Job Hunt (17 page)

“And we have a problem.”

“Did Jack talk to you about the leak?”

“He said that something went down Friday night but that he didn’t have a green light from you to give me details.”

“I have
got
to beat that out of him,” Gareth muttered.

“Good luck with that. He was a spook.”

“He was mine before he was a spook. There’s gotta be hope for him.” Gareth leaned back in his chair and toyed with the files on his desk. He used a computer, tablet, and his phone to keep track of information like everyone else, but every now and then he needed the physical reminder, needed to print results and analyses and sit somewhere peaceful and read. Fortunately, Julian Nancarrow’s mind worked in a similar way, and they had sifted through pages and pages of financial information the previous day. Not to mention the maps and mineral deposit analyses Jack had handed him on Friday night.

“Jack mentioned during his interview that we had a data leak,” he said when Frazer was working on his second mug of coffee.

“We knew that.”

“We
thought
we knew that,” Gareth corrected wryly. “I found out Friday night that Jack hadn’t been talking about the finance leak. He had turned up some highly confidential prospecting data.”

“Shit. I just assumed there was an issue with the containment we put in place. Or that he’d caught on to the leak before we did.”

“Nope.” He picked up a file and tapped it on the edge of the desk before sliding it across to the younger man. “Julian’s put together fake finance stats for the next month. He’s enjoying this a lot more than he should.”

“You think the family had something to do with the second leak?” Frazer had been briefed on the numerous attempts by members of Julian Nancarrow’s extended family to wrest control of the company from him. And being Scottish, he’d taken the threat extremely seriously.

“I don’t, but the boss is twitchy. So take it under consideration.”

“Why don’t you think so?” Frazer quickly scanned the contents of the file.

“Historically they’ve always been after money or control. They don’t have the tech know-how to evaluate the prospecting data. The finance leak is more their style.”

“They could have bought the skills.”

“True.” Gareth slid another folder across the desk. “These are all the details on the mineral deposits. Deal with it.”

“Wouldn’t Horwood be the better choice?” Frazer’s tone was careful. “It is his area of expertise.”

“He’s moonlighting for the Met for the next couple of weeks, and he’s not up to speed on the family. So you take this one, but keep him informed, and let him help.”

Frazer nodded, mind already miles away assessing the task. Gareth watched him go, sure that the matter was taken care of. Donald Frazer was only twenty-five, but he already had an industry reputation as a very safe pair of hands. It was telling that Jack hadn’t applied to Nancarrow Mining HR but had contacted Donald Frazer about a job. The Scot, instead of feeling threatened, had come directly to him, buzzing with the news that
Jack Horwood
wanted to work with Nancarrow Mining. Gareth hadn’t been surprised when the two had hit it off within minutes of meeting.

It was obvious to anyone watching how instinctively the two men worked together. It was in the way Jack looked up from his cabling work when Frazer returned to his desk and caught the folder the younger man tossed to him. He flipped through it while Frazer snagged his keyboard, pointed at one or two items in the file and went back to wiring his workstation. Frazer nodded and kept talking while he typed, and when Jack’s head came up, eyes scanning the desk for something, Frazer tossed him the tool he needed without having to be asked. If Jack hadn’t been one of the proponents, Gareth could have enjoyed watching their interaction like a movie.

He closed the distracting security feed, and when lunchtime rolled around, he had caught up with his inbox and reviewed the actions from the emergency meeting Julian Nancarrow had called the previous day to discuss the security breaches at the company.

The finance leak was the first real threat since he had joined Nancarrow Mining. He had devised a way to make use of the leak to their advantage, but he was no closer to finding the culprit than he’d been the day they had realized they had a leak. Jack’s application had come as a stroke of good luck, admittedly one that left him staring in shock at the polished wood of his desk. Only for Jack to arrive with another puzzle in tow—one he had found before anyone else at Nancarrow Mining had even been aware of it.

