Free Duplicity by Vicki Hinze Page A

like a little puppy, O’Dell and Hackett will see to it that I’m dead.”
    “Oh, please.” Tracy guffawed. “Aren’t you being just a little melodramatic? Who’s going to kill you?” She lifted a hand heavenward. “You’re in the hole, for God’s sake.. “Yes, I am in the hole.” He leaned closer still, until they were nearly nose to nose. “Open that closed mind of yours long enough to think, counselor. If you’re going to murder someone, your victim being isolated makes getting to him damn convenient, now doesn’t it?”
    Tracy opened her mouth to dispute him, but the logic in ‘ what he’d said hit her. Without uttering a sound, she snapped her jaw shut.
    “Finally, she sees the light.” His exasperated breath warmed her face. “Check out my team’s eyes.”
    “Excuse me?” Her brows arched, registering her confusion at the sudden topic shift.
    “Their eyes,” Burke repeated. “If my men were exposed to chemicals, then their eyes could show signs of mitosis.”
    “Mitosis?” Another I-haven’t-got-a-clue response. No wonder he considered her inept.
    “Fixed and dilated pupils.” He refrained from Failing her “fluff” again, she felt sure, only by an act of sheer will and determination.
    A sneaking suspicion crept into Tracy, triggering her intuition and issuing her a warning. Burke hadn’t pulled that particular affliction out of thin air. And in it, she claimed his team’s sensed a grain of truth. The repo bodies had been blown to bits, but Burke had seen the bomber make the run; their bodies were intact. That, his specific reference to tosis, and his tenacity had her sensing some truth in what he had told her. If his men had been blown to bits, he wouldn’t be issuing her a challenge to check out their eyes-unless he was deliberately misleading her.
    He seemed too cocky and confident to be lying about this. But what that meant, she wasn’t ready to explore. Not yet. “Why am I feeling this mitosis is extremely significant?”
    ,,Because it is extremely significant.” Approval rang in his voice. “Unofficial reports are that Project Duplicity deals with the development of a chemical which causes mitosis.”
    Tracy’s stomach lurched and landed somewhere around her kneecaps. She hated what she was hearing, and what she was feeling. Knowing all she knew about Burke, how could she consider believing a word that came out of his mouth? How could she consider finding any truth in what he was telling her-even a grain of it?
    And how could she find the man appealing, much less attractive? He was curt, rude, spiteful, intrusive into her private life, and he was an accomplished liar. Physically he was a work of art, even wearing prison grays. But, dear God, he was a horrible excuse for a human being.
    And yet, what he was saying about this mitosis in his men would establish a direct link between the incident and Laurel’s god’s pet project, Duplicity.
    Good Lord, Burke wasn’t just implicating O’Dell and Hackett and maybe Carver. Now he was pulling General Nestler into this. Wait. Wait. She focused on Burke.” Unofficial reports?”
    He rolled his gaze. “Unofficial’ doesn’t mean inaccurate, counselor.”
    ,It doesn’t mean accurate, or official.” leave it. But Project Duplicity was Tracy couldn’t be Nestler’s pet project, and while she would love to ignore that, she couldn’t. She had to check this out. See if the project did involve a chemical that could cause mitosis the men’s eyes. She had to do it. Because when she loaded everything on the scales, one thing became glaringly apparent and it refused to be ignored-That damn grain of truth.
    Burke’s men’s bodies hadn’t been blown to bits or he wouldn’t have challenged her to check their eyes. But y, she didn’t know other part of his story was true, if an yet. But she felt that grain’s presence down to her bones, and it weighed a ton.
    She’d have to tangle with Hackett and O’Dell. And with Nestler.