Careless Read online

  Careless

  By Kelly Goode

  Invasive Species Series - Book #3

  Copyright © 2019 by Kelly Goode

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Covered Creatively

  www.coveredcreatively.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Kelly Goode

  Visit my website at www.KellyGoode.co.uk

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  1

  An invasive species is a plant, fungus, or animal that is not native to a specific location (an introduced species), and that has a tendency to spread to a degree believed to cause damage to the environment, human economy, or to human health.

  Lydia looked at her so-called assistant, as he waded through the red slime covering the warehouse floor. His once-white protective suit was covered in stains and she sighed at the amount of evidence he’d contaminated.

  Lydia loved her job. She thrived on collecting and processing evidence left behind when an agent from the Invasive Species Control Unit eliminated an alien and had recently received a temporary promotion while her superior was on leave, but just when she felt as if her career was taking off, she’d been lumbered with Adam.

  Adam Freeman was young; too young to be taken seriously, as he looked more like a lifeguard than a serious crime scene analyst. Tanned and muscular with blue eyes and dark hair, she’d given him a little slack in the hope he would hang himself. It seemed to be working, as he’d clashed with quite a few of the other male agents within the unit already, especially Matt Sheridan who was glaring across the room.

  ‘Shame that brainless hulk over there obliterated this alien before we got here,’ Adam said. ‘I was hoping to see my first live specimen.’

  ‘We collect trace evidence,’ Lydia replied, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. ‘In order to do that, the alien needs to be dead.’

  ‘Have you ever seen one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you scared?’

  Lydia shook her head, not wanting to admit that even though the grotesque desquamater had been sedated and unable to harm her, extracting its DNA had still been one of the most terrifying moments of her life. Their scaly alien bodies were made up of segregated plates that moved independently and reminded her of a humanoid-centipede with sharp teeth and claws.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said, and resumed her examination.

  Adam seemed to take the hint and between them they sifted through the goo in silence. Each handful yielded a small treasure. A tooth, a button, or a hair could provide valuable clues to which unlucky human had been the desquamater’s host.

  ‘I heard that the aliens burst out of their skin like something from a horror movie,’ Adam suddenly said, breaking her concentration. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Pass me another evidence bag,’ she said, holding out her hand. She didn’t like to think about how the desquamaters peeled their victim’s skin from their flesh in order to wear it as a disguise to protect them from the sun’s harmful rays.

  Adam pulled a strip of plastic from his kit and handed it to her. ‘I bet even with all the training you get, it doesn’t quite prepare you for the real thing.’

  ‘You get used to it.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Lydia nodded, unsure of the exact moment when she’d become numb to the ugly nature of her job. After so many years, so many assignments, they all blended into one simple routine of detection, collection, and processing, but every so often, a case would hit her hard, like the recent ones involving the little girls that had been stolen from their beds.

  ‘I wish he’d quit staring at me.’

  Lydia snapped back to the present and followed Adam’s gaze to the opposite corner of the warehouse where Sheridan stood with his arms folded across his chest. Although Adam appeared to be able to take care of himself, her money would be on the brooding agent in a fight. He’d recently lost his grandfather and was a ticking time-bomb of rage. Maybe if Adam lit the fuse, she’d be able to go back to working alone again.

  ‘What did you do to piss him off this time?’ she asked.

  ‘Why does it have to be my fault? He started it.’

  ‘This isn’t the school playground. It doesn’t matter who started it. You don’t want someone like Sheridan as an enemy.’

  ‘I’m not scared of him.’

  Lydia shook her head. ‘You should be. He can crack a desquamater’s skull with his bare hands.’

  ‘He’s a bully. You should’ve heard the things he said to Carson.’

  ‘Stay away from Carson,’ she warned. ‘She eats men like you for breakfast.’

  Adam shook his head. ‘Everyone keeps telling me to stay away from her, but at least I’d die a happy man.’

  ‘You’ll die a foolish man. Now enough pointless chat, let’s get on with the job we’re paid to do.’

  ‘Jealous?’

  Lydia did not grace him with a reply. She wasn’t jealous. Not in the way he assumed at least. She was the wrong side of thirty for someone like Adam to look twice at. She thought the fact she spent most of her days covered head to toe in white plastic was a good thing. It made her feel like an equal in the male-dominated department.

  Carson, however, didn’t care what the team thought of her. She was a renegade agent; aggressive, yet aloof. No one at ISCU knew much about her personal life and even less about how she was recruited to the secret government unit, only that she killed a hell of a lot of aliens, which was why other agents felt the need to trash her reputation. In another lifetime, she might admire Carson’s resilience, but in this one, she despised her fortuity.

