Ultimate Courage

by Piper J. Drake

  Rojas shot Forte a look. Part of him, the thug evolved from caveman part, wanted to clarify that Elisa was his. But Forte remained relaxed and lifted his beer to Rojas.

  Asshole. Forte was jerking his chain on purpose.

  Cruz, probably aware of the interchange, chose to ignore them both. Easy for him. He had a steady sex life. Love life. Whatever. Cruz was happy, and he deserved to be.

  “Our new friend, Joseph Corbin Junior, runs a tight ship over at Corbin Systems as the Chief Information Officer.” Cruz pulled up a couple more windows on his laptop’s screen.

  Rojas didn’t lean in to look. Unless there was a picture of the guy, Rojas would do better hearing the briefing as opposed to trying to read it on the limited real estate of the laptop screen.

  “Looks like his business is definitely in information systems and content management,” Cruz continued. “There’s a wide range of publicly disclosed projects, but the company also holds a fair number of government and military contracts.”

  And obviously there were a few pet projects.

  “Elisa did mention security clearances, didn’t she?” Rojas briefly pondered, getting himself a notepad, then discarded the idea. He’d lose the notes anyway. Better for Cruz to keep it all organized and Rojas could review the information later on his own computer. His strengths were in active situations, and he’d had to review briefing data in the past. He could do it again.

  Cruz only nodded before pulling up the next set of information. “Junior himself graduated Ivy League, high honors. Recommendations on his online professional profile all describe him as extremely detail-oriented and a strong leader.”

  Amazing what those professional networking sites could tell you about a person nowadays.

  “His work history is all with Corbin Systems. Started at entry level and worked his way up in Daddy’s company. Learned the business from the basement up to the corner office.” Cruz straightened for a minute and rolled his shoulders before leaning in to the laptop again. “Good old Dad is still the CEO, but Junior runs the company in all but name, looks like.”

  “So we’ve got a man used to being the leader, no questions asked.” Forte tapped the top of his beer bottle to his chin as he thought through the possible conclusions. “Probably a control freak, since most stalkers are, and Elisa wouldn’t have bailed if it hadn’t gotten bad.”

  Cruz tapped another couple of keys. “She did try to make a couple of police reports. Just like she said, they got buried. Counseling was recommended, but all of those counselors were affiliated with Corbin Systems’ human resources division. Saves on insurance fees, apparently.”

  “He kept her fairly well corralled.” Forte sounded impressed. “Family thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread and dismisses her as having anxiety issues. She herself has got some heavy-duty confidence problems now, too.”

  “I think she’ll bounce back given the chance,” Rojas tossed out.

  “I don’t doubt it.” Forte nodded. “She’s like a whirlwind in the front reception area. All of our clients like her, and she’s reduced our paperwork to a fraction of what it was. The only complaint she voiced to me was a need for matching pens. Good pens, with blue or black ink.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “So our Elisa is somewhat detail-oriented herself,” Cruz ventured. “And apparently, she started at Corbin Systems at entry level, too. By that time, though, Junior was a VP. He had some heavy-duty influence already, aside from being the CEO’s kid.”

  “Enough to get HR to look in the other direction.” Forte was enjoying piecing the story together. A lot of it was conjecture, but all three of them were used to piecing together fragments of information to visualize an overall image.

  Chances were, they were right.

  “So Elisa finally decides to leave.” Rojas took up the story at the key turning point.

  “And she’s successful,” Forte added.

  Impressive on its own.

  “But Junior keeps finding her.” Cruz brought up a few less publicly available files, from the color of the headers on the windows.

  Rojas recognized the color system because Cruz tended to use the same categorization they used back when they’d all been active duty and reading their way through briefing reports.

  “Some of it is his company resources.” Cruz began scrolling in the file. “But some of this…I’m not seeing exactly how he found her jump out at me. Elisa is a quick learner, and she doesn’t seem to make the same mistake twice.”

