Job Hunt (28 page)

“You sound barely awake, Horwood.”

“I
am
barely awake.”

“Then go sleep, and I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.” Jack closed the phone and shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans. Clive Baxter had gone into the club they’d had under surveillance and had ended up in an alley bleeding from a knife wound. It made no sense for the detective to do that. He had no warrant. He had little chance of getting one unless….

Jack headed to his desk, staring in distaste at the dodecahedron on the screen to his left. He hadn’t expected to hit pay dirt on his first try, but it would have been useful.

He woke the remaining screens and looked at a visual that resembled a bowl of spaghetti. “For a nonexistent company your website gets a fuck ton of traffic,” he told the display, taken aback when his voice raised an echo in the empty space. “Let’s see….” He highlighted one of the spaghetti strands and fired off a trace before he even sat down.

On the remaining two screens, he pulled up the previous night’s video feed from the nightclub. The club had been busy, and the dance floor was heaving. Jack kept one eye on his trace, the other on the feed monitoring the club’s doors, and mentally placed bets about which of the two would get a result first.

When the traffic trace came back empty, it was close to 6:00 a.m. Jack paused the feed, stretched, and went to brew coffee. Gareth would no doubt be up shortly, and the rest of the guys would appreciate a caffeine injection just as much.

Jack was shoveling sugar into a large mug when Gareth joined him by the coffeemaker.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Lisa woke me an hour ago.” Jack took a careful sip from his mug and sighed. Sugar spoiled even the single estate Java. It was one of the sad facts of life he’d learned over the years. “Clive’s got himself stabbed.”

“What?”

“He might have gone to the club last night. I haven’t spotted him yet, but he was found around 3:00 a.m. in the alley behind the club, bleeding from a stab wound. He had just gotten out of surgery when Lisa called me.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Yeah, just what I’m wondering. Unless he had a lead, in which case I might just not kick his ass.”

“He wouldn’t go follow up a lead without telling anyone.”

“Wouldn’t he?” Jack snorted. He watched Gareth boil the kettle to make tea and rubbed his neck a little sheepishly. Tea hadn’t even occurred to him. “Ask me sometime how I met Baxter,” he said and turned back toward his desk.

“Did Lisa say how he was?”

“Shot full of the good drugs. She wants to meet with me at lunchtime.”

“I can go talk to her if you want.”

“Why?”

“You’re busy,” Gareth said slowly, considering Jack over the rim of his mug. “And you’re flaming mad—even though I’m not sure why.”

“If he tipped off the pimp….”

“Oh.”

If Jack hadn’t felt so off balance, he might have found the flush on Gareth’s cheeks enticing. But all he could think of right then were six boys in small dark rooms, hearts beating like crazy while they listened for footsteps outside their doors and dreaded the sound of a key turning in the lock. It was little more than a suspicion at that point, a few whispered words overheard when Nico thought nobody else was around. But if there was even a chance that it was true…. “I’m gonna kill him if he’s screwed this up, knife wound or no,” he said with deadly conviction.

“Then it’s
much
better that I go see them.” Gareth’s voice was firm. “You keep doing your stuff. Remember that there’s an emergency board meeting later this afternoon. Make sure there’s network access for anyone attending, but keep it contained.”

“Why on a Saturday?” Jack shook his head clear of the disturbing pictures and started to take notes.

“Julian’s cousins got their knickers in a twist,” Gareth replied with a negligent wave. “It’s crap, anyway. Most of the department heads won’t make it. Niki Desmond is covering HR. Aidan is out of town, but Alex will brief him when he’s back. Gavin and Lynn—that’s prospecting and mining—are at a conference and won’t be back in time. Not sure if Tim Gorish is coming himself, or if he’s sending someone. Paul Kendall is holding the fort for refining and ops. None of the family are execs, so keep their access to the extranet. No need to borrow trouble.”

“Gorish is finance, right?” Jack scribbled on a Post-it. He frowned at the list of names. “That’s hardly half the board. And I can’t remember what you didn’t tell me in the first place, you know?”

“You’re right. I told Frazer to handle that. Julian’s family is… well, combative. One of his cousins is pitching a fit and making noises about wanting to remove Julian as CEO.”

