Operation: Midnight Guardian by Linda Castillo

gaze to his. “I trusted him and opened up to him. We brainstormed ideas. I told Daniel things I hadn’t told anyone else. I shared my theories with him. I revealed my concerns that the weapons system was too powerful for the specifications DOD had laid out for us. Some of the topics we discussed were used to frame me. Tell me that does not reek of a setup.”
    “Topics like what?”
    Even after what had been done to her by a government she had once trusted, Mattie had a difficult time talking about such top-secret matters. “This is top-secret information, Cutter.”
    He arched a brow. “I’ve got a high level security clearance.”
    “So did Daniel.”
    “Yeah, well, I’m not Daniel.”
    She flushed. “Okay. For example, when I’m first beginning a project, I do a lot of sketching. I had sketched some of my plans for EDNA. Diagrams. Rough stuff. Not to scale. I always figured the sketches wouldn’t mean anything to anyone except me.” Just remembering hurt, made her feel like a fool. Made her feel the stab of betrayal all over again. “Well, the sketches went missing.”
    “Someone broke into your office?”
    “Nothing was broken into. Evidently, someone had the key and wanted me to think I had misplaced them.” She shook her head. “I don’t misplace stuff like that.”
    “What happened?”
    “Three months later those sketches were found in the hotel room of one of the terrorists.” A breath shuddered out of her. “I would never do anything so stupid.”
    “Smart people do stupid things sometimes when it comes to money.”
    “I didn’t need money.”
    “So you say.”
    “Cutter, I made a good living. I was happy and satisfied with my work.”
    “So how did eight hundred thousand dollars find its way into your checking account?”
    She stomped the quick rise of anger. “I see you did your homework.”
    “I always do, Mattie. I read your file.”
    “Then you know that throughout my trial, I maintained my innocence. I have no idea how the money got into my account.”
    “What else are you going to say?”
    “Look, if I was going to accept money for selling secrets, you can bet I’d set up a Swiss account or an account in the Cayman Islands at the very least. I wouldn’t deposit it into my personal account.”
    Cutter stared hard at her, studying her reactions, her body language, her ability to maintain eye contact with him. Everything about her said that she was telling the truth. As unlikely as it seemed, was it possible she’d been framed? Or was the keen attraction he felt for her skewing his judgment?
    The last time his hormones had gotten involved when he was on assignment, someone had ended up dead. He’d nearly ended up dead himself. And to this day he couldn’t look at the scars on his body and not shiver with horror.
    “The feds are not stupid, Mattie,” he said.
    “No, but it was an election year and in a post 9/11 world, they were under intense pressure to find the culprit and bring them to justice.” She blew out a pent-up breath. “They didn’t look any harder than they had to, Cutter. It was all right there. Neatly planted. Motive. Means. Opportunity. Like a puzzle a five-year-old child could solve. All they had to do was put the pieces together.”
    He wasn’t sure which was worse, believing that this lovely, angel-faced woman was guilty of treason. Or entertaining the possibility that she’d endured a trial and spent four months in prison for a crime she hadn’t committed.
    “I don’t care if you believe me or not,” she said.
    The hurt and hopelessness in her eyes told him otherwise. “Look, when we get back,” he heard himself say, “I’ll make some inquiries.”
    “You’ll look into it?”
    “I’m not making any promises, but I’ll takeanother look at your file. At the transcripts. I’ll make a few calls. See if I can come up with anything.”
    “I don’t know what to say.” Choking back a sound that was part laugh, part sob, she blinked back