Likely Suspects (3 page)

“Next time
, I’m just going to stab you with the knife and let the attackers deal with your howls of pain while I escape out the back,” I retorted.

“A
t least you’ve already come up with a plan for next time.” He grinned, but the serious demeanor quickly returned. “Does that mean there’s going to be a next time? Are you going to take this job?” I looked him directly in the eyes. He seemed sincere. “James needs you on this. Honestly, I don’t know if he can make it without you. I’m moonlighting as much as I can, but you know how it goes.” I gritted my teeth. I was doing my best to stop any response from coming out of my mouth because I didn’t want to say yes, but I wasn’t sure I could say no to Mark. I owed him a lot. Despite all the shit he just put me through, he was always on the level when it counted.

“Wha
t is he to you?”

Mark got a far off look in his eye
, as if he were seeing somewhere else entirely. “Let’s just say I owe him my ass. When I needed an escape route, he provided one, even when our own guys couldn’t.” He swallowed uneasily. That was not the answer I was looking for, but now wasn’t the right time to press the matter. If James Martin had Mark’s back, it would have to be enough for me.

Over Mark’s shoulder,
I caught sight of Martin approaching the entrance. “We’ll see about the job,” I told Mark as Martin and I locked eyes.

Mart
in slowly approached us. I would like to believe he was afraid I was going to attack him. Realistically, he was probably trying to make sure he didn’t trip over all the glass pebbles scattered about. In his left hand, he was holding a drink, and in his right, he was carrying my purse. In all the commotion, I completely forgot about it. Clearly, I’m not the girly girl type.

“I t
hought you could use this,” he said, stepping out the front door. I reached for my purse, but instead, he put the drink in my hand. I looked at him confused. “The drink, not the bag. Although, I guess you’d probably like to have this back too.” I took my purse and then the offered drink, downed it in one gulp, and handed him the empty glass. “Nice,” he said appreciatively. He looked at Mark. “Are we all settled here?”

I interrupted.
“First, I would like an apology. Second, I hope this never happens again because frankly, given your problems, you can’t afford to be the boy who cried wolf.” It was his turn to interrupt.

“Fair enough.
I’m sorry for the charade, Alex. But honestly, how could I have seen your actual field reaction if you had known what was going to happen? Think of it as a pop quiz. I believe you got an A.” He attempted a charming smile, but I remained impassive. He looked to Mark for help, but Mark kept his mouth shut. “Fine. What can I do to fix this? You want a raise? We haven’t even discussed your salary yet, so that might be a bit premature. You don’t even know how much you’re making, anyway.”

“I never agreed to take
the job, Mr. Martin,” I began, but he cut me off.

“Please, it’s James.”
The damn smile appeared again.

“Mr. Martin,
” I emphasized, “I would appreciate some honesty. I need to know exactly what it is you expect, and what it is you need. Mark is going to help you explain it.” I looked at Mark; obviously, he was wrong to think he was in the clear. “Then afterward, we can discuss if I’d be willing to help you with said problems.” I paused, looking sternly at both men, but before I could continue, my stomach growled audibly.

“How about we get some actual dinner and then
discuss things?” Martin’s grin was gone, replaced by something real. He was no longer the smooth-talking businessman or the perpetual showman, but an actual person dealing with a crisis.

“Okay.
We’ll try this again, but this is it. Everything better be on the level from here on out. I’m not doing this anymore.” I gestured to the destroyed building.

“You got it,
” he promised, waving for the driver to bring the car around.  

*          *         *

On our way to Martin’s compound, we stopped at a drive-thru for cheeseburgers, fries, and colas. Despite Martin’s affluence, he seemed very down to earth devouring his fast food directly from the brown paper bag. I was in no position to criticize; I had licked the sauce off the wrapper when I was done eating. Shooting fake gunmen definitely increases my appetite. Hopefully, this wouldn’t be an everyday occurrence, or I’d have to go on a strict diet in a few weeks.

