LUCIEN: A Standalone Romance (9 page)

Adrienne

My dad was waiting for me at the gate, his old Mustang idling roughly.

“It’s a gated community,” he said, gesturing at the guard who was eyeballing us from his little gatehouse.

“I’m aware of that.”

“Why did you spend the night?”

“Because you should know as well as I do that these gated communities are not as secure as they might appear.”

“Yeah, but it’s unlikely someone would make a move at him in his own home.”

“Just like it’s unlikely they might do it at his office, but you told me to stick by him until we figured out what’s going on, remember? Just doing what you told me.”

He glanced at me, that look on his face that said he suspected I wasn’t being completely honest with him. But he didn’t say anything else.

“What’s going on?” I asked as he eased the car onto the interstate, moving around a couple of slower cars as he headed toward the office.

“Robert thinks he might have figured out where the emails are coming from.”

“Yeah? I took a look at Jacob’s computer, but I couldn’t find any evidence that he’d sent the emails, or that anyone had hacked into the computer to send the emails.”

“No. I think you’re right. I don’t think that Jacob has anything to do with what’s going on.”

“Who do you think it is, then?”

My dad glanced at me even as he again moved around a slower moving car. “What do you think of this Montgomery fellow?”

I shrugged. “He’s a good guy trying to do a good thing for people.”

He gripped the steering wheel, twisting his hands on it for a minute. He seemed agitated, and I didn’t understand why. He glanced at me again, really looked at me, like he wanted to say something but he wasn’t sure how I would take it. I knew that look, too.

“What is it?”

He shook his head. “There’s some things about the emails that just ain’t right,
mija
.”

“Like what?”

“Like the way they were routed through different IP addresses. The IP addresses that were chosen. The way it was made to look like the brother did it.”

“Someone’s trying to set Jacob up.”

“But why? He’s got just as much to lose if this theft happens as the Montgomery fellow, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Then why try so hard to make it look like he did it?”

“I don’t know.”

“And why now? The device has been in development for, what, five years?”

“Something like that.”

“Why wait until the week before the patent is supposed to come through, a week before they’re free to go public with it, to try to steal it?”

“You don’t think whoever’s doing this is really after the device?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“But what could they be after?”

“Maybe somebody’s just trying to fuck with this Montgomery’s head. Or maybe he’s trying to fuck with us.”

I shook my head. “This isn’t Lucien’s doing.”

“How do you know? I’ve seen it before. Executives who want to create drama before releasing a new product. Or executives with mental issues who want attention.”

“That’s not Lucien. If he were like that, I think I would know.”

My dad looked at me, his eyes narrowing as he stared so hard at my face that I had to look away.

“Tell me you aren’t getting too deeply involved,
mija
.”

“Of course not. But I’ve just spent the last forty-eight hours with him. If there were something off about him, I think I would have noticed by now.”

My dad just nodded. “You talk to Robert. You understand more about this computer stuff than I do.”

“I will.”

It seemed like everyone was in the office. But, again, everyone was often in the office around the clock, especially when we had a big case going on. And this was a big case.

Robert was upstairs in what we liked to call his bat cave. It was a dark room at the back of the building where he had his collection of computers. There were laptops, desktops, motherboards, and all kinds of cannibalized parts all over the room. It was organized chaos that only Robert really understood.

He didn’t even look up when I tapped on the door and walked in.

“Did your father tell you that we tracked those emails back to the client’s computer?”

“No,” I said, cold fingers beginning to dance around my heart.

“Yeah. The computer at his office.”

“How did you do that?”

He touched a finger to one of the monitors. I leaned forward and read the code. I knew quite a bit, but I wasn’t nearly as proficient in computer code as Robert. But I could see the bouncing IP addresses as clear as day.

“That’s Lucien’s computer?”

“Yeah.”

“And it doesn’t go anywhere else after that? I thought you were convinced the emails originated at his brother’s computer.”

“That’s what they wanted us to think. But I found the tracks they tried to hide.”

I just nodded, totally aware that contradicting Robert wouldn’t get me anywhere. Besides, he knew what he was doing.

And I was screwed.

“Is it possible someone used his computer to do this? Someone other than him?”

“Sure,” Robert said.

“Is there any way to prove that?”

He shrugged. “No. Not really.”

“So we still don’t know for sure who we’re dealing with.”

“Pretty much.”

I groaned, leaning forward and burying my face in my hands. Robert reached over and patted the back of my head.

