got past him. He made a formidable adversary. That’s why he was the owner of Dunbarton Electronics, one of the top computer companies in the nation. Even more impressive, he’d been the cover man on the March issue of Today’s Fortune, the computer industry’s vaunted magazine.
It had taken Annabelle a week before she’d broken down enough to read the accompanying article. To her consternation she’d devoured every word, every photograph, hungry for any news of him after such a long time. The bio on him made mention of a special woman in his life who was destined to be his wife in the near future, but it didn’t give a name. The news couldn’t have wounded her more if she’d been stabbed in the heart.
“Annabelle?” Roman interjected. “Since no introduction is necessary, I’ll get straight to the point. Rand has come to us for help with a problem that is right up your alley.”
She sucked in her breath. “I moved back to Salt Lake from Phoenix a year ago...I can’t imagine what any of this has to do with me.”
Annabelle had never been rude to her boss. He was the greatest guy on earth, but he couldn’t possibly know what this unexpected meeting with Rand was costing her.
She didn’t honestly think Roman had engineered it. Which meant it was Rand’s doing. Why?
When they’d parted company a year ago, enough pain had been inflicted to last a lifetime. She’d had to pick up the pieces and start over again. When she returned home to Salt Lake and Roman took her on as one of his PI’s, a certain amount of healing had begun to take place. She’d been making progress.
How dare Rand trespass on her territory after all this time and destroy the world she’d been creating for herself without him!
“The Salt Lake customer service department of my company is in serious trouble.”
She folded her arms in the hope of looking more confident than she felt. “I’m sorry to hear it, but I still don’t know what your problems have to do with me.”
Rand’s jaw hardened perceptibly. For a fleeting moment she derived pleasure because he wasn’t as in control as she’d first assumed.
“It appears a hacker has broken in on the lines and is wreaking havoc with the clientele by giving them false information and causing their hard drives to crash.”
A hacker?
Just last week Trina Martin had called the agency because her eighteen-year-old boyfriend, Bryan Ludlow, a computer genius who didn’t get along with his family, had disappeared from his home and had been missing a week. The police assumed it was a kidnapping case and they were looking for him.
Trina believed he’d vanished on purpose. She wanted Annabelle to find him before he did something bad to embarrass his father, millionaire Daniel Ludlow, a prominent businessman who was going to run in Utah’s next race for the governor of the state. Bryan’s disappearance had made national headlines and now the FBI was involved.
When Annabelle asked what Trina meant about him embarrassing his father, the younger girl said that Bryan bragged a lot about being a hacker. Apparently he’d obtained the password to a major computer company in the Salt Lake area and had already done some things that would make his dad mad with rage if he were ever found out. He sounded too happy about it. That’s what worried Trina.
Since Trina’s call, Annabelle had run an investigation and she’d turned up some interesting evidence. After listening to Rand, she wondered if there might just be a connection between the two cases.
“The patrons are justifiably angry at what’s been going on.” Rand’s explanation mingled with her own hectic thoughts. “Several dozen people have returned equipment, demanding their money back.
“I’ve put some of my best people to work on the problem, but so far we don’t have any leads. It could be the work of an amateur. But there’s the possibility it might be a group of professional saboteurs out to ruin my company and they’ve picked Salt Lake as their first target.
“I don’t know if my enemy is an employee or not. I intend to find out because as of now, I’m going to be personally involved in solving this case. What I need is an expert to work as a partner with me. It has to be someone no employee of mine knows anything about.”
Annabelle could see where this conversation was headed, and another pain splintered what was left of her heart. If ever she needed proof that the love he’d once felt for her was dead in the water, his appearance in Roman’s office said it all.
They’d broken up because he couldn’t handle her career in law enforcement. Being a PI was tantamount to the same thing. Yet here he was at the Lufka agency for the express purpose of availing himself of the very services he’d once asked her to give up for the sake of her safety and their love!
Obviously it hadn’t been love that he’d felt for her, otherwise he couldn’t do anything this callous and cold-blooded. Crushed by the revelation, Annabelle rubbed her palms against the charcoal fabric of the slim-fit pants covering her hips.
Dear God, what a fool she’d been. All this time she’d secretly nursed the hope that he still cared. Nothing could be further from the truth!
He’d flown to Salt Lake to find out what was going on in his company. For expedience sake he’d sought her out because she was the nearest person available who knew how to deal with this kind of computer fraud.
After graduating from college with a degree in computer engineering, she’d gone into law enforcement work like her dad. After he died, a friend of his on the force had talked her into moving to Phoenix for a time and working for the police department there.
It would provide a change of scene, give her a little more time to get over her father’s death, and she would learn a lot under the leadership of Chief Rivera who was renowned throughout the western states for his success in lowering the crime rate.
Not long after she’d been working there, a bomb threat at the Dunbarton plant in Phoenix had catapulted her into Rand’s world and she’d fallen hard. So hard she hadn’t seen any problems during their whirlwind courtship and premature engagement until it was too late.
When she’d broken off with him, her life seemed to lose meaning. Heartbroken and bitter, she resigned from the Phoenix police force and returned to Salt Lake and the little family home she’d rented out during her absence.
In a perpetual abyss, Annabelle couldn’t seem to pull herself out of it. Though she joined the Salt Lake police department, her heart wasn’t in her work and she simply went through the motions.
That’s when her best friend, Janet, suggested she try something different to get a new perspective in life. Why not become a PI, a job which would allow Annabelle to still work in law enforcement, yet allow her more creativity and the freedom to choose her own hours.
At that point in time, Janet was the one voice of reason in Annabelle’s shattered world. Taking her friend’s advice turned out to be the best thing she’d ever done.
Roman hired her to join his prestigious staff, not only because of her background in police work, but because he needed someone with her level of expertise to handle the electronic fraud cases that came in to the office from time to time. Until now, everything had been going just fine...
Unable to stand it any longer,