This, Gareth concluded as he ordered a stack of pizzas and called a lunchtime team meeting to bring everyone up to speed and plan strategy, was how he remembered Jack. Back when they served together, Jack used to spend his spare hours doing… stuff… on a computer without coming up for air and turning up the most unexpected information in the process. Gareth couldn’t recall the number of times he’d fielded calls from the police, civil servants, or various agencies demanding confirmation of data Jack had provided out of the blue. Jack never bothered to reply. He didn’t discuss his sources, and he never argued his data’s veracity. He just continued doing what he did, whether the recipients of the information he’d unearthed were grateful for it or not.

“H
ORWOOD
.” G
ARETH
stopped Jack from leaving the conference room with a word and a wave, watching as Jack set his tablet back on the table while everyone else filed out.

The team meeting had been a noisy affair. As usual, Gareth neither interfered nor directed the discussions. He made sure everyone ate, brewed coffee, and listened as Frazer explained the nature of the leaks and the decoy they had put in place for the financial data. Donald Frazer went through each bit of leaked information, tracing the path it had taken—and everyone around the table scribbled furiously. The leaked finance data would be scrutinized from a myriad of additional angles as early as this afternoon. Gareth liked that about his team, the way they all pitched their strength and expertise without feeling they had anything to prove.

Jack fit right in, though it hadn’t escaped Gareth’s notice that Jack had barely paid attention to the food, or that he clung to his coffee mug as if it was a lifeline. Eight years had made no difference. Gareth just knew that Jack was running on caffeine fumes and attitude, that the tilt of his head—forward and a little to the right—screamed killer headache. And that Jack would start a fight rather than admit any of it.

“Hey,” Jack smirked—playing the “offense is the best defense” card, just as Gareth had expected—as soon as they were alone in the conference room. “You shouldn’t be allowed to wear suits.”

“I’m not the one draped over my desk showing off my ass.”

“You didn’t enjoy the view?”

“How’d the surveillance go?”

Jack shrugged. The collar of his polo shirt slid sideways with the movement, and Gareth caught a brief flash of something dark along Jack’s throat. That damn strip of leather! His chest grew tight at the sight, and it took some effort to process Jack’s reply.

“Washout. We built a composite, and I’m using that to prescreen the feeds.”

“Prints?”

“None on file. So either he’s new, which I doubt, or he’s careful.” Another shrug. “Doesn’t matter either way. He’ll trip.”

Jack shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and leaned against the conference table. He looked awake enough, but the tone of his voice gave him away.

“I want you to go home and get some rest before you go in tonight,” Gareth said carefully.

The green eyes narrowed. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it. Go home. Sleep. I bet you came here straight from the Yard this morning.”

“I have a leak to find,” Jack argued, and Gareth knew he’d been right.

“You don’t have to solve all the world’s problems all at once,” he reiterated. He’d pointed that out to Jack Saturday night. Clearly, Jack hadn’t heard him. “Frazer’s got this for the moment. Focus on finding the pimp.”

“You didn’t hire me to find a pimp.”

“I didn’t know you had a pimp to find when I hired you.”

“Yeah, well. Neither did I.” Jack crossed his arms and kept his gaze on the floor. “Look,” he said, “let me finish setting up that trace I’m working on. Then I’ll go home. It’s not fair to bring me in and then make Frazer do all the work.”

“If I find you here after three, I’ll kick your ass, got it?”

“Sure.”

Jack pushed away from the table and was out of the conference room in a few long strides. Gareth watched him leave, ready to bet that Jack wouldn’t be gone by three.

J
ACK
HAD
become a familiar figure in this quiet corner of the hospital. This was his third visit since Clive had called him in on Saturday, and the two uniformed officers keeping watch didn’t bother to check his credentials anymore. They didn’t check the small backpack he brought with him, either, and when he popped his head around the doorframe, both Nico and Daniel were awake.

“You came.” Nico, always the more forward of the two, sat up and swung his feet off the bed.

“Hey! I promised.” Jack pretended to be hurt as he dropped the backpack and shrugged out of his jacket. “How are you two?”

“Bored,” Nico declared, just as Daniel mouthed
scared
without a sound.

