Front Page Affair

by Jennifer Morey

  Arizona sat on one of two chairs facing the desk. Braden was slower to do the same. He was edgy again.

  Sampson sat on his chair again, folding his hands on the surface of the desk, primmer than Stark, too. Soft. Not at all what she’d expect from a weapons executive.

  “Are the police in Tortola any closer to finding your sister?” he asked Braden.

  “No.”

  He seemed to have expected that answer. Arizona had the distinct impression that he was setting them up for something. A corporate shark circling for the kill.

  He leaned back against his chair with a sigh. “The police explained to me what happened to her. The unauthorized exports. Her disappearance shortly thereafter. Do you consider it a coincidence that the exports involved arms?”

  “She was wrongly accused.”

  “Someone used her computer.” Sampson nodded as though he had it all figured out. “There’s no evidence to prove she facilitated the deal, but the police in Tortola say the last time she was seen she went willingly into a cab.”

  Arizona could feel the hot steam rolling off Braden. “Are you trying to suggest she disappeared intentionally?”

  “It might be convenient for her to do so right now.”

  “My sister is innocent.”

  “Hmm.” He halfheartedly nodded, noncommittal and dubious. “Or she’s very good at covering her tracks.”

  “You’re talking about my sister.”

  With a bold lack of respect, Arizona noted silently. This guy was a jerk. Braden must really love his work or he wouldn’t put up with him. And no wonder he divorced his wife. How could she want him to become this? He was sexy the way he was. Sampson was not sexy. He was all ego sitting behind his big desk with a big view behind him in a big office of a big corporation.

  “Why are you involved in this?” Sampson asked her.

  “Didn’t the police tell you?”

  “They said you were nearly abducted and your brother was shot during the attack. The man who made the attempt could be trying to reach Braden for technology.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “Is that what happened? Do you think someone was trying to use you to force Braden to hand over technology?”

  “What do you think happened?” she challenged, still not understanding why he wanted to talk to her.

  He turned to Braden. “I think your sister is working with an arms dealer.”

  Braden stood up. “Time to go.”

  Was he really going to talk to his boss that way? She remained seated.

  “And that arms dealer stole your badge,” Sampson finished.

  Braden didn’t respond. He must be reeling with the implications. His sister was the only possible link.

  “Why didn’t you report it?” Sampson asked.

  “I didn’t know it was stolen.”

  “No? No one is threatening you for information? You wouldn’t give them what they asked for to save your sister?”

  The man was incorrigible. He actually would hold it against Braden for doing something like that. He’d rather Braden protect Hamilton’s information than his own sister’s life.”

  “Do you know what was almost stolen?” he asked.

  “Almost?” Arizona challenged. “So nothing was stolen.”

  He ignored her as he continued to laser in a power stare at Braden. “Someone used your badge to access the building and then attempted to crack our network. We had our IT experts here at Hamilton do some investigating and they discovered a couple of disturbing things. The hacker tried to get to some backup files, and he focused on the Intrepid project.”

  Standing to her left just behind her chair, Braden remained still.

  “Whoever broke in was after our laser target designator design,” Sampson continued. “And you’ve been working that project for almost a year now.”

  What were laser target designators?

  “I didn’t give anyone my badge,” Braden said. “My house was broken into.”

  “Did the man get away?” she asked.

  “Another engineer working late caught him. He ran and got out of the building before security could do anything.”

  Arizona could see his disgruntlement over what he must regard as incompetence on the security guards’ behalf.

  “He got nothing?” Braden asked.

  “Not this time. Our IT people did look into the activity on your user account and found some files that were saved to a flash drive. Right around the time your sister was resigning. Any idea on where those files went?”

  A shockwave hit her. Tatum must have stolen information. Corporations had ways of tracking everything employees did on their computers, and they’d just exposed the truth.

  “I didn’t save anything to a flash drive,” Braden said. He didn’t believe for a minute that Tatum could do it. “I save everything to the network.”

  If he kept nothing on his laptop, then how had the files been loaded to a flash drive? “Was your house broken into before now?”

  “No.”

  Sampson studied Braden’s face for several seconds, deciding whether to believe him. “I suggest you don’t go anywhere while the police look into this. And I have to warn you, I’m getting pressure to fire you over this.”

  “My badge was stolen. I didn’t give it away.”

  “You didn’t report it missing.”

  “I didn’t know it was stolen until you called me.”

  “That isn’t a very good explanation. It suggests you’re careless and don’t care much about Hamilton’s security protocols. It makes people around here start to ask why.”

  “It’s time to go, Braden.” Now Arizona stood with him and then looked at Sampson. “We’ll find his sister, and we’ll find who’s behind all of this.”

  “I’d rather you left it up to the authorities. One more slip up and I won’t have a choice. I’ll have to get rid of one of my best engineers.”

  “Give us a few days,” Braden said.

  Sampson answered with a reluctant nod.

  Braden took her hand and guided her out of the office. In the elevator he punched the wall with a curse. “What the hell?”

