by Shayla Black
Now she had Dax’s attention. “What the hell are you talking about? There is zero chance Gabe was having a fling with that crazy bitch.”
She didn’t know Dax. She’d met him a few days before. She didn’t really know Gabriel all that well, either. On the other hand, she’d known Scott for a long time. He’d stood beside her. He’d been her friend.
“First”—Dax went on—“Valerie wasn’t his type at all. Second, he never once mentioned her to me, even as a piece on the side.”
“You don’t know everyone Gabriel has . . . dated.” She really hated to think of him having sex with another woman.
“No, but if he’d seen her more than a couple of times, the paparazzi would have picked up on it. And third, why does it matter? I’ve never once heard him tell another woman that he loves her. Ever.”
Everly stared Dax down. He didn’t flinch.
She really had only one choice at the end of the day.
“Then we have a problem. I think my friend Scott is involved in this thing. That was him on the phone. Maybe he’s simply mistaken about what he found, but he could also be trying to set Gabriel up. Scott tried to convince me that Gabriel wants to kill me.”
“And you don’t believe your friend?”
In the end, the decision had been simple. She’d done what her father had always told her to. She’d looked in her heart and she’d followed her gut. Gabriel Bond wasn’t a criminal. He was actually a horrible liar. When he’d said he loved her, he’d meant it. It hadn’t been a ploy. It had been his truth. She was betting her life on it.
“I don’t.”
Dax sat up. “Who is he?”
She sank to the couch. Sometimes a girl had to take a leap of faith. “Scott Wilcox works with me at Crawford. I asked him to look into the last couple of years of receipts for the foundation fundraisers. He said he has proof that Gabriel is involved in the embezzlement and that I should come to his place right now to see it.” She took a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Clearly, he’s trying to lure me away from here and feed me a plate of bullshit. It would be a good play if someone wanted Gabriel and me separated, for whatever reason.”
Dax stood. “You would be a very good pawn, especially if he wanted to use you as leverage against Gabe. My buddy would pretty much do anything to keep you safe. And we would help him. Maybe Scott’s figured that out.”
And there it was, the confirmation of her gut feeling. Deep Throat might have been spot-on about the lockbox and the investigation into Mad’s murder, but he’d been wrong about Gabriel. He and his friends would stick together. All five of them had one another’s backs, but that included their women, too. And she was Gabriel Bond’s woman.
She was going to be his wife, and it was time to follow her loyalties and take her place.
“We need to think smart. Like you said, I’m a pawn. I think it’s Gabriel they need. He had plenty of motive to want Maddox dead, and Scott, along with whomever he’s working with, is using that to their advantage.”
Everly refused to let Gabriel fall into danger. He wasn’t going down on her watch.
“Or they want to create chaos, keep us so busy watching our backs we’re not catching what’s really happening.” Dax scrubbed a hand through the dark stubble over his scalp. “I don’t like any of this. If Mad really thought Valerie was stealing, why wouldn’t he have fired her ass? Why all the subterfuge?”
“He wanted to gather enough evidence to prosecute her?” She answered in a question because now that she thought about it, that logic didn’t make sense. “Except . . . I happen to know that we haven’t prosecuted an employee in forever. Earlier this year, when an employee was found trying to sell proprietary documents, he was simply fired. Most corporations don’t prosecute because of the bad publicity.”
“The stock can take a dive over something like an embezzlement scandal. The Mad I know would have fired her and cut his losses.”
But the receipts hadn’t been the only things they’d found. Actually, now that she really thought about it, the receipts hadn’t been locked up at all. They’d been sitting on his desk with a bunch of other papers. Mad hadn’t been hiding them.
What he’d kept hidden and safe were the pictures of the girls, as well as her mother’s and the Russian woman’s names.
What had Deep Throat said? Sometimes she couldn’t see the forest because of all those distracting trees.
Calm down. Think. You have pieces to the puzzle. Now see how they fit together.
Her father had adored puzzles. They would often eat on TV trays because the kitchen table had been covered in whatever puzzle he’d been working on at the time. He’d always told her that putting together a puzzle taught a man patience. He would stare at the individual pieces and slowly a pattern would form.
Maddox Crawford had been a man who almost always chose the direct path. She’d seen him fire an executive for getting an investor report wrong. Maddox hadn’t carefully built a case. He’d been judge, jury, and executioner. He’d certainly dismissed more than one woman he’d slept with who proved herself troublesome.
He was a man with a multibillion-dollar fortune at his fingertips. He wouldn’t have truly missed the money. He would have been more worried about the impact to the company and the foundation than he would have been concerned about getting that cash back.
The important things had been in the lockbox, carefully concealed. The pictures of the girls. Her mother’s name. Natalia Kuilikov.
