Page 38 of Near Miss

The division summary she’d compiled from Christian Meier sat open on her computer. Now what? The government report was due in two weeks. And she still had to find the discrepancies from Lachlan’s division.

It felt almost sacrilegious to worry about it right now.

Her eyes were bleary from lack of sleep. She grabbed her mug and wandered to Penny’s desk. “I’m going to get more coffee. You want some?”

“Another cup won’t help.” Penny’s fingers stilled on her keyboard. “I’m not getting anything done. Poor Fred, I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Sophia swallowed past the tightness in her throat. “Me either.” She hesitated, hating even to bring up work. “Can we delay the report?”

Penny shook her head. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“Fred and I were supposed to work on it today. I guess I should make sure everything has been assembled so Jared can decide what to do next.”

Penny gave her a sympathetic look. “Why don’t you see if you can find what you need in Fred’s office? I’m sure Jared wouldn’t mind. Goodness knows he has enough on his plate.”

Sophia glanced at Fred’s closed door and bit her lip.

The empty workspace sat silent as a tomb, the faint whiff of tobacco that lingered behind marking Fred’s essence. She couldn’t help feeling she was violating what was now a memorial to a dead man. Framed photographs of DC landmarks dotted his walls. No personal pictures or belongings in view. His space had a sterile, lonely feel. Like Lachlan’s office.

She wiped away the moisture suddenly blurring her vision, and settled into his chair.

Where to begin?

Manilla file folders, labeled by project, hung on a metal frame in the bottom right drawer of his desk. Thank goodness Fred’s perpetual dishevelment wasn’t reflected in his organizational skills.

She pulled out the hanging file folder labeledGovernment Report. In it were individual folders containing the documentation for each LAI division that would be included in the report. She opened the file for the Global Security division. At the top were several sheets of paper bound by a paperclip. A spreadsheet of detailed expenditures made in the past year by Lachlan’s division. Purchase orders for weapons, printed copies of export licenses, and bills of lading—ones she’d never seen. Her fingers stilled on the last sheet.

A photocopy of a Washington Post article about US weapons in the hands of the Taliban.

Highlighted in yellow were the specific types of weapons and equipment recently discovered during a joint US-Afghan raid. She compared the models to the purchase orders from the Global Security division.

Denial rose swiftly. Fred was wrong—there had to be another explanation. Her inner voice rattled its cage, mocking her.

A murmur of voices outside Fred’s door sent her pulse into the stratosphere. She swept the papers back into their folder. The temperature in the room felt like it had gone up ten degrees. Sweat coated the small of her back. Clutching the folder, she crept to the door and peered out. Jared wasn’t in sight, and Penny’s desk chair sat empty. She made a beeline for her office and thrust the folder into her briefcase, her stomach in knots.

She needed to call Admiral Dane. But not here.

Lunchtime traffic had the elevators stopping at every floor. She bounced on her heels and mentally tried to will the cars into moving faster.Finally.A set of doors slid open with a ding. She leaped inside and jabbed the button repeatedly for her parking level, ignoring the stares from the other passengers.Close, close, close.

It took her a moment to locate her car, hidden between a black SUV and a gold minivan. She jumped in, locked her doors, and dug in her purse for her phone. Her finger hovered, trembling, over the screen. If she called the admiral and told him what she found, she’d unleash an investigation into LAI’s activities that could end badly for Lachlan, maybe even for the company itself.

The wobble in her finger spread to her hand and up her arm. She dropped the phone back into her purse and leaned into the headrest, shutting her eyes against the harsh reality confronting her. She couldn’t have misjudged Lachlan that badly. There had to be a different explanation.

Her phone call to the admiral could wait a day. She needed time to process what she’d found and plan her next move. Praying she was making the right decision, she headed back to the eighth floor.

“There you are. Jared’s been looking for you.” Penny’s words halted Sophia’s attempt to slip unnoticed back to her office.

“I went to grab some lunch.” Her stomach chose that moment to loudly proclaim her a liar. She pressed her palm to her middle and gave Penny a weak smile. “Nothing looked good.”

If Penny noticed, she didn’t say anything. “He said to send you in as soon as you got back.”

Sophia’s hunger faded beneath an onslaught of nerves.

Jared was on the phone and beckoned her into his office with a wave.

She sat on the other side of his desk and fought to keep butterflies at bay. While waiting, she let her gaze wander to Jared’smewall. Jared and Lachlan were about the same age, but where Lachlan’s aura projected a rough-around-the-edges kind of power, Jared’s was smoother, more sophisticated, formed by wealth and privilege. Both men entered a room expecting to be in charge, which was probably why she’d picked up on the subtle tension between the two every time they were together, as if their magnetic polarities were so similar they repelled each other.

Her wandering gaze landed on the family portrait on Jared’s credenza, and she shifted uneasily in her chair. The photograph unnerved her. Maybe it was the vacant stare on his mother’s face or the firm grip Jared’s father had on his wife’s elbow, his cold features not softened by the elegant black tuxedo he wore. Then there was Jared, appearing bored by it all.

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