Chapter 8: Tabby

Thursday. Tabby Grissler's Home, Washington, DC.

TABBY POURED HER FOURTH coffee of the morning with one hand while scanning the report.

Holy shit bags.

She set the carafe back on the hot plate and leaned against the counter.

"Why the fuck did no one tell me?" she asked her empty house.

Tabby set her tablet down and cupped the mug with both hands while staring out the windows onto the side street of her Navy Yard condo.

This was bad.

She knew exactly why no one had mentioned this to her. She worked mostly with research and development, sales. Her father still primarily ran the manufacturing and delivery side of things. A theft or a delivery showing up short would be his realm and his problem.

Except when the things stolen were the first rollout of one of the company's brand new drone design. Her design.

Tabby took a deep drink of her un-doctored coffee, the bitter taste suiting her mood perfectly.

"Oh, God. Okay." She set the mug down and groped on the counter for her phone.

Her assistant was digging into Jamie Silva for her. The rest was up to Tabby. Given what he'd told her last night she couldn't exactly go to her father and ask about a report that hadn't been sent to her.

Chances were Dad just didn't realize how bad this could be.

Tabby had been involved in the very beginning of HiTech's drone program. She'd been in high school, tinkering with robotics. Drones were a natural progression for her. Which was how they'd ended up dividing responsibilities as they had.

She was the next generation. It would be up to her to take the company into a new age. Production didn't change much.

"Okay." She pressed her fingertips to her temples. "What can I do? What should I do?"

Last year she'd sold a German research group on using a new drone, one that was capable of going higher and carrying more equipment than any other model on the market. It wasn't just a guidance system, it was more than that. A completely new venture for HiTech. Her father still thought they should market it to the military. With the drone's capabilities to fly higher up in the atmosphere, someone could fly a bomb or a toxin or a bio weapon as high up as the thermosphere, above where planes flew, potentially bypassing any and all safety measures to hit a target.

Like Washington, DC.

And those were all reasons she'd aimed the drone at researchers. People working on global warming. War was the easy sell. She wanted to do something more.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

She paced her kitchen. This was the risk of her work. The guidance systems their company developed could be used for anything. Satellites for research. Robots on other planets or moons. Bombs. Drones. Airplanes. Submarines. The goal was always to do something good, to make the world safer. But there was always someone out there who could and would use the same tools for evil purposes.

Tabby picked up her coffee and paced the length of her kitchen. The first thing she'd done upon returning home last night were to notify the office she'd be working from home and set her personal assistant on a mission. This was not the first time Tabby had requested her PA to dig into a man, so at least that wouldn't raise questions.

When she'd begun this info hunt after waking up on the sofa, she'd thought she might find that some of their equipment had been stolen. A shipment of missiles or something else. She didn't like it, but truth was once product was out of their hands sometimes bad things happened with it. Even with shutdown codes all someone had to do was remove the guidance system, rig a detonator and they were in business. Their technology was only one part of a whole.

She had no idea if she was on the right trail when it came for the unknown information Jamie had been after, but this was the most alarming development. What was worse, she wouldn't have found out about it if it hadn't been for Jamie alerting her.

God, she needed to talk to him.

Tabby picked up her phone again, leaned on the island and hit dial.

Her PA picked up after one ring.

"What can I do for you?" the young woman asked, her tone brisk.

"I'm sorry to harass you, but have you found out anything-"

"Jamie Silva? Yes. Do you want it now or later?"

Tabby sighed. "Now, please."

They spent a moment going over other developments and calls Tabby would put off until later before hanging up. The notification hit her email not five seconds after they'd ended the call.

Tabby took her tablet and phone into her living room. She sat on the sofa, legs crossed, last night's clothes strewn around on the floor from when she'd rage stripped.

"Okay, who are you really?" she muttered to herself as she tapped into her email on the tablet.

Her PA should really look into becoming a private investigator.

