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“Look, I normally divulge nothing team members tell me, but I have to tell Shepherd about your birth parents,” Lassiter said.
“Fine,” she said. It didn’t really matter at this point. She doubted a four-year-old’s eye witness testimony from over twenty years ago could hurt the man who had killed her father, if he was even still alive.
Laura Lee stepped off the elevator on the eighth floor. Another panic attack threatened as she approached Garcia’s office. She paused outside of it and took a few deep breaths.
“You’ll rarely find me in there,” Garcia’s deep, gravelly voice said from directly behind her, causing her to startle.
She spun around to face him. “Jeez, you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that!” If her heartbeat had been fast before, it was now off the charts.
Garcia chuckled. “Sorry. I was in my workroom.” He pointed across the hallway.
She’d passed by it and hadn’t noticed him in it. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”
“Yeah, you looked focused as you walked past.” He pointed at his office. “Come in, let’s talk.”
She entered before him and stood awkwardly to the side. He pointed to his couch and then he turned one of the guest chairs around, so it faced the couch for him to sit. Laura Lee sat poised on the edge of the couch.
“Shepherd briefed me on the case.” He held out his hand. “First things first. Hand me your phone.”
She had it and her laptop held tightly in her grasp. She gave it to him.
“I’m going to create a cloned instance on my phone. Every call you get, I’ll get and can either listen in as it’s occurring, or I can replay later as they will all be recorded. This includes voicemail. I’ll get to view every text message as well. So, just be aware of that. I’m only interested in contact from West, and I sure as hell don’t want to learn things about you outside of him that neither of us wants me knowing.” He paused and chuckled.
She couldn’t help but smile.
“Don’t answer your phone if the number is unknown to you. Let it go to voicemail. And if West contacts you any other way, you contact me immediately, no matter what time it is. You do not respond to him until we’ve talked.”
“What if he threatens me?”
“Laura, you do not respond to him, period, if you haven’t spoken to me. We need to set a trap this guy will walk into. He needs to admit what he’s done and is probably still doing, in a way that will hold up in court. That takes planning.”
“Okay,” she agreed. He was right.
“Besides, I’d say he has no leverage over you any longer. So, any threats he would make are bullshit.”
That made perfect sense. Garcia was right. What he had on her couldn’t hurt her now. An allegation of cheating nine years ago meant nothing to this team, especially since she had told them the truth about what happened. West was the one who should be worried. She knew what Shepherd Security could accomplish. She smiled and nodded. Instantly, she felt so much better.
“Okay, it’s all set,” Garcia said. He handed her phone back to her. He nodded to her laptop. “Are you ready to submit that coursework and invite Harrison West to play our game?”
Laura Lee’s smile spread over her face. She liked it framed like that. “Yes. Let’s get this bastard.”
She opened her laptop and the program and hit submit all. Her email address and phone number had to be included with the completed file submission. After she filled them in and submitted the entire file, she blew out her breath and then locked eyes with Garcia. “Whew, okay, it’s away.” This was a moment she had wrestled with for so long and dreaded to the point that she couldn’t sleep. But now that it was here, she realized it was no longer a big deal.
“Let me have your laptop. I need to enable a few programs to give you access to some secure databases you’ll need to fully investigate what you started. Smith is in his office. You’ll work with him the rest of the day. He’ll teach you what you need to know.”
Thank you! And here she thought the rest of the day would be spent with Garcia.
Foxtrot
The afternoon spent with Caleb was enjoyable. She spent time legally in the university police database pulling the names of the women who reported they’d been raped over the past ten years and filled in her spreadsheet with the names. Caleb hacked into the university’s enrollment records to cross-check those names against registration information for Harrison West’s classes. It was slow going.
Laura Lee excused herself to use the bathroom. When she exited, she ran into Brad Dupont. “What are you doing here? I thought you were off for a few days.”
“Hi Laura, it’s great to see you too,” he said sarcastically. “They needed a four-hour shift covered. I had no plans, so I didn’t mind. How’d your presentation to Shepherd go?” He wouldn’t tell her about what happened at the gas station or the fact that he’d gone to sleep in his office around zero six hundred after meeting with Lassiter. When he woke, just a few hours previously, he discovered Miraldi had called in to see if anyone could cover about four hours of his shift, so he volunteered.
Laura Lee’s smile was telling. “It went great. I’m working with Caleb on it right now. I’d love to tell you all about it, but I have to get back.” She pointed over her shoulder, back towards Ops and Smith’s office.
“Why don’t you come over to my place for dinner tonight and you can tell me all about it then,” Brad offered.