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Chapter Eight
Gennessey tilted the to-go cup toward her lips, the lukewarm coffee flowing from the tiny space in the lid down her throat. The bitter tang on her taste buds made her cringe.
She enjoyed her coffee black, but only if it was hot enough to burn the inside of her mouth. Room temperature only made the bitterness of the liquid sharper and less appealing.
The digital display on her dashboard clicked another minute passed midnight. She felt her weariness in every part of her body — her limbs, her joints, her neck, her eyes. The yearning for her bed was strong, but her duty to her job reigned supreme.
She blinked the dryness from her eyes and focused on the bright light shining behind the curtains of the window she’d been watching all evening.
The passenger door to her car suddenly opened, but she didn’t flinch or avert her eyes. She already knew Isobel was joining her on the stakeout.
“What’s the latest?” Isobel asked her as she replaced Gennessey’s coffee with a fresh cup. She poured out the old liquid and tossed the empty cup in the backseat to be disposed of later.
“He’s still in there. The only light on is the one in his office, but your guess is as good as mine whether or not he’s still in there or what he may be doing. Either way, his behavior is shady as hell. Our client was right to be suspicious of him.”
“Owen found something when he did a deep dive into the company’s records,” Isobel explained, speaking of one of the computer analysts who helped the ops teams and investigators on cases. “It’s not enough to build a case for embezzlement, but it’s enough to show us we’re on the right track. He’s forwarding everything in an encrypted email to Jay. Hopefully it will be enough for the client to grant us access to set up surveillance inside.”
The news was like music to Gennessey’s ears. The surveillance equipment would give them eyes and ears inside the tech company, making the need for stakeouts obsolete.
If the client hadn’t been paranoid about the theft of intellectual property, they would have already had access, but he hadn’t been ready to open his company up to scrutiny by KSI. He said it wasn’t worth the risk until he knew for certain his suspicions about his employee were correct.
“Is the employee selling company secrets or just stealing money?” Gennessey asked. “He’s spending a lot of time inside, whatever he’s doing.”
“About that,” Isobel hedged. “He’s screwing the company’s VP. Owen found an email account where they’ve been communicating by leaving unsent emails in the drafts folder. They log into the account and delete them as they read them. The VP is the owner’s wife. Makes me think they’re both stealing money and have been telling the husband they’re working late on a project, thinking he wouldn’t be suspicious. Jay’s going to wait to tell the guy about the affair. He thinks the guy will pull the plug on the case because we can gain enough evidence to file criminal charges.”
Gennessey sighed. “I’m just ready for the stakeouts to be done. The late nights are messing with my sleep schedule. My mom’s going to have something to say about the bags under my eyes when I see her this weekend.”
“At least with BB going with you, she won’t be making comments about your lack of a love life. I would think complaints about how tired you look would be a welcomed change.”
Gennessey smirked. “You’d think, but no. I’d much rather have a regular conversation with her instead of listening to her nitpick about every little thing she disapproves of. BB’s got his work cut out for him because she’s never liked anything or anyone associated with me.”
She could feel Isobel’s discerning gaze on her, but she kept her eyes on the same spot she’d been watching all night.
“I don’t think you’ll have a problem convincing her that you and BB are together. Even I can see the two of you have settled into more of a friendship lately. You don’t think she’ll be happy for you to have someone nice in your life?”
Gennessey finally looked over at her friend. Since her eyes had become accustomed to the dark, she could make out her friend’s outline. “My mother’s never happy unless she’s pointing out something in my life to improve or change. Criticism is what gives her life. But that’s not what you want to know. You want to know what happened to make me and BB more civil toward each other.”
“I know what happened. You saw how he treats his mom, and you realized he’s not such a player after all.”
“Oh, no. He’s still a player,” Gennessey corrected. “But no, he’s not a bad guy. I liked hanging out with his family. I had a good time. They’re so different from mine that it kind of made me sad in a way. He’s going to think he stepped into a parallel universe when he meets mine.”
“Or they may like him more than they love you.”
Gennessey looked away. Leave it to Isobel to get to the heart of the matter, touching on a sore point she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. Isobel had a way of knowing things no one else could figure out. It’s what made her a fantastic investigator…and a good friend.
She looked back to the window, scanned the area around the building, and saw nothing amiss. She sighed, suddenly more tired of talking about her family than of sitting at a stakeout.
“Let’s talk about something else. Like when are Egan and you going to get married?”
Egan O’Connor had been a fixture in Isobel’s life since he crashed into her Christmas getaway at her family’s cabin, and the two joined forces to find and save Egan’s brother from trouble. They had somehow made their long-distance relationship work with Egan working as a doctor in a Charlottesville family clinic and Isobel staying in Grayson Cove.
Gennessey wasn’t the only one at KSI wondering how long the two could stand being away from each other before one of them caved and relocated.
“You know something I don’t?” Isobel fired back.
“Well, you and Egan are heating up the roads going back and forth to your places whenever you have off time. And you and Jay have had a couple of closed-door meetings, and no one knows what you’re talking about. But I have my guesses if you want to hear them.”
“Please share. It could be an amusing way to pass the time while we wait for our suspect to leave.”
