by Desiree Holt
As usual, however, life got in the way. Sydney had called that morning before he left for Gasparilla to remind him she was flying out for an overnight at her sister’s to attend a big family event. She’d be back Sunday night and would call him early Monday morning to check in with him. If not for his Gasparilla obligations, he’d have jumped at her invitation to go with her. Now, when he needed her—make that wanted her—she was in Atlanta.
Damn!
He needed to let everyone on the staff at Software By Design know there would be a key meeting Monday morning at eight-thirty sharp, and it was important for everyone to be there. He discarded the idea of emails. They were all involved in weekend activities, many of them with Gasparilla, and he couldn’t be sure they’d even check their email before Monday. Instead he sent a mass text, knowing they were never without their cell phones. Over the next twenty minutes, everyone texted back, with varying responses.
Ok. C u then.
What’s up?
Problems?
And finally, from Phil, as expected, U bringing donuts?
He replied to each one, telling them he just had some updates to go over before they began the work week. They all knew why Eric had been brought in, so if they thought that was what he would be talking about, well and good. Unfortunately, although it related to Eric, it was far from what they’d be expecting. But he, like the cops, wanted to see their initial reaction. It made him physically ill to think one of his people was at the root of all this, but he’d better find out before anything else happened.
Now, the next twenty-four hours stretched endlessly in front of him, hours filled with nothing but the image of Eric’s body and dark thoughts of the Hoffman debacle. He thought about getting drunk, but that wouldn’t do much except give him a bad hangover. And if for any reason the cops wanted to contact him, being in an alcoholic daze sure wouldn’t keep him on the right side of the ledger. Instead, he decided to go back to the office and see if he could figure out how far Eric had gotten tracing the hack into the Hoffman files. He was sure that was the program the other laptop had been running. The man would not have left the critical project just sitting like that, processing. Not once he found out what the problem was. He wouldn’t want anyone’s eyes on it but his and Liam’s.
He finally discarded his pirate costume, showered and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. Then he headed for the office, stopping on the way to pick up a fast-food meal. Not that he was hungry, but he hadn’t put food in his mouth since breakfast and he didn’t want to pass out from lack of it.
Although he entered the building by the rear door, he stopped in the lobby to let the guard know he was there. Just in case anyone came to the building looking for him, he made sure the guard knew to call up to him before getting them into the elevator.
At the SBD offices, he stopped in the break room to fix coffee from the single serving machine before he headed to Eric’s workspace. He hadn’t had lunch, but food was the last thing he wanted right then. His nerves were stretched so taut he wondered they didn’t twang like guitar strings. He was sure he wouldn’t be able to digest a bite of food.
He unlocked the door to the room where Eric had been set up then pulled a chair over to the big desk where the laptop sat. After pressing the spacebar to wake the machine up, he typed in the password Eric had given him. At once information began to scroll across the screen.
Liam hit a key to stop the scrolling and began to read the data, one screen at a time. The most skilled hackers could write self-erasing code, fake their web addresses, route their attacks through the devices of innocent victims and make it appear that they were in multiple countries at once. An advanced attack, coordinated over multiple media platforms and using different languages, could be very difficult to trace.
Eric had done a pretty good job so far, eliminating a lot of the fake web address as well as those of innocent victims whose information had been stolen. But he hadn’t yet reached the end of the trail. Whoever had hacked into the Hoffman servers was exceptionally skilled and knowledgeable.
Although he hadn’t done this for some time, as Liam dived into the slow process it all came back to him. He accepted the fact that he didn’t have Eric’s level of expertise so it obviously would take him longer. But it occupied his brain and kept him from dwelling every minute on Eric’s murder.
He worked at it without letup for three hours, stopping only to fix coffee now and then. And it kept him from checking his cell every few minutes to see if Taylor Cantrell had called back and he’d missed it. As each trail he followed led to yet another dead end, his level of frustration grew. Who the hell were these people that they could create such a complicated system that buried their actual location? He didn’t even stop to check his watch until his stomach sent him a message that he’d better get some food or he’d be in even worse shape. He stretched, looked at his watch and realized it was almost nine o’clock.
Okay. Time to stop for the night. He hoped he’d tired out his brain so much that he could fall asleep. If only he could be that lucky. He put the laptop to sleep, making sure the lock code was in place. Turned off all the lights and locked everything up.
He made sure the guard saw him leaving when he headed out to his car. When he exited the building, he took a deep breath of the cool night air, hoping to clear his head of the jumble of thoughts rocketing around inside. But then a different feeling hit him, that same sense of unease that he thought had finally disappeared. He looked around the parking lot, a slow glance, not hurrying. It was impossible for anyone to get in here who didn’t belong. During the day, there was a guard who checked visitors. At night, the only way to get in was with a coded card.
Still, that sense of being watched wouldn’t go away. He started his car and drove slowly out of the lot, waiting while the security gates slowly opened. When he pulled out into the street, he looked around again. There were more people out because of Gasparilla and even though this was primarily a business section, there were still considerably more cars on the road than usual.
