His Personal Mission Page 11

  Josh—he’d insisted the formal Mr. Redstone she’d begun with wasn’t for him—only laughed.

  “But you noticed this one. Means I did my job.”

  She laughed in turn, relaxing a little. Behind him, she could see through into the cockpit, where there was a frightening array of complex-looking instruments.

  “Want to sit up front for takeoff?”

  To her surprise, her excitement rose at the idea. She glanced back over her shoulder where Ryan was already seated in one of the gray leather chairs, with his best laptop open in front of him on a table of some intricately grained light-colored wood polished to a high gloss.

  “He’s set for the duration,” Josh said with a grin that lit up his gray eyes. Sasha couldn’t help but smile back at him; it was infectious.

  She followed him into the cockpit, shaking her head at the electronics jammed into the compact space. She was surprised Ryan wasn’t up here regardless of how many times he’d flown on one of these. It was a measure of that intensity about finding his sister, she guessed.

  “I gather you get Internet on board?”

  Josh nodded. “Pretty solid, too. Ian Gamble invented a new kind of tracking satellite dish, and Ryan wrote the software for it.”

  She settled into what she assumed would be the copilot’s seat. Josh seemed perfectly able to talk while getting ready for takeoff, and she was reminded that despite his relatively young age, the man had been flying for over twenty-five years. She would love to hear about that, what it had been like to learn to fly as a teenager, and how he’d taken his design for a small, fast, efficient jet and built it into an empire that spanned the globe.

  Anyone not asleep knew that empire included not just a full line of jets but resorts to fly them to, along with countless other things that came out of their Research and Development Division. Many were born of the fertile imagination of the man she knew Ryan admired most next to Josh, resident genius Ian Gamble. From a new insulin pump to prosthetic feet and legs, they were things that had changed the lives of thousands.

  When she said as much, Josh glanced at her and smiled. “Ian is one of a kind.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “And he and Ryan make a hell of a team.”

  Sasha blinked. “Team?”

  “Ian does the mechanics. Ryan does the programming that makes the mechanics work. Ian used to do both, but he’s twice as productive now with Ryan. And happier.”

  There was a pause in the conversation as Josh spoke to someone, she assumed the control tower, on the plane’s radio. Then the pitch of the engines changed, his hands moved easily over the controls, and they were rolling. When they eased into line behind a smaller plane behind a large airliner, she felt it safe to speak again.

  “I didn’t realize they worked so closely together, Ryan and Mr. Gamble. I know he thinks he’s a genius.”

  “Ryan’s a little in awe of Ian. We all are,” Josh admitted. “His mind works in ways that are…well, unique. But it was Ryan who programmed the chip that makes that prosthetic foot you mentioned work so well. And the insulin pump. And right now, Ian’s working on an idea Ryan came up with, to utilize a modification to the computer chip that powers some of our prosthetics.”

  Sasha shook her head. “I had no idea. I mean, I knew he’d written our search software, but—”

  “And your facial recognition software, and that aging software.”

  Sasha blinked. “He did those?”

  They used the facial recognition program a lot, and the aging software, as they called it, was one of their most useful tools. There were many variations of the program that could take a photograph of a child, and using other photos of older family members, project what that child would look like five, ten, even twenty years later. But theirs did something else useful that was rarer; it went the other way. And twice since she’d been at Westin, that capability had resolved cases so cold they’d been forgotten by all but the parents who lived every day with their endless grief. Once it had been a sad sort of closure, helping confirm a John Doe body was a long missing son, but once it had been a joyous occasion, with a girl kidnapped at age six reunited with her mother at age twenty.

  She’d had no idea Ryan had done that. Or the other things Josh told her about. In all the time they’d spent together—which had been a lot in the three short months of their relationship—he’d never told her. He had to know it would impress her—anything that made her job easier did—but he’d never used it to win favor with her.

  “Ryan’s a special guy,” Josh said. “He’s taken a talent that got him into trouble and turned it into a solid and incredibly useful career.”

  “With help from you,” Sasha said.

  Josh shrugged. “I knew all he needed was a chance, a direction. And he’s more than paid me back, countless times over, for any slight risk I took.”

  The words warmed her, although why praise for Ryan Barton would make her feel like this was something she didn’t want to delve into just now.

  “Like someone once took a risk for you?” she said instead. “Mac McClaren, for instance?”

  “Heard about that, did you?”

  “Ryan told me. I guess he’s a treasure hunter in more ways than one.”

  She had the pleasure of seeing Josh Redstone smile almost embarrassedly.

  “I’d say you paid him back, as well.”

  “Well, he can hunt to his heart’s content and not worry if he finds anything. But,” Josh added, looking oddly wistful, “he’s found the biggest treasure of all in Emma.”

  There was something in that expression that made her heart ache for this man she’d only just met. And since she had no idea what to say that wouldn’t sound presumptuous—this was still Josh Redstone, one of the richest men in the world, after all—she kept quiet, except to let out an excited exclamation as the little jet took off and climbed at an angle that pushed her back into her seat. She found herself grinning, and when Josh glanced at her, he was grinning back, the wistfulness gone, and his love of what he was doing clear on his face.

