realization that she was completely alone in the building.
Which, of course, was stupid. She was perfectly happy doing anything alone. She’d never been afraid of being alone.
Back in Fiske’s office, she turned on the spare lamps as well as the overhead, pulled up the chair ottoman, and started going through every single thing in every single drawer and file.
His computer, at least, had held interesting stuff, such as e-mails with other scientists, old university colleagues, cancer research sites around the world. The stuff in his files was just financial. Boring, endless numbers. Nothing that meant anything to her.
She caught herself yawning, figured lack of sleep was catching up with her, too-it was almost five in the morning by then.
And then she hit pay dirt.
She thought.
She pushed aside the ottoman and plunked down on the carpet to spread out a fan of papers. Maybe she was nuts, but sometimes it seemed as if Fiske totally changed his handwriting style. When she pulled out the examples of this, she had notes and calendar entries and files or reports with memos scratched on the side.
By themselves, they didn’t seem to mean much. The scratched handwriting said things like “Ask Yale and Purdue.” Or “See Arthur.” One note had a figure, $89,945, underlined with question marks. There was another handwritten memo to check on records from November and February from the year before…and another legal sheet of paper with a series of numbers, handwritten, rather than produced from a computer report or printer. She wasn’t positive of the exact day that Dougal had died, but from the timetable Harm had given her, Fiske must have been accumulating those numbers from that same week.
She hunched over, and started pulling every scrap of paper together that illustrated the odd change in handwriting, trying to analyze why it had drawn her attention.
It was about emotion, she thought, and figured any normal person would laugh at her for drawing such an unprovable conclusion. Maybe Harm would laugh, too-but he’d listen to her. He’d listened to her about the peppermint. So far, he’d listened to her whenever she said anything.
Could you fall in love with a man, just for that?
Stick to the problem, she yelled at herself, and promptly knocked over her coffee-not a major problem, because there were only a few cold drops left in the cup.
She didn’t know what any of the numbers or dates meant, but everything else that Fiske had written by hand had shown neat, tidy letters, a clear script. The sudden ink-heavy notes and splash of letters was different, as if Fiske were upset or concerned.
She wasn’t sure how to pull all the scraps together-by date, chronological order? By notes versus numbers? By names? By…
Abruptly she heard a sound, and looked up with her heart pounding. There was nothing there. Obviously. But for a second she felt so unnerved that she bounced to her feet and scurried down the long hall to Harm’s office.
He hadn’t moved, even an inch. He was still sleeping so deeply that she just couldn’t imagine waking him. What difference could another hour make? Besides, she had more to go through…and another hour would give her a chance to organize it all somehow.
Unfortunately, she was lagging hard now, too. Her eyes were stinging dry, the back of her neck tight and achy. She hit the restroom to splash cold water on her face, then refilled her mug with coffee, hoping the caffeine would give her a second wind. She carted the steaming mug back to Fiske’s office, zoomed in the door…and dropped the mug, splashing hot coffee all over herself and the rug and papers.
Purdue hadn’t made a sound. He was standing absolutely quietly, behind the door.
He closed the door, just as quietly, before she’d even had the chance to open her mouth in a scream.
Chapter 12
“Well, darn, Cate.” Purdue sounded as easy and amiable as an old friend who’d just stopped by. “I hope you didn’t burn yourself.”
“You scared the wits out of me!” Instinctively, Cate bent down, brushing at where the hot coffee had splashed on her bare legs. But she barely felt the burning liquid. If anything, she felt suddenly cold from the inside out. Acid cold.
Sour cold.
So cold she could taste it in the very back of her throat.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Purdue took another step toward her. “I didn’t expect anyone to be in the building. There was no other car parked in front. Nothing but the usual security lights on that I could see when I first came in.”
“I’m parked in back.” Of all the insane things to talk about. She pushed at a coffee spot on her black dinner dress-as if that wasn’t an insane thing to worry about, too. Cripes, he was probably going to kill her. Who cared if she had a dry-cleaning bill? It was just…Purdue didn’t seem any more dangerous now than he had before.
He looked tired, of course. Travel tired. But he was wearing a crisp-enough white button-down shirt over jeans, labeled sandals; his hair was neatly brushed, his thin black glasses adding to his look of Ivy-League cool. His smile still had charm. His confidence still glowed.
He was still annoying.
He let out another quiet bark of a laugh. “I just can’t get over it. Of all the people I might have expected to find here, much less at five in the morning, it never crossed my mind that you might be one of them.”
“That certainly goes both ways. I thought you and Yale were on the same flight, not getting in for hours yet.”
“Yeah, that was the last plan…but I was willing to upgrade to first-class, just to get home sooner.”
“And after all that traveling, you came right to work, even in the middle of the night.”
He nodded. She figured out why she felt so cold now. His eyes, his gaze, centered on every movement she made, every expression on her face. But behind those black-framed glasses, his eyes seemed as blank as black ice. Of course, she might be cold for another reason.
Like being scared out of her wits.
“Naturally, I came here. I suspect the rest will show up as soon as they can conceivably get here. We’re all concerned about finding answers to our little lab mystery. Why don’t you sit down, Cate? You look as if you’re about to fall down anyway.”
Aw, hell. She was a lousy pretender, and sooner or later she was going to put her foot in her mouth, anyway, so might as well get it all over with. “You’re not here to look for answers,” she said. “You don’t need to do that. You already know the whole story-because it’s your story, isn’t it? You’re the one.”
He didn’t bother responding, just motioned to the mess of papers on the carpet in front of Fiske’s desk. “I take it that you’re the one who’s been putting all this stuff together.”
“Yes.” She wasn’t sure if he realized Harm was in the building. Surely, he couldn’t believe Harm would leave her here alone in the middle of the night? But…she’d turned off the light in Harm’s office. If Purdue had just been looking around, he wouldn’t have seen any other sign of life but her. In the one office he was the most interested in: Fiske’s.
“Well, you probably think you know a whole lot, then, don’t you? But you’d be wrong. It’s not what it looks like, Cate. I didn’t steal a damn thing.”
“Right. That’s why you’re here before daybreak. Because you were just trying to be helpful for the team.”
He met her eyes. “Look at me. Look at my face. I did not steal anything. That’s the truth.”
Silently, she studied him. Clearly, she was never going to make it as a judge because he looked as sincere as an innocent kid. He was a pain, yes, but as far as she could tell, he wasn’t lying. Still, even believing him, her stomach was suddenly twisting and her heart thumping a wild, petrified drumbeat. “All right,” she said.
“All those papers on the floor-I didn’t have time to really look at what you’ve been putting together there. But it doesn’t matter. No one will ever find proof that I stole anything. Because I didn’t.”
