Double Deception

by Desiree Holt

  He knew he should get back to work on the hacking trace but he found himself unable to concentrate. There had to be a reason they’d asked for Teri first. Had they learned something about her that boosted her into the number one interview spot? Teri LaGrange was one of the best coders in the business and had worked for him for six years, first at Winters and Pryce then at Software By Design. Was there something about her he’d missed?

  He gave his head a mental shake. No, he trusted Teri, Phil and Sy as much as he trusted himself. That meant doing his own research into the others, even as the cops did their interviews, checking to make sure there was nothing he missed before he hired each of them.

  As the morning wore on, he found it increasingly hard to concentrate. About an hour into the interviews, Phil knocked on his door, a tentative look on his face.

  Liam leaned back in his chair. “What’s up?”

  Phil took a few steps into the office. “Since questions are the order of the day, I have one for you.”

  “Sure, go ahead. Shoot.”

  “Why did they tell us not to talk to each other or discuss our questions? What they asked us. I mean, human nature would be for us all to compare notes.”

  “I think they’re trying to contain everything as much as possible. They don’t have a clue who they’re after.”

  “Well, I probably should not tell you this, but some of us are going out for drinks after work. And you can bet we’ll be talking about every bit of this.”

  Liam smiled, to his own amazement. “What was that you said? I couldn’t hear you.”

  “I said—”

  Liam held up a hand. “Can’t hear you, sorry.”

  Phil blinked, then smiled. “Oh. Okay. Gotcha. Thanks. Will they let us know whatever they find?”

  “It is to be hoped. Now get out of here before they arrest you for gossiping.”

  Phil twisted his lips in a half smile and turned away. No one else approached him, so he figured Phil was the advance guard, testing the waters.

  The day stretched endlessly as Duarte and Callahan questioned his staff. Some of them were even quizzed a second time. And while they were doing all this, they were also searching the offices. Duarte had told Liam they were looking for something that would fit the wounds as described to them by the medical examiner.

  Liam occupied himself with the computer Eric had been using to run a trace on the hackers. He’d seen some complicated setups before, but nothing like this. It almost looked as if it was set to wear anyone out who tried to trace them. But he was determined, just as he was still determined to find who screwed the pooch with the Hoffman software. He planned to talk to Taylor about getting another data forensic analyst in to take over, just as soon as he got these idiots out of his office.

  At noon, Liam had Rosalie ordered lunch for everyone. When it arrived, she met them at the front door, carried the food upstairs and let everyone know lunch was set up in the break room. Although she offered refreshments to the two detectives, they assured her their bottles of water and power bars would do them just fine.

  Liam did his best to concentrate as time dragged, but his mind did not want to focus. All he could think of was Eric had been murdered and someone at SBD was responsible. Finally, when the day was almost over, the two detectives finally appeared at his office door.

  He gave them a tired grin. “Finished with everyone else? You’ve been at it a long time.”

  “Just gathering information, like we said,” Callahan said as he took one of the chairs facing the desk.

  “And have you gathered enough?”

  “Almost.”

  “So, I guess it’s my turn into the barrel.”

  Liam noticed Duarte looking around the office. “Looking for something?”

  “I’ll know it when I find it,” the man told him.”

  Callahan then took him through his entire day Saturday. Where he was, what he did, who he saw. Who saw him.

  As he later told Taylor, at first the questions seemed harmless. Just straight searching for basic information. He gave them as much as he could without breaking client confidentiality. Explained why and how Eric had been hired. Answered some basic questions about office routine and who would have had access to any of the special programs.

  Then things took a turn.

  “Had you met Eric before this?” Duarte asked.

  “No.” Liam shook his head. “He was recommended to me by Taylor Cantrell.”

  “So, it wasn’t your decision to hire him.”

  “No. I mean, yes. Of course, it was. When I told Taylor about the security breach, she said she’d get me the best person. I was pretty damn happy to get him.”

  “Except he could point the finger at whoever had added some special code to the program. Not that I pretend to know much about it,” Callahan added, “but he’d be able to identify who wanted to steal the material from your client.”

  “Of course.” Liam bit back his irritation. “That was the point of hiring him.”

  “But from what you’re telling me, no one had access after it was completed to do this except you,” Duarte Pointed out.

  “Someone did,” Liam pointed out, “and that’s what he was supposed to find out.”

  “Even if it was you?”

  “What?” Liam stared at the detective. “It wasn’t me. Jesus. My reputation was at stake here. Why would I fuck up my own business?”

  “Maybe because you could make a hell of a lot more,” Callahan answered, “if you sold it to some foreign spies.”

  “What?” He nearly fell out of his chair. “Are you fucking kidding me? I would never do that.”

  Duarte had spotted the knife displayed on his desk.

  “This yours?” he asked.

  “Yes. It belonged to my grandfather.”

  Duarte reached in his pocket for a pair of thick plastic gloves and lifted the knife, holding it by the haft and turning it. He pointed to where the haft and blade were joined.

  “Hmmm. This looks like it might be blood on here.”

