“Yes, the program has been running since Friday. The only downfall is that it won’t spit out information as it receives it, instead it waits until the search is complete.”
“You’ve used this program before?” I ask.
“Yes, a few times.”
“Impressive,” Alec says.
“Let’s see if it gives us any useful information before we say that.” She laughs.
“Okay, I’m going to leave the two of you to sort through the financials,” he chimes in.
“How’s Mrs. Thompson holding up?” Emily asks.
“As you would expect.” He sighs. “She’s fearful of what he’ll do; she’s convinced this is retaliation against her now that the divorce was just finalized.”
“Almost three months ago,” I point out.
“Meaning what?” Alec asks.
“Why now? According to her statement, he cancelled multiple scheduled visits with the kids before he finally took them two weeks ago. Why did he wait? If he really was angry over the divorce, why not do it right afterward?”
“Maybe it took that long to put a plan together?” he suggests.
“I don’t know.”
“What if it’s not about the divorce?” Emily offers.
“Meaning?”
“What if Mrs. Thompson is right that this is in retaliation to something she did, but not that? Maybe something else happened that she hasn’t told us about?”
“That’s a possibility,” Alec agrees. “Let’s get a more thorough background check on Mrs. Thompson completed. Jose did our basic one when we first took the case on, but let’s dive into the last few months, including both before and after the divorce was finalized.”
“I’ll start on that today,” she agrees.
“Let me know what you guys find,” Alec says before disconnecting the call.
For all my time avoiding her, I’m now stuck working with Emily for at least the next several hours if not longer, as I doubt we’ll get through all of this today.
“Did you want me to bring everything in here or to your office?”
“No, in here is probably best… there’s more room.”
My table in my office is too small; we would practically be on top of one another. Fuck…and now, as she walks out of the conference room, that’s what I’m thinking…being on top of her. Every day she wears these fitted dress pants that hug her ass perfectly. The entire outfit is professional, but still incredibly sexy at the same time. I quickly shake my head, needing to get that image out of my head before she comes back. I pull out my phone and start reading through email reports from some of our staff. What started out as a small company with only me and Alec providing security protection has now grown to over one hundred field based contractors. While our home base is in Virginia, we have clients up and down the entire east coast.
“So this is everything.” Emily walks back in carrying a large box. I immediately jump from my seat and grab the box, offering the help I should have when she said she was going to bring everything in here. I swear I can’t think straight when she’s around.
“Thanks.” She returns to her seat across from me.
For the next couple of hours, we work in relative silence as we sort through the mounds of documents that she printed out. I have no idea how she managed to get her hands on half of these, since I’m pretty sure they’re not readily available to just anyone, but I don’t question any of it. If it helps to find these kids and bring them home safely, that’s all that matters.
“Mr. Simpson, Ms. Telford.” Margaret startles us causing Emily to nearly jump out of her skin. While I’m sure I jumped a little, for the briefest moment I swear I saw fear in her eyes.
“Yes?” I ask without taking my eyes off of Emily.
“Would either of you like me to order dinner for you before I leave for the night?”
“Shit, I hadn’t realized how late it was. Do you have somewhere you need to be?” I ask Emily even though I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
“No, I’m fine,” she says in a tone so soft I can barely hear her. “But if you need to go, I can finish this up—”
“Margaret, if you don’t mind can you order us something and have it delivered? I’ll take care of it when they get here.”
“Thank you, I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
“Are you okay?” I ask as soon as Margaret is out of ear-shot.
“Yeah, she just…startled me. I was so into these damn spreadsheets, I hadn’t heard her open the door.” She looks past me, at the door that I also didn’t hear open. There’s something in her eyes, something about the way she’s looking at it that makes me wonder what is really going through her head right now. I don’t know how I know, but I know she’s hiding something.
“Margaret has a way of doing her job without interrupting people.” I make an excuse, trying to lessen whatever is bothering her. “I swear she has snuck up on me and Alec so many times, we used to joke she should wear a bell so we knew where she was.”
“Alec used to work here?” she doesn’t hide her surprise. I wasn’t sure how much Alec had told her, but judging by her reaction, I’m guessing he didn’t tell her anything. “Did he move away?”
“No,” I answer.
“Oh. I just assumed he handled things from a distance.”
“He does, but he only lives a few miles from here.”
“Then, why doesn’t he…I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“Once you started working on these cases with us, it became your business,” I correct her. “Alec and I founded this company after we served together in the Army. We worked side by side and even lived here for the first year while we got the company off the ground. Up until six months ago, he was here day in and day out.”
“What happened?” she asks.
“He was in a horrible accident… his wife was killed—”
“Oh!”
“He was badly injured. He was in the hospital and then a rehab center for months afterward. He hasn’t…he’s ready to work, obviously, but not yet ready to return…here.”
