Page 11 of Fatal Conspiracy

“Well, the files on it, but yes,” he said, throwing it up and catching it in his fist. “Most of the coding for Hugo’s new cybersecurity app is on this drive. I say most, because we aren’t dumb enough to put the entire program on one drive.”

“Ever think about keeping it in a cloud? Feels less dangerous than where we are at the moment,” she said, tongue in cheek.

“Clouds can be hacked, according to Hugo. In fact, this program is designed to make a cloud a fortress. It has all the typical features of a cybersecurity app, such as malwareprotection, threat detection, firewall management and network monitoring. It also has built-in antivirus software, endpoint detection and response tools. The coup de grace is, once it’s finished, it can bypass a VPN and detect the actual IP address of the user.”

Alayah’s breath caught in her chest. “If that’s true, Derek, it changes the entire landscape of the digital world and cybersecurity.”

“Trust me, it’s true,” he said, leaning back in the seat as she stopped at the stop sign. “I can’t deny Hugo was a genius at what he did.”

She could hear the genuine sadness in his words. She didn’t believe for a second that he’d killed his boss, but someone had, and doing it with poison made it a personal vendetta. At least in her opinion. Why wait until he was in a room full of people to do it? Showmanship? To make a point? Then it hit her.

To frame Derek.

“Granted,” he continued, “there were a lot of people who worked on this project, but in the end, Hugo’s brilliance got us this far.”

“But why kill Hugo for an app that isn’t complete yet? If they do get their hands on it, can they complete the code without Hugo?”

“No,” he answered slowly as he leaned forward. “While this app has had multiple coders working on it, Hugo was the only one who could finish it. He would code the bypassing of the VPN aspect of the app, as he was the one who figured out a way around it. At least he thought he had.”

“Hmm.” Alayah sat at the stop sign, thinking. She was confused about why someone would kill the only person who could turn an ordinary cybersecurity app into a groundbreaking one. “If that’s the case, Derek, it leads meto think someone didn’t want that app to see the light of day. Did people know that he was the only one who could code it?”

“That wasn’t public knowledge. A handful of people knew, at most. I also know where he’s stored the coding for the VPN workaround, but no one else does.”

“There’s your motive. If you killed him, you could swoop in and use his code to finish the app.”

“Alayah, I swear on my mother’s life that I didn’t kill Hugo. He was both my boss and my friend. The real killer wants the police to assume I did it because I’m the easy answer. If they pin it on me, they won’t dig any deeper. I must admit, the setup was on point—” The words froze on his lips when a black SUV blocked the intersection, and another pinned them in from behind.

Derek dropped a curse word that told her how much trouble they were in. “They want me. Don’t get out of the vehicle,” he said as guys approached both sides of her SUV, guns pointed at their heads. She had seconds to decide what to do. She could try to ram the Suburban blocking them in, but her car was smaller and would never push it out of the way. The ditch on both sides was too deep to go down and back up onto the road. Trying to drive in Reverse might work, but she could also land them in the ditch if she wasn’t careful.

“Unlock the doors!” one of the guys shouted.

“Do it, but don’t get out,” he said, far more calmly than she felt, so she reached for the button.

“Do you still have the gun?”

“Yes,” he answered. “But it won’t do me any good when it’s four against one. I’ll go with them. You report it to the police.”

“Ha,” she said, her heart pounding hard against her ribs.“If you think for a hot second that they aren’t going to take me, too, you’re delusional.”

She calculated the distance from here to Duluth and knew there was no way to stall these guys long enough for Cal to send help. After she hit the unlock button, she pressed a button hidden under her shirt. Her panic button was now their only hope.

Chapter Seven

The two burliest dudes pulled their doors open and dragged them out of the car. Alayah yelped when he dropped her to the ground, fear lancing through her when her ankle sent a jolt of pain up her leg. She was dead if she couldn’t run.

“Be careful!” Derek yelled at one of them. “You could hurt her!”

If she hadn’t been so terrified, she might have smiled at his protectiveness, but there was nothing to smile about when there was a gun pointed at her face. Besides, she doubted that these guys cared who they hurt.

“She has nothing to do with this,” Derek went on. “I’m the one you want. Just let her go.”

“Not happening,” the guy with the gun growled. “You’re both coming with us.”

He reached for her, but she scrambled away, afraid if he grabbed her arm, he might break it, rendering her useless in helping Derek. “I’ll get up!” she yelled, pushing herself to standing. She wanted to inch closer to Derek, but too many guns were trained at her.

“Toss the gun,” the guy holding one on Derek said. “And don’t make any sudden moves. You’re surrounded, so I promise you, you’ll both be dead if you do.”

“Feel free to take it,” Derek said, turning his back to the guy holding him at gunpoint. “We’re all friends here.”