by Kat Wheeler
Brandon Reece, SE’s in-house council, was standing at the window looking out onto the street. While the office was on the top floor of the building, it wasn’t tall enough to have a view of the skyline in this neighborhood. He looked thoughtful as he turned to watch their entrance into the room. His face wasn’t sad as far as Will could tell. He seemed more irritated or even angry. Will wondered what they’d been discussing before his arrival to put that look on his face.
Where Trey and Brandon were dark, Tessa was light. They had compiled a file on her background, and even though she looked every bit the damsel, she was quite an accomplished engineer in her own right. It wasn’t hard to find information on her accomplishments. She had won a few awards for software development and engineering. Her résumé was as diverse and accomplished as any member of the staff. It seemed both Tessa and Trey had the skills to circumvent the security system and commit the murder. The only one in doubt was Brandon. He looked like the dumb jock, ex-football type, but dumb jocks didn’t get law degrees from Harvard. It remained to be seen whether their lawyer had the technical know-how to pull it off.
Petite and waiflike, Tessa had moved and now sat delicately on the edge of the couch clutching a tissue and silently crying. It seemed a little much. They had all been notified of the murder on Saturday. Why now, three days later, was she crying? Was there more to their relationship than coworkers?
“You’ll have to excuse us,” Trey said, glancing at Tessa. “Emotions are a little high just now. We’ve just met with Matt’s parents, and it was a little tough to take.”
“Understandable,” Will answered. “We’ll try to be brief as we can. I’m Detective Will Justus, and this is Assistant District Attorney Kim Goodrich.”
“A detective named Justus?” Brandon reacted with a smirk. Brandon was, it seemed, a lesser version of Trey. Still dark and good-looking, he was a little shorter, a little rounder, and a little less attractive. He wondered what, if any, role that played in the group dynamic.
“U-S, not I-C-E,” Will replied with his standard answer every time it came up. At least now he knew who the comedian was in the room.
“I know you,” Tessa said, looking at Kim. “You’re Marcus Celli’s wife. We met at the Met Gala last year.”
“Yes, we did,” Kim answered. “It’s lovely to see you again. I’m just sorry about the circumstances.”
Tessa nodded, and Will was, for the first time, thankful for Kim’s presence. Hopefully her social climbing would help them smooth the waters.
“You’re here to talk to us about Matt,” Trey stated. “I’m not sure what we can tell you. We were all at my place in the Hamptons Friday night.”
“I understand it was a company party,” Will replied. “Did you notice Mr. Rodriguez’s absence? Wasn’t he supposed to be there as well?”
“He was,” Trey answered. “And I did notice he was missing, but that wasn’t unusual. He wasn’t a social guy. He worked nonstop. I honestly assumed he’d arrive later in the evening, but he never showed.”
“When was the last time any of you saw him?” Will asked.
“It was Friday.” This time it was Brandon who answered. “The three of us cut out from work around noon to head on out to the Hamptons. We asked Matt to go with us, but he stayed at the office. That’s the last time any of us saw him.”
“You were all together then, during that conversation?”
“Yes,” Trey replied. “We were heading out of the city and wanted to see if Matt wanted to ride with us to avoid Friday traffic.”
“It’s just so awful,” Tessa said, maneuvering herself back into Trey’s arms. “If we’d only insisted, he’d have come with us. He’d still be alive.”
Trey patted her shoulder a few times and casually moved away. It was brief, but Will thought he caught a glimpse of fire, irritation at having been put off in her eyes as Trey moved away. Looked like Tessa wasn’t getting the reaction from him she had hoped for.
“Do you have any leads?” Trey asked.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that at this point in the investigation,” Will answered. “I’d like to understand more about your security system. Who could’ve bypassed it?”
“Not many people,” Trey replied, moving to place himself behind his desk. “We wrote the program ourselves, Matt, Tessa, and I.”
“So any of you could’ve done it?” Will asked, cutting in.
“Of course,” Trey answered smoothly “Though we’d have no need to. We all have full access over the building. It would take someone highly skilled to get past it. That combined with the destruction of all of our data makes me think this was corporate espionage.”
“You think a rival company did this?” Will asked skeptically.
“Of course. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Everyone was supposed to be at the party. That was public knowledge. Whoever broke in wasn’t expecting to see Matt and panicked and killed him. It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Trey repeated.
It seemed unlikely to Will, but Kim was nodding right along. If it wasn’t a targeted attack, then why were the only rooms in the entire office entered Matt’s workspace and the server room? Someone hired for corporate espionage surely could’ve avoided Matt altogether. Seemed too likely a coincidence.
“Just to explore our options, can you tell me, did Mr. Rodriguez have any enemies?”
“Matteo?” Brandon replied, laughing. “No way. The guy was a total introvert. He spent most of his time working, and when he wasn’t working, he was out with us. Everyone here liked him. All the programmers who worked for him thought he was a god.”
“Did he have a girlfriend?” Will asked. The brief glance Brandon snuck at Tessa told Will everything he needed to know. “Ms. Wells, did you have a relationship with the victim?”
