Chapter Three
It was close to dark when Derek returned to the cabin after spending a few hours fishing from the dock.
He had arrived before noon and spent the afternoon cleaning up around the property and splitting some firewood to use once the sun went down and the night cooled.
While he had stopped to pick up groceries, fresh lake trout had sounded like heaven, so he’d grabbed his pole and headed to the shore.
He hadn’t caught any trout, but the bass and crappies in his basket would taste just as good.
All it took was one afternoon on the lake to solidify his decision to leave the city and strike out on his own.
The four hours he’d spent away from his phone had been peaceful, but he made a mental note to check it once he got back inside, just in case Hugo had called.
There was very little cell coverage out here, but he’d found the left corner of his kitchen counter was the one place the phone had reception.
As he cleaned and filleted the fish, he let his mind wander to the infinite possibilities that life held for him if he got off the hamster wheel, which told him the time had come to walk away.
He was working too much but not reaping the benefits of the time spent.
Did he have to work? Yes. Did he have to devote every waking minute to making someone else money while he settled for a salary that would never equal his worth?
No. Would Hugo Victor understand that? Also no.
But he could no longer use that as the reason he didn’t stand up for himself.
Ultimately, Hugo himself was the only reason he’d continued in the position for as long as he had.
He’d become like a father to him and the last thing Derek wanted to do was hurt him.
Unfortunately, he also couldn’t continue with the status quo.
Once they returned to the city, he’d sit down and have a serious conversation with him.
The unhealthy pallor of his boss’s skin crossed his mind, and he amended that statement.
After Hugo went to the doctor, he’d sit him down and have a conversation with him.
Thankfully, Derek had taken it upon himself to make him an appointment for next week.
Something just didn’t sit right with him about how his boss had been acting lately.
He grabbed the fish and his cleaning supplies and walked into the cabin, pushing the door open with his butt so he could make his way to the sink to wash the fish and his knives.
He was drying the fish when he felt a presence behind him.
Just a whisper of air that told him he wasn’t alone.
He grabbed a knife and spun around, barely dodging a fist that glanced off his jaw without doing much damage.
The man before him was dressed head to toe in black and carried a small gun that was likely just as deadly as a big one would be. Derek put up his hands in defense.
“Take whatever you want,” he said slowly. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Where are the files?” The guy’s voice was deep and booming inside the small cabin.
“What files?” Derek asked, having no sooner finished the sentence when that fist darted out again to land a lightning punch on his nose and lip, blood spurting across the floor from one or the other or both.
The pain momentarily filled his vision with stars.
“I don’t know what files you want, man!” he exclaimed, dodging another blow to his face that landed on his right eye rather than his already sore nose.
“The app,” he grumbled, shoving the gun into Derek’s chest.
Derek wanted to play dumb, but with the gun in such close proximity to his heart, he opted for a lie instead. “The computer bag,” he said, his fat lip making it hard to speak. “Jump drive in the outside pocket.”
“Get it,” the guy said, motioning him toward it with the gun. “Drop the knife, and don’t make any wrong moves. We’ll get the drive, and then we’ll keep walking out the front door. You’re coming with me.”
Derek had forgotten he was holding the knife but dropped it immediately.
He then walked slowly toward the front of the cabin, where his computer bag sat on the desk.
The room had been ransacked, telling him he’d interrupted the guy’s search when he’d returned from the lake.
He noticed the dark SUV in the driveway that he couldn’t see from the kitchen.
The lights were off, but he could hear the motor.
It had a little tic in its idle that he concentrated on as he walked to the bag and fumbled with it while he searched for an out.
The old saying, “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight,” ran through his mind.
He tamped down the burst of laughter threatening since he didn’t even have a knife anymore.
Then it hit him. He did have a knife. His personal protection blade was still in his laptop bag, but he’d only have one chance to pull it and tag the guy before he could get off a shot. He dug through the bag, pretending he couldn’t find the drive until the gun barrel dug into his back.
“It’s here, just give me a second. It’s dark, and everything in the bag is black.” His hand finally closed around the handle of the knife. “Found it.” He would have smiled, but his lip was too swollen, so he took a deep breath and concentrated on the next few moments of his life.
“Hand it over,” the guy growled, moving to the side but keeping the gun on him as he held out his other hand.
“With pleasure,” Derek said as he spun and jammed the knife into his cheek, eliciting an ear-piercing yowl from the guy.
Derek turned and ran for the back door, praying that the guy’s partner in crime wasn’t waiting there to take him out.
It was a risk he had to take if he stood a chance of making it out alive.
A shot rang out, and he braced himself for the burning pain of a bullet that never came, so he plowed through the back door and kept going into the night until the forest swallowed him up, and then he kept running.
Unfortunately, his options were limited with the lake to his front and the guys to his back.
He didn’t have his phone or a boat, and it was too risky to be on Lake Superior in the dark anyway.
