Job Hunt (29 page)

“There goes the coffee table.” He crossed the deserted office, not daring to hope that it was Gorish who’d taken out the glass top with his body.

The finance director was packing. His laptop sat beside several thick manila folders, and Gorish’s briefcase was full of papers. Why the man couldn’t use a scanner and a handful of USB keys like a normal person Jack would never understand. A second later Gorish’s motivations ceased to matter entirely, because Don Frazer lay motionless in the wreckage of the coffee table. And that was just all shades of fucked up.

Jack flanked the desk in a single leap. His fist took Gorish in the jaw the moment the man turned. The punch laid him out, and Jack didn’t stop to check if Gorish’s head had met something hard enough to do damage, too concerned with the motionless Scot on the carpet. He slapped the intercom on the broad desk on the way past.

“Gorish’s office, now!” he barked when Alexandra Marston’s voice answered the call, and then he dropped to his knees beside Frazer.

“Donald, can you hear me?” The coffee table’s solid glass top hadn’t broken. It had shattered into hundreds of small, sharp fragments instead. Jack pushed as much of the glass aside as he could, using his sleeves to protect his hands from the shards, then carefully turned Don onto his side, making sure he had an airway. Blood darkened the ginger hair and slowly trickled down the younger man’s neck.

“Frazer, talk to me!” Jack tried again, reluctant to move Frazer more than necessary. He had nothing to stop the bleeding after clearing the glass with his shirt, so he laid his hand over the wound and pressed down. The blood was hot against his palm, and he could feel Frazer’s steady pulse with his fingertips.

“Here.” A wide gauze pad was held into his field of vision, and Jack shifted to make room for Alex Marston. “Move your hand,” she instructed when she was in position, neatly placing the pad over the gash in Frazer’s skull. The Scot moaned softly and stirred.

“Frazer, can you hear me?”

“My teeth hurt,” Donald mumbled, the words almost too slurred to make out.

“Anything else?”

“My head?”

“I would imagine so. Can you open your eyes?”

Frazer slitted his eyes open. “’S bright,” he complained.

“But you can see?”

“Yes.”

“How many fingers?”

“Two.”

“Good. Stay there. Don’t move.”

Jack looked at Alex, who considered him in that grave, careful way she had. “I can take over here,” she offered after a moment.

“That would be good,” Jack agreed. He had work to do, and if he stayed—and Gorish returned to consciousness—he’d do damage.

When he pushed to his feet and headed for the door, he spotted Gareth, still in his leather jacket as if he’d just come in.

“Baxter’s fine,” Gareth told him, and Jack needed a moment to put it all together.

“Can you get him checked out for a concussion?” he asked, tilting his head toward Don Frazer. “He was out cold when I got here.”

“What are you going to do?”

Jack snagged Gorish’s laptop off the desk and turned toward the door. “I have a hot lead to follow.”

T
HE
NEON
strips in the ceiling flickered to life when Gareth stepped into the corporate security office. It was past 8:00 p.m., and Jack sat hunched over his keyboard in a small yellow pool of light cast by his desk lamp. His fingers moved swiftly despite the tired slump to his shoulders, and he paid little heed to the suddenly bright illumination that heralded company.

Gareth had always been impressed by Jack’s capacity for work and the intense level of concentration he could maintain, even when tired. Two long days and a short night were dragging on Gareth’s body and mind, and he couldn’t imagine that Jack felt any livelier. But there he sat, doggedly plugging away at… whatever it was he was doing.

“Let’s go home,” Gareth suggested when he reached Jack’s desk, not at all surprised when Jack didn’t react.

“Jack.”

“Got stuff to do.”

“You can carry on at my place. Gorish is spending the night in the clink, and Frazer is waiting downstairs in my car. Don’t make me drag you out.”

Jack’s busy fingers stopped their dance over the keys. “Is Frazer all right?”

“Six stitches and a tetanus shot. They don’t think he has a concussion, and they were happy to send him home provided someone keeps an eye on him overnight. So, he’s coming home with us. I’ll make dinner, and you two can geek until you pass out. Bring his kit, will you?”

Gareth’s tone had drifted toward bossy there at the end, but Jack seemed content to let it slide. He froze his screens, stowed his laptop, tablet, and phone, and then went around the desk to Frazer’s side to pack a similar bag of toys for Don.

