Chapter
Twelve

Owen sat in the living room of Lew’s penthouse in a Midtown high-rise. He’d just finished recounting to Lew everything he knew up to this point.

Lew had interrupted only a couple of times, asking questions, but besides that had let Owen talk. Now Lew sat in silence, and his face had grown noticeably red. Owen thought it best to give him time to process the bombshell he had just dropped.

“I’m going to need a stiffer drink. Do you want anything?” Lew asked.

“No. I’m good.” Owen wanted to make sure he was thinking clearly for this important conversation.

Lew returned a couple of minutes later with a drink in his hand. “How in the world did this happen?”

“Unfortunately, there can always be a bad apple out there.”

“Bad apple!” Lew uncharacteristically raised his voice. “This could bring down the entire company! Everything I’ve worked the past decade to build. Everything the rest of the team has worked on. This has been our entire lives.”

Owen had to keep Lew calm. “I know. Which is why we need to decide how we want to handle this right away. And the biggest question we have to ask ourselves is who we bring into the circle.”

“I don’t think we can bring anyone else into the circle. Until we know more, everyone is suspect. And I mean everyone.” Lew’s face got even redder.

“Mia brought this to me. I think we could use her help.”

Lew nodded. “Yes. That’s good, she doesn’t count. But no one inside the company can know about this. We can’t take the risk that we’ll tip them off. This has to be completely off the grid.”

“I think that’s the right call at this juncture.” Owen was relieved that Lew didn’t want to pull in the rest of the executive team.

“We need someone who can get into our system and figure out what’s going on, but it has to be an outside source. Not one of our internal IT people.”

“I’m sure Mia has someone who can help.” Owen made a mental note to get right on that.

“Good.” Lew set down his drink. “And as far as the lawsuit, we just march forward?”

“Yes. We’ll take some heat on the missing data, for sure, but I think you’ll agree that we just have to face the consequences. The viability of the company is the thing that matters most right now.”

“I think we need to focus on the executive leadership first and work our way down.”

“Understood. I’ll talk with Mia, get an action plan together, and circle back.”

“You realize this is all of our jobs on the line?”

All too well. “Yes, sir, I do. I’ll do my best to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.”

“I also want you to be thinking about every legal action we can take against this culprit when we find him or her.”

“Will do.”

Lew nodded, and Owen got the feeling he was being dismissed. He rose from his chair, and so did Lew.

“Thanks for bringing this to me so quickly,” Lew said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you in my corner. And please thank Mia for her diligence as well.”

As he left the apartment, Owen pulled out his cell. He hated calling his outside counsel this late, but Mia would understand. They had a lot of work ahead of them.

Noah had been surprised to receive a call from Mia asking to meet at her office. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he happily agreed to the meeting. He’d given her the identity of her attacker once he’d discovered it and wondered if this request for a meeting had something to do with that.

It was ironic that Mia was the first woman he’d been seriously attracted to since the debacle with his ex. But attraction was one thing. Acting on it was another. She was in a vulnerable state right now, and he worried that he might be misreading the signs.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t continue to work with her as he tried to prove David’s innocence. It just meant that he needed to draw a clean line in the sand and know in his own head and heart where he stood with her. He had a feeling that if he did open his heart to her, things could get really messy, really quickly.

As he waited in the reception area on the thirtieth floor, it reminded him what different worlds the two of them lived in. The posh and swanky law firm was a vast departure from his sparsely decorated and practical office a few minutes away downtown.

But he was also reminded of Mia’s words about having to pay off her debt. He knew that large firms like this paid top dollar, and he wasn’t begrudging her that.

A few minutes later, Mia walked into the lobby to greet him. Today she wasn’t wearing a suit but instead a light blue sweater and black pants. She had her long hair pulled back into a bun.

“Thanks for coming down,” she said.

“No problem. It’s just a few minutes from my office.”

“Come with me. Do you mind taking the stairs? I’m just one flight up.”

“Stairs are good with me.” He eyed the long staircase adorned with dark wood. Everything in this office came with a hefty price tag. “This place is pretty spectacular.”

