Page 45 of Off Her Game
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“We’ve been in the conference room for over an hour. Waiting. I think you two are taking this fake dating too far.” Tom scrunched up his face and clicked his ballpoint pen.
Noah snatched the pen out of his hand. “We’re on our way to the meeting now.”
“Give me back my pen, please.” Tom held out his hand and wiggled his fingers.
Noah longed to crush the plastic into bits. Instead, he threw the pen on his desk and selected a non-click pen from his top drawer to hand back.
“This isn’t my pen.” Tom held the new pen between two fingers as if it were a shoe smeared with dog shit.
“It is now.” Noah cast Tori a stern look when she giggled.
“Come.” Tom marched out ahead of them.
In the conference room sat Emma, the two other members of Tom’s team, his IT expert, Sam, and his co-CEO, Jake. All of them were three deep in Styrofoam coffee cups. Projected on the whiteboard were images of the building where the Stadium had been last night.
One of the FBI agents locked the room after they entered.
“Thought you were going out of town again. You have that thing in Florida, right?” Noah asked Jake.
“Don’t need to be there until tomorrow afternoon.” Jake’s gaze bounced between Noah and Tori. He cast Noah a smile that was all about knowing he’d been up to something that wasn’t pretend dating.
“Let’s get to work.” Tom clapped his hands.
“Symphis knows about you trying to recruit me and Noah,” Tori said before Tom could start whatever spiel he’d prepared.
“What?” Tom froze in the act of changing the picture on the big screen.
“He sent me a text about it, specifically mentioning you.”
“I saw the texts,” Noah said. “He knows you’ve tried to enlist her help. Not clear he knows your effort worked.”
“That’s bad.” Tom sat down. “Real bad. Did he hurt you or do anything physical?”
She shook her head. “Just threats. I think he still believes Noah and I are a legit item, which is useful to him.”
“I want her out now.” Noah sat next to Jake. “You can relocate her, can’t you? Do a witness protection or something like that?”
Tom said, “We can only relocate a witness crucial to a case, not someone who’s simply in danger. She hasn’t actually seen Symphis. All she can testify about are the people at the Stadium. We already know all those guys.” He met Tori’s gaze. “I’m sorry, but you’re stuck in this unless you think you could walk away and be safe.”
Tori sat next to Emma. “We started this. Let’s end it. But this has to be the last meeting like this that I attend.”
“Can we buy you out of debt?” Jake asked.
“We could try,” Tori said slowly. “I don’t think they’ll let me leave that easily, but I could try. Emma already said she’d let me borrow it.”
“Yesterday, while listening to you at the Stadium we realized they compete against groups in other cities,” Tom said. “We knew there were other operations but didn’t know the networks communicated. These are the other spots we have intel that a Stadium exists.” He waved at a map on the screen.
“I know.” Tori folded her arms on the table and stared at the red dots across the country projected on the big screen. “You missed San Francisco and Tampa. Everyone bets against each other—outsiders, players, administrators, and support crew. Can you hack Rand’s cell phone to know who he spoke with last night?” She didn’t express any sort of emotion, but Noah realized the less she showed externally, the more freaked out she actually was. He wanted her out of all of this and far away before it moved beyond threats to action.
“We already looked into who Rand spoke with last night.” Tom typed on his computer for a bit. “All caller IDs unlisted. But we do have location of the people he spoke with. Three calls to Atlanta, one incoming call from Orlando, an outgoing locally, and two calls to Jersey City. You think he spoke to Symphis?” He glanced up as if listing off cities should make her know instantly more about Symphis.
“Not helpful,” she muttered.
“When do you think you’ll be asked back to the Stadium?” Tom asked.
“They play once on the weekend, usually Saturdays, and then on Wednesdays.” She swirled a coffee cup that sat in front of Emma and raised her eyebrows. Emma nodded. Tori sipped and grimaced, but took another swallow.
