Simon tapped his knuckles against his lip in an absent tattoo as he considered the evidence. It still didn’t make any sense, but to so pointedly not make sense across a cluster of disciplines? That read deliberate to him.
He checked Ryan’s personnel file. The last time security ran a trace on him, he’d been in Portland and teaching a few science classes at a local college. Again—weird, but hardly a red flag.
After signing out of the server—the virtual desktop wiped itself out of existence neatly—Simon closed the laptop with a slap. He leaned back and flinched as the scarred muscles in his shoulder cramped from being hunched over too long. He breathed out and rolled his head to first one side and then the other to work his way through each set of muscle groups until the pain settled down to the familiar, steady ache.
Could have been worse, he reminded himself. But it didn’t help much.
The abrupt shrill of his phone interrupted him before he could wallow any deeper into self-pity. Simon wedged the pain down into the back of his mind and checked the screen. He didn’t want to talk to Dev—not until he knew what they had to talk about.
It was Jacob.
Concern clenched in his stomach like a fist. Last time Jacob had called, he’d been about to be murdered and dumped in the river.
“You okay?” he asked roughly.
“Yeah, don’t worry. No one is trying to kill me,” Jacob said. He sounded out of breath, but his voice was steady. “I’m in the PeaPod offices. It’s the sort of place that has standing desks and a yogurt bar at reception, so security isn’t such an issue.”
“Yogurt bars and good security aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Jacob snorted. “The sort of place that has a yogurt bar wants their employees to feel trusted, like they’re a little family, and the investors to be impressed with their sense of community. They put it in their publicity packs. I do this for a living. Places like this are a utopia for people like me.”
He paused and grunted. Something clattered in the background. Simon frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Making friends and influencing people,” Jacob said. “Anyhow, we need to go to Clayton’s house. He did most of his work from there. Only came into the office three or four times a month.”
“Nice work if you can get it.”
“I have it,” Jacob pointed out. “Sometimes I only put on pants once or twice a week.”
Simon’s brain seized for a second on that and painted an image of a naked Jacob sprawled out on the couch with a frappucino and a tablet. He had to clear his throat and turn his back on his imagination.
“Point?” Simon said.
“Clayton was on edge, even before he hired me. He was obviously playing his cards close to his chest….”
“Not that close,” Simon muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ll tell you later. Go on.”
“Anything useful? He’s going to have kept it at his house, not in his office. Somewhere he’d feel it was safe and he could check on it for reassurance when he got cold feet about me.”
It wasn’t something that Simon would have known a month earlier, but because Clayton’s name had turned up in the investigation and the news, Simon had had a crash course in the man’s life.
“He lives out in Thunder Valley.”
“And I don’t drive.”
“You need to learn.”
“Don’t want to. Pick up in an hour. Okay? I’ll be done here by then.”
“Wait,” Simon barked. “Ryan Lau.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know.”
