“They know only what they need to know to do their jobs. We’re very careful about what we put down on paper, what we say in front of help staff. There is a protocol in place to keep secrets secret.”
She walked over to the couch set intentionally on one side of the room to present a cozy place to have meetings. She kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs up underneath her, sitting like a teenager making herself at home. I followed, taking a spot on the other side of the couch.
“We’ll have to check them out, just to make sure something hasn’t slipped through your protocol.” She scratched her head just above her brow, her eyes again moving around the room. It seemed like she always had to know what was going on around her, what threat might suddenly pop up. It must be difficult living like that, believing that there could be danger around every corner.
“What about the rest of your staff? You have, what, three floors here?”
“Four.”
“Four?”
“The labs are in the basement.”
She nodded. “Is it just you and your brother up here on this floor?”
“Jacob, me, the head of human resources, the head of research and development, and the head of accounting.”
“And the second floor?”
“Support staff. Accounting. The secretary pool. Legal.”
“You have your own in-house legal department.”
“We do. They work on patents and other legal issues that have, or may, come up with our products.”
“Does anyone in legal know about this device?”
“Shit, yeah,” I said, realizing I’d missed one person when I was thinking about the people who could have leaked information on the device. “Sharon Potter. She’s the one who worked on the patent application with me.”
“We’ll have to check her out. Do you think you could introduce her to me when you give me the tour?”
“Sure.”
“Anyone else?”
“Not that I can think of. But I’ve already given your father a list of employees. He said you’d be checking most of them out.”
“We will. But we need to know who to concentrate on the most.”
I sat forward and buried my face in my hands for a moment. All this was becoming somewhat overwhelming. I was beginning to wish I’d only been paranoid. That this was all some sort of hoax that would disappear. But I knew it wasn’t because of what I’d found in my email inbox when I got to work this morning.
“There’s something I should show you,” I said.
Adrienne was watching me, her expression unreadable except for this little spark that seemed to be alive in her eyes. I couldn’t tell what it was. The excitement of the case? Or being this close to me? Or maybe something totally unrelated to it all.
I crossed the room to my computer and pulled up the email. She moved up beside me, moving in front of me as she moved closer to read. Her ass was just right there, pushing back against me. I couldn’t help but touch it, running my hand slowly along the curve of her hip to the long line of her outer thigh.
“When did you get this?”
I almost had to ask what she was talking about.
“This morning.”
She was chewing on her lip, eating off the lipstick that had been there. She straightened up and, because we were standing so close together, pressed back against my chest. I slid my hand around her waist, helping her catch her balance. She stood there for a moment, clearly not disturbed by my touch. But then she pulled away and walked back toward the couch.
“That reads like a death threat.”
I don’t think she wanted a response from me. She pulled her cellphone out of that dainty purse, clearly annoyed with it when the phone caught on the purse’s lining. She tugged roughly at it, and I was pretty sure I heard something rip. I had to bite back a chuckle. This was a serious situation, after all.
Very serious. But it was going to be a lot of fun, too.
Chapter 6
Adrienne
My father answered his phone on the third ring, his voice thick with sleep.
“What?” he mumbled.
“It’s me, Poppy. There’s been a development in the case.”
“What?” he repeated, but his voice was clearer, the sound of drowsiness quickly disappearing.
“Lucien Montgomery got an email this morning that reads like a death threat to me. It says he should be more careful about who he talks about. That the device has been compromised, and if he knows what’s good for him, he should just let it go.”
My father was quiet for a long moment.
“I’ll call Robert, have him trace the email back to the origin IP.”
“Okay.”
“Stay with him. It might be an idle threat, but it could be real. You need to stay with him as much as you can until we figure out just how high the risk is.”
I glanced over at the desk where I’d left Lucien. He’d moved over to the small table on the other side of the room and was gathering his abandoned lunch trash. He wasn’t looking at me, but I got the impression he was listening just the same.
I covered my mouth and the bottom half of the phone.