Chapter 27
Hudson took a sip of bourbon. He froze mid-swallow. “Excuse me.”
The dressmaker’s husband held Pop’s ring up to the light. “I said there’s a listening device in the band.”
Hudson’s senses jumped to high alert. When he and Tessa pulled up to the shop fifteen minutes ago, he’d searched the quiet Georgetown neighborhood for signs of threats. Now he searched for…he didn’t know what.
John’s eyes twinkled brighter than the beading on the wedding gowns displayed in the window. “My career was in intel, but jewelry is my passion. I’m known as John the Jeweler around here. Did I tell you that my family’s been in the business for four generations?”
“No.” When they’d arrived, John’s wife had spirited Tessa from the small reception area into her studio in the back of the building.
John had offered him a seat on the white couch and a bourbon.
“You just said you liked old jewelry and asked about the history of my grandfather’s ring.
Now you’re telling me I’ve been wearing a listening device? ”
The crinkles around John’s eyes deepened with excitement as he handed the ring to Hudson. “Take a look.”
Hudson stood and held it up to the light. He didn’t see anything odd. Just shiny silver metal. He squinted and angled it for a closer inspection. A gleam of something just a hair different than platinum hugged the bottom of the band. “Holy shit.”
“That thin film is the device. Mind if I remove it and get a better look?”
“Do it.” Hudson handed the ring back like it might burn him if he held it another minute longer. If that tiny piece of silver film really was a listening device, the deadly game that had commenced with Pop’s death had just escalated.
John gently pulled the film out with tweezers and held it up. “This is almost as brilliant as the ruby.”
“Son of a bitch.” Hudson stared at the device like it might take off like a drone. “That’s some seriously high-grade tech.”
“The best on the black market. I worked on a prototype similar to this a few months before I retired, but it wasn’t close to beta testing. I would have heard from one of my colleagues if we had gotten any further, which means this wasn’t developed by us.”
Hudson didn’t care who invented the tech, only who procured it and when it was put in Pop’s ring. “I have so many questions, but first I need to know if it’s been recording.”
“Come.” John rose from the couch. “I have a lab in the back.”
Of course he did. No wonder he was friends with the General.
Sorting through a dozen scenarios, Hudson followed John to a door next to the one his wife had spirited Tessa through. Dark red bricks lined the short hall down to an ancient-looking archway hugging a shiny silver metal door. A biometric reader blinked to the right of it.
Hudson didn’t raise an eyebrow as John pressed his hand to the pad. An eerie green light circled the hallway as it confirmed John’s biometric print. With a beep, the door slid into the bricks and Hudson stepped into a spy movie.
Shivering under a blast of cold air from a vent above, he blinked against the fluorescent lights. Computers in varying sizes and shapes lined every inch of the long, narrow room.
John strolled to a table on the left and placed the film in a scanner. Slipping on glasses, he sat at his desk and hit a few keys on a computer. He smiled brighter than the models in the bridal magazines out front as he read the results of the scan.
“What is it?” Hudson rounded the desk and looked over his shoulder. He didn’t understand much of the report, but he knew what the materials analysis meant. “Shit.”
“The device isn’t recording now, but I hear you have a meeting at the Pentagon tomorrow.”
“Yes, and it’s classified.”
John took off his glasses. “If I wanted intel from that meeting, this is the device I’d use. The materials it’s made of are nearly undetectable by the Pentagon’s scanners.”
Hudson pinched the bridge of his nose, but the implications of John’s words still penetrated his senses and spread through his mind. “How’s the audio transmitted?”
“My guess would be whoever is receiving the transmission would have to be within a half mile or so. Whoever put that technological miracle in the ring must have gone through a lot of trouble to procure it. The cost of something like this must be astronomical, and you’d need serious connections to get it. Any idea who that person might be?”
“Yeah.” A good fucking idea with no proof, but he’d get some. “Is there also a tracker built into the film?”
“No. The prototypes we designed that had both were much bigger. We were years away from solving the size issue.”
