Silver Lining, page 18
My phone vibrated. I looked down at the message and turned to CJ. “They’re in your apartment.”
“That’s a little disheartening. So much for locks.”
“Since Adam told us he was going to do it, I hope you’re not thinking of pressing charges for breaking and entering.”
CJ reached over and splayed his fingers on my thigh. I was wearing the same skirt and blouse from yesterday. While I’d never gotten the chance to wear CJ’s t-shirts, he was. His suit from yesterday was replaced with nylon shorts and an orange t-shirt with the name of a restaurant on the front.
“No charges,” he said with a grin. “I’d rather they’re certain the apartment is secure.”
“What if they’re being watched?”
CJ’s grip of my skirt-covered thigh tightened. “Yesterday, Colton asked me why anyone would believe that you contacted me when you have an entire security team. He asked if I had superpowers he didn’t know about.”
Laying my hand over his, I mused, “You do.”
“I do?”
“The superpower of making me feel safe and allowing me to forget about the mountain of troubles in my life, even if only for a night. I slept better last night than I have since returning from Cancún.”
“I’d like to combine my superpowers with Adam, Kelsey, and others in your security.” He grinned. “For the record, I’m not working in a paid capacity, so no need to worry about your hard line.”
Sighing, I let my gaze drift back onto the streets of Austin. “I’ve been thinking about your proposal.”
“And…” he encouraged.
“If I make it out of this…I’m game for the idea of you working with Venus, not for Venus.”
“You will—make it out.”
“If I don’t,” I went on, “please stay with Architech. Jeremy can take Architech to the masses, but he’ll need you there at his side.”
“You told me about this Butler guy. Do any other adversaries come to mind?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been racking my brain. No one else comes to mind except my ex-brother-in-law. “
“Madison’s ex-husband? Didn’t you say he’s in prison?”
“He is. I would assume that gives him connections, but to be honest, he doesn’t have the means to pay. The man in New York had been promised five thousand dollars.”
“You said you helped to dissolve the company Infidelity. Could someone from there be seeking revenge?”
“It was long ago. Water under the bridge.” I turned to CJ. “I appreciate your trying to help.”
“No, this isn’t done. My years of experience watching Law and Order are kicking in. I say we sit down and go through the last few years of business history.”
“My team…”
“Fresh eyes.”
My temples pounded as I considered his offer.
“We’re here,” CJ said, pulling into a large apartment complex. “It’s nothing exciting. The house on Lake Travis is much nicer.”
I sent a text to Adam, saying we were close and then looked at the buildings, all similar in appearance. “What floor do you live on?”
“Second floor.”
As CJ parked the Range Rover in an empty space, the door to the building ahead of us opened, and Adam came out. He was at my door before CJ could turn off the vehicle. That meant that the door was still locked when Adam tried the handle. I turned back to CJ.
“We’ll keep you safe,” he said.
“I-I hate being dependent.”
“You’re not, Lena. You’re the boss, the person in control. That doesn’t mean you don’t need them. They care about you and need you too. It goes both ways.”
Inhaling, I nodded. “You don’t need me. I’m the worst thing for you.”
“You’re right. I don’t need you. I want you.” He reached for my hand. “The want is strong enough to become a need. For you.” He emphasized the word. “Your laugh, your smile, your everything.”
“I’m sorry I got you involved in this.”
“I’m not.”
With a nod, I reached for the door handle, unlocking the door. Instantly, Adam had me at his side, ushering me into the building. I turned back in time to see someone stop CJ near his vehicle.
“Wait,” I said.
“This way,” Adam said, taking me down a hallway and through another door.
As Adam opened the door, I realized we weren’t going to CJ’s apartment but out to a waiting SUV. My feet stopped as I reached out to the doorjamb. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Our jobs,” Adam said. “I don’t trust Mr. Thompson.”
“I do.”
Adam’s light-blue eyes narrowed. “Ms. Montgomery, get in the car, and let us tell you what we’ve learned.”
My thoughts went back to the man I saw with CJ. “Who is with CJ?”
“Mathew. We called in a few more members of the team.”
Why didn’t I recognize him?
“Is he…? What is Mathew doing with CJ?”
The driver’s side of the black SUV opened, and Kelsey appeared. “Please, Lena. Listen to us.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“We have somewhere safe,” Kelsey said.
“Is CJ okay?” I asked with one more look over my shoulder.
Adam replied as we started moving toward the SUV. “If he’s innocent, he will be.”
Before entering the back seat where Adam was holding the door, I said, “He is innocent.”
“Please,” he said, nodding toward the interior.
Once we were all inside the SUV and Kelsey began driving, I sent CJ a text message.
* * *
“I’m not sure what is happening. I’m with Adam and Kelsey. Are you okay?”
* * *
When I finished, I looked up toward the front seat and spoke. “Start talking.”
“Ma’am, could I have your phone?” Adam asked, extending his hand over the seat.