“It was over about a year ago,” she answered, looking a bit flustered. “And I wouldn’t exactly call it a relationship. We all hang around together, and a couple of times things just happened. We never really dated, and it only lasted a month or two.”
“But you’ve dated Mr. Howell as well,” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied stiffly. “On and off since high school, though I’m not sure why that’s relevant.”
“Any jealousy there?” Will asked. He was poking at her, he knew it, but they hadn’t felt the need for lawyers to step in yet. The two suits sitting at Trey's conference table hadn’t spoken a word. They probably felt safe with Brandon there, but corporate law and criminal law were two very different things. And he wanted to unseat them a bit, see if they would squirm.
“Not on my part, I assure you,” Trey answered smoothly. “What Tessa and I had was always casual. She’s one of my best friends, but there’s no need for jealousy. If she and Matt were happy, then that made me happy, end of story.”
This time Will knew he didn’t imagine the rage that flashed in Tessa’s eyes. It seemed she didn’t think the relationship was so casual. But she got herself under control quickly and smoothed her features.
“Exactly. Casual.” She almost spat the word out. failing miserably at feigning nonchalance. “No one here had a reason to kill him, least of all over a few indiscreet nights. We can provide you with a list of our rival companies. We’ve agreed it’s your best place to start.”
That made Will smile. They certainly knew where they wanted to point his investigation. This whole meeting had been staged.
He had to actively work to hide his grin now. They hadn’t been very subtle and had given away more than they intended, he was sure. He could tell by looking at Trey that he realized it too, and this interview would soon be over. The next time he wanted to talk to any of them, it was going to be at the police station with their lawyers taking a more active role. But he could still get one last poke in before they left.
“And you, Mr. Reece, did you also share a few indiscreet nights with
Ms. Wells?” he asked.
He got his answer not only by the red flush and accompanied stuttering nonanswer that Brandon Reece displayed, but also by the look of fury Tessa wore. It seemed Ms. Wells wasn’t so good at hiding her emotions and had a bit of a temper.
“Will!” Kim exclaimed, admonishing him. Then she turned to Trey with a smile. “I apologize, Mr. Howell. That was uncalled for.”
“Yes,” he agreed, nodding his head, his tone calm and even. The epitome of a CEO. “I think this conversation has run its course. We’ll provide you the list we discussed. Any further communication will have to be done through our attorneys.”
Will didn’t reply, just looked at the group, who, aside from Trey, seemed far less composed than they had been when they arrived. He was still trying to get a handle on the dynamic.
As soon as the elevator doors closed and they headed down to the lobby, Kim pounced on him.
“What was that about, Will?” she seethed, tongue between her teeth, reminding him of a snake. “We lost any chance of cooperation we had with them.”
“We never were going to get any cooperation,” he replied patiently, silently cursing the captain for requiring them to bring her along. “That whole thing was an act. One of them did it. They’re just trying to point us in the wrong direction.”
“How could you possibly know that?” she asked, her exasperation visible even through her Botox, face pinched and eyes squinted.
“How could you not?” he answered.
“Regardless of what your gut is telling you, there’s this little thing called evidence. You have none. And I can’t prosecute a case without it, so my advice is to follow up on that list and get me something I can use in court. Because you’ll need a whole lot of something if you ever want to talk to those three again.”
With that, the elevator doors opened into the lobby and she stormed off. Will’s day was looking brighter already.
Chapter Sixteen
Another day, more revenue toward quota
Tuesday for Cameron was kind of a bummer. Sitting in the SmartTech showroom in Manhattan pretending to pay attention to Keith Simmons, the showroom manager, present to the homeowners of the day was a little lackluster. It was a big project, and it seemed like Keith was having success at growing the SmartTech portion of the project, which was good for her and her quota. But she couldn’t seem to get into it. She’d zoned out right about the point they were trying to decide between ivory and white for the keypads—so boring. She was still a little on a high from her B and E yesterday and wanted to get through this so she could have a chance to finish scanning through the data on the NVR’s hard drives she had taken. She’d done a bit last night, but there were a lot of hours of recordings, and even fast-forwarding it was going to take some time to get through it all. Turned out Mr. Minsky had invested in as huge number of terabytes for storage and didn’t often write over his data. She’d gotten more hours of recordings than she thought she would from those drives.
Keith had noticed her distraction, and he’d been giving her funny looks all morning. She was usually more involved, and she’d been leaning on him pretty heavily to carry the meeting this morning. Luckily, it seemed to be wrapping up, and she could take a few hours to work on her side project before her next meeting came in. It was fortuitous that both her clients today were scheduled for the showroom, so she didn’t have to waste time running around getting to her appointments.
The SmartTech showroom, which had been a godsend for all the sales reps, was a perfect replica of an upscale Manhattan apartment in the front with offices and a conference room in the back. It made her life easier from a travel perspective for sure, but most important was the ability to demo all their products to the end users. Before, there had always been a disconnect between what the end users could understand about technology. Giving them an environment to actually see what they were buying and how it all worked together was a dream. And a huge boost to her commissions.
