Pulling Strings, page 6
“At least we can eliminate some people that Devon works with,” Powers said.
“Not necessarily. Because their prints don’t match makes them less likely to be involved, but it doesn’t absolve them. They could easily have used items someone else touched and then wore gloves and handled things delicately. That would take a massive amount of planning, though, and I’m not necessarily seeing evidence of that.” She sighed softly. “Sorry to be the bearer of not-so-good news.”
“We have to have a way of eliminating some people.”
“I’m working on it. If I get a match, I’ll call you, but it will probably be tomorrow because I need a chance to get some rest. And you do too. Are you on the sofa at Devon’s?” she asked perceptively.
“Of course. I think we’ve got a plan to hopefully get our target to take our bait and, at the same time, to get Devon out of the center of this. Then he can go back to his life.” Such as it was.
“Okay,” Lucy said skeptically. “Is that what you really want?”
“Of course it is,” he whispered and then hissed, “Why wouldn’t it be?” softly enough that he hoped Devon didn’t hear him if he was still awake.
“I’m your twin, and no one knows you better than I do. There’s more to you and Devon than just business. You worry about him, and you’re spending a second night on his sofa when you know you really don’t need to. It’s not likely anyone is going to break in to retrieve what he has at this point. They’re likely to try to get it from him at the office because that’s a known quantity.” She had this way of cutting to the heart of things. Powers still wasn’t sure if he liked it or not, even after all these years. There were times when she got under his skin.
“Lucy….” He tried to add warning to his voice.
She ignored it. “What did you do?” The scolding tone set him on edge.
“Nothing. He seemed upset, and I hugged him a little.” He shrugged and grew quiet. “Hold on. There’s someone outside the door. I’ll call you back.” He ended the call and set the phone on the table, slipped off the sofa, and went to the door to peer through the hole.
There was indeed movement outside, but he couldn’t really see too much. Powers stepped back, pressing to the wall, debating on a course of action. If someone was trying to get in, he could attempt to catch them in the act or scare them off. He was leaning toward staying still and taking them, when Devon’s door opened and he walked out in his T-shirt and boxers like he had the night before. Dammit, he wasn’t going to put Devon in danger, especially if he was sleepwalking. Reaching over, he turned on the light and hurried to get the remote, then flicked on the television and raised the volume as he came back to the door.
“What’s going on?” Devon asked as he stood in the kitchen with the refrigerator door opening, blinking like a deer in headlights.
“I think it was an animal or something,” Powers said, speaking toward the door. The scraping sound instantly stopped, and Powers stayed still, listening for any indication of what was happening. He motioned for Devon to go to his room, and he scampered away, closing and locking the door. Then, only once he knew Devon was safe, did Powers peer outside.
He half expected to see the barrel of a gun or another eye looking back at him, but there was nothing. The hall seemed to be deserted. Powers unlatched the locks and carefully cracked the door open. There was no one there. He checked the lock, trying to see if it had been tampered with, but there was nothing. Lucy could probably tell if someone had tried to pick it, but at the moment, he couldn’t see anything.
Powers closed and locked the door, making sure the chain was on, then hurried over to lightly knock on Devon’s door. It opened immediately, and Devon stood shaking, still in his boxers.
“Are they gone?”
“Yes. They never actually got in.” Powers stepped closer, and Devon hugged him, shaking like a leaf. “It’s okay.” He gently rubbed Devon’s back. “I think we scared them away, and that will do for now.”
“But wh… what if they come back?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Powers explained, but Devon wasn’t buying it or letting him go. “Come on. I know you aren’t going to be able to sleep.” Powers led him to the living room.
Devon nodded and sat on the sofa, pulling the blanket over him. Powers sat as well, taking part of the blanket as they watched Roman Holiday. He loved old movies. He’d watched plenty of them on late-night jobs, and it seemed Devon liked them as well. Powers turned out the light, keeping the television on low volume and half listening for anything at the door. Devon curled up on his side of the sofa in a tight ball, his head on the arm, and it wasn’t long before soft snores accompanied the movie dialog.
Powers slid under the covers a little more, fatigue catching up with him as well. He turned off the television and closed his eyes, telling himself it was only going to be for a minute.
He started awake some time later. He wasn’t sure what woke him until he realized he was lying on his side, pressed to the back of the sofa, with Devon lying right in front of him, his back pushed against Powers’s chest. He was sound asleep, snoring softly and not moving, except for an occasional twitch in his legs.
The windows were still dark, indicating that it was sometime in the middle of the night. His phone was on the table, but that would mean moving to get at it, and if he did, he was sure to wake Devon. Instead, he closed his eyes, listening for anything out of the ordinary. He didn’t hear anything, and in a few minutes, he went back to sleep.
Powers woke with a gasp as Devon jerked upward with an audible start.
“How did I get here?” He wiped his eyes, and Powers slowly sat up.
“How much do you remember? You were sleepwalking,” Powers explained.
“So someone was trying to get in the apartment? I thought that maybe I had dreamed that, but….” Devon held his head in his hands. “Did we sleep together?” He looked down and turned the most adorable shade of pink.