  Putting her hand on his back, she rubbed. “We’ll find her. I’m sure there’s some kind of explanation.” Such as she stole files from him and something had gone wrong with her arms dealer.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  His uncertainty had to be unfamiliar to him. This all seemed to be spiraling out of control. Would they be able to get ahead of it before it ruined them both?

  “Go to your sister’s.”

  He shot her the rebellious look that she expected, but at least he didn’t protest. Maybe they’d find something, something everyone else had missed.

  * * *

  Braden entered his sister’s new apartment, a downtown loft with a view of Denver. She’d rented it a few months ago so she’d have a place to stay when she came to visit him and their parents. She’d given him a key.

  He’d already been here once and found nothing to indicate her whereabouts. The police had searched it, too, along with her house in Atlanta. Nothing had turned up. Did that mean she was innocent or had they missed some stolen files on her computer? He still refused to believe she’d do something like that. Why? She had everything going for her. She didn’t need money.

  Heading straight through the airy and bright kitchen and living room, he went to her office. Her computer was still there. He looked around the neat and tidy room. Only a few things were out of place from family and police searches.

  If she was the immoral thief his boss had made her out to be, wouldn’t whoever she was working with have stolen her computer? Her apartment building had tight security. That was one of the reasons she�
��d chosen this place. She was a single woman.

  Charlene’s sister’s computer had been stolen. His computer had nearly been stolen. But not Tatum’s.

  He booted her computer. He wasn’t looking for clues to her whereabouts. He was looking for files.

  Arizona put her hand on his shoulder. Glancing up at her, he saw her empathy and realized he’d hesitated with his hand on the mouse.

  Disgruntled, he opened the browser and read the folder names. One was called Braden.

  Could she be more obvious?

  Growing angrier by the second, he opened the folder. A list of files appeared. Seeing the types, he didn’t need to open them to know what they were.

  Clicking hard, he closed the folder and put his elbows on the desk to rub his face with both hands, reeling with what he could no longer deny.

  Tatum had stolen files from him. Memory raced back in time to two weeks ago, the last time she’d been at his house. Had she gone into his office? He’d had to deal with Aiden, who’d behaved like a tired six-year-old that night. She could have. Somehow she must have gotten his remote login to Hamilton’s network. Had she watched him log in and he hadn’t noticed? He wouldn’t have thought anything of it. She was his sister. Someone he should be able to trust.

  Fast-backward to three months ago. Tatum, asking him questions about his latest project. He’d told her about the laser designators. She’d asked a lot of questions he couldn’t answer. It was classified.

  Someone else must have told her what to look for. What files to find. Copy. Steal.

  “She must have wanted you to find this.”

  Lowering his hands, he looked up and back at Arizona.

  “The folder is named Braden,” she said.

  “Or she wasn’t worried I would.” Or didn’t care. Or hadn’t thought to hide it.

  Neither of those options made sense. His sister wasn’t stupid. Then why name the folder Braden?

  He opened the folder again, looking at the files more carefully. There were some missing. She hadn’t gathered them all. Had she known? She was a smart woman but she was no engineer. Key algorithms were missing from the folder. He searched other folders. Nowhere were the algorithms stored.

  Why hadn’t she copied them?

  Was it ignorance or something else? Feeling hope soar out of control, he stopped it short. His sister had stolen the files. So she hadn’t known the algorithms were important. The kind of technology she’d dabbled in was way out of her realm. Cutting edge. She was a freight forwarder, not a rocket scientist.

  Hearing Arizona shuffling around in Tatum’s bedroom, he stood and went there. She’d left him alone in the office. She knew what it did to him to finally accept his sister’s betrayal.

  She bent over and looked under the queen-sized white, ruffled bed. Her fantastic butt was prone and offered some relief to the weight of his disappointment.

  “What are you looking for?”

  She straightened. “A motive.”

  Yes, he’d like to know what made his sister steal from him, too. He looked around and caught sight of her safe in the walk-in closet.

  Reaching into his jeans’ pocket, he pulled out his wallet and berated himself for allowing denial to cloud his thinking. He found the piece of folded paper his sister had given him the night she’d given him a key to her new apartment. He went to the safe and spun the dial. The combination opened the safe door.

  Inside was a single piece of paper. A copy of a birth certificate. And the name matched that of Charlene Andrew’s sister, Courtney.

  “What is that?”

  He handed the birth certificate to Arizona, who frowned as she read the name. “The father’s name is blank.”

  Leaning closer, he saw that the entry was, indeed blank. He moved his eyes and met hers.

  “What was she doing with this?” Arizona voiced his own musings.

  Tatum had wanted him to find all of this. She may have even rented this apartment to make it easy for him. Then why steal the files? Because she had stolen them. Nothing could absolve her of that. How could she have betrayed him like that? She had to have known it could cost him his job. What would make her do it? No matter how much trouble she had gotten herself in, she should have known she could tell him. But she hadn’t. That made her appear guilty. It made her appear she was up to no good. No, not appear. She had been up to no good. There was no denying that now.

