“What’s all the security about?” she asked as they went out and crossed the lawn to Willow.
“Industrial spies,” he said. “A lot of companies would love to get some of our code and check out our technology. And then there are hackers, who could get in and mess up accounts. Willow has a lot of interests, and way more equipment and computers and companies than we do.”
He said good-bye to her in the Willow lobby, then went with a security guard onto the elevator.
His hands were clammy as he got to the conference room and pulled the door open. The board members were around the table already, sipping coffee. Newspapers were strewn across the table.
They all looked up at him. No one was smiling.
“Hello, gentlemen.” He set his briefcase down, pulled out his laptop, and took his seat at the table. “I see you’ve been reading the papers.”
Henry Hearne sat with arms crossed over his chest. The other board members had looks of restrained anger on their faces. The silence was deafening.
Ryan hated this. The whole reason he’d started a business in college was so he wouldn’t have bosses to answer to. Now he had a roomful of them.
“Look, I know you guys are upset. Who knew the chatter about my hospital visit would go on this long? But I think one sure way to put it to rest is to help locate this killer.”
“Kid, do you have any idea how you’ve made us look?” Henry asked, his chin set.
“I hope I made us look like we have compassion for the victims, and concern for finding this madman.”
“Are you blind?” John Stanley bit out. “The news isn’t touting our compassion. They’re making us look like a shopping center for predators.”
“I know what they’re saying, but I plan to do a few interviews explaining the new security measures we’re going to implement and letting people know that we’re as concerned as they are about what’s going on.”
“No, absolutely not.” Henry sat straighter and pointed at him. “You will not do any interviews. You will stay out of the public eye until this blows over.”
Ryan looked at the man who’d been his mentor. Was he really forbidding him? “Henry, I represent GrapeVyne. I created it. No one cares more about it than I do. We can do the right thing without hurting revenue.”
John Stanley coughed into his hand, cleared his throat. “What security measures are you referring to, Ryan? Because I don’t recall agreeing to any new measures.”
Ryan thought of going over his ideas, but these men were in no mood for that. Maybe Krista could soften them up. “If we could just pause this discussion for a little while, I have someone here who’d like to weigh in. I’ve asked Krista Carmichael to come speak to us today, so that you can see from her perspective what needs to be done.”
Henry hit the table. “I’m not interested in her perspective! How dare you invite her here without clearing it with us first? You are not in control here, Ryan! You are an employee of this company!”
“Henry, I’m asking you to hear her out. Her sister’s dead! She deserves twenty minutes of our time. Then we’ll discuss it.”
Henry looked at John Stanley, then at the others. Turning his palms up and muttering, “Unbelievable,” he sat back hard in his chair.
Ryan knew this was not a good idea, but he couldn’t leave Krista sitting down in the lobby. It would be too embarrassing to tell her that he didn’t have enough clout, as CEO of GrapeVyne, to make the board members listen to her. He hoped they’d put their anger on ice until she was finished.
Ryan called security and asked them to escort Krista to the conference room. When she came in, he moved his chair to the side and plugged her computer into the projector. He introduced her, but the board members couldn’t have been colder.
That clearly made her nervous. Her voice was shaky as she started her plea for changes, but after the first moment or so, that passion he’d heard as she’d spoken to the high school kids returned. He watched the closed faces of his board members as she spoke, and tried to keep her going with encouraging looks.
When she was finished, he thanked her and escorted her out. He knew the men were slashing him with their tongues, lambasting him behind his back. When he returned to the conference room, they did it to his face.
“Ryan, we’re busy men. The next time you want to parade a victim in front of us, why don’t you ask us if we’d like to hear it?”
“It’s pertinent to what’s going on,” he said. “Did you hear anything she said?”
Henry cut in. “We heard plenty, Kid.”
“And you still don’t want to make changes?”
“There’s no need. We haven’t done anything wrong.”
Ryan couldn’t leave it at that. “All right. What if I told you that the killer is still taunting Megan Quinn? That the moment she bought a new cell phone, she saw a text from him? And when police pinged the number the text came from, they found the phone…in our Dumpster.”
Everyone gaped at him.
“What are you saying, Ryan?” Henry asked.
“I’m saying that the killer could very well be someone who works here.”
“That’s absurd!”
“Is it? The people who work in these buildings have access to a lot of information. They wouldn’t have to be accepted as Friends. They could get on anyone’s account, anytime, and gather all the information they need. And whether you accept that or not doesn’t matter. The FBI is looking into it.”
John rubbed his face. “This is getting worse and worse. Has this cell phone business gotten out to the press?”
“Not yet. But it’s just a matter of time. That’s another reason we need to make these changes. Even if we implement a Band-Aid fix, it would make us look like we were trying to do the right thing. In fact, let’s get crazy and actually do the right thing. Henry, I’d like for you to give us the software for Willow’s Data-Gather program. My team would like to take that software and modify it with some new search strings that might help us locate the killer.”
