Free Drop of Doubt by C.L. Stone

back, moving the large chair around. He patted the seat and then curled his fingers at me. “Would you like to sit next to me?”
    I nodded, sitting carefully in the chair. “What should I do?”
    “Just stay here for now,” he said. He rolled over another one of the shorter office chairs from the long table. He brought it to position in front of the monitors and keyboard. I felt awkward that he gave me his fancy chair and he had to sit in the smaller one. He nudged my chair over, positioning me to his left. “Let me get started and we’ll figure out what to do from there. I’m going to try to track this guy down.”
    “What do you want me to do?” Silas asked.
    “We need to go through those phone messages,” Victor said. He took my SIM card, but held up my phone to Silas. “Can start with that. Dig through the messages.”
    “Do you want me to help?” I asked Silas.
    “Not really,” Silas said. He took my cell phone, taking the third chair and rolling it toward the longer desk toward the collection of laptops. He found one that wasn’t smashed, opened it and pushed the button to power it up. “Not that I don’t want you nearby, but I don’t think you want to read these messages.”
    I twisted my lips, folding my arms across my chest and sitting back. “Maybe that’s the problem. I haven’t been paying attention. Maybe I should be reading them so I can look out for whoever is doing this instead of trying to ignore everything.”
    Silas and Victor shared a silent conversation. Victor let out a short breath. He hooked an arm under my knees, picking up my legs to draw them over his thigh. He slipped his fingers between the strap of my sandals until my shoes fell to the floor. He kicked them out of the way and plopped a hand on my knee, massaging. “Maybe, but not right now. Let Silas do that or he’ll hover over me and tell me to hurry up every five minutes.”
    “I don’t do that,” Silas said.
    “Yes, you do. You’re worse than North. Or Mr. Blackbourne.”
    Silas rolled his eyes, turning away to connect my cell phone to the laptop. “Fine. Let Sang tell you to hurry up.”
    “She doesn’t do that,” Victor said. He glanced over and winked at me. “Right?”
    “Maybe not today,” I said, glancing off toward the computer manuals on the bookshelf.
    Victor turned his focus to the computer. Silas started going through messages. I waited.
    I tried following what Victor was doing, but a lot of it was in code, as he was pulling data from the SIM card. The others had various talents, but all I’d known before about Victor was he could play piano, though I’d never heard him play, and that he knew something about computers, which I’d never seen up close like this.
    I had no experience of my own to compare his level of skill against. I admired the speed in which he worked, but he was moving way too fast for me to follow what he was doing. The moment a screen popped up, he’d type something in and it’d disappear as he moved on to another open window. What made my insides flutter was the concentration and that determined look on his face. I hated to think it right now because of the nature of the situation; he was handsome when he was smiling, but his looks were killer when his fire eyes roared into a blaze of concentration like he had now.
    Since I couldn’t follow what he was doing, I watched Silas, but with his broad shoulders, he easily obstructed the screen, so I couldn’t peek over his shoulder.
    I twitched.
    I swung left and right on the chair, using Victor’s leg as leverage.
    I fingered the arm of the chair, feeling the smoothness of the leather.
    There was a faint ticking sound, like that of a clock. I thought it was the hidden computer in the desk Victor was working on. I tried pinpointing it but couldn’t figure out the exact location. It was also irregular, almost irritating.
    I folded my legs underneath my body, sitting cross legged in the chair.
    I fiddled with the handles of