The Hunter by Gennita Low Read Free Book Online

reply, now that she had loaded the damn program into her network.
    Hi Ambrosia. Found your note. Found you.
    Oh, this was just too hard to resist. Good to know you checked yourself. You couldn’t have possibly missed my note, Mr. McMillan.
    I’ll have to return the favor sometime, Miss Hutchens.
    A shiver ran through her. She had a feeling Hawk McMillan hadn’t liked being the victim last night. You were careless. I was merely pointing out the dangers of being caught off guard. You want my help, you’d better be a lot more alert.
    Was I not alert enough for you last night?
    Amber rested her chin on her hand. Not only smart, but a smart-ass. Of course he knew she felt his…She shook her head. He was doing that on purpose, putting that image back in her head. Listen, hot stuff, I don’t have time to play.
    Pity.
    She admired his typing speed. You get the coordinates and maybe we’ll talk.
    Our first meeting won’t be about talking. It’ll be about making a point.
    Threats won’t make me cooperative. Remember you need my help, Mr. McMillan.
    You tried to compromise me today. That’s not help.
    It would have been nice if she had succeeded. That kind of information would be very valuable, especially if she had found out what Jed and his team wanted so badly from Dilaver. Or even to find out where Jed was…now, wouldn’t that be a coup?
    Jed McNeil would understand it’s my job to test you. It was a half-truth. She needed to know how good this new man was before she would jeopardize her operation again.
    My turn next. Signing out.
    Wait! What do you mean?
    Better not walk around naked at night, Miss Hutchens. Hot Stuff may bump into you. Signing out.
    The window closed automatically on its own. Amber cursed out loud. For the second time in half an hour, the man had left her hanging, more intrigued than ever. Hot Stuff indeed. He had used her own code word to refer back to himself. Hawk McMillan had a big head. And was one very smart operative. He had cleverly gotten her to talk to him without even wasting any time trying to find open port holes in her system. All he had needed was her cooperation—to go into his system to see what he was doing and to reply to his baiting. It was a long enough conversation for him to trace her if he wanted to, but he already knew who she was and her business phone, so what was he doing while he was distracting her?
    Damn it. She wished she had the evening off so she could play with this new program she had downloaded. But Brad was on the way and she had other business to attend to. She eyed the computer screen suspiciously, half expecting something else to happen, but the window didn’t reappear.
    She would have to tell Lily about this. It was clear she had underestimated this Hawk McMillan.
     
    Hawk snapped his laptop shut. That didn’t take long—Miss Amber Hutchens took the bait quickly enough. He had wondered whether she would, but evidently she was very confident about her computer firewalls.
    He gathered that she was somewhat of a gambler anyhow. Anyone who did what she had done last night, taking the risk of being caught by Dragan Dilaver’s men just to hang a message on him, had to have a wild side. Since he enjoyed living on the edge himself, he appreciated the woman’s daredevilry. However, he didn’t like knowing she had knocked him out with drugs, that it could have been something more serious.
    She had a point. His attention couldn’t slack. It could cost him his life.
    He was also intrigued by Amber Hutchens’s front. A café owner. Who would see her as some kind of tracker? And from what Dilaver had said, she sold information to get his protection. So whose side was she on?
    When she had answered the phone earlier, her voice had had the oddest effect on him. Smooth and soft, it slid against his skin like silk. So this was the voice belonging to the woman who’d touched him. He had hated not having an image for a target. Now he had a voice. And he wondered