His Secret Request: Billionaire Secrets - Book Three (2 page)

Chapter Two

"Information." Nadia said as soon as she heard Suzy's voice.

"Not good." Suzy replied.

"Shit. I knew it."

"I'm not sure you did." Suzy was relieved that her friend had finally answered her call - she had been trying for hours - but her sense of urgency was in high gear. "First off, who the hell is Jack Patterson?" She asked.

"Jack Patterson? How did you hear about him?"

"He's all over the news talking about you and his hotel room crack cocaine and prostitution bust. You're in the news Ms. Maldon."

"Don't say my God damn name. You know the rules."

"The rules are out the window. This guy is making you famous. You better hope he has no pictures of you anywhere."

"What has that loser been saying?"

"He says he's been setup and he blames you, his privacy consultant, for the whole thing. He says he's been working with you for about six months, that he's paid you hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and that your shit, excuse the language, doesn't work. He thinks you might have set him up."

There was a pause while Nadia took the news on board and pressed the phone to her chest, but then her voice came back on the line.

"He's an asshole. An idiot football player. I told him I was only able to cover him electronically. How the hell was I to know he'd party with hookers and land himself in a sting operation?"

"Well he doesn’t see it that way. Does the town of Lovett, Maine mean anything to you?"

"Shit." Nadia gasped on the other end of the line. Obviously the football player had been on the money.

"He's doing this just to ruin me. If he produces a picture of me and the press come looking then that's it; game over."

Nadia was clinging to a thread and as much as Suzy could understand her, she needed to be straight with her.

"I'm sorry but it looks like it's over already." She said. "At least for now. Do you have enough money to stay low for a while?"

"Sure. Money's not a problem. I've got bigger problems than that. The cops were at my house today. A disturbance was reported but I live in the middle of nowhere. Someone put them up to it and I have my suspicions who."

"Forget suspicions, it was your boy Patterson."

"Shit, shit, shit. I knew it wasn't my imagination. Someone's been following me for days. I thought I was going crazy. Damn it. Of all the people to get me, that schmuck. The dumbest, most arrogant--"

Nadia stopped herself in midsentence. This was a big problem but Suzy knew her well, she would adapt quickly and move on.

"What's new on Hargrave?" Her friend said.

"He's the least of your worries. Apart from his bizarre relationship to women the guy is clean. Cleaner than clean. He's up to his ears in lawsuits over patents and other corporate stuff but only because his company is so good. All the other guys are falling over themselves trying to copy his equipment. He's a big time philanthropist and a lot of his tech goes into ground breaking medical devices that have changed people's lives. Him and his brother are pretty damn awesome. Right now they're working on light weight tracking devices to be worn by military and security personnel. The days when warzone kidnap victims can't be located will come to an end by all accounts. Pretty amazing and 'out-there stuff'. Despite all that, still no rabbit-holes." Nadia was familiar with her friend's terminology.

"What's the bizarre relationship to women thing?"

"Oh shit."

"What is it?"

"I'm watching CNN. This guy Patterson has a picture of you."

"Fuck. God damn it."

"How the hell did he get that?"

"How should I know? Maybe I've been getting sloppy or maybe he had some technology already that passed my sweep when we met. Maybe the guy just isn't as dumb as he looks."

"Obviously not."

"Is it a clear shot of my face?"

"Clear as day."

"God damn it."

"You better stay low baby. This doesn’t look good. If your old employers sees this--"

"Shut up. Not another word. I've got to go because it looks like they already have."

Suzy froze. Her crazy long distance, no name, covert relationship to her old friend was a lifeline to her. She was the oldest friend she had and the loss of her as collateral damage to that evil crime dynasty had hit her hard. She desperately wanted to call her friend by her old name but didn't dare.

"Stay on the line. Don’t hang up."

"I've got to go. Someone's following me. This isn’t safe for you anymore."

"It never was. Don't hang up. Tell me where you are."

"No way. Come on, I don’t know how much longer I've got. What else do you know about Hargrave."

"It's not important."

"Just tell me for Christ's sake."

"Okay, it's about his women. He's choosy. Very choosy. But he always goes for geeks, engineering types, high IQ. Always slim and good-looking but always techies."

"I'll be damned."

"He has a thing for girls like…"

"Girls like you." They both said at the same time.

"Ah, ah. Girls like
you.
Suzy said. You're the hot one."

Suzy glanced in her rear view and saw the car behind her looming closer than ever.

"Cut it out Suzy… shit, I've got to hang up. I need to take care of this right now."

"Wait--"

The line went dead.

"Fuck." Suzy hissed and immediately dialed her friend back but it went straight to voicemail. She felt a wave of panic begin to take hold of her and took a deep breath to try and clear her thoughts. This was all happening too fast. Nadia's face had only been on the news a couple of hours ago and already she was being chased by Boyevik's men?

It didn't add up.             

"What am I gonna do?" She whispered, momentarily paralyzed by indecision. Nadia was her best friend, her oldest friend, maybe even the only true friend that she had left since the world of ethical hacking had swallowed her into a twilight of half relationships and paranoia. She checked her computer screen to make sure that her connection to the Hargrave Robotics servers had been securely closed and saw a warning flag. They had seen her, she was being traced.

"Shit."

