Sometimes It Is Rocket Science (27 page)

“I don’t know.”

Something fierce and protective inside snarled.  She wanted to find the person who’d harmed her precious brother and tear them limb from limb.  She wanted to ruin them personally, professionally, and financially. 

“Can you find out who altered the code?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Gigi.  I just found this.  I need to spend more time working on it.”  Robert’s voice was sharp with exasperation.

Georgiana stood on shaky knees.  She scrubbed a hand across her face.  “Whatever you need: people, equipment, someone to be your lackey.  Whatever you need it’s yours.  Just… right now I need to…”

Robert squeezed her hand.  “Go check on Tab.  I’ll be fine down here.”

Georgiana fled out of the room as if the hounds of hell were on her heels.  Alone with a snoozing Faraday, Robert rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles.  He adjusted the monitor so that it wasn’t causing his neck to cramp. 

“All right, Prask, let’s see where you slipped up.”

Georgiana paced in front of Tab’s cracked-open bedroom door.  She had her arms crossed around her middle in a self-hug.  She shrugged off the comforting hand Robert placed on her shoulder.

She walked past a concerned Dan, pivoted sharply, and started a new circuit.  “God, I can’t do this.”

“Yes you can,” Dan encouraged.  “Robert and I will go in with you if you think that will help.”

“No.”  She shook her head.  “It needs to be just the two of us.  I don’t know how he’s going to react, and I’d rather not cause him any unnecessary embarrassment.”

Robert stood in Georgiana’s path.  He braced his hands on his shoulders, waited until her panicked eyes met his steady gaze.  “We’ll be right out here if you need us, Gigi.”

Her movements unsteady, Georgiana wrapped his silk tie around her hand and yanked him in for a quick, closed-mouth kiss.  Before he could deepen the embrace, she released his tie and stepped back.  She inhaled sharply and held the breath a beat before releasing it.

“Thanks.”

Tab’s room was bright.  The overhead lights were on and the curtains were thrown open.  Textbooks and spiral notebooks littered the bed and the floor.  Georgiana knocked on the doorframe before moving further into the room and closing the door.

“Hey, little brother, do you have a sec?”

“Sure.”  Tab sat up.  He shoved a pile of books off the bed and patted the freshly cleared space.  “I wondered why it sounded like a herd of elephants was wandering the hallways.”

Georgiana perched on the edge of the bed.  She folded her hands in her lap in hopes Tab wouldn’t notice the way they shook.  “I need to talk to you about something pretty important.”

Tab rubbed the back of his neck.  His gaze dropped to the bed.  “Is this about my history quiz?  I’ve already talked with Professor Devlin, and he’s going to let me take up a make up test.”

“No, this isn’t about your… wait, what?  What happened with your history quiz?”

“Nothing!”  Tab’s cheeks were red.  “Nothing happened.”

“Tab,” she sighed, “we studied for that.  You assured me you understood the chapters.”

“I know.  I know.  I thought I did, so I don’t know what happened.  I reread the chapters, though, and I’ll do better on the make up.”

Georgiana reached across the space between them to hold Tab’s hand.  “It’s not about school.  It’s about the accident.”

Tab’s swift intake of air and the way tears instantly filmed over his eyes sent a pang through Georgiana’s aching heart.  She scooted closer so she could drape an arm around his trembling shoulders.  He seemed to shrink three sizes right in front of her eyes.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  I wouldn’t bring this up if it wasn’t important, I swear.”  She blinked to hold back the tears threatening to overflow her eyes.  “I know this hurts, but we’ll talk about it real quick and then it will be over.”

Tab sniffled.  “What do you want to know?”

“Was the Mercedes out of your sight at all the week before your accident?  I don’t just mean in the parking lot, either.”

“No.”

She offered up a tremulous smile and pressed her forehead against his.  The tears dripping down her cheeks mingled with the tears gathering on the tip of his chin.  “Honey, please.  You can’t lie to me now.  I need to know what happened with the Mercedes.”

“What is this all about Gigi?”

She sighed, straightened.  Linking their hands, she tugged him off the bed and out into the hallway.  She silently led him down to the workshop.  Dan and Robert trailed behind them with Quinn pulling up the rear of their somber procession.

The glass in her workshop was set to opaque.  She paused outside the door and gripped Tab’s hand tighter.  “You have to stick with me, little brother.  This is going to be painful, but you have to trust me.  It’s necessary.”

