Page 9 of Protector Unmatched

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“Stay as close to me as possible when we’re inside,” Pearce urged Winter while they were approaching the building he’d identified as the workplace of Daphne Butler, the second Daphne on their short list of possible would-be killers.

Winter nodded. She knew the drill. To be on the safe side, Pearce now took her by the arm so that even if he lost his mental concentration, his touch would assure that Winter remained invisible. Because if anything happened to her on this extracurricular excursion, Logan would have his hide.

At the glass entrance door, which was closed, they had to wait a few moments until somebody opened it and entered and they could slip inside behind that person. Had Pearce been alone, he could have walked through the glass, but for Winter it was impossible. Only Stealth Guardians had the ability to dematerialize their bodies in order to pass through solid objects.

Inside the large lobby, a security guard sat behind his desk. He rose to greet the visitor, a delivery guy with an envelope. While the security guard signed for it, Pearce ushered Winter past the desk. He spotted the elevators and took two more steps, then he suddenly realized where he was. But it was too late now.

He and Winter were already passing through the metal detector. Warning bells dinged, and red lights flashed above their heads, most likely set off by the ancient dagger Pearce kept hidden in one of his boots. Quickly Pearce pulled Winter along and steered her to the side, because the security guard who was sitting next to an airport-style hand luggage scanner was already jumping up.

“What the fuck?” he cursed, and ran toward the metal detector. “What’s wrong with that damn thing now?”

The security guard who’d finished signing for the delivery stared at him. “Don’t ask me. You’re the tech guy.”

While the two security guards tried to figure out why the alarm had sounded and how to reset the machine, Pearce pressed the button to call the elevator. While they waited, he perused the company directory on the wall next to the elevator. He found what he was looking for quickly.

When the elevator doors opened, he made sure the cab was empty, then nodded for Winter to enter. From the corner of his eye, he noticed one of the guards looking toward him.

“Why’s the elevator suddenly opening?” the guard asked his colleague, tapping him on the shoulder.

Pearce entered and pressed the button for the fifth floor. Slowly, the doors began to close.

“We should call maintenance,” he heard the second security guy suggest, before the doors closed fully and silence surrounded them.

“That was close,” Winter said.

“No biggie.” Nevertheless, he felt like a fool not having thought that his dagger, and probably also his cell phone, would set off the metal detector. He blamed his rude awakening this morning for his lapse in judgment. Surely, a man who’d just found out that a woman would kill him in the near future was allowed a mistake or two.

“So, all we’re gonna do is get as close to her as we can. As soon as you get a good look at her and are sure it’s the woman you saw in your vision, you’ll give me the thumbs-up, and we’re outta there. Got it?”

“Got it. Just don’t rush me. I need to be sure it’s her.” She hesitated. “Are you gonna have to eliminate her?”

He drew in a breath. He hadn’t expected Winter’s blunt question.

“Well, are you?”

“If you’re sure that she stabbed me with a Stealth Guardian dagger, then I have no choice.” When a sad look passed over Winter’s face, he added, “But not today. Not until we’re one hundred percent sure. I promise I’ll find a way to make it quick and painless.”

The elevator doors opened on the fifth floor before Winter could answer.

Most of this floor appeared to be a large open-plan office with cubicle after cubicle. Several glass-enclosed offices lined one side, and a kitchenette as well as some office machinery and supply closets occupied another. It would have been hard to find the cubicle that Daphne Butler occupied had the entrances to each little office pod not been identified with nametags.

Daphne’s cubicle was empty—however, it appeared that she couldn’t be far. The computer was switched on—the monitor locked—and personal items were strewn on the desk. A coffee cup sat next to the telephone and a jacket hung over the chair. Pearce glanced around. Daphne’s cubicle neighbor, a geeky guy with small, round glasses and facial hair, pecked away on his keyboard, oblivious to the world around him. Employees in the other cubicles did the same. Everybody kept their head down.

Winter tugged at the sleeve of his jacket, and Pearce turned his head to Winter. She mouthed, “There,” and pointed to the door of the ladies’ room that was just being closed by a young woman. A column prevented Pearce from getting a good look at her face, but he didn’t have to wait long until she approached the cubicle where Pearce and Winter were hovering.

Her head was down, and she was wiping at a stain on her sweater, cursing something unintelligible. It appeared she’d spilled something on it, because the spot was wet. Her hair was totally different from how Winter had described it: it was short and black, but not like that of a tomboy. Rather, it looked like a haircut a French woman would sport. A pixie haircut. Trendy, light, sexy. Her figure was partially obscured by the baggy sweater she wore. However, her tight jeans couldn’t disguise that she had long and slender legs, so Pearce assumed that her torso was similarly appealing.

When she reached her cubicle, the geek in the cubicle next to hers said, “Got it out?”

Startled, she lifted her head, for the first time affording both him and Winter a good look at her face.

“Think so,” she said to her colleague.

Pearce froze and could only stare at her as she walked past him and entered the empty cubicle with the nametag Daphne Butler on the outside. Winter tugged at his sleeve again. She made a sign, pointing at Daphne, then nodding. It was her. This was the woman from Winter’s vision, the woman who would kill him at some point in the future. He made a motion to Winter that he understood.

Swallowing hard, he looked at Daphne again. Winter had neglected to say that his would-be killer was a stunning beauty with startling green eyes. Not the kind of green a demon’s eyes were, but the kind of green that was soothing and comforting, the kind that promised sensuality and passion. Together with her black pixie haircut and her flawless skin, she looked like a woman who should be on a movie poster, not toiling away in a software company. Or killing a Stealth Guardian.