34. Savannah
Istared at the pages of content that had been sent to Lamp;M’s Annapolis office. Kyle, acting as my courier, had retrieved them an hour ago, and now the entire team had gathered to see what had arrived in the envelope with no return address.
The letter I held in front of me was a copy of the one Anson or his flying monkeys had sent to the investor I’d pitched four days earlier. There were full-color pictures included. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to shout it was a lie, and it wasn’t fair, and I’d been wronged. But everyone sitting around the conference table with me knew that.
I’d been too busy noticing Anson’s followers love bombing me to notice they’d been surreptitiously photographing me at the WCI meeting.
“I look guilty,” I said.
Anson’s message to me was clear. Any time I tried to bring in an investor to save Lamp;M, Anson would share the photos and his version of events, which was that I’d stolen company money and tried to launder it through WCI. They would believe him because his ties to Wall Street and big players in venture capitalism still ran deep. He was a self-made multi-millionaire and one of them. I was an upstart woman who’d bankrupted her own company and was looking for someone else’s money to steal. That VCs rejection email had been in my inbox first thing this morning.
“I understand him wanting to blame Savannah and cover his own tracks,” Kyle said, “but why is Anson hell-bent on destroying the company?”
I had my theories. “If the company is defunct, the feds will be a lot less interested, maybe enough so that no one ever looks that closely at what Devlin did at Anson’s behest. Or maybe he wants to knock me down as far as possible so if prosecutors come after me, I’m less able to defend myself.”
“Or both,” Kat said.
“I’m more worried about how our friend Taylor Stewart ties into this,” Ben said.
The team had now proved what they’d originally assumed, which was that the name was fake. That meant there was no way to track the special ops guy who might have been hired to kill my soon-to-be-ex business partner. When I’d learned Devlin had screwed me, I’d wanted to kill him, but I didn’t want him dead.
“I agree with Mr. Zip Ties,” Wheeler said. “We need to figure out who and where Taylor Stewart is so we can keep him well clear of Savannah.”
“Our best shot of catching him will be if he makes a move on Devlin,” Kat said. “X is working on the surveillance warrant, and the minute we have it, we’ll get a team on him.”
“I’d make it two teams,” Ben said. “If he’s spec ops.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to have three,” Lang said. He didn’t smile or blink when he said it. He was serious.
I’d gone from worrying about my business to fearing for my life in under a minute. My stomach heaved, and I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth.
Wheeler grabbed a nearby trash can while Ben stroked my back. I waved them both off as the nausea passed.
“We’ll keep you under our protection,” Kat told me.
I sighed. “Forever?”
“For as long as it takes,” Kat said. “But there’s something else about this case you need to know.”
I reached for Ben’s hand, not sure how much more disappointment I could take.
“X is getting pressure from above,” she said. “Anson has some powerful friends, who’ve spoken to their powerful friends. You can imagine what they’re saying.”
“That’s how this works?” Ben bit out. “We have a killer on the loose—”
“Alleged,” Kat said.
“But when someone says jump, X says how high?” Ben finished.
The other agents held their collective breath. Kat kept her cool. She probably hadn’t made it this far in her world without having incredible patience, poise, and game face.
“We’re not shutting down the alleged financial crimes committed by Anson and WCI,” she assured us. “But we are putting it on the back burner.”
“Do we have a new assignment yet?” Pasco asked.
“Not yet,” Kat answered.
Wheeler lifted his hands to indicate the neat piles of printouts we’d generated from the Lamp;M server data dump. “We’ll have to clean up the conference room. If we happen to notice something we missed, or some pages got stuck in the printer...”
“There will definitely be some pages stuck in the printer,” Pasco said.
Kat frowned, then asked Pasco, “How much of the information is still unencrypted?”
“I’d estimate 25 percent,” Pasco said. “But I’m guessing that’s the most interesting 25 percent, given the level of security on the files.”
Kat stood. “If anyone asks, I’m going to make the case that this is part of closing down the operation and preparing our after-action reports. But we’ve had a long few days, and it’s almost 1600 hours now, so let’s meet here at 0800 to start those clean-up tasks.”
Everyone filed out of the conference room.
“I think I need a nap,” I told Ben.
He kissed my forehead. “Then you should take one. I’ll tuck you in before I go. Or I could stay.”
“Don’t you dare. Go talk to your dad.”
He walked me to my room and, as promised, pulled the covers up to my chin, then sat beside me on the bed. “I’m sorry. I should have caught on sooner to what Devlin was setting you up for.”
I pressed my finger to his lips. “I’m not blaming anyone for this except Devlin and Anson.”
He kissed my finger. “Can I pick up anything for you on my way back?”
“Double stuff cookie dough ice cream.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t even need to think about it.”
“It’s my go-to when life gets shitty. I think I learned that from my mom. Hers was mint chocolate chip.” Over the years, I’d grown to hate mint chocolate ice cream, probably because we always had so much of it. As far as my mom was concerned, after my dad died, every day was shitty.
“This occasion definitely qualifies. Consider it done.”
I sat up and grabbed Ben’s arm. “No, don’t pick up the ice cream.”
“Something else?”
“No.” I threw back the covers.
“What happened to your nap?” he asked.
“I’m not taking it.” A tear slid down my cheek. I wiped it away and refused to allow any more. “I loved my mom, but I’m not going to become her. I’m not going to curl up into a ball and give up because of assholes like Devlin and Anson.”
He squeezed my hand. “Good. What are you going to do?”
I grabbed my phone. “Find it, whatever it is. They’re hiding something on those extra Lamp;M servers.” I punched in Pasco’s cell phone number. “Something worse than the extra bank account data that could be explained away to auditors, and much worse than those stupid course materials.”
Pasco picked up. “Hi, Savannah. How’s the nap going?”
“Naps are suspended until further notice. How far are you from the HEAT building?”
“Never left,” he said. “In fact, the whole team’s still here. We figured, the sooner we start digging, the sooner we find out what those assholes are hiding. Care to join us in the conference room?”
I grinned. “I’ll be right there.” I threw my arms around Ben’s neck and kissed him.
He pulled me into a hug. “Sounds like we have work to do. I’ll cancel my plans.”
“Like hell, you will.” I took both his hands in mine. “There’s a whole room of HEAT agents who can help me dig up dirt on WCI. But there’s only one man who can give me the gift of learning to believe in himself as much as I believe in him.” I kissed his cheek. “It’s time. Make your peace with your dad. Then come back here and help me kick some culty ass.”