“Gigi?” Tab asked, voice breaking.

She kissed his forehead.  “Shh, it’ll be okay.”  She placed the palm of her free hand on the scanner.  The door opened.  NORA turned on the lights.

“Oh god,” Tab gasped.  He sagged against Georgiana.  Together, they stumbled into the workshop.  He huddled against her side, one hand against his mouth and the other cutting off circulation to her fingers.  “Wh-what is that doing here?”

Georgiana didn’t try to make him move any closer to the wrecked SUV.  “They released it to me after everything.  I had to rebuild it, honey, I had to.”

“Why?”  Tab swallowed, fixed teary confused eyes on her.  “Why would you do this?”

She swiped at her wet cheeks with the back of her hand.  Her vision was blurry from so many tears, and she didn’t want to miss an expression on Tab’s face.  She had to know when she was reaching his limit because she refused to push him too far.  Catching Prask didn’t mean a damn thing if it came at the cost of her brother.

“You said that you thought it was mechanical failure.  I had to investigate.”

“You believed me?”

The look of absolute heartbreak on Tab’s face shattered her.  She wrapped herself around him like an octopus.  He tucked his head under her chin, sobbed onto her t-shirt.  Neither of them noticed when Robert gently guided them onto the edge of the desk. 

She buried her face in the top of Tab’s fair head.  His arms were too tight around her waist.  His knees pressed hard enough against her shins to leave bruises.  She didn’t want to ever move.

“Of course I believed you, Tab,” she said.  “Of course I did.”

Together, they cried like they hadn’t since the hospital in Huntsville.  Every sob that shook Tab’s body ripped out a small piece of her heart.  She smoothed his hair, stroked her hands up and down his back.  When
her
eyes felt swollen and her stomach ached from all the crying, she pried Tab off her. 

“Honey, you have to stop now.  You’re going to make yourself sick,” she said.

“I know,” he hiccupped.

A disposable shop towel appeared over her shoulder.  Georgiana turned her head to shoot Robert a grateful smile and plucked the towel out of his hand.  She gently wiped Tab’s cheeks before handing him the towel so he could blow his nose.

His eyes were bloodshot and his face was blotchy, but some of the heaviness that had settled on his shoulders after the accident seemed to have disappeared.  “I love you, Gigi.”

Fresh tears welled in her eyes.  “Stop that,” she admonished with a laugh.

This time when Robert put a hand on her shoulder she didn’t try to dislodge it.  She leaned back against his chest.  Comforting Tab had sapped her reserves.  She felt hollow inside.  Hopefully healing, and not more pain, would fill the void.

“Let me show you what we found,” she said.

Dan handed her the unidentifiable sensors.  Before breakfast, Robert and Georgiana had explained to Dan what they’d found in Tab’s Mercedes.  It had taken both of them to keep him from going after Prask.

“What are those?” Tab asked.

“I still have research to do, but I believe someone swapped parts of your stability and traction controls for these components.  They aren’t the manufacturer specced parts, and according to my preliminary tests they are designed to fail.”

“Someone screwed with my car?”

“There’s more.”  Georgiana moved them around the desk so they were in front of the computer screen.  Robert had already booted up his program and highlighted the code in question.  “Bobby’ll have to explain this part.”

When their conversation rapidly descended into programming shorthand, Georgiana slipped out of her brother’s grasp.  She wandered out to the wash sink.  Splashing cool water on her face helped cool her flaming cheeks and burning eyes.  She cupped her hands and gulped two mouthfuls of cool, slightly metallic water.

“Can I get you something, dear?” Dan leaned against the wall beside the sink.  “A cup of coffee?  Aspirin?”

“No.”  She turned away from the sink and accepted Dan’s hug.  “Thank you, though.  I just want to get back in there and put the last pieces of the puzzle together.”

“I’d like to know what in the hell has gotten into that damn fool Prask.”

“He’s cash poor,” Georgiana revealed.  “Cedric and Yvonne finished their research this morning.  Not only is Tomorrow Solutions overextended, but his personal finances are a wreck.  His divorce lawyers aren’t as good as he believes they are.  The last two ex-wives got healthy chunks of his money and property.”

“So he thinks he can manipulate you to get his hands on CA and use that to prop himself up?”

