Hardpressed (12 page)

I raised my eyebrows, already feeling agitated. Only something truly monumental could shift my focus this morning.

“What’s that?”

“I got a meeting with the marketing director at Bryant’s about a potential sponsored account with us.”

Bryant’s was one of the largest clothing retailers in the Northeast. Getting a meeting with them was in fact monumental enough to get my attention.

I shook my head, unsure if I fully understood her. “How did this happen?”

“Max. He has the connection. I let him know who we were looking to connect with and he offered to put me in touch. I got right through to the people at Bryant’s this morning, and we have a meeting set up for tomorrow morning.”

“Wow, that was fast.”

“I know, but I figured we should take whatever they had available. The sooner, the better, right?”

“Absolutely. Send me the details. We’ll meet with them together.”

“Do you want to go over some options we can pitch and I’ll pull together a presentation with those?”

I pulled my thoughts together and blew out a slow breath. My mission for the morning had to go on the back burner. “Sure. What have you got?”

By noon, Risa and I had locked down the presentation, leaving me to my original plan for the day. I headed down to Mocha to caffeinate for lunch. I found a table and pulled out my laptop, figuring I’d take advantage of a short change of scenery.

“Hey. Mind if I join you?”

I looked up to find James pulling out the chair across from me. He looked fresh in a black button-down rolled up at the sleeves and dark blue jeans, his wavy black hair perfectly mussed. No wonder Risa was all over him. He was definitely handsome in a bad boy kind of way. Built well with a killer smile and bright blue eyes that were like tractor beams, he locked me in every time. Something about his eyes made me feel like we’d known each other longer than we really had.

“Sure.”

“You look like you’re on a mission.”

I chuckled softly. “I
am
actually.”

“Can I help?”

I considered his offer for a moment. What did I have to lose by getting a little help? I started in on my plan.

“You know the hacker group, M89, that is attacking the site, right?”

He grinned. He’d been in the trenches with Sid and Chris for the past week, so he probably already knew their history better than I did.

“Okay, right. So this group isn’t the original M89, but there has to be a connection between someone in the original group and whoever is heading it up now. They were all based in Boston a decade ago, so I figure it shouldn’t be too hard to track where they’re all at now and see where that takes us.” I omitted the information about Cooper. I didn’t want to shed any light on Blake’s connection to the group and Cooper’s suicide.

“You’re going after these people yourself?”

I remembered Sid’s defeated look this morning. “What choice do I have?”

“What if that just exacerbates the situation?”

“I have a hard time imagining a scenario more damaging than the one we’re dealing with right now.”

He pursed his lips and nodded. “Agreed. What can I do?”

I shared with him the names of all of the original M89 members that I needed to research. We split the names, and when we returned to the office, we set to work tracking down anything we could find on them.

To my surprise, I found a professional history for all of those on my list. Everyone seemed established with a career, though many were now based on the west coast working for technology companies in the valley. I studied their photos carefully, as if somehow their faces could tell me something I didn’t already know. Which one of them hated Blake enough to sabotage us this way?

I jumped when my phone rang.

“Blake, hi,” I said.

“How’s everything going?”

I glanced at the names written in my notebook and shifted my thoughts back to where we’d left off this morning. “Fine.”

“Listen, I have to go to San Francisco to take care of some business. I’m flying out tonight on the red-eye.”

As annoyed as I’d been this morning, a pang of regret coursed through me. I tried rubbing the frown from my forehead.

“That’s sudden.”

“Something came up. I know this isn’t a great time. I don’t really want to leave you right now, Erica.”

I sighed. “I’ll survive.”

“I’m confident of that. Have you met Clay yet?”

“Who?” I frowned again.

“I guess not. He’s hard to miss.”

“Who the hell is Clay?”

“I’ve hired him to taxi you between work and home. He’ll be outside the office when you need to leave tonight.”

“Shit, Blake. We talked about this.”

“We did, and this is what needs to happen, at least until I get back.”

