Synergy: New Adult Romantic Suspense (U-District, #1) (17 page)

Bryce grabbed her sides.
Big mistake.
Her shirt had ridden up as she rubbed the towel on her head, and he was touching her bare, and very soft, skin. He didn’t dare move.

“Do you work out?” Jade gazed at his arms, her eyes lighting up with what looked like desire.

Oh shit.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, no… rugby, I play rugby on the weekends.” He released her, careful to make sure she didn’t fall over. “You okay?” He tried to keep his tone casual.

“Yeah, I think so.” She grasped the counter to keep her balance.

Put on your jacket and go. Now
. “Pick you up at five?”

“Five?” Jade grimaced.

“You don’t want anyone to see me drop you off, do you? Marge gets in early.”

“Right, good point.” She slowly walked him to the door, one hand on the wall for support.

When she stumbled, Bryce steadied her but let go as soon as she recovered. “Maybe you should stay home tomorrow.”

“Not on your life.”

“I could call your mom and get her to convince you to stay home.” Bryce stepped outside and walked down two steps.

“You do, and I’ll tell her you washed my hair.”

He stopped. “You play dirty, Jade.”

“I know.” She laughed.

When he was alone in his car, he shook his head and took a deep breath. Somehow, he’d become Jade’s protector. Not something he’d asked for, or even wanted, but now… He pushed the thought away. It was impossible.

NEAL HAD BEEN APPALLED
by the dearth of security cameras and their poor placement in the Synergy Technologies parking garage. Fortunately, one of the cameras was aimed directly at the elevator that Jade had come out of. It clearly showed Bryce leaving the same elevator within minutes of Jade. Her car wasn’t visible from the other security cameras throughout the garage, which probably indicated that the perp was very aware of this fact.

His team had cross-checked the seventeen vehicles leaving the building within an hour of the attack, looking for employees, spouses, or friends of anyone who worked for Synergy. They found no correlation. Even the CSI team had been unable to find any useful evidence. The nature of Jade’s injury indicated a blunt instrument was the likely cause, but the perp must have taken the weapon with him.

Though he didn’t have much, it was time to call Jade and update her.

“Hello, Detective… Neal,” Jade said.

“Is this a bad time?”

“Actually, it’s a good time. I just got out of a meeting.”

“I wanted to give you an update.”

“Did you find anything?”

Jade sounded eager. He hated having to disappoint her. “Unfortunately, no. We’ve reviewed the security footage from your building, and other than Bryce’s car, no vehicles belonging to Synergy employees left the building within an hour after you were attacked.”

“I feel so much better knowing it wasn’t one of my employees.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. I just can’t prove it was.”

“Bryce showed up just after I was hit. He probably scared him off.”

Or he was the attacker
. “Either way, I’ve reported the incident to security at your building. I indicated it could be bad for business if the employees don’t feel safe. They’re going to install more cameras and patrol the garage more often.” He was going to make sure of it.

“Thank you, Neal.”

He didn’t want to scare her but… “Jade, if I may be frank.”

“Of course.”

“You may be perceived as a threat to your managers. You’ve already fired one of them and indicated you wouldn’t think twice about firing anyone else. Just be careful.”

“I will. I didn’t realize firing someone could cause so many complications.”

“Taking away someone’s livelihood can push a person over the edge.”

“It’s just one mistake of many I’m making these days.”

Just like Gloria, Neal found he enjoyed talking to Jade. His girlfriend had broken up with him over a year ago, and his family had scattered in the wind. After Katie, his sister, died, his step-dad moved Mom to Florida where his baby sister Deidra was going to college, and Selena, his closest sister, was in San Francisco managing her new bookstore. He missed his family, missed having someone to talk to this way. “That bad?”

“Yeah, that bad. Two months ago I was in college like any normal person my age, and then my grandmother dies without ever telling me she was sick, she forces me to be CEO, the managers don’t respect me, I’ve been to the hospital twice, and my laptop was stolen. My luck has to turn around soon.”

Neal zeroed in on the last thing she said. “Your laptop was stolen?”

“Yeah, I was stupid and in a hurry. I left my car door unlocked and the laptop on the front seat in plain sight.”

“Did you report it?”

“I didn’t realize it was missing until the next day. I called the police to report it, but they weren’t able to get it back.”

“When did this happen?”

“On my dad’s birthday, July tenth.”

Just before she was attacked.
“Was anything else taken besides the laptop?”

“I don’t think so. None of my CDs were missing, and my camera was in the glove box where I normally keep it. I took it out to get pictures of my dad opening his gifts.”

Though someone could have scared off the perp before they had a chance to sweep the car for other valuables, Neal’s gut told him the laptop was the target. “Was there anything special on that laptop?”

“Yes, it has a copy of our financial system on it. I had arranged to drop it off the following morning with my finance professor. It didn’t matter though, since he was run off the road by a drunk driver the night before. Add that to my list of bad karma.”

Neal’s instincts were going into overdrive. “Jade, why were you taking a copy of your financial system to your professor?”

Jade must have heard the change in his voice. Alarm colored her own. “Synergy is having financial issues, and I wanted an outside opinion on what we can do to solve our problems. Is something wrong?”