Henry looked as if he’d just been asked to sacrifice one of his children. “Absolutely not. That software isn’t for anyone’s eyes but those in my employ who’ve been given clearance for it.”
“But we’re your employees too. We can be trusted. I’d only give access to my people at the top tier of GrapeVyne, and they know what they’re doing.”
Henry passed a do-you-believe-this look to his colleagues. “We’re already gathering all the data we need. Tell me what you want, and we’ll get you that information ourselves.”
Ryan didn’t like it. If he did it that way, anyone on Willow’s staff could leave out the info they didn’t want him to have. No, he’d feel better if his own people were doing it. He leaned back in his chair. “Why won’t you trust us with it?”
“Because if one of your people ever leaves GrapeVyne, they’ll take that information with them. I don’t want them to have it. It’s proprietary information…”
“That information technically belongs to the individual GrapeVyne members, not Willow. Besides, my employees won’t leave GrapeVyne if we keep them happy here. And even if they did, these are people with integrity. They’re not going to pirate that software. In fact, they could probably build their own, and it would be even better than what you’ve got. But that would take time. I want this done immediately, and you already have it.”
Hearne set his jaw. “Not going to happen. Sorry, Kid.”
He could see in the man’s face that he wasn’t going to change his mind, so he let up. It was probably a good thing, after all, that Ian had hacked into their computers and had already gotten the software. Henry underestimated the power of Ryan’s team.
He changed gears back to PR. “Can you at least look at this from a marketing standpoint? We could be the company that cares. We could make other social networks look like they don’t care. It could actually drive business to our community. And again, I’m willing to do interviews setting the record straight. But first I
have to have something to tell them. Changes we’re making. We need to decide on what to do, and fast.”
“I say we implement a study to see how much revenue will be lost with each suggested change. Then we can decide,” John said.
Ryan sighed. “All right, I’ll get it started immediately. But I hope you understand that timing is of the essence. The sooner we act, the sooner we can stop these predators from going after our customers. These Houston murders have got to stop, and we might be the ones to stop them. Don’t you want to be heroes?”
His board members only stared at him.
Thirty-two
Ryan went back to the GrapeVyne building, dropped his notes in his office, then headed across the Rumpus Room to Ian. Ian’s eyes were bloodshot and glazed as he stared at the numbers going across his screen.
“How’s it going?” Ryan asked, pulling up a chair.
“Pretty good,” Ian said without looking up. “I’m checking Bridgit’s work to make sure this will work before we run it on the system.”
“Yeah, about that. Henry said we couldn’t have the software. He preferred that we tell them what we need, and they’ll give us the information.”
“It’ll take those morons months to get it done, whereas I’m almost finished.”
“But we’re forbidden to use their software. I only told you to hack it so we could get a jump on it. But now that they’ve said no—”
Ian laughed as he typed in some commands. “I love that word, forbidden. Just makes me tremble.” He looked up. “You’re not going to make me stop this, are you?”
Ryan studied the numbers on the screen. Yes, it looked like their work had been successful. The information they got here could make a real difference in the investigation. He couldn’t pull them off it now. It could be a matter of life and death. “No, not after you’ve come this far. All I can tell you is, don’t get caught.”
Ian sighed. “I can’t make that promise. Someone at Willow’s already onto me. I got an instant message from him a few minutes ago.”
Ryan’s heart jolted. “From who?”
“Guy named Jeff Hall. He’s an engineer over there. He asked me who I was and how I’d logged into their server.”
Ryan groaned. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. I didn’t answer him.”
“He’ll figure out it’s you. He’ll tell Henry.” Ryan tried to think. “Well, don’t answer. Maybe it’ll blow over.”
But as he headed back to his desk, he knew that wouldn’t happen. Jeff Hall would surely tell his superiors about the breach of security. Unless Ryan intervened, word would definitely get back to Henry Hearne. He supposed he could get Ian to plead ignorance and say that he misunderstood Ryan’s instructions. That he thought he had gotten clearance to use that software.
He paced his office, thinking through possibilities. Maybe he needed to walk over to Willow, find the engineer who’d IM’d Ian, and try to do some damage control. Maybe he could convince him that Ian wasn’t up to anything sinister. That he’d just overstepped his bounds in the interest of finding the killer.
Yes, that could work.
He ran down the stairs and out, crossed to the Willow building again. The guard at the security desk was on the phone and didn’t see him. Ryan slipped into the stairwell and took the stairs up two at a time. Most of the engineers were on the top two floors, so he bypassed the first four. When he reached the fifth floor, he opened the door to the floor and stepped out of the stairwell. The temperature had changed. The floor was warmer—almost hot. There were no people in sight here, but dozens of huge computer servers that collected and sorted data. Though GrapeVyne was a company that always needed more servers, Willow had at least ten times as many as they had.
How could that be?
Fearful that he’d get caught here before he was able to talk to Jeff Hall, Ryan headed up one more floor. He came out of the stairwell and saw another roomful of computers, then a floor full of offices.
He stepped into the first one. An Asian lady was busy, bent over her desk.
“Excuse me.”
She looked up.
