Deadly Contact by Lara Lacombe Page A

building, letting out an impatient huff when he discovered they were locked. Kelly hadn’t said anything about needing a key to get in, but then again, he had told her he would swing by on Monday.
    He dug in his pants pocket, fishing out the key to Collins’s office. It was a long shot, but maybe...
    No luck. He cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed them to the tinted glass, squinting to see inside the building. There was a reception desk in the middle of the foyer, but the chair behind it was empty. Either the security guard was making his rounds or no one was on duty today. Considering it was a Saturday, the regular guard was probably off, which meant no one would be around to show him in.
    “So much for getting an early start,” he muttered, stepping back to consider his options. He didn’t see any other entrances to the building, but there had to be a side or back door. It was probably locked, though, so if he went off on a search for other entrances, he’d miss out on an opportunity to be let in if a student or professor arrived.
    He should really call Kelly. She’d be able to get him in and could probably escort him right to Collins’s office. Since he didn’t know the layout of the building, he was going to have to roam around the sixth floor until he found the right room. Kelly could save him a lot of time and trouble, but he didn’t want to contact her. It was probably just paranoia on his part, but the less she knew about the investigation, the better.
    He let his thoughts drift back to yesterday afternoon, replaying the montage that had been running on an endless loop in his mind since last night. Kelly had seemed genuinely shocked at the implication that Collins was involved with a terrorist organization, but he knew from experience how good her acting skills were. After all, hadn’t she seemed to be attracted to him, only to give him the cold shoulder the next morning? He wasn’t going to forget that little performance anytime soon.
    Still, the Kelly he’d once known—or thought he’d known—would never have gotten involved in something like this. At least not willingly. He knew from experience that people were capable of doing almost anything for money. Collins had signed up to pay for his wife’s chemo treatments. Did Kelly have some kind of debt hanging over her head?
    She appeared to live within her means, if her apartment was any indication. It was a small place, in an okay neighborhood—not a luxury suite or dump, but a decent apartment in a quiet, older building. She didn’t have a big-screen TV or any expensive computer or electronic equipment that he’d seen, but that could have been in another room. The place had been rather sparse, with the light coating of dust giving it a semi-neglected feel. He’d gotten the impression that she used the apartment mainly for sleeping and showering, which fit what he knew of her workaholic tendencies.
    He knew she didn’t have a car, either, so she certainly wasn’t blowing money on creature comforts. Did she have gambling debt? She didn’t seem the type to play the ponies, but anything was possible. He made a mental note to check on her financial records, but he suspected everything would be in order.
    That left family. Were her parents in trouble? Had she gotten in with the wrong crowd trying to help them out? He knew scientists in her position weren’t well paid, and short of winning the lottery, she didn’t have many options to increase her salary. She certainly had the know-how to engineer the bug, given her detailed explanations last night. Helping Collins in return for part of the money would be an easy way to make a quick buck, and since Collins wasn’t around to confirm her involvement, she was on the verge of getting away with it.
    The thought drew him up short. Since when had he decided she was part of this? The rational side of him realized his emotions were clouding his judgment, making him hypercritical of her motivations