Page 109 of Jonas

“Garrett’s calling,” Kira broadcasted. “I’ll put him on the screen.” With a few strokes on her keyboard, the map disappeared and Garrett’s face replaced the image. “You’re on the big screen. Everyone can see you but you can only see me.”

“Is Derrika in the room?”

I felt Derrika stiffen next to me. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Kira told you she found spyware on your work phone.”

“Yeah.”

“Right. I’ve been monitoring your calls and texts. No surprise the head of your department has been calling. By the way, the last call from her included an ‘I’m sorry to do this over voicemail but you leave me no choice but you’re fired.’”

“That was expected,” Derrika returned.

“Yeah. There’s also two voicemails from a Natalie Albright. The first call was just checking in asking if you were okay. Last night she called again. I think you need to listen to the message.”

“Who’s Natalie?” Zane clipped, obviously still in a bad mood.

“A woman I worked with.”

“The pretty HR coordinator who was screwing Anson Sutton,” Lore declared.

Derrika slowly swiveled in her chair to fully face Lore. “She was screwing Anson? I didn’t know that.”

“You’d have no reason to know. You weren’t investigating Anson, you were looking into the resumes and how Delcon had been infiltrated. Though, you weren’t really; Anson was just using you as an information source so he and his buddies would be one step ahead. Not that it did them any good seeing as they’re dead. I, on the other hand, was investigating the board. Anson and Natalie met once a week, different city, different hotel each time.”

“Well, fuck a duck,” Derrika muttered. “I can’t believe I missed that.”

“Eh. It happens. It’s easy to get tunnel vision when you’re given set mission parameters.” Lore let her off the hook.

Lore was right, it was easy to get tunnel vision. I just hoped that wasn’t what was happening now with the Chinese.

“May I hear the message?”

Garrett glanced at something to his right, then a woman’s voice came on.

“Hey, Amy, it’s Natalie. I need to talk to you. Something’s happening here. I don’t know what it is, but everyone’s on edge.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and there was a wobble when she continued. “Anson’s dead, so is Lou. That’s insane, right? I think it has something to do with those government contracts. And I found something a few months ago. I didn’t know who to tell, but some of the resumes for campus security are identical. Like everything is the same down to the references. God, I hope you’re okay. Please call me, Amy, I’m scared.”

“I need to call her,” Derrika declared.

“And say what?” Zane asked.

“It’s not me who needs to say anything. She might know something that will help us.”

“Lore?” Zane called.

“Oh, sure, now you want my input,” she bitched. “I never interacted with Natalie so I didn’t get a good read on her. All I know about her is she regularly met with Anson. There could’ve been some pillow talk that could be useful if Derrika can get it out of her. But if she can’t, send me in and I’ll get it.”

“What makes you think she’ll talk to you if she won’t talk to me?”

“She’ll talk to me because I’ll start the conversation with pliers in my hand and the first question she doesn’t answer will result in her losing a fingernail.”

Derrika made a hilariously disgusted face but still she returned, “I can pull off a fingernail.”

Lies.

“Girl, you don’t pull off a fingernail, you rip it off.”

Derrika’s nose scrunched.