  Blood? On his knife? Liam was afraid he was going to pass out.

  “You have to be wrong. There’s no way blood could get on my knife. It’s never out of my possession. Always on my desk.”

  Callahan rose. “We’d better take it with us. And you’d better come along too, Mr. Benedict. We have more questions for you and I’d like to ask them at the precinct.”

  “The precinct? You’re kidding, right?” Liam did his best to keep it together.

  “Not even a little,” Callahan told him. “Just a friendly conversation, but I think that’s a better place for it.”

  Liam stared at him, beating back the sudden surge of panic. He could just imagine how friendly that would turn out to be. “Fine. But before I leave, I have to call someone.”

  “You can make your calls from the precinct,” Duarte said. “Let’s get this done.”

  Liam shook his head. “Not until I make this call.”

  The detectives exchanged a look, then both nodded.

  “Fine,” Duarte told him, but his voice didn’t sound too friendly.

  Liam turned in his chair so he was facing away from the detectives. He took a moment to get his shit together before he dialed Taylor’s cell phone. She’d said to call her directly and he was taking her at her word. He figured after this was over, he’d be lucky if she still wanted to keep him in the Arroyo family. Who wanted a business partner who allowed stuff like this to happen?

  She answered at once. “Trouble?”

  “You bet.” He took a deep breath, let it out and told her what was happening.

  She was as calm and unruffled as if he’d just told her he was taking a late lunch. She asked what precinct and he got the information from Callahan.

  “Okay.” Her voice was even, calm, and reassuring. “Got it. Here’s what you do. Go with them. Sit down. Be polite but don’t answer one damn question until your attorney gets there. Promise me that.”

  “I d
o. Uh, am I arrested?”

  “Not yet but they may decide to book you just on what they have. They don’t need a lot more for a first appearance.”

  “Great. Just great.” How the hell did I get into this fix?

  “No, it isn’t, but we’ll sort it.” Her voice was calm and unruffled, as if she was giving him directions to an office. “Go along politely and play stupid.”

  And that was what he did.

  He’d never been in a precinct station before. Never needed to. Everything he knew about them he learned watching television, but he supposed they were pretty much all the same. They marched him into a small room with a table and four chairs, indicating he should sit in one of them. He guessed he should be glad they hadn’t handcuffed him.

  “Would you like some water?” Callahan asked.

  Liam shook his head. “No, thanks. I’m good. What are we doing here?”

  “We just thought it would be better to question you away from your office.” Duarte dropped into the chair across from him. “No distractions.”

  “You realize,” Callahan said, “you have the best motive and opportunity for this, right?”

  Liam stared at him, his stomach knotting. “How do you figure that?”

  “Someone made the software for your high value client vulnerable. From what your staff tells me, you had the best opportunity for that.”

  “But not any reason to. Hell, if I wanted someone else to have it, all I had to do was give them a copy of it.”

  “But wouldn’t that lead back to you?”

  He shook his head. “Not if I didn’t want it to. This is crazy. Just crazy. I’m the one who hired Eric Braun to trace this.”

  “Could have been a smokescreen,” Duarte pointed out.

  “Plus,” Callahan added, “you were in the best position to kill him. Already at the parade and dressed in costume so easy to mingle. If the blood on your knife turns out to be Braun’s, that’s pretty damning evidence.”

  Liam raked his fingers through his hair. He should have followed Taylor’s advice from the minute they brought him into this room. “I think I’d better just shut up.

  Duarte studied him with what Liam guessed was supposed to be a friendly expression on his face. “You know, it won’t do any harm to tell us your side of the story. I mean, as long as we are just sitting here anyway. It could go a lot easier on you.”

  “My side of the story?” Liam actually laughed. “Is that kind of like when did you stop beating your wife? I don’t have a side of the story because I didn’t do anything. And after listening to you, I’m convinced nothing I could say would change your minds. So, I think I’ll just shut up.”

  Callahan sighed. “You know, your attorney’s just going to make things more difficult. If you really have nothing to do with Eric’s Braun’s murder, a short conversation can probably clear it up. If we could get some answers now, things could probably just go away.”

  Yeah, right. When pigs fly.

  “No, thanks. I had nothing to do with the murder, but if it’s all the same to you, I think we’ll stay away from it. I don’t mind discussing the Rays or the Bucs or what the USF football team is doing this year, but that’s the limit of my conversational topics.”

  Since they didn’t seem interested in talking sports, the three of them sat pretty much in silence while they waited. He should have done that from the beginning. He was already getting the idea that as soon as his attorney arrived, whoever that was, they planned to book him and go from there.

  He did his best not to appear jumpy or nervous, but he couldn’t help running everything over in his mind. It literally made him ill to realize someone on his team, someone he put his trust in, had betrayed him. And that person had killed Eric to keep him for passing along that information.

  Maybe he should hire his own detective to check out everyone on his team. Dig out their deepest hidden secrets. Maybe find out why they would do what they did. Assuming, of course, he ever got out of this place. He hoped to hell whoever Taylor sent could accomplish that pretty damn fast.

