DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(149)

“My dad thinks you’re insane and that you arranged this whole thing to get someone to pay attention to you.”

“Not a great first impression, I guess.”

She giggled. “No.”

“What do you think?”

“I think we’re missing something. I think there’s more to this than we’re seeing.”

I kissed the top of her head. “Me too.”

“But what the hell could it be?”

And that was the question. I had no idea.





Chapter 16


Adrienne

I spent half the night pacing the floor of my living room, an Audrey Hepburn movie playing on the television behind me. I kept rolling the facts through my mind, trying to figure out what was going on. I listed the facts as we knew them one by one:

A reporter called Lucien asking about the artificial pancreas, even though there were only six people, other than those in the patent offices, who knew about it.

He received an email on his office computer that implied bodily harm.

He received another email while in Kemah that implied a threat.

His brother received an email telling him to rein Lucien in.



Those were the facts. But they didn’t seem to add up to anything.

One of the emails mentioned the artificial pancreas. The others didn’t. The others implied that the writer knew Lucien had gone to my dad’s PI firm. At least, that’s what I got out of it. But who could know that? And how? And how did the reporter find out about it?

Maybe that was where I should start. Maybe I needed to go back to the beginning.

But when I looked her up from the phone records Robert had gotten when we first took the case, the address turned out to be a hair salon. I called the number she’d called from, but it was no longer in service.




“Who would want to hurt you?”

Lucien looked up from his computer, his eyes not really focusing on me at first.

“What do you mean?”

I’d been sitting on the couch in his office for more than an hour, flipping through a magazine without actually reading any of the articles. My dad had told me to just keep watching him, that they’d work on the who and the why. But I just couldn’t let it go.

“Who would want to make threats against you? Who would want to distract you from your work or make you angry with Jacob?”

“I don’t know. The only person I could think of is Lynn.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s let the drugs drive her crazy.”

“My dad’s checking her out. But he doesn’t think it’s her.”

“What about my computer? Have you figured out if someone’s breaking into my office?”

“Robert has the security footage from the camera out in the hallway, but he doesn’t think anyone was actually coming into the office. He thinks if it’s someone other than you, they were doing it remotely.”

Lucien shook his head. “The whole thing’s pretty insane.”

He turned back to his computer, returning to whatever it was he sat there and worked on all day. I turned back to my magazine, but I was so bored that I was beginning to go stir crazy. Jaime came into the room, shooting me a dirty look before dropping a couple of file folders onto Lucien’s desk.

“Jacob asked me to remind you that you have a meeting at two.”

“Thanks, Jaime,” he said without even looking up.

The moment she was gone, I stood. “I’m gonna go.”

“Aren’t you supposed to hang out with me all day?”

“You’re safe as long as you’re inside this building. Call me if you get worried.”

He came around his desk and pulled me against his chest. “What about tonight?”

“What about it?”

“Can I take you out? A nice dinner, maybe?”

“Like a date?”

“Why not?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Meet me back here about five.”

I rose up on my tiptoes and kissed him lightly. “I’ll see you then.”

I left, but I didn’t go far. I’d set a little camera up on a low shelf in Lucien’s office while he was off at a meeting this morning. I just hung around long enough to see if he would notice it, but he didn’t. I curled up in the front seat of my car and watched the feed, smiling as Lucien settled back down behind his desk, completely unaware that he was being watched.

Robert had accessed the webcam on Lucien’s desk, but he hadn’t thought of this. This camera wouldn’t just show us who was staring at the computer monitor. It would show us who was coming and going through the room all day long. That might tell us more, if whoever was doing this wasn’t smart enough for a remote log in, but too smart to sit where the webcam could pick them up.

I could do more than just teach rich, complacent CEOs a few self-defense moves.





Chapter 17


Lucien

“Come to the house for dinner.”

I sat back and turned to look out the window. “Mom, I have a date with Adrienne tonight.”

“Bring her with you.”

“We were kind of hoping to have a little time alone.”