Bryant held the external drive in his hands, looking at it with wonder. It was the only place on the entire planet the new program existed in its complete form.
And Bryant held it.
Not that the program couldn’t be reproduced. It would be foolish to think Bryant could walk out his front door and be crushed in the street by a moving van or something, the external drive irrevocably damaged and the program lost to eternity. The corporation was not about to let a decade of research and development go up in smoke though sheer ineptitude.
It had been Middleton who’d insisted that the major components of the program be stored separately, different officers in the company holding passwords to access those components. Should some calamity necessitate a reassembly of the software, the entire board would need to be convened for all components to be accessed. Bryant wasn’t surprised, really. Middleton was one of the most paranoid men he’d ever met. It would be easy for him to imagine any and all of his employees from vice president on down to the lowliest college intern stealing the information and selling out to a competitor.
Which, Bryant realized, was exactly what he could do now. The information in the drive he held was literally worth millions of dollars.
He glanced over his shoulders at the tech crew. They would spend the next few hours scrubbing all the computers at his station, making sure no trace of the software remained. And although they didn’t say it, they would also make sure Bryant hadn’t hidden a copy of the software in some file or saved it to the cloud. They’d already examined his smartphone and personal laptop.
He glanced down at the drive in his hands again. He could do it. He really could. Just walk right out with it.
A knock on the door.
He opened it. Two of the corporate security guards. Blue blazers with the corporate logos over the pockets. Muscles bulged under the jackets. Bryant knew they were armed. These weren’t mall cops. They were pros. Not thugs like Cavanaugh and his goons, but formidable in their own button-down way.
“Hello, Mr. Bryant,” one of them said. “We’re here to escort you to Sonoma. We have a limousine outside.”
Bryant raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I was just going to drive myself.”
“There are those who might take the drive from you,” the guard said. “We wouldn’t want you hurt if that happened. We’re here for your safety.”
Bryant nodded along with the man’s words, thinking, Yeah, and to keep me from getting lost along the way. Middleton doesn’t trust me any more than he trusts anyone else.
In a way, it was why Bryant had been picked. He had unique qualifications that made him the perfect liaison between Middleton and Cavanaugh. Or, to broaden things, the liaison between Middleton’s legitimate business ventures and the seedy shortcuts he sometimes took to accomplish things expediently. Not only did Bryant possess the technical know-how Middleton found useful, but Middleton had Bryant over a barrel.
About eighteen months ago, Middleton’s people had caught Bryant embezzling. By no means was Bryant a Goody Two-shoes, but he’d certainly never set out to become an embezzler. But there were the gambling debts, and he kept getting deeper and deeper into the hole, and, well, one thing led to another.
It was actually a pretty good deal. Middleton paid him an obscene amount of money, and because he held the embezzlement over Bryant’s head, there was a weird trust there that wouldn’t exist if Bryant had simply been another honest citizen.
However, that trust did not extend to letting Bryant walk out of the building unguarded with the corporation’s greatest achievement.
At least Bryant could ride in a limo.
“We need to hit a drive-through on the way,” he told the guards. “I’m starving.”
* * *
Middleton sat on the edge of the indoor pool and watched Meredith swim. He admired her athleticism. Something he lacked. And she didn’t just float around. There was nothing recreational about it. She’d done ten laps, had good form. Middleton was content to watch. She made a lithe and graceful shape, cutting through the water in a sleek, black one-piece.
Middleton sat with his khakis rolled up to his knees, bare feet on the first step in the shallow end.
Meredith made the turn at the other end of the pool, kicked off from the wall, and glided underwater an impressive distance before surfacing, kicking hard, arms rotating in and out of the water, head coming up every few lengths for a breath.
She reached the wall near Middleton and hoisted herself up, dried her hands on a towel. She picked up her smartphone, scrolled.
“Bryant is on his way,” Meredith said. “He’s with the security detail.”
“Good,” Middleton said. “I’ll feel better when it’s done.”
In fact, Middleton felt better already.
His initial embarrassment at the botched sex with Meredith had evaporated. He’d slept like a baby. She’d held him all night. Meredith was everything Aaron Middleton needed and desired. The news of Cavanaugh’s failure to handle his formal marital situation had rattled him badly. It was the most egregious of loose ends.
But Meredith was the cure for any malady. This was not the time to despair. It was a time to rejoice. Emma would be taken care of, and then he could launch his new life. With Meredith by his side. The life he deserved.
“Let me be up there with you when he installs it,” Meredith said. “I’ve heard so much about this software. I’d like finally to see it in action.”
He began to tell her that of course that would be fine.
But Middleton stopped himself. He wasn’t even sure why. An instinct or a superstition. Was there still some kind of distrust there, a last enclave of vulnerability within him that he was protecting? More likely some childish selfishness. He wanted to play with his new toy all on his own, nobody looking over his shoulder.
“Let me get the kinks out,” Middleton said. “Then I’ll put on a show for you.”
The slightest hesitation, perhaps Middleton had even imagined it. Then she grinned. “You’re the boss.”
“Did you tell the board I wanted a meeting?”
“First of the month,” Meredith said. “I don’t think you can Skype this one. My advice is to put on a tie and go down there.”
“Do you think they’ll go for it?” Middleton had asked her this question at least a dozen times. He thought his idea to work on a next-gen version of the software a good one. That way, the corporation would always be one step ahead. Never mind that the plan also allowed Middleton to keep the program to himself for the time being.
“Above my pay grade.” She grinned. “Ten more laps.”
She launched off the wall, backstroking toward the far end.
Middleton thought about what he would say to the board. He was sure he could convince them. Yes, short-term profits would take a hit. Stockholders would kick. But he could sell them on the long-term potential—although he wasn’t particularly fond of the word sell. He didn’t consider himself a salesman, some cheap huckster. Middleton had a passion for this project and for the corporation. Conveying this passion to the board would win the day.
They’d see it his way. They had to. No more wishy-washy worry about it.
And if not, he already knew ways to convince people who didn’t want to be convinced.