“You look different in those clothes.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He was grinning when I looked up. “You almost look like a princess.”

I inclined my head slightly to acknowledge him. “Keep working on it, Robert. I really need to know who wrote those emails.”

“I will.”

I went downstairs to my office, my thoughts playing with the puzzle that Robert had just presented. Could someone have gotten to Lucien’s computer and sent the emails from there? If so, who? His personal assistant seemed like an obvious choice, but that made her a bad choice simply because it was so obvious. But who else?

I dropped into my chair and stared at my own laptop. There had to be something I was missing. The whole thing just seemed suddenly off. Emails from his own computer. An attempt to steal a device that was days away from getting a patent. Was my dad right? Was there more to this than what we were seeing? If so, what?

I was missing something, and I had to figure out what it was before it was too late.

Lucien

I was on the couch running code on my laptop when Jacob walked into the house, pulling his suitcase behind him.

“Long drive?”

He didn’t say anything, just walked past me and went to his bedroom. I followed, pausing in the doorway to watch him flip on his computer and check for emails.

“Were the parental units annoyed that we all fled early?”

“Not really. I think they wanted some time alone with Rachel to try to figure out what she’s going to do next.”

“Adrienne suggested they make her go to work in fast food.”

Jacob snickered. “Could you see that?”

“I had the same reaction. But Adrienne had a point when she said that it would probably scare her into going back to college.”

“It might.” Jacob glanced at me. “Where is Adrienne?”

“She went home.”

“Really? I didn’t think the two of you were at that point yet.”

“What point?”

“Where you’re okay being apart.”

“I’m okay with her going home as long as she comes back.”

Jacob just shook his head as he turned back to his computer. I was about to leave when he said, “Hey. What’s this?”

I walked over to stand behind him and looked down at his screen. It was an email sent from my email address. But it wasn’t from me.

You should warn your brother not to mess with fire. He’ll take you all down with him.

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s from your email address.”

“I didn’t send it.”

“Lucien…”

“I didn’t send it, Jacob.”

I backed away, tugging my cellphone from my pocket.

“Who are you calling?”

“Adrienne.”

“Why? What the hell is she going to do? What’s going on?”

I ignored him, walking out into the hallway so I could hear. The phone rang half a dozen times before going to voicemail.

“It’s me. Jacob just got an odd email from my account. Call me.”

“Lucien,” Jacob said again, standing in the doorway watching me. “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

What choice did I have? I dragged my fingers through my hair, trying to figure out where to start. At the beginning? What was the beginning?

My phone vibrated.

“Adrienne?”

“What did it say?” she asked, her voice full of a wariness that sent warning bells screaming in my head.

“That he should tell me not to mess with fire.”

“Fire? And it was sent from your account?”

“Yeah. How did they—”

“I’m coming to you. Stay there and wait.”

She hung up before I could say anything else.

“Lucien, why are you telling your girlfriend about this?”

“Because she’s not my girlfriend. Not really.”

Jacob’s face darkened, storm clouds moving across his eyes.

“We might as well get comfortable.”

Adrienne arrived not a minute after I finished explaining the whole thing to Jacob. He was sitting on the couch, his hands clutched between his legs, his eyes on the floor. I went to the door and let Adrienne in.

“I had to tell Jacob everything.”

She nodded, not really looking me in the eye.

“Hey,” I said, touching her arm, “are we okay?”

She looked up at me. “I have some hard questions I need to ask. Maybe it would be better if we do this and decide where we stand after.”

She brushed past me and went into the living room. She didn’t sit, but paced in front of the fireplace, her hands clutched behind her back. I watched, growing more and more uneasy the longer she simply paced and remained silent.

“You’re a private investigator?” Jacob asked.

Adrienne stopped, focusing on him. “I am.”

“And all that, that night at the bar, was just an act.”

She looked at me a second, then sort of shrugged. “I think that’s a little irrelevant right now. What we should be focusing on is whoever is sending these emails threatening Lucien.”

“Threats? He said they were just little warnings, like the one on my computer.”

“They’re threats. And we need to figure out who’s sending them.”

“Can’t you do some sort of computer thing and figure that out?”

Again her eyes moved to mine before she took a seat on the couch across from Jacob and leaned forward, looking him in the eye.

“We believe the emails originated from Lucien’s computer at the office.”

“My computer?” I said. “You’re joking, right?”

