Page 7 of Black Bay Enforcer (Beasts of Black Bay #3)

Kong couldn’t do this. He’d thought he could.

He thought he’d steeled himself in preparation for what needed to be done but the woman’s fear was curdling his stomach.

When he’d first approached, she’d been nervous, the scent of it mingling with the smell of her floral shampoo and laundry soap, but now her fear scent was cloying, rooting in his nose, overriding every other scent and making him realize how wrong he’d been.

He wasn’t cut out for this. Not when it came to a woman.

Give him a male and he’d pound the truth out of them, but women…

Call him a chauvinist, but he simply did not have the stomach for it.

Katherine Knox was so scared she was trembling. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights and he felt like a bully. Taking a deep breath, he gentled his tone. “Has your father been making you spy for him?”

That was certainly a possibility. Kong didn’t have parents, so he couldn’t relate, but he understood that parental pressure could be a big deal for many humans.

Her brow scrunched and her eyelashes fluttered in confusion. “What?”

“August Cleary. We know he’s your father. Is he making you spy for him?”

Her mouth dropped open before she clapped it shut with an audible click of her teeth. She looked around nervously as if she was looking for a rescue. Did that mean she was hiding something?

She shook her head, her gaze finally returning to him. Licking her lips – was that a distraction ploy? – her voice quavered as she stuttered, “N-no. I’m not spying for anyone!”

Maybe not consciously. But had she let something slip? Maybe a piece of information she’d heard and she’d passed it on as part of her daily report. But then, the general would know and he’d been stumped how she might have gotten the information out.

Kong wanted to believe her. He studied those big brown eyes of hers with their fascinating flecks of greenish gold.

She looked so innocent, so genuinely scared and confused.

Was it an act? He wasn’t sure. Her fear wasn’t an act.

No one could manufacture that scent at will, but that fear could stem from her having been caught.

He wasn’t the right person to interrogate her. This entire exchange had proved that.

Katherine Knox looked so prim and proper with her buttoned-up sweaters and severe hairstyle.

Her hair was a dark brown with golden highlights and he’d bet it was long.

Perhaps to the middle of her back. He’d bet it was wavy too.

He wanted to see it down… Kong frowned at the thought and pushed it away.

She reminded him of a librarian and not of the sexy variety.

If she was looking to get information, wouldn’t she have played on her attractiveness?

Because she was attractive. If she thought bland-colored, dowdy clothes that hid her figure changed that, she was mistaken.

But was her appearance strategic? Was her plan not to be noticed so that she could listen in on conversations with no one being the wiser?

Kong couldn’t trust his own judgment. Not with this. Women had always been his weakness. Right now, his need for answers was working in opposition to his instinct to protect. But he needed those answers.

Without looking away from Katherine, he bellowed, “Lark!”

His best friend had been genetically altered with DNA from multiple varieties of snakes – among other things.

One of her gifts was that she could mesmerize people with her gaze and once enthralled, when asked a question, they couldn’t lie.

If someone was clever enough, they might be able to circumvent the truth or withhold information to a certain degree, but they couldn’t outright lie when asked a direct question.

Katherine Knox was certainly clever. She’d graduated summa cum laude from university. She had a master’s degree in business and had been held in high regard by the company that had previously employed her. She was also August Cleary’s daughter. Kong would be a fool to underestimate her.

“Kong,” Lark said as she stepped up beside his chair. Her voice took on a chilly edge as she acknowledged the other woman. “Miss Knox.”

Like everyone else here, Lark wasn’t a fan of having someone on the base who wasn’t loyal to Black Bay.

This was their home, yet since this woman had arrived, they’d had to police themselves, toe the line more carefully, in case word of some of the things they got up to got back to government officials. No one wanted the heat or the hassle.

Kong’s foot connected with an empty chair and he pushed it out for Lark to sit. “I’d like to ask Miss Knox some questions.”

Lark didn’t need any more explanation than that.

With a quietly uttered, “Gotcha,” she flopped into the seat, propped her elbow on the table, and settled her chin into the cup of her palm.

Softly, she said, “Hey.” Katherine turned to look at her and that was all it took.

As soon as Lark’s gaze captured hers, their little resident spy was snagged, her eyes growing a bit unfocused.

Now Kong just needed to word his questions correctly.

“Who did you tell about the Venezuela op?”

In almost a dreamlike state, Katherine replied, “I don’t know anything about a Venezuela op.”

Kong blinked. Well, shit. If she didn’t know about it then she couldn’t be who he was looking for. Fuck. That put him back to square one.

But wait… Before the mission, he’d been talking with some others about Godwin.

