Wire (Pierce Securities Book 2)

by Anne Conley

  As it dawned on his boss who he was talking about, Evan watched his face redden as it hardened into a marble mask of anger.

  “God Dammit, Evan!” Fist slamming on his desk, Simon was about to come unglued.

  Evan knew that was the number one rule: no sleeping with the clients. Simon had been adamant about it from the get-go and nearly fired Ryan for sleeping with his protectee some months ago.

  “Sir, she was a stranger when I slept with her. You took the job before I knew who she was, otherwise I would have declined as a conflict of interest. But it’s too late now.”

  “Like hell it is,” Simon snarled.

  Evan’s tone matched his boss, and he leaned forward in his seat. “With all due respect, sir, I like her, and someone’s out to get her. I need to finish this. I’m the only one who can.” Besides, he loved puzzles and this one was stumping him. He couldn’t give up until he’d solved it. At least that’s what he was telling himself, knowing it was an utter lie. Evan was okay with lying to himself, though, if it meant he could stay on the case.

  Simon’s face dropped into his hands with a muttered, “Fuck.” Looking back up, he said, “She knew you, Evan. She asked for you specifically. This whole thing was orchestrated.”

  Evan didn’t want to go there. “Not necessarily, sir. Maybe she knew I worked here and asked for me because I’m the only one who can figure this out. I’m probably one of the most qualified people in the country to solve this.”

  “Or maybe she knew you in the bar, too. Maybe she’s The Crimson Lady.”

  Evan’s brain kicked into overdrive. Had she? Back in his heyday, he’d had a few really strange people contacting him, pseudo-stalker types. But Paige hadn’t seemed like that in the bar. Nor at the haunted house, where he’d kissed the fuck out of her and she’d turned a complete one-eighty. Was this all an elaborate scheme?

  “I’m calling it off. We’re not that desperate for work, anymore.”

  Evan panicked. If it was legitimate, The Crimson Lady could escalate, and the idea of Paige in any physical danger was too appalling to think about. “No!” He forced a calm into his voice he knew Simon saw straight through. “Let me work it. I’ll be careful.”

  Simon sighed a heavy sigh of martyrdom. Evan didn’t have a clue what had happened in his past that made getting into bed with clients so distasteful for his boss but he would abide by it. And when the case was over, he and Paige would have a serious heart to heart.

  “Fine. Get the fuck out of here and find out about her boyfriends.” He added wryly, “Besides you.” Leaning back in his leather chair, he pierced Evan with a hard gaze. “And don’t fuck her again. I mean it.”

  After a long bike ride through her neighborhood, Paige was finally ready to face Evan. She’d spent all weekend working up her nerve to confront him about what had happened Friday. Paige had to make it clear there wasn’t anything between them. That night had been a fluke for her—she didn’t do one-night-stands. High on the adrenaline of the successful takeover, she had slipped on a mask for Evan and hadn’t taken it off until she left. She couldn’t admit to the irony of the fact that right after she’d said goodbye to the idea of Evan Rocco in her life, she’d needed him more than anybody.

  She girded herself to face him, possibly even a confrontation. She had to tell him they couldn’t be anything more. It was for her own sanity.

  So when he arrived in her office, she wasn’t expecting him to reject her right off the bat.

  “This has to stay professional. Friday night shouldn’t have happened, and I’m sorry for it.” He’d relaxed his attire in the office since his first day and looked positively yummy in jeans and a blazer over a t-shirt. Perfect Operations Manager attire for a man with the body of a personal trainer.

  He had followed her into her office when she arrived and shut the door behind him. She processed his words as her eyes crawled up his lean torso, barely hidden by his clothes. Or maybe that was because she’d seen that exact torso in all its glory countless times on her bathroom wall, and one panty disintegrating night, in person.

  She heard him, but all she could register was the rejection. “But…” she stopped herself before turning to justifying her own desire to see where it led. Wasn’t this what she wanted? It still stung. Staring at her desk, she noted the fierce organization, almost pathological neatness, while inside her mind, her thoughts swirled in chaos.

