Skin Tight by Ava Gray Page B

Gillie realized that he had convinced himself it was a mercy killing, something sacred and well-done. Her fingers trembled against the mug holding the tea she hadn’t touched. She couldn’t stop thinking of him as Hades this morn, and if she drank in his presence, she’d be trapped here forever.
    Stupid. You’re trapped already.
    But she didn’t drink the tea.
    “Anyway, I must be getting home,” he said at last. “But you understand why I wanted to check on you.”
    She kept her tone casual. “To reassure yourself of the good you’re doing.”
    “That’s right, Gillie.” He brushed his fingers along her cheek in passing, and every fiber of her being tensed in revulsion. “If you could only see how well the people you’ve cured are doing. That’s an idea . . . Perhaps you’d like to see some candid videos of the way they’ve been able to resume their lives, thanks to your extraordinary gift.”
    Yes, of course she would want that. Why wouldn’t she? Show the girl who has nothing—no family, friends, or freedom—the people to whom she gave everything. Why wouldn’t she be delighted? Gillie curled her hand into a fist and tucked it beneath her thigh. Sometimes it was so hard, all the pretending.
    But it would be worthwhile. If she gave up hope, she gave up everything. So she clung to the only thing she had left: a pipe dream. To see the sky again before she died and feel the sunlight on her face. In her darkest moments, she imagined turning her face up to that glorious warmth and reveling in the feel of the wind on her skin.
    Bliss.
    Because she knew she was meant to—ever dutiful and agreeable—she said, “That would be lovely. Can you arrange it?”
    His awful smile shone again. “I can do anything I want here, anything at all.”
    And God help her, it was true.

CHAPTER 5
    The next week passed uneventfully enough.
    Mia hadn’t made up her mind whether she really meant to leave Strong alone as promised. Her anger had mostly faded. Maybe she was being too trusting again, but she believed him when he said he’d been sure no harm would come to her. That didn’t mean she liked him for it, but she understood the need to be ruthless in dedication to completing a goal. She hadn’t built her business on sweetness and gumdrops.
    As far as she could tell, he appeared to be doing a stellar impersonation of a human resources director. That didn’t mean he was harmless, of course. It wouldn’t surprise her if he meant to delay his plans until she completed her task and left the facility. He possessed that sort of unearthly patience.
    Fortunately, she had other matters to occupy her mind. She made a list of the ten most likely suspects and then went about investigating them. Two she checked off almost at once. They’d been caught together in the copy room in flagrante delicto, an indiscretion so ridiculous that she refused to believe either of them was smart enough to pull off embezzlement on the scale Micor had reported: nearly four million dollars in the past two years.
    The date stuck in her mind as she went over the data. Two years . . .
    Thomas Strong had only been employed at the facility for three months. And Mia knew very well where he’d been a year prior. So, without a doubt, he wasn’t the thief, nor in all likelihood did he have anything to do with the missing money. She felt absurdly glad he’d been proven honest in this, at least.
    However, if this case followed the precedent set by others she’d worked, the perpetrator had a set amount he wanted to reach and then he’d make a run for it. When an employee went missing without notice, that was all the evidence a company needed. At that point, resolution passed beyond Mia’s purview and went to bounty hunters. It could get ugly fast; she had no illusions about that. So she wasn’t just trying to catch a crooked employee; she was also trying to save a life.
    “The labs are reporting a network issue,” Greg said, interrupting her