The coffee at lunch had given me just enough energy to be outraged.

“Have a great trip, Blake.” I hung up and shut off my phone. I couldn’t deal with his controlling shit right now.

James came in then, stopping short when he saw me.

“You all right?”

I straightened and tried to put Blake out of my mind. “I'm fine. What’s up?”

“What have you found so far?” He took a seat and lowered his voice as he spoke.

Not like researching the hacker group we’d all become so familiar with was a big secret, but I didn’t want people to know I was on a wild goose chase to actually hunt them down. Thankfully, he already seemed to pick up on that.

“Some enviable LinkedIn profiles. Seems like everyone has moved on and is doing well. Upstanding citizens as far as I can tell. What about you?”

“Same with mine, but there are two people you missed from the list.”

I hesitated, waiting for him to continue.

“I’m assuming you know Landon was involved.”

I nodded silently.

“Okay, and then there was Brian Cooper.”

“He’s dead,” I said flatly, betraying what I already knew but had failed to share earlier.

He hesitated a second, no doubt registering that fact. “Right. Well, he was survived by his mother and his brother, Trevor.”

“Did you find something on them?”

“His mother lives about twenty minutes from here.”

“I doubt she’s spearheading a hacker group. What about his brother?”

“I can’t find anything on his brother.”

“How is that helpful?” I regretted the way that came out. I was tired and edgy, but taking it out on James when he was only trying to help was unnecessary.

“Don’t you think it’s a little odd that every other person on this list has a glowing resume and the twenty-five-year-old little brother of their former partner in crime has absolutely no professional associations, no Internet presence, no profiles, nothing?”

“Maybe he learned a hard lesson from his brother and decided not to waste his life online like the rest of us.”

He tilted his head, looking as unconvinced as I felt.

“Fine. So we have no idea where he is or what he’s up to.” I clicked my pen as I pondered my next move. A part of me worried about the road I was going down, but things couldn’t get more fucked up than they already were. Might as well go all the way down the rabbit hole. “Get me the mother’s address.”

“You going to see her?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Let me come with you. Could be totally harmless, but you shouldn’t go alone.”

The protective tone of his voice took me by surprise. I silently wondered if I had damsel in distress tattooed on my forehead, but in truth I wasn’t wild about going on this venture by myself either.

“It’s okay. I can handle this.”

He didn’t look any more comfortable with my solo plan, and I couldn’t help but give him points for caring. Still, I wasn’t getting him any more involved in this mess, especially if it meant outing Blake’s association with Cooper’s death.

“Don’t worry, James. I won’t be alone.”

*

I stepped out onto the street and came face to face with an imposing man standing guard by a black Escalade parked at the curb.

“Ms. Hathaway.”

He took a step in my direction and I resisted the urge to take a defensive step back. His sheer size took me aback. This man had been hired to protect me.

“Hi, Clay.” I shook his hand, which engulfed my own. He was well over six-feet tall, and his black T-shirt strained over his enormous muscular arms. He looked every bit the part of a bodyguard, except for the kind light gray eyes that contrasted beautifully with his dark skin.

“Mr. Landon has instructed me to escort you wherever you need to go.”

I suppressed the urge to take my irritation at Blake out on him. Not that I really could. “Perfect. I need a ride to Revere.”

He nodded and opened the back door for me. I hopped in and gave him the address, hoping against hope that Clay wasn’t under orders to report my whereabouts to Blake too.

A short while later, Clay pulled up to a large colonial-inspired home in an impressive new development. Unlike their well-kept neighbors though, whoever lived here didn’t spend much time maintaining appearances. The grass was tall and weeds thrived through the cracks in the path to the house. No flowers adorned the yard and the flag that hung was tattered to shame.

“Would you like me to come in with you, Miss Hathaway?” The depth of Clay’s voice startled me.

“No, I don’t think that would be a very good idea. Just wait here. I shouldn’t be long.”

