“Is it my fault they were so thorough?”
“It’s going to be your fault if I stomp this heel into your toes.”
He nodded. “Point made.”
Lil tried to pull away. “Excuse me, I have to go speak to her for a moment . . .”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, you can’t because . . .” She stopped herself. No more lies. “Jake, do you trust me?”
His expression was unreadable. Then he said, “Yes.”
“Believe me when I tell you I have to talk to Alethea alone and I can’t tell you why. I want to tell you, but it doesn’t involve just me.” She took his hand in hers, trying to convey the importance without giving anything away.
“That sounds pretty ominous.”
“It might end up being something good, but I can’t say more than that right now. Can you do that for me? Can you give me a little time to figure this out?”
He looked like that was the last thing he wanted to do, but he said, “Trust goes both ways, Lil.”
“I know,” Lil said huskily. I hope I don’t lose yours over this.
“I’ll go get us a drink,” he said and withdrew his arm from around her.
No, she wanted to cry, but she let him walk away. Somehow, she was going to make this right.
She flew to Alethea’s side and grabbed her arm. “What the hell are you doing here?” Lil hissed at her friend.
“You’re not going to congratulate me for successfully gaining entry to one of the most heavily guarded events in recent history? I even snuck Jeremy in. He’s at the appetizer table.”
Lil looked over and saw a man eating everyone’s share of the shrimp. Oh, my God. “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to do this.”
Alethea flipped her thick crimson hair over one bare shoulder. In a simple, black, floor-length Tom Ford gown, Alethea blended well with the crowd, looking more like a movie star that night than a security consultant. Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “You should have told me the Waltons were coming. They are like the holy grail of computer programmers. No one was even sure they were still alive until word came that they were coming to this event. I couldn’t miss it. Hell, Jeremy shaved and left his basement to meet them. They are that big.”
“You’re not worried about exposing everything by bringing him here?”
“No, because Jeremy has assured me that no one will ever know what we did unless we say something about it.” Alethea gave her friend a meaningful look. “And we’re not going to, are we, Lil?”
Lil’s composure cracked. Her feelings gushed out. “I have to tell them, Al. Jake and Dominic are in real jeopardy of losing their company if they don’t fix their server issue and Jeremy might be the only one who knows something that could help them.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Alethea sighed. “You’ve never been a good liar.”
Lil brought a grateful and shaky hand to her mouth as she realized her friend’s true motive for being there that night. “You brought Jeremy in case I need him.”
Alethea nodded and said, “I also know of at least three ways out of here if this goes south.”
Lil looked across at the man who was stashing crab cakes in the pockets of his checkered dinner jacket. “And Jeremy is onboard with this? He’ll help us?”
Alethea grimaced and said, “He really does want to meet the Waltons, but I may have also promised to run away with him to Mexico if Dominic decides to press charges and we have to escape and create new identities for ourselves.”
Lil bit her lip to stop from finding amusement in a situation that was really too scary to warrant it. “He likes you that much, huh?”
Alethea shuddered. “Yeah, make sure it doesn’t come to that. He’s not my type.” She looked around the room and nodded in the direction of a well-built, intense-looking man who was dressed in a tuxedo but was far too alert to be one of the guests. “Now that man could frisk me, any day.”
As always, Alethea’s choice was one of the most dangerous men in the room. “That’s Dominic’s head of security. He does not have a sense of humor.” She tried to regain her friend’s attention by elbowing her discreetly. “Stop making eyes at him. If he finds out you snuck in here we’re both dead.”
“Don’t worry about Mr. Sour Grapes; I can handle him.” Alethea winked at the man across the room and smiled when the act brought a rush of angry color to his face. “Oh, yeah. I might actually have some fun.”
“No, Al, no fun,” Lil pleaded. “Promise me you’ll play it cool tonight. We’ll be lucky enough if we don’t land ourselves in jail when this is all over.”
Alethea sighed dramatically. “Fine, killjoy. The sacrifices we make for friendship . . .”
Asking her to stay out of trouble was like asking your dog to stay off the couch. Sure both might look innocent enough while you were right there with them, but you had a pretty good idea about how things would go down as soon as you left.
“It would serve you right to spend the rest of your life as Mrs. Jeremy Kater or whatever new name you two lovebirds came up with.”
“Nice, Lil. I’ll remember that when the police cars pull up.”
Lil sobered for a moment as the real possibility of that thing happening settled on her and she realized the enormity of what her friend was willing to risk for her. “They won’t when Jeremy tells Jake what he found. Thank you, Al.”
Alethea shrugged off Lil’s gratitude, but Lil knew it had touched her friend to hear it. “Go—” Alethea said. “Go get Jeremy and save your man. I’ll be here if you need me.”
With one last grateful hug, Lil left her friend’s side to do just that.
Chapter Fourteen
Taking advantage of Lil’s momentary absence, Jake shouldered up to Dominic. “So where is this couple you think has the answer to all of our problems?”
Dominic hesitated, a sure sign that he was up to something he didn’t think Jake would approve of. “Victor is entertaining them in the study. They aren’t too keen on being seen in public.”
