Save Me, page 23
“Do you think the cops bought your story about those guys being muggers?” she asked, her face pressed against his chest.
He knew she could hear his heart beating and wondered if she realized that its pace had more than doubled since she’d stepped into his arms.
“They bought it. They want to buy it. They’ve got bigger issues to deal with than an attempted mugging. Especially one where the muggers got away with nothing of value.”
“But don’t you think it might be better for us if we explained about Mark’s death and our investigation?” She pulled away just enough that she could look up at him. “Maybe with the mugging and the attack in my home, the detective in charge of the case will see that there is something very wrong going on here and take my claim that Mark couldn’t have committed suicide more seriously.”
TJ considered the idea. “Maybe, but I’d like to meet the detective first. Feel her out a bit before we start sharing information.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Alexis stepped out of his arms and he fought the intense desire to pull her back against him again.
Where she belongs. The thought popped into his head, but he was more surprised by the fact that he didn’t want to swat it back.
“Are you all packed?” he asked, focusing on what needed to be done and ignoring his libido for now.
“Yes, I packed while you finished up with the police officer. I’m ready to go.” Alexis turned and disappeared into the bedroom.
“Good. Me too.” In fact, he’d never unpacked. It wouldn’t be the first time, and probably not the last, that he’d lived out of a bag.
He took Alexis’s bag from her and slung it onto one shoulder, then hiked his own bag on the other.
“We’ll call Shawn from the car and let him know what happened. I was able to get a partial plate from the car those guys drove off in, but I don’t know how much help it will be. Chances are the car is a rental or more likely stolen, but if anyone can track it down, it’s Shawn.”
TJ opened the door, scanning the area before waving for Alexis to step out of the room. They walked quickly to the car while he remained on alert. He doubted the guys would return to the hotel so soon, but there’d now been two attempts to get to Alexis, which meant she made a motivated enemy.
“What I don’t understand is how those guys knew we were staying at this hotel,” Alexis said as they hurried to the rental car. “I mean, you were looking the whole time we made our way back to the hotel from the restaurant and there are more than a half dozen other hotels in this area.”
“That’s a good question.” TJ contemplated the answer as he beeped the SUV’s trunk open and placed their bags inside. “Get in. I want to check something.”
He waited until Alexis had gotten in on the passenger side and closed and locked the door before walking around the SUV. He ran his hand over the inside of each of the wheel wells. Behind the front driver’s side tire, he found what he was looking for.
Alexis lowered the passenger window as he approached. “What is that?”
“A GPS tracker. That’s why they didn’t have to follow us from the restaurant. They knew where to find us.”
He took several photos of the tracker before tossing it to the pavement and stomping on it. In a perfect world, he’d have a West technician examine it to see if they couldn’t get some information off it that might tell them who’d bought it or planted it on the car, but he couldn’t take the chance of taking it with them while it was still emitting a signal notifying their pursuers of where they were going next. The photos were going to have to do.
He rounded the car and hopped into the driver’s side. He peeled out of the parking lot before instructing the in-phone assistant to call Shawn West.
It took several minutes to update Shawn.
“You two are okay, though, right?” Shawn asked once TJ had finished explaining the night’s events.
“We’re fine. I’ve got a split lip and will probably have one hell of a shiner tomorrow, but I’ve had worse,” TJ answered. He didn’t know where they were going, but driving aimlessly wasn’t a bad idea at the moment. It made it easier to spot if they had a tail. So far, they were in the clear.
“What do you need from me?” Shawn asked.
“A secure place to sleep would be great.” TJ glanced across the car. Alexis had looked exhausted before, but she was all but wilting now. Her head rested against the back of the seat and her eyes were closed, although he knew she wasn’t asleep.
“No problem. I actually have a buddy who lives in Virginia. It’s not too far from where you are. He’s overseas right now, but he’s let me use his place as a safe house before.”
“That’s some good friend.”
Shawn chuckled. “Yeah, well, he’s in the business, too.” The business being the business of elite private security, TJ knew. “Give me a minute to reach out.”
Ryan West had once told him that more than being a skilled fighter or being able to hack into computer systems or even anticipating potential dangers, private security and investigations were about contacts. Knowing the right people and being able to call on them when you needed to. That seemed to be proving true now.
“Okay, my buddy says the place is empty, and it’s fine for you and Alexis to stay there as long as you need to,” Shawn told TJ.
Shawn came back on the line after several minutes. He relayed the address and the details of how to gain entry into the house. TJ was to call a phone number when they arrived and Shawn’s friend would unlock the door remotely for them. The joys of technology.
It took about an hour for them to get to the house, but as Shawn had promised, they had no trouble getting in touch with his friend and getting inside. TJ took a quick tour around the home, which he noted was quite nice, before walking Alexis to the room he’d deemed safest for her to claim.
He placed her bag on the bed and was headed for the door when she placed a hand on his biceps, stopping him.
“Just in case I haven’t said it before, thank you. For being here with me. For believing me. For protecting me.”
