His Innocent Lover (Slade Security Team 3)

Chapter 1

Trent stepped into the office and smiled at the young woman on the phone. She was young, cute, and earnest—just the type of girl he usually avoided.

Her short, brown hair had a no-nonsense style, and she’d dressed in baggy jeans and an even baggier dark-green T-shirt with a peace sign on the front. She was probably a vegan, who would talk a guy to death before she’d let him get as far as first base, and about the only upside he could see was that he was betting that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Slim as she was, she wouldn’t need one, and he thought he glimpsed a hint of nipple showing—the only bright point of his day.

She held up a finger, indicating that he should wait for a minute. He nodded and wandered around the open space. The address was good, up in La Jolla, but the place was bare bones—no carpet, one desk, one chair which the girl had, and it smelled like the curry house next door. The only décor were posters tacked onto white walls.

He paused in front of a glossy photo of a boat directly in the path of a much larger fishing vessel with the words ‘Stop the Killing!’ painted on the sides. Gutsy move, that one.

He ambled onto the next. Another picture showed a coal mine, but a cartoonist had added crossbones, poison symbols, and headstones in the clouds overhead. Beneath the mine, the earth had been characterized as well, with the words, ‘Stop Killing Me!’

“Lot of stopping, lot of killing,” Trent muttered.

The third picture caught his eye. He wandered over to it, and began to wonder if he was going to find out some useful information here after all. It was a picture of the oil wells in Kuwait on fire, the billowing black smoke rising to the heavens while the earth below became stained with the fallout and ash. Three men and two women stood in the foreground, big smiles on their faces. One of them held up a Guardians of the Earth poster.

“Can I help you?” The soft voice came from behind him. A nice voice. Too bad she was hooked up with the wrong people.

Trent turned and put on an easy grin. “Yeah! I was wondering what you folks are doing to save the oceans? I mean, dude, I surf the waters off of La Jolla every day, and the crap I see makes a guy want to put on way more than a wet suit.”

He thought he did a credible job of sounding like a surfer with nothing else on his mind but where to find the next big wave—so long as it was a clean wave.

The receptionist still narrowed her eyes as if she were seeing more than a guy with a tan and a smile for her. “I don’t have anyone in today who can speak with you, but could I set up an appointment for next week?”

“What? That’s like, nine days away? Come on, you’ve gotta have someone here who’s fighting the good fight.”

“Sorry. They’re all off trying to save the earth.” She sounded chipper, cheerful—way too upbeat.

“Like in those gnarly photos?” Trent jerked a thumb at the wall behind him. He’d thickened his surfer dude accent.

One eyebrow lifted. She sat up straighter. Trent pegged her now—the class know-it-all, the girl who had all of the answers, and who loved being the teacher’s pet. She probably believed in the cause, ate apple pie, and was a straight-A type with the energy and drive to save the world.

“I believe they’re in the Middle East right now, fighting the big oil countries that are slowly destroying the ozone and polluting our breathing air.”

Trent nodded and blinked. “Middle East, huh? Sounds hot and dry.”

She straightened the notepad on her desk into a sharp ninety degree angle. “There’s a small country over there that seems to be another Eden. From the pictures they’ve sent back, the place is covered in plant life and looks more like a tropical paradise than a desert. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the oil wells they’re targeting are in the desert, but the capital city is lush.” She tapped on her tablet and pulled up an image. “That’s the Sheikh’s home. Nice, huh?”

Trent came over so he could lean over her shoulder and look at the photo. He got a whiff of perfume—no, had to be soap. This wasn’t a perfume kind of girl. Patchouli scent, he figured.

He also got a good look at her tablet—it wouldn’t be hard to hack into. “Wow! The guy must be really rolling in the dough. Man, I didn’t realize it was getting so late. If I don’t head back, I’m going to miss the killer set that’s supposed to hit with the tide. Full moon, dude.”

The receptionist managed a smile. Something a little wistful came into her eyes. “I’ve always wanted to try surfing. I’m from Wyoming.”

Figures, Trent thought. Straight off the bus from fly-over country. “Bummer. Glad you made it out. You should check out the beach, for sure. You think everyone will be back next week if I stop in? I mean, I don’t want to wait too long to start doing something about stopping the planet killing.”

And stopping a few other things, Trent thought. After spending time around the Jawharan family, he wanted to put an end to the threats made against them.

Her smile widened slightly. She had a dimple on her left cheek. “They’ll all be back on Thursday.”

“Awesome! Thanks for the four-one-one.” Trent turned to leave. The receptionist caught his wrist and stuffed a business card into his hand. “Here’s my number. Call me sometime. I really would like to learn to surf.”

Surfer dude scores again, he thought. For once, he felt bad about it. She was just a good soldier—she believed in the cause. She didn’t know she was working for an organization with an agenda that was