My grip tightened. “No. I want to hear why you don’t trust CJ.”
“Has CJ had access to your phone?”
“Yes.”
“I need to be sure he didn’t plant—”
“Why don’t you trust him?” I asked again, interrupting and still holding tight to my phone.
Adam’s jaw clenched and his nostrils flared. “In Cancún, we knew that CJ was Chandler Thompson. That was a strange coincidence, but with no more information about him, he seemed harmless.”
“A distraction,” Kelsey said, meeting my gaze in the rearview mirror.
“And your opinion has changed?” I asked.
Adam lifted a plastic bag from the floorboard. As the contents came into view, I tried to make sense of what I saw. “What is it?”
“It’s the same stationery that the note with the chocolate candies was written on.”
I took it from his hand and looked down, twisting the plastic bag in my hands. “It’s white stationery. That’s hardly a smoking gun.”
“How many thirty-one-year-old men do you know who own stationery?” Kelsey asked.
I owned stationery. I knew a few people who owned stationery. No one used it often, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t available. “I don’t know many thirty-one-year-old men.”
Adam handed me his phone. “With the speed at which things went down yesterday, there was no time for Chandler to hide what we found in his apartment. We’d assume he didn’t intend for us to look.”
My pulse kicked up a notch as I looked down at the phone. “What am I seeing?”
“He has a folder hidden on his computer filled with information about you.”
“What kind of information?”
“There are your daily schedules going back to two months before Cancún,” Kelsey said.
“How would he get that?”
“Our people are checking, but we believe he tapped into Montgomery Holdings Security’s cloud.”
“You’ve told me it’s secure.”
“It is. We thought it was,” Adam said. “Mr. Thompson is very adept when it comes to computers and technology. It isn’t a leap to believe he could hack into our system.”
My mind swirled with dates and places. “Two months before Cancún?”
“It coincides with your first interest in Architech.”
“But the break-in was before that.”
Kelsey and Adam nodded. Finally, Kelsey answered, “We’re still working on that.”
“We’ll know more after Mathew questions Mr. Thompson.”
The private airport came into view. “Wait, are we leaving Austin?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Adam replied.
“Did you send for another Montgomery plane? I don’t want to rent a plane,” I added, unsure what to believe.
“Mr. Sherman sent a plane.”
“Van? What does he know?”
“You’ll need to talk to Mr. Wilde about that.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
CJ
“What the hell?” I said as a man I didn’t know wearing a suit stepped in my way, stopping me from following Lena.
“Mr. Thompson, we have some questions for you.”
I pushed forward, determined to catch up to Lena and Adam.
“Sir,” a second man in a suit said, stepping from my apartment building, the same place where Lena had disappeared.
“Where the fuck is Lena?”
“Ms. Montgomery is in our custody now. She’s with people who are determined to keep her safe.”
“Your custody? Who the fuck are you? And I’m determined to keep her safe.”
“Sir, come with us up to your apartment.”
“Is Lena there?”
Neither man answered as I was sandwiched between them. I sized one up and the other. I could take one of them in a fair fight, two, I wasn’t confident. I had the gun from my glove compartment tucked in the waist band of my shorts, but I wasn’t completely prepared to use it, not to protect myself.
Lena, yes.
“Fine,” I said. Taking the stairs, we traveled up to the second floor. Once to my door, the first man opened it. Inside, my apartment was in shambles.
My fists balled at my sides. “What the fuck?”
“Is this your computer in here?” the second man asked, walking down the hall toward my office.
Following a step behind, I entered. The desk and floor were littered with papers. My bookcase that had been filled with the succession of figurations for what became Architech was empty, the binders strewed around the room.
“Your computer?” he asked again.
The screen was lit. From what I could see, the computer was still working. “Yes. How did you get past my security code?”
It wasn’t as if I used my birthday or the date Architech became incorporated. It was a random sequence of numbers and letters, ones I’d memorized.
The man moved my mouse through a maze of firewalls. At first, I was familiar with what I was seeing, but then he entered a corner of cyberspace I’d never seen before.
“What can you tell us about this folder?” he asked.
“Nothing. It’s not familiar.”
Man number one clicked on the folder, revealing a long list of files—some documents, PDFs, JPEGs, and Excel sheets. I could only differentiate by the file names.
The second man gestured toward the desk chair. “Have a seat, Mr. Thompson. We’d like to find out how you accessed Montgomery Holdings’ cloud.”
“I didn’t.” I probably could, but I didn’t.
“Sit.”
“Where is Lena? Where did they take her?”
“Ms. Montgomery would prefer to avoid the publicity that comes with involving the various legal agencies. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act makes accessing information illegally a crime, up to a class D felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.”
Sitting, I looked up at the screen. The algorithm before me was running too fast to make out the sequencing of numbers. Yet as the man spoke, I watched the recursive relation, knowing I hadn’t set this algorithm into play. It was a Fibonacci sequence. In essence, each number was the sum of the two preceding it.
