Page 66 of Don't Game Me
“Maybe he already figured out we’re leveraged out the wazoo to bring the VR goggles to market. Maybe he’s the one screwing with production.” Jake’s gut cinched tight. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid to not recognize the signs of someone in trouble and to let her walk out of his life without a fight to keep her here.
Sam shook his head. “He’s not a god who knows everything. But financials would be the best way to figure out how to tank us. If she truly altered the information, then she probably saved the company.”
“At the cost of her life,” Jake said.
Becca’s heart pounded as she keyed in the code to the airport locker in Phoenix. It didn’t work. If she didn’t get the backpack, there was no plan.
Her chest seized tight as she punched in the code again. It clicked open. Thank God.
Backpack still where she’d left it on her last pass through the airport.
She’d planned to disappear with Stuart, both of them making their way back to California by car. Then to Comic-Con where the contact would be in two days. She hadn’t planned on taking the journey alone. Made it scarier.
They’d done a lot of research on how to ghost out of existence, covering their online searches by using public computers at libraries and coffee houses. The last piece to truly disappear was what the contact could provide—erasure from Symphis’s system. Then she could truly disappear and hope time would provide a way to bring down his operation.
She pulled out Quan’s card, wondering. Maybe she could get some discreet assistance.
She cradled her phone, pulling up her pictures one last time. A smile tugged at her lips when she ran her thumb over a picture of Jake taken last Christmas. Love pulsed so powerfully in her veins that her heart actually ached. She clicked off the phone, removed sim card, dropped it, slammed her heel down on the card, and flushed both the card and phone in the toilet.
“Good-bye, Jake.”
Good-bye, old life.
21
“Twenty-five minutes and you’re on in Ballroom Four,” Emma announced as she swiped through screens on her iPad. “We need you there early to do a sound check. Your talk has been uploaded.”
“The system is going to work this time?” Jake asked. Three weeks ago in Chicago, he had to wing a huge talk without graphics. Nightmare.
“The team double-checked. Use the clicker.” She pressed the device into his hand. “The promo video will play on your cue.”
“You made it clear our tech team will be running the video?” He shoved the familiar thin clicker into his jeans pocket.
“Yes. The Comic-Con people didn’t like it, but they’ll tolerate it. The team is already in there. They’ve opened the room to include Ballroom Three and added an extra jumbo screen due to anticipated attendance.”
“We expected this to be big.” He lowered his voice, “Anything new yet?”
Emma shook her head. “You’ve got the meeting after the talk at eleven and then lunch with the studio execs.”
Nothing? Becca had disappeared before her connecting flight three days ago. Three fucking days of hell. The FBI couldn’t find a single breadcrumb of a clue as to her whereabouts. Noah was going insane. They’d interviewed her employer out here in San Diego who, after coercion, admitted he’d been forced to use his interns to play in the Stadium. He also admitted to texting her multiple times through the weekend to order she do Symphis’s bidding. That left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. What they’d had, what she’d done, might only have been because she’d been forced into it.
During slow moments, he obsessed about possibilities like where she’d gone and her plans, if still alive. She could’ve been captured, killed, or tortured. If alive and still free, did she intend to take down Symphis alone? Or maybe she’d done a Jason Bourne and disappeared.
He didn’t want to find her out of concern for her welfare. He wanted a fight. A big fight. About what’d been real and what’d been done out of coercion. And about her not trusting him.
“Jake, focus. This is the biggest Comic-Con of the year.” Emma snapped her fingers in front of his face.
“I’ll meet you in there,” Jake said. “I’m running to the restroom.”
Emma gave him a pained look. She wanted to say more. “I can only delay the start for so long.”
“I’ll be there in a sec.” Jake’s eye caught on a woman in a classic Princess Leia outfit. The hair buns dwarfed her head. The gown wasn’t tailored and not top of the line. In fact, the skirt almost dragged on the floor. She wore a Carrie Fisher mask to hide her face. Something about her seemed familiar. Her height, the way she carried herself… No, she was another cosplay crazy. They were everywhere. She wasn’t even the first Leia he’d seen today. More like the tenth. Only this Leia had a backpack.
He was losing his mind. Why in the world would a backpack make her suspicious?
It wasn’t Becca. She wouldn’t have disappeared in Phoenix to come back to San Diego and dress up for Comic-Con.
He followed the Leia.