I walked up to the front door, steeling myself for an awkward visit with the Cooper boys’ mother. I rang the bell and waited patiently. After ringing it again with no answer, I knocked loudly on the off chance the doorbell was broken.

Finally the door opened, and before me stood a young man with long black hair that fell over his eyes. He was ghostly pale and not much taller than I. My breath caught, but I kept my composure.

“Is Ms. Cooper home?”

“What do you want?”

“It’s a private matter. Would you mind if I came in?”

He eyed me cautiously before finally moving away from the door, leaving it open for me to enter. I followed him in, stepping into a dark living area. Every curtain was closed. Only the persistent sun peeking through the edges of the blinds lit the room. Other than the general clutter, the house seemed new.

The young man made a half turn toward a hallway at the end of the room before stopping to stare at me.

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.” Adrenaline rushed through me, giving me the courage to speak again. “You must be Trevor.”

His eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

“Erica Hathaway. You know, the one whose business you’re trying to destroy?” I had no proof that he had any such intention, but he was the best lead I had, and if he was involved, I probably wouldn’t be getting very far with a polite line of questioning. “But I have a feeling it’s not me you’re really interested in.”

“Get out.” He grimaced and walked toward me.

I stood my ground. Worst-case scenario, I was pretty confident I could hold my own. Plus, I had Clay. I held up my hand to stop him.

“Not so fast. We need to talk.”

He stopped short in front of me.

“I’ll call the cops,” he said through gritted teeth.

I laughed, genuinely amused by the threat. “Go ahead. I’m sure they’d be very interested in the contents of your computer.”

He didn’t blink.

“You’ve been terrorizing my site for weeks and you’ve made no demands.”

“What site?”

I frowned at his question. “Clozpin.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a satisfied smirk that solidified my suspicions. That little shit. I’d had no intention of coming face to face with the person hacking our site, but now that I was, anger rushed over me.

“What the fuck do you want?” I yelled, no longer able to control myself. I was the worst negotiator ever.

His smile disappeared, replaced by a haunted seriousness.

“Tell Landon I want my brother back.”

I stilled, uncertain where to go from here. I hadn’t expected this. I thought I’d be appealing to Brian’s mourning mother for information about Trevor. I hadn’t thought beyond that.

“You need to make peace with what happened,” I said in a more controlled tone.

“You need to leave.”

Fine. Maybe I couldn’t appeal to him on a personal level, but what he was doing was blatantly illegal.

“I can have you investigated. Everything you’re doing will be exposed.” I hesitated over what I’d say next. “You’ll end up just like your brother if you don’t stop this now.”

He sneered and took a step closer, bringing his face inches from mine when a voice called his name from the back of the house. Like a startled animal, he jumped back and looked in the direction of the noise.

“Get out.”

I dug in. “I’m not going anywhere until we figure this out.”

He rolled his eyes and disappeared at the sound of a crash in the hallway. “Ma. Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Who th’
fuck
is in there?”

Ma sounded like she’d swallowed a box of nails soaked in vodka. The loud rasp of her voice made me reconsider my decision not to leave.

I scanned the room quickly, desperate to find something, anything, that could help me get to the bottom of this. The dining room table was covered with paperwork and mail. I pushed through some of it until I spied a piece that had been opened. A check in the amount of over ten thousand dollars made out to Trevor. The envelope below it showed it had been sent from an investment firm in Texas, a name I didn’t recognize.

I heard Ma stumbling through the hallway, their voices getting closer and louder.

“I don’t want no fuckin’ strangers in this house. How ma’y times I gotta tell ya?”

“I didn’t bring her. She just came in. She knows Blake.”

I froze for a second. Fucking Trevor had dimed me out to his crazy mom. I left the check on the table and stuffed the envelope into my pocket just as they emerged into the living area. Ma was a heavyset woman in her forties dressed in a tracksuit. Her blond hair was dyed with grown out roots and matted slightly. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot as she jerked out of his grasp. I took a few steps back as she approached, shaking her fist at me.