Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(106)

The question clearly surprised him. “I don’t know—I mean, I worked with her, I saw her résumé, she was very good at her job…”

“Do you know anything about her parents? How she ended up here?”

Oliver shook his head impatiently. “Of course not. Why would I? I wasn’t dating the woman, I was her coworker. I care about her programming skills, not her family tree.”

I thought of the timeline. The photograph from the cabin. The little girl held in her mother’s arms. The GPS records showing the nonprofit where Karen must have volunteered, Tiananmen Lives. “She came to the U.S. in 1990 from China. She only gained U.S. citizenship later on. Something had happened to both her parents at the same time, probably the year before that. 1989 Beijing. Want to take a guess where?”

He saw where I was going almost immediately. “Tiananmen Square?”

“They were almost definitely student protesters. They probably died side by side. Afterward she came to the States to live with relatives. The woman had a lifelong hatred for any government willing to kill its own civilians for protesting abuse of power. To her, that was far more important than money or a career. More important than anything. Once she found out what In Retentis was about, she was never going to just walk away and let people die.”

“So Care4 didn’t have a choice? That’s what you’re saying?”

“I’m sure they would have far preferred any other option than murder. They probably ran through everything. But fire her? She could sue, or turn whistleblower, or go to the press—any number of things. Buy her out, bribe her? Well, she valued some things more than money. Intimidate or scare her? God knows they tried. Everything from threatening her with lawyers to hiring me to follow her. The pressure took a toll without a doubt. If Care4 could have stressed her to the point of a breakdown I’m sure they would have been delighted. But she was tough, and the woman was driven by something more important to her than even her own physical safety. She wasn’t going to walk away. And if they just ignored her? Then—”

“She gets the FBI information that shuts down In Retentis,” Oliver finished.

“Exactly.”

“When you put it that way, they really didn’t have a choice,” Oliver said thoughtfully.

“Wrong,” I corrected sharply. “Of course they had a choice. They could have chosen to place innocent lives above profit. They could have said no to blood money. They could have refused to sell their technology without stipulating how it was used, even if that cost them financially. And, most of all, they could have decided to face up to consequences, or chosen to take on their employee in court if they felt she was wrong—anything except choosing to murder her in cold blood.” I gave Oliver a hard look. “They had a choice, all right. They just chose the wrong way.”

He looked away from my eyes. “The guesswork is impressive, but how do you know for sure? Do you have proof?”

I got up and opened the top drawer of the file cabinet I had been using as a stool. I took out a sealed manila folder and opened it with a penknife that I left on the file cabinet next to the open paperback. I pulled out a sheaf of photographs. Each a page of Silas Johnson’s file from the hotel. “Take a look,” I said, extending the documents. “Attorney-client privilege goes pretty far, but I’ve never felt it should cover complicity in murder. The lawyers Care4 hired were helping to handle the In Retentis contract negotiations with foreign powers. I’m sure they were getting paid very well for their efforts.”

Oliver glanced through the first few photographs carefully, then looked up nervously. “You know they could sue you into the poorhouse just for having this stuff?”

“I’ll take my chances.”

He took a candy bar from his pocket, tore off the gold wrapper, and chewed with small, rapid bites. “So what do you need me to do?”

“Help me log into the Care4 systems. Tonight, before it’s too late. We stop the system from going live, we shut down In Retentis, and that saves these people and hundreds or thousands of others, too.”

Oliver blanched. “That’s impossible.”

“You helped build their security system. If anyone can pull it off, you can.”

“What if I get caught?”

“Right side, wrong side, Oliver. You said it yourself. Where do you want to land?”

“Isn’t there some other way?”

I shook my head. “Not this time.”

He thought some more. “You’re not exactly asking me to hack into a lemonade stand.”

I was growing impatient. Impatient, and edgy. Only a handful of hours remained. “I’m not going to argue with you all night. Either you help me, or say no, so that I can go find someone who can. We have to hurry.”

He looked around uncertainly, stalling. “This is too risky. I need to think it over.”

“We don’t have time. Yes or no? Make up your mind.”

I started toward him, then stopped abruptly.

Joseph stood in the doorway.

He was dressed similarly to when I’d last seen him, at my brother’s apartment. A dark suit, dark shirt, black polished shoes. One difference was his right arm, which was now in a sling. A .45 would do that. Impossible to tell exactly where he had taken the bullet, but his upper arm bulged slightly under the shoulder of the well-tailored suit. The kind of bulk that a layer of thick bandages might add. He held his gun in his right hand and a pair of heavy bolt cutters in his left.