A Tangled Web Read online

  Ian’s eyes remained impassive.

  “You didn’t, though.”

  “Maybe I did.” Ian was growing irritated.

  “No, I think you didn’t. I think you went home. Where your wife is.”

  “I think you think too much.” Ian didn’t want this line of discussion to continue.

  “I think we’ve been friends for many years. And I think I’ve been privy to the truth of your marriage when it started, but that I’m no longer privy to the whole truth. Ian, you’re in love with your wife, aren’t you? You’re in love with Tess.”

  “Let it go, Robert,” Ian warned.

  “It’s a good thing, you know.” And it was what Robert had hoped for from the moment he had seen his friend react to Tess Andrews as he had never reacted to anyone before.

  “I have a meeting an hour after I land and too much work to do until then.”

  “You’re a stubborn fool,” Robert said in a rare show of frustration. “Fine, go work some more, buy another company. Whatever. I’m going to go say good morning to my wife and kids. See, I actually have a life.” And he hung up.

  Normally Ian might have been amused at that little outburst, but this time there was no humor in his eyes. He didn’t need Robert to tell him how he felt about his wife. He’d known he loved her for quite some time now.

  The problem was that, unlike Robert, he knew there was a complication. Something was standing between Tess and him, and he still had no idea what it was.

  The next incoming call had him raise his eyebrows again, irritated, until he saw who it was.

  “Ian,” was the name his wife used when she greeted him. There was something new in her eyes for him, something he hadn’t seen in them before. Confidence, that was it. Confidence in him. Despite the events of the night before. Or perhaps because of them, he thought. He hadn’t considered it, the possibility that what happened, or rather what didn’t happen, and the truth he had told her, would be what would finally change things between them.

  Whatever it was, he still had her. Nothing else mattered.

  “Hi, Tess.” Her name rolled easily off his tongue. “Good morning. I thought you might sleep in.”

  “There’s something I want to do that I need to finish today, a simulation algorithm I want to build that might help us find that point of origin. I want to do it here, but then I’m considering going to your office, probably tomorrow, to run it directly from there.”

  He nodded, pleased. “Let me know if you do, I’ll tell Becca to expect you. You should be able to work there undisturbed, since I’m not around.”

  “Yes, but I won’t have my expert sidekick with me.”

  He laughed at that. “Call me directly whenever you want. Your calls I’ll take.”

  She was smiling when the call ended.

  So was he. And for the life of him, he hadn’t thought that this morning he would.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She did end up going to his office the next day. And it wasn’t just his office, the entire floor was quiet. Ian Blackwell wasn’t there, and so the only people around were Becca and her administrative assistants, all working in their offices. The floor was hushed.

  By now Tess was used to being here in this capacity, and Becca had expected her, receiving her with a genuine smile and making sure she had everything she needed before leaving her alone in her husband’s office. Tess went right to work. She had a lot to do. This time she wanted to use the algorithm she had prepared the day before to simulate the continued formation of the individual webs within Ian Blackwell Holdings’ subsidiaries, which would give her a wider platform for generating specific location identifiers, markers that she could use to go backward and pinpoint where in the huge company the encompassing web the individual webs made up had originated and when it was first created, when whoever was doing this had started.

  And this was the best place to get whatever supplementary data she would need for her simulation while she was running it, here in Ian’s office, where she could access everything without any delays. She worked on her laptop, but connected to the company through his, the one he kept here. This way she could use his authorizations to easily access and walk through the data she needed, and still hide what she was doing. She had to be careful, those pseudo-origin points had shown her just how vigilant whoever was behind the web was.

  Darkness ruled the sky outside by the time she had what she wanted. She shut down both her laptop and Ian’s, her brow furrowed. She didn’t send him a message, although she wanted to. It was the middle of the day in Tokyo and he would be in meetings now, and there was nothing urgent here, by now she knew more than enough about Ian Blackwell Holdings to continue their work without him. She would go back to his den and incorporate what she’d found into what she had there, and speak to him later.

