“One o’clock. Downtown. With the documents. Don’t be late.”
“Understood. Please return the phone to my client.” A minute later Rochelle was back. “One o’clock. We have to be at the Hoover Building then.”
“I heard. Meet you there at 12:45?”
“Let’s meet around the corner.” Savannah gave her the address, then hung up and leaned back in her chair. This was shaping up to be quite the day, and she felt the lingering aches from yesterday’s accident. She’d probably feel the bruises from the seat belt for days.
Savannah called in Emilie and Hayden and created a quick plan of attack. “Any thoughts on why the FBI is doing this?”
Hayden shrugged as she twisted her engagement ring. “Your client hasn’t told us everything.”
“That’s clear.” Emilie crossed her arms over her stylish navy sheath. With a gold necklace and bangle bracelets, she looked ready to walk into any situation DC could throw her way, including an emergency hearing. “Rochelle didn’t often make eye contact with me this week. Makes me wonder how much they aren’t telling us. What other surprises might be waiting.”
“Clients always make it harder when they lie.” Hayden pushed to her feet. “I have a prospective client meeting in thirty minutes. Let me know if you need anything else.”
As Savannah’s phone rang again, she shook her head. “You two have been helpful. Thank you.”
“That’s why you brought us on.” Hayden took a step away, but stopped. “Are you sure you’re ready to handle the FBI after yesterday’s accident?”
“Absolutely.” What else could she do?
Emilie followed Hayden out as Savannah took the call. “Daniels.”
“Savannah, this is Jett.”
Just hearing his voice lowered her blood pressure—a reaction she didn’t expect. “How can I help?”
“We’re not that formal.” There was a light tease in his tone, but also something else. Maybe a bit of pique.
“Sorry. It’s already been a long day.” Even though it was barely ten.
“I’ll keep this short. Can you meet me at Dustin’s apartment tonight?”
“Why?” Jett had no good reason to be there.
“Someone needs to look for his will and documents.”
“Not you.” She knew he couldn’t do it without her.
“You can and should. While we’re there maybe we’ll find his evidence.” He said the last word with a bit of inflection, as if he didn’t believe anything existed. “Before I let you go. Are you sure you didn’t know Evan Spencer?”
“Certain. Why?”
“He was killed last night. Police are calling it a burglary gone bad.”
Savannah covered her mouth with her hand. “That’s awful.”
“No one is left from my investigation, except the person I can’t find.”
“You didn’t cause the plane crash.”
“Or the burglary.” But his voice didn’t have the conviction of someone who believed his own words.
An hour and a half later, as she entered the King Street Metro Station for the trip into the city, she wondered why she had agreed to meet Jett when she had more pressing matters at hand. While traffic wouldn’t be terrible over the lunch hour, parking could be tricky and was always expensive, so she’d walk the couple of blocks from the Archives yellow line Metro stop to the FBI headquarters. As the train pulled into the DC station, she texted Rochelle to remind her to meet at Red Velvet Cupcakery, and from there they would walk to the FBI building together. After all, the FBI building wasn’t one you strolled into.
Rochelle was tense as she walked into the shop. The sweet aroma should have brought a smile to her face and had her reaching for her pocketbook. Instead she looked like she couldn’t decide whether to bolt or stay rooted in place.
“Would you like anything?”
Rochelle placed a hand over her stomach. “I couldn’t keep it down. I didn’t expect to be this nervous. You’d think with my experience I’d seen it all. The last two weeks have disproved that notion.”
“We’ll sort this out together.” Savannah forced a smile and finished her coffee. “All right, let’s head over.”
It wasn’t a simple process getting into the building, but the agents had given Rochelle a letter, which helped cut a few steps. By the time they got through the security line and each had a visitor tag, sweat ran down Savannah’s back. A stern-faced man in a dark suit strode toward her. “Ms. Daniels? Ms. Lingonier?”
“Yes, sir.” Rochelle leaned nearer. “This is one of the two who came to the office.”
“Ah.” Savannah looked him over. Looked like standard government issue.
“Agent Martin. I’ll escort you to the interview room.” The agent was a bit older than she was and looked familiar. There was a haunted look about him that his ramrod posture couldn’t cover.
She stepped into place next to him. “Have we met before?”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “I don’t believe so, ma’am. Why?”
“You look familiar.” She shrugged.
Rochelle nodded. “I had the same thought this morning.”
He shrugged. “I get that a lot. It’s this way to the conference room we’ll use.” While his expression was serious, it wasn’t unkind. “Do you have the documents with you?”
She patted her oversized bag, which had been x-rayed and thoroughly searched. “Right here.”
“Good.” He stayed quiet as he led them through the bustling halls to the elevator bank. It had been a few months since she’d taken the FBI Experience tour, but this was a different part of the massive headquarters than the contained and sterilized public space.
After he ushered them to a small conference room, he left, and Savannah turned to Rochelle.
The woman’s short hair stood up as if she’d been electrocuted, and her wrinkled khakis and polo suggested she’d slept in them. “What’s the plan?” Her words quavered.