“How are you getting on?”

“Gorish’s a piece of work, and you won’t like what I think I’m finding,” he said as they made their way out of the office.

“I won’t like it regardless.”

“His laptop is… very nice.”

Gareth huffed a surprised laugh. That statement, coming from Jack of all people, was hilarious. He’d sounded almost dreamy. “Very nice? Really? Nice as in geekspeak nice?”

“Oh, yeah. He didn’t do that himself.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been dissecting his files, how do you think? He doesn’t have the mind for devising something so neat. Hell, even the man’s VBA is clunky!”

Gareth stopped halfway down the stairs. “Where
is
Gorish’s laptop?”

“In your safe. If Julian wants to press charges, the police will need it. Don’t worry, I have left it as I found it, and I’ve documented every keystroke I made to get what I needed.”

“You’ve done this before.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “You think?”

“Actually, I didn’t. You were a spook, remember?”

“I was a lot of things.”

Jack’s shoulders brushed Gareth’s as they walked, and Gareth felt a wash of warmth at the little gesture. Despite all this mess, they were making progress.

“Daniel and Nico say hi,” he said as they reached the ground floor and crossed the empty lobby to the garage entrance.

Jack went still. “You went to see them?”

“After I dropped Frazer off at the hospital, and they said it would take a couple of hours to check him out.” Gareth held the door open and waited for Jack to catch up. “They were hard at work on your code, but they spared me a minute of their valuable time.”

Don Frazer was waving from the passenger seat of the Range Rover, looking surprisingly chipper after his run-in with Tim Gorish, and Jack lifted the bag to show he’d brought his gear.

“They were looking much better,” Gareth concluded just as they reached the car. “More… alive.”

If he hadn’t kept his eyes on Jack the whole time, he would have missed Jack’s grateful smile and quiet word of thanks in the flood of recriminations that started as soon as Jack climbed into the Range Rover.

“I’m sorry,” Frazer blurted out.

“You’re a fucking idiot!” Jack snapped while he dumped the bags on the seat and belted himself in.

“I already said I was sorry!”

“Yeah, but for the wrong things, I just bet!”

Frazer turned in his seat and looked at Jack. “Gorish hired me, Jack. I still don’t believe he….”

“Nobody asked you to believe it.” Gareth could tell that Jack made an effort to keep his voice even and the volume down. “We just found evidence. Evidence isn’t proof. All we were doing is securing what we’d found. Now, of course, you’ve got a broken head, Gorish’s in on assault charges, and the evidence we need to clear or convict him of fraud may very well be down the drain.”

“Wish I’d recorded that little speech,” Gareth commented as he maneuvered the car out of the garage and into the traffic streaming along the Strand. “Could have played it to you, next time you go off on one of your excursions.”

Jack’s jaw clamped shut, and Frazer turned back around so he faced forward.

“Was he right?” the Scot asked Gareth after a half a mile.

“Yes. Now that Gorish knows we’re after him he’ll wiggle like an eel.”

“He couldn’t have destroyed any evidence. You and Dr. Marston were in the room with him the whole time until the police came.”

“He was allowed to call his lawyer from the police station,” Jack pointed out from the back. “What if he said, ‘Get me out of here, and while you’re at it… remember that envelope I gave you a few months ago? Put it through the shredder.’”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“Clearly not. And I’m not really mad at you, Don. I’m mad at myself for not keeping an eye on you. How’s the head?”

“Hurts, but that’s all. You shouldn’t
have
to keep an eye on me.”

“Listen, if you sent me into a ballet studio or a restaurant kitchen you’d have to keep an eye on
me
. I didn’t say you couldn’t do your job. I was saying that with a fraud investigation you were out of your element.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Time out,” Gareth cut in. “You sound like bickering six-year-olds. Why don’t you get some rest while I drive and carry on arguing once we’re home? Then you”—he threw a look at Jack in the rear view mirror—“won’t have to yell, and you”—a sideways look at Don Frazer—“won’t have to twist your neck like an owl.”

It was an ego boost for Gareth that neither of the two even tried to argue.

