Chapter Twenty-Nine

Margo Angelhart

Logan Monroe had a suite of offices in the Scottsdale Quarter. Convenient with ample parking, great restaurants, and easy access to the 101 and small Scottsdale Airport.

When I arrived, I went to the top floor—the fourth floor—in a building near the Apple Store and across from the small palm-tree lined park in the center of the Quarter. At night the trees were lit with tiny white lights and it was quite pretty. With restaurants, shopping, and a theater, it made the area great for date nights. Not that I'd had a date in a while.

Logan was one of the investors in the Quarter, and leased a small office suite on the top floor of one of the buildings. When I entered, there was no receptionist, but I spotted Jack and Logan through the open door that led to the corner office. Logan didn't know the meaning of the word security.

"Want something to drink?" Logan asked when I stepped in. "I have soda and water. No coffee, sorry—I don't drink it."

"Water would be great, thanks," I said.

He opened a mini-fridge in his office that was stocked with Coke and water. He might not drink coffee, but the sugar and caffeine in the fully loaded Coke would give a jolt.

"I already told your brother what I know," he said.

"Tell Margo," Jack said. "Because if anyone can find Jennifer, it's my sister."

I was surprised by the praise—not because I hadn't earned it, but because Jack was just as capable as me.

"You work together, though, right?" Logan looked down at Jack's card. "Angelhart Investigations."

Jack and I both said, "Sometimes" and I added, "I have my own shingle, but all the same credentials."

Jack gave me a quick rundown on how Logan and Jennifer ended up at Logan's house in Paradise Valley, then he said, "We haven't been able to locate Jennifer, and that lends credence that she's in hiding, and that whoever poisoned them was targeting her."

I asked Logan, "How did you and Jennifer communicate in the days leading up to Sunday's meeting? Phone? Email?"

"Text," Logan said. "The last time I heard from her—again, text message—was Sunday night. She promised to call me when she was settled."

"And she hasn't contacted you?"

He shook his head. "That's why I'm worried."

"Do you have any idea who drugged you and Jennifer?" I asked.

Logan shook his head, and Jack said, "I talked to my contact at the crime lab this morning. They found three canisters of nitrogen in the ventilation system."

That stunned me. "Nitrogen? That could have killed them."

Jack nodded. "Margo saved your lives," he said. "You and Jennifer could have been asphyxiated."

Logan nodded. "The police called me this morning with a report—they're treating this as an attempted murder. I gave them all the information I had, but it's not much. They promised it's a priority for them."

It probably was, I thought, but an investigation like this would take time and they didn't have much to go on. "Did anyone know you were going there Sunday?" I asked.

He shook his head. "The police asked the same thing. No one—except Jennifer. But it wasn't her."

"You're certain."

"Why would Jennifer try to kill me? She was exposed as well."

I leaned toward agreeing with Logan's assessment, and Jack said, "It would have taken someone an hour or more to set up the canisters. There were no prints, and the police are working on tracing them but they're commonly available at retailers and online. I was watching Jennifer and she was only there ten minutes before you arrived. She didn't have time. And get this—the canisters were set on a remote, not a timer. Someone triggered them after you entered the house."

"What was the range?" I asked.

"They had to be close according to the lab."

I thought about Frank Sanchez on the mountain and Jack must have read my mind because he said, "Closer than the mountain. I think someone was in the house. I relayed my theory to the detective, and he's following up."

"Wouldn't they be affected?" I asked.

"Not if they had oxygen with them," Jack said. "As the intended victim, you should be able to get more info than me."

"This doesn't make any sense," Logan said.

It was just starting to make some sense to me, but I still had too many missing pieces.

"You told me yesterday that you and Jennifer hadn't discussed why she wanted to meet you, but that's not correct," Jack prompted.

Logan turned to me. "I told your brother that I didn't share information because I didn't know him, but I made some calls and you both come highly recommended. Even my lawyer gave the thumbs-up, and Carmen doesn't like many people."

"Carmen Delarosa?" I said.

"You know her?"

"She's hired me a couple of times." Carmen was a bulldog. She fought hard for her clients every step of the way, to the point that people who went up against her called her a bitch, often to her face. She took it as a badge of honor. And Logan was right—Carmen didn't like people. But she disliked some people more than others.

