Then it hit her. This was the leader of the camouflaged group that chased her through the woods and cornered her at the Barracks.

And murdered her brother.

Her blood heated in rage, flushing her body. This corpse was a casualty of the psi-power war they started with her. This guy got what he deserved. And before this was all over, the rest of them would, too.

She blinked, then glanced at Rome and realized he was watching her, a probing look on his face she couldn’t discern. She shook the greedy avenging thoughts from her mind.

Rome pulled out a folder filed in the small partition at the front of the drawer. He swung his backpack around and tucked the folder in it as he closed the drawer with a heavy click. She watched him open the next one and take its file as well. He continued down the line until they heard an electronic beeping near the door. Yikes. Someone was coming.

Zipping the backpack, Rome quickly replaced it on his back and closed the drawer quietly. He put a finger to his lips and pulled her with him along the wall to crouch together behind one of the enormous machines in the corner.

Blindingly bright incandescent light showered the room, forcing her to squint. Peering through the thick levers and pipes of the creepy apparatus, she watched a tall man with a white lab coat walk in, his attention glued to the open files he had in his hands. He hadn’t noticed the two of them at all.

A shrill ringing pierced the silence. Harper nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound. In an instant she realized just how foreign all this was to her. Rome laid a calming hand on her thigh. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone.

“Yes?” he said, answering the phone, his voice a tad nervous. “No, the latest tests failed.” A pause as he listened to the caller. “You’re coming here? Now?” He sounded anxious, as though the person on the other end was supremely unhappy at his negative response. “Okay, I’ll meet you here. Yes, at the lab.”

Disconnecting the call, the man mumbled something harsh and slammed the folders on the desk next to the laptop. He swiped his brow with a clearly shaking hand, then stamped out the door.

Harper turned to face Rome. His blue gaze appeared troubled and excited at the same time as it met hers.

“Let’s get out of here and into the ducts.” He glanced upward. “I want to see who’s coming to the lab to meet with this guy.”

She nodded in response and followed as he crept soundlessly around the side of the ugly machinery and headed for the door. He held up his palm, mouthing to her to wait, while he checked to see whether there was anyone in the hall.

At his signal, she followed him out of the room. They turned back the way they had come and tread quietly down the sterile hallway.

Another few steps and Rome stopped abruptly, almost causing her to collide with him in the cloak of near darkness. The comforting warmth of his strong body seeped into her while she watched his hands sweep along the flat surface of the wall. Looking for something.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she saw the outline of a door flush with the wall, but no handle.

He reached into his back pocket, his hand brushing against her stomach, inadvertently causing little flutters.

“Not sorry.” His low chuckle came from the darkness.

“Not a problem,” she answered with a soft laugh of her own.

Harper heard a muted snap, then some scraping, and figured out that Rome was attempting to pry open the buried lock with his secret-agent-spy gadget that looked like a simple pocketknife, but had many special little tools inside of it.

With a faint click he pulled the door backward. She backed off slightly to allow him to replace it in the back pocket of his jeans, though she was sorely tempted to lean in for another indulgent fondle.

She took another step backward as Rome tugged harder on the door and stepped inside after a quick peek. His nod was barely discernable in the dim entryway. She followed him across the threshold and pulled the door softly shut behind them, enveloping them in a closefitting and slightly muggy passage.

As they moved cautiously upward through the enclosed space, she could easily see why he’d favored the ceiling ducts. According to the plans, these particular channels ran above the working laboratories, where she and Rome figured they could gather the most information in the least invasive way.

The shadowy duct was narrow and tight, with coiled wires snaking along the sides and underneath the thin, grated catwalk. Puffy silver-coated insulation lined the area above them.

Stagnant, warm air filled her lungs, making every breath heavy, and there was a constant low hum that tickled her ears. But among everything, including the various pipes that streaked above them, the space was blissfully empty and unprotected.

Carefully watching her step, she followed Rome’s shrewd maneuvering. A few more paces and Rome stopped, kneeling to the floor. Crouching next to him, she watched as he pushed aside some of the wiring and pulled out his trusty little device to cut away some of the padding that layered the ceiling below them.

Harper admired his deft precision with the knife and the way his fingers balanced between strong and graceful. He passed the fluffy padding to her and she took it, placing the chunk on the metal walkway as he leaned down on his stomach to get into a good position to peer down below.

The ceiling tiles were unusually constructed. From the little green triangles printed on the corners, she could tell that they were made from recycled metals, creating a thin layer with tiny holes constructed for optimum air circulation.

The diagrams they had studied that morning had shown that the diamond-shaped holes filtered the flow of the recycled air, making it clean. The tiles also filtered out sound, which kept the noises that shrouded them up above silent to those down below.

Harper had actually been very impressed with the green-minded health consciousness of the Five Watch. Rome had explained to her that most of the government facilities in Oregon were constructed this way.

He’d also told her he’d noticed the same construction in Bobby’s lab on that fateful night when they’d first met. Of course, he would notice everything. All she’d seen that night was her brother’s workplace in shambles.

Shaking away her thoughts, she saw Rome slowly pull the wires back to their original position and then gesture for her to join him by lying flat opposite his prone pose on the catwalk. He pointed down and then brought his hand up to motion her to listen and watch.

The view through the shimmery metal tiles was hazy but workable. The room below appeared to be the same lab they’d just been in. Rome must have thought the man and the person who called would meet there, in the same lab. He’d estimated they’d have sixty-five minutes to investigate before his tinkering with the electronics was discovered. Checking her watch, they had about twenty-nine minutes left.

The door thumped open, almost startling a jump out of her. Harper cringed and glanced up to see Rome place a finger in front of his sensuous mouth in a shushing motion. With an apologetic smile, which elicited a sexy grin from him, she returned her glance to the lab below.

Crisp footsteps clacked across the hard floor out of her range of vision. She looked back down and saw a man wearing a white lab coat approach the table with the laptop. He faced her. She couldn’t make out his features, given her high angle, but she was pretty certain it was the same nervous guy they’d hidden from. He had apparently returned to the lab in the time it took her and Rome to get to the ceiling.

The body that belonged to the clacking shoes came into her view, joining Lab Coat at the computer. Another man. He stood at Lab Coat’s side, his face visible to her, but not one she recognized.