Demonicus (Overworld Underground Book 2) (12 page)

"What happened, dear?" asked an older woman.

"We're waiting on the police," Joe said.

Another person's voice reached my ear. "Did she murder someone?"

The authorities arrived and made everyone go back into their apartments.

Agonizing sorrow held me tight in its grip. I couldn't think straight and found it difficult to answer questions a detective asked me. "Isabel," I said in a weak voice. "Please not Isabel."

"There are two bodies in there," I heard one of the blue uniforms say. "Literally a bloodbath."

"Christ Almighty." The second man shuddered. "What a world we live in."

I almost passed out when his words registered with me.

Jack and Isabel were dead.

Chapter 10

An interminable time later, a man in khakis and a polo knelt in front of me. His nametag identified him as Dudley Morgan, a lab technician. He looked back at the blue uniforms as if seeing if they were listening and turned to me.

"I just want you to know that we identified the bodies as Pat and Beth Reynolds, your next-door neighbors."

A terrible weight lifted from my chest. "It's not Jack and Isabel?"

He shook his head. "I'm not supposed to be telling you this, because of the investigation, but it looks like someone broke into your apartment and made a lot of noise. When your neighbors came to investigate, the intruder killed them."

"Why are you telling me?"

Dudley gave me a conspiratorial look. "I help George clean up messes from time to time."

Joe walked up behind Dudley, a frustrated look on his face. "I can't get a straight answer out of anyone, Miss Glass."

Dudley stood. "We'll get to the bottom of this, Miss Glass."

"Thank you so much." I was still soundly shaken and nauseous. Bitter sorrow clung to my soul as I thought about my poor neighbors. Barboar must have come to my place first while looking for Tyler. I'd left a note on the fridge with Tyler's address some time ago in case Isabel needed it. I'd been so shocked by the sight of blood, I hadn't even thought about it.

I looked at my phone and saw a text I'd meant to send to Tyler.
Jack and Isabel are dead.
I apparently hadn't hit the send button. I erased the text and sent him a longer one with details about the apartment break-in.

I'm cancelling my meetings and coming straight home.
Tyler replied.

No! Barboar did this before he came to your place. I'm safe. You need to find out who's behind the business problems. I'm going to work.
Or at least I planned to once the police told me I could.

There was a long pause before his next text.
Fine, but let me know at the first sign of trouble. Love you.

A familiar figure exited. "We meet again, Miss Glass." Detective Long seemed awfully pleased with himself. "Where you were yesterday?"

Joe put himself between us. "Hasn't she been through enough today without an interrogation?"

He gave Joe a pointed look. "I need to ask her a few questions before she's free to go."

I tucked my phone in my purse and took a deep breath. "I stayed at my boyfriend's condo the night before and went to work all day. After work, he and I went for drinks with friends."

He jotted something on a notepad. "I suppose they can corroborate that?"

"Surely you don't think I committed this gruesome crime?"

"You tracked bloody footprints all over a crime scene, Miss Glass." His upper lip curled. "Either you had something to do with it, or you completely polluted the evidence by tromping inside."

My other emotions vanished in a flare of anger. "I thought my friend was in there!"

His eyes narrowed. "How well do you know Pat and Beth Reynolds?"

I decided to play stupid since Dudley shouldn't have told me anything. I pinched my brow. "Not at all. Who are they?"

"Have you noticed any suspicious activity on your premises before? Do you have any enemies? Where were you last night? Does Tyler Rock know Pat and Beth Reynolds?" He rained question after question on me for nearly an hour while Joe stood by and watched helplessly.

I played ignorant about everything. I couldn't simply tell him about Barboar or Tyler's other enemies. When he asked me for the names of people who could corroborate my whereabouts on the day in question, I gave him Jack, Isabel, and Tyler's.

He tapped a pen to his lips. "You can go, but—"

"Don't leave town?" I said sweetly.

His face darkened. "Don't get smart with me, Miss Glass. I can make things difficult for you during the investigation whether you're guilty or not."

