Page 35 of Jane's Story
“Can we help you look?” I asked. “What color are they?”
“Oh sure, maybe check the curio cabinet. They have round, dark-green frames, and the lenses are—opalescent is the best way I can describe them.” She scratched her head and pulled open a drawer. “Terrance, check the nightstand in our room, would you?”
“Hmph.” Uncle Terrance nodded and stood up, slowly stretching his arms. “Could be in a closet too, you know.”
“Oh, go check the nightstand,” she huffed.
Charles stifled a grin, and I motioned for him to follow me into the living room. “Sorry, they bicker a little,” I whispered once we were out of earshot.
“They’re refreshing—not overly stuffy like some of my family.” He shrugged and helped me search around the room.
“Maybe we should try our luck on our own.” I sighed as I closed a drawer, but Aunt Penny cut me short.
“Found them!” She dashed into the living room, laughing and holding a pair of dark-green jeweled cat-eye spectacles. “In the medicine cabinet, of all places. Can you imagine? What was I thinking? Which of you willbe wearing them?”
Charles looked chagrined.
“I will.” I took them and put them on. The room spun, and random objects jumped out at me. So I pulled them off. “Maybe I’ll wait until we’re sitting down.”
“Oh, good. Sounds like they still work.” Aunt Penny clapped her hands, then lowered her voice. “You know, I wore these when reading letters from Terrance. It’s how I knew he loved me—all the right words jumped to my attention.”
Chapter 14
IsatnexttoCharles in Aunt Penny’s sitting room, wearing the ridiculous pair of glasses as I read over Haven Corporation’s website, company files, and the notebook I’d been using with him. Nothing stood out. Moonbeam climbed onto the back of the sofa and sat behind me, purring without a care in the world.
“Why don’t I try my inbox? Maybe there’s a message that will help.” Charles sat his laptop on the wooden coffee table. His long legs bent almost comically to fit on the worn leather sofa, and he leaned forward to click his email icon.
“Sure.” It was worth a try, anyway.
Over a light breakfast of muffins and tea, we scanned for a while before the wordspecificationjumped out of the screen at me.
“Click on that one.”
Charles raised an eyebrow, then shrugged and clicked on it. “These are some plans for the SaferLoc technology. We have some hardware, locks, and scanning devices that go with it.”
“Specificationsis flagging like crazy right now.” I narrowed my eyes as he opened the email, setting my teacup on its saucer. Pieces of the message looked three-dimensional. “Now click on the attachment.”
Charles opened what looked like a blueprint. The images were straightforward with nothing important.
“I don’t get it.” I frowned. "Could you keep scrolling down? I need to see the whole thing.”
Charles zoomed in over the images—nothing. Then he pulled up the link to the written specifications.
“There.” I pointed at the names of the engineers who worked on various components. The words danced on the page. It looked like Charles had developed most of the technology himself.
“Interesting,” Charles said. “This looks accurate… wait, this is incorrect. I developed this part, but they’re giving credit to the entire group. It’s easy to get these mixed up, though.”
“Maybe it was on purpose. Who actually publishes these plans—would someone have been able to change the names on there to claim credit to steal commissions? Maybe Armond figured it out?” I said, pushing my tea cup and saucer farther onto the coffee table as Moonbeam walked by with her massive fluffy tail.
“I doubt it. We have to run all the plans through an approval process. We audit the names, and engineers cannot edit them afterward. I suppose it’s possible, but it wouldn’t be easy to pull off, anyway.” Charles looked incredulous, and made room for Moonbeam who'd hopped onto the sofa to take his lap.
"Right, and we still don't know how Margery's death is connected. Did she know about this? Uncovered something while taking photos?” It was exactly what I’d been doing, and I swallowed back my fear, remembering the note in our suite.
“I’ll need to look over these plans once more. Hopefully, no other employees are targets.” Charles closed his laptop and rubbed his temples.
“Well, these are just theories.” I tried to help him feel better. “I guess having all the engineers get credit makes each of them asuspect. Right?”
“Not if we have someone looking for ways to shift money around. You know, laundering type activities…” A pounding on the apartment door interrupted our conversation. We looked at each other and froze.