“Listen rather than talk. It’s too early for them to have called you in.” Savannah glanced at her watch. “I don’t know what their game is, so we’ll stay quiet.” She took the seat next to Rochelle. “All you need to do is relax and be honest. I’ll stop the interview if it takes an odd turn, but I don’t anticipate that.”
When Agent Martin walked in with a stack of files and a recorder, Rochelle straightened with a jerk while Savannah frowned.
“I thought you wanted to talk about the documents we brought.” She opened her briefcase and slid out the bulging accordion file.
“We’ll get there.” He sat across the metal table from them, arranged his files just so, then pulled out a pen and opened the first file. “Thank you for coming in.”
Rochelle sniffed, her gaze snapping as straight as her back. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“It’s always good to cooperate.” He flashed her a smile, but Savannah wasn’t warmed by it. “We have a few questions.”
Fifteen minutes later, Savannah decided this was the strangest interrogation she’d witnessed in a long time. It felt as awkward as the one from a mock trial class she’d had in law school.
Agent Martin leaned into the conversation in a way that struck her as overzealous, and Rochelle sat back with arms crossed and mouth closed. At least her client had remembered not to volunteer information.
The stack of files sat at Agent Martin’s elbow. “Tell me again what your company had on that plane.”
“Nothing.” She glanced at Savannah, then continued. “We didn’t put anything on the plane.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s come to our attention that someone may have stolen our tech and put it on the plane, but we aren’t sure.”
“Interesting.” He smirked at her, and Rochelle rolled her eyes, a gesture guaranteed to antagonize the man. “All right. Tell me about your relationship with Sahid Abdul.”
Rochelle raised her hands in a what-are-you-talking-about gesture. “Who?”
“Your boyf
riend.” He slid a photo of a handsome, late-forties man across the table.
Rochelle’s eyes narrowed, and Savannah hurried to speak before her client could. “Why does this man have anything to do with this?” She glanced at Rochelle as the woman’s jaw hardened.
“He’s a Saudi national.”
“So?”
“He’s on our watch list.”
Rochelle stiffened even further. “That’s ridiculous. I would have heard something.”
His gaze narrowed. “Do you conduct background checks on your boyfriends?”
The color drained from Rochelle’s cheeks. “Let’s get back to the reason we’re here.”
The man stroked the top file. “Is Mnemosyne’s code designed to spy on a plane or bring it down?”
Rochelle snorted. “What? Neither!”
Savannah placed a restraining hand on Rochelle arm. “What my client means is that without more she has nothing to say. This sounds like a fishing expedition. If my client knew anything that would help unravel the cause of the crash, she would divulge it. However, at this point, you don’t even know what you’re asking for.”
The man leaned so far across the table, Savannah felt his breath on her face when he spoke. “We will nail the people behind this crash. If your client had anything to do with it, the only thing that will assist her is to cooperate now. If we find the information independently, there will be no leniency.”
“It’s a simple plane crash. While they are always tragedies, that doesn’t make them national emergencies.”
He slid a sheet of paper across the table to her. “Still think so?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jett typed on his laptop at the Source’s offices, distracted with thoughts about his upcoming meeting with Savannah. The news that Evan Spencer had been killed rattled him. While Savannah was right that he didn’t control the plane crash or a burglary gone bad, he couldn’t shake the instinct that something deeper was happening.
If the first three team members had died, was the fourth targeted as well?
If so, he needed to find them now, and that made the trip to a dead man’s apartment to find whatever evidence he could critical. His story about Donnelly and Tate was solid, but there was more at stake now. That’s the only reason he was doing this.
Still, an unnamed doubt pestered him.
He recalled the time he refused to walk away from his suspicions about a company with a less-than-glowing reputation that was launching a college program for its employees. The CEO claimed he wanted to help advance his employees, when in reality he’d bought a large stake in the online college. It had taken diligent work to uncover the extent of that man’s double-dipping and the fact that the degrees weren’t worth the paper they were printed on.
That article had felt good to publish. Almost redeeming.
But then there was the time he pressed hard against a lobbyist who looked like she was colluding with enemies of the state, when in reality she was helping extricate adopted kids out of their African country. When Jett had gotten the call to join that mission, his laptop and cell phone were taken until they’d given him the chance to witness the whole truth. That story had been a pleasure to write too. Still, he wouldn’t have received an invitation if he hadn’t dug into the rumors and caused enough noise to get the lobbyist’s attention.
One way or the other, Jett always got to the truth.
So why the whisper of doubt?
Wait a minute.
He’d gotten so distracted by Tate’s death and his search for the fourth man he’d forgotten the man who’d called him claiming to know something. He pulled out his phone and dialed. The call rang repeatedly, but no answer and no voice mail. He frowned as he ended the call, then tried again. It still went nowhere. He plugged the number into a reverse number look-up search engine, but nothing. Then he went to Facebook and entered the number in the search bar. Sometimes that worked, but not this time.
He sent an email to the tech guy at the office to see if there was another way to back into the source of the number.