The file began with the basics. A candid picture of the man who'd introduced himself to her as Javier, only the details listed him as Jamie Silva. Javier was one of his four siblings. Retired Green Beret.

Then things got eerily familiar.

Home town was El Paso, Texas and his current employer was Aegis Group.

Tabby let the tablet drop into her lap and stared straight ahead.

What were the damn odds?

Her last serious boyfriend, the one she'd wondered if maybe he'd be the one, was also an employee of Aegis Group and born in El Paso.

If this wasn't a red flag, she didn't know what was.

Tabby wished she could call her best friend. Yvonne might even know Jamie given that Yvonne's significant other was an employee of the same damn company. But she couldn't. Not without understanding exactly what was going on here.

And to do that, she had to talk to the man.

Last night he'd claimed he hadn't known anything more than what he'd told her, which amounted to nothing. Even if he didn't know more, she had to figure out who had sent him and if this was a real risk or someone trying to steal from the company.

No, if he worked for Aegis Group she had to believe that Jamie was legit.

Before she could chicken out, Tabby grabbed her phone and dialed the number her PA had found for him. She closed her eyes and listened to it ring and ring and ring.

"Hey, you've reached Jamie Silva. I'm not available right now, but if you'll leave your name and number, I'll hit you back." The tone of his voice, the way it invited her to smile, to have fun, that was what she'd liked about him.

But that was also a lie.

"Jamie. It's Tabby. Call me." She left her phone number and hung up, her hands shaking.

How had she not seen it?

God, she had to stop throwing herself at men. Each time she met a new one she always thought this one would be different. It would work out. He could be the one. But it never worked out that way.

She'd be thirty at the end of summer. When she'd been younger, her vision for her future had included a family and kids by now.

The mental image of Yvonne's baby came to mind and Tabby's stomach knotted up.

Her baby would have almost been ten by now.

She was tired of waiting for everything to happen in order. If she'd have stood up to her mother when she was in college, maybe things would be different. But they weren't, because a scared, nineteen-year-old girl had been let down by her parents who were more horrified that someone might find out their daughter wound up pregnant than what Tabby had been going through at the time.

Maybe it was time to say fuck it to all of these societal norms and just have a baby. Visit a sperm bank, do the turkey baster and forget this lie that there was a Mr. Right out there for her.

Her phone clamored to life, startling her out of the spiraling thoughts. She gasped and clutched her chest, mentally kicking herself before glaring at the number.

Jamie. Hitting her back.

She cleared her throat, sat up a bit straighter then flicked the answer button.

"Jamie?" Her voice was flat, dead. He didn't deserve her wrath or pain.

"Tabby. Hey. I wasn't expecting to hear from you..."

She bit her tongue to keep from speaking her mind on that point. He'd dropped a bomb in her lap and didn't expect her to demand answers?

"Last night you indicated that there was some kind of threat, something that involved HiTech. Correct?"

"Uh, yeah. I can't-I mean-I don't know anything more than what I told you."

"That may be so, but whoever tasked you with last night's job probably does know something. I want you to put them in touch with me. In fact, I should be free tomorrow after eleven. I want to talk in person to whoever is in charge." As she spoke her blood began to heat and she couldn't stop herself. The words kept coming. "If I don't hear back, I will take this to our lawyers. Right now I haven't informed anyone about last night on the grounds that maybe you might actually have been telling me the truth. But if you are not, if this is some kind of game to con me, I will go for your throat. Do you understand?"

"Yeah," he said softly.

Was it her imagination or did she hear things in that one word?

Regret? Sadness? Remorse?

She glanced down at her tablet. He couldn't have known that she didn't keep so much as her email on the device. Bugging her phone was next to pointless because all she did on it was make calls and text.

"And Jamie?" She licked her lips. "I do not want to see or hear from you again. Understood?"

Her heart couldn't take it. Yet another man who only saw her as a stepping stone to something else. Well, she was done with all of it. She didn't need Jamie and she'd never needed a man. It was time for her to embrace the life she had and live it her way.