The three
of us were now settled in Martin’s home office, discussing the threats leveled against him. I was trying to hash out the finer points on how my new job was supposed to investigate and remedy the situation, but little progress had yet to be made.

Martin had received
half a dozen or so threatening letters that Mark had taken to the OIO to run for prints and DNA to see if the sender could be identified through forensic means. This turned out to be fruitless. Along with these death threats, Martin also received some menacing phone calls. A kidnapping attempt had occurred a few weeks back when he was on his way home from the office, and soon after, there had been some low-level sabotage at his manufacturing plant.

“Who have yo
u pissed off lately?” I asked, skimming the file Mark had comprised.

“Besides you?”
Martin asked innocently, and I gave him a look.

“Yes.
Besides me.” My tone conveyed annoyance, but he ignored it.

“No one really stands out.
People are always pissed about something though. I develop a new eco-friendly product, and my less eco-friendly competitors take issue. If I win a government or private contract over a competitor, I make an enemy. But this is all just the nature of business. It shouldn’t be a matter of life or death.”

“Money rules everything,” Mark piped up.
“You know this, Marty. You’ve been on the other side of this before. Hell, look at all those Wall Street types who took a header out the window when the market crashed. Sometimes people can’t see the forest for the trees, or sometimes they feel there isn’t anything else they can do. Greed, it’s all consuming.” Martin nodded, but his mind was elsewhere.

“Anyone on a personal level you’ve screwed?” I
inquired. “Not just literally, figuratively too, in case you needed some clarification.”

“Well
, I don’t think there were any displeased parties,” he scratched his head, “definitely not in the literal sense, anyway.” He smirked.

“Look, if you aren’t going to be
cooperative, it’s going to make it difficult to figure out who’s got it in for you.” I was getting agitated with his less than helpful responses.

Mark tried to break the tension.
“I’m going to get a drink, anyone else?”

“Ooh, I’ve got a bottle of champagne I’ve been sav
ing for just the right occasion. I think we should toast to Alex’s new job.” Martin went to retrieve three champagne flutes and the bottle, and I looked at Mark.

“Really, you think that’s helpful?” I asked
sarcastically, still annoyed. This night had been one irritation after another, and I was tired of it all. I didn’t think adding more alcohol to the mix was going to improve our productivity. It was like pulling teeth to try to get a straight answer out of Martin, let alone the fact we had yet to even discuss exactly what it was he wanted me to do.

Earlier it was decided it’d be best to
first figure out where the threats were focused and then determine the best way to improve his security, instead of defining my job role and then discussing his problem. However, there had been minimal helpful discussions about anything so far.

Mark shrugged
. “Look, I’ve been talking to Marty about this situation since it began five weeks ago. It started with a letter, which isn’t at all uncommon, and then it began to escalate. The kidnapping attempt two weeks ago was a high point, and when that failed, there was the sabotage at his plant. It seems business related, but as we both know, not everyone can separate business from personal.”

“So
we have to check everything out,” I concluded.

“Okay,
Jabber’s made up a file of all the relevant information I think you’ll need,” Martin said, pouring champagne into a flute and handing it to me. I placed the glass on the table and reached for the file instead.

“I got it.”
I picked up the folder and flipped through the pages. While I did this, Martin finished pouring the other two glasses and settled onto the couch. Thankfully, he remained quiet as I perused the notes. “Okay.” It had been about ten minutes, but I was caught up. Mark and Martin were on their second glass of champagne at this point. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Well
, you could start by tasting the champagne, at least,” Martin said, eyeing my untouched glass.

“Bubbles freak me out.”
Sarcasm was just as good a response as any. “What is it you want from your security consultant?” I tried again.

“Do you think I need a security consultant?” he as
ked seriously, and I stared at him as if he had just grown a third arm. “I mean, do I need you to consult, or do I need something more?”

I rubbed my eyes.
Could he really be this irksome and unstable? “As a consultant I can recommend improvements to your current security measures, what works, what doesn’t. I thought that was something your Board of Supervisors was requiring.”

“
Yes and no. They want my personal security to be updated,” he corrected.

