Self-centered, he’d said. My disease led to me believe I could get whatever I wanted. But I’d always thought it was the opposite. I’d always thought that my illness had made me more sensitive to other people. Maybe I was wrong.
I shouldn’t have missed this. And by missing it, I’d put Adrienne in danger.
If he hurt her…
Chapter 36
Adrienne
“I’m supposed to take you back to the city.”
I was reading the text over her shoulder. It said exactly that.
Take the package to the roses.
“The roses?”
“It’s a code name for a bed and breakfast in Katy where Jacob and Lynn used to go all the time when they were dating. Lynn said it was the perfect place for a rendezvous because it was in the heart of the city, but in a place that’s sort of secluded, you know? It’s on one of those little side streets where people don’t go much.”
I took the phone and slid it into my jeans pocket.
“Let’s go.”
“But what am I going to tell them when they see you all dressed and free?”
“We’re not going to the bed and breakfast.”
“But—”
“Do you want to be arrested for kidnapping?”
Rachel immediately stopped arguing. I grabbed the keys off of the peg outside the pantry and led the way to the garage. It was a much different walk than it had been a few hours earlier when she brought me into the house. The garage was still dark, but I had a better idea of where I was going. Rachel climbed into the passenger seat without questioning me. She clearly understood that the tables had turned.
It would be more than an hour’s drive. More than long enough for Rachel to run through her story one last time.
But first…
I pulled the phone out of my pocket.
“Poppy, it’s me.”
The relief in his voice was so overwhelming that I nearly burst into tears myself.
“Where are you?”
“Safe. I’m on my way back to Houston.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“I told that man if you were hurt—”
“What man?”
“Lucien. I told him if he hurt you—”
“Lucien isn’t involved in all this, Poppy. But I think his brother might be.”
A heavy silence fell on the other end of the line. “Why?”
“I’m still working on that.” I glanced at Rachel. She was watching me, her face so pale she might have disappeared if she were leaning against the outside of the white van. As it was, she seemed to glow against the dark of the upholstered seat. “I’ll be in the city in roughly an hour. I’ll explain everything then.”
I disconnected the call and focused on Rachel. “Start talking. Tell me everything, even if it doesn’t seem important.”
I needed to figure this out as much for my own sanity as for Lucien’s safety.
Something in my gut told me this wasn’t the end of things.
Chapter 37
Lucien
I went to the house because I knew he wouldn’t have done anything to hide the evidence this time. He knew I’d be occupied with other things. He assumed I wouldn’t put two and two together and come up with fourteen.
But here I was, dragging his computer out of his room and running it through its paces.
I remembered walking into my own kitchen and finding Adrienne going through Jacob’s computer, how outraged I’d felt at the sight. Jacob couldn’t possibly have done anything to hurt me, let alone the company. The pancreas was going to be the thing that would put our company over the top, financing all the other marvels of modern medicine we wanted to create. Jacob wouldn’t do anything to change that.
But he would. There was something else more important to him, something bigger than the pancreas was ever going to be. Something that would change life as we knew it. And he was on the verge of discovering how to make it work.
The proof was here. I just had to find it.
A distraction. Just a fucking distraction. And I’d played a role in it all. The perfect role, as it turned out. Adrienne was supposed to be a decoy, pretending to be my girlfriend. And then she was in my bed and I couldn’t think of anything else. I’d welcomed her there, brought her in on my own. And she’d proven to be the one distraction Jacob hadn’t planned on, but which was the best gift he could have given himself.
How could I be so blind to what was going on around me? How could I put Adrienne into that sort of danger?
I booted up the computer and bypassed the welcome screen, moving into the hidden files without so much as blinking an eye. I’d looked over Adrienne’s shoulder, seen a few folders on the home screen that seemed suspicious. But that was all just another distraction. Jacob knew what he was doing.
And there it was. Proof of what he was doing.
Contracts. Code. Specs.