"Shadow Game" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feehan Christine)

Three
LILY normally smiled absently at the guards as she walked through the space
between the metal detectors. She had gone through the routine so many times she
had long ago ceased thinking about it. Now everything was changed. The enormous
enclosure with its high electric fences and coils of barbed wire, the multitude
of guards and dogs, the rows of ugly concrete buildings with their underground
maze of roomsЧthis had been her second home most of her life. She had never
given the security measures much thoughtЧthey just seemed routine. Now she was
aware every moment that someone had murdered her father. Someone she probably
talked with every day.
Lily walked down the narrow corridor, lifted a hand in greeting, inwardly
flinching as the armed guards hurried toward her. She half expected them to grab
her and drag her off to the underground cages. She let out her breath as they
moved past her, hardly glancing her way. At the second elevator she punched in
her ten-digit code. The doors slid open and she stepped in.
The elevator glided silently to the lower floors hidden deep beneath the earth.
This was her world, the labs and computers, the white coats and endless
equations. The tight security, cameras and codes and keys. Her life. Her world,
the only one she had ever known. Where always before the rigid routines had
comforted her, now she was all too aware of being watched. The Donovans
laboratories had been built just south of San Francisco. The sprawling complex
was deceptively innocent-looking with so many buildings inside the high fence.
Most of the laboratories were actually located deep beneath the earth and
heavily guarded. Even when going from one department to the other, security was
always present.
In spite of her desire to remain calm, her heart was pounding alarmingly. She
was entering fully into a cat-and-mouse game with her father's killer. And she
was seeing Ryland Miller again. The idea was nearly as unsettling as returning
to the laboratories. There was no way to ignore the attraction between themЧit
was magnified by every thought, every movement.
She leaned over the retinal scan, fitting her eye to the lens at the heavy door
leading to her father's domain. As she moved into the lab, she snagged a white
coat from a peg on the wall, buttoning it over her clothes without missing a
stride. Someone called her name and she waved the obligatory hand, still moving
quickly.
"Dr. Whitney?" One of the techs halted her determined progress. Lily looked at
him, keeping her expression carefully blank. The waves of sympathy nearly
swamped her. "I'm so sorry, we"re so sorry about your father. We all hope he's
found very soon. Has there been any word at all on his disappearance?"
Lily shook her head. "Nothing at all. If someone took him for money, they
haven't asked for a ransom. The FBI thinks they would have already demanded
money. There's been nothing at all, just silence." She was reaching for every
emotion pouring out of the technician. The man couldn't possibly have been
involved in her father's murder. He was genuinely upset at the way his boss had
simply vanished. He had liked and respected Peter Whitney. Lily smiled at him.
"Thank you so much for your concern. I know everyone feels his loss."
Right now Lily couldn't think about her father and how much she would miss him.
She wouldn't think about being alone and frightened. She couldn't talk, she
didn't dare. Her emotions were raw, far too close to the surface. She had waited
all week, torn between impatience and a terrible dread, to be officially asked