So many dead ends. Light Comes After Darkness. Bernard Julius. Jett shook his head.
His phone rang and he grabbed it. “Glover.”
“You’ve been trying to find me.” The voice was husky and low.
Jett took a quick look at his screen. Caller ID Blocked. “I’d begun to wonder if you were going to call.”
“Life got . . . busy.”
“How can I help you?”
“Check your mail. Then we’ll talk again.”
* * *
Savannah glanced over the paper, grateful for the speed-reading course her mom had required one summer. The page didn’t mean a whole lot to her. It looked like scientific gobbledygook, but she noted the way Rochelle swayed momentarily.
“How did you get this?” The words were a reedy whisper, not Rochelle’s normal commanding tones.
The door opened and another agent slipped into the room. He extended his hand toward Savannah. “Sorry I’m late.”
She shook his hand. “I’m Savannah Daniels, Ms. Lingonier’s attorney.”
“Agent Owen Lawson.” He sat in the vacant chair and gestured for Agent Martin to continue. Savannah studied him, trying to get a read on him. He wore a solid brown suit but no tie, and she noticed wear around the collar of his white shirt. He also had tired eyes, like he’d already lived a week today.
“Someone in maintenance for the airline came forward,” Agent Martin said. “Told us this didn’t belong on the flight. Talked to someone in design and engineering.” He flipped open a file, glanced at something inside, then closed it. “Someone else at NTSB mentioned your little company. Didn’t take long from there to sitting here with you. All you have to do is tell me how you got your program added to the flight computer.”
“We didn’t add anything.” Rochelle found her fight and fire again. It was evident in every line of her body. “You should be looking for corporate espionage or something like that. We didn’t authorize the program to be uploaded.”
“But it was. You haven’t denied you have the data.” He tapped the stack of documents Savannah had given him. “I believe you said it’s in here.”
“Yes. We haven’t figured out what happened, but whatever occurred was unauthorized. John and I were very clear about what the injunction meant.”
“And your employees always do what you tell them?”
“Sure. They work for us.”
Agent Lawson leaned forward. “How about your partner?”
“Of course.”
The corner of the man’s mouth tipped up as he stared at them. “You sure about that?”
Agent Martin turned toward his colleague with a frown but didn’t interrupt.
“Yes.” Rochelle sounded certain, but Savannah detected a tightening around the woman’s blue eyes. Then she turned toward Savannah and put a hand over her mouth. “He wouldn’t.”
“Who wouldn’t what?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I need to think. Can we leave now?” She looked at Savannah. “I don’t feel well.”
Savannah glanced at the agents. Lawson arched an eyebrow in a way that mirrored her thoughts. Still she tapped the folder. “This has all the documents you subpoenaed. I’ve also included a legal memo explaining what is included and why.”
Agent Martin nodded. “Let me take this to the requesting agent. Confirm there aren’t further questions.” He stood, took the folder, and left.
After watching them for a minute, Agent Lawson stood as well. “You need to think carefully about your partner.”
Savannah met his gaze steadily. “Do you know something Rochelle needs to know?”
The man left without answering. Savannah immediately turned to Rochelle. “Keep your voice down, but start explaining.”
“John didn’t agree that we needed to keep waiting.” She held up a hand as Savannah started to protest. “I know what he told you, but he’s wrapped up not only his sa
vings, but his grandparents’ and other family members’ money too. Some of them were applying pressure to get their investments back. John thought if we put the code into use, it would help our case in the lawsuit and get us to market that much faster. I told him the product wasn’t ready.” Rochelle’s eyes were red-rimmed and her mouth tipped down. “What if he moved ahead and didn’t tell me? What if it’s not a corporate spy, but my partner?”
* * *
Four hours later that question still echoed through Savannah’s mind. She’d danced as best she could around the question when Agent Martin returned to the room. Then she’d spent the balance of the afternoon with Rochelle searching for John. The man wasn’t at his apartment or office. Savannah finally left Rochelle to find and confront him, because she needed to meet Jett at Dustin’s apartment.
When she pulled into Dustin’s slot, she parked and sat for a minute. Her hands trembled on the steering wheel as adrenaline flooded her. She was exhausted and probably should have stayed home.
What was she doing?
Someone knocked on the driver’s window, and she jumped. She turned to find Jett looking at her. He opened the door, then stood to the side as she climbed out.
His gaze seemed to see through her. “You ready for this?”
She tried to suck in courage as she grabbed her purse and slid from the car. “Can you ever be? He was alive three days ago.”
He touched her hand where it rested on the door. “You’re not doing this alone. I’m walking into this with you. Together we’ll look around, find his will and life insurance information. But whatever we find, it will be together.”
His words wormed deep into her heart.
Could she reach out and accept what he offered?
She wanted to, but first he’d have to earn her trust. That would require her to tear down her walls. Maybe she couldn’t knock them all down yet, but another brick crashed to the ground. She liked the sensation of freedom even as she knew she’d risk her heart.
This time it was worth the potential pain.
She let him take her hand. “Let’s do this. Together.”
Flight Risk Page 19