  Not finding the answers on her desk, she turned back to Evan. Looking at his eyes, she saw pain there, pleading, and she finally gave in. “Fine. Whatever you want,” she said dismissively, sitting behind her desk.

  Her heart broke a little. Paige had been shut down. Never mind that she’d been about to do the same thing. Now she had to have a legitimate conversation about The Crimson Lady, because that’s why he was here, that’s what she needed him for.

  Paige breathed in a deep, cleansing breath as Evan sat in a chair across her desk, rubbing his palms across his thighs after tossing a folder on her desk.

  His voice was hard as he spoke, and she flinched as if she’d been slapped. This certainly was a different side to him than she’d seen. “Those are my top three suspects out of a list of at least fifty. I don’t really like any of them for this guy, but that’s what I came up with while you avoided me all week.”

  Paige looked at the list, and the first name on it was a no-go. “It’s definitely not Patton.”

  “Why not?” A long, elegant finger raked across Evan’s lip, drawing her attention.

  “Because…” She valiantly gathered her thoughts from his lips. “It’s not his style. He’s more of a Twitter bully.”

  “So, causing the market shares of your company to plummet in a possible attempt at a hostile takeover isn’t something he would do?” The smirk on his lips was undeniable.

  She got his message. That’s what she’d done to Patton, and it was possible he could be out for revenge, but her gut told her it wasn’t Roger. He really was a kind-hearted guy who’d put his heart into his company before she’d bought it.

  “I just don’t think it’s him. He saves rescue animals, for crying out loud. I can’t see him attacking homeless people.”

  “He’s disappeared. That’s what people who have something to hide do.” Evan’s posture took a stiff edge, his hands stilled, gripping the arms of the chair.

  “If they’re hiding from the world and its judgement, they do,” she retorted. “I didn’t treat him well, and I’m not going to name him as a major suspect in this because of that.”

  Evan dragged in a deep breath and blew it out. She could see his frustration. “So, you ruined his company with stupid lawsuits, wrecked his market shares, bought him out, and because you feel guilty about it, he can’t have the biggest motive to do the same to you? That’s the stupidest logic I’ve ever heard.”

  She rankled at the notion her thoughts were stupid. “You don’t have to get my logic.” She looked back down at the list, tamping down her anger, but a scoff escaped her mouth at the next name. “Peggy? She’s not up to this.”

  Evan leaned back in his chair, his hands relaxing their grip. “Maybe not alone, but she could have help. She sticks out here like a sore thumb. She doesn’t fit in with the rest of your team.”

  “Just because she’s different shouldn’t make her a suspect,” Paige huffed.

  “She’s from Patton’s camp. She was his HR girl,” Evan spat out.

  “But he lured her from me. I matched his package and she willingly came back.” Aware she sounded whiny, Paige tried to correct that.

  His eyes widened. “What?”

  “She worked for PSL in the beginning. Roger recruited her over to his side. I think she felt guilty about that and came back after the takeover. I offered to match her pay scale and she did it without any questions.” Peggy had been around Paige a long time, since college, and she had fond feelings for her. Sure, she was different, but that made her unique. She wouldn’t let Evan poison that. Looking to the next name o
n the list, she let out a gasp of indignation. “Are you serious? Me? I’m a suspect?”

  Evan steepled his fingers under his chin, but for once her eyes weren’t drawn to the elegant hands and what they could do to her. She was pissed.

  “You knew me that night. You asked for me to work this case. You’ve obviously followed my history.” His voice exuded calm, and for some reason, his unflappability pissed her off.

  “So? What does that have to do with anything?” She could feel the heat rising to her face at the accusation. Her heart pounded at where the conversation was heading. She was about to have to come clean, and she wasn’t at all sure how he would take it.

  “Some people do things like this for the challenge. You could be doing it for attention. You could be testing me to see if I live up to your expectations. You could be mentally unstable. There’s really not a clear-cut motivation for you, but I have to consider it.” He sounded smug, and Paige felt defeat. He was right. She could be a suspect. What if law enforcement agencies felt the same? What if that got out to the media? PSL would be ruined.

  “You shouldn’t have avoided me. We could have had this conversation last week.” His voice was accusatory, menacing.

