Page 69 of Escape Girl

“Nope.” I guzzled my coffee, enjoying the hit of caffeine. After hearing back from Max earlier in the week on the results of his, ahem, research, I’d been working nonstop, interviewing witnesses. “I quit.”

The partners hadn’t been all that surprised, after my recent disappearing act. I’d also canceled my lease on the New York studio and arranged to have my clothes and a few personal items shipped here. I couldn’t live in the hotel forever, but I needed to see how the lawsuit progressed before I decided my next steps. I was a woman in limbo.

Her eyes widened. “Really? Why?”

I thought of Tess’s offhand comment. “I needed a new dream.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” I pulled a legal pad out of my laptop bag. I hated to blindside her, but: “Max and I found four other victims of Taggert. They’ve agreed to work with us.”

Her mouth formed a perfect O, and her coffee cup hit the table with a thud. “Four? What did he steal from them?”

Good. Curiosity and outrage were her first reactions, not:Why are you still looking into this? I badly wanted her to rejoin us, and I thought I had the facts to persuade her.

“Two of them are a team. Two students, really young guys: Manuel and Jorge. Like you, they developed an add-on to GuardTower,” I told her. “It’s much smaller in scope than your project, but Max thought it was good work. He said it’s some kind of communications workflow tool.”

Bella looked off into the distance, her gaze analytical behind her glasses. “Ooh, thatisa good idea. I wonder how they solved the issue of—” She shook her head out of Codeland. “Sorry. How did Taggert get their code?”

“Very similar to your story, actually. They met Taggert at a convention and showed him a demo. Unlike you, they were not planning to release it open source. They were hoping SideDoor might buy it from them.”

She leaned toward me. “But he just took it somehow?”

“Yep. He wined and dined them, whirled them out on the town. They were dazzled college kids and completely out of their element. They think he stole the code from Jorge’s laptop while they were at a club and distracted.” I crinkled my nose. “A few days after the convention, they sent Taggert a few screenshots of their product as a reminder and asked if he was interested in purchasing it.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “They received an accusation of theft and a cease and desist from Hill in response.”

“Bingo!” I chugged more coffee. “No copyright language in their letter though.”

“Why didn’t they fight back?” Bella asked. “There was no embarrassing sex stuff and there are two of them!”

“They’re both DACA students,” I said, my soft voice contradicting the anger in my belly. “They were absolutely terrified of legal trouble.”

Bella’s jaw went hard, her soft expression transitioning to steel. “That absolute fuckhead. I was probably theleastvulnerable person he preyed on.”

“Yep,” I confirmed, raising my eyebrows. “Want to hear about the others?”

*

With Bella backon board, I spent the afternoon on my hotel bed, laptop on my crossed legs with files and notepads spread in squares all around me as if I was a sentient piece in an enormous chessboard. My gut told me we had enough for a huge, valid lawsuit—but it wasn’t a sure winner.

In his own asshole way, Taggert had been careful. He’d only taken advantage of people who didn’t have the resources to fight back. People who “the system” or the media wouldn’t treat kindly. People who simply couldn’t afford the battle.

I could stand for them, at no cost, and fight this out. But I couldn’t control the fact that a significant amount of their time, their life, might be lost on a long case. I could shade, but not control, the media coverage.

So, a settlement was the optimum solution here. My clients deserved the right to use the intellectual property they created, and they deserved financial compensation for what they’d been through as a result of Taggert’s threats. While I’d love to see Taggert punished in a loss-of-freedom kind of way, that was an unrealistic goal given his money, fame, and power. But, I hoped, with a wicked smile, bleeding him dry wasnotan unrealistic goal.

I was expecting a call from Max so when my phone rang, I answered it without looking at the screen.

“Hello?”

“Emily, it’s Cal. So nice to hear your voice.” I closed my laptop screen slowly. He’d let me know via email that he’d received the signed paperwork, but I hadn’t actually spoken to my divorce attorney in quite some time.

“I have good news,” he said jovially. There was only one possible outcome that Cal could consider good news, and my stomach ached before he said the words. “I pulled a few strings.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “It’s not like your family is justanyfamily.” He laughed. “Your divorce is final as of yesterday!”

He waited for a response. I suppose he was expecting an exclamation of thanks or relief. Maybe even joy or applause. But all I could do was wheeze out a startled “Oh.”

He went on and on about the paperwork being filed, about the likelihood that the press would find out, about the final notification that would be sent to both Bobby and me later today. I just closed my eyes and rested my heavy head on my pillow.If only.

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