Georgiana tucked her hands in the pockets of her jeans.  “An old acquaintance gave me a file Prask had his cronies compile.  It’s a list of my personal assets: vacation property, jewelry, stocks.  I think he’s picked out wife number six.”

“Oh, Georgie,” Dan groaned.

“Yeah.”  Georgiana nodded in agreement.  “That’s sort of how I felt.”

“Gigi!  Gigi!” 

Tab raced out of the workshop.  He tried to slow down, but his socks didn’t allow for much traction on the polished concrete floor.  It was only Robert’s quick intervention that kept the siblings from winding up sprawled on the floor.

“Is it true, Gigi?  Is it true that the accident isn’t my fault?”

“You shouldn’t have been driving in that weather,” she said, tempering the rebuke with a soft smile, “but, yes, it appears that the accident wasn’t your fault.”

He threw his arms around her neck.  “Oh, Gigi!”  He was laughing and crying.  Quinn danced around them, barking and wagging his tail.  “Oh, Gigi!”

Georgiana waited until Tab’s laughter died down to push him away.  “Now do you see why I need to know who had access to the car?”

“Perhaps we should move this to the kitchen,” Robert suggested.  “We could all use a bit of a breather.”

The four of them gathered around the round table in the breakfast nook.  Deliciously fragrant steam wafted up from four mugs of coffee.  Georgiana had placed an opened package of gourmet chocolate chip and walnut cookies in the center of the table, but no one had reached for one.

She was glad Robert had chosen the seat on the other side of Tab.  If the discussion proved to be as difficult as the one in the workshop, her brother would need every ounce of support available.  It was her job to press for answers, so it would be up to Robert to play good cop.

“What happened to the car while you were in Dallas, Théophile Bertrand?”

“I had a fender-bender.  Really minor.  Some guy pulled out in front of me right in front of the school.  He was a Brentmore alum.  He lived near school and offered to fix the car if I wouldn’t report the accident.  He didn’t want his insurance to go up because of such a minor accident.”

“Honey, you should have called me right then and there.  I would have told you to report the accident, no matter how minor it seemed,” Georgiana said, lips tight and eyes narrowed.

“I know.  I’m sorry.” 

Tab hung his head.  He wrapped his hands around his mug of coffee.  Guilt stabbed Georgiana, but she bit her tongue to keep from apologizing.  She wished she’d spent more time with their mother learning how to be both stern and gentle.  Their mother had been like an iron fist wrapped in a silk-and-lace glove.  She felt more like a slap wrapped in cactus needles.

“Did this gentleman repair your vehicle?” Robert picked up the threads of the interrogation.

Tab nodded.  “The Wednesday before my trip to Houston.  I only had independent study on Wednesday afternoons, so I took the car to his house.  He said he fixed up old cars as a hobby and had all the tools he needed.”  He turned pleading green eyes onto his sister.  “His garage reminded me of the way the garage at the townhouse was before Dad died and you boxed up all your projects.  There were tools and parts everywhere.”

Georgiana sipped her coffee while she collected her thoughts.  She hadn’t made a secret of her plans to see Tab.  She’d missed him so much the two months he’d been away at school.  In her excitement over their shopping weekend, had she told Prask?  Had she told someone who’d eventually relayed that information to him?  Had she given him all the ammunition he needed to kill her brother?

“Do you have his contact information?” Georgiana asked.

“No.”  Tab held up a hand.  His face scrunched up like a baby about to cry.  “Wait.  NORA, can you pull up my call log from last October?  I am looking for a Dallas phone number.”

“During the month of October there were eight Dallas-Fort Worth numbers with incoming and outgoing calls,” NORA responded after a brief pause.

“Send them to my phone,” Georgiana instructed. 

She handed her phone to Robert.  She could find the necessary information on the phone numbers, but Robert could undoubtedly do it in a fraction of the time.  Robert used both her phone and a tablet to research the phone numbers.”

“Three are restaurants, one is a bookstore, two are Brentmore extensions, one looks to be a student, and here we go.”  Robert showed Tab the photo displayed on the tablet.  “Mr. Victor Buchanan.  Is this the gentleman, Tab?”

“Yes.  That’s him.”

“Mr. Buchanan Graduated from Brentmore the same year Prask did.  Attended Baylor the same years he did, too.”  Robert’s fingers flew across the tablet.  “It seems our Mr. Buchanan owned a small language software company he sold to Prask six years ago.”