Page 17 of Once a Killer

Today, that guy had sunk into a morass of self-pity, and it wasn’t attractive.

Time to do a little ass-kicking. “Well, boo-hoo for you, poor little rich man,” she said. “Self-pity is never pretty, and I never suspected you werethatguy.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he opened his mouth, no doubt to cut her down with an angry retort. But he closed his eyes. Propped his elbows on the picnic table and shook his head. Sighed. “Well played,” he said. “You put me in my place and made me feel like an ass, all in a few sentences.”

His shoulders slumped. “Truth? I can’t wait to finish this program. Put it out in the world and let it go. It’s consumed my life for the past five years -- ten years if I include grad school -- and I’m past ready to be done with it.”

“That sounds honest. Real.” She wanted to touch his hand and apologize for her ridicule, but it was probably better to let it go. Focus on her job and what she needed to do.

“So you told me you’re not too concerned about the camera focused on your safe. What about the ones aimed at your computer? You work on your program here, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said with a grim smile. “But I’ve put a privacy filter on my laptop. No one can see what’s on the screen unless they’re sitting right in front of it. So those cameras will see nothing but a blur.”

“Excellent. So the cameras aren’t a big problem. We’ll leave them there so whoever installed them doesn’t know you’ve found them. What about the microphones? What will whoever’s listening to them find out? And is it crucial information?”

He frowned and stared into the distance, clearly assessing. Finally he re-focused on her. “I do get phone calls about the program,” he said slowly. “A lot of them are fishing for information, and I never tell those callers anything important. I talk to my old grad school advisor once in a while. He probably knows more about the program than anyone but me. It was my thesis, so he’s seen everything I did in grad school. Helped me with some of it, too.

“But it’s changed a lot since then. We talk in general terms, but I don’t tell him specifics. He’s asked me not to, but I wouldn’t even if he wanted to know.”

She couldn’t resist leaning forward and touching his hand. A tiny apology for what she’d said. “There’s a person you know you can trust,” she said.

He glanced down at her fingers brushing his hand. Swallowed. Then frowned a little when she snatched her hand away.

“You’re right. I do trust Theo. He’s a good guy. Honest. He cares about his PhD students. Wants them to succeed.”

“You still shouldn’t tell him anything,” she said.

“I know that. But he’s getting a share of my profits. A very small one, but he’ll be able to retire if he wants to. He helped me develop the idea.”

“That’s very generous,” she said. She should be surprised, but somehow, she wasn’t.

“No, it’s the right thing to do,” he said. He slapped his hands on the table, and the old, weathered wood shivered. “So what do we do about the bugs?”

She liked the sound of that ‘we’. She hoped it meant she wouldn’t have to justify everything she asked him to do. “It sounds as if you’re not too concerned that anyone has heard things they shouldn’t hear. Am I right?”

He stared at her for a long moment, and she could practically see his mind working. Finally he nodded slowly. “You’re right. I haven’t said anything that could cause me problems, and now that I know someone’s listening, I’ll be even more careful about what I say.”

“So we’ll leave the bugs, as well,” she said

“Yes. Let’s leave them.”

She slid away from the picnic table. “Then let’s get our asses back up to your office and remove those stickers before someone who works with you sees them and asks what’s going on.”

As they walked toward the building, he asked, “Do you think those bugs and cameras were placed by one of the people in my lab?”

“It’s possible. But it’s also possible that someone used the cleaning service to get those cameras and bugs in place.”

“I told you, I had them checked out. Very deep background checks on anyone who comes into my lab. Found nothing.”

“That’s good and you should continue doing that for anyone with access to your lab. It doesn’t rule anyone out, though. First, someone could have gotten hired by the cleaning company with the intent of cleaning your lab. There’s a lot of money at stake. There are probably people who’d be willing to spend a lot of money to create a complete life and background that could pass a deep dive. Get on the cleaning crew and do their thing.

“If it wasn’t someone who got hired expressly to clean your building, it could be a couple of other things. People can be bribed. For the right amount of money, people will do almost anything. Maybe one of your cleaners has a sick kid who needs expensive treatments. Parents who need to be in costly nursing facilities. The list goes on and on.

“And there’s also blackmail. Maybe someone on the cleaning team is hiding something incriminating, and the blackmailer found out. ‘Put these cameras and bugs in the office, and I won’t expose you.’ Lots of potential scenarios.”

“So I can’t trust the cleaning people.”

“I wouldn’t. In your situation, I would trust very few people. And it sounds as if that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

---