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Andrew went through the glass doors and grinned at their surprise. He hadn’t told them he’d be swinging by.
Jack tilted his head at a chair. “Sit. We’re being lazy while the staff isn’t around to see it.”
Andrew had to laugh as he sank into the chair. These two were the least lazy people he knew. Though, everyone had noticed Jack had started cutting back on his hours in the office when he married Kelly.
He still worked weekends and late nights when he absolutely had to but he no longer showed up before six am and left after eight at night.
“How’s Nora doing?” Chad asked.
“Stubborn is how she’s doing.” Andrew scowled as the other two men grinned at his response.
“She doesn’t want to do her physical therapy,” he said, “so I have to stand there every time the therapist comes to the house and remind Nora that we can check her into a residential rehab center if she doesn’t do the work. You would think after having that conversation three times a week for two weeks, she’d get it and we could be done with it.”
The men were laughing, but Chad glanced at the doors, his face going grim.
“Listen, as long as we’re here, I wanted to talk to you guys about Sam.”
Samantha Page was currently on leave from Sutton Capital while she worked for the FBI but they were hoping she’d come back when she was finished.
“How’s she doing?” Jack asked, sitting up and putting his arms on his legs as he leaned forward. “Any better?”
Chad shook his head. “Not unless crying on the couch as she watches the Wizard of Oz is better.”
Andrew cursed under his breath.
Samantha had come to work for them shortly after Chad took over security at Sutton when he’d finished out his last tour with the Army Rangers. She was a brilliant hacker who really could be doing more with her mind than working for them, but she and Chad had hit it off and she seemed to have found a place at the company.
Sam was socially awkward and quirky as hell, but to them, that was all the more reason to be there for her when she needed them. She wouldn’t reach out for help. She’d sit at home and try to handle what was happening on her own.
And since what she was doing for the FBI was related to Kelly’s kidnapping earlier that year, they all wanted to be sure she got through it.
“Will she talk to you about it?” Jack asked.
Chad lifted a shoulder. “To the extent she can. We had a conversation about a hypothetical woman who was helping the FBI track down women kidnapped and sold into slavery by a kidnapping ring. The gist of it was that Sam’s found five of the twelve women they know about and they’ve been rescued along with several other women they found during the operations.”
“Hypothetically,” Andrew said.
Chad gave a nod. “I told her its important for her to focus on the fact she got those women home and that’s a lot more than anyone could have hoped for. Most women who are sold like that don’t ever get out. But you guys know Samantha. She’s beating herself up that she hasn’t been able to track the others. This kind of work is hard on her.”
“Will she see someone about it?” Andrew asked.
Chad nodded. “She says she will. I’m going to speak to a friend of mine who works with former veterans and see if he has a recommendation for someone she can see about all this.”
“Good,” Jack nodded. “I’ll go by and see her soon, let her know we’re all here for whatever she needs.”
They could hear the office beginning to fill up as people returned from lunch and the buzz of conversation filtering out onto the patio also meant people would be able to hear them.
Andrew stood, making a mental note to call Sam when he could. Maybe he’d see if she’d done any more work on her multiplayer online game she was designing. He didn’t play them, but she’d told him about the world she was building one day at lunch and it sounded pretty freaking amazing. And that kind of creativity would probably be good for her right about now.
“Hey, Kelly and I are going to get drinks with a friend of hers after work today. You guys want to swing by?”
Chad shook his head. “Can’t make it tonight.”
Andrew shrugged. “I can.” He grinned. “I don’t have to wake up in the morning for work.”
Jack and Chad only rolled their eyes at him as he lifted a hand in a lazy wave and left them to get back to work.
Andrew walked into the bar in downtown New Haven and immediately saw Jack and Kelly. They sat at a tall bar table at the end of the long room. When Andrew approached, Kelly hopped down off the stool and hugged him.
