“You’re allowed as many irrational fears as you want,” he said mildly, “but unless you want to pay to have my jacket pressed, I suggest you find something else to mutilate.”
Oh hell. “I’m sorry,” she stammered, and dropped her hand. But it didn’t go far before something warm grazed her, sending chills ricocheting through her. Edward’s hand, his fingers lacing through hers. She froze and she melted. And she hated herself for letting such a gentle touch turn her inside out.
But she held on anyway.
“Where are the other access points?” she asked. As if they weren’t strolling through a dungeon, holding hands like teenagers. Or lovers.
“There’s an exit in the far corner,” he said. “It goes up to the alley. The door is locked from the outside—both the knob mechanism and a bolt lock. Of course it opens from the inside in case of fire, but you have to get in here first. There’s a camera on the side of the building that would catch anyone going in or out.”
“Is there an alarm?”
“Yep. Goes to police, fire, the CEO of Steel Hawk, and Adam. And me.”
“Wow, you just make all the lists, don’t you?”
A hint of a smile traced his lips. “Should I be insulted by your surprise?”
“More like I’m impressed.” And she was. Adam didn’t trust easily, and by Edward’s own account, Adam spread out permissions so no one person could access all of the components of any single aspect of Steel Hawk operations. Edward seemed to be the lone exception to that.
“Making the list of people who are awoken if a bird hits a window impresses you?”
She laughed. “Not so much when you put it like that. But you do seem to have earned a great deal of trust.”
“I have to be trusted, or rather whoever fills this job must be. Steel Hawk’s high-level security innovations are the best in the world. The person who files the patents and protects their inventions and trade secrets must be above reproach.” He stopped and turned to look her in the eye. “Honestly, they don’t need an in-house attorney with an entire legal department housed offsite. They pay as much for my time as they do my loyalty. It’s an effective tactic—being grossly overpaid for a relatively easy job will definitely inspire loyalty. Most people would give their right arm for a job like this. Granted, patent law isn’t exactly exciting, but you don’t lose any sleep over it either.”
Patent law isn’t exactly exciting. Sure it wasn’t. But stolen diamonds and a barely averted international scandal were. She didn’t want to believe he’d intentionally start trouble just to amuse himself, but she didn’t know him. He made a great first impression, but not every crook wore a t-shirt advertising his or her diversion into crime. Still, she was comfortable around him—or at least she might be if he wasn’t sex on a stick—and she wasn’t one to discount her instincts.
“Our destination is just ahead.”
He led her to yet another door. It was one of many along one wall, stretching as far as the near dark allowed her to see. “I guess these were mostly storage rooms of some sort,” he said. “I adopted one that looked like it used to be an office. I honestly never thought anyone would stumble on it down here.”
“I can see why,” she murmured. “Who installed the safe? This location would have stuck out for anyone who came down here.”
“I’m guessing whoever installed it is dead by now.”
“Um, what?” Her voice was tinged with uncertainty, and for good reason. Between the rats and the abandoned darkness and Edward, she was already about to jump out of her skin. And the man thought it prudent to mention death?
He tossed her a crooked grin and swung open the door he’d indicated as his own. “Perhaps I should clarify. The safe was already here, and it looks to have been here for a century or more. The design is quite old.”
She wasn’t the biggest fan of here. The dark basement was beyond creepy, and the fact it had been largely untouched for so many years made it even more so. Even after the geriatric elevator, she still hadn’t expected something so dark and unexplored to exist in the otherwise ultramodern, historic chic expanse of the company’s headquarters. Sophie didn’t scare easily, but she was nonetheless caught off guard.
Edward reached with his free hand, pulling an overhead string. The dreariness fled when the room flooded with light.
Sophie squinted through the sudden brightness, surprised to find the small room to be clean—not Adam clean, but clean all the same—and bright. An old desk took up the majority of the space, and centered in a pile of grit sat an old typewriter under a layer of dusty but otherwise clear plastic. She lifted the makeshift cover. “Oh, my gosh. Is that a Crandall?”
“Sure is,” he said, though he needn’t. The name was prominently displayed on the machine. “Dates back to the eighteen eighties. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Wow. If I’d snuck in here, I’d have been a lot more interested in that than your papers.”
He laughed. “A definite matter of taste. Not many people would recognize the value of both.”
But he did, and it only made her attraction grow. She’d shown up expecting an ornery stuffed shirt with a serious glitch in attitude. Instead, she’d found a man who was as intense as he was warm. Not to mention sexy as hell, appreciative of the world around him…and still holding her hand.
No sooner did she think it than he dropped it. The loss of his warmth left her chilled. She crossed her arms to ward it off, a little perturbed at herself for wanting his touch.
While he fiddled with a stack of boxes, she looked around. She guessed the space to be about twelve by twelve. Aside from the desk and the boxes, there was a drop cloth covering what looked to be a piece of furniture. Curious, she peeked under the sheet and found a long wooden bench with a relatively new cushion on top.
