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Her white teeth worried her lower lip for a moment. “I’ve already told you, my father couldn’t have done this.” She drew a shaky breath. “And … even if he did stumble onto some potential biological weapon, then he did it by accident.”

“I don’t really care if it was deliberate or not. Your father created a monster, and then he took it and ran.”

“Maybe he wished he hadn’t found it at all,” she said. “You said he deleted his files, took all his notes.”

“So?”

“So, if this thing ever existed, he would have destroyed it himself.”

“You’re dead wrong about that.”

She tilted her head, staring at him, tears slowly drying on her lashes. “I know my father.”

“I know his type.”

“You don’t know anything about him at all,” she said, but softly. Her tone lacked conviction.

“Lexi, this was probably the most important breakthrough of your father’s entire career.

Do you really think he’d just destroy every trace of it?

” She blinked at him, apparently unable to look away.

“I don’t,” he went on. “I think he had enough ego that he’d have to keep some part of it, the formula, a tiny sample, a cryptic note, something. ”

Her knees lowered until her feet rested on the floor. She tipped her head back, resting it on the seat behind her. “You’re wrong. You … have to be wrong.”

“Sure I am. And you’re so loyal to him because … what, he was the world’s most wonderful father?”

She flinched in genuine pain, intense enough that it brought tears to her eyes. He’d touched a raw spot. “He was a great man. His work has saved countless lives.”

“Yeah, got it. Well, listen, we can’t take a chance that you’re the one who’s wrong about him. We have to be sure. The guys at your house are mercenaries. The monster who hired them will do anything to get his hands on this. And then he’ll sell it to the highest bidder.”

“And I’m supposed to trust that you don’t plan to do the same thing? On the off chance that there is actually anything to sell.”

“There’s no way for me to prove myself to you, and I don’t really have time. Trust me or don’t. Either way, we’re doing this.”

She closed her eyes, sighed long and hard. “I’m not giving you the key or telling you which branch.”

“Cause you think I’m in it for the money.”

“Because I think you won’t murder me until I do.”

Those words were an arrow that stabbed him hard, and unexpectedly. What the hell did he care if she didn’t trust him? It was nothing to him. She was nothing to him. A means to an end, that end being Mr. White.

“I’m going to prove you wrong,” Lexi said.

“I’m not going to let you destroy my father’s life’s work, work that’s going on, even today, funded in large part because of his reputation.

I will not let you leave a black mark on his life story.

He was a genius. He was a scientist. He contributed more to society than you or I could ever hope to do.

I’m going to fix this. I’m going to do what my mother would have expected me to do. Protect him.”

Romano had the feeling she was speaking more to herself than to him. He sensed it was important, what she’d just said, and started wondering about her relationship with her sainted father.

No way, Romano. Leave it lie. You don’t give a damn about her, remember?

“You’re not gonna like what you find,” he told her. “Prepare yourself for that.”

“I’ve got to protect his legacy.”

Admiration welled up in his throat. She had backbone, and she had a good heart. He was pretty sure her loyalty to her old man was sorely misplaced, but it was sure as hell solid.

“You might need a refill on that medicine of yours before this is over.” He gunned the gas and the car shot forward.

“Molotov” Romano came out of the motel office with one key dangling from his good hand, and Lexi couldn’t take her eyes off him as he crossed the parking lot toward the car, where she waited.

She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t run away. She’d thought about it. But it didn’t seem like she’d get very far if she tried. It wasn’t the right time, not yet.

Her hero-captor wore a denim jacket that had been lying in the back seat. His black one had been left behind in her house, bloody and with a bullet hole in the front. He’d have attracted too much attention, walking in shirtless with a bandaged-up shoulder.

He’d have attracted too much attention just with the shirtless part. The guy was cut. And scarred to hell and gone. He looked like he was carrying around a message in runic, carved into his flesh in the form of scars.

As he strode purposefully toward her, jacket hanging open, bare, scarred-up, muscular chest there for all to see, she figured he’d attracted attention anyway.

Not hers, though. To her, he looked scary.

He was too big and too hard. A little bit too virile.

She’d prefer an intellectual man, one who was all brain and little brawn.

She’d prefer a man with short, tame hair.