She shut down the connection immediately and initiated a scramble procedure to cover her tracks on the session hijack protocol she had used to gain access to their systems. There was still a chance she could be located but it was remote. She didn't have time to worry about that now though.

Nadia was in trouble and she needed to get to her somehow. She only had an approximate idea of where her friend was. Loyalty to her friend meant that she had never conducted a trace on her whereabouts. If she had that kind of information and it became compromised then she would be responsible for the consequences if anyone gained access to her computer.

She ran to the bedroom to find  her emergency overnight bag and got ready to head over to Maine, Nadia's last known location. What else could she do? She could leave her dog Redmond with that cute neighbor she sometimes met on the beach while running. He had dogs of his own and seemed to love Red so hopefully it wouldn't be a problem. She would set her tracers in action to continue gathering information while she headed to the airport. Once she had her flight to Maine she would log in via her laptop to try and pinpoint where Nadia had been living most recently. At the same time she would keep on calling her.

This could all come right in the end. This fight wasn't over yet, God damn it, it was only just beginning. Together she and Nadia had topped their classes again and again beating off all kinds of competition from the smartest boys in the country. These Mafia goons whether they were equipped with hi-tech equipment or not would have a fight on their hands and as long as she still had her sleek, cloaked, ultra clean high end laptop in tow then she would have a level of control over the situation that could put her and Nadia ahead of the game.

What else could she do?

The smart thing would be to look out for number one.

'Stay low. Stay clean. Leave no trace.' That's what Nadia and her had said to each other a thousand times over. But this was her friend…. her only true friend.

Wasn't loyalty still worth something too, even in this world of hi-tech deception and betrayal?

********************

Suzy was a careful driver by nature but she had been pushing the speed limit all the way from Bangor, Maine to Lovett and she was making good time. 

The exchange with her neighbor long hours hence had been awkward in the extreme. It was a miracle that he had said yes to her request considering she had just landed on his doorstep and with a dirty dog in tow and basically just blurted out; 'can you take care of my dog for a couple of days?'

The gorgeous looking guy had given Redmond a quick glance, smiled and then reached out his hand for the leash.

God, how sweet was that?

She didn’t even know his name and he hadn't even asked hers when he had accepted her big crazy mutt into his home.

When she had made sure that Nadia was okay and she was back home again she would have to make it up to him somehow. Not get involved, not with her crazy background, but just collect her dog, give him a nice gift and then stay as far the hell away from the poor guy as he deserved. Better for him, better for her.

But God, wasn't he sweet? In a perfect world she'd have a face like that to wake up to every morning of her life.

She shook her head and got back to the task at hand.

Against the rules she checked her messages in-flight on her way from Seattle to Bangor and had seen that Nadia, thank God, had sent her a message.

'In safe place. Don't worry. Contact u soon."

It didn't do much to reassure her but at least it was something. It sure wasn't enough to call off her search.

She had wracked her brain on the flight for a lead to follow when she got there because she had turned up nothing new on her friend's whereabouts. Finally she had come to the conclusion that her only good leads were the Hargrave brothers, specifically Clayton, and Jack Patterson. She was no detective, electronic snooping was her thing, not field work, but it couldn't be a coincidence that Clayton Hargrave had just bought a huge place in Lovett and that he owned the football team that Jack Patterson played for.

Nadia had asked for a background check on Hargrave so she had decided to bypass the town and head straight up to his newly acquired seafront, hilltop property overlooking the Lovett bay area. With all of the surveillance technology and wealth at his disposal breaking into this place would be madness and she had risked herself already by hacking into their servers from her home computer. Besides, she was certainly no house breaker and by the looks of it there were guards on duty as well.

In fact it looked as though something pretty big had recently gone down there. Either that or Clayton Hargrave was extremely paranoid about his personal safety.

She parked her rental car and clicked open her laptop. The machine was deceptively sleek and small but as long as she had her technology with her she felt connected and in control of her world. The electronic capabilities it conferred upon her would put the NSA suits to shame if they knew what she could do.

She logged in and began snooping around to see if she could find anything floating in the electromagnetic ether  and found the estate's Wi-Fi connection. It was powerfully encrypted with virtually unbreakable safeguards in place.

Virtually unbreakable, but not impossible.

If she logged into her immensely powerful home computer then she would find a way to hack the connection remotely. It wasn't a question of 'how', but of 'how long?'.

She set to work but within seconds a loud tap on the window made her jump.

"Can I help you ma'am?" The man asking the question didn't much look like he wanted to offer any help at all.

"Roll your window down." That one wasn't a request. She stared at him, her heart already beginning to race. This was getting very real, very fast. It was a far cry from breaking into someone's computer from the comfort of her living room.

Her mind began to race.

If she opened her window then anything could happen. The guy could just grab her by the throat. But if she refused and just took off… same scenario, anything could happen, a damned car chase or police involvement or worse.

She glanced at her keys in the ignition.

Why the hell didn't I leave it running?
She berated herself, but she was a hacker after all, not a private detective.

"Roll down the window ma'am. You're on private property."

Her heart rate was going through the roof, her mouth was dry, her palms already moist with cold sweat. This was way, way too real.

"I'm leaving now." She said hurriedly. "I'm sorry."

"Roll down the window. You're on private property. The authorities have already been notified. Do not attempt to leave."