Living on the Edge

by Susan Mallery

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I overheard Christopher with one of the scientists. The man was surprised that I didn’t know anything about Christopher’s work. Christopher pointed at a crystal vase on a table and said I was just like that. A beautiful, empty piece of art. He didn’t expect me to think or have opinions, and fortunately for him, I’d never shown much inclination or talent at either.”

  Tanner kissed her forehead. “He was an idiot for not seeing there’s a whole lot going on behind those big blue eyes.”

  “There is now, but there wasn’t then. I was stunned. Humiliated. I spent the next few days thinking about what he’d said and I realized in some respects, he was right. That’s when I started to make changes, to become a better person. It was a few months later that I got involved with the children’s charity.”

  “What did the scientist say in response to Hilliard?”

  She shrugged. “He was from Russia and had left his wife and children behind because his work was important and they weren’t. I don’t think he was shocked.”

  Tanner stared at her. “Russian?”

  “Sure. A lot of them were. Some didn’t even speak English, which made small talk a challenge. I learned a few phrases in Russian so I could chat, but Christopher told me to stop trying. That I was simply embarrassing myself and him.”

  “Russian?”

  “Why are you repeating that?”

  “Because it might be the one piece of information we’ve been missing. Do you remember the man’s name?”

  “No, but I probably have it on a guest list. I kept them on my computer so that I knew who had been invited when. I didn’t want to repeat menus with the same guests.”

  “Can you access the information?”

  “Sure.”

  He sat up and cupped her face. “How long after this party did Christopher start working on his new technology?”

  Madison tried to remember. “It was a few months. Maybe six.”

  “If it were me, I wouldn’t sell it all outright,” he said, seeming to speak more to himself than her. “I might make him work for it. Plus, if he was fed the information a piece at a time, it would slow the process, making it appear he really had developed it himself.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked as he rose to his feet and drew her up beside him. “That Christopher bought his jamming device from the Russians?”

  “Maybe. But the only possible seller would be the Russian Mafia. It all makes sense.”

  They went into the control room, where he sat her down in front of one of the computers. After pulling up the information from her hard drive, she scrolled through until she found her party file. She went through party dates, then printed out several.

  “This is as close as I can get,” she told Tanner. “I’ve narrowed it down to six.”

  “Don’t worry. I should be able to clear most of the people as suspects right away. Then I’ll focus on who’s left.”

  “Can I help?”

  “If you want to.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The quicker they figured out exactly what Christopher was up to, the quicker they could trap him. She was tired of having him screwing up her life.

  “How much would something like his jamming device cost?” she asked.

  “Millions. Maybe hundreds of millions.”

  “So he could have needed the cash from my kidnapping ransom.”

  “With luck, he planned on it,” Tanner said. “That could put him in trouble with his seller. The Russian Mafia isn’t known to be a patient creditor.”

  “I don’t want him too desperate,” she said. “That could put my father at risk.”

  “I know. I still have my team on him.”

  “Which is why I can sleep at night.”

  Tanner spread out the lists on the table. “Let’s eliminate duplicate names. Then I’ll run the list through my computer and we’ll figure out who everyone is.”

  As she scanned the guest names, she said, “My father can’t know what Christopher is doing. He’s a purist. He would never approve of buying technology.”

  “I would guess no one knows what your ex is doing. His team may suspect, but they’re unlikely to say anything.”

  “But wouldn’t they do more than suspect?” she asked. “They would see the equipment coming in.”

  “I doubt it’s like that. I would guess the Russians gave him a basic design and are providing a piece at a time. Hilliard takes it apart, figures out how it’s put together, then recreates it over time. If the design isn’t detailed, he can’t jump ahead. If they’re smart—and I’m guessing they are—they’re holding back vital information until the very end. As far as Hilliard’s company is concerned, he has a record of every step of development. He’ll be able to claim the idea as his own and reap the rewards.”

  “You mean the billions.”

  “Probably.”

  “I hate that it’s all about the money.”

  “Welcome to the real world.” He looked up and smiled at her. “But you go on being idealistic. It’s one of the things I like best about you.”

  “Gee, thanks. So if Christopher doesn’t have my ransom money, where is he going to get the cash he needs to buy the next installment?”

  “I don’t know, but we should be looking for that, as well.” He glanced at her. “How good are you on the Internet?”

  “I can usually find shoes on sale. That’s probably not very helpful.”

  “I’m sure we can make it work for us.”

  At three o’clock the next afternoon, Madison got the answer to at least one question. Except for a few hours of sleep, she’d been on the computer steadily, doing preliminary research for Tanner. They’d managed to eliminate nearly every guest as a possible suspect and were now down to four men.

  When she saw she had e-mail waiting, she clicked on the icon to check who it was from and saw an auto-announce message from her father’s company. As soon as she opened it and read the headline, she realized Christopher’s money problems were all over.