"When I arrived at the house on Sunday, Jennifer had her laptop open. She got right to the point. She had downloaded raw code that she said shows that every transaction that went through Desert West diverted between forty-nine and ninety-nine cents into an account not controlled by the company. She's not an accountant, but has enough computer and math skills that she saw the unusual pattern."

"Why didn't she tell the CFO?" Jack asked.

"She didn't know who had set up the transfer. It had to be done internally, and she felt that Tucker should have realized it, so couldn't discount that he might have been the one to have stolen the money. If the money was stolen. The line item was a processing fee, and it didn't stand out on its face. When you have a hundred-thousand-dollar transaction, a ninety-nine-cent processing fee is nothing. That alone should have raised red flags, but again when people think of pennies, they don't think they're losing anything."

"But all those pennies in the same pot adds up," I said.

"Exactly," Logan said. "Jennifer believes that over a million dollars was taken, but she doesn't know how long this had been going on. When I sold my half of the company to Gavin eighteen months ago, there had been a full audit, and I checked the paperwork—this processing fee wasn't there. Which means it was added after I sold."

"What was her theory?" Jack asked.

"We didn't get that far," Logan said. "She explained about the fee, then brought up the files and wanted me to look at the code—thought maybe I would see something because I had more experience than she did. That's when she fainted."

Jack and I exchanged a glance. We were thinking the same thing. Whoever used the nitrogen to knock out Logan and Jennifer wanted her laptop because she had evidence of corporate theft. They waited in the house until Jennifer was unconscious and intended to either destroy or steal the laptop. But then I showed up and foiled their plan.

"The data she downloaded must have been what alerted the CFO that someone on staff had taken proprietary information from the office," Jack said. "Then he hired me."

Logan said, "Jennifer told me she'd contact me yesterday, which is why I met with Rachel at the bar last night. I can't believe that she lied about knowing Jennifer. Maybe she drugged me to find out where Jennifer is."

"She doesn't know anything about Jennifer," I said, "nor is she a threat to her."

His brows knit together. "How do you know?"

"I talked to Rachel today. She won't bother you again."

He looked confused. "Why did she do it?"

I wanted to tell him that his wife was trying to catch him with another woman, but I refrained. The NDA was null and void at this point, but until I knew exactly what was going on with Brittney, I wanted to keep it to myself.

I didn't answer Logan's question, hopefully he'd think I assumed it was hypothetical.

"I wanted to hire Jack to find Jennifer, but he said he had a conflict," Logan continued.

"I was hired by Desert West. I can't take money from you to, essentially, do the same thing."

"But they hired you to find out who downloaded information—oh." Logan realized the conflict. "I just told you that Jennifer downloaded the data."

"If what she told you is accurate, she didn't do anything to harm the company, but I still need to talk to her and verify the information she has, and she'll have to explain to her employer," Jack said. "Having you vouch for me would help, which is a long way of saying I will be looking for her."

Logan turned to me. "But I can hire you to find Jennifer, correct?"

"You can, but Jack is already looking for her—"

"I feel responsible," Logan said. "I helped Jennifer get the job with Desert West, and she came to me for help. Now she's missing. She hasn't returned my calls or messages."

I asked, "Do you know anything about her family?"

He shook his head. "She never talked about her childhood. I had a sense that it wasn't a pleasant one, but she didn't say anything about it. I didn't pry."

"Do you know if she has brothers or sisters? If her parents are still alive?"

He shook his head. "I really have no idea."

Jack shot me a confused look, which I ignored.

"Do you know why she left her position in Silicon Valley? She took a substantial pay cut to work for Desert West."

"I didn't know that," he said.

"You recommended Jennifer to Desert West, even though you no longer owned the company?"

"Gavin and I are friends. He remembered her from Texas and was thrilled to bring her on."

"Gavin O'Keefe also worked with you in Texas?"

"We both still own that company through our investors group. I really don't understand what you want to know," Logan said.

"Jennifer has no social media footprint. No known friends or family. She seems to be a lone wolf—she works, goes to the gym, goes home."

"Jennifer has always been introverted," Logan said. "I understand that. It took me a long time to learn how to be social, and I still don't particularly like social situations, unless I know the people."

"Can you think of anyone she's close to? At work, in Texas, from college?"

He shook his head. "I like Jennifer, but we're not social friends. She considered me a mentor when she interned for me. We worked together almost every day for a semester. I moved to Arizona before she graduated and started at the company full-time."

"Was she close to anyone in your old company? A friend, a colleague, a roommate?"

