Chapter
Twenty

Owen’s stomach was in knots as he entered the conference room at Warren McGee, flanked by Lew on one side and Mia on the other. The past few days had gone by quickly as they scrambled to prepare Lew and to push as hard as they could on the internal investigation. Noah claimed they were making progress and that he’d have a definitive report within the next forty-eight hours. Owen could only imagine what he was finding.

Today would be Owen’s first direct interaction with the infamous ice queen, Bonnie Olson. When she sashayed into the conference room, Owen sized her up. She looked very similar to what he had imagined. Probably a little older than him, she commanded the room from the moment her black, insanely high-heeled shoe crossed over the threshold. He wasn’t into fashion, but even he could tell that her gray skirt suit was tailored and probably more expensive than five of his suits combined.

Bonnie shook hands with Mia first while Mia made introductions. When Bonnie got to Owen, she gave him a shake that showed she meant business. It almost hurt. He felt like she had to be overcompensating. He realized it was hard for women to make it to the very top of big law firms, and she’d started that climb when it was even harder.

He didn’t have anything against her personally, but right now she was enemy number one because she wanted to take down his client.

“I’d like to get started,” Bonnie said. “I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.”

Owen took a seat beside Mia, who was seated next to Lew. Mia’s role would be to defend the deposition—which meant listening intently to every single question and making the proper objections to preserve the record and protect LCI. Owen was there to watch and to intervene with Mia if he needed to. His goal was for that not to happen, because he didn’t want Bonnie to think they were worried about anything. It was totally standard that the GC would be present at the CEO deposition, so she wouldn’t have any reason to be suspicious of his presence. Mia couldn’t afford to let down her guard, and he was glad to be there as a second set of eyes and ears to make sure nothing got past either of them. He’d spent enough time with Mia to tell that she was on edge, but she was doing an admirable job of playing it cool.

The first hour of the deposition went off without a hitch as Bonnie marched through Lew’s background and general questions. Bonnie’s approach was highly methodical. She was not going to let anything slip by and was trying to build a very solid record even on the most mundane of questions. Owen had to give it to her, she was very patient and persistent in her approach.

Owen had started to zone out when a question caught his attention.

“Can you repeat the question, please?” Lew said.

“Certainly.” Bonnie smiled. But it wasn’t a friendly smile. It was an I’m about to cut your throat kind of smile. “Mr. Winston, did you destroy documents in the custody of LCI?”

Where had that come from? She’d just jumped to the conclusion without any buildup. It was out of character after the first hour of the deposition.

“No,” Lew answered. “I did not.”

“Mr. Winston, did you direct anyone to destroy documents in the custody of LCI?”

Lew shook his head.

“You need to give a verbal response for the court reporter, Mr. Winston,” Bonnie said.

“I did not,” Lew said.

“Did you directly or indirectly ask anyone to destroy documents in the custody of LCI?”

“No,” Lew answered.

Owen noticed that Mia wasn’t objecting. He actually agreed with her silence. Lew could truthfully answer these questions in the negative. It was best to get that on record. There was no point in making legal objections that would be worthless at the end of the day anyway.

A frown pulled at Bonnie’s shiny pink lips. She asked Lew the same question multiple ways, trying to get him to break, but he didn’t. Lew kept calm and answered in the negative each time.

“Let’s take a break,” Bonnie said. She took off the microphone that was used for the videotaped deposition and walked out of the room.

They waited a moment to let Bonnie get a head start, and then the three of them exited to go to their breakout room. Each side got their own small conference room to huddle up in during breaks and to have lunch.

Once Owen shut the door to their breakout room, Lew flopped down in one of the chairs and let out a huge sigh. “That woman will not give up,” Lew said.

“She really believes with all her being that we’re hiding something,” Mia said. “She won’t let it go. I imagine she could go like this for hours.”

“Lew, you’re doing great,” Owen said. And he really meant it. This wasn’t the same man who had been having a nervous breakdown in his penthouse the other night. “Keep it up, and we’ll come out of this unscathed. If she wants to spend the whole day asking you every which way if you destroyed documents, we can live with that.”

“It’s like she doesn’t even care about the actual breach of contract,” Lew said, frowning.

“Oh, don’t worry. She’ll get there,” Mia said. “She plans to take the entire day to depose you. We haven’t even hit the lunch break yet. It’s going to be a very long afternoon.”

“I’m going to take this opportunity to run to the restroom.” Lew excused himself from the room.

Owen looked at Mia. “How are you holding up?”

She gave a weak smile. “Honestly, I’m a mess of nerves, but who wouldn’t be in this situation?”

