One last bite of sandwich. Simon put the plate and the fork in the sink. “I do. If you hadn’t gotten caught, you’d have kept lying to me. That’s nothing real. There was nothing real.”
Jacob scrubbed his hand through his hair, which made it stand on end. “It was as real as I get.” He scuffed the floor with a bare foot and then smirked crookedly. “And hey, if you fancy hitting Bali in the new year, you know my number.”
After an awkward second hovering, Jacob left the kitchen. Simon didn’t have his number, actually, and he wasn’t going to ask for it.
If he had it, he’d call it.
Instead he texted Dev with an update on what was going on.
INSTEAD OFDev it was Nora who called Simon back an hour later with a terse, “And?”
Simon hesitated, and his fingers hovered over the touch screen. “Where’s Dev?”
“Trying to explain what’s going on to the board,” she said. Her voice cracked in disbelief as she asked, “Maybe you could explain it to me. How did industrial espionage turn into murder?”
“I don’t know yet,” Simon admitted. “Clayton was the one who hired Jacob—”
“I know that,” Nora said. “What I want to know is why Harry Clayton is dead, why I had to hear it from Dev, and somehow your little thief is still breathing. And, according to Dev, in possession of the stolen data.”
Simon understood the suspicion. Unlike him, Nora had no reason to extend Jacob even a begrudging benefit of the doubt.
“He’s not involved,” he said. “Not with Clayton’s death anyhow. Jacob’s a thief, but he’s not a killer.”
Nora gave a shuddering little laugh. “Yes. I’m sure he’d never stoop so low.”
“Are you all right?” Simon asked.
“No. This isn’t what I—it’s not what I signed up for,” she said. “I know how to bully the board into allocating money for research projects that they don’t really understand, and I’m a good computer engineer. But theft? Murder?”
“Dev wants to go to the police.”
“I’m surprised the police aren’t here already.”
“They don’t know why Clayton died,” Simon pointed out. “For now, Jacob’s the only thing that could draw the line straight from Clayton’s corpse to Syntech. Which would be all it would take. We know we’re not involved in this, but it doesn’t look good.”
There was a long moment’s silence, and then Nora sucked in a slow breath and let it out on a sharp sigh. “You’re right. I know you’re right. Everything is still under control. We just need to keep our heads. I should go and save Dev from the board. What does he need to know from you?”
“If everything goes according to plan, I’ll be back in an hour with all the data,” he said. “Syntech will be made whole, and we can start an internal investigation into why this data was worth a third party killing for.”
“Good,” Nora said. She sounded relieved as she told Simon to keep them updated and then hung up on him, probably because she didn’t know how few things had been going to plan lately.
Fucking Jacob last night hadn’t been part of the plan, for a start. Or making him breakfast. Or imagining the lean, long-legged blond sprawled and probably naked on a beach in Bali.
Pushing that image out of his head—before he did something stupid—Simon turned to look at Jacob, who had leaned over the back of his chair and supported his weight on crossed arms as he eavesdropped on the call.
“Well?”
“Nearly done,” Jacob said. He moved his attention back to the screen for a second. “I’m just handing back the raw data. If you want my analysis, I’ll give you a competitive quote. Very reasonable.”
“I think that Syntech would rather run their own analysis,” Simon said dryly. “What with you being a thief and all.”
“Work smarter, not harder,” Jacob said. “Or if you can get away with it, be like me and don’t work at all.”
“Didn’t you win Employee of the Month at the cleaning company?”
It was in the file. Jacob looked embarrassed, as though he’d been caught masturbating, not making a good impression. “Fine. Work sporadically. Enjoy the rewards. In this case, the down payment on the reward, but I’ll get by.”
The computer made a smug soundingbing, and Jacob unplugged the slim portable hard drive. He tossed it underhand across the room. Simon caught it one-handed and turned it thoughtfully in his fingers.
