Page 5

CHAPTER

FIVE

ASHER

A sher turned on his computer monitor, clicked open his music player, and hit shuffle on his enormous library.

He stretched his arms over his head, closing his eyes for several long seconds and soaking in the upbeat vocals of Third Eye Blind.

They were currently battling for a coveted spot on his top ten playlist, and with the whole office to himself, he could turn up the volume to his satisfaction without the company’s head of security, a slightly scary woman named Dolly, wandering in to yell at him.

Unfortunately, the song ended all too soon, and the Fairman file lay open on his desk, beckoning him to make some actual progress. At least Gabe was enjoying dinner with the family, for once. It made Asher feel a little better about volunteering to come into work on a Sunday night.

He turned down the volume on his state-of-the-art sound system and clicked over to a mellow neoclassical playlist before picking up the file.

He skimmed its contents, refreshing his memory of the case, which had taken place a few months prior. A young woman named Katie Fairman had gone missing on spring break, and he, Ben, and Grace had traveled to sunny South Padre Island to find her.

He spent several minutes brushing up on the details, all while trying to avoid remembering too much about the part where he had almost killed someone. He didn’t need that guilt floating around in his brain right now.

Just as he was about to start signing the legal records, however, his phone buzzed in his pocket again.

Why couldn’t the Veterans Freedom Society just leave him alone?

He reached over and slammed his finger down on the space bar with too much force, silencing the piano track before answering the call.

“If I wanted to talk about the war, I would have answered the first eight times,” he snapped.

The line was silent.

Oops.

He had sounded exactly like his twin brother, Ben, when someone woke him up too early.

“Sorry,” he added quickly. “I’ll still make a donation at Christmas, I promise. But I’m not interested in this town hall thing, okay?”

“Is this Asher Forge? From Forge Brothers Security?”

The voice on the other end was female, and probably not from VFS. Whoever it was, she sounded annoyed.

Which, he supposed, was fair enough, considering his greeting.

“Yep,” he said. “This is my personal line, actually, so if this is about a private security gig, our office opens at–”

“I work at Senera Pharmaceuticals and I need help,” the woman said, cutting him off.

She was clearly trying to sound assertive, but Asher could hear the shaking in her voice. He sat up straighter in his chair. He supposed he could give her a few moments to make her point.

“I did some digging and saw that you were one of the operatives that our competitors hired when Senera was accused of corporate espionage.”

“That was me, yes.”

Asher remembered the case well.

He and Reilly had spent many extremely boring hours digging up dirt on the company, only for the whole thing to eventually be settled out of court earlier this year.

As far as he could tell, Senera’s reputation seemed to be a lot better these days.

He’d even heard the buzz in the media about some new drug they had that was supposedly going to revolutionize mental health treatment.

“I saw your number on file and figured that contacting someone directly was my best shot at actually being taken seriously.”

Asher’s frustration was beginning to rise.

He didn’t appreciate the fact that his number was floating around somewhere at Senera Pharmaceuticals, and in any case, who did this woman think she was? Was her case really too urgent to wait until tomorrow morning?

“We take all of our case applications seriously,” he retorted.

“Not ones where the client’s identity has to be kept secret. And certainly not ones where she has no money to pay you for your services,” the woman said, her snappy tone matching his own.

Well, that complicated things.

“Now that I have your attention, I can explain,” the woman said.

Asher had to admit it: he kind of admired her audacity.

“Uh…go ahead, I guess,” he managed, grabbing a pen and hunting around his desk for a notebook before settling on the back of a takeout menu.

“Not over the phone ,” the woman hissed. “We need to be discreet. Senera can’t know. Surely you have a procedure for handling sensitive meetings.”

Okay, now he was annoyed.

“I’m afraid the trench coat and prosthetic nose shop closes early on Sunday, so if you can’t tell me anything, I have a lot of work to do tonight, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped wasting my time.”

He heard the woman huff with annoyance, but no retort came.

He considered apologizing, but bit back his words. This woman was being completely unreasonable. She was totally in the wrong. He didn’t owe her anything. If she wanted Forge Brothers Security to help her, she could get in line.