  She was disappointed that he wouldn’t be in the house when she got there, she realized. It had been almost two days since he’d left, and she missed him. This made her shake her head incredulously. She still couldn’t believe it, how much she’d changed. Trusting him. Wanting, needing him to be around.

  Loving him, this still wasn’t easy to admit.

  She put her laptop in her bag and stood up, preparing to leave.

  “Well, well. Sitting in Ian Blackwell’s chair, behind Ian Blackwell’s desk, in Ian Blackwell’s office. I suppose that says it all.”

  Her eyes snapped to the man standing at the door. No one was supposed to be on this floor this time of night. Even Becca had already gone home, having been prodded to do so by Tess, and after making sure Tess had a fresh cup of coffee beside her. And yet there he was. It was just Brett Sevele, but her instincts had already kicked in and she didn’t let her guard down. She remained where she was. Waited.

  The tone of his voice was the first thing that alerted her something was off. His eyes as he came closer, close enough for her to see them clearly, were the second. There was something new there. Brett had always been all charm, with an almost perpetual smile on his face whenever she saw him, no matter whom he was speaking to. Including her. But there was no charm now, no smile. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was a hostile tone in his voice and resentment, even hatred in his eyes.

  “Good evening, Brett,” she said, her voice carefully controlled. “What are you doing here this time of night?” And how did you even get up here, she didn’t ask. This floor should have been off limits, with no elevator or stair access. Once Becca left every day, no one was authorized up here but her husband, her, and the building’s security guards.

  “But then I already knew you have his ear, this has become quite obvious,” Brett continued, not answering her. “You’ve been checking Ian Blackwell Holdings for him, haven’t you, his little data expert? Isn’t that why he ‘married’ you, brought you here?” Brett’s eyes flickered to her bag on the desk, with the laptop inside it. “I checked you out. Someone in your caliber could find things.” He turned his eyes back to her. “That’s why the added scrutiny of my company, isn’t it? Everyone else is just being audited. Additive Manufacturing’s audit should have been over by now, but no. He’s still looking at it, still asking questions. He knows, doesn’t he? It’s not just the company he’s looking at, it’s me, isn’t it? See, good thing I came along the other day. I wasn’t supposed to, you know, he wanted only finance and operations. But I thought I’d better come myself, make sure nothing’s up I should know about. And then I see you working in here.”

  “Brett, what are you doing?” He had to know that his behavior was odd. Alarming even. So why was he behaving this way? And why was he here, had he hoped to find Ian here alone, to face him? Of course, he couldn’t have known Ian wasn’t here, there was no reason for him to. And what did he mean by—

  The realization dawned on her. He had known Ian wouldn’t be there. And to know that, he’d need to get into Becca’s computer. And he knew she was there. Alone. So he had to have known who was coming and going. And he had managed to get into this floor, a
nd security wasn’t there to stop him, so he’d found a way to evade them, too.

  One person, wasn’t that what she had told Ian? One person who was patient enough, smart enough, and with the right knowledge could be behind what was being done to Ian Blackwell Holdings. One person who was the chief technology officer of one of its subsidiaries and who therefore had more access than someone on the outside. Who knew the head of that company and seemed just a little too interested in that man, his company, his life. Her.

  A person who could easily just happen to have been at Blackwell Tower the same day she had been there, and who would immediately connect her being there with something he himself had done that he feared would be discovered. A coincidence that had set him thinking in the wrong direction, leading him to expose his actions.

  She thought hard. The only people who knew she was here were the building security and Jackson, whom she had called earlier to let him know she would be done here soon, and who was probably already waiting for her in front of the building. Obviously neither knew Brett was there.