“He never mentioned any of it. He listened to me talk about my dad and everything else for so long, but he never mentioned anything he was going through. I feel like shit now for complaining about my problems.”
“Don’t. I’ve known Alec for more than eight years and in that time I’ve learned that he prefers to keep his mind off of his own problems, so he dives into other things. Talking with you probably helped him forget, for a little while at least, everything that was going on.”
Chapter 13
Luke
“Did you sleep here last night?” Emily’s laugh fills the room the moment she walks in.
“I might as well have,” I grumble.
“I have coffee.” She sets a cup down in front of me before taking the seat where she’s sat for the last couple of days. We’ve been pouring through financial statements, tax returns, and now, off-shore bank statements, we’re no closer than we were when we started this project, but we both feel strongly that something is being hidden.
“Thanks.” I take a large gulp, surprised when I realize it’s exactly how I like it.
“Find anything new?”
“No.”
“It’s here, it has to be.”
As much as I didn’t think it was possible, spending the last couple of days with Emily has slowly gotten easier. Although I still can’t bring myself to say her name, I don’t cringe when someone else does. I’ve tried to stop comparing her to Em and sometimes I’m successful with that. Though, sometimes, I’m not. On one hand, she’s absolutely nothing like the girl I fell in love with so many years ago. Hell, I’m not the same guy from back then either. On the other hand, every fucking time she looks at me, I’m reminded of her. She has the same damn eyes.
It’s amazing what spending two full days sitting at the same table will tell you about a person. I’ve learned the moment she enters a room, she searches the entire thi
ng. I don’t know if she’s memorizing what’s here or looking for something that isn’t here, but she does it every time she walks in here… even after being gone for only a few minutes. I’ve learned she bites her lower lip when she’s concentrating hard on something and that she twirls her long auburn hair around her fingers when she struggles with something she’s looking at.
Have I mentioned the fucking pull I feel every time she walks into the room? Every. fucking. time! It’s always there! I don’t know if she feels it; sometimes I catch her watching me when she thinks I’m not looking, but it seems like it’s more out of curiosity than anything else. I doubt she feels the same pull that I do, because what I feel makes no fucking sense for someone I just met. I have to fight the urge to touch her, especially when she leans next to me to read something or hands me a file to review. It’s a constant struggle to remind myself that she’s my employee which means I shouldn’t be thinking about touching her, no matter how badly I want to.
“I think I found something,” I cautiously announce a few hours later. My back is killing me from sitting at this table for so long, but if both of us are determined to find the missing piece.
“You did? What did you find?” She immediately jumps from her seat and takes the one next to me.
“Starting about two years ago, every other month on the same day, money is transferred from their bank account to a vendor. When I search online for this vendor, all that I can find is a splash page for a consulting firm—”
“What’s the name of the firm?” Her fingers fly over her keyboard, no doubt working some magic that I can’t.
“Davidson’s Creative Consulting Firm—”
“Wait… I know that name.” She’s up again this time going through the box where we’ve been dumping the documents once we’ve gone through them. “Here it is. There’s an off-shore account linked to a Matthew Davidson who owns Davidson’s Creative Consulting Firm.”
“What do you know about them?”
“Nothing yet. I’m going to do some digging and see what I can find out about them. I found an invoice from them, but it was for interior design work from five years ago. Nothing as recent as two years ago.”
“Did you finish the background check on Mrs. Thompson yet?”
“Yes, but it was clear; not so much as a speeding ticket. On paper she’s clean.”
“On paper…” I point out.
“People always try to hide things. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to access her home computer and other devices to see what she might be hiding there,” she requests.
“Go ahead.” I nod. “I think there’s still something we’re missing and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s tied to her. I’m going to email Alec with what we’ve found so far.”
Leaving Emily to do her thing, I grab my notebook and head out. As I walk past the windows to the conference room, I can’t help but look at Emily. She’s so into what she’s working on that she doesn’t even notice I’m watching her. As much as I don’t understand it, I find myself doing this very thing far too often.
Sitting down at my desk, I dial Alec to catch him up on what we’ve found.
“You find something?” he knows it’s rare for me to call him unless it’s something important. When he initially starting working after the accident, our communication was primarily through email and scheduled conference calls. At first it was because of his therapy and doctor appointments, but later it was because of schedules.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“You wouldn’t be calling unless you thought it was more maybe than maybe not.”
“Very true.” He knows me too well. “Emily is still looking into it, but we need to know more about Mrs. Thompson.”
I briefly tell him about the consulting firm that we found money being sent to and, even though it could mean several different things, we both agree that it’s suspicious.
“Did you get anywhere with your leads?” I ask.
“Maybe, but it’s a long shot.”
