Page 68 of Skins Game

After changing the flight, he found his charger and plugged in his phone because the battery was gasping.

Her backpack was on the chair, too. Maybe she’d brought clothes he should take into the bathroom for her?

Or maybe he should tell her to walk around the hotel room buck naked so that every time she found another roll of condoms?—

He picked up her backpack by the top loop, intending to shove it through a crack in the bathroom door to Nicole.

The backpack was heavier than if it contained only clothes, unless she had a set of plate mail to go with her sword collection, maybe.

Her laptop was in there.

The heft and stiff plate on the back of it was definitely a laptop.

Nicole had mentioned more than once that she kept all the essential specs and data for her prototype golf clubs on her work laptop.

The specifications for all the clubs that Sidewinder Golf manufactured were in the computer inside the backpack that he was holding.

Nicole did not have intellectual property rights to these designs. She was a salaried employee of Sidewinder Golf. Before Kingston had set foot in California, he and Morrissey Sand, and other of the Last Chance, Inc. guys, had poured over the documents associated with the business, including the boilerplate contract that all employees signed.

Any product or idea that Nicole generated while employed by Sidewinder Golf and any golf-related product for three months after the termination of her employment at Sidewinder belonged entirely to Sidewinder Golf.

Anything she did at Sidewinder was standard work for hire. Unless she had brought those designs with her, and the production timeframe suggested that she hadn’t, Sidewinder owned all the intellectual property she had produced.

This work laptop was owned by Sidewinder Golf. Everything on it was owned by Sidewinder.

And Sidewinder Golf was owned by Kingston.

Ergo—

Assuming this was her work laptop, nothing personal should be on it. From what she’d mentioned about being unable to stream TV in the walled garden, there probablycouldn’tbe anything personal on it.

The bag dangled in his hand like a dead rabbit held by its ears, the hunter staring at the prize and trying to determine whether it would be worth the hunt.

Joe had given him the master password, and he could access the computer because he was the owner.

Kingston had every right to open this laptop and find the specifications for the Timber Rattler golf club line, the Excalibur, or any other club she was designing.

Opening this computer and taking those specs might be the one act he could do to save Sidewinder Golf and as many their jobs as possible.

And he might be able to win the bet to save Last Chance, Inc. and his and his friends’ investments in it.

Losing Last Chance’s capital base would break up the company and, Kingston was sure, their lifetime friendships. They could try to rebuild, sure, but sucking four hundred million dollars out of the capital fund would cripple Last Chance. They’d have to liquidate so many assets at fire sale prices, not recovering what they’d spent.

He couldn’t lose those guys. They were all he had.

Had Gabriel Fish known that losing would ruin all of them when he’d offered them the bet? Was that the point?

Kingston knew he should open this bag and confiscate Nicole’s designs.

Pragmatically, he should have no qualms about taking the computer he owned out of this bag and inspecting the intellectual property he also owned.

He held the bag at arm’s length until his shoulder shook.

From the bathroom, Nicole yelled, “Hey, Kingston? Could you toss my backpack in here? I have some yoga clothes and my toothbrush in there for absolutely no reason.”

He laughed as he handed her the backpack through the cracked-open bathroom door, but prying his fingers from the handle took an act of will. “Here you go.”

“Thanks!”