Full Moon Rising (Riley Jenson Guardian 1)

"Enough, you two," came Rhoan's comment from behind Quinn. "Some of us have to stomach food."

I came up for air and accepted the plate my brother shoved at me. "What's this?"

Rhoan gave me a flat look. "What does it look like?"

"I don't know. I think it resembles steak and fries, but it can't be. I mean, it's not black."

He picked a bean off my plate and flicked it at me. His steak, I noted, was very, very rare. "When we get home, you're on cooking duty."

I caught the bean midair and shoved it in my mouth. "That means you do the laundry, bro." Which was a good threat, because Rhoan hated washing as much as I hated cooking. We both hated ironing, which was why our living room was overflowing with clean, unironed clothes. "Maybe you should take some cooking lessons from your lover."

"I can think of better things to do with my lover."

"So can I," Quinn whispered into my ear

I blew a breath across my forehead, but it did little to ease the fever assailing my skin. Why did I have to meet this man right in the middle of a disaster?

"When you're ready, people," Jack said from the table

I glanced past my brother and saw Jack had laid the maps we'd found out on the table. At one end was his computer unit, currently lit up with diagrams. I followed Rhoan over and sat down. Quinn sat next to me, his knee brushing mine and sending little tremors of electricity up my leg

"I scanned in the diagrams you found and did a cross-check of all known military installations," Jack said. "We found three possibles - all of them sold off fifty years ago by the government."

"Any idea who owns them or what they're now used for?" Quinn said, his gaze on the computer screen

"One was bought by a residential development company and now has several thousand homes on it. Another is currently owned by Hoyle-Brantin, who make household products. The last one is owned by a company called Nashoba, which lists itself as being a cosmetics research and marketing organization."

I raised an eyebrow. "Nashoba is not a brand of makeup I've ever heard of."

"Nor I," Liander said, and flashed me a bright smile. "And I probably use more makeup in a day than you use in a year."

"When you're naturally beautiful like me, you don't need makeup," I said, and ducked the fries thrown at me

"Considering Nashoba itself doesn't seem to exist," Jack commented, "I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it."

"It's a front for another company?" Quinn asked

Jack nodded. "The paper trail is a mile long. The computer system is working on it as we speak."

"We seem to be hitting more than our fair share of paper trails lately," Rhoan said

"And while the computer system searches, what are we going to do?" Quinn said

"Undertake our own search of both premises."

"How well guarded are they?" I shoved some steak in my mouth and groaned when it all but melted in my mouth. Damn, I'd forgotten how good a properly cooked steak was. I gave a thumbs-up to Liander

"Nashoba is extremely well guarded. Rhoan and I will be tackling that. Hoyle-Brantin has foot patrols and wire fences. Nothing you can't get around."

I nodded. "You got floor plans?"

He pushed over some paperwork. "It's pretty similar to what you saw in the plans you retrieved from Brown's office though there's a new wing added to the main building."

I took a quick look at them, then kept eating

"What about the White Phantom Project - did you discover anything about that?" Quinn asked

Jack shook his head. "There's nothing on the records, and Alex can't recall the project. White Phantom might have been a code name for something else. I've scanned the contents through to her so she can cross-check."