He must have read her panic, because his eyes flared with understanding and he pulled her a fraction closer to his side, then tugged her with him toward the door. “Lead the way, Morris. The lady is exhausted.”
4
DETECTIVE MORRIS was an excellent investigator. If he wasn’t, Gil wouldn’t be able to tolerate him. As it was, he could only stand him in small doses. The interview room he’d brought Ivy into was more comfortable than an interrogation room, but not by much.
Ivy sat in a chair on the left side of a worn rectangular table. Morris sat across from her. “Dr. Collins, would you walk me through your day?” Morris leaned back in his chair, a picture of ease. Almost boredom. What was he playing at?
Gil chose to stand, leaning against the wall opposite the door. He could have taken a seat beside Ivy, but he wanted to be able to see her face as she spoke. Somewhere between the moment she grabbed his arm and the moment Morris opened his mouth, Ivy had recovered from whatever had frightened her. He could see it in the set of her shoulders and the way she studied Detective Morris.
Gil didn’t know the adult Ivy, but something told him Detective Morris was on the verge of getting his cue ball of a head bitten off.
“You’ll need to be more specific, Detective Morris.” Ivy didn’t give him a chance to respond. “Where would you like me to start? My day began at 4:30 a.m. It will take us quite a while for me to guide you through every part of it. Is that what you want?”
Gil kept his face passive at Ivy’s response, but Morris didn’t. He rolled his eyes and muttered something about “academics” before he moved his arms to the table. “Why don’t you give me an overview of your day, and then get specific when you reach the part where it went south?” Every word dripped with disdain.
Ivy didn’t react to his attitude. She sat even straighter and spoke in clear, precise detail. “I woke at 4:30 a.m. Did yoga. Ate breakfast. Did some reading. Spent some time working on a Bible study and in prayer. I got ready for the day and was in the office at 7:30 a.m. I reviewed internship applications for next year. I also reviewed a paper I’m submitting to a journal. Otherwise, the day was normal.”
“What is a normal day at Hedera, Dr. Collins?”
Gil perked up at this question. He knew the basics of what she did but not the specifics.
“Today, I spent four hours working with one of our research teams. We’re finalizing a prototype of a prosthetic that, if it works, will give amputees the ability to control the prosthetic hand with their mind. We’ve been working on this prosthetic since the first days of Hedera. It’s an exciting time for us.”
Gil locked on to the fact that she was about to launch a product that had been in development for years. If it worked, what kind of financial impact would that have on the company? And conversely, what if it didn’t? Could there be a motive for someone to hijack the product? Or was it possible the prosthetic couldn’t perform as advertised and someone in her company was covering it up? Ivy was smart, but even smart people could be fooled by people they trusted.
The only acknowledgment Morris gave to Ivy’s answer was a low grunt. He waved his hand, and she continued. “I spent an hour and fifteen minutes with one of our researchers who is trying toincrease the touch sensitivity on one of our other prosthetics. I spent the rest of the afternoon in my office working on an expense report because my assistant is a tyrant and wanted it yesterday.”
Gil chuckled. Morris didn’t. Ivy cast Gil an appreciative glance, but then her mouth pinched, and Gil braced for what was coming. The normal part of the day had ended.
“Then the power went out. We called the power company, and they told us a car had rammed into a pole and had taken out a transformer. Power lines had come down around the car and made a mess of everything. They said it would be hours before power was restored.”
Ivy wasn’t looking at Morris anymore. As far as Gil could tell, she wasn’t looking at anything. Her eyes blinked several times, and her chin was pointed down and to the left. She wasn’t saying anything, but no doubt a lot of activity was going on inside her head. Gil wouldn’t have been surprised if her hair had started smoking.
“Dr. Collins?” Morris spoke like he was chastising an uncooperative three-year-old. Couldn’t he tell she was working something out in her head?
Ivy didn’t respond.
“Dr. Collins?” This time Morris sounded like he was fussing at a rebellious teenager.
Ivy flicked a few fingers in his direction and said, “Hush. I’m thinking.”
Gil wanted to give Ivy a high five. Zane and Luke were going to love this.
Morris turned every shade of red. “Dr. Collins.” Now he sounded ticked, and this time he broke through Ivy’s concentration.
He also broke through her façade of politeness. She leveled a glacial glare at Morris, and her voice was even colder than her look. “Detective Morris, if you would stop interrupting me, Iwould be able to solve this in my head and give you something useful.”
Gil didn’t know if Morris was mad, embarrassed, or confused, but whatever it was, he didn’t respond immediately. Ivy must not have expected a response, because she went back to staring at nothing, her head turning from side to side, her face focused and intense.
After another thirty seconds, Ivy relaxed into her seat and turned to Gil. “You haven’t said and I haven’t asked, but I need to know. Why were you at my house?”
There was no hostility in her question, but Gil got the impression his answer was important to whatever she was working out in her mind. “Hedera made a cash deposit of two thousand dollars and change last week. Two hundred of it was counterfeit.”
“Hmm.”
Hmm? Most people had a different reaction to learning they’d passed counterfeit money. Usually one that involved more surprise or defensiveness. Or flat-out lying if they knew they’d done it. A twinge of doubt flickered in Gil’s mind. Ivy had experience with the kinds of people who ran scams for a living. She might know more than she was letting on, but Gil was willing to wait to see where she was going with this, unlike Morris, who shifted in his seat and spluttered incoherent nonsense.
He caught Morris’s eye and frowned at him. “Give her a minute, man. She’s a freaking genius. Makes sense to let the smartest person in the room work out what’s going on.”