He reached out a hand and palmed her cheek. “I will always be here for you, and I will always protect you.”
She took a step forward, closing the short distance between them. Her flowery perfume tickled his nose and lit the flame of desire in him.
Her eyes closed, and she tilted her head up. Her plump lips were the most enticing thing he’d ever seen, and it took every punch of willpower he had to force himself to step away from her.
“I’ll be across the hall if you need me.”
Alexis’s eyes opened, reflecting the same confusion mixed with the desire he felt inside.
Falling into bed with her now would be a mistake. An admittedly enjoyable mistake, but still, a mistake. And he couldn’t afford any mistakes now. Not when Alexis’s life could be on the line.
Chapter Twelve
TJ awoke the next morning to a quiet house. He peeked in on Alexis and found her still asleep. The safe house had three full bathrooms and a half bath, so there was no need for him and Alexis to share here.
He set the water to freezing and climbed into the shower.
He’d managed to keep the desire he felt for Alexis every time he looked at her at bay during the day, but he couldn’t stop the erotic scenes that had plagued his dreams during the night. He’d awoken hard as a rock and even grumpier than usual. Hence the cold shower. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working as well as he’d hoped. He couldn’t stop thinking about the hunger he’d seen in her eyes last night when he’d almost kissed her. He’d been with enough women to know that look when he saw it. She’d wanted him as much as he’d wanted her.
Yet he’d still pulled away.
It was the right thing to do.
So then why didn’t it feel right?
He turned the shower nozzle from cold to scalding, hoping the hot water would finish the work of quelling his growing feelings for Alexis.
He’d been right to stop what was clearly going to be a mistake for both of them. Alexis wasn’t a woman he could jump into bed with just for fun, even if she agreed to it. He cared about her, more than he liked to admit, certainly more than any woman he’d ever dated. She deserved the white picket fence, two kids, and a husband whose job didn’t involve living out of a car for days on end so he could catch other married people cheating on their spouses. It was more than he could, or was willing, to give. So he needed to put his libido in park and focus on the task at hand.
He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.
He and Alexis still had a lot of work to do if they had any chance of proving that Mark didn’t steal TalCon’s software program and even more work ahead of them when it came to proving Mark didn’t commit suicide. All of which was made more difficult by the fact that he had almost no idea what he was doing.
He got dressed in jeans and a gray pullover while considering, for probably the hundredth time since he’d agreed to take on Alexis’s case, whether he’d serve her better by letting Shawn or nearly anyone else at West take the lead. He chased cheaters, deadbeat dads, and disability fraudsters. He didn’t know the first thing about software programs and military contracts. And proving that Mark was really murdered?
He stopped himself before his thoughts really began to spiral and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
Alexis had come to him and he wasn’t going to let her down or pawn her off on someone else. This may not have been his usual type of case, but any good investigator knew that information was key.
Which was why he’d emailed Shawn to ask him to pull background reports on Nelson Bacon and Arnold Forrick after Alexis went to bed last night. And after some internal debate, he’d also asked Shawn to pull a background report on Mark, although doing so had left him feeling as if he was betraying his friend. Still, it had been nearly two years since he’d spoken to Mark. And if their last encounter was any indication, Mark’s drinking was worse than TJ had realized. Maybe he didn’t know his friend as well as he thought he did. It was possible Mark had gotten himself into something, wittingly or unwittingly, that he didn’t know how to get out of. Even though checking into Mark made him feel guilty, as if he was betraying his friend, he couldn’t ignore the possibility that the situation was just what the cops and TalCon said it was. Not that he would say that to Alexis unless and until he had concrete proof that her brother was a thief who had ended his own life rather than face the consequences of his actions.
In the kitchen, he popped two of the frozen muffins he’d found in the freezer into the toaster oven and started a pot of coffee before opening his laptop.
He clicked on the email from Shawn that was waiting at the top of his inbox just as his cell phone rang.
“Good timing,” TJ answered the phone. “I was just opening up the email with the background reports. Thanks for doing that, by the way.”
“Not a problem,” Shawn responded. “I told you I’ve got your back on this. Whatever you need.”
TJ skimmed the report. “Has Tansy made any headway on tracing the person who made the posting for Nimbus on the dark web?”
Shawn sighed. “Not so far.”
TJ beat back a surge of frustration and focused on the email Shawn had sent him. “I’m just getting a look at these reports. Is there anything in here about Bacon or Forrick I should focus on?”
“Both these guys are good at what they do. Both ex-military. Both highly decorated. Bacon was a Ranger. Forrick a Marine. Doesn’t appear they knew each other in the service, but they both landed at TalCon about the same time and rose in the ranks pretty much in lockstep. Bacon is the better diplomat, which propelled him to the top seat as CEO, but he brought Forrick along as his right-hand man. Forrick is the heavy. He does whatever Bacon needs him to do, leaving Bacon’s hands relatively clean.”
“Not a bad setup.”