“What?” That was actually funny. After realizing that Gareth Flynn wasn’t listed as a company director in official communications, it hadn’t taken Jack long to figure out that Alexandra Marston had never left MI6. A mining and prospecting firm was a handy cover to explore far-flung places, gather intel, and open doors that would remain firmly shut to anyone remotely associated with a secret service. Jack doubted that Julian Nancarrow himself was an operative—the man’s looks were far too memorable—but he had to be aware and supportive of Alexandra Marston’s work. Knowing that, Jack wanted to be a fly on the wall when Alex found out about his cousin threatening Julian’s tenure as CEO. “Is the man suicidal?”

“Just full of shit,” Gareth snorted, and then he suddenly stared at Jack as if he’d grown a second head. “You’re a fucking menace, you know that?”

To which Jack merely shrugged and smirked before returning to his work.

G
ARETH
WASN
’
T
prepared to see Lisa holding Baxter’s hand when he walked into Clive’s hospital room, but he pushed the surprise down before it could register on his face. If Lisa thought the detective was her cup of tea, who was he to argue? He didn’t have to agree, after all, and it might keep the blond out of Jack’s way more often than not.

“Where is Jack?” Lisa’s voice was a touch sharp as she posed the question, but Gareth had known Lisa long enough to put that down to embarrassment and ignore it.

“Working,” he replied and held out a cardboard carrier with Starbucks mugs in it. “Wasn’t sure if they’d let you have coffee yet, but I brought some anyway.”

Baxter reached for his with a grateful sigh, and Gareth could tell when he caught the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. “Who told you how I like my coffee?”

“Jack.”

“Thank him for me.”

“Knock it off. You should be thanking me on bent knee that I’m keeping Jack at work. He’d be kicking your ass right about now.”

“Why?”

Gareth stared at Baxter, who looked pale but otherwise awake, and wondered how drugged up the man actually was. And why Lisa was letting him get away with that bullshit. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he sighed.

“First Jack absconds with our only witnesses and won’t tell anyone where he’s taken them. Then he spends all his time at work,” Baxter griped, and Gareth wanted to tell him that he sounded like a petulant four-year-old. “It’s like he doesn’t care about getting the pimp off the street,” Baxter said, passing judgment.

“Yeah?” Gareth recalled the conversation between Jack and the two boys he’d overheard in the safe house and held on to his temper with both hands. “If that’s what you think, I wonder why you keep asking for his help,” he growled, not at all mollified when Baxter had the grace to blush.

“You have to admit that it looks that way,” Lisa placated.

“I have to admit shit. Jack’s doing his job. Only, it’s not actually
his
job, you know. You should be out there trying to find those other boys, or resting your bruised ribs, but no—you go out to attract attention and piss off our quarry. If he loses those boys, Jack will kick your ass. I guarantee that.” Gareth took a deep breath that did nothing to calm him. “I might even help him.”

“There are other boys?”

“Yes. Six of them.”

“He hasn’t said anything about that.”

Gareth scoffed at the offended tone in Baxter’s voice. “Pot, meet kettle. Of course he didn’t tell you. He hasn’t seen you since he took the boys to the safe house, and in case you’d forgotten, you have yourself a little security issue over at the Yard. Besides, you were the one who sent him into that club with only half the story, so those hurt looks don’t work on me.”

“I had no evidence. Only rumors.”

“Well, good morning to you too. Jack is working to substantiate the information he has before he tells all and sundry. Now tell me you had a good and valid reason for straying into that club without a warrant or backup.”

“I had a tip that the pimp would be in the club,” Baxter confided after sharing a long look with Lisa.

“From a reliable source?”

“Clearly not.”

“The man wasn’t there?”

“He was. I saw him go in.” Clive stared at his coffee as if the dark liquid held the secrets of that fuck up of a night. “I got jumped,” he finished in a quiet voice, “before I could follow the pimp.”

Gareth cursed himself for not spending more time talking to Jack about Baxter. Never mind that it was anyone’s guess where they would have found the time to do it. What Baxter had said didn’t sound… right. The direction of his thoughts must have been easy to guess, since Lisa nodded before Gareth had time to say anything.

“I was thinking the same. We’ve pulled in Clive’s informant. Maybe that will shed some light.”