  “He knows, doesn’t he, Blackwell knows. Damn him,” Brett threw his hands up in anger. “Damn him and damn you. I’ll have to—”

  “He doesn’t.” Fear gripped her, fear for Ian. “He just thinks someone may be using an enterprise-wide system glitch to embezzle money, and he’s looking for where that glitch might have hit. Only I know, I just understood, today,” she lied, praying he would believe her, knowing she had to make him lock on her, steer him away from Ian.

  “Oh no. No. And you didn’t know it was me, did you? How much did you know? Damn, damn it to hell, I went and told you now, didn’t I? Yes, see, but it’s all his fault for bringing someone like you here. It got me all paranoid and now I’ve gone and made a mistake.” He was pacing across the office, ranting. Abruptly, he stopped and looked at her. “I can’t let you get in my way.”

  She took a step back, bumping into the chair, and he raised a hand. “Oh, no, no, don’t worry, it’s nothing like that. I won’t kill you, that would just start an investigation and attract too much attention to him, to his company. To what you were doing here. And I am not a killer. I believe in more . . . elegant methods.”

  She relaxed a little and assessed her position in the large room. Moving unobtrusively, she hoped, from behind the desk and toward the door, she asked, hoping to keep him busy, “Brett, what are you talking about? You don’t have to do anything.”

  He wasn’t listening. “All I need to do is make sure you won’t say anything, that you won’t tell that husband of yours what you know. Or about this conversation, for that matter. That you will keep your pretty mouth shut and let me go on with what I want to do. That’s it. Oh, that will be so perfect.” Even as he spoke, he moved to position himself between her and the door, seeing what she was trying to do.

  She froze in place.

  “But then, that shouldn’t really be difficult to do, should it? I mean, he is not really your husband, or you his wife. It’s an arranged thing, isn’t it? I figured it all out, you see, as soon as I saw you working here the other day. He brought you in on his company. And Ian Blackwell would never do that. He never brings anyone in, not this way.” He uttered a short laugh. “And you are not with him, after all. You’re in his office, alone, while he’s away in Tokyo. If you were really his wife, you’d be with him. Or at home. Not here, working here this way. Smart man, that Blackwell. What, he had you working hidden away until now, in his house, right? Where you’re staying with him? Is there even a marriage or are you still Tess Andrews? A powerful man like him, he could make things look like he wants them to.”

  “How do you know where he is?” She had to keep him talking, had to find a way to get away from him.

  “You know how. Don’t tell me you don’t know what I can do.”

  She didn’t know. She knew what the capabilities were of whoever was tampering with her husband’s company, but she couldn’t connect that to Brett.

  She thought fast. This was a good opportunity to get him to tell her how he was able to do what he had done, it could help toward stopping him. “No, I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know it was you, remember?”

  “Right, right. Might as well tell you. But only juuuust a little.” He brought his thumb and finger together, squinting at them.

  She moved a little to the left and he moved with her, blocking her way.

  “No no, we’re not done. See, I know my stuff. Like you know yours. I used to hack, as a kid. I was bored, you know. Got in trouble for it, but, see, I was able to get my record expunged because I did what I did when I was a minor. Not that it mattered, what kids do is forgiven. But, see, I’m not allowed to hack. Of course I did, I do, just learned to be clever about it. And at the same time, I made sure I would be a model citizen. Went to college. Got interested in three-dimensional printing when it was just starting. And got asked to help set up Additive Manufacturing. Fascinating company, I have to say. At least I wasn’t bored.”

  Her mind was working. She didn’t care about his background. Except for one thing there.

  “But I’ve always been a hacker. A closet hacker. See? I just thought of that one. Closet hacker. Yes. Accurate, too. I do it from my house. And you know what I did there? I watched Blackwell. And then I started watching his company. Ah, the things I could do. The things I did. You saw what I did, you know. Yes, slowly. But not slow enough, not careful enough, was it? He saw something? What was it? He saw something too soon, far too soon, and then he brought you here. No. How could he see?” He was speaking to himself now more than to her.

