by Lexi Blake
“That you were going to steal my keycard and ruin my career? Yeah, I would have liked to have known that was coming.”
“I know it seems bad now, but I was trying to save your career,” Hutch explained.
“Hutch, can you do this in the conference room?” Big Tag stood in the hallway. “I have to get home at some point in time tonight.”
“Yes, we wouldn’t want the ruining of my life to inconvenience you, Mr. Taggart,” Noelle said, a bite to her tone. “How about I call a ride and then you can go home immediately?”
“Ian,” Hutch began because he knew what it took to stir the beast in his boss, and that beast was close to the surface tonight.
“I would love for you to do that, Ms. LaVigne.” Ian’s voice had gone soft—a sure sign that he was about to go volcanic. “I started my day getting arrested in front of the middle school my daughters go to, and all because of a case I took for zero dollars.”
“Well, you did a great job,” Noelle replied. “Your guy cost me my job and my dignity. I’ll be sure to put that in my online review.”
He turned to his boss. “She’s upset. She doesn’t mean any of this.”
“I know, and if I’d had a less shitty day, I would be more patient, but I’m sick of little girls who think they know what they’re doing. I’m sick of children who tear up the people around them because they don’t know how to handle their emotions,” Tag bit out. “Ms. LaVigne, you should understand if you weren’t Armie LaVigne’s daughter, I’d toss your ass out on the street because if you can’t do us the courtesy of listening to a debrief, then I don’t care what happens to you. But you are, and I owe your father. So this is how the evening is going to go. You can sit and listen, or I can have a guard escort you upstairs to one of our safe rooms where you will wait until your father can come pick you up.”
Noelle’s jaw went tight, and a single tear fell on her cheek. “I’m sorry I was rude.”
“Your whole world feels like it fell apart.” Hutch moved to her side. Ian was being too hard on her. “It’s okay.”
She ignored him, choosing to look to Ian. “I would prefer it if you didn’t call my father.”
Tag shook his head. “You can call him or I will. I’m sorry. I can’t be a businessman here. I’m a father, and I know how I would feel if my daughter had been arrested and no one bothered to tell me. You’ve got until tomorrow morning. I’ll be contacting your dad at ten a.m.”
“Ian, maybe we should talk…” Hutch began.
“All right.” Noelle interrupted him. “It doesn’t seem like I’m left with many choices. I will listen to this debrief of yours. Am I going to be able to talk to the people who had me arrested? Is Cara in there? Why didn’t she question me?”
“Because she didn’t have you arrested at all. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” At least he would have a chance to explain. He would rather do it privately, but he could make her understand any way she would allow it.
“There’s a third party at play.” Tag seemed to relax slightly. “We should talk in the conference room. It looks like Mitch is back with Kyle.”
There was the beep of the front door opening and Kyle walked in. Unlike Noelle, he truly looked worse for the wear. There was a cut on his lip, and his normally controlled hair was unruly. There was a blood stain on the shirt he wore.
Kyle looked Noelle over. “You do okay in there?”
Noelle sniffled, the first sign that she wasn’t completely in control. “They told me you were throwing me under the bus.”
Kyle snorted. “Like I would do that.” He looked to Ian. “I got mouthy and pushy to buy us some time. Also, I hate those interview rooms. They’re cold and I can’t make friends. I think I joined the prison softball team.”
Tag showed his first real smile. “I’m sure you’ll be a hit. You going to take it out on him or me?”
Kyle smiled, but it was a kind of scary thing. “Oh, I’m taking it out on him.”
Were they talking about him? Hutch started to ask but then Kyle reared back and popped him right on the nose. Pain flared, and Hutch felt a momentary nausea as he cradled his nose.
“That’s for getting me arrested, you asshole. And for not trusting me. You lied to me,” Kyle said. “The only reason I’m staying on this assignment is for Noelle. And we’re not friends again.”
Hutch saw the moment Noelle started to reach for him and then pulled back.
“Can we get through this? I’d like to get some rest.” Noelle looked to Kyle like he was going to save her.
“I’ll make sure you get home after this is over,” Kyle promised. “I could use some rest myself.”
She thought Kyle would escort her home and leave him out in the cold? Well, she was wrong. He watched as Kyle led her into the conference room, his mind turning ruthless.
“Don’t kill him,” Tag said, looking down at his nose. “It’s not even broken.”
It was good to know someone didn’t underestimate him.
“Damn, what happened?” Mitchell Bradford walked in the door. “Fuck. That had to be Kyle. He’s psychotic, you know. There’s something wrong with him. From what I can tell he started at least two fights and then told me how fun his night had been.”
“Yeah, the kid’s got issues,” Tag agreed.
“Is this still my op?” Hutch asked.
Tag frowned. “Man, she’s pissed. I don’t know that you want this op anymore.”
“I want it.” And he wanted her.
“All right. How do you want to play this?” Tag asked.
Mitch groaned. “I don’t need to hear this, do I? Because if it involves holding a woman against her will, then I should go back to the dungeon. You know that place where illegal stuff doesn’t happen?”
“You should definitely go.” Because Hutch had no plans to let Noelle ditch him tonight.