“J
ACK
?” D
ON
Frazer’s voice shook so badly that Jack was out of his chair and around the desk before the Scot had finished speaking.

It was late afternoon. Gareth was meeting with Lisa and Baxter. The Nancarrow Mining HQ lay deserted except for Don Frazer and Jack Horwood in the corporate security office and a couple of directors who were late leaving after the board meeting. Gareth had sent everyone else home after lunch. Jack hadn’t budged, needing a lot more time to untangle the website traffic, and Frazer was deep into keyword data and happy as a clam, so Gareth had left them to it. The two of them had worked amicably side by side until Frazer’s outburst.

“What is it?”

“Tim Gorish.”

“What?”

“Tim Gorish. He’s the leak.”

“You’re sure?”

Frazer waved at the numbers on his screen, a recent P&L statement as far as Jack could tell. Hardly something to get into a tizzy about. Added to that, the Scot didn’t flap easily. Jack checked the total at the bottom of the page and recalled his matrix:

03: Finance Department, 01: The Director.

Shit.

Frazer was so pale the freckles across his nose looked like spatters of dried blood. He nodded, the mouse pointer tracing down the columns filled with numbers.

“I didn’t get what you meant, at first,” he confided. “But when I saw the data we recovered, I realized that it’s easy to tell. You
made
it easy.”

“
We
did.” Jack debated for a moment before he placed a hand on Frazer’s shoulder and squeezed, unable to offer more than that tiny bit of silent comfort. “We can rerun the figures to double check if you want,” he offered.

“I did before I called you. Twice.” Frazer drew a deep breath and looked up. “Will you sanity check me? Just….”

“Of course.” Jack reached across the desk for his laptop and pulled up a chair beside Frazer. “This part of the job is never easy,” he said as he logged himself in. “Why don’t you back up his access logs while I verify the numbers?”

“Could you check his laptop? He’s still in the building, and you’re better at….” Frazer blushed crimson, and Jack couldn’t hold back a chuckle.

“Sneaking around, breaking the law, sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted?”

“Wasn’t meant as an insult, whatever Mason said,” Frazer grunted, pink from collar to ears.

“Didn’t take it as one,” Jack assured him cheerfully. “I’ve learned how to fight dirty. You never had to. ’S not a bad thing, you know.”

“What if he destroys evidence as we speak?”

Jack’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he accessed Tim Gorish’s laptop. “Why should he? He has no idea you’ve caught up to him. He also knows that we can monitor his laptop while he’s here, and he’d only alert us by doing that. The most likely… oooh, yeah!” Jack chuckled as the Scot jumped up and almost tripped in his haste to look over Jack’s shoulder.

“What?”

“Now why would his laptop need a second level operating system?”

“We didn’t install that!” Don Frazer sounded indignant, which only served to remind Jack how young Don was, not in years—after all, Jack was only four years older—and certainly not in technical expertise, but in exposure to thieves and scumbags.

“Do you think he’s gonna leave the laptop here?”

“I don’t know the man,” Jack commented absently, exploring the programs and data files on the machine. “Is he that stupid? Do me a favor and call the boss. I’m sure he wants to know.”

“But….”

“You’re not accusing anyone,” Jack soothed when he realized what bothered Don. “This stays between us until we confirm beyond all doubt that Gorish is the leak. But Gareth needs to know. Right away.”

Frazer grabbed his phone and walked toward the windows, ears red and shoulders tense. Jack spared a thought to wonder how well Don Frazer knew the company’s finance director. He himself had never cared that much about a suspect that it had bothered him to take them down, but he could imagine that it might leave him feeling dirty and off-kilter if he did. Jack turned in his chair, giving Frazer a little more privacy and returned to his work. He didn’t look up again until Gorish’s laptop was suddenly shut down, and it was only then that he noticed that Frazer had left the office.

“Stupid idiot!”

Jack should have known that Frazer wouldn’t do this by the book. The kid was too straight, too innocent to realize he was putting himself in harm’s way.

Jack flew down the stairs, not bothering with the elevator, and almost face-planted when he caught his heel on the next to last step. He pushed through the double doors onto the floor that housed the finance department just in time to hear the jarring crash of a heavy object hitting glass. A lot of glass.