One of These Nights Page 21

  “But how do you decide what facets fit?” she asked.

  He thought a moment. “First I eliminate the impossible,” he said. “The things I know from past work or trusted research that don’t work.”

  “All right. So we eliminate the impossible suspects. Starting with you.”

  Ian looked at her. “You’re that sure of me? Isn’t your job to be suspicious of everyone?”

  “From what Sam’s said, you’re both brilliant and clever, Ian,” Rand said drolly. “But I don’t think you’re devious enough to set yourself up as a target and let yourself end up in the hospital with a concussion.”

  “Oh.”

  He couldn’t argue with that; that kind of subterfuge would never have occurred to him. Only belatedly did it occur to him that Samantha’s praise of his intellect, while warming, had nowhere near the effect that her calling him charming and sexy did. And that thought made him start overheating again, as he did so often around her, much to his embarrassment; he simply wasn’t used to reacting like this.

  “So,” Rand said, “it’s not you. It’s not Rebecca Hollings. That leaves the rest of the lab staff.”

  “But none of them works with me as closely as Rebecca did,” Ian said. “No one else on the staff really had the access or the awareness of the progress of Safe Transit.”

  “Are any of them capable of understanding what you’re doing?”

  Ian looked at Samantha, wondering if she realized how arrogant that made him sound. But what he saw in her face was simple acknowledgment of fact, and somehow that warmed him more than any other praise of his capabilities ever had. No matter about what, he realized, her compliments meant more than anyone else’s.

  “The entire process? Not really,” he finally said.

  “Would someone have to understand the whole process to give it away?” Rand asked.

  Ian considered that for a moment. “Maybe not. If they just knew what data to steal, how to isolate it on the computer and then copy it, they could probably do enough right to get someone else with the necessary knowledge started.”

  “And who could do that?” Samantha asked.

  Ian shrugged and said rather grimly. “Just about anybody, I suppose. I never thought I’d have to protect my research from the people I work with.”

  “Not at Redstone,” Rand said, looking as grim as Ian sounded. “And Josh won’t stand for it—that you can take to the bank.”

  Ian looked at Rand curiously. “How do you do it? How do you do a job that makes you suspect even friends?”

  “You do what you have to,” Rand said with a half shrug.

  “So,” Ian said thoughtfully, “that’s what makes it worse when it is somebody inside Redstone, then. Because it’s like a family member has turned on you.”

  “Exactly,” Rand agreed. “It’s—”

  The sound of his beeper cut off whatever his next observation would have been. He glanced down at his belt, then pushed a button on the small black pager.

  “No rest for the wicked,” he said cheerfully, then nodded to Ian. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  When he’d gone, Ian looked at Samantha. “I really don’t like sitting here and trying to figure out which person I work with every day is a traitor.”

  “Sometimes we all have to do things we don’t like doing.”

  Even he, unperceptive as he felt just now, couldn’t miss the subtext on that one. But she didn’t harp on it, just went on.

  “Let’s go through the R and D roster. We’ll start with your division, and begin by eliminating the impossible, as you said. Name by name.”

  Ian winced, embarrassed. “I’m not sure I know all their names.”

  Samantha didn’t roll her eyes or even shake her head, she simply picked up the phone and ordered a copy of the employee data from personnel.

  “No snappy comment on my social ineptitude?” he asked as she hung up.

  She turned and looked at him. For a moment she said nothing, and then, in a seeming irrelevancy, said, “Did you know Einstein didn’t know his own phone number?”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “He was asked why, and answered something like, ‘Why should I clutter my brain with things I can look up?”’

  It made a beautiful sort of sense to him, but he wasn’t sure it should apply to people. And he was certain his parents would insist it shouldn’t.

  “Unless you work directly with them, there’s no real reason you have to know them all,” Samantha added. “You’ve got enough going on in that head of yours.”

  “My mother,” he said wryly, “would say I’ve too much going on, if I can’t remember people.”

  “Could your mother have created that deicer of yours? Or the computer cable?”

  “No, but—”

  “We each focus on what’s important to us. What’s important to you is different, that’s all. Not worse, just different.”

  The tap on the door saved him from having to respond to that. Samantha answered, and moments later was back with a sheet of paper in her hand.

  “All right,” she said, settling down in a chair opposite him. “Let me see which ones are assigned to your particular lab. Hmm. Mendes, no, he’s in the avionics lab, Charles, yes, Marcus, no….”

  He watched her as she ticked off the list, fascinated by the intensity of her concentration. He was staring at the sweep of golden lashes and the curve of her cheek when he suddenly realized he should be thinking about the men she was listing.

  When she finished, she looked up at him. “Any names seem likely?”

  He shook his head. “I just can’t imagine it of anyone I know,” he said wearily. “But then, I can’t imagine it even of the ones I don’t really know.”

  “Well, let’s eliminate the impossible first. How about Tran?”

  “No. Josh sponsored him to come to America. He would never betray him.”

  “Okay. Connell?”

  “That’s one I don’t know.”

  Samantha made a check mark on the list before going on. “Lee?”

