Chapter 10
Luke
“Mr. Simpson?” Margaret, our office manager, interrupts me.
“Yes?”
“I have a Ms. Telford here for you, sir.”
“Thank you, please bring her to the conference room in ten minutes and then you can go home for the night. Thanks for staying late.”
“Not a problem, sir.”
Margaret has been a God-send, especially once everything went to hell for Alec. I swear if it wasn’t for her, this place may not be standing right now. She was the first administrative staff person we hired, so she’s been with us almost from day one. She’s always willing to work a little later when needed, like tonight, thanks to Alec scheduling this interview after when she normally leaves. She reminds me of a cross between someone’s grandmother and their favorite aunt. She can joke with the best of us, which isn’t easy considering the large number of alpha-type men we hire. But at the same time, she cares about everyone deeply.
I gather up my laptop and notepad before heading into the conference room. The place is empty, though that isn’t unusual because other than Jose and Margaret, our employees work in the field and not in the office. They will pop into the office to touch base, but even most of that is handled via conference calls.
“Mr. Simpson? Ms. Telford is here for your meeting,” Margaret announces before stepping aside.
“Ms. Telford—”
Holy shit. Talk about not being what I expected at all. Based on Alec’s description, I was expecting a meek, shy woman. However, one glance at the beautiful woman who walks into the conference room tells me that my assumptions couldn’t be more wrong. She screams confidence, but not arrogance. Her head is held high as she maintains eye contact with me, walking towards me as if we’ve met several times already. Her shoulder-length, wavy, auburn hair catches my attention almost immediately. The second thing I notice is her attire: she’s dressed in a pantsuit that is fitted just enough to complement her curves.
“Mr. Simpson, thank you for taking the time to meet with me today, especially on such short notice.”
“Of…course, please have a seat.” I gesture toward the chair next to me, but once again, she surprises me. Rather than taking that seat, she walks around and sits in the chair on the opposite side of the table from the one I suggested. Interesting. It’s definitely not a power play, because she didn’t try to take my seat at the head of the table.
“Mr. Simpson, will you need anything else?”
“No, thank you. Have a good night, Margaret.”
While she looks through the bag she was carrying, I take a moment to, once again, look at the woman in front of me. I quickly push away any preconceived notions I had about her from what Alec told me earlier. I look away just as she sweeps her hair from her face, but not before her stunning blue eyes meet mine for the briefest moment.
That’s all it takes, for that moment to take me back to the worst time in my life. The eye color might be the only similarity to the young girl who still haunts my dreams at night, but it is enough for the memories to come rushing back. The last time I saw her, the last time I held her against me, the last time I told her I loved her.
I shake my head. When our eyes meet again, something flashes in hers, but it’s gone before I can even wonder what it was. She slides her resume across the table, but not without me noticing her shaking hands. Maybe the confidence I thought she had is just an act?
“Tell me, Ms. Telford—”
“Emily, please.”
Of course, she wouldn’t let me get away with calling her anything but the name that I’ll never be able to say again without thinking of her.
“I know you’ve worked very closely with my partner, Alec, recently on a few cases. And from the looks of your resume, it seems you tend to contract with several different companies part-time. If you don’t mind me asking, what brings you here today? Not just here, but to Virginia, specifically?”
“It’s time,” she says. Just when I think that’s the only answer she’s going to provide, she takes a deep breath, slowly letting it out before continuing. “I don’t know if Alec told you, but my father… he was very sick for a long time before he passed away—”
“I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” She closes her eyes briefly, and I’m torn about whether I should tell her to stop, tell her she doesn’t need to continue, or letting her continue. If I’m going to consider hiring her, I need to be certain she’s in this for the long haul. “Before he became ill, I worked full-time at a large software development company. My job was primarily to find ways to hack into the software that was being developed for companies who wanted and needed their systems hack proof. I loved it. I was on a fast track to moving up in the company because of my abilities. But then my dad got sick.
“At first, he tried to hide it… but as the disease progressed it was obvious he couldn’t do it all on his own. I was fortunate enough to be able to take a part-time position with the company rather than leaving entirely. They offered me the flexibility to work when I wanted, which was key with Dad’s doctor appointments.”
“How did you go from working at a software company to contracting with police departments, the FBI and ultimately Alec? It’s quite a jump.”
“It is, but it’s not. My dad works…worked for a police department before he got sick. His coworkers would occasionally stop in and talked to him. During one of the visits, they were discussing a case—I know it sounds silly, but he used to say that talking about cases would keep his mind off of what was happening to him. Anyway, they were stuck because they knew this guy was guilty, but they lacked the evidence. They had eye witnesses who told them that this guy possessed hundreds of pictures of… young children. I happened to walk into the room at that moment, and my dad suggested I could help. I agreed, and within a few hours, I was able to hack into the hidden server that the guy had and find the evidence the DA needed to move forward with the case. After that, they asked me to consult on other cases.”
