The smile on Cat Delaney's face had passed frosty and was skating toward arctic. She'd always been coolly polite to me. She was coolly polite to just about everyone other than Damon. But her voice, as she directed me to wait while she checked if Mr. Riley was available, was several degrees below zero.
Maybe Damon didn't blame me for the fallout from the recall, but it was clear Cat did. Unfair. The Righteous static filter had been partly to blame, too, but I didn't think making that point was likely to change her mind. Particularly if she knew all the ins and outs of what happened. Easier to assume she did. Damon trusted her, and a good assistant had to know more about their boss's life than almost anybody else if they were going to keep it running smoothly. Cat would know where all the bodies were buried, so to speak.
I kept my own expression politely neutral. I understood. I'd never really figured out how much Damon's employees knew about our relationship. It had happened fast and ended fast, and I, for one, hadn't tried to advertise it, but if anyone was going to have known, it would be Cat. So potentially, to her I was both wrecker-of-company-she-lived-for and breaker-of-boss-man's-heart. Apparently two strikes and I was out.
"You can go in now," Cat said after several long minutes of silence while I tried to pretend I was reading something on my datapad.
As she spoke the words, I realized that staying exactly where I was, soaking up the nuclear eat-shit-and-die vibes rolling off Cat, was actually more appealing than going in and facing Damon.
But wimping out wasn't an option. I pasted an “I'm perfectly fine” expression on my face, said, "Thank you," to Cat, and walked the twenty feet or so to Damon's door.
Damon's office was the same. Ridiculously huge, the walls all curves and sweeping glass. Built to reinforce that here sat the man in charge of the whole shebang. Still, that impression was softened a bit—as it had been the first time I'd ever set foot in the room—by some of the quirkier touches. Old surfboards still lined one wall. A giant screen dominated another, currently only showing the reflections of the arc of screaming-red leather recliners arrayed around it. They were game chairs, though you wouldn't have known it at first glance, their high-tech nature artfully disguised. Expensively disguised. But money was no object to Damon. Even with the hit Righteous had taken from the recall, he was rich in a way I would never be. That most people on the planet would never be.
At least he tried to do good with that money. Riley Arts had been instrumental in getting the city redeveloped by declaring they were rebuilding their campus downtown, and they did a load of charity work. More of it since the recall, though they'd taken flak for that, too, some calling it a cynical PR move.
Maybe it was, but that didn't change the outcome. The money went to people who needed it. And Damon had never been a corporate asshole. Much as it would be easier to hate him if he was. So no, not much in the room had changed.
Just me. Or maybe both of us.
Damon rose from his chair, but he made no immediate move to venture out from behind his desk. He stood there, looking far too good in a light blue shirt and darker jeans. Damn him. He knew he looked good in blue.
Though why I thought he might care how he looked in what he wore for a meeting with me was beyond me. I stopped well before I reached the desk. Safety in distance and all that.
For a moment we just stared at each other, no less awkward than we had been in my yard. I clearly didn't know how to do casual chat with this man. And it was better not to think too hard about why he might not be able to come up with something to say to me. I'd never been this awkward with an ex-lover before. Maybe because I'd never let one break my heart.
Another train of thought I didn't want to jump aboard.
I pulled a datachip from my purse, advanced a few steps until I was only a couple of feet away, and tossed it onto his desk. "My systems are clean."
His jaw tightened. "Hello to you, too."
I narrowed my eyes, then shrugged, going for “I couldn't care less” rather than “I really hate seeing you again.” That emotion was something I was keeping to myself. "You're the one who put a timeframe on this. That chip has detailed diagnostics run by me and by an independent expert. All the traffic logs and every other kind of log your security team could want." "Independent expert" sounded better than nineteen-year-old uber-nerd with a plaid fetish. Yoshi had practically begged to come along, but I had refused. Seeing Damon was hard enough without the added complication of babysitting Yoshi and trying to make him behave himself in what was pretty much geek nirvana. "There's no evidence of any messages coming from my system."
"That you can find."
"It's a bit late for you to start questioning my competence, isn't it?"