“Is there a tracker in the ring somewhere else? Like under the ruby?” That’s where Malcolm’s contact hid the tracker in Tessa’s ring. He glanced at his phone. Yup. Still working. She was right next door.
Thank the fuck.
His relief didn’t stop the oil coating his insides from thickening with guilt. His privacy had been violated, but he’d done the same thing to Tessa. Now that he knew the extent of her parents’ unforgivable acts that had violated her in so many ways, his actions were doubly reprehensible.
He should tell her. She’d understand why he’d kept the tracker there for her safety.
But what if she got mad, and rightly so, that he knew where she was every minute of the day.
And what if she refused to wear it and he didn’t have a way to track her if she was abducted.
Not that he’d let that happen, but he wasn’t dicking around with human traffickers.
John pried the stone from the setting. Without a word, he held it up to the light at different angles. “No tracker here.” He replaced the stone and held it out.
Hudson took it and slipped it on his finger. “Is there any data recorded on the listening device?”
“No. It’s not engineered to store, just transmit, as far as I can tell. Have you felt any vibrations from the device? Any heat?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Fascinating. Our earlier prototypes reached temperature hot enough to burn when activated. We reduced the problem to a warm tingle on the skin by the time I retired, but I can’t imagine it’s been solved in its entirety in such a short time.”
“I haven’t felt anything like you described.”
“That’s a good sign that it hasn’t been recording.”
At least that was something. Tessa’s past wasn’t classified, but it was still nobody’s business but hers.
And his now.
He adjusted the ring on his finger. “I trust you’ll let the General know about this.”
“Of course. May I keep the device?”
“Yes.” Anticipation thinned out the slickness under his skin. Someone was in for a surprise when they didn’t get their intel. Things would get interesting when they found out.
The door to the lab opened. Hudson spun. The edge in him eased as he spotted Tessa in the doorway behind John’s wife.
Tessa stepped in and held up a garment bag. “We have a winner. And shoes and a purse.”
John’s wife squeezed her arm. “She’s going to look stunning.”
Hudson pulled Tessa into his side and kissed her temple. “Good.”
She studied his profile for a heartbeat. “What’s wrong? You look angrier than when we left the mansion.”
“Give me your phone.”
Tessa pulled it from her bag and handed it to him without question. He passed it to John along with his. “Can you scan these for bugs? And my car too? And do you have a secure phone I can use?”
John slid off the stool and rubbed his hands together. “And I thought today would be boring.”
“Hudson?” Tessa leaned away from him. “What’s going on?”
He pulled her back into his side and dialed Malcolm. “Just listen.”
Malcolm answered on the first ring. “Hello.”
“It’s Hudson. I’m on a secure line.” He put the call on speaker and reiterated the details about the listening device. “That ring has been in Pop’s drawer for years. Whoever compromised it had to have access to the house.”
Tessa twisted the ruby on her finger. “Or maybe it did leave the house, like to get cleaned at the jewelers.”
“Good point. Malcolm, check with Josie on that. And call the security company and get the video feeds for the past six months.”
Malcolm snorted. “You mean get the feeds since Nathaniel moved in?”
“Yeah. And get someone in to sweep for bugs too. There’s only one reason why someone would want to eavesdrop on my conversations.”
Tessa let out a little gasp. “Your meeting at the Pentagon.”
“Nathaniel is the only one who had access to the ring who might stand to gain from inside intel about the opportunity I’m considering.”
John’s chair scraped across the tile as he stood. “Is this Nathaniel a contractor?”
“He owns a biomedical engineering company. He’s been asking to sit down and get my thoughts on some projects he’s working on since I got home.”
“That makes sense. Bidding has already started for components of that nature for Project V. Some of the contracts are sizable.”
“How do you know about Project V?”
“There have been rumors for years in my circles.”
Tessa nudged Hudson in the arm. “Is Project V the opportunity you’re considering?”
John winked. “It’s not just an opportunity. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.”
Hudson nodded as the grimy feeling in his gut turned iced over. If Project V was the reason behind the listening device, he was already at the top of the roller coaster with a faulty seatbelt and broken track waiting at the bottom.