Page 38 of Death Wish

She swung around to face him. “Why? He’s out of the picture.”

“Is he? You told me he keeps popping up, and that’s why you didn’t stay in one place for long. He’s exhibiting stalker behavior, Simone. Based on what you’ve said, he won’t give up.”

Maybe. Okay, that was definitely true although Simone didn’t want to hear it. “He doesn’t know where we are.”

“You’re a computer whiz, sweetheart. Looks like Trevor has a connection with someone who is at least as good as you are at uncovering hidden tracks. If I can’t find him, I’ll put Zane on this. Your focus has to be locating the programmer and the program itself.”

She gave a curt nod and went to her room to grab her laptop. Let him look for Trevor. She couldn’t worry about her ex. Maybe he’d given up now. After all, he was dating her former best friend. Why come after her now?

Simone ignored the internal warnings going off in favor of starting a pot of coffee and setting up her computer for the hours of work still ahead of her. Time to dig deep into the backgrounds of those in the special projects division.

Once the coffee finished brewing, she poured herself a mug and one for Jesse. After setting Jesse’s by him, she rounded to her side of the table and dropped into the chair.

She logged into the Fortress system, plugged the first name on her list into the database, and settled back to read. Griffin Daley, head of the special projects division, was the boy wonder at Dragon Alley. A computer genius, his list of credentials was impressive going back to when he was in high school. More interesting than that, Daley had worked for the Department of Defense for five years before Dragon Alley lured him away from government work with the promise of a seven-figure salary.

On and on his list of accomplishments went, giving Simone a pretty good idea of his intellect and his special skills. No wonder DA went to a lot of trouble and expense to woo him away from the feds. Too bad he worked for DA. Zane would have loved to add him to the stable of programmers at Fortress Security.

Was he the programmer they were searching for? She frowned. Although he was brilliant, Simone had never heard of any significant program that he’d created. Why not? Was it possible he’d risen above his level of skill and experience? If so, he wouldn’t be the only division head to be promoted beyond his ability to handle the work he assigned to others.

Simone saved what she’d found in a file and went on to the next name on her list. Patrick Meyers. Married with three kids, all of whom were attending very expensive Ivy league universities. What a tuition bill he must have to pay for those boys. One in law school and two in medical school. From all appearances, though, Patrick was the equivalent of a boy scout and always stayed on the right side of the law. No hint of impropriety. Well, she’d see if his reputation held up when she ran his name through the dark web.

Her next background run was on Allison Norbert, new to the special projects division. She was single with a mother in a special facility that handled dementia patients. Simone’s heart squeezed as she read more about the rapid progression of the mother’s illness. The facility wasn’t cheap, either. Three siblings, all brothers, but none of them contributed to the mother’s care. From what she could find, the brothers hadn’t visited their mother since she moved into the facility.

Out of curiosity, Simone checked out the facility and discovered the place was outside of Sayulita. That might have been one reason the brothers didn’t visit. All of them lived in Texas. The more she dug, though, the more Simone believed the men wouldn’t have visited the mother if her facility had been located down the block from their own homes. They cut off communication with her once they turned eighteen years old. Talk about cold.

Next, she turned her attention to Beckett Francen. A serious gamer, other gaming companies all over the world recruited him. This guy had written several very popular games that had made Dragon Alley a boatload of money. Not married. No family to speak of. Parents were dead. No siblings. A loner unless he was involved with someone.

She considered Beckett for several minutes, then decided he would probably stay on her suspect list. Gaming was a different type of work than the program she was hunting but Beckett had skills for the program and the ability to adopt a different mindset.

The last name on her list was Wyatt Hatcher. She read through the pages of information from the Fortress database. Hmm. Wyatt definitely had the skills required. He’d also worked for the Department of Defense and written computer programs for them for ten years before Dragon Alley lured him away. He also earned a seven-figure salary. No ties or family, debt free, and living conservatively. His only indulgence was a couple of Russian terriers that he treated like his children.

Since she did not know what a Russian terrier looked like, Simone entered the name in her search engine and goggled at the size of the dogs. “Holy smoke! They’re huge.”

Jesse looked up from his computer. “What’s huge?”

“Wyatt Hatcher’s Russian terriers. They’re big, black, and look like I could ride them to work every day.”

“They’re stubborn and hard to train, but absolutely loyal to their owners if they’re treated right.”

“Well, Wyatt treats them like his children so I’d say they’re living a cushy life.”

“Does he have a family to protect?”

“He’s single. No family, no ties. Just Wyatt.”

“Huh. Interesting. Flag him for a deeper run.”

“Maybe he just loves these dogs.”

“Maybe he has a reason for keeping guard dogs in and around his house.”

“Right. He’s flagged. How’s your search going?”

“Nowhere.” He rose and went to the coffeepot to refill his mug. “I can’t find him.”

Simone scowled as her heart skipped a beat, then settled into a faster rhythm. “That’s impossible. He has to be somewhere.”

“Oh, he is, but he’s gone off the grid.”

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