Lincoln Kinkead was watching Notorious, an old movie with Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant that he pulled out every few years. They have a spy operation going, only she doesn’t know that the bad guys are on to her and are slowly poisoning her. He loved the story and loved the young Ingrid Bergman. Such a stunning actress. And her scenes with Grant were beyond hot. He had watched the movie so often that he knew every line of dialogue before the actors spoke.
Just as Cary Grant figured out that Ingrid Bergman was in terrible danger, Lincoln’s phone rang, jerking him out of the spy drama. He looked at the clock on the desk in his den. Who was calling at this time of night? When he crossed to the instrument, he saw from the caller ID that it was the security desk at the S&D building.
This better be good, he thought as he snatched up the receiver and demanded, “Is there a problem?”
The man on the other end of the line was apologetic. “I’m not sure, sir, but I wanted to call you.”
“What is it?”
“The cameras on the IT floor went off a while ago, and when they came on, we saw one of the employees coming out of the ladies’ room.”
“Who?”
“Elena Reyes.”
“What was she doing in the building so late?”
“She said she had come to get some information on her current word-processing program. That sounded strange, and she looked nervous, like she was up to something she shouldn’t be. But maybe she just doesn’t like dealing with authority.”
Lincoln thought about the scenario. The camera coming back on just as Elena Reyes walked out of the bathroom on the IT floor. How likely was that? Had she really gone to her office, or had she done something else instead?
“Where did the cameras go off?” he asked.
“Just in the IT area.”
“Would she know how to turn them off?”
The guard answered promptly. “In my judgment, not without help. Unless she’s got a lot more training and special equipment than she needs for her job.”
“Okay,” Lincoln answered. “I’m coming in. I want to look at the security tapes. Have them ready for me.”
“Yes, sir. And should I call Mr. Gallagher?”
Lincoln considered the question and answered, “He should be in on this, but I’ll get in touch with him.”
He hung up, thinking about what Elena Reyes might have been doing in the building after hours, and he came back to something he’d been on edge about.
Falcon’s Flight, the software from Alex Rosenbloom. Although Alex had never understood its true worth, Lincoln had immediately seen it as a gold mine. He’d known it could make him millions—from sales of the product and from the hidden potential he had no intention of sharing with the public.
He’d been worried all along that someone might try to steal it out from under him. And when it looked like Arnold Blake had tried to get his hands on it—and gotten killed in the process—Lincoln had hired Shane Gallagher to make sure that the software stayed where it belonged.
Was this thing with Elena Reyes connected? What if she’d been working with Blake and biding her time until she thought it was safe to—do what? He didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to take a chance.
Chapter 12
Thankful to be out of the building at last, Elena walked to her car. She thought she had the information her brother so desperately needed. She had taken a big chance getting it, and she should be relieved to have accomplished her mission. But as she unlocked the vehicle, she couldn’t help having second thoughts. Could she really drive back to her apartment and turn over something so vital that a man had been killed because of it?
She’d gone to Arnold Blake’s office to get the information. Then she’d had a confrontation with a security guard. And now she was feeling sick to her stomach. Not only because she’d almost gotten caught. Something Alesandro had said was rattling around in her mind, and now she understood the implications. If Blake had been holding the information, nobody had done anything with it yet. But if it came on the market from another company, someone was going to be blamed. And S&D security would remember this incident.
And now that she was thinking straight, the idea of stealing from Lincoln Kinkead made her sick. He’d always been straight with her. He’d given her a good job with good possibilities for advancement, and she couldn’t knife him in the back.
She pulled her phone out of her purse and called her home number. The phone rang, and she thought Alesandro wasn’t going to pick it up. But finally after five rings he did.
“Do you have it?” he asked immediately.
“I think so.”
“Then bring it to me.”
The words were hard to speak, but she said, “I can’t.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I can’t do it. You’d better get out of my apartment and find somewhere to hide until I figure out what to do.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Shane Gallagher.”
“That guy I met?”
“Yes.”
“You puta!” he screamed at her.
“That’s what you think—that I’m a whore?”
“When you’re killing me. I need that information. I need it to be safe.”
“I’m sorry,” she said and hung up because she couldn’t stand the fear in his voice or her disgust with him. Or with herself. Alesandro had gotten her to do something she never would have done on her own. Not in a million years, and now she had to put it right.
Instead of heading home, she used her phone to find Shane Gallagher’s address and drove to his apartment building.
Shane was relaxing in his boxers, sitting at his computer when the phone rang. The caller ID said it was Lincoln Kinkead. He looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock. What did the head of S&D want at this hour?
“Something wrong?” Shane asked.
“There may have been a breach of security tonight.”
“What happened?”
“One of the security cameras went offline, and when it came back on, Elena Reyes was coming out of the ladies’ room on the IT floor. There’s no record of what she was doing before that.”
“Shit.”
“Indeed.”
“I’ll be right over.” He clicked off the phone and charged into the bedroom where he grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt. After putting them on, he pulled on socks and shoved his feet into running shoes. He was just heading back to the front of the apartment when someone knocked at the door, and he stopped short.
His Sig was in his desk drawer. He got it out and took it with him to the door. When he looked through the spy hole, he saw Elena Reyes, of all people. She was the reason Kinkead had called, and now here she was. But why? She was standing stock-still, but with the distorted image of the fish-eye lens, it was impossible to read her expression.
“Elena?” he called out to see her reaction.
She jumped.
Pulling the door open, he found her standing in the hallway, looking pale and upset—and also with an expression he hadn’t seen on her face before. He decided it was steely determination.
He’d just been talking to Kinkead about what she might have been doing in the building. Strange that she was standing at his door looking like she was in the middle of a mess. But maybe the lunch and dinner and helping her after her car broke down had made her trust him.