  “If she did, he’d have her back by now.” It made Rojas angry to point it out.

  “I can see him locating her by IP, even tracing her phone since he’s got some influence with the police in his area.” Cruz sat up and his eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “But he’s found her several times, and he likes to play cat and mouse. He’s gotten her number even when she hasn’t checked her e-mails, based on what I can find in her back trail.”

  Cruz was an impressive IT specialist himself. Rojas didn’t doubt Cruz had been able to backtrack through the Internet to see where Elisa had come from and thus also see how her pursuers were finding her.

  But Elisa had family, and even if they hadn’t believed her, supported her, she seemed too caring a person to leave them worried about her. “Can we pull her call records?”

  “I can’t with the databases I have access to. Hacking those could draw federal attention.” Cruz shook his head. “But the police might be able to with a warrant if we can convince them to be somewhat more open about investigation than they normally are. We’d need to call in a few favors.”

  They’d supplied K9s to several of the police departments in the surrounding region and others across the country. Those officers would at least be starting points.

  Forte finished his beer. “It’d be good to see who Elisa tends to call.”

  “I’ll ask her tomorrow, too.” Rojas preferred to get his intel direct from the source, and he didn’t think Elisa would hide it from them. Or if she did, they’d have to reevaluate the situation.

  “We’ll look into it from this end, anyway.” Cruz typed a few notes to himself on his laptop. “She might not realize she’s following a pattern.”

  But humans were creatures of habit. Her ex was exploiting Elisa’s patterns. The difference, the break in the pattern, was that Elisa had met Rojas.

  “Tomorrow morning, I’ll take Souze around the shopping center area and parking lot. I wanted to see what we got out of the video before doing a direct sweep and we won’t stand out as much during the day if he’s keeping an eye on the shopping strip. At the very least, we’ll see if Souze can tell if the same scent by the car is anywhere else in the vicinity.” Rojas paused. “Even better if we can find a piece of fabric or some other souvenir our snooper might’ve left under the car. We’ll see if he actually left something for surveillance and remove it if he did. His scent should be all over it.”

  He’d take one of those fake rocks sold to hide house keys just in case he did find something and put the device in there. Then he’d leave it under the car so Elisa’s stalker would think it was still on her car. If they needed to move her car in a hurry, they’d be able to without having to worry about a potential tracking device.

  “I’ve redirected the video feed from the school to our network so we can keep real-time watch on the location, both outside and inside the school. Elisa’s fine, by the way. Hasn’t left the room.” Cruz brought up a few video windows showing dark night and dimly lit areas. “I copied some older video streams from last month into the cache directory. If her ex or his employees get nosey enough to hack into Revolution’s system, all they’ll see is normal footage. No sneak peeks of Elisa. I renamed the files so it’d look like the cached feeds from this week. I’ll update them daily. Somebody might hack in, but they won’t know the video feeds are from a prior month.”

  “Nice.” Rojas lifted his beer to Cruz.

  “So do we leave Elisa there?” Forte studi
ed Rojas. “Our response time is going to be slow if she needs us.”

  Rojas frowned. He hadn’t liked leaving her there tonight, even with Souze. Sure, he’d given her reassurances about police response time and the proximity of Gary and Greg, but it wasn’t the same as direct intervention by him, Forte, and Cruz.

  Rojas hesitated. But damn, Boom liked Elisa already and it was better than leaving her far away. He wanted her close and they could protect her best with her near. “She could come stay here.”

  Both Forte and Cruz stared at him.

  True, he’d never welcomed a stranger into his home here at Hope’s Crossing. He never brought a woman on the property, for damned sure. He hadn’t ever wanted to put Boom through added stress after her mother died, especially if he wasn’t ever serious about the occasional woman he did see. Hell, even Sophie rarely came into his house. Mostly Sophie ran riot through the main building and Forte’s place. But what else could he do for Elisa?

  “I’m good with that plan if you are,” Forte said slowly. “I want to gather more intel on stalker-ex tonight.”

