“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.
Rachel’s face twisted into a cloud of confusion.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. She’s not supposed to text me directly.”
I began to pace again, trying to work all this out in my head. There was more to it than Rachel knew. Someone was after something, but it wasn’t the artificial pancreas. It wasn’t even the patent. If they wanted to stop or alter the patent, they were too late. It came through a week ago. This was about something else. Stealing the code for the pancreas was just an excuse to get Rachel to help.
“Who is she?”
Rachel’s eyes fell to the phone in my hands. “I should answer him. She’ll worry if I don’t.”
“Tell me who you’re working with.”
“Lynn.”
I nodded slowly, my memory of Lynn a little less than flattering. She’d showed up at a restaurant where Lucien, his family, and I were sharing a meal. She was high or drunk or a little bit of both, and we’d had to drive all the way back to Houston to take her home. And she’d said things, things that implied that she and Lucien had been sleeping together for quite some time.
Lynn was Jacob’s ex-wife.
“Why Lynn?”
Rachel shrugged. “She came to me a couple of weeks ago and told me that Jacob thought Lucien’s actions were despicable. She said they wanted to help me get my name on the patent so that when the device went to market, I’d get a piece of the profit.”
“Jacob’s involved too?”
Rachel shook her head quite adamantly. “No. He just told her what he thought. She was the one who told me to do this, the one who said it was the only way.”
“But you said ‘they’.”
“And Jaime.”