  They leveled off—at a much higher altitude than commercial jets had to stick to, Josh told her—and for a while she simply enjoyed the novelty and the view. Eventually she excused herself to go back and see what Ryan was doing. She took with her a confirmed opinion of one man, and a newly raised one of the other.

  And the knowledge that Ryan Barton was no longer the heedless young man she’d once thought him.

  If he ever had been.

  Ryan looked up from the search results he’d been going through when Sasha came out of the cockpit and back into the cabin of the plane. She had the awed grin people often wore after their first flight on a Hawk; he’d be wearing it himself, despite the fact that he’d often been aboard before, were it not for Trish.

  “Pretty slick, huh?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I still can’t believe the man himself is flying us.”

  “That’s Josh. And he meant it about never passing up a chance to fly. He doesn’t get to nearly as much as he’d like anymore. He’s always got work to do, so Tess usually flies when he’s got to go anywhere on business.”

  “Tess?”

  “His personal choice of pilot. She’s amazing. She flew us on that search for Gabe’s wife, and she was like a surgeon with a scalpel with that helicopter.”

  Sasha seemed to absorb that, and from her expression Ryan guessed that she liked the idea that Josh’s chosen pilot was a woman.

  She slid into the seat across the table from him. The bright yellow of her crisp blouse was a cheerful contrast to the richly elegant slate and red of the cabin. Just as it was in his condo.

  Just as it was in his garage, he thought as the image came back to him. He liked the idea of her car tucked away in his garage. He was sure that meant he was heading down a slippery slope again, but there it was.

  “What’s an angel flight? That guy said Josh had just gotten back from an angel flight.”

  “Yeah. He’s been d
oing that for years. Any Redstone plane that’s not in use is available. All it takes is a phone call, and they’re on their way to pick up a sick kid who needs to be somewhere else.”

  Sasha blinked. “You mean, like for special treatment or surgery?”

  Ryan nodded. “Or sometimes it’s to fly family to see the kid, or…”

  His voice trailed off. Sometimes, too often, the flight was for a final visit, or worse, for a funeral. But given Sasha’s devotion to helping kids, he wasn’t sure that was something she’d want to know.

  “I can guess,” she said softly, and the look in her eyes told him she had. “Your boss is an amazing man.”

  “Yes. Yes, he is. The luckiest day of my life was the day I picked Redstone as a target.”

  And the unluckiest was the day you walked out of it, he thought, then grimaced inwardly. Ordering himself to knock off the stupidity—a tall order where she was concerned, it seemed—he went back to his search results.

  “Still trying to get deeper into the network’s records?”

  “I’m there,” he said, focused on the screen. “I just ran a search for any other screen names that come through that same Washington ISP, now I’m looking for any similarities between them.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Sasha said, sincere enough that it pleased him, surprised enough that it irked him a little.

  “It happens,” he muttered, not looking away from his screen.

  “I should have thought of that. I’m glad you did.”

  Mollified, whether that had been her intent or not, he said, “It’s basic to me.”

  “But smart. There’s a chance he’s done this with other girls. And if he’s smart, too, then he’d set up a separate identity for each, since it’s so easy.”

  Ryan looked up at her then. “It is easy, but why smart?”

  “Most girls don’t like to compete for a guy—the occasional female poacher aside—so it would be easier for him to convince her she’s the one if he isn’t flirting with a hundred other girls online in a public forum.”

  “Makes sense,” was all Ryan said, but he was wondering yet again if there was a jab in there aimed at him. She’d told him two years ago that she didn’t like competing with a machine for his interest, that she needed a guy who lived in the real, not the virtual world.

  And you got all chapped about it and that was the end, he thought. He hadn’t even considered whether she might have a point, he’d just reacted, like a guy who’d heard the complaint far too often.

  The fact that he had didn’t change the result, that she’d walked out. And she—

  The sudden blip on the screen as his search results came back interrupted his thoughts. He looked at the list of names, wished for a moment that he was at home with his dual screen system, but downsized the windows and went to work, calling up the social networking home page and starting to run each name.

  When he was done, he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “Ryan?”

  “If this is right,” he said, not looking at her, “this guy’s got at least three girls hooked or headed there.”

  She got up and quickly walked around to look.

  “All these,” he said, flipping through the pages quickly, “are, as far as I can tell, the same guy. I backtracked, and when I got down deep enough, all these were set up by the same computer.”

  “You are a genius,” Sasha said, leaning in.

  He barely had time to warm to the compliment before his breath caught in his throat as she brushed against him. He caught the faint scent of the perfume he remembered; it had smelled like his grandmother’s roses, and she’d told him she wore it in honor of her own grandmother.

  “If I’m right,” he finally managed to say.

  “I think you are. They all have the same feel, the same lures.”

  “Lures?”

  She flipped the pages almost as quickly as he had, pointing as she went. “Lonely poet boy, misunderstood, you’re the only one who gets me, never felt this way before, all the stuff teenage girls are weak in the knees for.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  She gave him a startled look, took in his wry smile. And then she laughed, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m glad you didn’t know. You would have been far too dangerous to the girls.”