“Maybe this was a mistake,” she said finally, her voice cracking as she swallowed back a sob. “Just forget it.”

Oh no.

He couldn’t handle the thought that he’d made a woman cry. Especially one who clearly needed his help. No matter how rude and entitled she might be.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said quickly, gripping the phone more tightly as though he could physically prevent her from hanging up. “I’m sorry. I want to help. We’ll figure something out, just…don’t hang up.”

KARLIN

Karlin opened her mouth to speak, but no words made it through her sobs.

She was officially crying to a stranger on the phone.

The warm air wafting out of her car’s dashboard did little to dry her tears. Instead, she managed to smear black mascara stains all over the edge of her lab coat as she attempted to swipe them away.

“Hey, are you still there? Hello? Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

Asher Forge’s voice was gentle now, the picture of kindness and concern now that she was crying like an idiot.

And it seriously ticked her off.

What was wrong with her?

Dr. Bajwa made other women cry at work. Heck, sometimes he made the men cry. But never her. Ever. Not until she was safe at home in her little apartment in Amarillo, at least.

Meanwhile, this guy held her future in his hands just as much as Dr. Bajwa did, and she was losing it.

It had been a long day at the lab, and between John’s bad news and Dr. Bajwa’s demands that she sell her soul, she must have stepped right over the edge of her personal limit.

Not that it excused whatever this pathetic breakdown was.

“Hey, mystery lady, seriously, are you okay over there?”

His pitying tone had lasted all of five seconds. Now he just sounded happy to be alive, and she couldn’t decide if that made her more or less annoyed with him.

She settled on more.

The Forge family were millionaires. He couldn’t possibly understand the stress she was under.

“I’m here,” she said, swallowing the last of her sobs.

“Are you planning to tell me your name, or should I just put ‘Mystery Lady’ in my contacts?”

“I told you, I need to be careful. I don’t know who might be listening.”

“Where are you calling from?” Asher said.

“My cell phone,” she said, casting a glance around the interior of her hatchback as though she might spot a microphone hidden behind the rearview mirror.

“You do realize that if ‘they’ have your cell phone bugged, they’ll have your name, right?”

She could almost hear the smirk on his face.

“Fine,” she said, digging her fingernails hard into her palm before she could snap at him. “My name is Karlin. Karlin McKenna.”

“It’s so lovely to meet you too, Karlin. I’m Asher. Asher Forge.”

His cheerful tone was vaguely sincere enough that she’d sound like a jerk if she called him out for sarcasm.

She settled on ignoring him.

“So, how are we doing this?”

“Well, if you give me an hour to finish up with this paperwork, I can meet you at this great taco place downtown. They’ve got a Sunday special.

I’ll pay. So long as you don’t eat as much as my brothers.

They could bankrupt me on dollar tacos. Seriously.

And they’re not those little scrawny tacos with, like, a teaspoon of ground beef and two shreds of wilted lettuce, either.

They’re the best. Legit, authentic Mexican in the heart of San Antonio. ”

Karlin stared at her reflection in the sun visor’s mirror.

Maybe there was a hidden camera along with the hidden microphones she’d imagined lurking around her Kia Rio. Had she accidentally stumbled on to some weird reality show?

“I’m–I’m in Amarillo right now,” she managed.

The line was blessedly quiet for several seconds.

And then Asher started to laugh.

“What?” she snapped. “What is so hilarious about this situation?”

“Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. I just assumed–I mean, did you think I was going to fly my private jet over real quick?”

Her fingernails bit harder into her palms as she willed herself not to yell at him.

“Obviously not,” she said coldly. “But I figured you’d have some kind of, I don’t know, procedure for handling sensitive cases. Not a casual chit chat at Taco Cabana.”

Asher let out an audible gasp.

“They have Taco Cabana in Amarillo now? Sick! Last time I had to work up north, my only chain option was–”

“Can we stay on topic, please?”

“Right,” Asher said, laughing again. “The procedure.”

“Exactly.”

“The one where my clone living in some canyon sneaks off to Amarillo and meets you in a dark alley. Or behind a cactus.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she snapped again. So much for trying to control her temper. Her heart rate felt like it had doubled. The man was infuriating.