“You were upset and joined me on the sofa. I think you got comfortable during the night.” Powers was wondering if Devon had truly been awake for any of what happened. He’d been responsive, but Powers had heard of people who seemed fully cognizant when they sleepwalked, yet they didn’t remember anything. “Don’t worry. Nothing happened other than sleeping.”
“Oh,” Devon said, then seemed to fully realize what he was wearing, rabbited into his bedroom, and closed the door.
“Devon, it’s okay,” Powers said through the door. “Nothing happened, and you were upset. I was just trying to calm you down.”
The door opened slowly. “I was just surprised,” Devon said softly. “I don’t usually wake up with men I barely know holding me.” He shook his head. “I’m trying to remember about last night, but I don’t seem to recall much.”
“Do you sleepwalk a lot?” Powers asked, not that he really expected Devon to have a reliable answer.
“I know I do, but it’s hard to tell. I don’t remember doing it, but my mom said I did whenever I got stressed. She always said I went to the refrigerator.”
“It’s what you did last night and the night before.” Powers felt bad that he might have been the source of some of the stress that first night. He had come down on Devon pretty hard, but he’d been convinced that Devon was part of this theft and was determined to scare the hell out of him in an effort to flip him. Instead, Powers had been the one to have his eyes opened, and by a pair of intense baby blues. “I left you alone because I didn’t want to scare you… well, any more than I already had.”
Devon nodded. “I need to clean up and get to the office. My bag is on the chair. Make sure that whatever you want me to take back is in it, and I’ll leave it in my chair a few times during the day as I go to the bathroom and stuff. Hopefully whoever was behind this will just take what they want and go.” He closed the door, and Powers got the bag and made sure the decoy envelope was inside.
He folded the bedding, leaving it on one side of the sofa, then pulled on his shoes and socks and gathered his things. When Devon joined him, they repeated the routine from the day before, with Devon promising to call if he had any trouble and when he reached the office.
POWERS UNLOCKED the apartment and headed in to change his clothes. “Geez, Lucy, have you been up all night?” he asked his sister, who sat at the kitchen island, her head down on the top.
She lifted up slightly as if her head was heavy. “Most of it. I wasn’t able to get much more, which is the real shits. I tried everything I know, but the prints are just not clear enough or too overlapped to make much out of them. We can try again to get something from the two people, but I’m not sure. I think we may be going at this the wrong way.”
“How so?” Powers asked. “I know who had access, and while they used the system, there were no abnormal activities and certainly no massive downloads.”
Lucy sighed, lowering her head once again. “Maybe this isn’t a theft at all… at least not yet. Maybe what Devon found and what’s happened so far was a decoy. Maybe this whole thing was just to show the buyer what was for sale and what they could get.”
Powers got two mugs out of the cabinet and poured some coffee for both of them. He set one mug near Lucy and sipped from the other, thinking. “I have a lot of work to do.” He took his mug to his room, closed the door, and stripped down to take a shower. This entire situation bothered him to a large degree. It was time to dig deeper and question everyone’s motives, at least more than he had.
He cleaned up quickly and got out of the shower as his phone rang. He snatched it up off the counter, dripping water all over the floor.
“It’s Devon. I’m….” He sounded breathless. “Someone tried to grab my bag, and someone else on the subway hit him. I didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Where are you?” Powers asked, yanking open the bathroom door, grabbing a towel, and drying himself one-handed as he held the phone.
“I’m in the bathroom at 30th Street. I got right off and ran,” Devon whispered. “They weren’t supposed to try to take the bag. I have stuff I need in it.” He gasped.
“Just stay where you are. I’m getting dressed, and I’ll be there as soon as I can. Leave the bathroom if you can, but stay with people and where others can see you. Call in and say that you’ll be late, and I’ll be there. Sit tight.” Powers’s heart raced as he tossed the phone on the bed and pulled on some clothes. Grabbing his wallet and keys, he snatched his phone off the bed and headed toward the door. “I’ll call you,” he said to Lucy as he left.
Powers raced to the subway station and took the next train that would lead to the 30th Street station regardless of the line. It took longer than he liked, and as soon as he was off the train, he ran out to the main station, where Devon sat on one of the benches, cradling his bag to his chest, rocking slowly back and forth. Powers sat next to him and hugged Devon.
He clung to him tightly. “I didn’t know they’d do that. I was so scared and wrenched it away,” he muttered between gulps of air.
It was on the tip of Powers’s tongue to say that he should have let them have the bag. That there was nothing in it worth getting hurt for, but that wasn’t going to help. “It’s okay.” He kicked himself. He should have ridden in with Devon instead of letting him go off on his own. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”
Devon shook his head. “They came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around, they tried to take the bag.” He heaved for air, and Powers rubbed his back to calm him down. “I should have given it to him, but I pulled away without thinking, and then another man hit him with his cane, and soon other people came to my rescue.” He pulled away slightly. “I was fine until I got off the train and then wondered if maybe there were other people.” His breathing seemed less rapid.
“You did just fine.” Powers continued holding him, letting Devon calm a little more. “I need you to think for me. What do you remember about him? Was he at all familiar?”