He placed his hand on her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll all get through this. Like you said before, we have bigger problems than this case.”

Noah walked into the Fulton County jail, eager to see his friend. David’s visiting privileges were limited, but Ty had been able to get Noah in for half an hour.

Noah and Ty had talked, and Ty strongly urged against telling David anything about trying to get the trial delayed. Noah understood Ty’s point—not wanting to get David’s hopes up, among other things—but it would be hard to look him in the eyes and not tell him anything.

He’d just have to play it by ear. Once he got into the visiting room and the officer brought David into the room in handcuffs, Noah’s stomach clenched. Dear Lord, please find a way to get this innocent man out of prison.

David’s eyes got misty when they met Noah’s. “It’s good to see you, man. I can’t thank you enough.”

“There’s no need for that. I’m just doing what any friend would do.”

“You and I both know that’s not true. You’re the only friend I have who has stuck by me, and you hooked me up with Ty. He’s been amazing. It’s like night and day between him and the public defender—and the best part about all of it is that Ty actually believes I’m innocent.”

“Well, that definitely makes two of us. We’re doing everything we can and then some to get you out of here.”

David looked down. “I know you are, but I’ve also accepted the fact that I could be convicted for this. Ty said the prosecutor may even seek the death penalty. She wants to send a message, since the victim was a lawyer.”

Noah nodded. “The prosecutor is tough.” He weighed his response. “But we’re doing all we can to make her see the error of her ways. To convince her that you’re not the one who should be on trial here.”

“So you really believe me? This isn’t something you’re doing purely out of loyalty because of our past history?”

“I do believe you. You’re not a murderer, David. I know that as surely as I sit here.”

“I have killed people.”

“As have many federal agents.”

“Have you been able to track down Morrow?”

Noah shook his head. “Not yet. I think he’s lying low right now. But I realize we’re on the clock.”

“Yeah, trial’s next week. Ty doesn’t want me to testify.”

Noah imagined that wasn’t how his friend wanted to play it. “Let me guess. You want to take the stand?”

“You better believe it. I want to be able to tell the truth. I want to look into the eyes of the jury and let them know that I’m not a cold-blooded killer. No one else can tell them that. I’m the only one who can vouch for myself. I’m sure the prosecutor is going to bring up all the dirty laundry at the ATF, and I need to be able to combat that by telling my side of the story and letting the jury know that I’m not a monster. I may not have much left in this life, but if I don’t have my reputation, then I really have nothing.”

“I get it.”

“I know you, Ramirez. If you were in my spot, I guarantee you’d be up on that stand, defending yourself and putting the truth out there.”

“But you also have to trust Ty. There can be a lot of legal reasons why you don’t need to take the stand, and that’s a lot different than you just wanting to tell your side of the story. Ty’s job is to protect you and make sure he gets a not-guilty verdict—keeping you out of prison, or worse. That’s what Ty’s trying to do every step of the way, and I’m trying to do the same thing.”

David looked at him. “You know how much I appreciate all you both have done for me, but there’s something to say about the truth. About the jury being able to evaluate whether I’m a liar, whether I’m a murderer, whether I could’ve gone to that man’s apartment and butchered him.”

“You know how the legal system works. The prosecutor will push it to the max. She will try to put your dirty laundry on trial.”

“Isn’t it better that I be there to combat it? And not just let innuendo or testimony from other witnesses tell the story?”

“Ultimately I think that’s a decision you and Ty will have to make. I would love to be able to see you defend yourself. But I’m not a lawyer, and I’d hate to give you advice that could end up harming your case from a legal perspective. At the end of the day, I just want you to be a free man, because that’s what you deserve. The right man needs to pay for this.” Noah had to be careful not to say too much. He didn’t want to start down a path and then have to backtrack.

“Are you any closer to figuring out who hired Morrow?”

“Closer, yes. But not close enough, and I fear the trial will start and we won’t have someone to offer up.” Time wasn’t on their side.

“Just keep at it, man. You never know when something will break your way.”

If only. But Noah wasn’t going to put a damper on things. He wanted to stay at least somewhat upbeat for David’s sake. The last thing he wanted David to know was just how crazy things had become.

Owen had received a very strange phone call from Ed asking to meet at Owen’s favorite diner downtown. There’d been a troubling tone to his voice. Owen wondered whether Ed had had another altercation with Lew. Hopefully not.

After the deposition, Owen had hoped that Lew had his head on straight again. Much to Owen’s surprise, but also to his relief, the deposition hadn’t yielded any fodder for the opposing side. Lew had held it together, and Bonnie’s frustration had become evident as the day wore on. The fact that they came out of it unscathed was a big victory in his book, and they had needed one badly.