What had Tavia said about the missing girls today? That Maddox had been considering hiring mercenaries. But the morning after she’d slept with Gabe, Tavia had told her Crawford Industries’ own team was searching for the girls. Everly hadn’t really been involved with the case because it wasn’t a cyber threat. Besides, Tavia had known the girls and their families, had the necessary information.
She needed to look something up. “Can I see that computer again for a minute?”
He shrugged and scooted to the side, pushing the laptop in her direction. A few keystrokes later, she was into Mulford’s files regarding this investigation. And she didn’t like what she saw.
“Weeks, sometimes even months, have gone by and my counterpart who handles the physical security, Joe Mulford, hasn’t received any sort of update or request for reimbursement from any member of the Crawford security team overseas.” She frowned as another thought occurred to her. Suddenly, so many things weren’t adding up. “This is going to sound like an odd question, but did Maddox know any mercenaries?”
Dax laughed. “Hell no. Mad knew sommeliers across the globe, but not mercenaries. He would have come to me or Connor if he was looking for someone with that skill set in a farflung part of the world.”
“Would he have gone to Zack? After all, he was flying to DC when . . .”
“No. He definitely wouldn’t have asked the president for a reference on a soldier-for-hire. Besides, as you know, Crawford has divisions across the globe, each with their own security team. Mad would have started there.”
“If Mad had decided that wasn’t working?”
“Wasn’t working?” Dax stared at her as if she’d gone crazy. “You know they’re top-notch. They know the locals. They know their terrain. I dare anyone to do a better job in those territories. But if they weren’t getting the job done, he’d fire them and hire someone better. Not hire someone who could be bought off.”
Dax was right. “So there are girls missing from foundation schools. At least three. There are likely more, but Maddox thought those three were important. I know two of them were from Africa, one from India.”
She pounced on the computer. Dax helped her with passwords. It was a simple thing to look up the names and locations of the schools. Two were within fifty miles of a Crawford subsidiary.
“You’re right. They shouldn’t have needed mercenaries.” She frowned. “After Tavia contacted the overseas teams directly, Mulford should have been asked to approve their expenditures. But I looked at h
is reports. Zilch. Zip. Nada. Not one request for reimbursement filed for on-the-job expenditures. When I told Tavia I’d follow up on his behalf, she told me not to do anything to distract them.” A nasty feeling settled in her gut that Tavia was somehow in on the scam, too. “What if those girls didn’t merely disappear?”
Dax shook his head. “How would we prove it?”
“I think . . . I need to figure out why those damn pictures were sent to me. Maybe I’m thinking too literally. Deep Throat was insistent I should have received his information. I’ve been thinking it would be out there in the open, but what if he was sneakier than that? That camera is the only thing I’ve received that wasn’t about work. If my laptop wasn’t malfunctioning . . . Oh, damn it.” The truth hit her like a ton of brinks. How had she been so stupid? She raced back into the kitchen. “I would have figured this out in a heartbeat if my laptop hadn’t been giving me trouble already. How could I not have seen it?”
Dax was right behind her. “I don’t see it at all, darlin’. How about illuminating me?”
She needed to be sure first. She pulled up the folder containing the photos. The last few days had been so chaotic, she hadn’t thought to question why the photographs were taking up so much space. She had thought the trouble was with her system, but what if it was all about the photos themselves?
The menu popped up along with the file sizes. She pointed at the screen. “Do you see those file sizes? They’re huge.”
“Are you fat shaming the pictures?” Dax asked, his eyes narrowed. “Why does the file size matter? Aren’t pictures big files?”
Her hands were moving, flying across the keys because she knew what she had now. “They are big, but these are enormous. These took up almost all of the available space on my hard drive and there is a very good reason why. There’s something hidden in here.”
“Hidden how?”
She pulled one of the photos onto Connor’s computer. His system wouldn’t have the same capacity issues hers had. Again, she wished she’d left the card tucked into her laptop. She would have been able to remotely download everything to Connor’s laptop. “It’s called steganography. You bury important information under something that seems innocuous. Typically, the culprit codes their hidden material in a photograph. A huge file size is always the tip-off when someone tries that. And there it is.”
The photograph morphed and became something different.
“Whoa. What did you do?” Dax took the seat beside her. “Is that Russian?”
A thrill went through her. “I cracked the code. I can do it very easily now that I know what’s here. And that is definitely Russian. It’s all in Cyrillic. Unfortunately I have no idea what it says, but it looks like someone scanned it in. Those are handwritten pages.”
“I don’t know a ton of Russian, but I do know the alphabet. Zack is fluent and we used it almost like a code.” He pointed to the screen. “That’s a name. Do you see how it almost looks like an entry and then it’s signed. Over and over again. Like a diary. That’s feminine handwriting, I think. She signed her diary entries.”
Everly stopped. “So this is a woman’s journal. Dax, please tell me her name is. . . .”
“Natalia.”
