Thomas suddenly found something on his phone to be very engrossing. He cleared his throat a lot.
William shifted his tie. “Look, I’m not angry about the bill. I’m not angry about you stealing my wallet...”
“Not anymore,” Thomas offered, putting his phone away.
William chose to ignore him. “That stick you recovered...” William said slowly, “was the trigger. There are going to be ramifications from that for years.”
“There are governments that are about to fall, people falsely accused are exonerated... all because of your efforts,” Thomas interrupted again, looking well-pleased.
William cleared his throat. “So... thank you.”
Luke’s eyebrows shot up. “That sounded like it hurt to say.”
“Not at all,” William said. “I knew that giving you the breaks you needed to succeed would pay off. You were too stubborn not to.”
“And what do you propose to do with your monster, Dr. Frankenstein?” Luke asked, with a glance at Dani, who nodded.
“That’s why we are here.” Thomas reached for a folder on the desk and balanced it on his palm.
William held up a restraining hand. “Before we get into that. How’s your brother, Dani?”
“David?” Dani blinked. “He’s... okay. He’s got a long way to go, but he’s recovering nicely. He needs to work out some issues.”
“And your mothers?”
“They seem to have bonded,” Dani answered when Luke didn’t. “They’re currently in Paris on a shopping spree. Something about a new purse...”
“I don’t suppose you know where your father is.” William tried to sound casual, but Luke could hear the anxious note in his voice. This obviously was something of great interest to him.
“No, I can’t say that I do.”
Edwin had pulled his disappearing father trick again. The fact was, Edwin was on the list of people mentioned on the USB stick. He wasn’t Uncle Benny’s patsy like he’d tried to pretend; he’d been in it up to his neck. There were a dozen warrants out for Edwin Rhinehart’s arrest, but after the riot at the bridal show he’d vanished into the crowd and no one had seen him since.
Judging from the look on Dani’s face, she’d like to be first in line to catch up with him. He’d left with a lot of issues unresolved between them. And though she hadn’t said anything about it before leaving for Paris, Luke suspected his mother had gained something of a liking for the con man as well.
Luke’s hands clenched in his lap.
“What we’re considering—”
“We would like you to find him,” Thomas said suddenly, cutting William off mid-sentence.
“We?” Luke echoed. “Who? Which country?”
The two men looked at each other. “We haven’t worked that out yet,” William admitted.
“Although your mother and Marcus work for me,” Thomas addressed Dani, “your family ties,” he indicated Luke and William, “are most decidedly with the American office.”
“But you’re both looking for Edwin? Why?”
“He provided the code key on the screen at the convention,” William said slowly. “He didn’t tell anyone what it was.”
“Oh, come off it,” Luke snapped. “You have people and resources that can pop that; it was only a couple of numbers.”
William looked at Thomas. “That wasn’t a code key. That was a password. We have that. We will have the code key soon, but it may take some time. In the meantime—”
“In the meantime, Edwin has in his possession certain sensitive documents,” Thomas finished.
“Now what?” Dani sat back and crossed her arms. Luke wondered if either agent had any idea what that fire in her eyes meant. “Really? Again?”
“Apparently,” William said, shuffling some papers then laying them down on the desk again. “Let me ask you, Danielle.” William looked up at her. “Does your father strike you as being trustworthy, loyal, and intelligent?”
“Uh...” Dani looked to Luke.
Luke thought about it a moment. When it hit him, struck his forehead with an open palm. “SHIT!”
“What?”
He turned to her. “Your mother is a spy. A good one!” He turned to Thomas for verification. Thomas nodded. “Why in the hell would she trust a man like Edwin?”
Dani spun back to the two men at the desk.
“She didn’t,” Thomas admitted. “The little movies on the stick you saw were all that it contained that we can get to, even with the key.”
“The rest of the information is on another device.” William sighed, looking almost personally affronted. “Another stick, a hard drive, we don’t know.”
“But Edwin does,” Thomas said emphatically, “and we need to find him.”
“I don’t understand,” Luke said.
Thomas shook his head. “When a computer writes information to a drive, it writes it out in sectors. There’s a table that keeps track of what sectors contain what data.”
“Think of it this way,” Dani supplied, “you can write a book and bind the pages one after another, or you can write a book and store the pages individually across three hundred files. You can still read it, so long as you have a record of which page is where.” She looked at the men and felt a bit put off by their expressions. “I really was a computer operator when I entered the military, so I know—”
“Part of the book is missing,” Luke grumped.
“And part of the book is... somewhere,” William said, “and we don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
“But Edwin does,” Thomas said.
Luke looked from one to the other. “And where does that leave us?”
William positively beamed. “Come work for me, my boy.”
“Or with your mother,” Thomas murmured, eyeing Dani.
Luke looked at Dani. She shrugged. “What about our wedding?”
“So, we are getting married after all?” he asked, an expression of mock surprise on his face.
“What? You want me to kneel and ask you?” She got up from her chair and made as if to do just that.
“We really do need to have a talk about who’s in charge.” Luke dragged her onto his lap. “And, so you know, we’re not getting married in Houston,” he said, shaking his head ruefully, “But we are getting married! Only, I’ll do the actual asking, thank you.”
“So, ask!”
“Here?” Luke lifted one eyebrow.
“You can’t get married yet,” Thomas said with a sly smile. “You’ll need someone to walk you down the aisle.”
Dani made a rude noise.
“I was referring to Marcus,” Thomas said coolly. “He won’t be out of the hospital for a few days. Plenty of time for a quick little side trip.”
“You bring home that data, kids, and we may just make this a permanent relationship. I’ll have you both working for me full time,” William said, smacking the table in delight. “I think this calls for a celebration!” He jumped to his feet and held up his hands as Luke shoved Dani off his lap and got up. She scowled at him and bounced to her feet, giving him first a good hard poke in the stomach, right where she knew he was bruised.