  “So I wouldn’t be a suspect if I hadn’t been too chicken to talk to you?” The words slipped out before she had a chance to think about them. She’d admitted her fear and hated it.

  “What does that mean? Too chicken? You picked me up in a bar, for Christ’s sake!” His eyebrows took on a life of their own, two sexy beasts mashing together over his deep mocha eyes.

  Totally flustered, she decided to just let herself ramble on. It was too late, anyway. “I was high on the adrenaline of a successful takeover and needed the release. That was supposed to be an anonymous encounter with a man I’d admired for a decade. Scratch something off my bucket list. I didn’t know The Crimson Lady would become this… this entity in my life only you could get rid of.” Helpless, she let her hands do most of the talking for her, gesticulating and waving around her.

  “So you weren’t ever going to contact me again? Give me a fake name and that was it? Disappear forever?” He was angry again, his temples pulsing with his teeth gritting. A sneer graced his face, turning it into a mask of something which made Paige hate herself.

  Sheepish, she mumbled. “Yeah. It was one night.”

  “Not for me.” He spoke quietly, his voice a low rumble shaking her to her core.

  Her eyes snapped back up to his in surprise. “What?”

  “I haven’t been able to get Sandra out of my head since April. I’ve been looking for you. I wanted more.” He didn’t specify more of what, and she didn’t ask, afraid he would say more sex. Even though that’s exactly what she’d wanted that night, a part of her wanted more of him.

  She didn’t miss his use of the past tense, and regret tinged with jubilation seeped into her skin. She’d messed up—made one of the biggest mistakes of her life. Evan Rocco was admitting that night had been special to him, too, and she’d fucked it up.

  “I had no idea.” Something inside her leapt, even as she tried to tamp it down. Damn the timing.

  “Well, now that I know better than to think you wanted more from me, I guess you got what you wanted, something to mark off your fucking list. I’ll just need one more thing from you and I’ll try to stay out of your hair so you can run your company.” His voice was still quiet, resigned even, as he rose from the chair.

  Afraid to ask, she did anyway, her gut sinking. “What?”

  Tossing a notepad on her desk, he muttered, “Write down every boyfriend and one-night stand you’ve ever had. There’s plenty of paper there. Friends, too. I need to know everything about your personal life. Everything.” He sneered at her, leaning over her desk.

  “You’re going to stand there and wait?” She knew he hated her now. If he didn’t before, she’d managed to push him away with her callous treatment of him. She regretted it but didn’t know how to go back and fix it.

  “Yup.” He popped the ‘p’ and a misplaced thrill of excitement pooled inside her.

  “Alrighty then.” She sighed, getting to work. The boyfriend thing was easy. With the exception of Dale, who was dead, she had two exes, both left under amicable circumstances. Making a notation of that, she continued, writing down everyone she kept in contact with, from her high school girlfriend to the lady next door. When she was finished, she slid the notepad back, then remembered Neil. Reaching for the paper, she wrote down his name and once again, passed it over to Evan.

  “That last name is a friend who’s been hanging around. I don’t really have any sort of definable relationship with him,” she muttered, utterly embarrassed to have her personal life ready for his examination.

  Evan studied the paper. “Neil Koen?”

  She sighed. “Yeah. I met him at Bar Night once, and he’s sort of like a puppy dog, keeps turning up.”

  “Have you fucked him?” The crass wording belied his quiet tone, but Paige didn’t mistake the intensity.

  She deserved his anger. And it made her want to cry to know she’d made him so mad, he was thinking she fucked anyone with legs. “Nope. Not even a kiss. Strictly platonic.”

  “When did you meet him?” Again with the quiet intensity, and Paige knew she’d lost any hope of a future with him. Not that it was possible, with her idiocy.

  She had to think about that. Staring at the ceiling, she stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. “About a month ago? Maybe?”

  Evan snapped the notepad shut. “Okay, I’ll get started running these names, then I’m going to try to extract The Crimson Lady. She’s in there pretty tight. I was poking around with her this weekend.”

  Grateful for the change in subject, she exhaled. “Yeah, I’ve tried to get her out, too. The AI program with her is pretty effective. She’s managed to learn from all extraction practices in the past and is protecting herself from them.”