Or ever.
* * * *
Noelle had to force herself to sit across from the woman who’d been her first real friend in Dallas. She figured if she could get through that last meeting with Hutch, she could handle one more liar.
“I need you to understand that I never thought you were truly involved in what I believe Jessica Layne is doing.” Cara leaned forward. She sat beside Chris, and Noelle had to admit they made an attractive couple.
“Were you lying about knowing him from before?” Noelle asked the question, the words feeling numb in her mouth. That was a problem because she couldn’t seem to make herself feel anything. She’d watched Kyle hit Hutch and emotion had swelled inside her, and then it had gone out like a flame snuffed.
Maybe she had lied and Hutch had broken her.
Cara stared at her like she didn’t want to answer the question at all. “We were engaged two years ago. I left DPD to join the FBI, and we broke up shortly after that. This assignment was the first time we’d seen each other in a while.”
“Noelle, we never meant to hurt you.” Chris was out of the suit he wore for his cover job. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, his dark hair slicked back. “You unfortunately got caught in the middle of a long-term covert investigation. What happened tonight was not something we were aware of or we would have found a way to shut it down. No one on our team wanted you arrested.”
“Yeah, well, your team needs to do better because we made you the first day we walked in the door.” Kyle settled in beside her.
If that punch had been any indication, Kyle hadn’t been in on Hutch’s plans either. She’d wanted so much to go to Hutch. When he’d wrapped his arms around her, she’d wanted nothing more than to hug him and cry against his shoulder. The impulse had been right there to believe everything he said and let him handle it all.
She couldn’t because letting him handle it had cost her everything.
Why had he downloaded her work?
“You didn’t make anyone.” MaeBe looked up from her laptop. “I did. I remembered you from a conference about a year ago.”
Cara turned his way. �
�And you didn’t remember the young woman with purple hair and a nose ring?”
Chris shrugged. “She looks like every techie in our department, to tell you the truth. Or CSI. I won’t even go into the women who work in the morgue.”
MaeBe frowned. “I take exception to your attack on my individuality.” She focused her gaze on Noelle. “Are you all right?”
“Why would you care?” This wasn’t her. She wasn’t cold and unfeeling. MaeBe had been doing her job, but it felt personal.
MaeBe’s eyes widened, and Noelle realized she wasn’t wearing her normal makeup. She wasn’t wearing any at all, and her eyes were slightly puffy. Had she cried it off? “I absolutely care. I’ve been worried about you and Kyle.”
“Then perhaps you should have given me a heads-up that I was about to get arrested,” Kyle replied, his voice cold as ice. “Instead, you calmly saved your boy and let Noelle and I give him cover.”
“That’s not what happened. When that woman broke in and she used Noelle’s keycard, I thought my heart was going to stop. I haven’t been calm since the moment I realized the whole thing had gone to hell.” MaeBe’s face had flushed.
The door came open and Big Tag and Hutch walked through.
“What woman?” Noelle had stuck on that part of MaeBe’s story. “I thought Hutch had taken my keycard.”
Hutch’s nose was slightly swollen, but it oddly didn’t make him any less attractive. “I don’t need your keycard, Noelle. I wouldn’t have done that because that would have left a footprint in the logs. Which is exactly what the woman who did use your card wanted.”
“What woman?” Was there something more here? It wouldn’t change the fact that he’d lied to her and taken away her options, but she wanted to know what was happening.
“I didn’t see a woman,” Kyle admitted. “I only saw Hutch slinking out of the server room when he told me he was going to the bathroom.”
“And from what I understand, you snuck through his security system last night when you were supposed to be on duty.” Big Tag sent Kyle a glare that could have frozen fire. “I am going to assume you have an explanation and that you want me to believe you.”
Kyle’s jaw tightened, but he sat back as though letting the matter rest for now.
Why would Kyle have slipped out of the house?
Hutch took a deep breath and sank down into his chair. “Noelle, I was arrested this morning, and in this case it was Cara and Chris.”
“We thought it was odd that a McKay-Taggart employee moved in with a person of interest,” Cara explained. “But he’s cybersecurity, so we both bet that he was hired to figure out who had accessed your computer. That was me, of course. I did that. When Hutch showed up at your apartment, I made the decision at the time to not approach. Your father has ties to McKay-Taggart. I assumed they were with you out of an abundance of caution because of the break-in on the floor below you.”
“We realized you were going to fuck up everything when you caught us together the night before and then took off. You were careful about not saying anything that would give away what you were truly doing. We couldn’t risk you actually taking Noelle out of the city,” Chris admitted. “We needed Noelle in the Genedyne building.”
“Because they were going to ask you to do what I did this evening,” Hutch pointed out. “They were going to offer you a deal. Your cooperation in exchange for a promise of no prosecution.”
“What would I have been prosecuted for? What is Jessica doing? And was the break-in below about me?” She had a million questions, and she wanted the answers to all of them. Because she worried if she didn’t have them, she might allow herself to believe anything Hutch told her. He was close, and she wanted the comfort of his hand in hers, but she couldn’t be that woman. He’d ruined her life and hadn’t even brought her into the discussion of it. He was supposed to protect her, not make decisions for her.
