Page 63 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
He cocked his head, seeming perplexed. “What do you mean?”
I took the mouse back and clicked into the other document. “I think she’s feeding them false information, but I don’t know for sure because I don’t know the information as intricately as you do. It’s like she gave up on all the code and just started talking to them by the time I got to the last envelope. She’s telling them things about the formula and the production schedule that aren’t accurate, at least to my knowledge.”
I twisted the computer back to him, and he read the entries. He pointed at one of them. “This is wrong. None of these are accurate percentages for our formula,” he said, stunned. “She’s feeding them bad information.”
I scrolled down with the mouse. “Except here, Honey says she isn’t sure if it’s outdated because you’re still working. We have to assume she means on the formula. The person behind the screen tells her to keep sending the information each week.”
He laughed and I was surprised at how amused he was by this. “What she’s sending them isn’t a formula for our pesticide at all.”
“What is it then?”
Gulliver kept chuckling the longer he read through the information on the screen. “From what I can see, Honey’s giving them the formulas from the bottles of eco-friendly garden pesticides. It’s what we used as a base to start ours, but now ours is nothing like it. This is actually kind of funny in a scary way. She’s giving them what they want, but they’re too stupid to realize it’s not our formula.”
“And what does that tell you?”
“This person has no idea what they’re doing,” he said without even pausing. “They’re not from a big pesticide company, or they would know the formulas weren’t for commercial operations and would have called her on it. If they are from a big company, they have to be stupid not to know the difference. Though, in this line of work, I’ve learned that’s not uncommon.”
“It also tells me she’s playing with fire because if they figure it out—”
“She and Mathias are dead.”
“What do we do?” I asked, shutting the computer down and placing it back in its case.
“We’re going to have the team protecting Mathias and Honey get them back here safely. From there, we make a plan together, but this ends now.”
“I’m nervous because if we tip our hand, they might be in even more danger,” I said, biting my lip. “The chats tell us Honey has been involved with them for at least nine months.”
He paused as he folded the blanket on the cot. “I hired her in June of last year, so they had to have gotten to her immediately. I’m surprised she’s held them off this long. She must be an amazing actress.”
My heart stuttered in my chest, and my shoulders hunched unconsciously. “More like she’s a woman in love, and she’s determined to protect Mathias at the cost of her own life.” My stomach churned, and I pressed my hand to it. “I just pray we aren’t too late.”
♥
“Are you sure everythingis okay, Charity?” Honey asked me from where we sat in Gulliver’s office.
The sun was shining, and the damage to the town was stark in the light of day. There were so many trees down, Mathias and Honey had to come in by pontoon boat from a dock near his condo. At least it was something they commonly did, so Mathias had a spot at the marina to dock the boat while we talked.
“Everything is fine,” I lied. “Gulliver was just concerned about some stuff he found in the research lab during the storm, so he wanted Mathias to look it over.”
Technically not a lie. My phone beeped, and I glanced at the text. All it said was:Ready.
I motioned to the door. “They want us to run down there,” I explained, following her down the stairs and waiting while she swiped her key card through the reader. Once the door clicked, she held it for me, and we stopped in the doorway.
Mathias paced with his back to us. “I don’t understand any of this,” he said. “Who are they, and why are they dabbling in this if they don’t know the first thing about it. What in the hell is Honey thinking not coming to me about it?”
Honey gasped and Mathias whipped around, his hand falling to his side as he faced off with his best friend. I took her waist and urged her into the room gently, while Gulliver stood up from the table. I lowered her to a chair at the same time her face crumbled into tears. I eyed both men while I rubbed her back. They were going to have to be careful about how they questioned her, or they’d do more damage to her already stressed psyche.
Mathias sat and picked up Honey’s hand off the table. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We know you didn’t want to do it.”
Her head swung back and forth, and she tried to speak but no words would come out.
“You’re scared they’re going to hurt me, you, or both of us, right?”
She nodded, sucking up air as she worked to form a sentence. I handed her a tissue, and she wiped her eyes before she released a shuddering breath. “I’m afraid of them,” she finally whispered.
Mathias trailed his thumb below her eye to wipe away a tear and waited for her to get herself under control.
“How did you find out?” she finally asked on a whisper.