Bingo.

“It’s just a hunch. I don’t think the stolen laptop and your attack were isolated instances.”

“What? Why would they be related?”

“They both involve Synergy, and I don’t believe in coincidence. I’m going to want to talk to the individual who set up the laptop, and I’ll check with my department to see if they’ve found anything related to it.”

“Zachary Miller. He’s the one who put the data on my laptop, but he doesn’t have anything to do with this. I don’t see how the laptop and my attack have anything to do with each other.”

“It’s my experience that random break-ins and muggings don’t happen to the same person in such a short time frame, if ever. And on top of it, you’ve received two threatening notes. Someone is targeting you, Jade. From what you’ve just told me, your company is having financial issues, the laptop had financial information on it, your finance professor was run off the road, and you were attacked just after you fired—”

Jade gasped. “My chief financial officer. How could I be so blind? Mr. Greenberg came to my office the other day and told me he’d heard we’re having financial issues. It must be Stan.”

“I’ll talk to Mr. Greenberg. I want you to call me if anything strange or unusual happens, no matter how trivial. Don’t assume it isn’t related. Stan Templeman left town after you fired him. If he comes back, keep your distance until I figure this out.”

“Don’t worry, I will. I really appreciate you calling.”

Neal said goodbye to Jade. The break-in and the attack could be random, but he didn’t believe in random. Both crimes had been committed in uncontrolled, highly visible locations where anyone could have disturbed the perp at any time. Both crimes smelled of desperation. Add in the supposedly random drunk-driving incident… None of it sat well with him.

It was starting to add up. He’d suspected all along that Arnie’s death was no accident. And maybe Gloria’s hadn’t been either. Having two deaths connected to Synergy Technologies and then an attack at the same company would be enough to get his captain’s attention.

Neal picked up the phone and dialed. Within twenty minutes, he had the full details regarding the stolen laptop. Jade had called it in at eleven-forty a.m. the morning following the robbery. She’d reported the missing laptop and indicated no signs of forced entry to her vehicle. An officer had been dispatched to the scene to do the necessary paperwork.

There was little to no hope of finding the laptop, but the call had been made and they had to follow up. Jade had speculated that the laptop might have been stolen when she’d stopped at Macrina Bakery the night before and left her car unlocked for a few minutes. The officer talked to the employees in the surrounding businesses.

One of the waiters at the bistro across the street did remember Jade’s black BMW. According to the waiter’s statement, he was on a smoke break and was admiring the BMW parked outside. He didn’t notice anyone stealing the laptop. He saw the owner of the car, a beautiful woman with red hair, get in, and then he was called in to help with a large party of ten.

The officer had no further leads and had filed his report.

The problem as Neal saw it was that Jade had called in the report and the officer had spoken to her on the phone. The officer didn’t know what Jade looked like.

Neal pulled up her driver’s license description in the database. It indicated she had auburn hair. She might have a few natural red highlights in her hair if she turned the right way in the sun, but for the most part, he would categorize Jade’s hair as dark brown. He’d noticed unnatural red highlights at the tips of her hair, but he wouldn’t consider Jade’s hair red.

He’d visit the waiter at the restaurant again and show him a picture of Jade. If his instincts were right, she would not be the woman the waiter had seen.

But there was one person linked to Jade who Neal would put into the red hair category, and her name was Mackenzie Ballinger.

BRYCE CAME TO AN ABRUPT HALT
at Jade’s office door.

Zachary was kneeling next to Jade, his elbows on her desk, and he was pointing at something on the monitor.

Jade laughed at a comment he made and smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

Bryce’s teeth ground together. He’d been seeing a lot of Zachary in Jade’s office lately. He doubted Jade was having this many IT problems. Hell, he couldn’t recall a time he’d seen Zachary more than a couple times a year, if that. And the way he was kneeling beside her was completely unprofessional. Had Zachary and Jade had a relationship during the summer she’d worked in IT? They seemed awfully chummy.

Zachary turned to see him at the door. He scrambled to his feet. “Uh, hello, Mr. Radisson. I was just finishing up here if you need to see Jade, I mean, Miss Buchanan.”

“Stop calling me that, Zach.”

“Sorry.”

Bryce walked in without an invitation and with every intention of ending their little interlude. He stood over Zachary, a good six inches taller. “I have some paperwork I need Jade to sign.”

Zachary backed away from her desk. “Right, okay, I’ll see you later, Jade.”

“Let me know when the laptops come in.” Jade turned her focus to Bryce. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I have the final contract for Avit Avionics. Donald was late getting it to me, but it’s in order.”

“Is this the new customer you were telling me about?”

“That’s the one.”

Jade smiled. “Congratulations, Bryce. You’re a miracle worker. I don’t know how you keep bringing in new business when we’re having such difficulty with everything else.”

Bryce smiled, accepting her congratulations. He’d worked hard for this one, wooing the customer for the past year. “It’s my charming personality.”

“It’s something about your personality, but I don’t know if I would call it charming.”

“Very funny.”

“I’ll look through it right now and have it back to you this afternoon. Any major changes?”

“No. They accepted the standard price discount and didn’t ask for any customization.”

“Are you going to the company picnic tomorrow?”