Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic Read Online Free

than gypsy. He’d heard the employees whisper behind their backs as they walked in.
    Dorothea Franklin looked capable of eating small children alive—a Chinese predator . After the Librarian’s warning, he was looking for suspects everywhere. But how could this weird female possibly be connected to the helicopter’s disappearance? He was out of his friggin’ mind to have sought her out. But once he’d realized they had more than one connection, he hadn’t been able to resist.
    He could have investigated Dorothea Franklin without ever introducing himself, but he’d needed to meet her. Unlike his brother Oz, Conan lacked imagination. He couldn’t envision how this Chinese piece of porcelain could be the danger to his family.
    Except his nose for trouble was twitching, and he knew the Dragon Lady hid secrets. He was pretty damned certain those had been bones sliding into the ocean, and she hadn’t blinked an eyelash. He didn’t generally buy into stereotypes, but she was doing a damned good impression of inscrutability.
    Although he was interested, Conan tried not to get caught figuring out what she hid under her boxy jacket. Checking out what went on under her hood should only involve her computers and would vastly complicate his life otherwise.
    She stopped when a blond, plump cheerful female waved a stack of files, actually making the dragon smile. Okay, maybe she wasn’t a dragon. Dragons required heat. Dorothea Franklin was as cold as Mount Whitney in winter.
    “You asked for these reports,” the cheerful blonde said. “And Jacko called to say he had a flat and could he take a rain check. A rain check. Honestly, Dorrie, you gotta get a man with a life.” She cast Conan a look of interest, but he wasn’t interested.
    He preferred his women stacked, gorgeous, and indifferent to commitment. He’d bored the last one into leaving. All work and no play, she’d said, but his work was his play.
    “I have no life, so John and I are well matched,” Miss Frosty retorted. “I’ll take a look at these this evening.”
    His interest perked up at her indifference to her date. Damn, the woman wouldn’t stay categorized. Now she was about to add the stack of files to the dog she was already hauling around, as if accustomed to carrying everything herself.
    Conan relieved her of the folders.
    She glanced at him with surprise, as if she’d forgotten he was there. Ouch . She frosted up immediately and returned to marching down the corridor to her corner office. Her phone was ringing as they walked in.
    “Yes, I understand, I’ll look up the file myself,” she told the caller while Conan wandered the room, examining photos of her father with Hollywood stars, Los Angeles politicians, and local sports heroes. If she’d taken over for her father, she’d not changed his bland walls.
    He watched over her shoulder as she typed in her password and opened her desktop. Shit, she hadn’t even changed her father’s password. He’d looked it up in case he had an opportunity to log in. Security conscious the lady was not.
    She sent whatever file had been requested, then opened another folder.
    “Here are the files I’ve compiled on the crash.” She rolled her desk chair back so he could peruse the screen. “News stories, replies to my inquiries, nothing substantial. No one who worked with Bo wants to tell me anything. Do you have anything more concrete about your brother?”
    Not bothering to find a chair, Conan took over the keyboard before she gave permission. He’d set up the firm’s security. He knew how the system worked. He plugged in his thumb drive and began backing up her file on her brother, while adding his remote access.
    “You could be downloading all the company’s documents right now,” she cried in outrage, watching over his shoulder—or around his arm, since her Medusa hair barely reached his chin and she couldn’t see over him. “I just wanted your opinion, not an invasion of privacy!”
    “I