“Could you tell me where I can find Jeff Hall?”
She pointed to her left. “Third office.” She looked him over. “Are you allowed in here?”
“Sure,” he said. “I work here.”
She waved him on, and Ryan headed to Hall’s office. The door was open a crack, so he knocked on the casing and waited.
“Come in.”
He stepped inside the office. “Jeff?”
The engineer looked nothing like the ones who worked at GrapeVyne. He was wearing a tucked-in button-down shirt and tie, khaki pants, and a Willow Entertainment badge. His hair was moussed and glistened like crude oil under the florescent bulbs. He shot Ryan a surprised look. “How did you get in here?”
“I’m Ryan Adkins, from next door.”
“I know who you are. You don’t have clearance to be on this floor.”
The hostility surprised him. “Look, I just wanted to tell you something. One of my engineers just got an IM from you.”
“Yes. It’s Ian Lombardi, isn’t it?”
Ryan didn’t want to confirm that. “I just wanted to talk to you about what’s going on over there.”
Jeff got up, closed the door, and motioned for Ryan to sit. “I’m listening.”
“Three women have been attacked here in Houston, and their predator apparently found at least two of them through GrapeVyne. Two of them are dead, and one is still living, but she fears for her life. We want to help find him before he strikes again. So I told my engineers that I was going to talk to Henry Hearne about getting clearance to use your Data-Gather software, to modify the search strings so that we could narrow down possible predators.”
“And Mr. Hearne said no.”
“Well, yes. But by the time I could get back and tell my people that, they’d found a way to get the software and had already started working on it.”
“They don’t have clearance!” Jeff said. “They can’t just hack into our system!”
“They jumped the gun, that’s all.”
“They should be in prison.”
Ryan gave a disgusted grunt. “No, they shouldn’t. The predator should be. They did it so we could find him. The girl who survived her attack, she can identify the killer. He’s going to try to shut her up before she does. We have to find him before that happens.” He noticed a wedding ring on Jeff’s finger and a picture of a bride on his desk. “What if your wife is next? What if he’s stalking her through her GrapeVyne page right now, and he shows up and surprises her? What if he does to her what was done to those girls?”
“I don’t let my wife on GrapeVyne.”
Ryan laughed, but decided to let that ride. “My engineers want to stop this insanity. They were overzealous, but they were trying to do the right thing.”
“Are you asking me not to report this security breach?”
“I’m asking you to think like a human and not like a corporate puppet.” He knew the moment he’d said it, he shouldn’t have.
“You’re a bigger puppet than I am, Mr. CEO. You sold yourself to Willow for a hundred million. But don’t think they have to keep you on if they begin to feel our company is threatened.”
Was that jealousy in his tone? Trying not to provoke him, Ryan softened his voice. “Look, this was not like some breach that threatens Willow’s secrets. We’re all under the same umbrella, right? My guys can be trusted with secrecy. I’ll just tell them to bag the project and not do it again. There’s no need to report this to anyone.”
Jeff just stared at him, a muscle in his jaw popping.
“This dude is going to kill more people,” Ryan tried again. “We feel a real tension over there about that. We’re trying to save lives. That’s all, man.”
Jeff got to his feet, opened the door, dismissing him. “I’ll think about it.”
That was all he was going to get for now. “No harm done,
right?” Ryan stepped out of the room.
“And for the future, you’re only allowed on the third floor, where the conference room is. You’re not allowed on the fourth, fifth, or sixth floors at all. Nobody is. Only those who’ve been carefully screened are allowed up here.”
Ryan couldn’t believe this guy. “You know I’m not a spy. I’m the CEO of one of Willow’s major holdings.”
“I don’t care who you are.” He escorted Ryan to the elevator and watched as he got on.
“I appreciate your giving me a few minutes,” Ryan said, reaching out to shake Jeff’s hand as he got on.
Jeff didn’t shake. He just stood there, giving him a steely-eyed stare, as the doors slowly closed.
Thirty-three
Krista was spent when she left the Willow building and got back to her car. She locked the door and sat there for a moment, seeing the faces of those men again. They’d looked angry when she went in, and she wasn’t sure anything she’d said had gotten through to them.
She felt barren, ineffective.
Fatigue clawed at her spine and the muscles of her neck and back, but she didn’t want to take time to sleep. She needed to go somewhere where she could make a difference.
She drove to the teen center. The street that she’d always breezed past before looked worse today…eerie…evil. She saw a couple of men smoking in front of a mechanic’s shop, watching her as she drove by. At the pawn shop, a man stood at a car, leaned in, talking.
Her heart tripped as she pulled into the parking lot next to the Eagle’s Wings center. Carla’s van was here, and so was her husband’s. She saw two girls walking toward the place. They lifted their hands in a wave.
She got out, locked her car, and hurried inside. The place was full of activity. Christian music played overhead, and several girls sat at the computers, their GrapeVyne pages up. She tried to smile as she went in and spoke to each of them. But her gaze caught on those pages. For a moment she stood behind them, watching what they typed.