Time to seek her out and ask a few pointed questions about her reasons for wanting to work with Atlas. And if any of her answers came across the slightest bit shady, she was out. Hell, he was tempted to keep her out of it based on his doubts here and now.
In his experience, any doubt whatsoever could mean the difference between success and failure, coming home alive and…not. Atlas’s handler hadn’t come home. And the circumstances around it were enough to make Cruz proceed with extreme caution.
He’d suffered a momentary weakness in telling her she could work with him on Atlas. Seeing her face soften when she’d gotten near the dogs—the way all her walls came down the minute Atlas was in her arms—had made Cruz think she really had come to help the dog.
But if the incursion on their network had been her, she must’ve gone straight back to her hotel and jumped online to start hacking into their system.
And she was good, too, if she could make it look like she’d done it from the other side of the world.
Well, he recognized her for what she was and he would be damned if he was going to wait until tomorrow morning to call her on it.
*
Lyn wiped sweat from her brow as she exited the elevator. She’d spent more time on the elliptical than normal, trying to outrun her thoughts on Atlas and her impressions of David Cruz. There was a lot to process from what she’d seen today. It didn’t seem as if there’d be enough time to do the follow-up research she had planned before calling it a night. Through it all, she was sure she was missing something important about him. It was the kind of important that could eat away at a person and cause insomnia. The only cure she had for it was to burn off the anxiety eating her up and clear her head to track down the useful bits of information. Thus the visit to the hotel gym.
Bleh. So now her legs were about as useful as limp noodles and she wasn’t sure she was even walking a straight line down the hallway back to her hotel room. But her mind was clearer and she already had some search strings in mind once she got in front of her laptop.
Everything about David Cruz shouted military. Not uncommon for kennels providing trained working dogs to military and law enforcement. But most of the trainers she’d met hadn’t had the edge Cruz had.
His level of tension as he walked into a room had been enough to make her nervous, an awareness of everything around him. She’d seen men like him on military bases, fresh back from deployment, but not a trainer working at a kennel out in the middle of suburbia.
But he wasn’t a raging jackass either. And she’d come to associate the attitude with the kind of soldier. It was probably unfair, but it was exactly why she’d left home as soon as she’d gotten accepted to college and never gone back for more than a brief visit. The men her stepfather introduced her to had all set her teeth on edge with their overbearing demeanors and the way they patronized her.
David Cruz hadn’t done any of that. If anything, she owed him an apology for the way she’d greeted him.
She barely glanced up as a man turned the corner at the far end of the hallway and walked toward her, then passed by without a word. Pausing at her door, it took two tries to slide her room key but finally she got the green light and turned the handle. As she walked inside, a loud thump made her look up from her phone.
Panic shot through her as a man dressed all in black straightened, her laptop bag in his hand. For a moment her mind froze.
What? Who?
She started to shout, but a hand covered her mouth as a hard body crowded her from behind, forcing her farther into the room and making her drop her phone. She stumbled forward and another hand grabbed her left arm, twisting it behind her back.
Oh God. Her thoughts scrambled and scattered. This wasn’t really happening.
The man already in the room walked toward her, his lips stretching into a leering grin. The rest of his face was hidden by a ski mask. He looked her over from head to toe and then his gaze settled somewhere south of her face.
“It’s really too bad you came back.” His voice sent chills down her spine and she struggled.
No. No, no, no, no!
Her captor only tightened his grip until pain shot through her shoulder. What should she do? What could she do?
The other man leaned close and the stench of cigars choked her. “I’m not gonna lie though, Miss Jones. I’m kinda glad you did.”
She stared at him, shrank away as he ran a tongue over his top lip. It was all going in slow motion and she gagged in disgust.
“We weren’t supposed to let her see us.” The words rumbled in the chest behind her head.
“And she won’t see our faces.” The other man reached out and fondled her breast, pinching her nipple. Twisting. Pain and revulsion shot through her. She couldn’t get away. “But we can show her a couple other things before we leave. Seems a shame to let the bed go to…”
Stop!
Lyn kicked out, hard, her foot catching the front of his shin.
“Ow! You bitch!”