  Ian shook his head. “He’s got three kids he adores. He’d never risk it.”

  “Rodriguez? Doesn’t he have a juvenile record?”

  Ian shrugged. “Yes. But he’s been straight ever since Josh gave him a chance. I don’t think he’d blow it now, after six years.”

  “Cheng?”

  “Another one I don’t know.”

  She made another check mark. “Martin?”

  He frowned. “Roger?”

  She looked down at the list again before nodding. “Something there?”

  Ian hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “But something hit you. What?”

  “He did grouse a month or so back about some serious money problems. Then suddenly they all seemed solved. But he said a loan came through.”

  “Timing is right, so it’s worth checking,” she said.

  “I’m not sure. He doesn’t really have access.”

  “Officially, you mean?”

  “You mean you think he broke into the system? Or my files?”

  “I only mean it’s worth checking.”

  Ian sighed. He hated this. He might not have his parents’ love of all people, but he hated this suspicion. Even directed at relative strangers, he hated it.

  “How can you live like this, suspecting everyone?” He knew he’d asked it of Rand already, but he was still having trouble wrapping his mind around the concept.

  “I try to look at it as protecting the innocent more than hunting for the guilty. And the innocent have the biggest stake in the guilty being found.”

  He sighed. “I still don’t think I could get used to it.”

  “That’s why there are people like me,” Samantha said with a shrug. “So you don’t have to.”

  She assumed the responsibility so easily, as if it were that clear-cut. And maybe it was, maybe in her mind it was that tidy—there were people who did what he did and people wh
o did what she did. And he knew she would say both were important, just in different ways. Although he had his doubts about himself just now.

  “What about Van Owen?” she asked next.

  Ian shook his head. “He hung around a lot, but he never really understood what I was doing. Kept talking about how it all was over his head, or Greek to him.”

  “Could that have been a cover? Playing dumb so you wouldn’t suspect?”

  Ian frowned. “I suppose, but he wasn’t really around that much. And from what I hear, he legitimately is computer-impaired.”

  The rest of the list went in much the same way. For each person Ian knew, there was a valid reason not to suspect them. As for the others, Samantha agreed that with the hours Ian put in, he would likely know of anyone hanging around enough to know much about his work. It could be someone from another section, but it seemed unlikely to both of them.

  But it seemed unlikely to be anyone he did know, either. At least to him.

  Finally Samantha sighed. “So you’re saying there’s no one person who has the computer smarts, the knowledge of what you’re doing, access, motive and can remain inconspicuous?”

  “I can think of lots who have one or two of those things, but nobody who has all of them.”

  “How about somebody who is four for five?”

  “Nobody I can think of.” Ian leaned back in his chair and yawned. “Look, I’ve about had it. Going over and over this isn’t doing any good.”

  Samantha tossed down her pen. “I can’t argue with that. So let’s do something else for a while. Put it on the back burner.”

  It had worked with the adhesion problem, Ian thought, so maybe it would work with this.

  “I want to go back to my office. Maybe something will break loose there.”

  She nodded and followed him out the door of Josh’s conference room. He wondered where the boss was, wondered if he, too, was chewing on this problem. From what he knew of Josh, he would be even more determined to find this leak than Samantha, which was saying something.

  They went in the front doors of the lab this time, the need for a stealth approach gone now. They headed past the front office, where light spilled out into the corridor—odd, he hadn’t noticed that light on earlier—and turned left to go down the hall and around the corner to Ian’s smaller, cluttered domain.

  They had almost reached the corner when he stopped dead.

  Computer smarts, the knowledge of what you’re doing, access, motive and can remain inconspicuous….

  Samantha’s words echoed in his head.

  Somebody who is four for five….

  “Ian?”

  “Everything but motive,” he whispered.

  “What?” Samantha keyed off him and kept her voice low, as well.

  He turned to face her. “There is one person who has four out of five. Everything but motive.”

  “Motive’s usually the most hidden. Who?”

  Ian raised a hand and shook his head to indicate he was thinking, processing. After a moment he leaned forward, peeking around the corner. Then he dodged back.

  “My light’s back on.” His whisper was tight this time.

  He felt Samantha tense. Soundlessly she edged around until she was in front of him. She peeked and pulled back, just as he had done.

  A sound from around the corner galvanized them. Whatever was happening, Ian was afraid they’d miss it if they didn’t move now. Samantha apparently agreed, because she moved quickly, around the corner and down the hall toward his office. Quickly and silently. She seemed to do it effortlessly, while he had to focus on every step to avoid making a betraying noise.

  Barely ten seconds later they were at the hallway window into his office. Samantha edged over and peered through the quarter-inch gap between the windowsill and the edge of the miniblinds he always kept closed against the distraction of traffic in the halls.

  When she backed away and turned to look at him, her expression was one of surprise. He looked in turn, carefully. Saw the man hunched over his computer keyboard. Saw his research data software program glowing on the screen. Saw file after file disappearing as the man’s fingers moved over the keys.

  He backed up, his mouth tightening.

  He’d been right.