  “Let’s ask her whether she feels safe here, too.” Rojas took his first sip of his now warm beer. “I’m thinking she’s had enough decisions made on her behalf. I think we can give her options but ultimately, she’s got to decide on her own.”

  They all nodded in agreement.

  “This is a lot of effort for a new administrative assistant.” Forte set his beer on the table with a clink.

  “Yeah, well, Cruz set the bar high when he brought in a supplemental training consultant,” Rojas drawled. “Anyone good enough to work at Hope’s Crossing is going to take some investment to make sure they stay.”

  Cruz held up his hands. “Hey, Lyn runs her own consulting business. She lends a hand nowadays, but I didn’t request her in the first place.”

  Forte grinned. “I’m going to tell her you said so.”

  “Do and prepare for serious consequences,” growled Cruz.

  Lyn had a fairly formidable personality of her own. The best trainers always did, especially with the types of dogs they worked with. Considering the level of dominance and aggression working dogs had, a trainer had to have the kind of personality to not only dominate but win the dog’s trust.

  Thinking of Souze, Rojas amended his thought. Some dogs took longer than others. But he was making progress with Souze.

  He could use the same patience with Elisa, and he had the gut feeling she was worth every bit as much effort. More.

  * * *

  “Welcome to Philadelphia, Mr. Corbin. I hope your flight was smooth.”

  Joseph Corbin Jr. settled into the back of the town car without bothering to glance at the young woman already seated inside. “Baggage handling is slow as ever.”

  “It is.” The assistant made a sympathetic noise. “The driver will bring your bag as soon as it comes up on the carousel and we’ll get you to your hotel. Your contractor will be ready to meet you first thing in the morning.”

  “No,” Joseph snapped. “He’ll meet with me tonight. I want an update and confirmation that my item of interest is ready for acquisition.”

  There was a moment of hesitation, then, “Of course. I’ll arrange for a meeting at the hotel tonight.”

  It was already late at night, but his man wasn’t far away from the city. Joseph stared out at the bustling Arrivals pick-up lanes. The East Coast was supposed to move at a faster pace than the California lifestyle but whenever he visited his offices either in Philadelphia or DC, all he saw was an insane amount of traffic. Not much different from LA. He preferred the steadier climate and temperatures back in California.

  What had possessed Elisa to run here?

  It didn’t matter. Phase 1 of his highest priority project had completed this week, ahead of schedule. They were on the brink of finalizing the statement of work on Phase 2. It was time for Elisa to come home, where she belonged. He needed her.

  “Arrange for a second contract, different vendor.” He reached over and tapped the surface of the assistant’s tablet. “I want a backup team on standby to ensure my item is acquired as soon as possible.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Elisa slept better than she had in months. That didn’t mean she hadn’t woken up in the middle of the night. More than once. But each time, the presence of Souze was a reassurance. He’d have given some sort of alert if something wasn’t right.

  The phone Alex had given her was another reassuring presence, cool and slim, just under her pillow.

  One signal from Souze and she could call Alex for help.

  As a result, every time she’d awakened, she’d been able to slip back into sleep. Free of fear and more quickly than those heart-pounding, agonizing late night hours she’d spent second-guessing herself and wondering if she should roll out of bed, get in her car, and keep driving.

  So it took her a few seconds to come to her senses when she woke up slowly to the sound of snuffling, followed by a long sigh right next to her ear.

  Groggy, she opened her eyes and turned her head, wondering what could be right…

  A big, wet, black nose was inches from hers.

  She sat straight up, and Souze backed away from the edge of the bed, sitting with his ears tipped back, scanning the room. Maybe he was looking around for whatever had startled her.

  “You.” She swallowed against a sleep-dry throat. “I didn’t realize you were tall enough to have your head on the bed without even putting your paws up here.”

  Souze tilted his head then rose to his four feet, stepping forward and extending his head right over the edge of the bed to touch her hand with his nose. Damn, but he was a big dog.