He was about to say no, then tilted his head and said, "Maybe Davis. Davis Balicki. He's the IT manager and they were friendly."

"How friendly?"

"Friends. Davis is married with kids. But he took her under his wing. She may have contacted him if she was in trouble." He pulled out his phone. "I can give you his contact information."

"Can you reach out to him? He knows you, and he might not tell a stranger where she is."

He didn't hesitate and hit Davis's number. He put the phone on speaker.

"Hello?" Davis said.

"Davis, it's Logan Monroe."

After a minute of small talk, Logan asked, "You remember Jennifer White?"

"Of course."

"She reached out to me last week to help her with a project, and now I can't reach her. She sounded upset and I'm worried. Has she reached out to you?"

"We talked a couple of weeks ago," Davis said.

"About?" Logan pushed.

"She asked about algorithms. She was analyzing a glitch in software and saw something that appeared to be a randomizing algorithm that shouldn't be in the code, but she wasn't certain because it had unfamiliar properties. We worked through a couple of problems, then she said she had a handle on it."

I scrawled a note with a couple questions I wanted him to ask and slid it over to Logan.

Instead, Logan said, "Davis, I'm here with two private investigators. They have some questions for you."

"Anything I can do, Logan, anything. I hope she's okay."

"Mr. Balicki, I'm Margo Angelhart," I said. "Does Jennifer have any friends that she would reach out to if she wanted to get away? Maybe in Austin, where she used to work?"

"Me," he said. "She used to come over for dinner when she lived here, we keep in touch, but I don't know any of her friends. Jennifer is very reserved. Private."

"What about a former roommate?"

"As far as I know, she's always lived alone."

"Do you know anything about her parents?"

"She doesn't talk about them. She'd come over to my house for barbecues if it was just my family and not a party. My wife is good at getting people to share, and that's when I learned her mother died when she was young and she left home when she was eighteen, hasn't spoken to her father since. Didn't say anything more about it. I had a feeling she might have been in an abusive home, so I didn't push."

That might explain why she didn't have social media. If her father was still trying to influence or abuse her—verbal and emotional abuse could be as bad as physical abuse. But there had to be more. She'd left home eight years ago. Shouldn't she have found a niche, a group, a few friends? I couldn't imagine not having friends and family. I could be grumpy and standoffish at times, but I thrived in the Army because my team was like family. And after growing up in a large family, silence was not always comfortable.

"If she calls you or shows up at your house," I said, "please let me or Logan know. Tell her that we can help, whatever is going on."

"I will. And when you talk to her, please let me know so I don't worry."

Logan ended the call and said, "I feel helpless. I'm not someone who usually feels helpless."

"She may have dumped her electronics to avoid being tracked," Jack said, "or she's ignoring your calls and messages. Send her another—email, text, every way you have of reaching her. She trusts you, so I think she'll listen to you more than anyone. Tell her that you've hired Margo Angelhart to protect her. Anything she needs to feel safe."

I glanced at my brother. "Me?"

"Do you handle personal security?" Logan asked.

"Yes, but—"

"Margo is a former Army MP and has been trained in personal security, she's capable," Jack said. "I would do it, but I have to ask Jennifer questions about the data she downloaded. Margo doesn't. If Jennifer is truly in fear of an external threat, she'll need someone to protect her. But until we know what that threat is, we're floundering.

"In the meantime, Tess and Luisa—my other sisters—are doing a deep dive into the Desert West computer systems. You've seen the data that Jennifer had, right?"

"Part of it, but only for a few minutes."

"Still, you might be able to help narrow their search to avoid them wasting time. Based on what Jennifer showed you, do you think someone is embezzling from the company?"

"I didn't make that leap. It was odd, but it could have been a coding error. Without a full audit and computer security check, we can't know. Gavin should be made aware of this."

"Right now, the only person in house who knows that I've been hired and why is Ron Tucker, the CFO. The fewer people who know, the better. The important thing is to find Jennifer and analyze the information she has. Because if someone is embezzling money, they may be trying to cover their tracks, and that's why Jennifer thinks she's being followed."

"Anything you need from me, let me know."

Jack could be right. Jennifer's paranoia could be directly related to her discovery at work. But I still thought it was more than a little odd that she had no social media, that her background was murky, and she had no close friends.

And who hired Miriam Endicott?

There was something else going on in Jennifer's life, I was certain. Whether it was potentially dangerous was anyone's guess.