"Maybe." He popped the chip into the reader on his desk and pulled up a terminal. I stood, silent, as he scanned through the reports.
"Well?" I asked when he finally looked up.
"Mitch would say this could be doctored." His tone was as flat and unrevealing as mine.
Apparently if I was going to do too cool for school, so was he. "Your head of security can say a lot of things. I'll say this. You have a choice to make. You said you didn't believe it was me. You either trust me or not. If you don't, well, let your security do their worst. They can come look at my system themselves. Believe me, they're not going to find anything."
"You could be using a different system."
I only just stopped myself from telling him to bite me. "You saw my house. Did that look to you like I have money to throw around to maintain secret hidden computer setups smart enough to beat whatever you're throwing at them?"
He frowned. Was he about to ask me why I didn't have the money? That was something I wanted to talk to him about even less than making chitchat.
"You said you believed they weren't from me. Your guys thought the messages were coming from my system, and I've just given you the proof that they're not."
"Which leaves me right back at square one."
"Not exactly," I said.
The frown deepened. "What does that mean?"
"Well, if it's not me, then it's someone who knows you and I had a relationship—a business relationship, at least. There aren't that many people who knew about the work I did here, are there? And even fewer outside Righteous, I hope. Unless you think one of the Cestis has a grudge against you."
He shook his head at that suggestion. "No, they've been nothing but helpful."
They had what? No. Focus. I wasn't here to talk about the Cestis. I was here to clear my name and get Damon Riley back out of my life.
"Right. So you need people who knew about you and me. Either them or someone they blabbed to. That's the logical place to start."
"You think someone in my own company is sending me death threats?"
I shrugged. "Well, you didn't suck too much as a client, but maybe you do as a boss." I knew it wasn't true. I'd seen him in action with his staff, and the whole Riley campus was a testament to a company that cared about its employees. Riley had a reputation as a great place to work that wasn't just driven by its success and it being on the cutting edge for anyone who wanted to work in virtual reality and game design. But even the best kind of boss made enemies over the course of doing business. Righteous must have its share of disgruntled ex-employees same as any other corporation.
"Gee, thanks," he said.
I held up my hands. "Don't shoot the messenger. Has your team looked at anyone else?"
"I don't know.” He had the grace to look sheepish. “They were investigating whether or not it was you. I'm not sure how far the 'not' part got."
"Then I guess it's time you give them the order to try a little harder in that department."
He tapped the datachip. "My guys aren't going to necessarily take this at face value."
I folded my arms, suddenly wondering if I'd been suckered. "What does that mean? You know, if you've just hauled me in here for some weird revenge thing and there are a bunch of cops waiting to take me away, then I'm changing my mind. You do suck."
"Why would I have come to you if I intended to involve the police?"
"I don't know, Damon. I gave up guessing about your motivations about nine months ago."
He winced. "Maggie—"
"No. We did this at the house. Nothing to talk about. So." I pointed at the datachip. "This boils down to you versus your cyber dudes. You're the boss, no matter how much of a hardass this Mitch guy is. So, do you trust me? Or do I need to call a lawyer?" I couldn’t afford a lawyer.
Damon picked up the chip, slid it into his pocket. "I trust you."
"Good. Because you know, if I wanted to do something to you, I wouldn't need email. And I wouldn't be stupid enough to leave a trail." I stepped back. "If there's nothing else, I should get going."
"Wait." His mouth twisted. "I'd like to hear more about your theory. About who else it could be."
I arched an eyebrow at him. "Damon, you have a cybersecurity team. Who are part of your overall security team. I'm guessing they can come up with a suspect profile in about thirty seconds flat if you tell them to look elsewhere."
"Just a few minutes," he said. "I'll get Cat to bring us some coffee."
That was playing dirty. He knew how much I loved the real stuff. I hesitated. I should get out while I could. While my exposure to him was limited and my emotions couldn't confuse themselves all over again. But as he leaned over to press a button on his system to call Cat and I got a waft of his damned clean cotton, spice, man scent, my feet seemed stuck to the floor.
"Coffee and one of those amazing cheese Danishes from the cafeteria in Building Two," I countered.