“But they were willing to come to an event like this?”
Dominic shrugged. “You were enough of a lure.”
“Who the hell . . .” As soon as the idea came to him, he tensed with growing anger. “Tell me you didn’t bring my parents here.”
“Are your parents named James and Judith Walton?”
“Dominic!” Jake rubbed a hand over his eyes. “You just wasted another week of our time on a dead end. They haven’t worked in the computer field for almost ten years.”
“They seemed to understand what our issue is.”
“That’s because they are geniuses, but a decade of farming in Maine is not good preparation for something like this.”
“It’s amazing to think that they went from two of the most renowned physicists who to practically invented quantum encryption—to absolute obscurity. Didn’t they accuse the government of stealing their software designs for the military?”
“Yes, they did. They claimed that some of their experiments with laser beams were stolen and used to advance the guided missile program. They are also convinced that Ivan Getting stole their initial Global Positioning notes and sold them to the military.”
“You don’t believe them?”
Jake shot a glare at Dominic. “I stopped caring what the truth was a long time ago. My parents have paid a high price for the gift of intelligence. They built a shared reality based on paranoia and an over-inflated sense of self-importance. I’m surprised you got them to leave their compound at all.”
Dominic shrugged. “They said they missed you. How long has it been since you’ve seen them?”
“Are you honestly going to lecture me about family relationships?” He shook his head at the irony overload. “I don’t have a vendetta against my parents; I simply don’t have a close relationship with them. In fact, I find that the less time I spend with them, the happier we all are.”
“They didn’t seem that bad to me.”
> “You didn’t grow up with them,” Jake growled.
Dominic smiled. “Are you getting angry about this?”
“No,” Jake gritted his teeth as even he heard the emotion in his denial. He took a calming breath. “Don’t be surprised if they refuse to help. If it doesn’t have to do with something they are working on—or apparently planting lately—they don’t usually spare any time for it.”
“They cared enough to come here, Jake. Give them that much credit.”
A bit too late for them to pretend to be doting parents. When Jim and Judy were together, they didn’t need anyone else—they never had. Why they’d bothered to have Jake at all still baffled him. He had been a responsibility that came after science, after each other, and after their growing distrust of the government. More times than he cared to remember they’d forgotten to pick him up from school, to make meals for him, to check that he had clean clothes. He’d learned early that the only one he could rely on was himself. At the age of eleven, he’d chosen a boarding school and enrolled himself. A small part of him had hoped that they would wake up and beg him not to go, but instead they had lauded his choice of schools and deposited him there with a disgusting amount of relief.
He’d found reasons why he couldn’t go home each summer—internships, study abroad programs. The reason didn’t matter to his parents, nor did his destination. They sent money when he asked for it and, he supposed, that was all that mattered in the end.
Holidays had always been the worst. In the beginning he’d had a choice between going home to parents who didn’t believe in celebrating days that they claimed governments or religions had arbitrarily chosen to give importance to, going home with a friend with a close-knit family who only reminded him painfully of what he didn’t have, or spending the holiday alone.
Meeting Dominic in college had offered a much better alternative . . . designing a company that would grow and one day dominate the computer market.
He never felt sorry for himself when he was adding another figure to his income bracket.
They say that money can’t make you happy, but it had made his life a whole lot more bearable. Until quite recently he would have said there wasn’t a single thing he would change about his life.
Now there was only one.
He wanted Lil in it. Lil and Colby.
He didn’t want to wake up Monday morning in his house if neither of them were there. He wouldn’t have to, though, because he’d already decided that they would be coming home with him at the end of the weekend. Lil would accept his proposal once she thought it through.
She’d have to wait, though. His parents were the more pressing matter at hand. “I’ll talk to them, Dom, but get ready to aggressively begin the search for help again on Monday.”
Jake braced himself and opened the door to the study, “Judy. Jim. What a pleasant surprise.”
His mother broke her conversation with her husband and Victor Andrade when she heard her son’s voice. At first glance, she looked much the same as she always had; except perhaps that her dark, shoulder-length hair sported a bit more gray. Her signature cream knit sweater and tan loose trousers were expensive, yet understated and unadorned with jewelry. Although both of his parents had been born into wealthy families, neither had ever looked the part; preferring to spend their money on their research rather than any of the earthly possessions most people collected. His father’s gray hair was too long for the style he’d attempted to brush it into, indicating that he’d probably forgotten his last trim appointment. He was dressed in the same dark blue dinner jacket and purple, striped tie that he’d likely worn to every formal event in the past twenty years. Not much had changed in the three years since Jake had last seen them.
“Jake,” his mother said in greeting. She didn’t walk over to give him a hug.
He hadn’t expected her to, so really there was no reason for the twinge of disappointment he felt. In about thirty seconds, his parents could do what no one else could; they could make him feel insignificant. He joined the group and shook the hand his father offered.
His father studied his face for a moment then asked, “Are you okay, Jake?”