“So, what’d they decide?” she asked as Keith wrapped up the meeting.
“They couldn’t. They’re going to get the interior designer to pick. What’s with you today?”
“Nothing, sorry. I didn’t mean to check out there. Just got a lot on my mind. I’m going to set up in the conference room and try to get some things done.”
“Cool, I’ll let you know when lunch gets here.”
With his promise to order her a salad, she shut herself into the conference room and pulled out all the info she had discovered on Mark Minsky. She hooked up his hard drive to her laptop, popped open a Diet Coke, and began scanning through the footage.
She’d used the network topology she’d downloaded to discover the HTH had been installed roughly two months ago, which narrowed her search. She was trying to see if she could tell when it arrived or if it had been installed on-site. It was a long shot. Most likely he’d brought it into the house himself, and that would tell them nothing. It also wouldn’t be visible since the garage where he parked his car was connected to the house, so she wouldn’t be able to see him enter with it. And worst of all, he didn’t have any cameras inside the house. His whole surveillance system was dedicated to the exterior of the property. Guess Mr. Minsky didn’t want anybody seeing what went on inside.
But maybe, just maybe, it was a gift, and she would witness someone else bring in the hub. That would answer a lot of questions.
An hour later, she gave up. It was impossible. Two months ago was September, prime Hamptons season. Especially with the Labor Day holiday. Which meant the house that was rarely used now was Mr. Minsky’s primary residence at the time. And man, he liked to party. Between the amount of people going in and out of the house and the number of cameras to sort through, she was never going to find anything. Breaking into the house had been a complete waste.
But there was a lot of other info to go through. As connected as people were these days, they had no concept of just how much information a person could get from them with very little effort. Most people were only concerned with identity theft. That should’ve been the least of their worries. The amount of data Mark Minsky produced was staggering. She could tell when he left and came home courtesy of his smart locks. She could tell when he was using the summer house in the Hamptons based on his smart thermostat settings. She knew when the maid came, what he watched on TV, and she had complete access to his computer’s hard drive and his laptop when he brought it in the house. It was overwhelming. And possibly not even illegal. He had given his user info to Barry’s company, Digital Lifestyles, and they did have a legal agreement to provide support for all their hardware. She was technically an employee, of a sort… after a fashion. It was a stretch, but it was possible that if anything ever came back from this, she could squeeze her way out of a felony charge.
Her dismay at her first foray into B and E and detective work being an abject failure was broken up by Keith knocking on the glass and holding up her lunch. She smiled and waved him in. She may not be cut out to be a spy, but she could still enjoy her Cobb salad.
The comfortable routine of sitting around the conference table having lunch with Keith began to snap her out of her funk.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” she said between bites. “How’s it going?”
“Good. It’s been busy. Attendance is way up, so Steve’s been happy.”
“Freakin’ Steve.”
“Yep, freakin’ Steve. I wish you were here last week for this one meeting I had. You would’ve died.”
“Why, what happened?”
“It was awesome. A dealer brought in a customer. Oil guy, tons of money, and a much, much younger wife. I can’t stress this enough. She could’ve been his granddaughter.”
“What’s weird about that?” she replied. She could see the humor in his eyes, holding back laughter. “That describes half the customers who come in here.”
“
It was so great.” Chuckling to himself, he continued. “The wife left after a bit, and as soon as she was gone, the husband asks me if there’s anything we won’t integrate with. I ask him to be more specific, and he says a scale.”
“So what? He wants to get notified if his wife’s gained weight? What a dick.”
“No, it’s even better. It’s so much better than that. Turns out he bought one of those gigantic scales like the veterinarian or the zoo would use to weigh animals. He’s putting it under his bed. He travels a lot. He wants to set it up under his bed so if the scale measures more weight than what they’ve programmed for his wife, it will send a notification to his phone. He was really happy when I told him it could be done.”
“What the fuck? So he’s trying to catch her cheating? There are easier ways than that. Hasn’t he heard of cameras? Also, the potential for false notifications is huge. Do they have a dog? What if it hops up on the bed?”
“I mentioned that. The wife has a bichon frise. They’ll adjust the weight limit accordingly. They don’t think the cat will make a significant enough difference to register. And he doesn’t want cameras in his bedroom… privacy concerns,” he replied with a little smirk.
“Small dick?”
“I’d guess that or performance issues considering his age.”
“Unbelievable. Just when I think people can’t surprise me anymore,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “That’s got to be a miserable marriage. I give it a two-year max.”
“It won’t last the year. You didn’t see the wife.”
The wife.
Something jogged in Cameron’s brain. In all the video she had watched of Mark Minsky’s house, there was one thing she’d never seen: his wife.
Chapter Seventeen
You say potato, let’s call the whole thing off
“It’s the wife,” she exclaimed as soon as Casey answered the video call. She and Keith had cleaned up their lunch, and she was alone again in the conference room.