"You got it." He smiled at me and gave the order to Cat.
Damn it. I didn't want him to smile at me. Didn't want to feel the silly little rush it gave me. God. Hormones were the worst.
I lowered myself back into the chair. Talk or do awkward silence. Talking seemed the lesser of two evils. "So what did you want to know?"
"What makes you think it's someone here?"
I shrugged. "Simplest explanation. Guys like you—"
"What the hell does that mean?"
I rolled my eyes. "Don't make me say it. You know what I mean." I meant rich powerful corporate kings. "You make enemies. Business rivals, who hopefully are too smart to email threats. People you've pissed off in life generally—there has to be some of those. And then game heads and employees have to be the biggest pool of possible nutters. Like I said, not that many people knew I worked for you. Fewer still knew that we...." I trailed off. That was another thing I didn't want to spell out.
"Anyway, it seems more likely that an employee would know enough about me to want to try and set me up for whatever this is." It was my turn to lift an eyebrow. "Maybe if you told me more about the messages, I could be more help."
Damon opened his mouth to answer just as the office door opened inward and Cat marched in bearing a tray. She set down two coffees—mine was black, the way I liked it; she might not be on Team Maggie, but she was too good an assistant to get that wrong—and a plate of Danishes.
"Anything else?" she asked.
"No, thanks, Cat." Damon smiled at her and picked up his coffee.
I waited until she'd closed the door again before I reached for mine. Then paused. "Should I assume this is safe to drink?"
Damon's eyes widened, and he swallowed his mouthful fast. Too fast perhaps. He coughed slightly. "Are you suggesting Cat would do something to your coffee?"
"Well, she isn't exactly one of my top fans," I said. "She did a good imitation of an iceberg while I was waiting for you." I shrugged and blew on my coffee. "I don't blame her. She's protective of you. And I caused trouble. I get it."
He frowned. "She doesn't dislike you."
"Oh, you've asked her that, have you? Do you think she'd tell you if she did?”
"She's never been shy about stating her opinion. But she wouldn't poison you."
I snorted. "I was thinking of something less drastic." I inhaled the divine scent of genuine coffee beans and decided I didn't care. "But what the hell. Why waste the good stuff, right?" I took a reverent mouthful and closed my eyes to enjoy it.
When I opened them again, Damon was looking at me strangely. "What?" I said.
Was I imagining things, or was there a faint flush of color in his cheeks? And if there was, why exactly? That seemed to fall under the topic of things that shouldn't be discussed either. I put the cup down and grabbed a Danish, wanting to make the coffee last. It could be a long time before I got to taste it again. "So, are you going to tell me what these messages that have your team so up in arms are? Threats?"
"So they tell me."
"You haven't read them?"
"I read the first couple. Then security stepped in."
"How long has this been going on? "
"Two weeks perhaps?" He wrinkled his forehead as though he was trying to remember.
"Two weeks? Why did it take you so long to tell me?"
"I didn't believe it was you," he said. "But the team started digging. The last month has been a bit of a blur leading up to the launch. Last week, in particular, was madness. I've barely had time to come up for air. Mitch waited until launch day and then insisted we needed to do something. I still didn't think it was you, so that's when I came to see you."
I didn't know whether to be pleased that he trusted me or annoyed that me supposedly giving him death threats was obviously low on his list of priorities. "Launch?" I said, hoping like hell I sounded like I had no idea what he was talking about. I was in no way ready to talk about why the main character in his new game looked like me.
"New game," he said. "The first one since the recall."
Either he had bought my act or he was doing me the courtesy of pretending he had. Still, I wasn't quite sure what to say next. We were straying into dangerous waters again. There seemed to be a lot of them around. But when in doubt, return to a safer subject. If threats supposedly coming for me could be considered safer.
"Interesting timing. Did the messages say anything about the launch? Tell you to delay it or anything like that?" That could narrow it down to someone who'd been affected by the recall.
"No. They didn't make any demands. It isn't blackmail or extortion. At least not yet."
"Just threats. To do what?"
"Well, the ones I read involved me and various painful fates that await me." His mouth flattened. "I'm told they haven't improved."