“The design dates back to the nineteenth century,” he said. “But the cushion is new. Rodents had gotten to the original.”
She grasped the bench and pulled, finding it solid. “Nice craftsmanship.”
“Steel Hawk has always been about the best.” His voice swelled with pride. He couldn’t be faking that, which made it hard to believe he could be the one sabotaging Steel Hawk. But with all the security they had in place, the odds that anyone else could be responsible were so slim they were invisible.
Either way, someone had to be guilty. And there were clearly exceptions to Adam’s standards. “I’m not sure the best explains the elevator,” she said dryly.
“Adam has elevator issues too. I’m surprised he hasn’t upgraded.”
Adam had elevator issues? That was interesting. Maybe he just stayed off altogether and that was why it hadn’t been modernized. “If he’s claustrophobic, I’m not sure that would help.”
“I don’t know what his problem is, but I’m glad he hasn’t replaced it.”
“That thing is like a shark cage,” she muttered.
“Have you actually been in a shark cage?” His dubious expression suggested he expected not.
“As a matter of fact,” she said triumphantly, “I have.”
Surprise crossed his face. “I didn’t see that coming. Were you underwater? With sharks?”
“Not exactly. There was a shark, and it was in high resolution, but it was more of a…picture. The cage was next to it, more of dry-land museum kind of thing. Which is where that elevator belongs.”
He did a poor job of hiding his laughter.
“Do you spend much time in here?” she asked. “Seeing as how you’re renovating furniture.”
“Not really, but I do appreciate a clean place to sit. Come here and look at this.” He moved aside a final sheet of cardboard, revealing a large safe built into the wall. “I’m pretty sure this dates back to the gold rush,” he said. “Although some of the locking mechanism appears more modern than would be expected. I rekeyed it so I could lock it, and yes, I’m the only one with a key.”
Sophie peered at the device. “How hard would it be to crack?”
She could crack a safe better than most, but she didn’t volunteer the information.
“It’s a standard setup,” he said. “Anyone versed in cracking one could do it, but he or she would first have to get down here past security cameras, find the room, and know to move the boxes to find it. I thought it would be secure considering no one knows it’s here, but recent events suggest I thought wrong.”
Sophie squatted beside it, balancing on her toes to keep from touching the floor. “Are there any signs it may have been tampered with?”
“Nope. No sign that anyone has been down here at all.”
“Do you have a spare key?”
“Yes, but it’s kept securely off premises.”
She frowned. “Well, hell.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Okay, let’s backtrack. Where were the papers before they made it into the safe?”
“Adam handed them directly to me. Before that, only he would have touched them, or maybe his assistant. Once they were handed to me, they didn’t leave my possession until I secured them in here.”
“Did you lock them in a desk drawer upstairs? Even long enough to go to lunch or something?”
“No. I always bring them straight down here.”
Sophie turned a small circle, studying the room while she replayed every moment of her short acquaintance with Edward, from the moment she’d first drank in the sight of him to the hours she’d spent at his desk… His desk. Her breath caught.
“Did you look at the papers before you brought them down?” she asked.
“Of course. Why?”
“In your office?”
His brow furrowed. “Yes.”
“Are there cameras in there?”
“With a full view of the office, yes. But there aren’t any trained directly on my computer or my desk.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He scowled, seemingly not amused by her persistence. “That would pose a serious risk of…security. Son of a bitch.”
Their gazes locked. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.
“I’m thinking I’m an ass.” Defeat registered in his tone. Maybe relief. Probably both.
She grinned and stood, letting him pull her up—enjoying his touch a little more than she should. “Close enough. Someone may have put one in there.”
He frowned. “But to do so, that someone would have had to access my office.”
“True,” she agreed, “but trust me, there are ways around pretty much anything.”
“Including those scanners?”
She nodded. “Even those, though you might want to check with Adam to see if anyone else was granted full access to the building. Depending on how the system works, your office could have been inadvertently included.”
“That would have to be a hell of a coincidence,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” As if she didn’t know.
“To look for a camera.” His biting tone suggested he was pissed, and she didn’t blame him. Nor did she blame him for wanting to find that camera. She just hoped he’d listen when she shut him down.
She shook her head. “If you haven’t seen it yet, you probably won’t. I have a gadget that will find it for us.”
“You have it now?”
“Not with me, but it’s at my hotel. And we’re not going to rush in your office first thing in the morning either. If we start looking around for a camera, we’ll be the talk of the break room.”
He sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. “And Adam doesn’t want anyone to know what’s going on. You’re right, of course.”
“Tomorrow evening,” she said. “If there’s a camera in there, we’ll find it.”
Chapter Five
It was well past midnight by the time Sophie crawled into bed, but sleep eluded her.
Unfortunately, the tangible memory of Edward’s hand in hers did not.
Her cell phone rang at nine, and her heart fluttered madly at the display. Edward Long. But not because it was him, she told herself. And not because of the way he’d gone all hard and feral and male in that basement when he realized in all likelihood he’d been the victim of a hidden camera. It was because of the potential break in the case.
