Jeanne Adams - Dark and Deadly

As he watched, Torie laid a hand on Pratt’s arm. “It’s difficult.”

He smiled at her. “Yes, it is sometimes.”

How could she be so empathetic to the old man, care so much for someone she didn’t know? How had he managed to screw up so badly?”

“Paul?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I was thinking about the situation. What was your question?”

“I asked Ms. Hagen here if she’d be my date for the partner’s dinner. She said you hadn’t asked her yet, so I’m preempting you.”

“Ah, I see.” Paul was flabbergasted. He couldn’t believe the old man had slipped that in.

Tibbet was struggling not to laugh. Paul wanted Torie there. Needed her there. He hadn’t expected it to be this way.

“She still might dance with you, though,” Pratt teased. He and Tibbet, along with Torie, laughed at that.

“Now,” Pratt said more soberly, “we should get down to business. Detective, can you give us a written statement saying that Ms. Hagen has been cleared of any charges in connection with Mister Peterson’s terrible death?”

“I believe I can do that. Yes.”

“Excellent. If you’ll get that to Mister Jameson here, it will help us move things along on our end.” He motioned toward Paul. “He’s got several things to wrap up.”

“Detective,” Torie broke into the conversation. “They’ve cleared my house as a crime scene, and I am going to begin work on getting things put back together. I’m hoping that my firm will get past the negative publicity the police caused by leaking the information about the men…”

Paul could see she was struggling to figure out how to phrase it that didn’t sound terrible.

“Do you have any idea where the leak came from, Detective?” Paul asked. “I’m not saying that I think Ms. Hagen should act on that knowledge, but has the department locked that down?”

“Actually we believe it’s connected to the cyber issues. The information wasn’t leaked,” Tibbet growled. “It was stolen.”

“Stolen? How do you steal information from a police department?”

“The same way you do from anyone, Ms. Hagen,” Tibbet answered. “You hack into their computers. Public resources don’t really extend to hacker-proof software and fancy gadgets, I’m afraid.”

“Ah, then our culprits may be guilty of more than destroying data here as well then.”

Tibbet nodded. “Could be. We’ll see. I wanted to talk with you further about the connections between you and Mister Peterson,” he said, indicating Torie and Paul.

“Would you like me to bring my son in on these discussions?”

“Were you close in any way with Mister Pratt’s son?” Tibbet asked Paul.

“No. We were in several classes together, pledged the same fraternity, but otherwise we didn’t socialize.”

“At the time, my son was going through a bit of a rebellious stage,” Pratt Sr. broke in. “I believe you got to know one another somewhat in graduate school, didn’t you?”

Paul tread very carefully. Technically, they hadn’t known Melvin much at all. The invitation to interview with Pratt at Melvin’s behest had come as a shock to both he and Todd.

“We did have several more classes together there,” he temporized, stretching the truth only slightly.

Pratt took up the story, much to Paul’s relief. “When Melvin graduated and passed the bar, he suggested we interview several of his classmates. His judgment there was superb.” Pratt smiled at Paul. “The firm hired both Paul here, and Todd Peterson, from the group of six we interviewed.”

“Ah, interesting. And did you see any reason to doubt them or their skills, given the rebellious stage you mentioned?”

“No, indeed. Their scores were impressive, their references good. They both worked hard and proved themselves up to the job. Then young Todd made his fortune and left us, of course.”

Torie winced, but the old man didn’t see it. He was in full storyteller mode. Paul shot her a sympathetic look. She turned away.

Ouch. He’d been given the brush-off a lot, by plenty of women, but it had never hurt more.

“So, that brings us to the present,” Pratt wrapped up. Paul was lost in thought again, and had missed most of the speech. Damn.

“Ms. Hagen, from your perspective, how did this play?”

“Pretty much that way. I was more familiar with Todd’s friends than anything else,” she said. “I believe I met your son at some of the fraternity functions,” she said to Pratt. “But he wasn’t one to hang out at the fraternity house much at all. Ironically, I might have known him best in those days. He was in at least two of my engineering classes.”

“Really? Electrical? Civil?” Tibbet asked.

“Structural and electrical.”

“Ah. Interesting. So, Mister Pratt, do you have any reason to believe these two employees that were fired might want to hurt any of these people? So far we’ve found no connection to Mister Peterson. He was gone before the woman was hired.”

“Not that I’m aware, Detective.”

“Okay. Well, I don’t think I’ll need to speak to your son, but if I do, I’ll call over, set something up. Ms. Hagen, I think the department will probably send you some kind of official apologies for the lapse in the computers, but I’ll say it for them. It was inexcusable and, since it may jeopardize our case, it sucks. So, I’m damn sorry.”

“Thanks, Detective. I appreciate it. I hope my bosses will, too.”

“Yeah, that’s not right. Jameson, you ought to fix that for her, for sure.” He prodded the sore spot Paul was feeling. “Harassment and all.”

“I’ll follow my client’s wishes on that one, but yes, she has a case.”

“There you go. Haul ’em into court, Ms. Hagen. You’re the victim here as far as I can see.” He closed his notebook and rose. “Nah, keep your seats. I’ll see myself out.” He was almost to the door when he paused, looked back. “Ms. Hagen, did Mister Pratt Jr. ever ask you out?”

Everyone froze and looked at Torie. “Yes, he did. I was already dating Todd, so I declined.”

“And later?”

Torie hesitated, and for the first time looked to Paul for guidance. Damn. He nodded.

“Yes, after Todd and I broke up, he asked me out several times.”

“And?”

“I wasn’t ready to date. I declined again.”

“Interesting,” Tibbet muttered, and walked out the door. A faint, “Thanks for the coffee, Mister Pratt,” was his parting shot.

The detective had been to see Torie again. It was insulting. How dare the man get so close? And he’d heard from his little sources that they’d arrested that woman from records, as well as someone from the computer division at Pratt. Wasn’t that an ass-kicker? The woman might—no, it wasn’t her. She was too malleable, her tits were bigger than her brain. Besides, he knew where she had been.

But the other one. The techie. No wonder the files had dissolved into a puddle of nothingness. Between them, the morons had taken his careful tampering, his brilliant program, and turned it into a visible cancer, a blight.

He snarled. They had to be dealt with. If they told the police they hadn’t tampered with the files, then his IPO might give him away. Someone might remember him.

Not good.

To add to that insult, Paul Jameson was still walking. His shot had missed, and he’d nearly been caught. His heart still raced at the thought of the shouts, the lights, as the police revealed their presence.

He’d been watching so intently for the departure of the bodyguard, he’d missed the fucking cops.

But Luck had saved him. She was finally on his side.

He swung the gimbaled chair from side to side, listening to the air swish. It mesmerized him for a moment, breaking the spell the anger had built.