“Most of our leads at this point are.” We both laugh, because some of the worst leads have turned out to be the ones that broke the case.
“Old college buddy of Jack’s owns a large resort on a tropical island just outside the US called Sunset Beach.”
“Interesting.”
“Mrs. Thompson knew nothing about it, but did mention that Jack and this guy used to hang out often.”
“Recently?”
“She thinks in the last year before they divorced.”
“You’re thinking maybe he’s hiding out there, under a false name?”
Hmmm… I quickly bring up a search engine on my computer and start looking into the resort. From the website it looks like the ideal vacation destination, somewhere under normal circumstances I’d love to go one day. Not that I ever would.
“Maybe. With his money, getting a fake ID that meets the government standards for flying wouldn’t be impossible.”
“I’ll have Emily look into the resort and see if she can find anything out. Though, if he is there under a false name, I doubt any of her computer magic skills will be able to confirm that.” She’s good, but even she’s not that good.
“You’re right. That’s why I think we need to send someone there to look around and maybe keep an eye out for Jack and the kids,” he suggests
“Let me think. I don’t have anyone with availability for at least another three maybe four days, not for a project like this. I can’t use any of the new guys—”
“No, definitely not.”
“Max and Cole would be my recommendations, but they’re both on assignments this week. I don’t want to pull them if I don’t need to. Especially just for a fact finding mission; if we knew he was there with the kids then it would be different.”
Max and Cole are my usual go-to team for missions like this. Although I have no proof, I’ve long suspected that they have more than a business relationship. It’s never interfered with work, which is the only reason I haven’t brought it up. Knowing Cole as well as I do, to him it’s just a fun time. Max, though, I can’t really read. She seems like she’d be looking for something more than Cole can give, but maybe whatever they’re doing works for her because of our demanding and ever-changing jobs. Max was the first female field staff member we hired and she works just as hard as any of the guys do.
“Agreed. So you should go.”
“Wait, what?” I did not just hear him correctly.
“You go. Take Emily with you.”
“Why?” I don’t bother hiding the shock in my voice.
“You just said you have no one else to send, all we need is for someone to go to the resort, look around and see if they’re there.”
“Right. So, why exactly is she going?”
“You’ll pretend to be a couple while there; it gives you the perfect cover to look around, go into the restaurants and use the amenities that might look odd if you were going by yourself.”
On the surface his argument makes sense, even I know that. If it was anyone else I wouldn’t be giving it a second thought, but there’s just something about her that I can’t ignore—at the same time, I can’t figure out what the hell it is either.
“But—”
“Have her bring her computers and whatever else she thinks she’ll need. When you’re not looking around, she can try to hack into the security system at the resort to see if you can find them that way. It would probably be much easier for her to do that from on-site then it would from here,” he explains.
“You realize this is the woman who took weeks to decide if she was even going to come to Virginia for a job interview, and now you think she’s going to fly to another country?”
“She’ll do it.” His voice leaves no room for argument, as if he knows her that well.
“I don’t know about that.”
“Trust me, she’ll go.”
“How well do you know her exactly?” He knows her far better than I do, even though I’ve spent t
he last few days working side-by-side with her on these stupid financials.
“I told you before, I don’t. I told you everything I know; I’m sure you’ve noticed she’s a very private person.”
“She is.”
I know all about her work habits, but really, I know close to nothing about her personally. Until he pointed that out, I hadn’t realized how little I knew about her.
“Talk to her, she might have reservations, but I think she’ll go. She has a big heart; it’s why she volunteered her time on all those cases, even her dad was sick.” Just like when it came to interviewing her, he phrases it as if he doesn’t know what the outcome will be. Sometimes he drives me crazy.
“Fine. But I still think there’s a better solution.”
“If you think of one, let me know, but in the meantime, plan on flying out tomorrow morning. I’ll make all the reservations. Plan for two, maybe three days tops, before you’re back here. If Jack and the kids are there, we’ll plan for Max and Cole to fly down and meet you there.”
“I thought I was the one in charge of assignments around here,” I half-joke.
“You are.” He chuckles. “And when you stop being a stubborn ass you’ll realize that this is the only solution.”
I hang up without saying another word and shake my head. I’ve dropped everything and flown out on assignment hundreds of times since we started the company, so it’s not that unusual. We tell all our contractors to have a go-bag ready at all times because, in this field, we rarely get advanced notice of the need to travel. Hell, I should be glad I’m not leaving until tomorrow morning.
Taking a deep breath, I head back into the conference preparing for the reaction I know is coming. Emily is almost exactly how I left her, surrounded by multiple stacks of papers and boxes. She looks up at me the moment I get to the door, her blue eyes immediately finding mine. I have to force myself not to respond, even if it feels like a punch to the gut.
Luke (Dark Water Security Series Book 1) Page 9