Jack sat down between the boys on the bed, pleased when neither Nico nor Daniel flinched away from him. He was careful how he moved around the two, but they were growing more comfortable having him close even after only a couple of days.

“Did you find your thief?”

For a moment Jack regretted talking about his job. It had seemed a good idea when he needed to establish an identity that distinguished him from the police and social services. The sudden burst of interest in Nico and Daniel’s faces had been encouraging, and he had spent some time talking about the data thief and what he was doing to catch him. He didn’t know yet how long the boys had been with the pimp—only that Daniel had been there longer than Nico, and that Ricky had been with the man when both of the younger boys had arrived—but he couldn’t imagine that the bastard had cared any more about the boys’ education than the man who’d had Jack. Talking about his job and making it sound fun had been a lure. Still was a lure. What he hadn’t planned on was making himself look like a failure. Again.

“Not yet,” he admitted. His voice was tight, and Daniel caught it.

“Your boss isn’t pleased about that?”

“Gareth isn’t pleased about a lot of things right now,” Jack groused, forgetting for just an instant whom he was speaking to. “What about you guys? Any news?”

Daniel and Nico rarely spoke without checking with each other first, but Jack’s sitting between them made eye contact difficult. He leaned back a little and waited.

“We don’t have any horrid diseases.”

“That’s great, right?”

“Only if it means you’ll still come see us,” Daniel muttered.

“Hey, now I’m insulted. It’s my choice to be here, and I don’t care what your medical report says.” Jack turned his head to consider first Daniel, who was red with embarrassment, and then Nico, whose lips were clamped tightly together.

“What happened?”

The two were silent for the longest time. Jack didn’t fidget. He could outwait two scared teenagers any day of the week.

“Inspector Baxter came to see us this afternoon. He wants us to help him find….” Nico trailed off, and Jack nodded.

Of course Clive had been pushing for information now that the boys were at least stable. He wanted the monster off the street, and while Jack agreed with Clive’s goal, he could only shake his head at the man’s flatfooted ways. It was an argument Jack hadn’t managed to win yet. Clive Baxter simply didn’t get the level of terror just the thought of their pimp could inspire in the two boys. Neither did he understand denial.

“It’s the quickest way to get him off the street before he hides.” Jack kept his voice soft and his hands still. The fear in the children’s faces always broke his heart, made him wonder if Rio had seen that looking at him. Or if there had been something else, some emotion that made him different, less of a victim.

After seventeen years, Jack’s memories had started to blur. Occasionally some of them surfaced, bright and sharp and as unexpected as a hailstorm in June, but the triggers were few these days. More recent memories had overlaid and changed things he used to know were true.

“Nobody will think badly of you if you don’t wanna help.”

“Will you?”

Jack held Daniel’s gaze, not flinching from the boy’s emotions and not denying his own. “Think badly of you? No, I won’t. But I will not stop hunting that man. I promised Ricky.” Ricky’s death was a memory that stung and burned, something Jack needed to deal with in his own time.

“You take promises seriously.”

“I do. I also promised to teach you how to defend yourself.” Jack reached for his backpack, pulling out two pairs of hi-top Converse. “I had to guesstimate your shoe sizes, but these should do until you’re out of here. Then I’ll get you proper ones.”

“Why do we need shoes?”

Jack quirked a smile at Daniel’s suspicious tone and parked chin on fist. “Because I want you to have somewhere safe to hide your knives.”

“We don’t have knives.”

Jack handed the gaudily colored Converses over. “You do now.”

J
ACK
WOULD
be first to admit that he had a thing for crisp, clean sheets. They were a sign that he was safe and settled, reminded him of comforts that were there when he felt the need for comfort. More than once, after a long undercover op or a difficult case, had he wrapped himself in clean citrus-scented linen and buried his face in the fragrant steam of freshly brewed coffee.

Right now, at 3:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, Jack was more in need of sleep than comfort. He stumbled bleary-eyed into his bedroom, shedding his jacket and sweatshirt as he went, only to stop dead in the doorway.