“Ah, so you’re talking about our actual procedure? You know, the one where you make an appointment during business hours and we handle things professionally, which may include one of us flying out to meet with you, at your expense, in two to three weeks when we can slot you in. That procedure?”

Karlin pressed her mouth into a firm line. Suddenly, the Kia felt uncomfortably hot, and it took all of her resolve to avoid hanging up the phone, jumping out the door, and running off into the cold desert night.

ASHER

Silence filled the line.

Asher cradled the phone between his neck and shoulder, gathering up the loose Fairman file papers and trying to corral them into some semblance of order. This conversation was fascinating, but that didn’t mean he wanted to stick around until midnight.

“Okay, fine, you’re right,” Karlin said at last, sighing heavily into his ear. “I know I’m asking a lot here already. But I’m desperate. I’m sorry.”

“Why?” he pressed.

“You’ve dealt with Senera before. You know how powerful they are. And I’ve managed to find myself in the middle of one of their schemes. I’m–I’m scared.”

Asher felt his playful smirk falling away in an instant.

He could tell by the woman’s voice that she really was afraid, whatever it was she’d gotten herself into.

And even though Senera’s rivals had never been able to prove it in court, Asher had little doubt that the pharmaceutical giant would resort even to violence if someone got in their way.

“I believe you, Karlin. But I need more than that if I’m going to help you. I can’t even begin making a plan if I don’t know what I’m dealing with.”

Karlin drew a deep breath as silence once again rested between them. For a moment, he thought she was going to hang up.

Instead, he had apparently opened the floodgates.

Asher listened for the next forty-five minutes as Karlin told him about her time at Senera, their experimental psychedelic drug, and her recent impromptu meeting with her crazy-sounding boss and his insistence on stretching the truth to get the results he wanted.

Asher had said very little and managed to sign a few of the Fairman documents as she talked.

At last, she paused for air, but despite all the information she’d given him, a couple unanswered questions nagged at him.

“So if they’re as sketchy as you say they are–and from my own experience, I have no reason to doubt you–why have you stuck around this long?” he asked. “I don’t get it.”

“I have my own reasons,” Karlin said firmly. “Can we please just leave it at that?”

He paused. He was curious, but he was getting the distinct feeling that he’d pushed her hard enough. In any case, she’d given him plenty to chew on.

“So the Phase II trial is in two weeks, correct?” he said.

“Yes. I know it’s not a lot of notice, but–”

“Let me worry about that part. Just prepare for a new trial participant, and I’ll let you in on more details about the plan when we get there.”

“You’re joining the trial?” Karlin half-yelled into his ear. “How on earth is that supposed to work? Won’t someone recognize you? What if I get caught? This is–”

“If this is gonna work, you’re going to have to trust me,” he said, unable to keep the edge from his voice.

Goodness, this woman was impossible. “I know what I’m doing.

If you can’t accept that, you’re going to need to find someone else to pull off a last-minute miracle.

Good luck to you. I’ll even give you some numbers of other private security agencies. Got a pen?”

That did it.

“No,” Karlin said quickly. “No, no, that’s fine. I called you guys for a reason. I guess I’ll see you in Amarillo.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Asher only paid half attention as they said their goodbyes, already getting lost in his thoughts about the challenge that lay ahead.

He’d done everything he could to sound confident, but the truth was, he wasn’t sure he felt it.

Gabe was almost certainly going to flip out on him for accepting a case without going through the proper channels or even asking him about it first, but he supposed he’d find a way to deal with that.

Still, his big brother would probably be the least of his problems. Taking on Senera wasn’t going to be easy, and this wasn’t going to be the sort of case that lent itself well to mistakes.

He’d made enough of them during his time in private security, including a fairly massive one during the Fairman case.

His confidence wasn’t high at the moment.

Every day, he considered telling Gabe the whole truth about just how nervous he felt about his own abilities to hold himself together in the field. And every day, he decided to push through, hoping everything would just get better on its own.

He fiddled with the dog tag at his neck, sliding it back and forth along the chain as his thoughts wandered to places he did not want them to go.

Asher Forge had been part of plenty of screwups. But all of them paled in comparison to what had happened back in Afghanistan.