Trusting Love Read Online Free

computer and pulled a file, that’s it, sir,” he said frantically. “I swear.”
    Rob didn’t answer, he knew there was more. His instincts raged that more was going on here than just a transfer of a file for money.
    DeRoy was too greedy for one. He’d not sell it so quickly. There would have had to be a buyer in place when Kylie was hunting for the files her dad had stashed all over the place. The only computer with the full version of the first formula was the one destroyed, but only after the hard drive had been removed. Kylie had gone over this with Robert enough that he understood this was an inside job. Just what he’d thought from the beginning. But that kind of thing took money. A lot of money.
    This entire buyer scheme could be a hoax. A roll of the dice by DeRoy to pass off something he didn’t actually have with him to see what he could get for it. Buyer beware and all that.
    But is the man that crazy?
    “Did you recover the full file from the hard drive?” Robert asked the kid.
    “Yes, sir. I did.”
    “How many copies did you make?” Robert asked, shooting in the dark to get a reaction.
    The kid’s brown eyes widened and too quickly he said, “Ten, but they’re at my dorm back at college. I swear it. This one and ten more. I can get them—”
    Robert shut off the rush of words with an upraised hand. The kid was nervous, but was he nervous because he was frightened or because he was lying? Something wasn’t ringing true. He grabbed the briefcase and opened the thing, revealing a flash drive and the burnt-out hard drive. “What’s your last name, kid?”
    For the first time the kid stalled but in a grumble he finally said, “Andrews.”
    Benjamin Andrews. “What college?”
    Ben had enough nerve to roll his eyes and stall again. Robert expected to hear Yale or Princeton, but the kid muttered, “Wyoming State.” At Rob’s look of disbelief Benjamin said, “My folks were teaching me a lesson,” he muttered. “If I stayed out of trouble I could attend Harvard next fall.”
    If he could stay out of trouble? Like going to a state college was a punishment? Rob’s anger shot higher but he controlled it. The kid was young. He’d learn. “This is the file?”
    Again an odd look crossed the kid’s baby smooth complexion, darkening the rough red splotches on his cheeks. “Yeah.”
    Robert focused on the kid for a moment more, not liking the way he’d answered that, as if he’d only told half the truth. But he heard Walters coming down the hall and the copters getting closer. He shot DeRoy a quick glance when the two walked back in, taking in the way he met the kid’s gaze then cleared his expression.
    The kid looked guilty, and the look he directed at Robert was full of it. Had the kid lied? About what? The copies?
    “Go get him cleaned up in the bathroom over there, then get these men out of here and into that side room,” Robert told Walters, silencing the other man’s he wasn’t the potty police mutter with a glare. “I’ll inform the senator of the plan.”
    Walters took the frightened kid with him and Robert turned to the senator, leaving the briefcase open on the desk.
    “You seem to know my house better than I do,” DeRoy muttered.
    “I make it my business to know what I’m getting into senator. It’s kept me alive so far.”
    He let that settle in and watched as the man twisted his lips in a grimace then nodded curtly. Rob’s instincts warned that there was more going on here than he knew, much more, and the kid and senator were central to those uneasy thoughts. What was it? He had the flash drive, he had the man responsible for stealing the files, and soon, he’d have the buyer.
    The sound of copters grew closer, confirming that idea, but Robert’s neck prickled with unease.
    What the kid had said drew his attention again, not because he’d said anything specific, but simply because that’s where Robert felt the most that this shit was going to go wrong. The kid.