We’d tried using that sequence with Architech early on and found there to be too many glitches. While the golden ratio was close, it wasn’t precise. I’d never use Fibonacci numbers to do what these men were accusing me of.
I sat back, feeling my phone vibrate. With the two sets of eyes on me, I couldn’t look to see who messaged me. I could only hope it was Lena.
“How long did it take you to plant this on my computer?” I asked.
“Sir, we found—”
“No, you didn’t,” I said, standing. “Call the police or FBI, or fucking Homeland Security. Get them here. You broke into my home and planted evidence.”
Man number one took a step closer. “Stop harassing Ms. Montgomery. Admit that you’ve been stalking her. We found the stationery. If we pursue it with the authorities, you’re looking at more than computer hacking. Attempted murder. Endangerment of sea life. Agree to leave her alone and we can keep this between us.”
I shook my head. “I’d never do what you’re accusing me of doing.”
“The folder on your computer shows you’ve been watching her activity for over two months. Your suite in Cancún was booked immediately after hers. Was it your intention to get to know Ms. Montgomery in Cancún or to kill her?”
It was true I’d booked my Cancún stay at the last minute but not because I knew Lena would be there.
“You’re fucking nuts,” I said, standing and taking a step back.
“Sir, Ms. Montgomery is being presented with this evidence as we speak. She is leaving Austin and wants no further contact from you. A restraining order is in the works.”
“I didn’t do this.” My voice was louder than necessary. “Someone wants to hurt Lena. It’s not me. If you pretend it is and waste time with me, the real stalker could get to her.”
Man number two looked down at his phone and lifted the screen. “Is this you?”
It was a grainy black and white picture, presumably taken from security footage of a person near a plane. I couldn’t tell if it was me from the photo, but I knew it wasn’t. I hadn’t been near any planes since arriving home from Cancún. “No.”
“And you’re certain?”
“Yes. When was it taken?”
“Late yesterday morning.”
“I was at Architech until I left with Lena. You can ask my brother. Check the security footage.”
Man number two closed the door to my office, leaving the three of us inside the chaos. “Get comfortable, Mr. Thompson. We have more questions.”
Meeting man number two at the door, I stood a few inches taller. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”
“You’re not in charge, Mr. Thompson.”
Pulling my gun from my waistband at my back, I pointed it at man number two and took a step back, letting man number one see what I had. “The fuck I’m not.”
Man number one also had his gun drawn.
“You’re going to have to shoot me or get the fuck out of my way. I can shoot both of you. You’re in my home. You’ve ransacked my apartment. Castle Doctrine. Under Texas law, I’m justified.” I pointed the barrel at the man in front of the door. “You’re dead.” I tilted my head toward his friend. “He may shoot me, but not before you’re gone.”
Number two’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
“I don’t know who the fuck you are,” I said, “but if your job is to protect Lena Montgomery, get the fuck out of my way. You know I’m not guilty, or you’re both idiots and don’t belong on her security team. If you’re not with her team, then you could work for her stalker.” The pieces seemed to be snapping into place. I wasn’t certain if like the Fibonacci sequence, my train of thought was realistic or a glitch, but I went with it. “In that case, I should pull the trigger.”
The man at the door stepped to the side and turning the knob, opened the door. Keeping my back toward the hallway, I continued my hold of the pistol. “Tell whoever you work for that I won’t stop until Lena is safe.”
Without thought for my apartment or any of the disaster inside, I took off running toward my car. Slipping the pistol back in the glove compartment, I started the Range Rover as I looked at my phone. I had multiple messages. The only one I cared about was the text from Lena.
* * *
“I’m not sure what is happening. I’m with Adam and Kelsey. Are you okay?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lena
“What did you tell Van?” I asked Jeremy, calling him once I was on the Sherman Corporation jet. It was a little smaller than my plane, and I knew from experience it was the jet Van used. While Archie stayed with my plane in Austin, a pilot named Ruth was flying this plane.
Jeremy’s voice came through the phone. “I told him that there was a problem with your plane in Austin, Texas, and you didn’t want to rent.”
“So, he just sent a plane?”
“Yes,” Jeremy replied as if Jeremy had asked Van for a car ride, not to send a private jet from Wisconsin to Texas.
We were currently at cruising altitude with over three hours to go before Missoula. “You didn’t tell him about…” I sighed. “Everything.”
“No, but that man is curious. Experience tells me that when he’s curious, he doesn’t give up easily.”
“I should call him.”
I was seated near the rear of the fuselage having told Adam and Kelsey I wanted my space. I still wasn’t certain how I felt about being whisked away, and as of yet, I’d not heard back from CJ.
“Don’t be mad at Adam and Kelsey.”
I scoffed. “You’re not here. You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“I’m not there,” Jeremy said, “because they convinced me that sticking with our original schedule was best to hopefully throw off anyone watching. I know you, and I know that flying away from Austin wasn’t on your schedule, not after you reached out to Chandler.”