He drove down the street at a somewhat slower than normal pace, but nobody pulled away from the curb to follow him or tried to bump him.
I’m the victim of an overactive imagination and too many thriller novels.
Still, all the way home he watched carefully, taking special notice when he pulled into his garage behind his townhouse. He even made a wide four-block circle to see if anyone was on his tail. Even though nothing popped, the edgy feeling wouldn’t go away. He had just walked into his kitchen when his cell rang. He looked at the screen. Taylor Cantrell. At last.
“Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you,” she said as soon as he’d answered. “I wanted to make sure I had touched all bases before I called back.”
“I understand.” So, what have you got for me? He wanted to shout the question.
“It took me quite a while to get hold of Nan Dorsey, Eric’s assistant. She was out of cell phone range most of the day.”
“It can’t have been pleasant giving her that news.” Liam was just glad he wasn’t the one who had to deliver it.
“She’s stunned, as you can imagine. I asked her if she had a friend I could call to be with her.”
“And did she?”
“Yes, fortunately. Her sister, which is who she spent the day with. They were still together, so I asked to speak with her.” Taylor’s sigh was audible. “She’s taking Nan home with her and will make sure she stays there for a while.”
“Thank god for that.”
Liam thought about pouring himself a fresh drink but decided against it. Getting drunk wasn’t going to help the situation.
“I also had a friend call the chief of detectives at the Tampa Police Department. They’ve known each other for some time.”
“Taylor, I—”
“Just to be clear,” she interrupted, “I didn’t try to exert any influence. That’s a bad habit some people have. But I wanted to get a clear picture of where we were.”
Yeah, I’d like the same thing.
“And?”
“As I suspected, they did the autopsy right away but of course won’t release a copy of the report. However, I have someone in Tampa who can monitor this. I thought about having legal representation Monday morning when the detectives show up to question you and your staff, but I decided against it.”
“You think it would look like someone is guilty and we’re just being prepared?” God. Maybe he should have that drink after all.
“Yes. But if the unthinkable does happen, call me at once and we’ll get moving.”
“Listen, Taylor.” How did he say this? “I know you said you didn’t want to kill the deal between SBD and Arroyo, but I want you to know if you need to nullify, I understand.”
“And I’ll tell you again. Nothing you’ve done changes my mind about this. I certainly don’t think you killed Eric.”
Liam blew out a breath, relieved at least about that.
“However,” Taylor continued, “I hate to say this, but I’m pretty damn sure someone on your staff is in bed with some very bad people, and that’s behind all of this.”
Nausea bubbled up in his stomach and he swallowed it back.
“I’ve about decided the same thing, but hell, Taylor. I vetted all these people myself, and some of them I worked with at Winters and Pryce. How would they even become involved with the kind of people who do this?”
“A good question.” A pause. “I’d like your permission to do full background checks on all of them. I know you’ve done your due diligence,” she went on before he could say anything. “But I promise you I have resources at my disposal that can find out anything about anyone. When I first took over Arroyo, we had a nasty situation because I didn’t have full background reports on key people. I’ll never put myself or anyone on my team in that situation again.”
“Go ahead,” he told her. “Absolutely.”
“Good. And I’ll keep you in the loop on everything. Telling you not to worry would be like telling you not to breathe so I’ll just say this. Keep your shit together. We’ll get through this.”
He had to smile at that.
“Thanks. I will. And I’ll call you right after we’re done Monday morning.”
“Talk to you then.”
Sunday felt as long as a week, but he managed to get through it by working on the trace of the hack. Usually something like this could be accomplished in a couple of days, but this was the most intricate he’d ever encountered. He wondered how long it would take him if someone with Eric’s skills and experience hadn’t quite cracked it.
He was aware that five countries, of which the United States was one, were considered the world’s cyber superpowers. The others were Israel, the United Kingdom, Russia and China. His money was on one of the last two. There was no history—at least yet—for the others to attack this country’s cyber networks. So, who on his staff had gotten involved with either of the two possibles? And why? Money of course, but who needed it so badly they’d sell out their country? Just thinking about it made him ill.
By the time he quit for the day, he had worked his way through many more layers. He was close, he just knew it, but he was so tired his eyes were crossing. He closed up and headed home, hoping he could at least get a little sleep.
At last Monday morning arrived. Liam went through the Starbucks drive-through to stoke up on his favorite Café Americano and arrived at the office at a quarter to eight. Rosalie, of course, was already there.
“Something’s going on,” she said the minute he stepped of the elevator. “You want to give me a heads-up so I can be prepared when everyone else goes off their rocker?”
“How do you know they’ll flip?” He gave her a tired smile. “Silly question. You always know everything.”
“Well, I don’t know this, so how about filling me in?”
She froze in shock when he told her about Eric, and it took her a long moment before she spoke.
“This has to do with the Hoffman debacle, right?”
He nodded and told her about the message Eric had left on his cell.
“I wish to hell I hadn’t shut off my phone.”