“Oh god.” She still didn’t understand it all, but she knew one thing: She had to get back to those other photos. “We have to go to my office. The rest of this journal is on that SD card. That’s what Valerie was looking for, I’ll bet. She must have been involved or they used her as a patsy. This will lead us to the mysterious Natalia who hopefully knows a dude named Sergei.”
“Agreed, though I’m not sure what this has to do with embezzlement of Crawford funds used for the galas. I feel as if we’re still missing pieces of the puzzle.” But he was putting his boots on.
“I do, too, but we have to grab that SD card before Scott and whoever else is helping him does. That might tell us what we’re missing. If they steal that information, we’ll lose any chance we have to figure out what really happened to Maddox.”
“Gabe’s going to kill me.” He pulled out his cell and dialed a number. “Shit. I got his voice mail. Gabe, get your ass to Crawford. We think we’ve figured out a big, missing piece of this puzzle. It’s the package the informant sent, which is in her office. I’m taking Everly because she has access to the building and I don’t, but hustle there as soon as you can. Call me.” Dax frowned as he hung up. “All right. You lead the way.”
Everly practically raced out of the building and into the night.
• • •
I feel naked without my cell phone,” Gabe grumbled as they worked their way around the crowd.
“You know why Roman does it,” Connor said.
Because there had been one too many scandals involving people taping speeches that were then played out of context or showed the politician in a bad light. Those tapes of politicians speaking to their bases had unhinged more than one campaign, so Roman had declared cell phones out of bounds inside the banquet halls for fundraising events, even the ones Zack wasn’t supposed to attend.
“I know, but it’s a pain in my ass.” He strained to see through the crowd as they were finally allowed into the ballroom. A familiar face caught his eyes. “Hell. Is that who I think it is?”
Connor followed his gaze until it caught on a pretty blonde. “That’s Liz. Shit. Why wouldn’t he tell us?”
If Liz Matthews was here, then it followed that Zack was here as well.
Gabe’s gut twisted. Roman had lied to them. “I guess we should be happy he didn’t ban us from the ballroom.”
Connor held a hand up. “Stop. Those are our best friends. Give them a chance to explain.”
He scoured the crowd, looking for Roman. Now he understood all the security he’d been forced to go through.
“Mr. Bond?”
Gabe turned to find one of the Secret Service men he’d met a few days ago. Shit. “I need to see Zack.”
He stood his ground and wondered if they would haul him out kicking and screaming or if they would simply quietly tase him and dump his body somewhere.
“He would like to see you both. He and Mr. Calder are waiting in a private room upstairs. They saw you come in on the security cameras. I’m supposed to tell you that speaking to the tabloids about any incidents that might or might not have resulted in him earning the nickname ‘Scooter’ is an offense punishable by time in Guantanamo Bay.”
“Is he joking?” Gabe asked.
Connor’s lips had curled up. “I don’t think the Secret Service is allowed to joke.”
They followed the big guy in the dark suit to a private elevator.
“I think that was Zack’s way of telling you he knows you’re going to be pissed,” Connor whispered as the elevator started up.
“Yeah, well, no amount of joking is going to stop me from being pissed, but I’m not stupid. I’m not going to punch the fucker until he leaves office.”
“He’s joking,” Connor said, rolling his eyes as he turned back to Gabe. “They really don’t joke about threats to the president, man.”
The doors opened, and Roman stood inside, wearing a perfectly pressed tux. He held his hands up. “It’s not what you think.”
Gabe thought seriously about throwing a punch anyway, but the Secret Service guard stood with his sunglasses on, looking badass, and Gabe decided to keep his head on his body. “Then explain what’s happening. I want to know who shut down the FAA investigation. I want to know why Mad was really on his way to see Zack. I want the truth this time because someone is coming after the woman I love and I won’t let Zack’s politics get her killed.”
After a short ride, they reached their floor. Connor followed Gabe out, and the guard took up a place in front of the elevator doors as they closed again.
Roman started talking. “First off, I was trying to keep Zack’s appearance tonight a secret. That’s why I didn’t tell you. The tabloids have been following you and Everly everywhere.”
“Not an
ymore.”
“I’m glad to know that plan worked.”
“Roman, bring them in. I think we should tell them everything.” Zack’s weary voice sounded from around the corner.
Gabe strode into the suite’s large living area. Zack sat on the plush sofa, and it looked as if he hadn’t slept the night before. Though he was dressed to the nines, an air of exhaustion hung around him.
Zack looked behind Gabe and Connor, then nodded. At once, the Secret Service retreated. “Is Dax with your girl?”
Gabe nodded. “Yes.”
“I was so sorry to hear about the harrowing incidents. I’m glad neither one of you was hurt.” Zack reached out and picked up a glass of what looked like Scotch. He downed it, then got up to make another. He glanced back, offering them a glass. “Anyone else?”