Page 79 of Once a Killer

“How was your weekend?” Jameson asked, easing back in his chair like he didn’t have a care in the world. Bree liked that about him. How restful he was on the surface. And she liked that he let her see what was below the surface. She suspected he didn’t allow many people that close.

“It was good,” Hayley answered, her voice bright. “I visited an old friend in Wisconsin. She’s in grad school up there.”

“Good,” Jameson said. “Everyone needs to get away from work once in a while.”

“Too true,” Hayley said, exiting his office with a wave of her hand.

Jameson slanted a look at Bree, and she knew exactly what he was asking. She shook her head once. She wasn’t going to grab her computer right after talking to Hayley. She’d wait until they were in the privacy of Jameson’s apartment before she checked the tracking device Jameson had inserted into Hayley’s computer.

The previous week, following Bree’s plan, he’d sent all the engineers an email about his plans for the weekend. And hidden in the email was a tracker that would keep tabs on where the computer went while she and Jameson were gone. And once each engineer told him what they’d done over the weekend, she’d check the tracker.

Jameson had been appalled when Bree asked him to send them the tracking virus. Horrified she was violating his employees’ privacy. Bree had pointed out that it was completely justified -- one of them was probably scheming to steal his program.

Now, she kept a bland expression on her face, revealing nothing. She was certain that at least one of the engineers would tell Jameson a lie about his or her whereabouts. The only question was, would it be an innocent lie? Told to protect someone’s privacy? Or would it reveal a prime suspect in the attempt to steal Jameson’s program?

Truth would out.

As they drove away from the lab that evening, Jameson swiveled in his seat so he was facing her. “So what do you think? Who was telling the truth and who was lying?”

Bree gripped the steering wheel more tightly. She wanted to wait and see what the trackers on their computers showed. She didn’t want to prejudice him toward anyone without some proof he or she had been lying.

But, taking a deep breath, she said, “I think Stu was probably telling the truth.”

Jameson nodded. “Yeah. Hard to believe he’d make up a story about seeing a psychiatrist. Especially since he flashed me his prescription for an anti-depression drug.”

“But we don’t know what else he did this weekend,” Jameson said after a moment. “A doctor’s appointment takes, what, an hour? Two at the most? He could have done a lot with the rest of the time.”

“True,” she said. She checked both sides of the car. Front and back. Nothing looked unusual. Threatening. “All the trackers will show us is where their computers went. Notwhythey went there. So we can’t jump to any conclusions about the results.”

“Yeah, Bree, I know.” She saw him curl his hands into fists on his legs, then carefully open them and flatten them on his thighs. Jameson was getting to the end of his rope. He wanted to uncover the thief and make sure he was punished. “I hope to God that tracker can rule at least a couple people out.”

“Yeah, me too. If someone stayed home all weekend we could rule them out,” she said carefully. “But don’t forget, that tracker won’t tell us where the people were. It’ll only tell us where the computers were. If someone left their computer at home when they went out, we’d have no idea where they might have been.”

Jameson frowned. “Yeah, I get that. But I don’t think they’d leave their computers in their empty apartments.”

She glanced over at him. “Really? You don’t think they’d have a safe place in their apartment to hide their computer?”

“I don’t. I take mine everywhere I go.”

“Because…?”

“I have too much valuable information on my computer,” he said immediately. “I wouldn’t leave it in my empty house. What if there was a break-in? Or, God forbid, a fire? I don’t want to lose my work.”

“You don’t have it backed up somewhere else?”

“Yeah, on a hard drive I keep in a safe deposit box. But I only back it up once a month.”

“And you think your four engineers do the same thing?”

“They’d be fools if they didn’t keep copies of their programs somewhere besides the lab or their homes. Just like me, they’ve invested a lot of time and money in their programs. They’d want to protect them.”

“Good. So whatever we see from the tracking software might not be completely accurate, but it’s going to be close.”

He pursed his lips and stared out the windshield for a moment. Finally he blew out a breath. Nodded his head. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Good.” She looked both ways and proceeded through an intersection. “We’ll check it as soon as we’re home.”

Bree turned onto a side street that would lead them to his alley and then his garage. As she was driving down the street, she slowed for one of the speed bumps. Jolted over it carefully, then slowed again for the one in the next block.

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