He’d have to run parallel to the highway until he was far enough away from the cabin to find help.
He was closer to Duluth than Two Harbors, so he turned to the right and headed along the shoreline, darting back into the trees where the shore turned too rocky.
It was slow going and often treacherous as a late fall storm blew in, but he couldn’t risk stopping despite how badly his head pounded with every step.
He could barely breathe, with his nose swollen on one side and his lip blocking the other.
He stopped along the shore and scooped up the cold water, repeatedly holding it to his nose and lip until it numbed the pain. Then he got up and kept going.
Derek wondered who those guys were working for until a thought crossed his mind.
Josh Hunt. The name made him pause. He didn’t see Josh, the owner of Virtual Scorpion Productions, as someone capable of such violence when he could just create his own app.
As Black Marlin Technologies’ direct competitor in the app world, Josh had plenty of skills, not to mention several tech designers within his company who could create the same kind of app that Black Marlin had developed.
Resorting to violence and kidnapping seemed outside the gate for Josh, or anyone, for that matter.
He quickened his steps along the gravel road leading him to the highway.
Once there, he could figure out how far outside of the city he was and then decide on his next move.
Thankfully, his cabin was on the scenic portion of Highway 61, which meant far less traffic this time of night.
It would be easy to spot his attackers if they started searching for him on the deserted highway.
He’d find safety somewhere for a few hours, then he’d have to return to his cabin.
He didn’t care about his phone, computers, or the cabin itself.
He cared about the one item he’d hidden away and had to pray those guys didn’t find it.
Once he had that jump drive in his hands, he’d call the police, but not until then.
Five minutes later, he noticed a bar two hundred yards ahead.
All he had to do was cross the highway and approach from the other direction.
Traffic was light, but he couldn’t risk being exposed for too long if those guys were looking for him.
He looked left, then right, and took a deep breath as he darted onto the road.
It wasn’t until he heard a squeal of brakes that he realized his mistake.
* * *
“TECH MOGUL HUGO VICTOR collapsed and died at a conference today in Minnesota—”
Alayah switched the radio off with a sigh.
She had lived that scene and didn’t need the constant reminder.
She was beyond tired but keyed up at the same time.
A harsh, derisive laugh fell from her lips.
That tended to happen when the one person you were supposed to protect ended up dead.
The preliminary tox reports said he was poisoned, but no one who’d witnessed it needed a tox report to tell them that.
They’d watched it happen in real time. Hugo took a drink from his bottle, got out a few more words, and fell into a heap.
She didn’t need a degree in medicine to know that something in the bottle had caused it.
The event coordinators had ultimately decided to postpone the conference until they were sure that the attack was aimed at Hugo and no one else, and the police also wanted to locate Hugo’s assistant to question him.
Her mind immediately returned to the handsome man she’d met earlier that day.
He was tall, lean and dressed to impress in a Hugo Boss suit that made her smile at the play on names.
Derek Benjamin pulled off the billionaire CEO look without even trying, and she couldn’t help but hope he had nothing to do with this.
She’d shaken his hand and exchanged witty conversation the whole while he’d held a bottle filled with ethylene glycol.
Otherwise known as antifreeze. Did he know?
According to Cal and the team, he was the last person to touch the water bottle, having handed it off to them to put on the stage, which Cal had done right before the conference began.
No one could have messed with the bottle after Secure One took possession.
All of that said, Cal couldn’t prove it.
They had a video feed of the water bottle on the stage, but what happened between the handoff and the start of the conference hadn’t been recorded.
At least, not according to the convention center.
Alayah didn’t believe it and planned to comb through their recordings from all angles to find proof that Secure One was not on the hook for this.
What she really wanted to know was why Derek didn’t answer his phone.
The cops wondered if he thought their calls were spam, so they’d even tried calling him from Hugo’s phone, but still got no answer.
That was… What did the kids call it these days?
A little sus? Yeah, she thought so, too.
She had every intention of using one of the Secure Watch computers to conduct a little digital investigation on the dude as soon as she arrived back at the hotel.
Once they were told the conference was over for the day, she volunteered to meet a team member in Two Harbors who had some extra equipment they needed to sort out this mess with their reputation intact.
That included scouring all available camera footage for her team’s movements during the morning.
Since she couldn’t help them with much physically, the least she could do was drive an hour up the road for the handoff.
Exhaustion had crept in the last few miles, though, and she couldn’t wait to take a shower and cozy up in bed.
She chuckled into the quiet of the car. Like that was going to happen anytime soon.
It was all-hands-on-deck, so she still had several hours of work ahead of her when she returned to the hotel.
At least Cal promised her a burger and fries when she returned.
A yawn escaped just as she caught the tail end of something in her headlight beam.
She slammed on the brakes, but it was too late.
Whatever she’d hit went flying into the ditch with a scream.
A very human scream.