Devon shook his head. “No. I didn’t recognize him.” He grew still. “I think he was wearing a gray hoodie and jeans. Very original. I didn’t give him a second thought when I first saw him, and then he was pulling at my bag and….” He shivered. “I don’t want to go through that again.”
“When exactly did it happen?”
“Right before I called you.” Devon looked at him like Powers was nuts.
“No. I meant on the train ride,” he gently clarified, still rubbing Devon’s back. He was settling down, and Powers slowly pulled away so he could watch him better. “Was it just before pulling into the station here?”
“Yeah. I think he planned to get the bag and then jump off as soon as we stopped. That would make sense. If you were going to steal a bag, you wouldn’t want to get caught on a closed train.” Devon sat straight up once again. “I’m okay now.” He blew out his breath. “I think I was shocked, is all.”
“I know.” Powers wished he’d let the man have the bag. “Did he say anything to you?”
Devon shook his head. “Nope.”
“Okay. Have you called the police?”
“No. I didn’t think they could do anything about it. The guy is long gone, and he didn’t actually get my bag.” He swallowed hard, Powers watching his throat work. “I should go on to the office and continue with the plan. The sooner they get this back, the sooner I’ll be able to breathe again.”
Powers nodded and stood, waiting for Devon. He had no intention of leaving him alone again. The two of them returned to the train station and rode the subway the two stations to Devon’s stop.
In the office, Powers accompanied Devon to his floor, tempted to see that he got to his desk, just to make sure he was safe. He didn’t want to leave him. This incident had rattled Powers more than he wanted to admit. He liked Devon and felt a need to make sure he was safe. This was more than his job, and that scared him. If he didn’t need people, then he wasn’t going to have to watch when they went on with their lives and he had to move on to the next case. Devon was part of this assignment, and mixing business and his private life was a recipe for disaster. It had happened before, and it couldn’t again.
Powers rode up a floor and went to the small, out-of-the-way office he’d been given to use while he was on the case. It had no windows and was little more than a closet, but it was perfectly usable. Powers closed the door and sat at the old tan steel desk. He pulled a pad out of the drawer and began making notes. He needed to get his thoughts down on paper and figure out another angle, or this case was going to go nowhere and the designs for the system would end up on the black market. Time was of the essence, and he was getting nowhere fast.
He pulled out the development control system logs and began going through them again. There had to be something, a trail he could follow. According to everyone he’d talked to here at the firm, as well as the company who developed the software, there would be a record of each access made to the system. One thing was for sure—he needed some help. Computers weren’t his thing. He was more an action and follow-the-trail kind of guy.
His phone rang, and Powers answered the call from Mr. Mauer.
“Are you making progress?” There was no preamble.
“A little. But I need some expertise I can trust, and the people I would normally go to within your organization are all people who could be behind this. You also don’t want word getting out about the possible theft—”
“What do you need?” he interrupted. Mr. Mauer was very much a bottom-line kind of guy.
“I’d like to work with Devon Donaldson. He’s smart, and he’s already aware of what’s going on. He’s also discreet.”
“How?” Mr. Mauer’s eyes narrowed.
“I believe he became involved by accident.” He had to pick his words carefully, or else a likely innocent person was going to end up paying for something he didn’t do.
“Very well.” He paused, and Powers figured Mr. Mauer was wrestling with the same problem he was: how to get Devon reassigned without raising suspicions. “I’ll say that I have a special project and that he’s going to be working directly with me for a few weeks. No one will question that. It’s happened a few times before, so it won’t be out of the ordinary. I’ll be in touch later today.” He ended the call.
Powers set aside the reports. He had been over them three times and had scoured them for any clue about the specific program specifications that had been passed to Devon. But he’d come up empty. If that wasn’t going to move him forward, then he needed to start looking into the background of everyone with access to the system or who had worked on the system. Back to basics… at least for now.
While Powers worked, he kept his phone close. Once Lucy woke up, he put her on some of the background searches. More than once he was tempted to walk past Devon’s desk just to make sure he was okay and find out if anyone had taken the bait.
A knock pulled him out of his computer searches toward the end of the day. He blinked as he pulled his mind out of the detailed and sometimes exhausting work. “Come in.”
Devon walked in and closed the door.
“Did they take the envelope?”
“Not yet. I left the bag at my desk when I came here. So maybe they will while I’m gone.” He sat on the only other chair in the space. “Mr. Mauer said you needed my help. Apparently I’m on one of his special projects now.” He seemed jumpy.
“Yes, you are.” Powers stood and walked around the desk. “I’m not getting anywhere with these systems and their security. I don’t understand them, and I know you do, at least at a basic level. You also understand what’s going on, and I know you’ll be discreet. So I asked Mr. Mauer if you could help me.” If they were successful, then some of the glory would fall on Devon, and that would be a good thing for his career, which was an added benefit.
“Okay.” Devon seemed wary.
“Will you help me?” Powers asked.
Devon curled his lower lip between his teeth. “If you think I can.” He lowered his gaze to the floor, which told Powers pretty clearly that Devon was nervous.
