A regret that had kept her up more than one night.
Adam continued his pitch, oblivious to where her mind had wandered. “You can find people. You blew apart the maze of bureaucratic bullshit and found my sister and brother so I think you can find out who is trying to ruin this company.”
Tess nodded toward the long leather sofa in his office. “This feels like a long story. Mind if I sit?”
“Of course.”
Tess took a seat, watching Adam prowl the perimeter of his office, pacing back and forth in front of the window as if he was imprisoned here in his high-end Silicon Valley prison. Maybe he was. Adam Redhawk had grown up with high expectations imposed on him and now he’d shouldered ones of his own making. When he spoke, it was controlled and even but she could hear the undercurrent of fury.
“In eight weeks we are launching an app that will revolutionize the world.” Adam glanced at her, his eyebrows raised in question. “All of this is confidential in accordance with your previously signed agreement. You understand?”
“Of course. You can count on my discretion,” she answered, not taking any offense at his question. Redhawk/Ling was a company that made dreams an actual reality and it was only natural that they would protect them like children.
“This app will make it possible for any device to communicate and work together with any other device. You can interchange apps, programs, music, documents...the operating system will no longer matter.”
Tess sat up a little straighter, her brain trying to wrap around this information. “This is going to make you rich.” She shook her head, laughing at the stupidity of her statement. “It is going to make you richer. Ridiculously rich.”
“Justin says that that there is ‘fuck you money’ and that this will be ‘I can pay someone to fuck you money.’”
“Justin would say that.” Tess chuckled, her mind turning the situation over in her mind. “So, someone is trying to steal information about the app?”
Adam nodded, coming over to sit next to her on the couch. He had his sleeves rolled up and when he leaned on his knees, his forearms flexed in that sexy way that got her attention every time. He was in great shape. His muscles shifting underneath his impeccably tailored suits made her mind wander to speculation about what he looked like under all that fabric.
Not that she had to leave it all up to her imagination. He’d been photographed when he’d raced in a triathlon last year. Miles and miles of taut, bronzed skin over muscles formed through years of running and hiking and competition. Her heart rate sped up and her palms itched to reach out and touch him again like she had just a few moments ago. That had been unexpected since she made it a point to avoid physical contact with Adam. But he’d looked so vulnerable, so lost that all the rules flew out the big floor-to-ceiling windows.
Adam answered her question. “Someone is trying to ruin the launch. Not sure if they want to try and reverse engineer it or just steal our thunder. Either way, we cannot afford for that to happen. Justin and I have reinvested a significant portion of the company’s money into this app, so it has to work.”
“Or you lose everything?”
“Everything that counts. Besides our investment, we’d have to lay off people. These folks stood by us when we were just two crazy college dropouts working out of the back of a warehouse. I don’t want to let people down.” Adam shifted next to her, their knees brushing as he faced her head-on. His eyes were dark with the intensity of his emotions and he leaned in close enough for her to smell the exotic woodsy scent of his aftershave. “I need someone on this that I can trust, Tess. You’re smart and I know you can do this.”
Tess tried not to cringe every time he mentioned the word trust. He really shouldn’t. He had no idea how much he shouldn’t. “I’m just a P.I. I’m a great P.I. but I don’t know anything about corporate espionage.”
“I’m not worried about it. You’re a quick study and I don’t need you to know my business. You know people and what would make someone steal from me. That’s what I need.” Adam paused, before adding with a wink, “Besides, I know you, which means I don’t have to get to know anyone else.”
“I forgot—you don’t like people.”
“Not as a rule, no.” Adam shrugged, pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and held it out to her. “Justin and I wrote down a list of people who we think are worth looking into. It should get you started.”
Tess ignored the way he assumed she would be taking the case and took the paper, opening it to read the names written down. Her heart kicked up a beat when she read the first one, convinced that the universe was sending her a signal.
“Franklin Thornton? He’s at the top of your list?”
Adam nodded, his eyes narrowed in suspicion and anger. It was no secret that there was no love lost between Adam and his adoptive father.
“Franklin would love to see Redhawk/Ling crash like the Hindenburg. He also has the juice to make it worth someone’s time to sell our asses out.” Adam reached out and grabbed a cup of coffee, took a sip and grimaced before putting down the mug. “Franklin is always at the top of the list. That’s not paranoia. It’s just business to him and it is what he does. Putting me in my place is the cherry on top of the goddamn sundae.”
Tess was very much aware of how Franklin Thornton ate people up and spit them out. She knew the way that he trashed people’s dreams, destroyed their hope and betrayed their trust. She knew what happened to people who ended up on the shit end of Franklin Thornton; they ended up broken, insane with grief and oblivious to the two daughters that needed them to be their dad.
Franklin Thornton ruined people but he also created enemies.
He’d created Tess Lynch and she’d spent the last ten years looking for the perfect chance to get close to him and bring him down. And it didn’t matter if she had to go through the man sitting next to her to get to him; she was going to get him.
There was only one answer to Adam’s question.
“I’ll need an office here, access to security files and IT support.”
Three
The files were everywhere.
Adam tried not to twitch at the absolute shitshow his office had become. Stacks of folders were scattered across the table, three laptops were open with spreadsheets covering all of the screens. And coffee cups and empty food containers littered the coffee table and piled up in the trashcan.
Adam didn’t want to be the guy who was bothered by the disorder and chaos but he was one hundred percent that guy.
Justin was not.
“How did we end up with so many weirdos working here?” Justin asked, lounging back with his size twelve Converse Chucks kicked up on the coffee table. He held a folder in his hands, reading over the reports Tess had compiled on the most likely employees of Redhawk/Ling. “What the hell is LARP-ing? Is that the costume thing? The Comic-Con stuff?”