“I’ll take the easy one,” Chris offered. “I don’t make decisions on who to prosecute or not. I was the one who broke in the floor below. I did it because it was the only way to access your apartment’s hub without anyone knowing.”
“You hacked her smart system from the direct line,” Hutch explained. “It’s why it didn’t show up in the logs. Did the resident come home while you were doing it?”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, this has been a clusterfuck of an assignment the whole time. The resident brought a date home, and I had to make it look good. I quickly hid her laptop and trashed the place a little and told her I’d gotten a call that someone had entered the apartment. She bought it.”
“So you were watching me through my smart system?” The idea that people had been watching her made her sick. How could she ever not feel eyes on her again?
“Yes,” Cara replied bluntly. “But only the last few weeks, and only to ensure you weren’t actively working with Layne.”
There was so much she didn’t understand. “Why me? I’m not close to Layne.”
“Because my person on the inside might have said that if anyone was working with her, it was you. Look, I didn’t realize how angry she was at first. I had to check out her claims. She was honest about a lot of things, just not you,” Cara said.
“Are you talking about Madison?” It was the only thing that made sense.
Cara put a hand on the folder she’d brought in. “Yes. Madison contacted the FBI when she started to suspect what was going on at Genedyne. It was six months ago. We spent a long time with Madison trying to get us the information we needed to prove what’s happening at Genedyne. Madison inferred that you might be in on it in the beginning. I came to realize she said that because she was angry with you for stealing one of her techs.”
Noelle took a deep breath because this was a lot to process. “Was she talking about Pete?”
“Yes,” Cara replied. “She admitted it later on. She was jealous of you because everyone wanted to work for you. She knew what the rumors about her were. But the reason I’ve stuck close to you is that before Madison died, she sent out a single text, and it was your name. I think that was all she was able to do. Her phone was destroyed in the fire, so if she put any information in but wasn’t able to send it out, we’ll never know.”
“My name? Why would she do that?” She’d known Madison hated her, but the extent hit her squarely. Madison had tried to implicate her in… “What am I being accused of?”
“Nothing,” Hutch said quickly. “They know you had nothing to do with this.”
“Then why would you be worried I could be prosecuted?” His story didn’t make sense to her.
“It’s a leverage tool,” Chris admitted. “One the feds use a lot. Even if they know you don’t have a level of culpability that would make prosecution reasonable, they will use the threat to gain your cooperation.”
Noelle turned to Cara. “Is that what you were going to do?”
“If I had to.” Cara sent Chris a frown. “It’s not like the cops don’t use it, too.”
“I cut a deal with them.” Hutch broke into the conversation. “That’s what I was doing this morning. I was ensuring that they don’t have any leverage over you.”
“But you didn’t even ask me if I wanted you to do that,” Noelle shot back.
Hutch’s eyes narrowed. “Of course you did.”
“Hutch, what did you trade for my safety? Shouldn’t I have had a say in that?” She understood that he might have thought he was doing what was best for her, but he’d made a life-changing choice without giving her any input.
Hutch stared back at her, not giving an inch. “I traded the information they need to prove that Genedyne is involved in fraud.”
“Apparently he also caught a third party.” Big Tag was studying her. “Hutch wasn’t the one who used your keycard, and he definitely wasn’t the one who called the police. The woman who was in the server room with Hutch downloaded your research.”
“Why would she do that?” She was starting to feel queasy.
“I don
’t know,” Tag continued. “Why would Jessica Layne meet with representatives from three of the biggest natural gas companies in the world this evening?”
That information stopped Noelle in her tracks. “Why would natural gas companies want to invest in my technology? Helium is often found when they drill for natural gas. Helium is something they sell, and it would be in their best interest to keep the prices high. Maybe she was meeting with them for another reason.”
“Then why would she have gotten rid of me?” Kyle asked that question. “She made a last-minute decision to take that meeting, and when she did, she ensured I wasn’t there, even standing outside the restaurant because she knew I would talk to you about it. Damn it. She’s selling your research to keep it from being used. That’s the fraud.”
“That explains why Madison’s research files were empty.” Hutch placed a thumb drive on the table. “These are some financial records that hopefully prove another one of Jessica Layne’s scams. She’s finding investors for Genedyne by sending them fraudulent research. She’s taking everyone’s reports and making the numbers look better than they really are.”
“I haven’t given her my numbers,” Noelle replied.
Cara slid that folder across the table. “Then why did she print out this report earlier today? This is what she did to Madison. This is what she did to her original partner, too. Madison was working on a cancer project. Shortly before she died, Jessica Layne met with some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world.”
God, could this be true? “Madison told me her research was going to change the world. But she was working on a biochemical solution to pollution.”
“And sometimes the greatest breakthroughs are made by accident,” Cara pointed out. “What Madison discovered was that the bacteria she manipulated to basically eat pollution, ate tumors as well. She hadn’t even started real experiments on it yet, but she had high hopes that it could potentially lead to a breakthrough.”
“But that could be worth a lot of money. Why would Jessica squash that research?” Her brain was racing with the implications.