  ‘Find anything else in that section?’ Lydia asked.

  Adam held up the evidence bag he was in the process of sealing.

  ‘Few bits of metal,’ he replied. ‘Probably nothing important.’

  ‘Remember everything is important. It looks like fragments from a belt buckle to me. We might find some skin cells to examine.’

  Adam marked the bag and added it to their collection.

  ‘So tell me again why the agents that kill the damn aliens don’t help us sieve through this gunk. More hands make light work, so they say.’

  Lydia found herself once again drawn to Matt Sheridan’s dark expression as he watched them work.

  ‘
The clue is in the title,’ she replied. ‘They call us The Cleaners, which means we clean up their shit.’

  2

  Jonah sat back in his chair and watched his former best friend stride out of his office. The need to call Blake back and demand to see the other data he’d acquired burned like a fire inside his gut. The two had gone their separate ways after crashing to Earth and the damage to their friendship was irrevocable. Jonah wasn’t that same disillusioned soldier that had once stood beside his General on the battlefields of Jakttera. He’d forged a new life on Earth, a good life, and a reunion wasn’t on the cards for either of them in the foreseeable future.

  Jonah slotted the USB drive that he’d blackmailed Blake into delivering, into the port of his computer. He called up the files and scrolled through the data, searching for one name in particular, but even though the aliens listed were ones that even the most hardened Invasive Species Control Unit agents needed to avoid, Tarik’s information was not on there.

  ‘Damn it,’ he said, as he slammed his palms against the desk. He’d convinced himself that Tarik would be under surveillance, but the ISCU were as clueless about his whereabouts as Jonah was. His frustration only ebbed once he remembered the money he was going to make by selling the names of the other aliens to his interested third party.

  Jonah took out his mobile phone and called his client, careful to ensure his voice distortion software was enabled.

  ‘I’d almost given up hope,’ was the greeting he received when the call connected. ‘You took your time.’

  ‘Have I ever let you down before?’ Jonah replied smoothly. ‘This information just proved a little trickier to source than your usual requests.’

  ‘And more costly.’

  ‘You get what you pay for. Transfer the funds to the usual account.’

  The caller inhaled and exhaled audibly. ‘We settled on fifty thousand, right?’

  Jonah didn’t bother replying. The price was double that and they both knew it.

  ‘Or maybe it was seventy-five thousand, I can’t remember.’

  ‘I have other buyers lined up for this information,’ Jonah lied. ‘I want one hundred thousand in my account in five minutes or the package is being redirected to someone whose memory is better than yours.’

  Another inhale and exhale before his client spoke again.

  ‘Alright, alright, I remember now. I’m authorising the payment as we speak.’

  Jonah refreshed the banking app on his phone and the available funds increased like magic.

  ‘Thank you. The delivery will be made tonight to the usual place.’

  He was about to disconnect when he heard his client speak again.

  ‘Wait, hold up, I heard about this guy that needs information urgently. Want me to send him your way?’

  ‘Has he got money?’

  ‘He works for the Ministry of Defence. I told him there wasn’t anything you couldn’t find out about someone for a price. Interested?’

  ‘Maybe. Have him contact me in the usual way.’

  ‘I want a ten percent introduction fee.’

  ‘You’ll get five percent reduction on our next deal.’

  ‘How come you get to negotiate on price and I don’t?’

  ‘Because I’m the whale and you’re the small fry.’

  Jonah ended the call and pressed the button on the intercom for his secretary.

  ‘Can you come in here please, Janet?’

  ‘Of course.’

  A few seconds later, Janet stepped into his office. He enjoyed human women on a physical level and she was a particularly attractive specimen with long blonde hair, plump lips and huge breasts. They fooled around sometimes, but he didn’t have any real feelings for her. Jaktten were supposed to be immune to love. That’s what made Blake such an easy target for blackmail. He’d succumbed to the human emotion and was now terrified that the woman he loved would find out his true identity.

  ‘You wanted to see me, Mr Parish?’

  It was clear from the dilation of Janet’s pupils and the scent of her arousal that she was hoping he’d called her in for one of their games that usually ended with her spread-eagle over his desk, but for once, he had more important things on his mind than sex.

  ‘Cancel the rest of today’s interviews,’ he said. ‘Something important has come up.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ she replied, her eyebrows arching high on her forehead. ‘Some of those men have been waiting hours.’

  ‘I don’t care. If they want the job, they’ll come back next week,’ he growled. ‘Do your fucking job and reschedule them.’