“No.” She didn’t look at me when she said it. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like the emails were coming from your computer, but our people were able to trace them back to the desktop in Lucien’s office.”

Jacob shook his head. “Why would someone do that?”

“Who has access to his office?”

“Hey, I’m standing right here.”

She looked at me, her face a mask of tension. “Do you know who has access to your computer when you’re not in the office?”

“No one. I lock the door when I leave. Jaime and I are the only ones with a key.”

“No, the security office has one, too, in case of emergencies.”

“And who has access to that?” she asked.

“Jacob, me, and the head of security,” I said.

“Someone is using that computer,” she said. “Someone sent at least one of these emails when you were in Kemah.”

“What about Jaime?” Jacob asked.

I shook my head. “You know it couldn’t be her. She was one of the first people we hired.”

“So was Colin, but I’m not sure I could trust him, given this sort of evidence,” Jacob said.

“Jaime wouldn’t do this.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Adrienne said. Then she looked at me. “What about Tito? Your computer guy? If this person knows his way around a computer, he could do it remotely.”

“No,” I said, again shaking my head emphatically. “I’ve known Tito since freshman year of college. He wouldn’t do this. Besides, he has no motive. If he wanted the pancreas, he could have stolen it years ago.”

Adrienne rubbed her temple at the same time she cleared her throat. “That’s something else we need to talk about. We’re not a hundred percent sure that the pancreas is what they want.”

Jacob and I exchanged a glance.

“But…”

“I thought…”

Neither of us could finish our thought because the idea was just that far out there.

“Think about it,” Adrienne said. “Why wait until a week before the device is patented to try to steal it? Why didn’t they try to steal it months ago when you started the process of getting the patent?”

Jacob looked at me. “She has a point.”

“But what else could it be?”

“Is it possible that someone’s just trying to distract you? Or that they’re just trying to play head games with you?”

“Or it’s about one of the other devices.”

“What?” I asked. “The pancreas is the only thing that’s either not already on the market, or that’s close to going public.”

“There’s the Alzheimer’s drug.”

“I thought you said it was still years from hitting the market,” Adrienne said.

“It is,” Jacob said. “But we’ve filed the paperwork with the FDA to begin trials.”

“It’s attracted some attention,” I said. “One of the scientists wrote a paper about it that will appear in a scientific journal later this month. The public relations office has gotten some calls about it.”

“Is that a big deal? Would it garner this sort of attention?”

Jacob shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve never had this sort of attention. Besides, why would whoever’s doing this want everyone to believe that the emails are coming from inside the office? That would imply that someone in our employ is untrustworthy.”

“Or it would cause the two of you to turn against each other.” Adrienne glanced at me again. “I think that’s what this is really about. Someone’s trying to cause trouble between the two of you for some reason.”

“Could it be Lynn?” I asked.

Jacob jumped to his feet, anger flashing over his face as he looked at me. “Why would Lynn do such a thing?”

“Because she’s divorcing you, and your half of the business is part of your assets.”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve already agreed to give her half my trust fund, that’s why!”

“Shit, Jacob,” I muttered, stepping back a few steps like he’d punched me. “Why would you do that?”

“Because it was the right thing to do.”

I shook my head, wanting to hug him and shake him all at the same time. Jacob’s trust fund was worth millions. Almost eighty million dollars. Giving half of it away to a woman who had her own trust fund from her own rich daddy was insane. But it also showed how deeply scarred by the whole thing Jacob really was.

“I’m sorry,” I said, at a loss for anything else to say.

Jacob brushed past me.

“This is your mess,” he said as he went. “You clean it up.”

He disappeared down the hallway, leaving me alone with Adrienne. She stayed on the couch, staring down at the floor like she was trying to disappear so that we wouldn’t be embarrassed that this family drama had played out in front of her. I went and sat beside her, taking her hand in mine.

“Not what you bargained for, huh?”

“Not really.”

She leaned in to me, resting her head on my shoulder. I slid my arm around her, pulling her closer, wanting to do nothing more than hold her. And she let me. For a moment.

“My dad thinks you’re insane and that you arranged this whole thing to get someone to pay attention to you.”

“Not a great first impression, I guess.”

She giggled. “No.”

“What do you think?”

“I think we’re missing something. I think there’s more to this than we’re seeing.”

I kissed the top of her head. “Me too.”

“But what the hell could it be?”

And that was the question. I had no idea.