Read Online Mission: Irresistible by Lori Wilde - Free Book Online Page A

search of Adam on his own.
    But other than Gabriel Martinez, who’d merely been given the white envelope from his brother, Cassie was the last known person to have spoken at length with Adam. And even though she professed otherwise, Harrison still wasn’t sure he could trust her.
    Was she lying to protect his brother? She claimed they weren’t lovers, and for some asinine reason he wanted to take her at her word.
    It was all too coincidental. The mummy stabbed, his brother missing, the lights going out, the theft of the amulet. Cassie had to have more information than she was letting on, whether she consciously knew it or not.
    “Hey, Harry, why so down in the mouth?”
    They were the last ones left in the building except for the armed security guards and the janitors. Phyllis Lambert had just walked out the door with one last ominous word of warning that they had better produce the amulet come Saturday night or there would be hell to pay.
    “Excuse me?” He scowled.
    Cassie slung her purse over her shoulder, and she was still wearing his jacket. “You look like your best buddy just ran off with your wife and squashed your favorite puppy under the tires of his jacked-up monster truck on their way out the gate.”
    “Colorful analogy,” he said. “If somewhat country-and-western-songish in nature. But I don’t have a wife. Or a puppy.”
    Or a best buddy.
    His friends were his colleagues. Outside of work he didn’t hang around with the guys. He didn’t enjoy shooting pool or drinking beer or yelling insults at football players on television. Harrison knew he was an odd duck, but he couldn’t help the way he was. He liked being alone with this thoughts and his books. His time was precious. He didn’t waste it on trivial pursuits.
    Or trivial emotions.
    Cassie rolled her eyes. “It was a joke, for heaven’s sake. Ha-ha-ha. Lighten up, dude. Do you always have to take everything so literally?”
    “I don’t know any other way to view the world.” Harrison held the exit door open for Cassie to walk through.
    “I take that as a yes.” She sighed.
    “You find my objectivity tiresome?”
    “Exasperating,” she said. “There’s no fun in logic.”
    “Maybe not, but there’s logic in logic.”
    She gave him a sidelong glance, and he did his best to ignore the suggestive look she angled his way. He wasn’t getting involved with her on a personal level. No way, nohow.
    “Then again, I’m guessing you’ve never been accused of having too much fun.”
    Harrison ignored the comment. Ignored her. Well, as much as he could. Ignoring Cassie was a bit like ignoring a major force of nature.
    The security guard locked the door after them and Harrison realized their cars, his ten-year-old Volvo and Cassie’s late-model Mustang convertible, were parked at opposite ends of the lot. He couldn’t distinguish shades of colors well, but he would bet the baggage claim ticket in his pocket that her car was a flaming “ogle-me” scarlet.
    “So what’s the plan, Stan? What’s on the agenda, Brenda? Where do we start to sleuth, Ruth?” She was jumping around, swinging her arms, acting like a nervous thoroughbred eager to shoot from the starting gate.
    “Are you always so hyper?”
    “Always,” she promised.
    “Remind me never to give you sugar.”
    “As if I’d remind you of that. Chocolate is my middle name.”
    “Explains the hyperactivity,” he muttered.
    “Anyway, what’s the scheme, Kareem?”
    “I’ve calculated that the best use of time would be to head for the airport tonight and check out this baggage claim ticket. Put our heads together and see if we can determine what might have happened.”
    She gave him a thumbs-up. “I’m with you.”
    “Whose vehicle should we take to the airport?”
    “Not mine, unless you don’t mind stopping for gas,” she said. “The empty light flashed on just as I was pulling into the parking lot this morning.”
    “You don’t fill up when your gas gauge gets