  She’d stolen highly sensitive files from her own brother and given them to people who were coming after him for the missing algorithms. She’d gone willingly into a cab that had taken her to Julian, as though she’d planned all along to deliberately vanish.

  What did the birth certificate mean? Where did it fit in with all of this?

  Chapter 11

  “Have you found her?”

  His mother’s frantic tone and the look of utter despair slammed him. She was expecting him to tell her Tatum was dead.

  “No.”

  Relief drained away her apprehension, although she still gripped the arm of the kitchen chair too tightly. His father sat beside her, composed as always. Arizona was to Braden’s left. He was grateful she hadn’t bombarded him with questions she must have.

  He explained what happened at work and his near termination. “Arizona and I just came from Tatum’s apartment, and I found the files on her computer.”

  His mother drew a startled breath.

  Seeing her so upset was wrenching. It was the reason he wanted to talk to his parents in person. They needed it that way.

  “There has to be some mistake,” his dad said.

  “I wish there was.” In his peripheral vision, he saw Arizona turn to look at him and felt her sympathy. That was why she’d been so quiet.

  Arizona put the birth certificate on the table and pushed it toward them. His mother lifted it and his father leaned to see it with her.

  His father was the first to look up. “What is this?”

  “Arizona and I discovered this woman disappeared shortly before Tatum.” He told them about all the women, and their meeting with Charlene Andrews.

  “Why did Tatum have this woman’s birth certificate?” his father asked, tapping the paper with his forefinger.

  “We were hoping you’d know something about that.”

  “Why would we?” his mother asked.

  “Did Tatum talk about her at all?” He looked from his mother to his father.

  “No,” his father answered while his mother shook her head numbly. His father stared down at the certificate.

  “Arizona and I are flying back to Oregon to talk to Charlene again,” Braden said. “We told her about the certificate and she wants us to meet her.” He didn’t explain that she’d sounded apprehensive on the phone when she’d asked to see the certificate.

  “You said Courtney was still missing,” his mother said. Tears formed in her eyes. “Does her sister think she’s dead?”

  Braden didn’t reply. He couldn’t. Charlene did think her sister was dead.

  “I’ll find Tatum,” Braden declared. And for his mother’s sake, he prayed she was still alive.

  His father rubbed her back as she sniffed a few times.

  Braden reached across the table and put his hand over his mother’s. “I’ll find her.”

  She offered a shaky smile.

  Standing, he went around the table and bent to kiss her cheek. She patted his hand.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said. “If anyone can help Tatum, it will be you.”

  Leaving her in the kitchen, he led Arizona to the door, where his father shook his hand. The grim set of his eyes could be from his mother’s pain or the discovery that other women had gone missing. Braden hadn’t told them about the murders. That would only upset them further. Until he
found Tatum, dead or alive, he’d only tell them what they needed to know.

  “Call me as soon as you know anything more,” his father said.

  “Of course.”

  Arizona preceded him out the door. His dad stood in the doorway until Braden backed the SUV out of the driveway. Normally stoic, his crumbling strength disconcerted Braden. And made him more determined than ever to unravel Tatum’s mystery.

  * * *

  Mindful of Braden’s mood, Arizona left him alone and didn’t share all the thoughts running through her head as Braden drove their rental to a stop in front of Charlene’s house. It was small and white with an enclosed porch in front and a one-car detached garage set back on a badly cracked driveway.

  Tatum’s computer hadn’t been stolen. Security was tight at her apartment, but would that have kept a professional out? Maybe her computer had already been searched and nothing was found—nothing new anyway. Tatum may have passed along what she had, but something was missing. The algorithm files.

  Tatum wouldn’t know what went into the design of a weapons system the way Braden did. Of course, she could have missed something. That was the piece Braden wasn’t ready to discuss. His sister had stolen files from him. From Hamilton Corporation.

  But where was the connection to Charlene’s sister? Arizona was inclined to believe that was the link. Tatum may not have exported arms illegally, but somehow she’d been drawn into the scandal.

  Arizona stepped up to the porch, opening the screen door. Old, weathered wicker furniture and overgrown plants cluttered the small space. Braden rang the bell.

  The door creaked open and Charlene appeared, her short, plump frame tented in a pale yellow floral dress. A free-size style. Her hair was uncombed but it was so short that it didn’t matter all that much. She had great skin, smooth and even-toned, making her appear like an overweight twenty-year-old rather than the early thirties she most likely was.

  “Come in.” She let them inside.

  Arizona stepped into a cramped kitchen, the sink full of dishes and counters covered with fruit and appliances and more dishes. It smelled in here.

  Charlene took them into her living room, more orderly than what Arizona had seen so far. A long couch was across one wall, family pictures on the wall above. A small TV was on a stand filled with movies. An NCIS episode played. The drapes over the only window were closed, leaving it dark and dank.