If that was the case, I couldn't blame him for not wanting to read them. "And how many were there?"
"About ten that first day. There have been batches most days since then."
Batches? How many emails exactly did it take to get your point across if you were making death threats? "Any patterns?"
"I'd have to ask. But I would have thought they'd have looked into it if they'd identified anything. They haven't told me if they did."
"Okay. Just a thought," I said, sipping coffee. I was trying to make it last, I realized, and I had no desire to think too hard about why that was. I didn't really think I could add much to help Damon out that his own teams couldn't already.
He was staring at his own mug as if the black liquid might hold the answers he was looking for. Then he looked up and our eyes locked.
Blue. So goddamn blue.
"Do you think this could be connected to what happened?" he asked.
I almost choked on my coffee. Did he mean the demon? "Honestly? I have no idea."
"Is it possible?"
"I think you need to ask someone who knows more about that stuff than I do," I said. "Is there a reason you think it might be?
"Just trying to cover my bases."
I didn't believe him. He wouldn't be raising the subject of magic with me unless he had something specific to talk about. "Has anything else happened besides the emails?"
"Nothing specific. Cassandra sent someone after...it happened, and apparently there was no sign of anything lingering then."
My eyebrows flew up. That was what he meant by the Cestis being helpful? Mr. I-don't-do-magic had let the witches check things out? "Who did she send?”
He looked vaguely guilty, and I realized it must have been Lizzie. She was no slouch with tech. She gamed, and she'd helped me install our system. She wasn't as good as me or Yoshi—after all, it wasn't her job—but I figured she'd know enough to do whatever the Cestis needed to do to make sure the demon hadn't left any nasty surprises at Righteous. "It was Lizzie, wasn't it?"
"Yes, her and another guy. Not someone from the Cestis. They checked out my house as well. And recommended some healers to work with the beta testers."
I filed that tidbit of information under "things Lizzie had neglected to tell me." But I couldn't blame her. After she'd started randomly checking up on me in those early days after Nat's funeral, I'd made it very clear that Damon Riley was strictly off-topic. In her place, I wouldn't have mentioned him either if I'd been trying to make friends with someone who just wanted to be left alone.
"I can ask them to take another look if you like," I offered.
"Can't you do it?" he asked.
"I wouldn't know where to start. I'm hardly an expert in that...kind of thing."
"I thought you might have studied up after what happened."
"I had a few other priorities," I said. Like avoiding magic as much as possible. Not something I’d admit to him. "You're not the only one who had fallout to deal with."
He grimaced. "I'm sorry. The last nine months have been...not pleasant. Then, yes, please. I would appreciate it if you could talk to Lizzie. My team can look into the employees, the betas, and whoever else they can come up with, but they don't know about magic."
"You didn't tell them exactly what happened?"
"About what was behind it? No. The Cestis said not to. As far as the vast majority knows, there was an unforeseen complication from the static code that adversely affected some users. Which we've fixed now. Mitch knows that magic was involved, but even he doesn't know about the...."
He didn't want to say “demon.” I couldn't blame him. "I see." I wondered if the Cestis had signed off on the new version of the game. But it didn't surprise me that they'd covered things up. They'd covered up Nat's cause of death, too.
I sighed.
So much for getting Damon out of my life.
Hopefully the Cestis would either know what was going on or declare nothing magical was involved. "It will be easier for me to talk to Lizzie if we have the details of the messages."
He nodded and hit his datapad again. "Mitch? I need a complete dump of the emails you've been looking into and any analysis your team has done. Send it to my personal server." He slid the datachip back into the slot in his desk. "And I'll be sending you an analysis of Maggie Lachlan's system. It's clean. And before you start arguing, yes, I trust the source. You need to start looking at other possibilities. Maggie is in the clear."
He disconnected the call. Apparently no arguments were going to be entered into. So that was a relief. Though I wasn't entirely in the clear. I'd been hoping to get in and out with minimal contact, yet I'd already agreed to do the man another favor. I needed to get out of there before I did anything else stupid.
I stood abruptly. "Send that stuff to me. Or send me a datachip. I'll talk to Lizzie."