Page 27 of Jack
She’d nearly blown her one chance to save the world.
Maybe she’d assigned too much pressure to herself going in. Because she’d told herself two hours earlier that Emberly—a.k.a. Ashley, for this night at least—had one shot to get this right.
It had started off so easy.
“Ashley, grab a tray and get back out there.”
Orders from the catering boss, Nolan, who engineered the delivery of the walleye cakes, the wild-rice arancini, and the baked cranberry Brie to the guests in the dining room.
She’d picked up a loaded silver tray, held it in one hand, and pushed her way through the swinging door into the room.
Country music played on the overhead speakers, and in the massive dining room, guests of Fox’s private wedding-kickoff bash stood with fluted champagne glasses, signature mules, and hot buttered rum in apple cider.
The place smelled festive, with the scent of a fire in the giant hearth, the cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves from the rum mix simmering in a hot pot near the bar, and sprays of calla lilies and bright pink peonies, probably flown in from places south of the Mason-Dixon.
No expense spared for the wedding of a rising country-music star who looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine. No doubtPeoplehad photographers lined up, and the paparazzi would be out in droves.
Which added an element of difficulty to this gig. But if Emberly did this right, she’d be in and out, information acquired, and back on the road by tomorrow. She’d make her delivery, disappear, and never again have to look over her shoulder.
At least, in her wildest dreams.
Of course, even as she walked around the room, guests picking up her offerings, her gaze landed onhim. Her target.
Declan Stone.
She’d looked at his picture—pictures—for so long she could find him with her eyes closed, simply feel his presence in the room. Dark hair with hints of red, clean-shaven tonight but usually with a thin scrape of dark whiskers to match. Square jaw, a little cleft in the chin, and bone-jarring deep-gray eyes that could look right through a man—or woman—and dissect his soul.
Thanks to his elaborate home gym and the hours he spent there, probably thinking through his cyberweapons-of-war designs, he had barely an ounce of fat on his sinewed washboard frame. Wide shoulders and standing a good six foot two, his mere presence in a room took the air from it.
Or maybe it was simply the way he held himself. Arrogantly confident, slender fingers on the stem of his red-wine glass, his feet braced, listening with a slight cock of his head to a woman in a garish gold dress as she gestured with her hands. As if he might not be actually plotting his next double-crossing move against his country.
The traitor.
Three months of surveillance, and finally,finally, Stone had stepped out of the cover of his Batcave, into the light.
And it wouldn’t last long. Four days, maybe five, max, during which Stone turned from cybertech inventor to dashing philanthropist, glad-handing country-music stars who might endorse his favorite charity, Maggie’s Miracles.
The same charity that groom Oaken Fox helped fund, giving over fifty thousand last year to help children who suffered spinal-cord injuries. She blamed Oaken’s fiancée for the connection—Stone owned an estate on his own private lake some twenty miles east, between Duck Lake and Minneapolis.
Yada yada yada, hooray hooray. She hated do-gooders who tossed out money and then stepped into the limelight.
The real heroes were the people who stayed in the shadows. Who did the grunt work that kept the world from self-destructing.
Emberly had already seen the Kingston parents talking with Stone, laughing, enjoying the wedding festivities.
Everybody happy. Nobody paying attention to the thief—actually, she preferred Artful Dodger, thank you—in the corner.
She spotted the groom now, standing with his pretty bride—short dark hair, wearing a dress, a thousand miles from the tough survival-reality-TV star who’d gotten a bad rap. At least in Emberly’s opinion. Not that she paid attention, but again,research.
There was a reason her country had pickedher.
“These are so nummy!” A woman plucked the last two walleye crackers from her tray. Reddish hair, almost like Emberly’s—although tonight Emberly was a dark-haired brunette. “I’d forgotten how good walleye is. Here, Axe, you need to taste one of these.” She handed a cracker to a man standing next to her, dark blondish hair, the build of a man who worked outdoors for a living.
Emberly-Ashley offered a tight, polite smile and kept moving. She just needed to offload the last of the Brie bites, then she’d figure out a way to get close to Stone. Grab that wineglass from his grip.
Step one: fingerprints.
She offered a Brie bite to a woman with long blonde hair, who shrugged and took it. One more to go?—