“No, and there’s nothing I could find that suggests either of them is anything other than your typical, sometimes ruthless, corporate executive.”
The toaster dinged. TJ put the phone on speaker and carried it with him while he fixed himself a cup of coffee and buttered his muffin. “I’ve been thinking about the theft of the software. Atwal, the lawyer Mark hired to represent him, said that TalCon’s cybersecurity professionals found an offer to sell the program on the dark web. I don’t think this is the first rodeo for whoever stole this program.”
“You think the thief has done this before?”
“This or something like it. Whoever this is knows way too much about TalCon and this program and how to offload it for this to be the first time they’ve done this.”
“Yeah, but you’d think that if someone were running around stealing computer programs that could be used to wage cyber war, it would make the news.”
“Not necessarily. Atwal said that one of the reasons that Mark hadn’t been charged was that TalCon is still hoping to recover the program without a lot of fanfare. Maybe this kind of theft has happened previously and TalCon, or whatever company fell victim, worked to keep things just as quiet.”
“That makes some sense.” Shawn still sounded skeptical. “I’ll dig around. See what I can find.”
“Thanks. Hopefully, it will generate some much needed leads that don’t point back to Mark.”
TJ let his cursor hang over the third and final report Shawn had attached to the email. Mark’s background report.
“How is Alexis?” Shawn asked.
“Hanging in there. She’s strong. She’ll get through this.”
“How about you? I was surprised to see you asked for a background on your friend. Are you starting to have doubts?”
Was he? He didn’t doubt the Mark he’d known would never have done what he was being accused of. But the Mark who thought he’d ever make a play for his woman. The Mark that was drinking heavily the last time TJ had seen him. He wasn’t sure he knew that Mark at all.
“Just being thorough.” It seemed a safe enough answer, but Shawn was too good of an investigator not to have heard the hesitation.
“I sent the photos of the tracker to our technology team. I’ll let you know what, if anything, they are able to find out.”
“Thanks. Sorry I couldn’t get the actual device to you, but I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“I get it. I don’t want to step on your toes, but have you checked for other devices? That might not have been the only one.”
“I did a thorough check of the car last night. Didn’t find anything else, but you know this kind of investigation isn’t really what I’m used to doing.”
“You’re doing fine. And like I said, I got your back. And to prove it, after I pulled the backgrounds on Forrick and Bacon, I dug around some more.” The laptop chimed with an incoming email. “TalCon’s a juggernaut in the military contracting world, but they have a couple of upstart competitors nipping at their heels. I figured it might be worth looking at who would benefit if TalCon does a very public and embarrassing face-plant with Nimbus.”
The new email contained research on TalCon’s two closest competitors. TJ kicked himself for not having thought of the competition angle himself. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem. I’m also sending you a name.”
TJ’s email chimed again. The name Noel Muscarelli followed by an address. The text also included Noel’s phone number.
“Noel Muscarelli is a former executive at TalCon who abruptly left the company six months ago, even though he’d been touted as one of Bacon’s possible successors.”
TJ was surprised by Shawn’s last statement. “Is Bacon on his way out?”
“Umm... That’s an open question. Bacon has been in the CEO chair for twelve years. At some point, probably in the not-too-distant future, the board is going to have to start thinking about who follows him.”
“What about Forrick?”
“Uh-uh.” TJ imagined Shawn shaking his head on the other end of the line. “Forrick has burned too many bridges getting and keeping Bacon on top. When Bacon goes, Forrick goes too.”
Footsteps sounded down the hall where the bedrooms were. Alexis was awake.
“Thanks, Shawn. This is great. It gives me a few bushes to beat in hopes that something falls out.”
TJ ended the call as Alexis entered the kitchen. She wore a pink T-shirt and pink pajama shorts that showed enough of her tantalizingly creamy caramel skin to have him considering taking yet another cold shower.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
“I made coffee and thawed out a muffin for you.”
“Thanks.” She turned away from him quickly and he saw her cheeks pink. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
“Shawn. I asked him to do some background research for me.” TJ filled her in on the conversation. “Shawn found a former TalCon employee who worked in the same section as Mark who might be worth tracking down.”
“That sounds great. Speaking of TalCon employees, has Lenora Kenda gotten back to you?”
TJ frowned. “No.” Ms. Kenda was proving elusive, and he didn’t like it. There was no reason for Mark’s assistant to dodge his call unless she was hiding something. She was definitely on his list of people to talk to sooner rather than later. “I think it’s time we try being more forward with Miss Kenda. I want to take a drive by her house today. See if we can’t get her to chat with us. But I think it might be best to reach out to Noel Muscarelli, the former TalCon employee, first. He’s more likely to talk to us since he’s no longer with TalCon, and we still need to chat with Detective Chellel. We also need to track down Mark’s ex, Jessica.”
Alexis carried her coffee mug to the table and sat. “Mark told me they’d broken up a few weeks before he died. I’m not sure she’d know anything that could help us.”