  Janet looked as if she was going to argue again, but something on his face must’ve told her it was unwise, as she nodded instead.

  ‘Of course, Mr Parish. Will that be all?’

  ‘Yes, I’m heading home.’

  ‘Would you like me to accompany you?’

  ‘No,’ he replied sharper than he should have, as her shoulders drooped and her lips downturned before she recovered and straightened her spine again.

  ‘That’s good, because I have plans tonight with my boyfriend and I wasn’t about to cancel them like the last time you begged me to.’

  Jonah chuckled. He’d hardly had to beg Janet to swap her boyfriend’s bed for his. She was always an eager and willing participant.

  ‘Send him my regards,’ he replied sweetly. ‘He’s a lucky man.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ she practically spat at him as she stormed out of the office. ‘One of these days, I am going to quit this fucking job.’

  Jonah didn’t take her threat seriously nor did he follow her to make peace. She would calm down when she discovered the ten thousand pounds bonus he’d allocated to her from his recent deal. Good assistants were hard to find and he decided it would be better to keep things strictly professional between them in future.

  Jonah copied the data from the USB drive and then put it in a brown padded envelope and sealed it. He would arrange delivery on his way to the Invasive Species Control Unit, because no matter what Blake said, he needed to see that additional information.

  3

  Lydia shifted restlessly in her chair, as data scrolled across her computer screen. The codes moved so fast they blurred before her eyes, but she knew the sequencer would pick out any anomalies in the pattern and print out a report soon enough. The office she was forced into sharing with Adam was hot and stuffy, and not really made for two people. She couldn’t use the main laboratory, as it was still out of action from when someone or something had broken into HQ and trashed the place. She hoped by the end of the week, the replacement equipment would arrive and she could get back to normal. She didn’t handle change very well, but then reminded herself that she’d only lost machinery.

  Sheridan had lost his grandfather.

  Lydia glanced over at Adam, who was reclining in his chair with his eyes closed. She purposely swung her arm so it banged against his armrest.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled insincerely, as he sat upright and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘Staring at those numbers made me go crossed-eyed, but even with my eyes closed, I could pick out an incorrect code.’

  Lydia stared at him with the same disapproval that she usually reserved for her own teenage son. ‘Are you seriously telling me you can see through your closed eyelids?’

  Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘I wasn’t being literal, Lydia. It’s called humour.’

  ‘It wasn’t funny.’

  ‘I doubt you find many things funny, but trust me, anything even slightly odd with the DNA will stand out as if it’s typed in red font. It’s my skill. It’s why I was recruited. I spot the bad hiding amongst the good. If you actually gave me a chance, you’d realise I’m an asset to this team.’

  ‘Some people are good at hiding what they really are,’ she murmured.

  ‘Like the warm and welcoming personality you’re hiding beneath your ice queen ac
t?’

  Lydia’s cheeks heated. She already knew people at ISCU called her an ice queen, and it didn’t usually bother her, but hearing Adam say it to her face was different.

  ‘I suggest you get back to what you think you’re so good at,’ she said dryly. ‘You still have a lot to learn about the way things work around here.’

  Adam leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head.

  ‘I know the way things work, Lydia. I process the data and you take the credit. Or you throw me under the bus and make me look stupid in front of Chief Melman when he asks a question that I’m not prepared to answer.’

  ‘You should always be prepared, and you don’t need any help making yourself look stupid in front of the chief. I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed how you drool over Carson whenever you see her.’

  ‘I admire her. I told you that,’ Adam snapped.

  ‘She’s death. Everything she touches, she destroys. She’ll crush you too, but you’re too blind to see it.’

  ‘Not everyone thinks like you, Lydia. If you weren’t so damn spiky, you could make friends with the agents. We all work for the same team.’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t want to be their friend. They laugh at us. They call us cleaners. Where’s the respect in that? We’re just the geeks and freaks who translate the science, so they can go and kill something.’

  ‘Where does this mistrust come from?’

  ‘It’s how you survive in this place. You’ll learn soon enough. The Chief thinks we can integrate, but it will never happen. Do you really think Blake will suggest meeting for a pint in the pub after work? Can you envisage a time when Sheridan stops by the lab to chat about football?’

  ‘When hell freezes over,’ Adam replied begrudgingly. ‘Blake doesn’t like me, but I don’t care about that because the feeling is mutual. As for Sheridan, I already told you what I think of him.’

  ‘And that’s my point. It’s always going to be us and them. You just have to accept that.’

  Adam looked as if he was going to disagree, but then his eyes narrowed as he noticed something on the monitor. He sat forward and clicked a button on his keyboard. The data froze in an intricate pattern.