Sure it was.
She answered the call, the trappings of a stupid grin on her face. “Morning,” she said sleepily.
“You sound tired, Ms. Garza. Did I wear you out last night?”
Was the notoriously stoic Edward Long actually joking with her? “On the contrary, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” she said, enjoying the innuendo. When he didn’t respond, she had to bite back a laugh. “You didn’t go running up there like a crazed person this morning, did you?”
“I told you I wouldn’t.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t.”
He laughed. “No, it doesn’t. But you made a good point. I don’t want everyone in the building realizing there’s something going on. If it’s there, that is.”
“You didn’t start looking yet?” Despite the very good reasons to wait, she was surprised he’d listened.
“Believe me, I’m tempted. I confess to leaning back in my chair to stare at the ceiling a time or two, but I haven’t seen anything unusual. I’m not tearing down the walls just yet. Besides, I thought you might want to be here since you’re the one who thought of the possibility.”
Oh, wow. “That’s very thoughtful of you,” she stammered.
“I can be that guy, you know.” His tone was light and teasing, but there was something more to the words—a lingering question.
“I’m starting to see that.” She looked to her palm and tried not to remember the delicious shock of his hand in hers. She wasn’t the type of woman who needed a man, but Edward made her crave that sense of warm protection—and not just from rodents. Hell, if she was smart, she’d look into protection from him.
After a bout of silence, he spoke. “What time do you think you’ll be in today?”
“I’m going to do some digging on Sam Johnson and Willie Bishop, and I still have a few employees on whom I’ve yet to run background checks. Are you available after lunch?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said lightly. “Good-bye, Ms. Garza.”
“Bye, Edward.” She ended the call and dropped the phone. A couple of minutes later the phone beeped with a text notification.
How’s it going? It was from Honeysuckle, whose number Sophie had entered into her phone under a fake name. In the event her phone got away from her, she’d be outed in a heartbeat by her sister’s name.
Sophie grinned. Edward’s hot.
Very funny. How’s the investigation?
We have leads. Following up today.
Do you think Edward did it?
Sophie thought for a long time before responding. He’s not what I expected.
Don’t give him your trust. Make him earn it.
Don’t worry. Love you.
Sophie deleted the messages and tossed the phone on the bed, then dragged herself into the shower. By the time she dressed and fixed herself a cup of coffee from the machine provided in her hotel room, she felt almost human despite the all-nighter.
She opened her laptop and pulled out the notepad on which she’d jotted notes as she’d talked to Edward. He’d easily answered her questions about Sam and Willie, but not so easily he made her suspicious he was covering for either of them. She found interesting his personal connection to Willie, but people got people hired all the time. Still, starting all over had to sting. Would he hold it against Edward that he’d yet to progress to the coveted six-figure earnings position?
Sam, on the other hand, had been sitting pretty until that judgment. Twenty thousand was a lot, and she’d be surprised if his wages hadn’t been garnished. Considering what she knew his salary had to be, a standard twenty-five percent garnishment would mean thousands a month. She needed to follow up on that, and going through Adam would be easier than chasin
g the court transcript. But Adam was so lost in his work she had no idea if he’d know, but Honeysuckle was his personal assistant. If Adam knew, she probably would. She picked up her phone and shot another text to her sister.
Do you know whether Sam Johnson’s wages are being garnished?
Only a couple of minutes passed before the phone dinged. That’s a payroll thing, and they wisely keep me out of that department.
Sophie laughed. Find out who I can ask.
After a few minutes, the reply came. Adam knew. Go figure. Yes to the garnishment. Over 700 a week.
Ouch. Thanks, sis.
Sophie deleted the messages and turned back to her computer. She ran background checks and Google searches on the rest of the employees. Nothing stood out, so she tried searching Steel Hawk grievances and a number of other phrases she hoped would dredge up bad press, if any actually existed. The company worked primarily in manufacturing and development, neither of which resulted in much interaction with the general public. It definitely wasn’t the type of business to have a page full of Yelp reviews, but she couldn’t find anything negative about the company anywhere. As much as she respected Adam and Max, she knew that didn’t mean there hadn’t been issues in the past—only that the businesses with which they worked weren’t the type prone to air their issues to play out in the media.
Two hours in, she’d accomplished little more than confirming there was no smoking gun. She couldn’t eliminate anyone without having a motive, and she’d yet to even determine the intended victim. Was someone after Steel Hawk and framing Edward, or was he the target and Steel Hawk the vehicle? Neither alternative made a lot of sense.
She sat back, frustrated. Her thoughts turned to Edward. She genuinely liked him, but, was he playing her? Lawyers were typecast as smooth talkers for a reason. Sophie could pick apart most people on sight, so it bothered her that he’d not only eluded her senses, but had gotten under them. Was her judgment officially skewed, or was the fact that their relationship had taken a personal turn an opportunity for her to get past his defenses?
Dangerous Illusions (Steel Hawk Book 3) Page 5