“Sit.”
I fell into a chair, blinking as I quickly looked around. A pantry of some sort. There were shelves, cans of food everywhere. And jars of homemade preserves. Did people still do that? And stacks of boxes, cereals and pastas. I was in someone’s home pantry, which meant I was in someone’s home.
“Is this your house? Or your grandmother’s?”
“Shut up.”
“Lucien will find me.”
“Lucien couldn’t find his way out of the office without someone’s help.”
“He’ll find me.”
“If he knows what’s best for the two of you, he’ll do what I tell him and nothing else.”
She knelt in front of me and tied my ankle to the chair with another cable tie. Then the other ankle.
“Can you loosen my wrists? I can barely feel my fingers.”
“You’ll have to put up with it a little longer.”
She started for the door, her chin high even hidden under the thin ski mask she was wearing. Like she thought that would hide her identity from me.
“You do realize I know who you are, right? That I can identify you to the police when this is all over?”
She glanced back at me.
“You’re smarter than that,” she said.
“Am I? Why wouldn’t I tell the police the identity of the woman who kidnapped me to force Lucien to hand over a drug that hasn’t even begun FDA trials yet?”
“Because if you did that, I would tell the police about the methods your father uses to get information on and for his clients. You really don’t want daddy being investigated, do you, Adrienne?”
“My father has never done anything illegal.”
“Oh, no. He just skirts the law, jumping over the line only when he has to. Like when he ran a background check on that boy you were dating in high school. Not really illegal, but not all that ethical, either.”
My cheeks burned as I watched her, aware of exactly who she was talking about.
“How do you know about that?”
“I know a lot more than you could ever imagine. You’re not the only one who knows how to use a computer to get the information you want.”
“Like the emails you sent from Lucien’s computer to make it look like he was sending those threats to himself? Like the way you made it seem like Jacob was sending them?”
She smiled. “That was pretty good, wasn’t it? Just enough to get Lucien all up in arms, but not enough to make him go to the cops. Exactly what I wanted.”
“What were you trying to do? Did you really think he would turn on his brother?”
“No. I knew he wouldn’t. But I hadn’t planned on you, either.”
“What did you think he would do?”
She shrugged. “I was hoping he would assume it was Tito.”
“Tito? His computer programmer?”
“He worked on the diabetes device with him. He knows how make it appear that emails came from one computer when they actually came from another. It would have made sense.”
“But why Tito?”
“Because Lucien knows Tito’s father has heart disease. He might have assumed Tito was after those drugs.”
“But none of those drugs are close to FDA trials.”
“A couple are. It would have made sense.”
“And? What if he had assumed it was Tito?”
“He would have gone after him, started monitoring his computer use within the company. He would have been distracted. And I could have slipped a name onto the Alzheimer’s trial list without anyone noticing.”
“You could have done that anyway.”
She shook her head. “Jacob and Lucien are very conscious of security. They go beyond what the FDA requires. When the list is submitted, they make sure there is only an electronic copy of the list, and that list is contained only on Jacob’s computer under so much encryption that a specialist probably couldn’t crack it. It would take time to figure it out. I was hoping that if they were checking into Tito, it would give me the opportunity I needed. But then you and your father got involved.” When she said that last, her voice changed, almost as if it left a bad taste in her mouth. “You traced the emails remotely, and that took away any opportunity I might have had.”
“You still could have found a way.”
She stared at me a minute, then turned her head. “Jacob removed the list from his computer. I don’t know where it is now.”
“How do you—”
She turned and started for the door. “You fucked everything up. If you hadn’t gotten involved, it would have been perfect. No one would have been the wiser. But you forced my hand.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get what I need. And then I’m getting rid of you.”
“What does that mean?”
But she was gone, the finality of the sound of a lock sliding into place making my heart sink. I had thought I had the upper hand. I’d thought knowing her identity would help me. But now I was beginning to think I was wrong.
And it might be the last mistake I ever made.
Chapter 27