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“And?” Ryan demanded as he reached for the bag of chips and proceeded to demolish them. “What do you think?”
“About what?” Rachel asked as she studied her manicure. “Your update hasn’t exactly added anything to the investigation. It’s fabulous you’ve managed to bug all of the executive offices, but it hasn’t produced anything of use yet. And discovering that Cousin Marcus is having an affair with one of the sales reps isn’t exactly a shock. Everyone in the family knows his second marriage is already on the rocks.”
“Divorce costs money,” Ryan said around a mouthful of food.
“Yeah, but Marcus isn’t his father,” Rachel said, sounding bored. “He has a prenup. The divorce won’t affect his finances too much; Preston saw to that.”
“For a dude who’s supposed to be an expert in company law, that Preston guy seems to write a whole lot of prenups,” Ryan said. “As for Marcus, I still don’t like the guy; he drinks way too much. Who knows what stupid shit he’s done while drunk? My granddad always says a drunk man is an easy mark.” He tossed the empty bag onto the table and looked around for more food. There wasn’t any, because the pizza hadn’t arrived yet. “But then again, Granddad also spends his retirement hanging around my work and playing at war in the basement training room, so not sure how much stock we can put in his wisdom.”
Harvard grinned. Ryan’s granddad and granduncle treated the carpentry work they did for Benson Security as a hobby. Mainly they were there for the entertainment and gossip.
He turned his attention to Elle. “You got anything for us?”
“A whole lot of nothing.” She folded her arms over her pale blue T-shirt emblazoned with the words Trekkies do it on the starboard bow. Her hair, minus the red wig, was back to its usual pale blue. “The program Harry wrote to search for ghost activity on the TayFor computers has come up blank.”
“Have you managed to get it onto every machine?” Harvard took a sip of his beer as he glanced at Rachel. She was paying more attention to her iPhone than to the meeting.
“Pretty much,” Elle said. “There are a few laptops I still need to get my hands on, as they’re out on assignment, and our friendly head of security is slowing me down. Basically, he reckons he could find the thief faster if we just got out of his way. He’s even mentioned a few times that he could go to Jonathan and get us fired.”
“In his small-minded dreams,” Rachel said, her eyes still on that damn phone. She was like a teenager with it, and Harvard was getting to the stage where he was about to snap and confiscate the thing.
“The guy’s a dickhead.” Ryan wandered over to Rachel’s kitchen, looking for some more snacks to tide him over until the pizza got there.
“Don’t. Touch. Anything,” Rachel ordered, still not looking up. “You get so much as a fingerprint on my cabinets, and I will hurt you.”
“But there’s food in here now that Harvard’s moved in,” Ryan whined. “Real food. Not just yogurt, designer water, and wine. Harvard, my man, you bought the food, you should get a say in whether I can eat it or not.”
“Sit down,” Harvard said. “Pizza will be here soon. You can survive that long without chewing on something.”
“He can’t,” Rachel said. “He’s like a puppy. Always has to chew on something. Would you like one of Elle’s shoes?”
“Hey! Give him one of your own,” Elle snapped.
“These are Louboutins. You bought yours at the supermarket. Where no shoes should ever be sold.” She shuddered at the thought.
“Keep your shoes on,” Ryan said. “I’m not chewing on any of them.” But he didn’t sound too convinced.
“Focus, people,” Harvard said. “Terrance is only trying to do his job, and he sees our involvement as a threat to it.”
“It’s not that I don’t understand where he’s coming from,” Ryan said. “There’s always the suspicion that if he’d been more on the ball, the thefts wouldn’t have gone on this long. He feels he has to prove he didn’t screw up and let the thief slip past him. That doesn’t mean I don’t think he’s a dickhead though. He almost blew my cover today. I caught it in time, but it’s affected how the rest of security are dealing with me. They know he hates me,
and they don’t see the point in getting to know me because they figure I’ll be gone soon. Makes it hard talking to them.”
“I’ll deal with him tomorrow,” Harvard promised. No one messed with his missions. Ever.
“Meanwhile,” Elle said, tapping at her keyboard and making Harvard want to grab a basket, put it in the middle of the table, and force everyone to put their devices in it for the duration. This job was turning him into his mom. “Word came back on young Rupert’s trip to Paris. The upshot is, he wasn’t in France at all. He was playing the German casinos, and he lost a wad of cash. Far as I can tell, he hit his mum up for a loan when he got back, but she’s broke right now too because she fell off the wagon and snorted her money. Uncle Racist, or Charles as he likes to be known, doesn’t know about any of this.”
“What about Samantha?” Harvard asked. “Has anyone in her family asked her to finance their habits?”
“No idea.” Elle shrugged. “Samantha’s a hard nut to crack. Her finances are wrapped up tight, and her social media is full of fashion advice, hashtag blessed life photos, and hashtag hunk content. There’s a ton of banal stuff on there, and it’s taking me forever to wade through.”
“You think there’s any chance she’s the one stealing secrets?” Harvard asked. “Maybe to help out her brother and mom?”
“I honestly don’t think so,” Elle said. “But I wouldn’t put anything past her. As far as I can gather, if Samantha wants something, she’ll do anything to get it—including sending one of her boy toys to fetch it for her. I get the impression Samantha doesn’t like to get her hands dirty.”
“With the amount of money Samantha spends on her wardrobe, I doubt she has any left to help out her family anyway,” Rachel said to her phone.
That was it. Harvard stood and calmly walked around the table. He removed the phone from Rachel and the laptop from Elle before heading back to his seat.