“A
s a security consultant, recommendations can be made to your home security systems and personal activities. What else would you need?” I was trying very hard not to lose my patience.

He gr
inned. If something cheeky came out of his mouth, I was going to throw my champagne in his face, but he surprised me. “I think an undercover spy or…a mole…or I don’t know…something along those lines would be helpful, especially at work.” He had watched one too many bad spy movies.

“That
might actually be a good idea,” Mark suggested.

“It’s not going to work,
” I told them. “At least it won’t work if it’s me. People at Martin Tech know I interviewed for a security job. Just think about the twenty something people at the restaurant tonight. With water cooler gossip, it’s not a practical idea. You can hire someone else for that purpose, but it has to be kept quiet. No one can know anything about it, and the hiring would need to be under the guise of new office assistant or something similarly innocuous.”

“Good point,” Mark agreed.
“Maybe it’s something to consider though. You could always add another person to the mix, Marty.”

Martin shook his head.
“No. It took long enough to find Alex. We’ll stick with her for now.” He turned to me. “You can start tomorrow. Come in, get acquainted with people, and see how things work. I’ll get you set up as a new consultant, office and everything. I’ll leave out the security part and make sure you have access to everything from passwords to the employee lounge, and you can start recommending what needs to be fixed or better ways to make the office safer.”

“Okay.”
We were getting somewhere.

Martin held up his hand
before I could say anything else. “All the,” he paused, searching for the right word, “attacks have been office related. My guess is this is where you’ll need to start. After you get comfortable there, we’ll expand, and you can start checking out my security here. Maybe see how to improve things. Think you can handle it?”

“Y
es, sir. I believe I can.” Apparently my formal OIO training has a bad habit of kicking in at the oddest times.

“Good.
Very good.” He picked up his champagne flute. “Congratulations on your new job, Miss Parker,” he toasted, and I relented and clinked my glass against his, taking a sip.

“Remember, we still need to discuss my salary.
Didn’t you mention something about a raise?” I quipped, and he got a slightly devilish glint in his eye.

Mark stood up.
“I think this is my cue to leave.” He gave me a quick hug. “Keep in mind, greed is bad. We discussed it earlier.”

“Yeah
and setting up your old friend in a fake crisis situation is worse.”

“Marty
, it’s been fun. Is Marcal still on duty? Figured I could use a lift back to my car.”

“No, I let him
go home after he dropped us off. Just take the Jag. I’ll send someone to pick it up tomorrow.” Martin pointed to a set of car keys sitting on the kitchen counter, and Mark thanked him and grabbed the keys.

“Always a pleasure,” he said to no one in particular and walked out the door.

“Y
ou got a second spare car you’re going to lend me for the night?” I inquired, and he grinned.

“Why?
You don’t want to stay? I’ll cook breakfast in the morning, and I make a killer omelet.”

I ignored him.
That was one thing I was learning quickly, not to take his teasing, retorts, or double entendres seriously. He seemed saddened by the lack of verbal sparring, but he continued back on topic.

“Okay
, I’ll pay you this. Half to start and the other half when the job is over.” He wrote down a number and slid the paper across the coffee table. “And when you figure out and stop whoever is behind this misery I’ve been subjected to, I’ll give you a five thousand dollar bonus.”

“Reall
y? Your life is only worth five grand?”

“R
emember, greed is not good, despite what movies might want us to think.”

“S
ays the millionaire in the room.” I picked up the paper. Holy shit, those were quite a few zeroes. Hopefully, my eyes didn’t reflect my amazement. He assessed me carefully, perhaps suspecting I would faint or rip my clothes off at his generous offer. I somehow managed to resist doing either. “How long do you think this is going to take?” Was payment supposed to be for a year or a week’s worth of work?

“I
don’t know. Mark thinks you’re good at this sort of thing, so I wouldn’t imagine too incredibly long. At least, I hope not. I’d like to get back to my life without looking over my shoulder. Although, I wouldn’t mind having you around for quite some time.” He was being somewhat lecherous again, and I chose to overlook it.