Joe sprang off the wall. "Is that a threat?"

Detective Long raised an eyebrow and looked at the taller man. "I do what it takes to make someone cooperate." He turned and went back inside the apartment.

"Asshole." Joe flinched. "I'm sorry, Miss Glass, it was unprofessional of me to say that."

I touched his arm. "He is an asshole Joe. I think being truthful and forthright is very professional."

He blew out a breath. "Would you like me to take you home?"

"No, I'd much prefer to go to work."

The moment I entered the lobby at work, I went to the programming department, found Jack, and motioned him aside. "Why hasn't Isabel answered my texts today?"

Jack blinked. "Why hello to you too, Emily."

I huffed. "This is a serious question."

"She left her phone at my place." He shrugged. "I noticed it when I was leaving."

Even though I knew Isabel wasn't dead, I still sagged with relief and leaned against the wall for support. "There's been an incident."

Jack's face went white. "Is Isabel okay?"

I waved away his concern. "Yes, she's fine. Our apartment, on the other hand, is uninhabitable."

He frowned. "Water damage?"

"If only." I told him what I'd found. By the time I finished, Jack was the one leaning on the wall for support.

"Holy shit, Em." He stared in horror at me. "What if we'd been there?"

"I don't even want to think about it." I took a moment to calm the churning in my stomach and to figure out what I should tell Jack. I decided it was best not to tie it to Tyler.

"Do the cops know why this happened?"

I shook my head. "No." That much was true.

Jack ran a shaking hand through his hair. "I gotta go see Isabel right now." He looked up. "Is that okay?"

"I'm not your boss."

"Yeah, well, Tyler is." He didn't need to qualify the statement further.

"Sure. I'll cover for you." I gripped his hands. "Hug her for me too, okay?"

He pressed the heels of his hands into red eyes. "I will."

I walked him to the lift. Sandra raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he left. I went to check in with Kevin, but he was out meeting with clients. Since I was officially the assistant to Kevin and Jack, their absences left me with very little to do. I knew I should do something productive, but my late night combined with the horrific morning left me feeling drained. I walked down the back hall and sneaked into the stairwell so I could sit down and rest my eyes a moment. I walked down a couple of flights of stairs and sat on the floor in a most unladylike manner. My office would have been far more preferable, but it lacked privacy. The last thing I wanted was for the others to see me napping on the job.

The thud of a closing door echoed down the stairwell a moment after I closed my eyes. I remained still, listening closely for someone descending. Instead, I heard voices speaking in half whispers.

"They're both out. Can you install the software?"

"Yeah, I need you to watch the hallway outside Kevin's office, then we'll move to Jack's."

"Not a problem." A pause. "What about the bitch?"

"She's not in either. I walked around the office and didn't see her. It's the perfect time to do this." His whisper broke into a full voice that I instantly recognized. I knew who the other person was by association.

Thomas Jones and George Hinkle.

When I'd first met Thomas, I'd fallen for him fast, primarily because he was possessed by Tyler at the time. Without my wonderful demon controlling him, Thomas Jones was a complete ass. Hinkle, the former head of the programming department, was nearly his twin brother, at least in spirit. They'd been profoundly displeased with the change in management, and with their demotions.

I'd wanted to fire them, but Tyler believed in giving everyone a second chance. His instincts were wrong with these two.

I almost marched up the stairs to confront them, but instantly thought better of it. It sounded like they planned to install malicious software on Jack and Kevin's computers, but I didn't know more than that.

"This is gonna make us rich and bankrupt that stupid bitch and her boyfriend at the same time," Jones said.

"Let's do this now," Hinkle said. "I don't know how much time we have."

My face grew hot at Jones's words, but I knew it'd be better to find out what they were doing before making accusations. The stairwell door clicked open and shut again. I took off my flats and ran barefooted up the stairs. I peeked through the door and saw the pair turn the corner in the back hall toward Kevin's office.