  “Why would you do this? To hurt him?”

  He nodded. “But not quite the way you think.”

  She opened her mouth to ask more, get more information, but he cut her off. “No, no more questions from you. You. Yes. Your looking into Additive Manufacturing, the way you can do, I checked what you did at InSyn, see. I spoke to that loser who had lost it to Blackwell. And you’re good. You go straight to the core, you find the right data, you see where it goes, where it’s wrong, you see what others don’t. Yes, you did that, didn’t you, and you traced it to the initial attempts I made to change Additive Manufacturing’s numbers to perfect how it should be done, right? Back when I started this? And I never even knew you were looking. But you must have, or Blackwell wouldn’t have initiated that check, it was camouflaged as an audit, right? Yes. So lucky I was here that day, saw you here. Yes, lucky. I knew immediately. And I knew if you found it was me, I’d have to stop you. Yes, I knew.” His eyes glimmered. “Clever, huh?” He pointed to his right temple. “See, so I prepared evidence.”

  “Evidence.” His ranting was erratic. He was obviously quite brilliant, but Tess wasn’t sure he was all there.

  “Yes, you know, items implicating you in . . . certain matters. Proof.”

  “You mean, in what you’re doing?” She asked. He wasn’t making sense.

  “No, that again would mean an investigation that might uncover what I did. And I still need that, I’m not done. And in any case, you haven’t been here long enough to do this, what I’m doing took much longer than that to plan, to try, to see that no one saw it. No,” he was angry now. “I told you I was clever, weren’t you listening? No, what I did goes straight to Blackwell’s weakness. You are his wife. The woman whom he married so suddenly when no one even knew you had a thing going between you two, the woman to replace all those pretty women he’s had.” He said that in a way that made Tess realize he was jealous of Ian. “No, see, there are things someone like me can do that would be so much more fun—for me, of course, not him, or you—and that could be used so much better for leverage. People can pretend to be so much, they can mislead so easily if they want to, and I can do so much with that. And Sex,” he finally said. “Sex always does the work.”

  “Brett, what did you do?” She couldn’t breathe.

  “I created infidelities. You, fooling around with other men. Yes, I prepared hotel records, photo
s. Videos, that one was fun. So much you can do nowadays. Well, so much I can do, obviously.”

  “But there was nothing. Ever.” She was horrified.

  “So? By the time it’s proven it would be over. The doubt would remain, people aren’t exactly fair, are they? The stain on you would never go away. And as for Blackwell, the damage would be done, he would be a laughing stock. Finally he gets married, and it’s to someone like that, she fooled him and he didn’t even know.”

  Tess’s anger mounted. Brett was closer to the mark than he knew, this would cause considerable damage. And it would undo everything she and Ian had achieved since they had gotten married.

  It would hurt Ian. That, she couldn’t stand the thought of.

  “So you be a nice wifey, keep quiet, and I won’t do anything. You know what, I promise I won’t even continue what I’m doing, how’s that? I’ll back off. Do we have an understanding?”

  He was lying. That kind of obsession didn’t simply stop, she had no doubt he would continue. Now that he thought he had neutralized her, there was no reason for him to stop.

  He took a step closer to her, enjoying this. “And if you think you can tell him what you know, or about this little talk of ours, for that matter, don’t think that’ll work. I have all that ‘proof’. You have nothing. And when he comes to me, asks me, I’ll know you talked. And then I’ll give him that proof of mine, enough to destroy you. And who do you think he’ll believe? He’s known me longer, I’ve always been reliable, always that nice person around him. I’ll convince him, you’ll see. And then I’ll resume what I started and destroy him.”

  “Why would you do that? You’ve known him for years, you’re his friend.”

  “We were never friends,” Brett said bitterly. “Business associates, yes, but never friends. No, I’m not good enough to be a friend of Ian Blackwell, the handsome billionaire, owner of one of the most powerful companies in the world.”