Owen arrived at the diner and saw Ed seated near the back exit on the left. His eyes were bloodshot, and immediately Owen assumed the worst—something really bad had happened.

Owen took a seat and tried to remain calm. “Ed, what’s going on?”

“Thanks for meeting me. I didn’t want to talk in the office. It’s too much. It’s too dangerous.” Ed clenched his fists on the table.

“Dangerous?”

“Yes. You’re going to think I’m crazy.” Ed’s gaze darted back and forth and then shifted beyond Owen’s shoulder.

Owen turned but didn’t recognize anyone else in the diner. “I don’t think you’re crazy. Just talk to me, tell me what is wrong. Is this about Lew?”

Ed shook his head. “No. Lew doesn’t have anything to do with this. And yeah, Lew was acting a little weird, and I know we got freaked out about it, but now things look very different to me.”

“I’m so lost, Ed.” Owen was clearly missing something, and he hoped Ed would get to the point soon. Owen felt his blood pressure rising higher the longer he sat there not knowing what was happening.

“I’m not even sure where I should start, but I’ll do the best I can.” Ed took a big dramatic breath before continuing. “Howard and I have been spending a lot of time together, especially once we thought Lew was acting strangely. Howard came to me first with his concerns about Lew, and it all seemed to play out. Everything has been so uncertain that I started questioning my own sanity, my own instincts.”

“About what?” Owen was still perplexed about Ed’s strange behavior.

“Something’s been going on at LCI. I’m sure of it.” Ed wiped his brow.

Uh-oh. Did Ed somehow find out there was a mole? How would he have ever known? It was best for Owen to be patient and let Ed work through this in his own time, even if it was driving Owen crazy. “I’m listening.”

“I’m an executive in a tech company. I know our IT systems inside and out. I can recognize when something is happening with the servers. I noticed weird things happening on my computer. So I started doing some digging on my own. I didn’t want to bring it to anyone until I had something specific, because there’s already been enough problems in the office as it is.”

Owen’s heartbeat thumped rapidly. “What did you find?”

“There’s no easy way to say this, Owen.” Ed turned and looked around the diner before continuing. “We have a traitor in our midst.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Someone at LCI is working with our biggest competitor. More specifically, someone at LCI is selling our top-secret technology, the secrets we work so hard on, the tech we pour our blood, sweat, and tears into. And they’re selling it to Baxter Global.”

“Do you know who it is? Who’s selling us out?” Owen felt like the room was slowly closing in on him, and his vision blurred a bit. Did Ed really hold the secret to this entire ordeal? Could this be the key to everything they had been working on? More questions than answers flooded through his mind, but what he really wanted to know was who.

“That’s why I wanted to meet you off-site.” Ed paused and looked away before making eye contact again. “It’s Howard.”

“Are you certain?”

Ed nodded vigorously. “Yes. I found evidence. Hard evidence.”

“What type of evidence?” How could Ed have found something that Noah and his team didn’t?

“I know it’s a complete invasion of privacy, but I snooped through Howard’s office. We had the strangest conversation last week, and something just seemed off to me. The way he was so eager to get Lew booted out as CEO and take his job. I know most guys want to be at the top by the time you get to be our vintage. I would like to be CEO one day and would prefer LCI than somewhere else, but Howard almost had an obsession lately, something I hadn’t noticed previously. Howard’s the one who got me all riled up about Lew. Howard had never been so fixated on taking Lew’s job before. Now it all makes sense to me. If Howard became CEO, then he could really play both sides of the fence for a pretty penny, and we’d all be unaware, just going about our business. Until our best cutting-edge tech was put on the market by Baxter Global. And we would never suspect Howard. Ever.”

Ed was on a roll, but Owen had some questions. As a lawyer, he needed to cover the legal angle. He couldn’t just blindly accept Ed’s stories and convict Howard on the spot. “Let’s go back to the evidence. What exactly did you find in Howard’s office?”

Ed shifted in his seat. “Howard had an encrypted file on his desktop that I was able to crack.”

“It was just on his desktop? Nowhere else?” If so, that would explain why Noah hadn’t found it yet. He was first working on everything that was on the company’s server. But each person’s desktop was local to that specific computer.

“Yes. Just on the desktop, and it was hidden in one of his personal folders. I knew something was up when the file was encrypted. There’s no need to encrypt personal stuff that is benign. I broke the encryption, and that’s when I found it. Howard had set up some type of dummy account on a web-based email and was communicating and meeting with Baxter Global. He’d saved copies of the communications in the encrypted file. Can you believe that?”

