Page 185 of One Bossy Disaster

This weekend, that’s when I’ll tell her. When we take the yacht out to talk and try to spot the sei whales one last time.

No sex.

No kissing.

Not even touching a hair on her head.

Just one last bittersweet joyride to enjoy her presence and the way she lights up my inner darkness like the sunrise made flesh.

One last parting hit of the addiction she’s become from a safe distance.

Then it’s cold turkey, and she’ll be free to follow her dreams without being mired in my nightmares.

Fuck, after her, maybe I need rehab.

Is it possible to be physiologically dependent on another human being?

The thought draws a bitter laugh out of me and I pour a few more fingers of booze.

I swallow wrong on my next shot. It hurts like hell on the way down.

Whatever.

Today, I need the pain.

But before I can fall too deep into the torture pit of self-hatred, there’s yelling from outside my door.

I shove the glass aside as I stride over and rip the door open.

I’m not ready for what I see.

Hannah, damned near frog-marching Mark out of the elevator toward my office, yelling at him to keep moving.

And Hannah Choneveryells.

Mark, he’s a human tomato with a beard, sullen-faced and sulky and staring at the floor.

“What the hell’s going on?” I ask.

“That’s what I’d like to find out, Mr. Foster.” She swings around to face me. It’s like flicking a switch, and she’s back to her impeccably controlled self. “Why don’t you explain my findings, Mr. Cantor? Or I will.”

Mark’s jaw sets. He won’t look up from the floor as she waits impatiently.

“Okay! My turn,” Hannah says with a hint of a brutal smile. “Jacob from IT found the missing drone this morning—the real one—and turned it in. Its transponder was barely working. The unit was broken apart, sitting in a dumpster behind a Sweeter Grind café in Ballard. It seems Mark removed the tracking chip from the prototype before he stole it, but not the embedded backup GPS chip you decided to have installed for additional security. Presumably so he could use it to track you on your sea otter excursion.”

My eyes snap to Mark like angry hornets.

I’m ready to tear his head off, but there’s one nagging question first.

“How?” I clip. “The research lab is locked down tighter than a vault.”

This time, Hannah smiles.

“Well, it seems he forgot his access badge automatically logs entry, even if he’s not authorized for access. The only time he entered the product development lab was with Carol Garcia at the same time—or rather, with her badge. That’s how he disarmed the tracking chip and stole the unit from the lab. Carol confirmed she lost her badge and went looking for half an hour, right around the time Mr. Cantor generously supplied her with a cinnamon roll and coffee at her desk. He had no business being there without her,” Hannah rattles off. “Honestly, I might not have noticed the discrepancy enough to ask, except for the fact that Mr. Cantor brought three teams cinnamon rolls from the very same Sweeter Grind shop on five different occasions. Circumstantial, yes, but when I found him working late and decided to ask about his lab visit with Carol, he wasn’t exactly cooperative.”

Yeah.

I don’t deserve this brilliant of an assistant.

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