.

Clicking on it, he read through what she’d written.

It’s my first day here and I’m nervous. I’m afraid I made a bit of a fool of myself when I was introduced to General Davies and some of the others. I wasn’t prepared. I’m sure I’ll overcome it though.

I was introduced to ORION. I tried to break the ice with a knock-knock joke. It turns out the AI doesn’t have a sense of humor. Who knew?

General Davies chuckled at the tongue-in-cheek attempt at levity. Her liaison hadn’t shared the general’s amusement. The return reply was:

These messages are not entries to your personal diary, Miss Knox. Please keep all correspondence going forward succinct and professional.

So she had.

But if Kong was right and she was somehow getting messages to her father…

A tap on his door had him snapping his laptop shut. “Come.”

Paige came in and shut the door behind her. “You wanted to see me?” Licking her lips nervously, her eyes went from him to the phone. “Jace? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. They’ve been in the air a couple of hours now, and should make it back around dinner time.”

She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Have a seat.”

He didn’t beat around the bush, nor did he bother keeping Katherine’s name out of it when he told Paige what the woman had said.

Considering it had just happened that afternoon and it only involved the two of them, it wasn’t like Paige couldn’t figure it out.

He did, however, add, “She was concerned for you.”

Paige groaned and her cheeks turned red with a blush before she covered her face with her hands.

“I didn’t know what to say,” she admitted, her voice muffled until her hands fell back into her lap.

“She was asking about Jace – nothing intrusive – but I just kind of froze. Everyone says she’s a spy and to keep away from her.

I didn’t know what I should or shouldn’t say, so I just kind of bolted on her. ”

Paige shook her head, and mumbled more to herself, “I might have wondered the same thing if the roles were reversed.”

“So everything’s good with you and Jace?”

She shot him a look and he held up his hands, palms out in surrender. “I have to ask.”

She got that mushy, dreamy look women sometimes get. “Everything’s great.”

Hurriedly, in case she was of a mind to give details, he said, “Good, great, that’s all I needed.”

Paige’s face sobered and she leaned forward in her seat. Her voice barely above a whisper, she asked, “Do you really think she’s some sort of spy? I mean, she looks…”

“Harmless?” General Davies raised a brow. “Some of the best spies in the world have been women who look innocent, vulnerable, harmless . Don’t ever forget that.”