  Chapter 19

  It made perfect sense, Sam thought as she stared at Stan Chilton. He knew all about the project, had more access than anyone, she’d heard he was a computer whiz and no one would question his presence anywhere in the lab. The only thing missing was, as Ian had said, motive.

  The head of the Redstone R&D Safety Division. This was going to hit Josh hard, she thought. But first they had to wrap him up and deliver him to the boss he’d betrayed.

  But Chilton was also part of Redstone, and therefore got the benefit of the doubt. So when Ian took a step toward the office door, she didn’t stop him, just moved up to stand just outside the door.

  “Ian!”

  Sam analyzed the exclamation, trying to determine just how much guilt was in that startled voice.

  “What are you doing?” Ian sounded remarkably calm, striking the perfect note of casual puzzlement.

  “I was just looking for something,” Chilton said. “For my weekly report.”

  “But you were deleting files.”

  “Just some old ones,” Chilton said.

  “Off my computer?” Again, Ian sounded simply puzzled. Sam remembered Ian telling her he’d started keeping his research on his own hard drive rather than the R&D network server.

  “Mine’s down, so I used yours to access the network.”

  Plausible, she supposed. But there was an undertone in Chilton’s voice that betrayed that he was more stressed than he should be if what he was admitting to was all he’d been up to.

  “Those files you deleted weren’t on the server.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Chilton insisted.

  “No,” Ian said softly. “No, I’m not. Why, Stan? What was worth betraying us all?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. I’d like to understand why you did it.”

  “Whatever you’re thinking—”

  “I’m thinking you’re slime, to do this to the man who gave you every chance in the world. I’m thinking you betrayed all of us here, who worked so hard.” Sam hung back as Ian hammered his boss, amazed at his cool tenacity. “I’m thinking whatever they promised you, you’re still a traitor. Did you know they tried to kill me? Was that with your approval?”

  “No! I may hate you, but I would never—”

  Chilton’s words stopped abruptly.

  “Hate me?” Ian asked, his puzzlement genuine this time. “What did I ever do to you?”

  “You exist,” Chilton snapped, all pretence at denial gone. “All anybody talks about around here is how brilliant, how clever you are. I’ve built this section up from nothing, but it’s you they talk about, you who gets the attention, the credit.”

  “So you sold out Redstone?” Ian’s voice rang with incredulity. “Because you have some idea you’re not getting your due?”

  “What the hell do you know about it? You’ve been Josh’s fair-haired boy since you got here. I’ve worked here twice as long, for all the good it does me.”

  “You’re the head of the department,” Ian pointed out.

  “You just don’t get it,” Chilton said, and it sounded like he was talking through gritted teeth.

  “No, I don’t,” Ian said. “I never cared about that kind of recognition. The work is the means and the end.”

  “You always were holier than thou.”

  “And what are you, Stan?” Ian said softly.

  “Rich,” the man said bluntly.

  “Only if you get away with it.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  Sam heard an odd swish of movement, and a sudden intake of breath that had to have come from Ian.

  “I never pictured you as a gun-carrying kind of guy, Stan.”
>
  Sam’s own breath caught at Ian’s unmistakable warning. Her heart began to hammer uncharacteristically. This was Ian in trouble. She had to make shooting impossible for Chilton, and fast. She bent swiftly and removed her two-inch revolver from its ankle holster, hit the intercom key on her cell-phone communicator and whispered their location. Then she stepped into the doorway.

  Chilton looked over, but the small nickel .380 automatic didn’t move; it was still clearly aimed at Ian’s chest.

  “Don’t be any stupider than you have been, Mr. Chilton.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “My name’s Beckett. Redstone Security.” Chilton paled, and Sam pressed her case. “It’s over. The rest of the team is on the way.”

  Chilton’s eyes darted to Ian, then back to her face. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “I’ve found our leak. It was Gamble all along.”

  It was, she thought, a good try. If she truly had just happened onto the scene, as Chilton seemed to think, his accusation might have given her pause. As it was, knowing Ian as she now did, she had to stifle a laugh at the idea of him being the leak.

  Still, she chose her words carefully. This would all be easier if she could get him to admit his involvement.

  “I don’t recall seeing your request to carry that weapon on the premises,” she said conversationally, nodding at the small automatic.

  The slightest pause before he answered told Sam he was thinking fast. “There hasn’t been time yet. When I decided to hunt down our leak myself, I knew I’d need to protect myself.”

  “In that case, now that I’m here, you won’t mind handing it over to me. You can have it back later, of course.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so.”

  “Of course we’ll give it back. It’s your property.” She deliberately pretended to misunderstand him as she reached out for the weapon. Carefully. With her left hand. “But for now—”

  The man’s gun hand jerked dangerously. “Stay back, or I’ll shoot!”

  Well, that tears it, Sam thought. The words were threatening, but his eyes were scared. Sam stopped. Chilton was edging toward panic, and she didn’t want to set him off.

  “Just remember that once you fire that first shot, you’re fair game,” she told him. And only then did she move her right hand so that the weapon she held was visible. Chilton went even paler, his eyes wider with fear.