Not the wild waves that suggested a stallion’s mane.

She’d prefer a man who was shy and sensitive, and who didn’t keep his feelings to himself, the way this one did.

When she looked into his eyes, she saw darkness. It was bleak in his soul, and she couldn’t help but wonder why.

He looked tough, she mused. Like someone you wouldn’t want to cross, or even look at wrong. She could never be attracted to a man as ominous and unapproachable as he was.

He got into the car without looking at her, and drove it around behind the motel, parking between a camper and a pickup truck.

She wondered why, when there were a dozen empty spots with a lot more room.

And then she realized it was to keep the car out of sight.

Maybe he thought the bad guys had seen it.

He seemed to think of everything, this guy.

He might be muscular, but he was smart, too.

Who did he work for? What kind of man did this kind of thing for a living? If she’d thought of spies and action heroes at all, she’d thought they only existed in the movies. But this was real and she was swept up in it.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. She wouldn’t be with him much longer.

She didn’t trust him. And she didn’t want him getting a close look at that key until she was ready to run.

But now wasn’t the time. He was faster than her, stronger.

Just bolting in the middle of nowhere wasn’t an option.

He’d chase her down in short order. She had to be smarter than him.

Give herself time to put distance between them.

So she was going to slip away while he was sleeping. He had to sleep, didn’t he?

She’d been thinking, and realized that she’d spent her whole life taking care of her father, forgiving him for not caring for her in return, excusing him because of his greatness, and waiting the entire time for his approval.

And he’d died without giving it. Not once.

She wasn’t a gullible child anymore. She knew there were great men who loved. He just wasn’t one of them.

If she could just do this one last thing, if she could save the legacy that had meant so much to so many, then she would have fulfilled her mother’s wishes.

And somehow she thought she’d be able to let go, after that.

She could stop existing all curled up inside herself, and get up and stretch and step outside. She could start living again.

Outsmarting Romano, though, was going to be challenging.

“Our room awaits,” he announced as he got out.

She stopped shivering, crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you mean, our room?”

He didn’t stop walking. Just paused in front of a door, inserted the key and opened it with a flourish.

“I don’t trust you any more than you trust me, Lexi.

Wouldn’t surprise me if you were planning to take the key and go to the bank alone.

In which case you’d get killed, Mr. White would get the formula, and the maniacal world leader with the most cash on hand would use it to wipe out countless people.

What happens once a virus is set loose on the world, Dr. Stoltz? ”

She blinked slowly, getting out of the car and going to the door as he unlocked it. “Under the right conditions, it would multiply. Reproduce. Continue to mutate.”

“Exactly. And I’d lose my chance to get …” He came to an awkward stop, shifted his eyes to hers and said, “Paid. And it’s gonna be a big check. Biggest one ever.”

So he was only in this for the money. She didn’t know why she was disappointed, but she was. Bitterly.

Well, he’d guessed right. She was leaving. And she’d be heading in the opposite direction of the city, where both sets of her pursuers would expect her to be going.

It would have been easier with separate rooms. Maybe she could talk him into it.

“I’m not sleeping with you.” She blurted the sentence before fully composing it in her mind. “I mean, I’m not?—”

“Two beds, Lexi. I promise to stay in mine if you promise to stay in yours. Okay?”

“No, it’s not okay.”

“Well, if you’re afraid you won’t be able to stay in yours, that’s okay, too. I mean, I’m as red-blooded as the next guy?—”

He broke off when her hand came flying up. She froze just before her palm connected with his face, and she stared at her hand, blinking in shock. My God, she’d almost slapped him. That wasn’t like her. It wasn’t anything like her. What was happening to her?

And what in the world was the matter with him? He hadn’t flinched, hadn’t drawn back, hadn’t tried to stop her.

“Chicken,” he said.

“What?”

“Nothing. I rented one room. I’m not renting another one. Deal with it.”

He held the door open, waved her inside, and she went in. She was too tired to argue with him. He came in behind her, closed the door and locked it. Then he tossed the key onto the nearest bed, followed by his jacket. Then he laid down beside his stuff, face up. “I could use a nap.”

“Yeah, except I’m starving and dehydrated. Even prisoners get bread and water.”

“Nag, nag, nag.”