Jake touched one of the bruises on his cheek and said, “It looks worse than it is.”
Victor slapped Jake on the back and laughed, “And better than the other guy, si?”
Jake smiled before meeting his mother’s look of disapproval. Even though she said nothing, he could hear her voice in his head. We do not condone physical violence, Jake.
He sighed.
His mother said, “Victor has been filling us in on what has been going on. I’m surprised that your company was using such a weak symmetric key encryption algorithm for your access codes.”
Jake defended their practice. “Yes, many of our protocols use symmetric encryption, but our more sensitive data transfers utilize an asymmetric, hybrid cipher. It’s perfectly acceptable to use the more secure to initiate access and not to relay the bulk of the data.”
“You wouldn’t be in this situation today if you had used quantum keys,” his mother chided.
“Your mother is right, Jake,” his father concurred.
“That wasn’t my decision. I am not a programmer.”
His mother interrupted him, “You should be. You’re wasting your talent. You are far too intelligent to be Dominic Corisi’s lackey.”
Every muscle in his body tensed and his reaction could not be contained. “I am a multi-billionaire. I employ hundreds of thousands of people all across the globe. Countries have entered the technological race because of the advances I’ve helped bring to them. I’m sorry if I don’t want to sit in a lab somewhere, tinkering with protons until I invent the perfect encryption key or, having given up on that, take up farming in some New England redneck town. I’m not you.”
“Show your parents the respect they deserve, Jake,” Victor said in a stern tone.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Jake snarled.
Victor started to say something else, but Judy stopped him with a placating wave of her hand. “No, Victor, he’s right. I didn’t mean to belittle your accomplishments, Jake. Of course we’re proud that you’re rich. We just hoped for so much more from you.”
The verbal pat on the head did not lessen Jake’s temper, but Jake resolved to. He took a deep, calming breath. His parents would never see the value of what he did. It shouldn’t bother him. Inviting them this weekend had been a profound waste of time and he was about to prove it. “We have just over three weeks until our server goes online in China. Do you think you and Jim can find the cause of the compromised codes?”
His father answered, “We won’t know for sure until we’re given access to the program, but it sounds like there is something else going on. Some of your patches seemed to work initially and then were corrupted? That hints at either a Trojan virus or some back door access code. If your original hacker was good enough, those codes can be difficult to locate. Not impossible, but the process might be time consuming. There is no way to say if we’ll meet your deadline. It’d be a whole lot easier if we knew what we were dealing with.”
“Just say you can’t do it,” Jake goaded.
Judy Walton walked over to her son and raised a hand to touch her son’s cheek, but Jake pulled his head away from her touch. She let her hand drop to her side. “We want to help you.”
Jake ran a hand through his normally pristine hair, “But you’ve been out of the field for a long time, I know. Dominic should never have asked you.”
Jim joined his wife, putting an arm lightly around her waist in quiet support. “Do you know what we’re working on, Jake?”
“Farming techniques?” Jake said dismissively.
His father shook his head. “Far from it.” He looked over at Victor as if assessing if he could be trusted with certain information. He said, “We’re bio-engineering the next generation of encryption—organic keys—encoding information at the DNA level. Imagine having chemical
access codes stored within your very own cells. Codes that remain intact even as the strands change as a result of breeding. Technology could truly be something you leave your children.”
Victor waved an excited hand in the air and said, “That’s impossible. You can’t add codes to DNA without changing their function.”
Jim countered with a humble shrug. “It’s impossible in animals so far, but we’ve proven it can work with certain plants.”
DNA encryption? His parents were wandering further from reality than he’d thought. “Another world-changing discovery? Aren’t you afraid Victor will steal the idea now that you’ve shared it?”
His mother looked over her shoulder at her husband and then back at her son. The lines of her face deepened with emotion. “Your father and I have come to an awful realization recently—we’re not going to be here forever. We’ve spent some time re-evaluating our priorities.”
Jake sighed impatiently and half-turned away from her. “Judy, don’t take this as harshly as it sounds, but I don’t have time to entertain your mid-life crisis right now.”
His father nodded, but his tone was surprisingly firm. “We probably deserve that comment, Son, but give your mother a few more minutes of your time.”
It was really only Victor’s presence that held Jake’s tongue. “Fine. I’m listening.”
His mother looked uncomfortable—almost nervous—as she said, “I know we weren’t the parents you wanted, Jake. You wanted someone to rush to school when you scraped a knee or cook for some bake sale.”
Not about to sugarcoat the past, Jake said, “I would have been happy if you had just attended one of my graduations.”
“It’s not an excuse, Jake, but research can be addictive. You get so close to a breakthrough—you don’t want to walk away. Time escapes you and suddenly you realize another day has gone by.”
“Well, then I suppose I should thank you for coming here at all,” Jake said unkindly.
To his surprise, his mother clasped her hands in front of her as if she found his words upsetting. “Your father and I made some mistakes. We didn’t protect ourselves or our discoveries as well as we should have and because of that we lost some of them to others. But do you know what we regret more than any of that?”
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