“Did you ever go back to the software company?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I enjoyed what I did there, but this…it was different. It gave me a sense of…”
“Purpose,” I suggest.
“Yes.” She smiles sadly. “Not that I didn’t have a purpose with that company, because I did—I was helping to protect companies, and by extension, customers. This was just different.”
“Has Alec explained both sides of our business?” I ask.
“Yes, you provide security protection to anyone from politicians to local celebrities to businessmen… basically, anyone who is in need of your services.”
“Correct. Our computer expert is tasked with getting at the information that they might be hiding from us, looking into threats against them, and at times, accessing security cameras of locations we can’t get into ahead of time to ensure their safety.”
“That’s not a problem. I’ve done similar work with San Diego’s police department. Between us and these walls, I’ve hacked into the city’s traffic cams and even into bank security systems to keep their officers safe when they’re in the field.”
“And they didn’t offer you a job?”
“They did.” She laughs. “But, there, I was always known as my father’s daughter. I would always be in his shadow. They would never really see me as a coworker.”
“Understandable. So, Alec has told you about the other side of our business?”
“Yes, I’m sure he told you that I consulted with him on a case recently.”
“He did.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you do it? It would be easy enough to look the other way, to pretend those problems don’t exist at the end of the day. Why do you risk everything, to help people you don’t know, Luke?”
Holy shit. How did she turn the tables around so quickly?
“Because sometimes people need someone to stand up for them, to offer them something when they think they have nothing. Because without us, things might never get better for some of the people we work with. Sometimes, it isn’t about the money and whether or not people can afford to hire us.”
“That’s very admirable.”
“It’s not,” I quickly argue.
“You don’t have to do what you do. You don’t have to risk your lives to help them.”
“If we didn’t, who would? With many of these situations, others want to help, but are bound by the law and can’t. We’re not bound by the same laws. But the question is: are you okay with doing the same thing? Are you okay with risking your name, your reputation? Because if you’re caught—”
“I won’t be.”
“You sound pretty certain.”
“I am.” The confidence she walked in with suddenly reappears. “Some of what I’ve done in the past hasn’t been that different from what you and Alec do. I know how to stay hidden, to get information without being seen, without leaving a trace. No one will be able to find me.”
“Alec found you,” I point out.
“He found me because I let him find me.” She smiles. “Trust me, if I didn’t want him to find me, he never would have.”
“Then why did you?”
“I watched him for a while, trying to get a feel on him. At one point, it was obvious he was trying to find someone but was struggling. I contacted him, asked a few questions and gave him the information he couldn’t find. I thought that was the end, but a month or so later he was back, again looking for information. It wasn’t something I could help with at the time, but I pointed him in a direction, and from what I understand your current computer guy was able to get the information he was looking for.”
“What changed? He never really said how you two met.”
“One night—it wasn’t long after my dad—I wasn’t sleeping well at night, so I had been spending a lot of time in different chat rooms, which is ultimately where we bumped into each other again.”
“What kind of chat rooms?”
“I wasn’t ready to start working again; I just wasn’t ready to… commit to anything, I guess you could say. But I missed my work. There are chat rooms for everything, if you know where to find them. I belonged to a few: everything from families trying to bring loved ones into the country, to abused wives wanting to leave their spouses, to parents of missing children. Sometimes I would pop in and offer some assistance; just doing a couple of hours work was enough to keep me sane during those days.”
“That’s where you found Alec?”
“I hadn’t talked to him in some time, but he used the same handle in the groups so he was easy to pick out. He was asking for recommendations…essentially for this position. My handle was repeatedly mentioned as I had worked with several of the group members over the last couple of years. I waited a few days and then reached out to him. I knew he would try to have his current guy try to find me, but like I told you, if I don’t want to be found, you’re not going to find me digitally. I have several different handles I use that cannot be traced back to me.”
“You’re certain?”
“You can ask your current guy, but when I reached out to Alec and let him know I knew he was looking for me, he wasn’t surprised. He told me about your side business, and actually left out what your company really does, then asked if I would consult on some cases. I didn’t really want to. Like I said, I wasn’t in the position to fully commit to anything. But then he told me about this case you guys were working on. The one where the father had kidnapped the newborn baby…”
“That was a tough one.”
It ended in our favor, but it was definitely one of the hardest cases we’ve ever worked.
“Of course, I couldn’t say no, so I agreed to consult. In the end, I don’t know that I helped much, but it definitely helped me. Afterward, he kept pestering me to join your team, even just part-time; he was certain that there would be a full-time position opening shortly. I couldn’t consider it though; the last thing I wanted to do was move across the country and start something new.”
“Yet, here you are. What changed?”
For a moment I don’t think she’s going to answer the question. She closes her eyes, almost as if she’s trying to gather her thoughts.