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“I’m going,” she grumbled, but not before she scanned her surroundings in furtive glances. “It’s not like I’m the president of the United States or anything.” Her voice trembled, giving the lie to her act of bravado.
Danny held open the doors to the lift. He flashed Nathalie his trademark grin. “No, ma’am, you are way more attractive than the president of the United States.”
Ryder’s teeth ground together at the appreciation in Danny’s eyes, especially when Nathalie smiled, her shoulders relaxing a fraction.
She tensed up again when the lift opened to the sixth floor. Nathan stood waiting for them in the lobby with a dark-haired police officer whose name tag readEsposito.
Ryder looked at Nathan. “What happened?”
“According to Chaudhary, he received a voicemail from Nathalie asking him to meet her here at the office. That it was urgent,” Nathan said.
“I didn’t call Ravi.” Nathalie was already moving down the corridor to the software lab.
“Danny, make sure anyone who comes up in the lift or from the stairwell is authorized to be here,” Ryder ordered. He lengthened his strides to catch up to Nathalie.
Nathan and Officer Esposito followed. “Yeah, I figured.” Nathan picked up where they’d left off the conversation. “It would be easy enough for this guy to get snippets of your voice and patch together a brief message, making it sound like it came from you. He could have spoofed your cell phone number, too. The security cameras show Chaudhary arriving around the same time as the cleaning crew when we’d expect motion on the cameras. A man accompanied him, about five-eleven, in a hoodie.”
Irritation laced Nathan’s tone. “Someone who knew where the cameras were and how to avoid showing his face. His hands were in the front pockets of his sweatshirt, no doubt holding a concealed weapon on Ravi.”
When they reached the lab, Ryder put a hand on Nathalie’s arm, halting her entrance. “He had access to the layout.” He wheeled to face Esposito. “You need to interview the cleaning crew. Find out if they hired anyone new in the last month. They should have all had background checks and been vetted to be on this floor.”
Esposito nodded. “Another officer is taking their statements right now.” He pulled out a pair of latex gloves. “Ma’am, you need to put these on. Once you’ve identified what’s missing and secured your sensitive information, we’ll need to dust the outside of the safe for prints.”
Nathalie sucked in her lips, staring at the gloves for a moment before she took them from the officer and snapped them on. Then she headed straight for the cabinet drawer that gaped open and peered in.
Her body shrank as if the air had been let out of her.
Ryder took an instinctive step forward.
“It’s gone.” Her voice trembled.
“Do you have other copies?”
“Yes.” She rifled through the rest of the cabinet. “It looks like that’s the only thing missing.”
“He must have known once he showed up on camera with Chaudhary he had a limited window of time,” Nathan said.
“Thank God for my dad’s paranoia.”
Ryder lifted a brow at Nathalie’s comment.
She glanced at Esposito, hovering nearby.
“Don’t say it,” Ryder whispered. He held up his mobile and made a writing motion with his hand. “We don’t know who’s listening.”
Her eyes flew wide. Scrambling for her phone, she opened the notes app and began typing.
Ryder and Nathan crowded around her, blocking her from the officer’s view.
My father told me to remove a section of source code each night.Something that was vital to the program so that if it was ever stolen, it couldn’t be duplicated without a great deal of effort.
Nathan gave a soft whistle. He kept his voice low. “This guy didn’t get what he came for.”
He did, Nathalie typed,but not everything. Not enough.
Ryder beckoned with his fingers for Nathalie to hand him her mobile.Which means his employer won’t be happy when they realize the program doesn’t work,he wrote.Where is the section of code?
Her uneasy look sent his gut into a tailspin. She tapped the side of her head.