Page 96 of Hidden Ties

“No.” They might want to, but they wouldn’t. He’d have to keep an eye on her.

“Then I guess you can be my attorney.”

The least she could do was sound grateful.

“Thank you. You made the right choice,” he said wryly.

“I have no choice.” Suddenly, she gripped the table, making him jump. “I need my Twizzlers. And my computer. I’ll go nuts without them. I used to vape, but the Twizzlers kept me sane. Will they let me vape in my cell?” Valerie frantically turned in her seat, facing the door as if she were thinking about escaping. He had to calm her ass down.

“No, they won’t let you vape in your cell, but”— Kent reached into his open briefcase—“I do have this. It was going to be my lunch. Do you like n—”

“Nutty Buddy!” Snatching it from his hand, she ripped it open and started eating it.

“Listen, the police aren’t going to let you near any computers, especially your own.” Trying to get her attention as she wolfed down her snack wasn’t easy. “And they’ve executed a search warrant. Are they going to find anything incriminating?”

Valerie started fanning herself with her free hand. “The only thing they’ll find are the games I’m developing, and the games I play.”

Kent didn’t like the nervous way she was acting. He tried to think back to the times they had discussed her job at the Horseshoe. “That’s all?” Kent searched her expression. He had been a lawyer long enough to recognize a guilty expression when he saw one.

“I worked for the Horseshoe before they fired me. They’ll find some work-related correspondence,” she admitted. “I warnedthem a kindergartener could get past their firewalls, and I was terminated for my trouble.”

“That’s all?”

“When I got fired, I might have sent the dude who fired me a tiny bug in an email …”

She was giving him a headache. Rubbing his temples, he promised the next time he had to consult with her, he would take Tylenol beforehand.

“What kind of bug?”

“Nothing bad, per se … just every time my boss, Edmond, sent an email to other employees, the emails would also be sent to the CEO. I wanted him to find out that Edmond is undermining his authority. I tried to tell him that before I was terminated, but he didn’t want to listen any more than when I had warned him about the firewalls. I sent another email the next day, fixing the bug.”

“You just made my job much harder.” There went any chance of getting her bail lowered.

“It was just a harmless prank.”

If he wasn’t amused, the judge certainly wouldn’t be.

“The judge won’t see it that way.”

“The judge didn’t have to work for the Horseshoe.” She then added without missing a beat, “They’re dicks.”

“Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

“No …” Her eyes went to his briefcase. “You got anything else to eat in that briefcase? Or a vape I can take a hit off of?”

He shook his head, raising an eyebrow at her. “You don’t seem sure,” he prodded, wishing he had a fucking cigarette.

Her shoulders slumped forward. “I think I need a break.”

“Valerie.” He tried to look and talk sterner, which was hard to do. She had been a vape fiend before he talked her into quitting. She had replaced one fixation with another, so he was aware howhard it was for her to be without her Twizzlers and go-to snacks. “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

He almost broke and told her who he was when tears rose in her eyes.

“Not in the computer, per se … but does taking their scrap computer parts count?”

Yeah … maybe not.

SEVEN

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