  At approximately the moment he was ready to jump out of his skin, a knock sounded and the door opened. No one was more shocked than he was when Sydney Alfiore herself walked in. But then he thought, of course. Taylor Cantrell never used anything but top of the line, whether it was people or goods or ideas. And Sydney Alfiore really topped the list.

  “Hello, Liam. They treating you okay?”

  He nodded. “Although this isn’t my idea of a social setting.”

  “I get that. But you haven’t said anything, right?”

  “Not a word.”

  She looked at the two detectives. “Sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but my client won’t be answering any questions. At least not until I talk to him.”

  “He’d have been a lot better to answer some questions,” Duarte said. “Now we’re just going to go ahead, arrest him and book him.”

  Liam wondered if he had just fallen into the middle of a nightmare.

  Sydney just nodded. “Understood. Now, can we have the room, please?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Liam could tell at once that Callahan and Duarte were far from happy to see Sydney. He’d make book on the fact that they’d had to deal with her before and it didn’t go well on their part. They looked at each other, silently, then nodded and walked out of the room.

  Duarte stuck his head back in. “Fifteen minutes,” he told them. “You know the drill, counselor.”

  “I do.” She looked at her watch. “And I don’t want to waste a minute of our allotted time.”

  Sydney waited until the door was closed to sit across from Liam. She set her briefcase on the table and leaned closer to him.

  “First rule of the day. It’s important the police not know we have any kind of personal relationship.”

  Liam quirked one brow. “Why?”

  “Because it taints my representation. I might even get taken off the case and I do not want that to happen. Everything I say and do will be viewed as emotionally biased and we don’t want that. At all. We certainly don’t want the media to get hold of it, and you can bet they’ll be all over this.”

  Every muscle in Liam’s body tightened. “Why? What’s the big deal? I’m just a small fish in a big pond.”

  She shook her head. “Not any longer. You are part of the Arroyo family and that’s always big news. Probably one of the main reasons Taylor hired me to represent you.”

  His mouth turned up in a half-hearted grin. “I hope I can afford your fees.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Arroyo is picking up the tab.”

  Liam was sure he looked as startled as he felt. “They are?”

  “Yes. Again, you are part of Arroyo. That’s how the company operates. I swear I don’t know how Taylor keeps a finger on every pulse, but she does. Nothing gets by her. Ever.”

  “I’m surprised she hasn’t cut me loose.”

  “She believes in your innocence.” Sydney sat up a little straighter. “Before they made the offer for you to join Arroyo, you as well as your company were vetted six ways from Sunday. She doesn’t like surprises. Not being that careful is what got her father killed and now she’s pissed that another killing has taken place. But no way does she think it falls on your shoulders.”

  “Even if whoever the murderer turns out to be someone I hired?”

  Sydney nodded. “Even if.”

  He was still trying to get his head around all that, but he was eternally grateful for it.

  “So, what happens now?”

  “I spoke to the chief of detectives. Don’t freak, but they are going to take you over to the Orient Road jail and book you.”

  He bolted upright in the chair. “What?”

  “Did I not just say don’t freak? They have the knife from your desk with blood on it that you can bet will prove to be Eric Braun’s and of course your fingerprints will be all over it.”

  “Because I handle it all the time.”


  She nodded. “You were also in the general vicinity and dressed like half the crowd. We know what time Eric was killed but they still surmise you could have done it. You would have had time to reach parade central to get on your float with no one the wiser.”

  “Jesus, Sydney.” He scrubbed his face. “Arrested?”

  “Again, don’t freak, At Orient Road, they’ll process you. Here’s the hard part. Court is over for the day. I can’t get you on the appearance calendar until the morning.”

  Liam thought he was going to vomit.

  “Are you saying I have to stay in jail overnight?”

  She leaned forward. “Look at me. We don’t have a choice, but I’m going to see if I can get you in a cell by yourself. I’ll get you on the calendar first thing and then we’ll post bail and get you out of there.”

  “I suppose Arroyo’s taking care of that, too?”

  She winked. “Of course.”

  “Damn!” He nearly came out of his chair. “I can’t believe I have to spend the night in jail. And what’s happening at Software By Design while I’m being turned into a criminal?”

  Sydney took out her tablet and pulled up a screen.

  “Okay. I spoke to Rosalie. Whatever you’re paying her, you should probably triple it. That woman is pure gold.”

  “Don’t I know it. I think she knows more about the firm than I do.”

  “Which is a good thing. She’s got a handle on what projects are in process and she’ll monitor everything. Until you can get back to the office, that is.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Okay. Let’s get into that and some other things now.” She swiped the screen and brought up another page of notes. “I’m going to need you for two full days to go over every single thing that happened from the time you got the alarm someone was trying to hack the Hoffman network. You can probably go into the office after that, because this is not going to be a speedy trial. They’ll want every screw tightened and every bolt in place before they move forward with an indictment and a trial date.”

  “Well, that’s something.” He raked his hand through his hair. “But after you empty my brain I can go into the office?”