“No. I really can’t.” It was too soon for Owen to fully trust Ed and tell him everything, so Owen thought it best to just let Ed open up completely to him. Ed would understand later when all the facts got put on the table. For now, Owen only needed more information, and fast. “Do you know exactly what he was doing with Baxter? Do you know if he was selling or providing them any of our technology? Do we have any evidence of that?” Owen heard his voice cracking as it rose.

“I don’t know what all Howard sold them or gave to them, but from the looks of it, I think this is huge, Owen. You don’t just have meetings with your biggest competitor and not tell anyone at the company about it if it was innocent. No way. He had to have been doing something he didn’t want any of us to know about. Couple that with how he’s been acting about Lew, trying to oust him, and you have an unmitigated disaster. Just imagine if we hadn’t figured this out and Howard had gotten his way and kicked Lew to the curb? Then our CEO would basically have been working as a double agent. We’re talking about millions upon millions of dollars on the line.” Ed’s face continued to redden.

Owen needed to know how far this news had spread. “Am I the first person you’ve told?”

“Yes. Given that you’re the company’s lawyer, I thought it was most important to come to you first and foremost. I knew you’d know what to do. How we need to attack this thing. I have no idea what to do. I’m in totally over my head right now.”

“You did the right thing, Ed, and now we need to figure out how to manage this crisis. I need to think about that.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot to take in. I considered confronting Howard right when I found out what had happened. I was actually on my way to his house to confront him directly in person, and then I thought better of it. I’m assuming that was the right call?”

“Most definitely. I need to loop Lew in, though. This even goes beyond Lew. This will have to go all the way up to the board. This is above all of our pay grades. The actual existence of the company is at stake.”

“Oh yes, I realize that. I just didn’t want this completely on my conscience.” Ed laughed. “I know it’s not funny, but if I’m not laughing, I would be crying right now. I really thought I knew him.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I think I’m in shock too.” That was actually true. Owen had considered the possibility that Howard or Ed could be guilty, but thinking about it and it actually coming true were two totally different things.

“Do you think Howard will try to explain his way out of this?”

“Believe me, Ed, I hope and pray that there might actually be an innocent explanation, but I fear that is an unrealistic goal for all of us. But I would love to hear what Howard has to say for himself.”

Ed pursed his lips. “You don’t really think there could be a benign explanation, do you?”

“Probably not.” Owen took a moment to gather his thoughts. “I think we need to circle the wagons. I need to make some calls. Did you find anything else that I should know about?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Certainly. And I appreciate you trusting me and bringing this to me. We’ll get through this and come out stronger for it. I’ll also make sure that Howard is fully held to account for what he has done to LCI. There won’t be a lawyer in town who will be able to win his case when it’s all said and done.”

Ed nodded. “Good. Howard should pay.”

Maybe this nightmare could finally come to an end.

Mia opened the door of her house to Noah. He had rushed over because there was breaking news.

“Thanks for coming so quickly.” Mia ushered him into the kitchen and took a seat at the table.

“I need you to walk me through everything again,” Noah said. “So Ed got suspicious of Howard and decided to break into his computer?”

“That’s how Owen told me the story. He’s already spoken to Lew once. They were going to meet to go over it further. I think they’re trying to decide how to present this to the board, because that will be a huge deal.”

Noah ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s possible that Howard could have had something on his desktop that I didn’t see. We hadn’t gotten to the point where we were physically going onto people’s desktops in the office to look for things. I’d like to hear more, though, about why Ed felt so suspicious and took such drastic action. What if he was wrong? What if Howard had found him snooping around on his computer?”

“I don’t have any of those answers. I’m telling you literally everything I know, and all of that is what Owen told me.” She was just as confused about the whole thing as Noah was.

“You know what this means, right?”

Unfortunately Mia knew exactly what it meant, and it made her sick to her stomach. “That Howard Brooks hired Morrow to kill Chase.”

Noah nodded. “Did Owen give you any direction as to what we should be doing in the meantime?”

“Yes. He wants you to look at everything now from a fresh perspective, knowing that Howard is the target of the investigation.”

“I’ll get on it right away. I’ll see if I can tie any of Howard’s activities to Morrow.”

“Maybe this means we can get Anna to drop the charges against David before the trial starts.” Mia’s cell rang. “It’s Owen.” She answered the phone. “Owen, what’s going on?”

“Mia.” Owen’s voice was hoarse.

Fear shot through her. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Howard,” he said softly.

Her stomach clenched. “What? What happened?”

“Howard’s dead.”