  “They’re merging,” she called to Tanner, who sat at another computer in the control room. “Christopher and my father. I can’t figure out if this is good or bad. They made the announcement as soon as the stock market closed, but the price of Christopher’s stock will skyrocket tomorrow. His company is much smaller and less well funded. I know he has options. He can sell them at the peak and make a bunch.”

  “Twenty million?” Tanner asked.

  “Easily. He’s had the options for years, so we can’t even try to get him on insider trading.” She looked at Tanner. “Does this merger make my father safer or put him more at risk?”

  “Hilliard would never do anything publicly,” he told her. “For the next few weeks, both companies are going to be under a lot of scrutiny.”

  That made sense. “He’ll need my father around to act as the figurehead. Of course. So we’ve bought some time for him.”

  Tanner stood and crossed over to her chair. He crouched next to her.

  “We don’t know that your father was ever at risk. Hilliard isn’t killing for the hell of it. He always has a plan.”

  “I know. It just freaks me out to think that my father trusts him so much. Why can’t he see the truth?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to. You’ve said he likes his world simple.”

  She nodded. “Seeing Christopher as the bad guy would change everything. There was a time when I spent my whole life wanting to make my father happy. I even took a lot of math and science my first couple of years at college. But he never noticed, not even when I got all A’s. In the end, I stopped trying.”

  “Did you want to go into the family business?” he asked.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. It wasn’t an option. My father continues to believe I’m just like my mother. I helped that along by always saying I didn’t have the math gene and pretending to be dumb. It’s not a restful way to grow up.”

  “And with Hil
liard feeding him the story about you being weak and crazy, he’s not going to believe you’re fine.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe things can be different now.”

  “Maybe. I could—” Another e-mail appeared in her in-box. “This could be more news about the merger,” she said. “We might get some information from the terms.”

  She clicked on the mail and was surprised to see it was from Christopher. Instantly she felt cold, as if she’d just stepped into an ice storm. Dread formed a knot in her stomach.

  “I know he can’t hurt me,” she whispered, “so why am I afraid to open the letter?”

  “Because he hurt you before and he could be trying to kill you. Being worried is the smart response.”

  She smiled gratefully. “You do have a way with words.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. A great talker. Want me to open it for you?”

  “No. I can handle it.” Then she laughed. “After speaking with such bravado, I now want to ask you to stay close in case it tries to bite me.”

  He stood and grabbed a nearby chair, then pulled it next to hers. “I’m at your service.”

  She clicked on the e-mail.

  Madison, I know you think this is a trick, but your father is very ill. The problem with his heart is getting worse. It’s the reason he’s finally agreed to the merger. He wants to see it happen before it’s too late. You have no idea how much he’s worried about you. Your absence is killing him, and I’m not saying that to be dramatic. If you don’t believe me, contact his doctor and ask about his recent appointment. Whatever you think about me is fine. I won’t go near you until you ask to see me. But you must see your father. You may not have that much time left.

  “He’s good,” Tanner said.

  Madison couldn’t speak. Her mouth had gone dry and she could barely catch her breath.

  “It’s n-not true, is it?” she asked in a whisper.

  He took her hand. “You know it’s not. I have men watching your father around the clock. He hasn’t been to a doctor. He’s keeping to his normal schedule. He’s fine. Hilliard is playing dirty.”

  She tore her gaze away from the screen and stared at Tanner. “I want to believe you.”

  “How can I convince you? Do you want me to get a copy of his medical records?”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Sure. It’ll take a day or so, but I can get them.”

  “Won’t that be breaking the law?”

  He smiled. “Do you really care about that right now?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t sweat it. I’ll get you the records and you can see for yourself that your father is fine.” He rubbed her upper arms. “Don’t let him get to you, Madison. This is all about winning the game. He’s trying to make you blink first.”

  “I know. It’s just that he’s doing a really good job. I don’t want to worry, but I can’t help it. My dad is my only family. He’s all I have left. If something were to happen to him…”

  “It won’t. I promise. I’ll get the medical records. What else can I do to set your mind at ease?”

  She wanted to ask him to let her see her father for herself but knew that would be a mistake. Leaving the house would put them all in danger. Christopher couldn’t be happy that the man he’d hired to find his ex-wife had turned on him. So Tanner’s life was also at risk.

  She knew that even if she saw her father, she couldn’t tell him the truth. The far-fetched story would only confirm his worst fears about her mental state.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “You’ve already done so much.”

  “I can do more.”

  “No. Really. Get back to work.”

  She leaned close and kissed him, then pushed him in the general direction of his computer. When he’d moved over, she returned her attention to her screen, but instead of seeing the words and letters, she saw Tanner’s face when he offered whatever she needed to help her relax.

