Free Betrayed by REBECCA YORK Page A

clenched.
    Damn him.
    It was easy to get rid of the evidence that he’d been in her apartment, but not so easy to figure out what to do.
    For a split second she thought about calling Shane Gallagher. He’d know how to handle this. But then she’d have to explain about her brother’s gambling and about what he’d asked her to do.
    Not stealing, he said.
    She didn’t know if she agreed with that interpretation, but whatever you wanted to call it, it was wrong. And she didn’t even know if her brother was lying. He said he wanted the information from S&D to settle a gambling debt. But that might not even be true. It might just be a story he’d told her.
    She pounded her fist against the counter, hating Alesandro for putting her in this position.
    ***
    Shane knew if he went home and tried to relax, he was only going to let the scene with Elena and her brother keep spinning around in his mind. Instead he stopped for a small pepperoni pizza and took it back to the S&D office to eat at his desk.
    While he ate, he checked his email. There was a message from Max reporting that Jed Lansing and Roy Newman were both on record as complaining about not getting adequately compensated for new products they had developed for S&D. Did that mean one or both of them would be willing to get back at Kinkead by stealing from the company? He didn’t know, but it left him with a feeling of relief. Maybe it was one of them—and not Elena.
    The sound of footsteps in the hall made him switch from Max’s message to a Google search of camera equipment that he could put on the screen if needed.
    Glancing at the clock in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, he saw that it was nine thirty. Late for someone to be in the building, besides the security guards.
    When he looked up, he saw the bulky form of Bert Iverson standing in his office doorway.
    â€œYou’re working late,” his second-in-command said.
    â€œI could say the same for you.”
    â€œI had a few things to finish up.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    â€œI was about to leave. Then I saw the light on in here. You need any help?” Bert asked.
    â€œNo. You go on home. I’ll be leaving soon.”
    He watched the big man head for the elevator, then reread the email from Max on Lansing and Newman.
    Next he checked their office emails, looking for patterns that would clue him in to suspicious activity. When he found none, he went back to another office email account—that of Elena Reyes. At first he found nothing interesting. But when he scrolled back to a year ago, he stared at the screen. There had been a fair amount of correspondence between Elena and Arnold Blake.
    A lot of it had been work related, with the new employee running questions by the old hand. She could have mentioned that at lunch. She could also have mentioned that Blake had sent her jokes and asked for advice on puzzles that he was working on. He’d called them SIMon Sez. There had been quite a lot of back and forth between them, so she’d known Blake better than she’d let on.
    Could the puzzle stuff be some kind of code he was sending her? Why? And a code for what?
    Shane made note of the puzzle queries and saved them into a work file.
    Then he pushed his chair away from the desk and leaned back with his hands laced behind his head.
    Was he looking at evidence of suspicious behavior on the part of Elena and Blake? Or was he looking for more reasons to question her? Translated—spend time with her.
    With a snort, he shut down the computer and got up, thinking about his next move in the game they were playing. Or maybe he was the only one actually playing, and she was perfectly innocent.
    But he knew that he couldn’t stay away from her. She might be a suspect, but it had been a long time since he’d found a woman so appealing. Maybe it was the combination of innocence and strength he sensed in her. Or was he making up the innocent