Maybe she’d overheard that. He hadn’t thought anyone had been around at the time, but he may have been mistaken.

Or perhaps someone else had said something within her hearing later.

If Godwin was affiliated with Cleary, as Kong suspected, all it would take was word that some of them were discussing him to have Cleary’s people watching Black Bay closer to see what they did next.

“What do you know about Terrence Godwin?”

“I don’t know any Terrence Godwin.”

He looked to Lark for confirmation. She didn’t break eye contact with Katherine but she gave him a subtle thumbs up. Katherine Knox was telling the truth. She wasn’t their leak.

He was so thrown off by the unexpected information that he wasn’t sure what to do next. He’d just scared this poor woman – again – for absolutely no reason. And after she’d apologized to him. He felt like the biggest asshole on the planet.

Had it just been bad luck that Godwin left before Kong arrived? His gut said no. So who was their leak?

When he didn’t ask Katherine anything more, Lark took up the slack. “Why are you at Black Bay?”

“To monitor ORION and the Resurrection soldiers and report back daily on the project’s progress.”

“What directives were you given regarding the day-to-day operations of Black Bay?”

“I’m to report to my liaison immediately if anyone at Black Bay attempts to interfere with ORION, the soldiers under ORION’s command, or any of the medical staff brought in to assist the Resurrection soldiers.”

“And to feed them information on Black Bay’s movements?”

“That wasn’t in the job description nor do I have access to that information.”

“Not even if you overhear it?”

“My government contact was very clear that they do not want extraneous information in the reports.”

“Why did you fail to disclose that August Cleary was your father?”

Kong leaned in, eager to hear the answer. If she was so innocent, why was she keeping secrets?

“I was never asked.”

That was bullshit. The government may have insisted one of their people be on Black Bay to oversee things with Resurrection, but the general had final approval on who that was.

Black Bay had sent forms for her to fill out before they’d cleared her for entry.

One of the questions was if she was affiliated with anyone involved with Resurrection, including shareholders, which her father was. She’d answered no.

Lark said as much to Katherine.

“I never received any forms from Black Bay.”

Kong’s eyes narrowed. That meant someone else had filled them out, and that someone had wanted to keep the fact that she was August Cleary’s daughter quiet. They’d also done a really good job of burying that fact. Not good enough to get past Lark, but even Lark had had to dig deep to find it.

“Why do you think you were chosen for this assignment?” Lark asked.

“I have no idea. Anyone could do the job.”

Yet someone, most likely Cleary, had wanted his overqualified daughter in place. Why? What was his angle if not for her to spy for him?

Tuning back into the interrogation, he heard Lark ask, “And no one has asked you to divulge information about Black Bay?”

“No.”

Lark was thoughtful for a moment before she asked, “What are your feelings toward the people who live at Black Bay?”

“I wish they wouldn’t avoid me.”

There was no malice in that answer, no disgust in her voice at what they were.

Just some hurt feelings bleeding through that nearly did Kong in.

Shit. They’d all been avoiding her because they’d assumed she was a spy, disclosing every move they made to her contacts.

Now he felt all sorts of guilty. Granted, they still couldn’t trust her with sensitive information, but they didn’t have to completely freeze her out.

He’d have to bring her an apology pie or some such shit.

Women liked pies. He certainly liked pie.

He looked toward the food counter, eyeing what was available for dessert since he now had a craving.

“We good, Kong?”

Right. Lark was still holding Katherine captive with her eyes. Had he missed anything? He didn’t think so, and now that he could cross her off the list, he needed to focus on finding who might be leaking information and how.

“All good.”

As soon as Lark released her gaze, Katherine blinked rapidly, her eyeballs likely all dry. Her head drew back and she looked around in confusion. Not surprising. The first time you got hit with the mesmerization whammy could be a little disconcerting.

“What the hell was that?”

“We needed you to answer a few questions.”

“And you couldn’t just ask me?”

Her voice had gotten a little screechy, there, so Kong was grateful that Lark fielded the question. “We don’t know you. We don’t have any reason to trust you. Now we know you’re not lying.”

Her voice sullen, Katherine muttered, “You could have just asked.”

Before Lark could reiterate the whole trust issue, Kong jumped in with, “Fine. I’ll just ask. Do you like pie?”

She looked at him like a befuddled owl, and honestly, he thought it was rather adorable.

“Pie?”

“Yup. If we’re going to start fresh and be friends, we’re going to kick it off as every new friendship should. With baked goods.”

Her face brightened with an eager, endearing hope that touched him as she nodded. “I love pie.”