  For a guy who’d never felt better than awkward around the girls his own age, girls who seemed so much different from himself that at sixteen he’d thought them a different species—with claws—those words were balm.

  “Look,” she said suddenly, pointing. “You are right. That photo was on one of the other pages, too.”

  He looked. “The dogs,” he said.

  “Another sure way to a girl’s heart,” Sasha said.

  “Why is that? I mean, I know it works, I know a guy who even borrowed a dog to help him meet girls, but why does it work?”

  “Any guy who can love a dog can love us,” Sasha said simply. “At least, I think that’s the reasoning.”

  He was curious now. He’d laughed at his buddy, until he’d ended up with more action than he could handle. “You don’t think it’s true?”

  “I think the first part is. It shows a guy is capable of caring. And they’re a great icebreaker. It’s the assumption that that will somehow always transfer directly to us that is the failing of teenagers. Or women who still think like them.” She gave him a sideways look again. “That being said, and all other things being equal, I’d go for the guy with the dog every time.”

  “Well, fine,” he said, feeling suddenly grumpy about it. “My mom’s allergic, we could never have one. And I’m at work so much now, it wouldn’t be fair to the dog.”

  “Ah, but you get points for knowing that,” Sasha said. “And you—”

  She stopped as the computer popped up another result window. “I was running another search in the background,” he explained, “to see if that same computer had left tracks anywhere else, and apparently it’s a server for a Web site of its own.” He clicked on the link. “This might tell us something more about the guy, where he is, if…”

  His voice trailed off as he stared at the screen.

  “Damn,” Sasha said under her breath.

  Ryan couldn’t speak.

  That it was a porn site was bad enough.

  That it offered, for a fee, photos of young girls in varying stages of bondage and torture, apparently being held by the same man, a beefy, ordinary-looking guy with an extraordinary gleam in his eyes, made Ryan feel queasy.

  A quick glance told him none of the girls on the front page were Trish, but he still felt sick. And the disclaimer in tiny print at the bottom of the front page, that all the “models” were over eighteen and had “posed” voluntarily, didn’t alleviate the nausea in the pit of his stomach.

  “You’re sure this is the same computer?” Sasha asked, her voice tense.

  “All the numbers match. It’s either the same, or he’s better than I am.”

  “I doubt that. So it’s the same.”

  He knew it was.

  His baby sister was in very, very big trouble.

  Chapter 13

  Reeve had understated, Sasha thought. Rand Singleton wasn’t just pretty, he was breathtaking.

  She tried not to be blatant about it, but she couldn’t help staring as he stopped in front of them. Over six feet, lean but muscular, with startlingly dark blue eyes and hair in a shade of platinum Sasha had only before seen in children. It fell forward nearly to his eyebrows, and she wondered if his wife felt the same urge she did to brush it back with her own fingers.

  They had flown into a small local airport on the west side of Puget Sound, their target zone. Redstone had a facility there, to avoid flying a private plane into SeaTac, Josh had told them. And since Rand lived on this side, it was easier for him as well.

  Now, Josh performed the introductions, and Sasha couldn’t help but notice the easy relationship apparent between them all. Like family, she thought. The fam
ily everyone said Redstone was.

  “How’s Kate?” Josh asked.

  The smile that curved Rand Singleton’s mouth could have powered the runway lights along this entire airstrip, Sasha thought. And it warmed her with its spillover; this was a man truly in love with his wife. It was possible, it reminded her, just as seeing Reeve and Zach almost daily reminded her.

  “She’s great. Always.”

  Josh nodded. “Back to her. And tell her distribution is now aware of her genius, after that shipping plan she came up with.”

  Rand laughed. “She is nothing less,” he said. “But then, she’s Redstone.”

  “And I’m beginning to see,” Sasha put in, “what a very, very good thing that is to be.”

  Josh’s grin was a little lopsided, as if he himself were sometimes surprised by the depth of loyalty he inspired. Then he indicated Ryan and Sasha with a gesture. “Whatever they need,” he said.

  “Of course,” Rand said, as if it were a given. “Can you stay?”

  Josh shook his head with every evidence of true regret. “Don’t I wish. But I’ve got a dinner at five. One of those hideously boring ad agency things.”

  Rand glanced at his watch, then looked at his boss with a knowing grin. “Five? You’re going to have to haul…butt.”

  Josh’s brows rose, and in a tone of surprise that was clearly put on, he said, “Am I?”

  “Never fly fast when you can fly faster?” Ryan said, earning a laugh from his boss.

  “It’s a win-win for me,” Josh admitted. “I get to fly fast, or I get to be late.”

  Rand laughed. Then, with a sheepish grin, he looked at his boss and said, “Well, if you have to leave, I guess I get to just tell you. Kate wanted you to be the first outside the family to know…we’re going to add to the drain on the Redstone benefits.”

  It only took Josh a split second to get there. When he did, he lit up. “A baby? Rand, that’s wonderful news. Congratulations.”

  Sasha and, belatedly, Ryan—who looked a bit discomfited—added to the chorus. Rand gave them that electric smile again.

  “Kate was a little startled. She thought if we wanted a baby, at her age it would take intervention, but…”