  “No need to prove it again.” She grabbed the clothes she’d worn yesterday, because she didn’t have anything else, and swung her legs over to set them on the floor. “I’m guessing you need to go out?”

  Souze only sat again and stared at her expectantly.

  Well, he wasn’t going to start talking to her, but a bark or soft woof or something might have helped give her a clue.

  Maybe not. She didn’t exactly speak dog, and this wasn’t a movie or television show. But Souze was a smart dog. And she, theoretically, was an intelligent human. If Alex Rojas, Brandon Forte, and David Cruz could figure out what their dogs were thinking, then she should at least be able to figure out one instance of Souze trying to communicate with her.

  He had to be. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have woken her up. All night, she’d heard nothing but the occasional rustle as he laid down or changed position on the rug next to her bed. Each of those times had been right after she’d tossed or turned in bed. Otherwise, he’d been extraordinarily quiet for something his size. All of her ex’s guard dogs had been the type to bark. A lot.

  Souze was both different and more than them, in her opinion. And since the moment she’d met him, he hadn’t exactly been generous with the direct tactile contact.

  It’d be worth an experiment to see if she could get a clearer response out of him. Standing, she headed to the door and placed her hand on the knob as she craned her neck to watch Souze. As soon as her fingertips touched the rounded surface of the doorknob, he came to his feet and wagged his tail once.

  “That’s pretty clear, then.” She wondered if he could hold it a minute or two longer. “Just let me swap clothes and get a bra on, then we’ll head downstairs. Hopefully, Gary and Greg are already down there and they can let us out the back door.”

  Alex had told her not to go outside until he’d returned in the morning, but she couldn’t very well leave Souze in distress. She personally hated the feeling of needing a restroom and having to wait. Didn’t seem fair not to care about Souze in a similar circumstance. Besides, she really didn’t know how good the dog’s discipline would be, and she didn’t want him ruining the nice carpet up here. Somewhat gross, but could she get him to stand in the shower?

  She’d prefer not to try the option. Instead, she hustled into the bathroom and spl
ashed her face with cold water. Then she grabbed the hem of her sleep tee and started to pull it up over her head.

  A quiet knock sounded at the door. “Elisa, are you awake? It’s Alex.”

  She yanked the tee back down. Turning to Souze, she asked, “Did you know he was here?”

  Souze only gave her a doggie grin.

  Maybe that was why the dog had woken her. Gah. Either way, she needed to get a bra on.

  Or maybe there were other priorities. Giving Souze a look, she rushed to the door, scooping up the leash. Undoing the deadlock and the lighter lock on the doorknob, she cracked open the door. Alex stood on the other side, dressed in a black Revolution MMA tee and gym shorts. It’d be interesting to ask him how many of those he had later. She shoved Souze’s leash through the door. “Here.”

  Alex regarded the leash. “Um. There’s supposed to be a dog attached to the other end.”

  True. And she had no idea whether Souze would let her put it back on again. “Give me five seconds to get into the bathroom, then you can come in and grab Souze. I’ll meet you both downstairs.”

  There was a pause. “Five seconds it is. Should I count out loud?”

  Oh, Alex was extremely entertained. She could hear the amusement in his voice even if he wasn’t outright laughing. “Out loud can’t hurt.”

  With that, she bolted past Souze for the bathroom, slipped inside, and shut the door.

  Good for his word, Alex counted out loud. He even gave her a play-by-play account of what he was doing once he finished counting.

  “I’m coming in now.”

  “I’ve got Souze.”

  “We’re leaving now, and I’m closing the door behind us.”

  Great. Fantastic. She still waited until they both left to actually go to the bathroom.

  * * *

  Rojas made it downstairs and caught sight of Cannon. There were chances that’d passed Rojas by over the years, and this was one of those moments he didn’t want to let pass him by just because he was too much of a gentleman to give a woman an option she hadn’t considered.