C
HAPTER
NINETEEN
C
HASE

A
FTER
THE
productive quiet of a Sunday at Gareth’s house, catching up on both work and his sleep deficit, Monday morning hit Jack like a blow to the gut. Frazer had woken grouchy and had admitted to a migraine-strength headache and blurry vision. Gareth wasn’t taking chances. He handed Jack a key to his front door, bundled Frazer into the car, and headed straight for the hospital, leaving Jack to tidy up and take the bike to work.

The ride restored some normality, and Nancarrow Mining’s underground garage was starting to feel like a familiar place. Jack parked the Gixxer and pulled off his helmet as he walked deeper into the building, anticipating the smell of freshly roasted coffee emanating from the ground floor cafeteria.

It was early enough that he didn’t have to queue. Only a few minutes later, Jack mapped out the morning’s work in his head while he sipped at his cup of Java on the way up the stairs. The corporate security office lay deserted; the neon strips only flickering to life as Jack pushed the door open and stepped in.

His newly born complacent mood blew away like smoke in a gale when he caught sight of his desk and the video feed from the nightclub frozen on two of the screens.

“Bloody hell!” The need to hit something—anything—was sudden and all consuming.

Clive was in the hospital with a stab wound.

Frazer had stitches in his head.

The pimp was in the wind, nameless and almost faceless.

The data leak at Nancarrow Mining hadn’t been neutralized yet….

So why the fuck had he let Gareth talk him into going home on Saturday night?

Jack knew why, of course. Scowling, he picked up his phone and dialed Gareth’s number.

“Problems?” Gareth’s voice came with a background of loudspeaker announcements and excited babble.

“I forgot about Clive.” It needed saying, but Jack hated it. At least Gareth knew him well enough so he didn’t have to explain any further than that.

“It’s being dealt with. Clive said that he saw the pimp enter the club, so Lisa has asked Walshaw to look at the feed to see if he can spot him. They’ll try and get a usable image this time.” Gareth’s voice was maddeningly calm and reasonable. “There’s also a CCTV camera that covers the area just outside the alley where Clive was stabbed, and they’re looking at that too.”

“When were you gonna tell me?”

“Later today, or whenever you asked. I haven’t checked in with Raf or Lisa yet today, so I have no idea whether they’ve found anything yet.”

“Right. How’s Frazer?”

“No damage as far as they can tell. They’ve done an MRI scan, and there’s no swelling or clot. Doctor in charge thinks he’s just overdone it. They’ll keep him in today and tomorrow to make sure he’s keeping quiet.”

“Okay.”

“Jack. It’s not your fault. None of it.”

“I know. I’ll speak to you later, okay?” Gareth’s assurances didn’t make him feel any better. Neither did knowing that Gareth had caught the ball that Jack had dropped. Jack wasn’t used to anyone picking up after him, and being a liability sucked.

“Morning.”

Aidan Conrad stood in the empty office, sporting a couple of fresh bruises and looking as tired and frustrated as Jack felt. Maybe here was a way to clear his head. “You wanna spar?”

“No,” he growled. “I want you to brief me on all the shit that’s been going down since Friday.” He waved his phone at Jack in short, jerky motions as he spoke. “Thing’s been burning my ear all the way from the airport just from the messages.”

“Got coffee?”

“You bet, Horwood. You bet.”

B
RIEFING
A
IDAN
was easier, in some ways, than talking to Gareth. The lawyer was just as blunt as Gareth, but their interaction lacked the baggage of shared history and the deference that Jack struggled to shake whenever he went head-to-head with Gareth Flynn. Without any expectations on Aidan’s part, Jack felt more at ease admitting mistakes.

“How do you want it?” he asked, tossing his tablet onto the table in the small meeting room and reaching for the pot of coffee that had just finished brewing. The rich smell alone was heaven, and since he’d eaten breakfast before leaving Gareth’s house, he didn’t have to ruin the fragrant brew with sugar.

Aidan took his mug with the same clear enjoyment. “I’ve been out of town since Thursday night. So chronologically from Friday morning, please. And include that police crap you’ve got going on. Maybe I can help.”

“Didn’t think you’d wanna. ’S not your crap.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

Jack blinked. Stared. He was used to a world built on plausible deniability. If he screwed up, there would be no help. If he were caught, they’d throw away the key. He had informants, money, caches of gear, and safe places, but before Gareth had walked back into his life, the only person he’d ever considered backup was Rio Palmer. Aidan’s intimating that Nancarrow Mining was more than a job was….