I crept to the corner and peeked around it. Jones leaned casually against a wall in the corridor, facing toward the other end of the hall. I didn't see a way to spy on Hinkle, so I turned around and went to Jack's office. The programming department was nearly empty since it was lunchtime, offering an easy opportunity for Jones and Hinkle to do what they needed to do.

I searched high and low for a hiding place, but there was nowhere to conceal myself. I examined the webcam on Jack's monitor, but didn't know how I could activate it without Hinkle realizing it was on. It then occurred to me that I had the perfect spy device. I took out my phone, turned on its video recording feature, and propped it on a shelf behind and to the side of the computer monitor. From that angle and height, it should have a good view of Hinkle's activities.

I quickly left the office and hid inside one of the cubicles near the back of the room. I could peer over the edge of the divider and have a clear view of Jack's office through the open door. Moments later, Jones and Hinkle came around the corner from the back hallway with furtive looks on their faces. I resisted the urge to hurl a stapler at Jones as he took up a position outside Jack's office.

Jones's attempts to act casual as he kept lookout were almost comical. He twitched from side to side like a nervous cat and finally had the sense to walk to the corner where he could look down the highly trafficked hallway from the lift and the break room.

Janet exited the break room. Jones flinched and looked ready to make a run for Hinkle when Janet appeared to have second thoughts about going back to her desk and went back inside the room, probably for a doughnut or two.

Hinkle, meanwhile, tapped on the keyboard of Jack's computer. I didn't know how the man was accessing the computer without a password. He might be a right arse, but he knew his way around a computer. For all I knew, he'd written a program specifically for the scheme he and Jones had hatched. A moment later, he pocketed something that looked like a jump drive and left Jack's office, a smug look on his face.

Jones nearly jumped through the ceiling when Hinkle tapped him on the shoulder. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and the pair vanished into the back hallway.

I dashed into Jack's office and picked up my phone. The computer monitor displayed the login screen and didn't look as if anyone had tampered with it. I went back to my office, closed the door and the blinds, and played the recorded video.

In the recording, Hinkle slid a jump drive into a port on Jack's computer and powered it off. When it restarted, lines of text ran across the screen for several seconds. The login screen appeared for an instant before changing to the desktop. Hinkle clicked on skull-shaped icon with the mouse, and a black window appeared with more lines of text in it. When he was done, he restarted the computer again, took the jump drive, and left.

I still don't know what he did.

Presumably, the Hinkle had installed spyware so, as Jones had said in the stairwell, they would become rich. They could steal all the source code for the software from Jack's computer, and download other valuable market information from Kevin's workstation. For a moment, I considered the possibility that these two were the saboteurs after Tyler's other companies.

While Jones and Hinkle were obviously devious and determined, I didn't see how they could possibly be the root cause for the other issues. For one, they couldn't afford to hire employees from the other companies, nor could they be the ones running Trax. A more likely possibility existed—they were moles for the other corporation. Finding disaffected employees and hiring them to undermine a company was nothing new. Jones and Hinkle fit the profile perfectly.

Well, two can play at that game.

I waited until the lunch rush was over and enjoyed a meal in solitude. My phone chimed several times in a row with texts from Isabel.

OMG I'm so sorry I missed your texts! I'm fine boo! Love you girl!

I couldn't help but be a bit angry with her even though it wasn't her fault.
Don't you ever forget your phone again, missy!

Jack returned half an hour later, a smirk on his face.

"Well, someone got lucky." I meant it as a joke, but Jack winked.

"Nothing like some afternoon delight."

"Yes, well I have some afternoon discontent for you as well." I took him back to my office and closed the door.

Jack sat on the edge of my desk. "What happened while I was gone?"

"It appears Hinkle and Jones are working against our best interests." I showed him the video.

Jack's fist clenched with white-knuckled intensity. "That piece of shit. I'm going to push his face into a toilet bowl until he drowns."

"Not with these water-efficient commodes," I replied dryly. "Can you identify the program he installed on your computer?"