  He was a good man. Hardly news but still worth noting. She’d never met anyone like him. They were from different worlds, yet they seemed to mesh together well in this one.

  What happened after? she wondered. Eventually Christopher would be caught—at least, that was her fantasy. Then what? Would Tanner return to his life and would she return to hers? Would they pretend this had never happened? Would they walk away without any regrets?

  She knew she would never forget him, that he had changed her for the better. She was stronger for having known him. He had touched her heart.

  Did she want more from him? Even if she did, it hardly mattered. Knowing him as she did, she understood that he would always live in the shadows. A man like him needed a pretty good reason to come out into the light. Was she enough of one?

  Chapter 16

  Tanner woke to a soft but insistent beeping. It took him a second to place himself, then he realized he’d fallen asleep on the sofa in the control room. Not smart, he thought as he stood and stretched the cramps out of his muscles. He was too tall to fit comfortably on the worn couch and too old to not care about the size of his bed.

  But he’d wanted to avoid his bedroom—maybe because lying on the mattress would make him think of Madison, and he hadn’t wanted that. He would have been tempted to join her in her bed and he knew better than that. After all, this was temporary—there was no point in getting used to anything. So he’d stayed away and now he was stuck with the consequences.

  He followed the beeping sound, then grinned. “Hot damn!”

  His trusty decoding program had come through. He had access to Hilliard’s laptop. Every single file lay at his disposal.

  “I love it when a plan comes together,” he said.

  Before settling down to discover all the gory details about the other man’s dealings, Tanner walked into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. While the water slowly filtered through the grounds, he glanced at the clock. Four-fifteen. It had taken just over forty-eight hours to break the encryption, which meant it had been a damn good program. His record to date had been ten hours.

  Coffee in hand, he returned to the control room and set to work downloading all the information. It didn’t take him long to figure out Hilliard’s filing system. In less than an hour he had a basic timeline of the delivery dates of the jamming-device components and a schedule of payments due and paid. The last one, fifteen million, tied in perfectly with Madison’s abduction.

  “What are you doing?”

  He looked up and saw a very sleepy Madison standing in the doorway. She wore oversize pajamas covered in sheep and cows. Her hair was mussed, her eyes unfocused. God, she was beautiful.

  “We got through his encryption,” he said, motioning her forward.

  “Really? Is it all there?”

  “Yeah. Come have a look.”

  She walked toward him. He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arm around her slender waist.

  “Here’s the payment and delivery schedule for the technology.” He clicked on the file.

  “Where did he come up with the money?” she asked. “The first payment is twenty million.”

  “Funny you should ask.” He clicked on a few more keys, then pointed. “Interesting sale of company assets.”

  She peered at the screen. “He sold that building in Tucson and pocketed the proceeds? That can’t be legal.”

  “I’m guessing it isn’t. For the second payment, he sold some stock and what looks like a Monet.”

  Madison groaned, then rested her head on his shoulder. “Not the Monet.” She held up her hand. “I know, I know. People can’t pay their mortgage and I’m whining about a painting. It’s just I loved that piece so much. It was small, of his favorite garden. I wanted it when we got divorced, but Christopher refused. I thought it was because he was being a jerk and keeping it because I loved it. I never thought he would sell it.”

  “Any idea of what it would bring?”

  “A couple million. Have I mentioned I hate him?”

  “No
, but it was sort of understood.”

  “And I have lousy taste in men.”

  “You’re making that assumption based on one decision?” he asked.

  “It was a really bad decision.”

  “Fair enough.” He kissed her cheek just below the scar. “What woke you up?”

  “The smell of coffee. I never could resist it.”

  He handed her his mug.

  “I have the name of his contact,” he said, pointing at a line on the screen. “Stanislav. Nothing else. He won’t be easy to find.”

  “Especially with Christopher having access to a ton of money with the merger. It could be the last payment. If it is, we’ll never catch him.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get him.”

  “How?”

  He scrolled down to the next screen. “I’m still working on that. Between the merger and jamming device, Hilliard is going to be living a pretty high-profile life. We can use that to our advantage. I have a few friends in the federal government. Now that we have Hilliard’s computer records, I’m going to make a few phone calls and see what can be done. The U.S. government won’t be happy that a defense contractor is buying technology from the Russian Mafia and passing it off as homegrown.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” She handed him back the coffee. “But I still have one question.”

  “Which is?”

  “If Christopher got my father to agree to the merger and he has all the money he needs to buy the rest of the whatever it is, why is he trying to lure me out in the open by telling me my father is sick?”

  “You know too much,” Tanner told her. “He’s afraid of what you’ll find out. Plus Blaine probably wants to see you. He can’t put off your father forever.”

  “I guess. Sometimes I think he wants to get to me just to prove he can.”

  “Does the reason matter?” he asked.

  “No. But he scares me. I wish he didn’t, but he does.”