Rosalie shook her head. “You’d never have been able to hear him with all the noise at the start of the parade route, so don’t beat yourself up. Let’s get set up for the meeting everyone will be here soon.” She gestured toward her desk. “I stopped at Tasty Treats and brought goodies for everyone. Maybe with enough sugar in their system, they won’t freak for too long.”
By the time she had set out everything on the table in the meeting room, people were arriving. By eight o’clock they were all in place around the table, munching on pastries and watching him, much in the same way a mouse stares at a cat getting ready to pounce.
Liam cleared his throat. “I have unfortunate news for you, and believe me, I wish I wasn’t telling you this. At the Gasparilla parade site on Saturday, Eric Braun was attacked and stabbed. Twice. Efforts to save him failed. He was pronounced dead late Saturday afternoon at Tampa General.”
The room was dead silent. Everyone stared at him, eyes wide with shock, jaws dropping. Teri was the first to speak.
“Do the cops know who did it? Do they have anyone in mind?”
Liam shook his head. “Everything is a dead end so far. He didn’t know anyone in town except the people here and at Hoffman. Taylor Cantrell has contacted his assistant in Atlanta but she had no clue who would do this, although the Atlanta PD will be interviewing her. His entire connection here in this city was this firm and all of you.”
“Are you accusing us of something?” There was no mistaking the hostility in Phil’s voice.
“Not at all.” Liam forced himself to portray a calm he was far from feeling and took a swallow of his coffee. “I’m just telling you the police have very little to go on. I’ll tell you what I can, because I don’t want you to be blindsided. Because we were Eric’s connection to Tampa, the police will be here at nine o’clock to talk to everyone.”
A bubble of sound erupted, with everyone trying to talk at once. Liam held up a hand.
“Hold, it hold it, hold it. Please. One at a time.” He nodded toward Pete Herriot. “You first. At least you raised your hand.”
“Thanks.” He looked around the table. “I’m speaking for everyone, I think, when I ask again if they think one of us did it.”
“At the moment, they have no reason to suspect anyone here. But logic dictates that they start with the only people in town who knew him. And before you say anything else, no, I don’t think anyone here is involved.”
And I wish to God that was the truth.
“So, what will they ask us?” This came from one of the newer hires, one Liam had been lucky enough to lure away from Harlan Logistics.
“Just how well you knew him. What interaction you had with him here at work. If he said anything that led you to believe he knew people in town or had a problem he was dealing with.”
“But—” She looked around at everyone else. “We know nothing.”
“Of course. But let’s let them do their job so they can move on from us and look for other possibilities.”
At fifteen minutes before nine o’clock, Liam broke up the meeting and sent everyone back to his or her workstations. He had just accepted a fresh coffee from Rosalie when the elevator stopped on their floor and the doors slid open. He stepped out to meet Detectives Duarte and Callahan and shook hands with them.
Duarte handed him a folded sheet of paper. “This is a warrant that allows us to search the premises, and to arrest a person if we find anything that deems it necessary. Just a formality, but wanted to cover ourselves in case.”
Liam scowled. “In case of what?”
“In case we feel there is something here we need to look for,” Callahan told him. “Or something that points a finger at anyone here. Like we said, it’s just a formality. If we don’t find anything and everyone’s in the clear, you have nothing to
worry about.”
“Then I’m telling you, I have nothing to worry about.” But he was bothered by a sudden flutter of unease. What if he was mistaken? What if it was one of his people after all? The thought made him sick.
“Would you like to interview each of my people individually,” he asked, “or as a group?”
“One at a time,” Duarte answered. “I assume you have a room we can use.”
“Of course.” He motioned to Rosalie, who had stepped up beside him, and introduced her to the men. “Rosalie will get you settled in the meeting room. If you need coffee or anything, just let her know.”
“Thanks, but this isn’t a social call.” Callahan pulled a folded sheet of paper form his pocket and handed it to Rosalie. “We’ll start with Teri LaGrange and take the rest of them in this order.”
“Any reason you’re starting with her?” Liam asked.
Duarte raised an eyebrow. “Any reason we shouldn’t?”
“Nope.” He held up his hands, palms outward. “No reason at all. Just asking.”
“Okay. Rosalie. Will you get Teri?”
“Of course.”
Liam went back to his office. The first thing he did was call Taylor, knowing he should keep her in the loop.
“I wouldn’t worry about the warrant,” she assured him. “At least not yet.”
“Yeah?” Easy for her to say. “When should I worry about it?”
“If they decide to arrest anyone. Especially you.”
“Me?” He nearly fell out of his chair. “Why me? I had nothing to do with Eric’s murder.”
“It’s never easy to know what they’ll think needs further investigation. I know you didn’t do it. You know you didn’t do it. We’ll handle whatever comes up.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“I expect you to. Listen, call me as soon as they leave. If I’m out of the office, have my assistant patch you through to me wherever I am.”
“Will so. And Taylor? Thanks for everything.”
“Like I said, we’ll handle whatever comes along.”