DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(169)

I grew up watching my father solve robberies, so I knew what she was talking about.

I gestured for her to continue.

“Computers are a big part of any business these days. My dad’s personal assistant taught me how to use Windows when I was five. I started surfing the net shortly after. And then I got into all kinds of things from there. You would be surprised the kinds of websites a kid can gain access to on a business computer. Things that would probably shock my parents. I taught myself things that I’m not even sure Lucien learned in school, and he was always a tech nerd.” Rachel smiled softly at the thought. “No one ever really paid much attention to what I was doing. They didn’t really care.”

Again she brushed her hair out of her face, burying her fingers in it as she stared off into the past, her eyes so much like Lucien’s, lost in thought.

“I interned at Jacob’s company a couple of summers ago, mostly so that I would be out of Mom and Dad’s hair. I delivered the mail, ran errands, that sort of thing. One night, Lucien was working late, doing something on his computer. He got up to deal with something Jaime brought to him and I got to looking at the code, and I just seemed to know exactly what it was he was trying to do and exactly what he needed to fix it. So I fixed it. He didn’t even realize it until the next day. And then he assumed his computer tech, Tito, had done it.”

“And this was for what, exactly?”

“The pancreas. He was trying to find a way to integrate all the different elements required to make such a thing work. Right now, most companies are just trying to take existing pumps and CGMs and make them work together. What he wanted to do was integrate all the different elements of these devices and turn them into one device. But to do that, he had to solve a number of problems, the least of which was how to teach the device the difference between a high sugar and a low one. I solved the problem.”

“Did you tell him it was you?”

“Yeah. Even showed him how I did it.”

“But…?”

Rachel shrugged. “He patted me on the head and told me what a good girl I was.”

I shook my head. “I still don’t understand.”

“Lucien refused to give me credit for my work on the device.”

“Okay. So what?”

Rachel straightened up on her stool, staring at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world. “So what? Do you know how much that device will be worth when it hits the market? It will revolutionize the way diabetes is treated!”

“I know. That’s why Lucien is developing it.”

“Yeah, well, he wants to keep all the credit for himself. But, if not for me, he never would have solved the biggest issue.”

“And that’s why you did this?”

“I asked him if he was going to give me credit. He openly denied it.”

“But what does that have to do with this? With you kidnapping me?”

She groaned. “We did this because it will force him to change the application for the patent. He’ll have to add me as one of the developers.”

I tilted my head slightly, trying to decide if she was being truthful, or if she was just trying to buy time.

She looked completely honest. But that honest face had tricked me once before.

“And the emails?”

“A distraction.”

“From what?”

“He said you would assume it was Tito and you would spend all your time checking into that while he changed the application for the patent.”

“He said?”

Rachel looked away.

“I was supposed to assume it was Tito sending the emails because we traced them back to Lucien’s computer?”

“Yeah.”

“And that would distract me from what was really happening.”

“That was his theory.”

“And what was really happening?”

“We were trying to get the lawyer to change the patent application.”

“Sharon Potter?”

“Who?”

“The lawyer,” I said, though I’d already realized that she had no idea what I was talking about. And, true to my suspicion, she looked truly confused.

“The lawyer we were talking to was named Jack Falsey.”

I stood up and began to pace the length of the kitchen. “Why kidnap me? Whose idea was that?”

“Hers. She thought it would force Lucien’s hand because the lawyer said that we couldn’t do anything until we had his signature on the paperwork.”

I nodded. “So your partner is trying to get Lucien’s signature as we speak?”

“Yeah. She said they were talking and he was about to come around. I guess he really likes you.”

“You don’t think all this is a little extreme for what you want?”

Rachel looked away. “I told her that it wasn’t that big of a deal. I could use my skills to do something else. I mean, I’ve already written a game that’s selling like crazy in the Apple store.”

“Yeah?”

She smiled. “It’s this game that asks you all these impossible questions and you—”

The phone buzzed against the countertop. Rachel found as she reached for it, but I grabbed it before she could get it.

“Change of plans,” I read aloud.