“Yeah. When clients pay fees like ours, they expect to be pampered for it. The office upkeep is really important to firm management.”

He laughed. “We don’t have the same concern at K&R Security.”

She smiled at him. “We’re in different lines of business.” She led him down the hall and into her office, closing the door behind him. “Please sit.”

Noah looked out her window. “Great view. I’m guessing there aren’t any bad views up here.”

“Thanks. Sometimes it’s actually depressing having the view because I’m locked in here.”

“I get that.” He paused. “What did you want to talk about?”

She leaned forward. “First, I want to let you know that I contacted my DOJ friend about getting intel on Morrow. I’ll let you know if he knows anything.”

“Good. We’re working all of our sources too. Now that we have an ID, it’s only a matter of time before we figure this whole thing out.”

“Figuring this out is what I want to talk to you about. I need to hire you.”

He wasn’t expecting that. “Hire me? For what?”

“Remember I told you I’ve taken on a big case of Chase’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Something has come up that I need your help on. Would you be willing to sign a confidentiality agreement so I can explain in more detail?”

He was definitely intrigued but also a little hesitant. “Sure. I’ll sign one, but, of course, I’d like to hear everything before I commit to taking it on.”

Mia nodded. “Of course.” She opened up a manila folder on her desk and slid a piece of paper and a pen in front of him.

He took a moment to read the one-page agreement. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he picked up his pen and signed before giving the document back to her.

A half hour later, he’d heard what seemed like a pretty crazy story, but he was withholding judgment for now. She had given him enough information to make him agree to take the case.

“You’re concerned that there’s a mole, and you need me to get into the LCI system and see what I can find?”

“Yes, but you have to do it off the grid. You have the express permission of the CEO, Lew Winston. So whatever you need to get in without the LCI IT guys finding you, you can do.”

“You’re basically asking me to hack their system.”

She shifted in her seat. “Hacking implies something nefarious. This is aboveboard because Lew is the CEO and has signed off. I don’t know if you completely understand how high the stakes are here. The company could stand to lose millions if an LCI employee sells their tech to Baxter Global.”

“No, I get it.”

“We can also use the general counsel, Owen Manley, as a resource. If you need his help to get a door into the system, he can do that. I’m not well-versed in all your tech methods, so you’ll just have to let me know what you need from me or LCI.”

Noah started processing all of this information. “If we find out who planted the malware, then we find the mole.”

Mia tapped her pen on her notepad. “You’re the expert. However you think it’s best to go about your investigation, I will leave up to you. But needless to say, timing is important. The longer the mole goes undetected, the more damage he can do.”

“Is there a priority of suspects?”

“Yes. Glad you asked that. We need to start with the executive team. I can get you a list.” She started typing on her computer.

This side of Mia was all business, and it suited her well. He could tell how dedicated she was to this case. But there was something bothering him as he took everything in. “Can we go back for a minute?”

“Sure.” She turned her attention away from her computer screen. “I emailed you the list.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m concerned about the fact that Chase hid those documents in his desk and didn’t tell anyone what he knew. Isn’t that odd? Why didn’t he tell the general counsel immediately? That seems like it would be the first phone call no matter what, given the high stakes involved here and the potential implications to the viability of the company.”

Mia frowned. “I’ve thought about that a lot, and honestly I’m not sure what happened. You’re right that it’s very odd. My best guess is that Chase wanted to take the client something concrete and not just speculation.”

“Is that what you would’ve done?” He needed to understand if he was off base here.

She didn’t immediately answer. A few beats of silence passed between them. “I don’t think so, but it’s so hard to say when you’re not in the situation. Chase was probably conducting his own investigation, and his life got taken before he could get the answers he needed to feel he could go to the client. It’s a lot easier to look back, knowing what we do now, and question it. At the time, he was probably just trying to figure out what in the world was going on.” She shook her head. “I’ll put you in contact with Owen. It’s just Owen and Lew who have any idea about this, and we need to keep it that way.”

“Understood. Discretion is a huge part of my job.”

“Thanks for working on this. You have a reputation for being one of the best on this tech stuff.”

“In my business, half the battle is persistence. And I’m not one to give up.”