“He was incredible.” Harper’s voice was tinged with sadness. “Apparently this was a very top secret project within the Five Watch. Only Bobby and a handful of people knew about it. For security reasons, his notes indicated. They didn’t want it going public until Bobby deemed it was ready for implementation. The last files were part of his final testing. But then they just stopped.”
“A few days ago?” Rome asked.
She nodded, and then turned her gaze away from him, seeming to look at nothing.
She’d been alone here, in this cheap and seedy motel room, for about an hour while he had run their errands. He hadn’t really realized until now just how tough it must be for her to sit here and read her brother’s posthumous notes, the wording and diction familiar to her in a way he couldn’t understand.
But, because she did understand Bobby’s language, she truly was the best choice to go through it, in spite of the grief it may trigger.
“Harper, I’m sorry.” Rome reached for her hand and held it in his, trying to convey both sympathy and encouragement in his touch. “I know this must be hard for you. But we’re making good progress. This is the information we need.”
“I know.” She sighed heavily and squeezed his hand back. “I just…I hear his voice saying these words.” Damn, how he wished he could erase the pain he saw in her intense eyes. She lowered them as she took a deep, unsteady breath. “I’m okay. I just wish he were here.” She gave him a sad but sure smile.
“I know,” he said soothingly, moving his hand to rub her bare arm just below the cuff of her short-sleeve Tshirt. Damn, she was steely solid under that silky skin. Strong yet all woman.
All he wanted to do at this very moment was to shove the food and laptop off the bed and draw her body against his, just to feel her against him. And from the swirling typhoon in the green of her eyes, he wondered whether she was thinking the same exact thing.
His fingers began to itch in anticipation and he quickly lifted his hand away from her enticing flesh. Mentally slapping himself, Rome sat up and resumed organizing the food pile.
“So, um, what went wrong?” Rome heard the hoarseness in his voice and cleared his throat. He jumped off the bed to put some needed distance between them. Well, as much distance as he could, which wasn’t a lot in the small room.
He was never going to make it through the night if he didn’t stop thinking about how damn much he was attracted to her. He imagined those lean tanned arms clamping his back. Those long legs wrapping around him. Those luscious full lips he was familiar with, running all over his…
Damn it all. Rome raked a shaking hand over his face, struggling to clear his roving thoughts. He peeled his attention away from her and to the plastic clothing bags. Reaching inside one, he pulled out a pair of new cotton panties. And stared at them, imagining them on her. Off her. Damn. Damn. Damn.
A husky chuckle floated from the bed. A hand flashed in front of his gaze to snatch the panties out of his grasp. She rolled the material around in her hands, checking them out. He almost moaned out loud. Maybe he had.
“Bobby’s last phase of research was to test the consumption of the enhanced vegetation,” Harper said, answering the question he’d asked before his fantasizing. “To make sure the plants weren’t harmful to ingest and all that.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Rome said, continuing to unpack the bag, trying to impersonally sort between his and hers. He tossed Harper the rest of the clothes he’d bought for her and then organized his own, tearing off tags and stickers.
“He was preparing trial experiments for volunteers when he stumbled across test data he referred to as ‘suspicious,’” Harper continued as she folded her garments neatly, then set them aside. “So Bobby dug around a little and found some files that outlined experiments that had been run on human subjects. Using copies of his serum. He also found that some of his plant inventory that he thought had been destroyed was missing.”
“Missing?” Rome asked as he picked up his small pile of clothes and set it on top of the dented thirteen-inch television. He had yet to see whether it worked. “You mean someone stole them?”
“Bobby’s notes said he’d found out about a faction within the Five Watch.” Harper lolled on her side. “From what his notes say, Bobby didn’t know who they were, but he did uncover their less-than-scrupulous work.”
The Five Watch, though on the shady side, didn’t seem like a mutinous group to Rome. On the contrary, they seemed very tight within their obscure walls. Besides, who could pull off that kind of mutiny without other Five Watchers knowing? There weren’t a whole lot of them as far as he knew. Fifty, maybe sixty people within the elite group itself.
“According to my brother, this faction was hoping that the genetic alterations Bobby made for plants would have the same effect on human beings,” she said. “Hoping to make people stronger and self-healing. The data he uncovered suggested they wanted to create bioenhanced spies and soldiers.”
“Holy shit.” Rome sighed as a somber weight dropped onto his shoulders. They needed to find out who was the mastermind. Who engineered this faction and who turned against Bobby. Could Jeff really be a part of it? Maybe this was what had been making Jeff so antsy. Damn. The suspect list was vast, but narrow all the same. “That complicates things. There are limited people who even know about the Five Watch, but none of those people really knows what anyone else knows. It’s the stuff that’s made for conspiracy theorists.”
Anyone could be behind this and no one would know about it. The only person who did know was now dead. This amazing woman’s remarkable brother was snooping around in places he had every right to be and was killed for it.
“These people, this faction, killed Bobby because he found out,” Harper stated quietly, watching him closely.
“Most likely, yes,” Rome confirmed.
She closed her eyes and bowed her head for a moment. Then she nodded and looked up at him again, a hard resolve behind her gaze.
“Harper, we’ll find them.” He tried to instill every ounce of certainty he had in his voice. No matter how vast this sinister trek was going to be, they at least had a starting point now. And each other.
“I know we will.” Her low voice chilled him. The tone was filled with more than the confidence he’d come to expect from her. It now contained a touch of…hunger.
At the very beginning, she’d told him she was going to get her revenge. And from the way she lounged there-like a lazy jungle cat, resting now, but primed to kill in an instant-he knew it to be true. Her vow for vengeance was very much alive.
“There’s more,” she said after a quick shake of her head. Great. More. “The human experiments didn’t work quite right.”
“What the hell does that mean?” He was getting very tired of bad news getting worse.
“The human subjects would develop the psionic power and be able to heal minor injuries, just as the plants could repair themselves. But soon after…” Harper’s voice trailed off.
“What?” Rome asked, lying down on the bed, mirroring her pose to face her. Whatever was coming was the worst part. He traced his fingers over her shoulder lightly. “Tell me.”
“Soon after they used their powers”-she looked away for a silent moment and then returned her gaze to his-“they died.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You’re not going to die,” Rome said firmly, shaking his head. No. He wouldn’t even begin to think about it. “You’re different from them.”