  “You think this is strictly AI programming?” Evan’s eyebrows were raised.

  “Yup. Maybe you should look at your own past, huh?”

  She almost smiled at his stunned expression. He honestly hadn’t thought about that, she guessed. Once he recovered, his eyebrows slanted down in suspicion.

  Before he could leave, she stuttered out, “W-Wait. Um… I don’t- I mean, I haven’t slept with anyone since you. It was special to me, too.” She needed him to know this, even if nothing else from their conversation about that night stuck with him. Feeling stupid, she continued, unable to stop her mouth, “It was the best night of my life. I just wanted you to know that,” Paige muttered. She went back to staring at the floor because the glare he gave her was too much.

  He left without another word, shutting the door harder than necessary on his way out. That depressed Paige relentlessly, leaving a pit of darkness in her gut.

  The next morning, Evan sat at his desk, watching one laptop run code, trying to extricate The Crimson Lady. Pounding keys on another, he ran through Paige’s associates, trying not to think too hard on this morning’s news.

  Another kid had been caught beating up a homeless man on Congress Avenue, down the street from Paige’s condo. Caught in the act, the sixteen-year-old had admitted The Crimson Lady had told him to do it, and where. An avid Realm of Worlds player, he’d freely admitted to having multiple conversations with the woman, describing in detail what to do. The press didn’t specify where he had the conversations, though, whether they were in the game or another platform altogether.

  That meant there were five attacks left. And Evan was convinced Paige would be the last one.

  Evan found it incredibly hard to believe that an online game, with the audience it had, would be able to pinpoint one impressionable youth and twist his mind into attacking a defenseless man. Whoever was behind The Crimson Lady must actually communicate with these kids on the site Dan had found. Of course, the FBI would be confiscating the kid’s computer, so he wouldn’t be able to look there for a chat
history. Unless he did it remotely. He made a mental note to call in a favor with Kellog.

  He was worried about Paige. Since he’d started working here, he’d noticed a deterioration in her physical appearance. His first day at PSL, he’d noticed a difference in Paige and Sandra, but it had gotten worse in the two weeks he’d been here.

  She seemed exhausted, her skin waxy looking, and she wore dark, puffy circles under her eyes. Her hair, which before had been smoother than spun silk, was now dry and frizzy. He felt for her, seeing the physical evidence of how hard she was working to keep her company going. Now that The Crimson Lady had struck again, and last night’s breaking news, it was obvious she hadn’t slept a wink. She was probably in her own office working her ass of right this very minute.

  Despite his angry words yesterday, he was worried about her. Sure, he was pissed when he’d heard he was nothing more than something to cross off her fucking list of things to do before she died, but her parting shot had cut him deeply. That night meant something to her, and she hadn’t been with anyone since then, either. He didn’t know what to do with that now that she was a client.

  A client who needed him. With one more attack under The Crimson Lady’s belt, that brought Paige’s attack that much closer.

  Using his tablet, he pulled up The Crimson Lady site that Dan thought was involved, while at the same time, running background checks on Paige’s list of associates and the code on The Lady herself. He was in his element, multi-tasking to the nth degree, fingers flying on one keyboard after another, when Gene stuck his head in the door.

  “Hey, you up for Bar Night tonight?”

  Bar Night was where Paige said she’d met that one guy. Evan’s eye slid to his notes: Neil Koen. “Yeah, I think I’ll make it this time.” He hadn’t gone last week, because Paige had been avoiding him, and he hadn’t seen a real need to go. This week, though, he wouldn’t miss it for anything.

  Gene smiled in response and left him alone again. At least the PA was nice, which was more than he had to say about others. Peggy, whom he’d thought so fondly of when he first met her—because she reminded him of his aunt—was more snide than anything else, despite what Paige thought of her. Larry, the IT guy, obviously thought Evan was out for his job, and Scott, the lawyer, looked at him like he was gathering evidence for a lawsuit at all times. At least Terry seemed like an open book. Evan made himself a mental note to ply her and his PA with drinks to try to get a handle on things.